Jock Of The Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick (Chapter 23)( Page 7 ) The Fighting Baboon

Near the Crocodile on our way down we heard from men coming up that Seedling had been there some days before but that, hearing we were on the way down and had sworn to shoot him, he had ridden on to Komati, leaving one horse behind bad with horse-sickness.  The report about shooting him was, of course, ridiculous--probably his own imagination-- but it was some comfort to know that he was in such a state of terror that his own fancies were hunting him down. At Komati we learned that he had stayed three days at the store of that Goanese murderer, Antonio--the same Antonio who on one occasion had tried to drug and hand over to the enemy two of our men who had got into trouble defending themselves against raiding natives; the same Antonio who afterwards made an ill-judged attempt to stab one Mickey O'Connor in a Barberton canteen and happily got brained with a bottle of his own doctored spirit for his pains. Antonio suspecting something wrong about a white man who came on horseback and dawdled aimlessly three days at Komati Drift, going indoors whenever a stranger appeared, wormed the secret out with liquor and sympathy; and when he had got most of Seedling's money out of him, by pretence of bribing the Portuguese officials and getting news, made a bold bid for the rest by saying that a warrant was out for him in Delagoa and he must on no account go on.  The evil-looking half-caste no doubt hoped to get the horse saddle and bridle, as well as the cash, and was quite prepared to drug Seedling when the time came, and slip him quietly into the Komati at night where the crocodiles would take care of the evidence. Antonio, however, overshot the mark; Seedling who knew all about him, took fright, saddled up and bolted up the river meaning to make for the Lebombo, near the Tembe Drift, where Bob McNab and his merry comrades ran free of Governments and were a law unto themselves.  It was no place for a nervous man, but Seedling had no choice, and he went on.  He had liquor in his saddle bags and food for several days; but he was not used to the bush, and at the end of the first day he had lost his way and was beyond the river district where the kaffirs lived. So much is believed, though not positively known; at any rate he left the last kraal in those parts about noon, and was next heard of two days later at a kraal under the Lebombo.  There he learnt that the Black Umbelusi, which it would be necessary to swim--as Snowball and Tsetse had done--lay before him, and that it was yet a great distance to Sebougwaans, and even then he would be only half-way to Bob's.  Seedling could not face it alone, and turned back for the nearest store. The natives said that before leaving the kraal he bought beer from them, but did not want food; for he looked sick; he was red and swollen in the face; and his eyes were wild; the horse was weak and also looked sick, being very thin and empty; but they showed him the footpath over the hills which would take him to Tom's--a white man's store on the road to Delagoa--and he left them!  That was Tom Barnett's at Piscene, where we always stopped; for Tom was a good friend of ours. That was how we came to meet Seedling again.  He had made a loop of a hundred and fifty miles in four days in his efforts to avoid us; but he was waiting for us when we arrived at Tom Barnett's.  We who had hurried on to catch him, believing that the vengeance of justice depended on us, forgot that it has been otherwise decreed. Tom stood in the doorway of his store as we walked up--five feet one in his boots, but every inch of it a man--with his hands resting idly on his hips and a queer smile on his face as he nodded welcome. "Did a white man come here on horseback during the last few days from the Drift?" "No!" "On foot?" "No, not the whole way." "Is he here now?"  Tom nodded. "You know about him, Tom?" "Seedling! the chap you're after, isn't it?" "Yes," we answered, lowering our voices.  Tom looked from one to the other with the same queer smile, and then making a move to let us into the store said quietly: "He won't clear, boys; he's dead!"  Some kaffirs coming along the footpath from the 'Bombo had found the horse dead of horse-sickness half a day away, and further on--only a mile or so from the store--the rider lying on his back in the sun, dying of thirst.  He died before they got him in.  He was buried under a big fig tree where another and more honoured grave was made later on. Jim sat by himself the whole evening and never spoke a word.