Jock Of The Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick ( Chapter 13 )( Page 4 )The Allies

But my chief anxiety was to end the wretched escapade as quickly as possible and get the Shangaans on their way again; so I sent Jim back to his place under the waggon, and told the cook-boy to give him the rest of my coffee and half a cup of sugar to provide him with something else to think of and to calm him down. After a wait of half an hour or so, a head appeared just over the rise, and then another and another, at irregular intervals and at various points: they were scouting very cautiously before venturing back again. I sat in the tent-waggon out of sight and kept quiet, hoping that in a few minutes they would gain confidence, collect their goods, and go their way again.  Jim, lying flat under the waggon, was much lower than I was, and--continuing his gabble to the other boys--saw nothing. Unfortunately he looked round just as a scared face peered cautiously over the top of an ant-heap.  The temptation was, I suppose, irresistible: he scrambled to his knees with a pretence of starting afresh and let out one ferocious yell that made my hair stand up; and in that second every head bobbed down and the field was deserted once more. If this went on there could be but one ending: the police would be appealed to, Jim arrested, and I should spend days hanging about the courts waiting for a trial from which the noble Jim would probably emerge with three months' hard labour; so I sallied out as my own herald of peace.  But the position was more difficult than it looked: as soon as the Shangaans saw my head appearing over the rise, they scattered like chaff before the wind, and ran as if they would never stop.  They evidently took me for the advance guard in a fresh attack, and from the way they ran seemed to suspect that Jim and Jock might be doing separate flanking movements to cut them off.  I stood upon an ant-heap and waved and called, but each shout resulted in a fresh spurt and each movement only made them more suspicious.  It seemed a hopeless case, and I gave it up. On the way back to the waggons, however, I thought of Sam--Sam, with his neatly patched European clothes, with the slouchy heavy-footed walk of a nigger in boots, with his slack lanky figure and serious timid face! Sam would surely be the right envoy; even the routed Shangaans would feel that there was nothing to fear there.  But Sam was by no means anxious to earn laurels; he was clearly of the poet's view that "the paths of glory lead but to the grave;" and it was a poor-looking weak-kneed and much dejected scarecrow that dragged its way reluctantly out into the veld to hold parley with the routed enemy that day. At the first mention of Sam's name Jim had twitched round with a snort, but the humour of the situation tickled him when he saw the too obvious reluctance with which his rival received the honour conferred on him. Between rough gusts of laughter Jim rained on him crude ridicule and rude comments; and Sam slouched off with head bent, relieving his heart with occasional clicks and low murmurs of disgust.  How far the new herald would have ventured, if he had not received most unexpected encouragement, is a matter for speculation.  Jim's last shout was to advise him not to hide in an ant-bear hole; but, to Sam's relief, the Shangaans seemed to view him merely as a decoy, even more dangerous than I was; for, as no one else appeared, they had now no idea at all from which quarter the expected attack would come.  They were widely scattered more than half a mile away when Sam came in sight; a brief pause followed in which they looked anxiously around, and then, after some aimless dashes about like a startled troop of buck, they seemed to find the line of flight and headed off in a long string down the valley towards the river. Now, no one had ever run away from Sam before, and the exhilarating sight so encouraged him that he marched boldly on after them.  Goodness knows when, if ever, they would have stopped, if Sam had not met a couple of other natives whom the Shangaans had passed and induced them to turn back and reassure the fugitives. An hour later Sam came back in mild triumph, at the head of the Shangaan gang; and, `clothed in a little brief authority,' stood guard and superintended while they collected their scattered goods--all except the axe that caused the trouble.  That they failed to find.  The owner may have thought it wise to make no claim on me; Sam, if he remembered it, would have seen the Shangaans and all their belongings burned in a pile rather than raise so delicate a question with Jim; I had forgotten all about it--being anxious only to end the trouble and get the Shangaans off; and that villain Jim `lay low.'  At the first outspan from Barberton next day I saw him carving his mark on the handle,  nabashed, under my very nose. The next time Jim got drunk he added something to his opinion of Sam: "Sam no good: Sam leada Bible!  Shangaan, Sam; Shangaan!"