Adventure stories; Africa -- Fiction; Hunting guides -- Fiction; Quatermain, Allan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
“See that the ‘Baboon-woman’ does not run away into the mountains with
the little white one,” said Indaba-zimbi to me in Kaffir, as he climbed
slowly on to the horse.
Unfortunately Hendrika understood his speech. Her face twisted and grew
livid with fury. She put down Tota and literally sprang at Indaba-zimbi
as a monkey springs. But weary and worn as he was, the old gentleman
was too quick for her. With an exclamation of genuine fright he threw
himself from the horse on the further side, with the somewhat ludicrous
result that all in a moment Hendrika was occupying the seat which he
had vacated. Just then Stella realized the position.
“Come down, you savage, come down!” she said, stamping her foot.
The extraordinary creature flung herself from the horse and literally
grovelled on the ground before her mistress and burst into tears.
“Pardon, Miss Stella,” she clicked and grunted in villainous English,
“but he called me ‘Babyan-frau’ (Baboon-woman).”
“Tell your servant that he must not use such words to Hendrika, Mr.
Allan,” Stella said to me. “If he does,” she added, in a whisper,
“Hendrika will certainly kill him.”
I explained this to Indaba-zimbi, who, being considerably frightened,
deigned to apologize. But from that hour there was hate and war between
these two.
Harmony having been thus restored, we started, the dogs following us. A
small strip of desert intervened between us and the slope of the
peak—perhaps it was two miles wide. We crossed it and reached rich
grass lands, for here a considerable stream gathered from the hills;
but it did not flow across the barren lands, it passed to the east
along the foot of the hills. This stream we had to cross by a ford.
Hendrika walked boldly through it, holding Tota in her arms. Stella
leapt across from stone to stone like a roebuck; I thought to myself
that she was the most graceful creature that I had ever seen. After
this the track passed around a pleasantly-wooded shoulder of the peak,
which was, I found, known as Babyan Kap, or Baboon Head. Of course we
could only go at a foot pace, so our progress was slow. Stella walked
for some way in silence, then she spoke.
“Tell me, Mr. Allan,” she said, “how it was that I came to find you
dying in the desert?”
So I began and told her all. It took an hour or more to do so, and she
listened intently, now and again asking a question.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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