LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 984, 21 August 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

GROETHODE'S LEATHER BREECHES. A STORY OF THE CAPK POLICE. (From All the Year Hound.) (Concluded.) * When I came to have the police reports, a few days afterwards, I found that Groethode bore a most suspicious character, and that crime was rife in the country I soon had evidence. First came news of a man and horse pitched headlong into a ravine, but when I got to investigate it, the thing resolved itself into a mere accident. Then, at a wedding feast, half a dozen guests were said to have been pounded like clay, but no complaints arrived, and even when I called to ask —silence! Just a common quarrel! After that happened a terrible affair, which I won't say much about, lor there was a lady in it, who's living still. But no accusations! In fact, I found that terror—terror of what or of whom I could not quite make out —ruled the country. Every man of English blood in town kept on saying to me, ' It's Groethode ! Will you have the veldt depopulated before you hang him ? I couldn't go to the the club, nor to Martin's bar, but they put Groethode on my back. The boers, when in town, didn't say much, but they looked a lot. I got regularly vexed with Groethode. 1 Perhaps he took alarm ; anyway he set off for a hunting trip to the Transvaal, and we had peace for a matter of three months. There wasn't a report in all my district except of cattle-lifting, land that. But Groethode came back, and the row began again. I declare that anyone who had eyes could see his return in the boers' looks. Whatever he'd done up yonder, it hadn't taken the devil out of him, and our doctor soon noticed the difference. I'd long since given up any doubts about Groethode, and no man on the country-side hated him as I did. The magistrate and I had many a talk, thinking how we could get evidence, for all the boers were as silent as mice. If anyone had told them that I myself, at that moment, held damning proofs against him, 1 should have stared. But here we are at Alexanderfontein, and the plovei s are walking about yonder like barn-door fowlß with their legs painted.' ' You see they are not impatient,' I said. ' Please finish your story.' ' Well, there isn't much more. One evening I sat in Martin's bar, which is not exactly a bar, of course, but a sort of club. Martin put his head in at the door, and said, ' A word, captain !' That proved to be the word we had been waiting for seven years. He told me there were two tramping bricklayers in the public room, who had crossed from the Eastern province. Upon the way they had seen a skeleton, with clothes about it, lying under a cliff. Of course it was my business to make inquiries, and 1 sent for them. They proved to be Africanders, and knew quite well where they had been, and what they had met with. I supposed the poor dead man to be one of those who perish every year upon the lonely veldt, unknown and unmissed. But as they went on with their tale, a thought struck me. I didn't say anything, but just brought them to a map. It was a thought!' The body lay in the kloof, beside Groethode's house. The men had stopped there for a drink of coffee. Lucky for them that he was not at home.j The old woman pressed them to stay, and when she heard they had come up the kloof, wanted to—well, I don't wish to be uncharitable, but Cape smoke does no one any good, does it ? and if those men happened to be teetotallers, so much the better for them, of course. 'I was never so excited after Kaffir or bushman ! The men had passed three days before, and what couldn't Groethode do in that time ? I got a search-warrant from the magistrate, and. started with six men long before daylight, taking one of the bricklayers along with us Just after sunrise we reached the kloof, entering it on the farther side. Our guide led us straight, and we found the skeleton in a hollow, amongst the pebbles, heaped agaiust the cliff. Vultures and jackals had picked it clean, but they had not carried the clothing out of that hole. We found a jacket shapely enough, and the remains of a jumper! and long stockings. The boots had been too much for bird or beast, and they still hung to the skeleton feet. Of trousers there was no sign. I just drew up a report of the attitude in which the body lay, put the whole into a sack, and off we went again. ' We took the bones to our doctor first thing, and I went to breakfast. Ten minutes afterwards lie ran across. ' " That man's been murdered ! " cries he. ' " So I thought," I said, and went on with my breakfast. "How?" The doctor was a nervous man, and I wanted to cool him down. ' " Slug shot! " he says, half sullenly. ' "WhereV" says I. ' " Through