“Well, if it comes to that, I am, mynheer,” said my father, who just then joined us after his morning walk, “although I beg you to say no more lest the lad should grow vain.”
“Bah!” replied Retief, “fellows of his stamp are not vain; it is your big talkers who are vain,” and he glanced out of the corner of his shrewd eye at Pereira, “your turkey cocks with all their tails spread. I think this little chap must be such another as that great sailor of yours—what do you call him, Nelson?—who beat the French into frothed eggs and died to live for ever. He was small, too, they say, and weak in the stomach.”
I must confess I do not think that praise ever sounded sweeter in my ears than did these words of the Commandant Retief, uttered as they were just when I felt crushed to the dirt. Moreover, as I saw by Marie’s and, I may add, by my father’s face, there were other ears to which they were not ungrateful. The Boers also, brave and honest men enough, evidently appreciated them, for they said:
“_Ja! ja! das ist recht_” (That is right).
Only Pereira turned his broad back and busied himself with relighting his pipe, which had gone out.
“What is it you were calling us to listen to, Mynheer Pereira? That this Heer Allan Quatermain had offered to shoot you a match? Well, why not? If he can hit Kaffirs running at him with spears, as he has done, he may be able to hit other things also. You say that you won’t rob him of his money—no, it was his beautiful horse—because you have taken so many prizes shooting at targets. But did _you_ ever hit a Kaffir running at _you_ with an assegai, mynheer, you who live down there where everything is safe? If so, I never heard of it.”
Pereira answered that he did not understand me to propose a shooting match at Kaffirs charging with assegais, but at something else—he knew not what.
“Quite so,” said Retief. “Well, Mynheer Allan, what is it that you do propose?”
“That we should stand in the great kloof between the two _vleis_ yonder—the Heer Marais knows the place—when the wild geese flight over an hour before sunset, and that he who brings down six of them in the fewest shots shall win the match.”
“If our guns are loaded with loopers that will not be difficult,” said Pereira.