Swallow: A Tale of the Great TrekHaggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
History
Swallow: A Tale of the Great Trek
Haggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Historical fiction; South Africa -- History -- Great Trek, 1836-1840 -- Fiction; Transvaal (South Africa) -- Fiction
Then, filled with wonder, we carried the children into the house, and
took their wet clothes off them. It was I who undressed the boy, and
noted that though his garments were in rags and foul, yet they were of
a finer stuff than any that I had seen, and that his linen, which was
soft as silk, was marked with the letters R. M. Also I noted other
things: namely, that so swollen were his little feet that the boots
must be cut off them, and that he was well-nigh dead of starvation, for
his bones almost pierced his milk-white skin.
Well, we cleaned him, and having wrapped him in blankets and
soft-tanned hides, I fed him with broth a spoonful at a time, for had I
let him eat all he would, he was so famished that I feared lest he
should kill himself. After he was somewhat satisfied, sad memories
seemed to come back to him, for he cried and spoke in English,
repeating the word “Mother,” which I knew, again and again, till
presently he dropped off to sleep, and for many hours slept without
waking. Then, little by little, I drew all the tale from Suzanne.
It would seem that the child, who was very venturesome and full of
imaginings, had dreamed a dream in her bed on the night of the day when
she played with the gun and Jan and I had spoken together of the sea.
She dreamed that in a certain kloof, an hour’s ride and more away from
the stead, she heard the voice of a child praying, and that although he
prayed in a tongue unknown to her, she understood the words, which
were: “O Father, my mother is dead, send some one to help me, for I am
starving.” Moreover, looking round her in her dream, though she could
not see the child from whom the voice came, yet she knew the kloof, for
as it chanced she had been there twice, once with me to gather white
lilies for the burial of a neighbour who had died, and once with her
father, who was searching for a lost ox. Now Suzanne, having lived so
much with her elders, was very quick, and she was sure when she woke in
the morning that if she said anything about her dream we should laugh
at her and should not allow her to go to the place of which she had
dreamt. Therefore it was that she made the plan of seeking for the
shells upon the seashore, and of slipping away from the woman who was
with her, and therefore also she begged the milk and the biltong.
Now before I go further I would ask, What was this dream of Suzanne’s?
Did she invent it after the things to which it pointed had come to
pass, or was it verily a vision sent by God to the pure heart of a
little child, as aforetime He sent a vision to the heart of the infant
Samuel? Let each solve the riddle as he will, only, if it were nothing
but an imagination, why did she take the milk and food? Because we had
been talking on that evening of her finding a brother by the sea, you
may answer. Well, perhaps so; let each solve the riddle as he will.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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