The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-09-14

| leaving only the face to the air, arose
the black form of Sixpenee. Silently he
| slipped into the water and swan
ashore, as silently, his broad face
| stretched in joyous grin. He stayed
/ for no covering. but crawled up the
steep banks, stopped down as low as he
! could and ran away across the stony
| bluffs which surrounded the prison. He
| had not gone hundred yards before
the guards came running down to the
lake and saw him. The warden shout
| ed to him to halt, but Sixpence ran
more swiftly, yet not in a direct line.
! In q lightning-lilSe Zigzag course he
darted from right to left obliquely, al
ways onward, but in such short, swift
tacks that he was an almost impossible
target. Five guns We're aimed at him;
five guns swerved momentarily right
and left to find a mark before they
were fired. Sixpence waved his hand
merrily over his head and disappeared
beyond the bluffs, unhurt A Zulu SER
want led down two saddle horses, but
the warden locked at the setting sun
and shrugged his shoulders.
mo use he said. It'll be dark in
ten minutes, and the black fellow will
be hidden somewhere. l suppose you
know he was in for manslaughter?"
The village guard hung his head
20, L don't blame you," said the war
QSI OlueI HdHuS IMAM you can De
taken in. l suppose he buried himself
in the mud. OF course, there will be an
inquiry
There was, but a very short one. held
in the Jail. In the middle of it a thun-
dering demand for admittance was
made with a knobkerry on the outer
gate. The guard who opened the wicket
led SiXpence before the court of inquiry.
as cheerful and fat and with as broad a
10 Il 1I-. L
court that he had been home, had suf-
fered from Inconsistencies, had enjoyed
himself and was gladly back again.
Very little food over there" he said,
pointing to the north, but plenty
soft here
So the bewildered officials took him
in, to his great content, and, after Civ
ing him twelve lashes for the trouble
he had caused. allowed the man who
preferred prison to freedom to resume
his former life. He never after that,
behaved otherwise than as model
prisoner, save once again, two years
later, when he escaped and returned as
before, taking his lashes with perfect
good humor, and eating a big supper
Immediately after them. He became a
privileged character, an uncommis-
stoned assistant abolt the Office, until,
in ten years, with African self-com-
far above all other prisoners, and
rather as a permanent semi official,
permitted even on occasions to hold the
keys. Indeed, he had committed muir
der under the greatest provocation, and
his good humor, his strength and his
fa1thfulneSS to the only home he had
ever known, where meals were certain
all the year round, made of him a ia
vorite with the warden, to whom he at
fachPH himself a q lind nf IooIxy
ant.
Now. in those days, when the land
was very young. and white men We're
few and white women were unknown.
the methods of disciplining the unruIy
Kaffirs were primitive. Yet there was
a greater intimacy and a closer inter-
course between the whites and the
blacks than there ever will be again.
They fought frequently and were guilty
alike of savagery, the one to the other.
The white man, of course, was the vic
tor always in the end, but the Kaffir.
on the surface. at least, bore little NAL
ice, and having been knocked down,
arose with some admiration in his heart
for the man who had thrashed him
Sixpence had fought with his tribe
and been conquered; had committed a
crime and had been promptly punished
for 1T. Far from sulking over his mis-
fortunes, he was possessed with a spirit
of respect for the invaders of his coun-
try. The only time the negro ever signs |
is when he wishes he was white Six
pence wished so hard and so often. and
initiated the white people so earnestly. |
that, save when he thrust his broadly |
laughing face at a mirror, he was con-
vinced that he was pretty nearly white |
One man, however, was his ideal, his |
master, his delnigod-tfle warden.
His attractions were such as to draw |
to him perhaps a dog and he fed and |
thrashed Sixpence like a dog. His ac-
complishments appealed to the convict |
He was a crack shot with revolver or |
rifle; he rode daringly; he could throw |
an assegai as we'll as Sixpence himself |
and he had mysterious powers over pen |
ana ink which awed Sixpence crouch |
ing in a corner Of the Office. De Jough /
was an Afrikander; his father had been /
discharged English soldier-his moth |
ar no one knew. He had won his war /
1enship by ferocious fighting in the ter
'itory and by the respect his proves
gained for him among the natives His
;ullen reticence and sudden furies had |
Won him enemies; never had, he called |
my man a. friend. Therefore the life
doglike affection for him
liter amusing him at first. in the slow
of the months dragged from
linn a feeling as near akin to regard as