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

Copyright by the S. S. Mcclure Co., 1891
By P. Y. BLACK.
/ (Autfor of "The Post Chaplain "a
Lost Sensation 1.-THE Outcast,' Etc)
/ The guard over the convicts who
worked on the village roads looked up
from the work YEARLY He removed
his broad felt hat and brushed the
sweat from his REDEEMED brow and his
cheeks and neck, sunburned almost to
blackness. His Kaffir charges halted in
their task, and their gaze followed
his. In the clearly bright African air
the threatening gray stone walls OF
the strong Jail, built commandingly on
a high, big-bowldered Kopje, looked
close at hand, although a good mile
away Vryburg, the tiny capital of the
British territory, lay to the left, hill
bound, silent, street deserted in the
furnace heat, two rows of glazing
houses with roofs and walls of gal
vanized iron.
Suddenly quick-eyed Kaffir cried:
tBa-ors." and pointed to the flagstaff
in front of the Jail. With grunt of
relief the white man swung his rifle
to his shoulder and the Kaffirs threw
their tools into the wheelbarrows.
There huttered up the head of the flag
working parties to return. But today
work ceased at o'clock, and the con-
victs were not marched directly to the
Jail, but to small lake beneath the
Kopje, where twice week they laved
themselves. An instant change took
place in the manner of the prisoners.
They joked as they left their barrowS
in a shed, and trotted forward so
quickly as to inconvenience their war
- IL III a1- I. G,,o
figure concealed by the prison clothes,
led the way, hu1nming as he went, in
lew, sing-song, pleasant melody, a
chant of war times. The others took
it up; one threw his hands above his
head, and skipped a step of the war
dance.
Easy, sixpence!" gro We'd the guard.
Easy, you big rascalr'
The big Kaffir in the lead slowed up.
and turned with a grin to the white
man, pointing a finger down great
red throat.
"Ba-a-asi Tabaci" he murmured.
The guard threw him a piece of to-
bacco, which the Kaffir cleverly caught
and slapped into his mouth. AT once
the four or five other Kaffirs of the
gang turned, and, reading good nature
in their sentrys face, held out their
hands mutely.
Like babies for candy" unused the
as he distributed the
small luxuries. They're a rum lot.
Not one of them in for less than three
years, and that fellow Sixpence a litter
and without nandcuff in the crowd of
EN-, you'd think them schoolboys going
In swimming
They reached the little lake, shallow
at the banks, deep in the center, where
a rushy, marshy island lay, more water
than mud. The other working parties
had foregathered, and Sixpence and
his comrades, each armed with a piece
of soap, soon joined the crowd in the
water, swimming, spluttering, playing
in the cool pond like boys. The white
guards, leaning on their rifles, stood,
at intervals, round the bank. In the
shadows a group of blacks danced a
mock war dance, naked as monkeys,
advancing and retiring with fantastic
arms, grooming the hum OF the impiS.
Then it was difficult, almost impossible.
'or the guards to distinguish each his
OWN men. In their convict clothes.
zach prisoner had some distinguishing
mark; stripped. bobbing their black
md woolly heads in the water, there
vas a, tantalizing likeness among all
ne swimmers After time they began
o come out, one by one, and dress.
Then guard made his gang fall IN
md marched them up the kopje to the
Prison gates. Another followed, and
mother, until the village guard was
eft last to bring in his men. He was
roung and recently employed by the !
own; he could not talk the native |
Iialects, and now he was much per-
urbed, for he could give to himself no
of the evident fact that |
here was none left in the water, and /
'et he was one man short. The Kaffirs |
My chartered and laughed at him, en-
Dying the excellent joke. His eye anx-
ously searched the surface of the lake; !
here was nothing there. The rushes (
n the mud bank could barely have /
oncealed a rabbit. Hoping that Six /
ence, the missing man, had, in mis-
hief-for the Kaffirs abounded in
Malicious tricks-slipped away with
mother gang, the guard hurried the
theirs to the Jail. where he reported
THAT had happened.
The warden of the Jail received the
eport without comment or rebuke, but /
seized a rifle from the rack,
eft the other prisoners to be shut up
n the cells by a few guards and took
he rest at a run to the lake Mean
yhile the gang had hardly left the
ank, Of the pond before, in the gather
lg dusk, there was rustic among the
cant rushes of the mudbank. The
lud stirred, and from the soft bed
there it had been entirely Immersed,