Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1913-04-24

s-rsSz16azS HERE is a new king in No Mans Land
TT to-day.
No Mans Land lies in the ~half-breed
sxantsrESS belt that has been peopled and left be-
ESlSsygSA hind them by the migrating Beers. 1t
&AGB begins near the great ~salt-pans, where
ggShB&a the black Makololo races yield to the yell
SSNS low Totties and the dwarf Bushmen. 1t
is half desert and half pasture; it is half
'~'I hills. half plain; and its inhabitants are
a. as black. yellow, and white; To''ies, Mako,
lolos, and half breeds; half nomad, half
Huatcrs, half savage and half beast.
Governments have located troopers there and
brgotten them until they died Of the fever and
1T the land lawless once more. Kings have come
nto the land and conquered it; but in the end the
nd has conquered them, as it always will, till the
~alt-pans go dry and the sand, always advancing east
ut of the great desert, sweeps over No Mans Land and
bliteratcs it.
There are no aged or sick in No Mans Land. Where
10 they go? Perhaps the balloons, that bark from the
lifts, know; or the old crocodile that roars beside the
ord, where the Makololo girls so with their gourds
or water; or the white ants that have heaped up
heir habitations; or the bald yultures.
ADRIAN fcrreiTa 1OQe transport DetWeen GTlqud-
and and the Diamond Fields during the dry season, or
raded blankets and knives for sheep in Khama's
country; but when the wet winter came the old long
ng for solitude urged him to drive his stock down
70 the sweet weld country that begins where the salt
bans end, a line of verdure drawn as by a ruler to
bound the wastes and the sands. Thus Adrian came
INTO No Mans Land one morning and found Hendrika
3rooo;,r =, n wild ,rof,, oatcb be- cb1d oo ba- b,cly
strapped inside the blanket which was her garment.
Mixed white and Tottie blood flowed in Hendricks
veins. During the life OF the old crone who had
borne her she hoed the mealies contentedly and car
|ricd water from the spruit in a tall gourd, which
she balanced upon the top Of her ochre-reddened hair
knot. Afterward, by virtue Of three COWS, she came
the possession Of a p%rospector, who sold her for
Ia wagon, a donkey team, and two h~ogsheads of brandy
TO an itinerant gun runner, who was found dead one
day in No Mans Land after an alteration with King
Bottlejohn, with a knife left between his shoulders.
Bott1ejohn was king of No Mans Land, but he was
more than a king; he was a skillful herder; he knew
where the wild gourds, that fatten stock, were to be
found, < here to avoid poison tulip. Adrian Fer
reira was riding into No Mans Land to consult with
him when he came upon Hendrika, kneeling under
the vast sky, weeping in the wild-melon patch.
He refined in a T watching her for a while, let
ting his Basuto pony crunch at the gourds, while
Hendrika, seeing him, burst into louder lamentations
and tore her hair; he watched her, a little fuddled
with Cape smoke, but a fine figure of a man. scratch
ing his head and Juggling at his bronze beard per-
p~lexedly.
"Wha is the matter, girl?" he cried at length.
why do you make that noise?'
MY child is a wizard and they have cast us ont
Of the kraal," Hendrika walled, beating her breast.
"Is he a DEVILS chid?" Ferreira asked in awe.
"No," cried Hcndrika. HE is King Bottlcjohn's
But he has cut his top teeth first. Seer She raised
the chnd's face, black with clustering flies, pulled up
the lip and disclosed two milk-white incisors in the
upper jaw.
"Hemmelr sworc Ferreira, "have they cast you ou
for that2 Who turned you away?'
King Bottlejohn," Hendrika sobbed. "But il wa
the Makololo women compelled him. They have Away
been jealous of me. Tonight we shall crawl back
and then perhaps we shall stay-who knows" Sh
cast a coquettish glance at Adrian.
The Dutchman gazed upon her in meditation. Hen
drika must have been seventeen-that is to say, i
the flower of her age. Her hair was long, her skin bu
little darker than his own; bracelets Of hammcre
copper flashed on her wrists and ankles. Adrian ha
a black faint in him, by reason of which he ha
found no peace among the company of his kin; he wa
one Of the hated Catholic Ferreiras, bitter as the bus
plum, sardonic and crafty as the h~alf-breed takhaal
of the bush weld, who sing psalms instead of hymn
call in witch doctors in time OF sickness, and cut the
hair round the edge of a pudding basin. Now II
blood sang in his veins, and a fierce and DESTROYS jc
rose UP and filled him, lie bent down from the sal
die and, Selling Hendrika, lifted her to the pommc
biting, struggling, and s~hrieking, while the baby's larl
head, covered with flies, lolled loosely from out IL
blanket. When she clawed at his beard Adrian bour