Prester John by John Buchan Read Free Book Online

his face, his clothes, and his habits. Aitken laughed uproariously.
    â€˜Tut, my man, most of the subjects of his Majesty the King of Portugal would answer to that description. If he’s a rascal, as you think, you may be certain he’s in the I.D.B. business, and if I’m right about Blaauwildebeestefontein you’ll likely have news of him there some time or other. Drop me a line if he comes, and I’ll get on to his record.’
    I saw Tam off in the boat with a fairly satisfied mind. I was going to a place with a secret, and I meant to find it out. The natives round Blaauwildebeestefontein were queer, and diamonds were suspected somewhere in the neighbourhood. Henriques had something to do with the place, and so had the Rev. John Laputa, about whom I knew one strange thing. So did Tam, by the way, but he had not identified his former pursuer, and I had told him nothing. I was leaving two men behind me, Colles at Durban and Aitken at Lourenço Marques, who would help me if trouble came. Things were shaping well for some kind of adventure.
    The talk with Aitken had given Tam an inkling of my thoughts. His last words to me were an appeal to let him know if there was any fun going.
    â€˜I can see you’re in for a queer job. Promise to let me hear from you if there’s going to be a row, and I’ll come up country, though I should have to desert the service. Send us a letter to the agents at Durban in case we should be in port. You haven’t forgotten the Dyve Burn, Davie?’

THREE
Blaauwildebeestefontein
    The
Pilgrim’s Progress
had been the Sabbath reading of my boyhood, and as I came in sight of Blaauwildebeestefontein a passage ran in my head. It was that which tells how Christian and Hopeful, after many perils of the way, came to the Delectable Mountains, from which they had a prospect of Canaan. After many dusty miles by sail, and a weariful journey in a Cape-cart through arid plains and dry and stony gorges, I had come suddenly into a haven of green. The Spring of the Blue Wildebeeste was a clear rushing mountain torrent, which swirled over blue rocks into deep fern-fringed pools. All around was a tableland of lush grass with marigolds and arum lilies instead of daisies and buttercups. Thickets of tall trees dotted the hill slopes and patched the meadows as if some landscape gardener had been at work on them. Beyond, the glen fell steeply to the plains, which ran out in a faint haze to the horizon. To north and south I marked the sweep of the Berg, now rising high to a rocky peak and now stretching in a level rampart of blue. On the very edge of the plateau where the road dipped for the descent stood the shanties of Blaauwildebeestefontein. The fresh hill air had exhilarated my mind, and the aromatic scent of the evening gave the last touch of intoxication. Whatever serpent might lurk in it, it was a veritable Eden I had come to.
    Blaauwildebeestefontein had no more than two buildings of civilized shape: the store, which stood on the left side of the river, and the schoolhouse opposite. For the rest, there were some twenty huts, higher up the slope, of the type which the Dutch call
rondavels
. The schoolhouse had a pretty garden, but the store stood bare in a pitch of dust with a few outhouses andsheds beside it. Round the door lay a few old ploughs and empty barrels, and beneath a solitary blue gum was a wooden bench with a rough table. Native children played in the dust, and an old Kaffir squatted by the wall.
    My few belongings were soon lifted from the Cape-cart, and I entered the shop. It was the ordinary pattern of up-country store – a bar in one corner with an array of bottles, and all round the walls tins of canned food and the odds and ends of trade. The place was empty, and a cloud of flies buzzed over the sugar cask.
    Two doors opened at the back, and I chose the one to the right. I found myself in a kind of kitchen with a bed in one corner, and a litter of dirty