Prester John by John Buchan Read Free Book Online Page A

plates on the table. On the bed lay a man, snoring heavily. I went close to him, and found an old fellow with a bald head, clothed only in shirt and trousers. His face was red and swollen, and his breath came in heavy grunts. A smell of bad whisky hung over everything. I had no doubt that this was Mr Peter Japp, my senior in the store. One reason for the indifferent trade at Blaauwildebeestefontein was very clear to me: the storekeeper was a sot.
    I went back to the shop and tried the other door. It was a bedroom too, but clean and pleasant. A little native girl – Zeeta, I found they called her – was busy tidying it up, and when I entered she dropped me a curtsy. ‘This is your room, Baas,’ she said in very good English in reply to my question. The child had been well trained somewhere, for there was a cracked dish full of oleander blossom on the drawers’-head, and the pillow-slips on the bed were as clean as I could wish. She brought me water to wash, and a cup of strong tea, while I carried my baggage indoors and paid the driver of the cart. Then, having cleaned myself and lit a pipe, I walked across the road to see Mr Wardlaw.
    I found the schoolmaster sitting under his own fig-tree reading one of his Kaffir primers. Having come direct by rail from Cape Town, he had been a week in the place, and ranked as the second oldest white resident.
    â€˜Yon’s a bonny chief you’ve got, Davie,’ were his first words. ‘For three days he’s been as fou as the Baltic.’
    I cannot pretend that the misdeeds of Mr Japp greatly annoyed me. I had the reversion of his job, and if he chose to play the fool it was all in my interest. But the schoolmaster was depressed at the prospect of such company. ‘Besides you and me, he’s the only white man in the place. It’s a poor look-out on the social side.’
    The school, it appeared, was the merest farce. There were only five white children, belonging to Dutch farmers in the mountains. The native side was more flourishing, but the mission schools in the locations got most of the native children in the neighbourhood. Mr Wardlaw’s educational zeal ran high. He talked of establishing a workshop and teaching carpentry and blacksmith’s work, of which he knew nothing. He rhapsodized over the intelligence of his pupils and bemoaned his inadequate gift of tongues. ‘You and I, Davie,’ he said, ‘must sit down and grind at the business. It is to the interest of both of us. The Dutch is easy enough. It’s a sort of kitchen dialect you can learn in a fortnight. But these native languages are a stiff job. Sesutu is the chief hereabouts, and I’m told once you’ve got that it’s easy to get the Zulu. Then there’s the thing the Shangaans speak – Baronga, I think they call it. I’ve got a Christian Kaffir living up in one of the huts who comes every morning to talk to me for an hour. You’d better join me.’
    I promised, and in the sweet-smelling dust crossed the road to the store. Japp was still sleeping, so I got a bowl of mealie porridge from Zeeta and went to bed.
    Japp was sober next morning and made me some kind of apology. He had chronic lumbago, he said, and ‘to go on the bust’ now and then was the best cure for it. Then he proceeded to initiate me into my duties in a tone of exaggerated friendliness. ‘I took a fancy to you the first time I clapped eyes on you,’ he said. ‘You and me will be good friends, Crawfurd, I can see that. You’re a spirited young fellow, and you’ll stand no nonsense. The Dutchabout here are a slim lot, and the Kaffirs are slimmer. Trust no man, that’s my motto. The firm know that, and I’ve had their confidence for forty years.’
    The first day or two things went well enough. There was no doubt that, properly handled, a fine trade could be done in Blaauwildebeestefontein. The countryside was crawling with