the back ! Bound the top of the trousers." ' " How long ago, do you think 'i " ' '' That poor fellow's breeches were spoilt before your time, I should think. Probably he has been two years In tfhe kloof." ' I hadn't thought of it! 1 know it struck me like a bullet. Two years, mark you, two years before, within a day or two, Groethode had brought home crackers to be washed. And he had come down from the veldt where crackers don't grow, that ever I heard of. As it Hashed upon me that the corpse was dressed, except for trousers, the case seemed to me clear as daylight - , and I left the doctor there with my breakfast. ' It was no use moving the magistrate in a touch-and-go business like that. My men were tired. I ordered out a Kaffir groom, who would be moie than a match for all the Hottentots about Groethode's farm, and started with only the search warrant in my pocket. Half a mile away I sent my boy back to fetch a Totty ; they overtook me long before I reached the kloof. Towards four in the afternoon we got to the cottage, the door of which as usual, stood open, and by the nre-plme sat Frow Groethode. I asked pleasat tly after her son, and learned that he had but returned that morning, and had gone;)way again afoot an hour before. With that I went through the house, and locked the door looking on the yard. The women were all inside. I posted my Kaffir boy to watch, and when the Totty had h )bbl d all the horses he could find, brought him in to interpret. Five minutes sufficed to gather evidence enough to hang twenty men. Frow Groethode could do uo more than cry—these big women are like that—but the Totties, if one had believed them, would have made out Groethode more fearful than an ogre, moia devilish than the fiend

himself. I brought them back to the case we had, and they told me that he was wearing the crackers to this day, that his mother had washed and mended them. They knew all about that murder in the kloof, even to its details. The man was working at Filjie's (Yilliers') near by, about fourteen miles off. '-Sroethode found him picking peaches in the kloof, and told him to go home. When he turned, this incarnate devil shot him through the back, stripped off his leathern trousers, hid the body, and came to breakfast with me ! • Suddenly Smike ran in, and reported Groethode coming from the kloof. I went to the door and saw my man, still far away, trudging over the sand; his giant form loomed monstrous in the declining light. He carried something on his shoulder. Looking round for Smike, whose eyea were better than most telescopes, I saw Frow Groethode just grasping the ancient roer, with which, no doubt, so many foul deeds had been done My men looked on carelessly, whilst the Totty servants grinned with all their lips. In one spring I disarmed the old woman, and she went moaning to the fireplace. Smike told me at a glance, that the man approaching had a spade and pick across his shoulder. We had still ten minutes. I tied the black women, and gave them in charge to Moses, their countryman. Smike brought round two hobbled horses to the corner, where stood our own beasts, and saddled them. Then I gave Frow Groethode into his charge, and stepped out to meet her son,' 'He knew me well enough, and cried, " Heaven brings you, uncle !' ' "At last 1' I said. • Groethode, you are my prisoner ! —Stand ! If you come a step nearer, or an inch, I drop you as you dropped Filjie's man in the kloof !' He stood about twenty yards off. His eyebrows moved up and down like a wild beast's. But he said nothing. ' "Moses !' cried I, 'bring me the hobbled horses.' Meanwhile, Groethode and I stood opposite each other. In the red light, his twisted face was horrible to look at, and his shadow stretched twenty yards behind. Suddenly I saw Groethode's eyes move and fix. 1 glanced aside, and sprang back. Just in time. The old woman's bullet hummed past me, and raised the dust fifty yards beyond. Like a flash Groethode leaped forward, but my rifle covered him. He stopped at 10ft distance, and walked back at my command, whilst Smike held that terrible old woman. ' Then Moses brought up a horse, and Greothode mounted. The boys lifted up his mother, who was very feeble, and we set off, the dreariest cavalcade that ever crossed the velt. There was a moon, luckily. It was near midnight when we reached the first house, and t'>en I tried to have my prisoner handcuffed; but not a man would touch him. They stood round in their night clothes, pale as the moonlight, and Groethode looked down on them, grinning and working his brows. Not a man would touch him, and I dared not law down my carbine. But they agreed to put the old woman, who was almost spent, to bed, and sent off a boy full gallop to fetch ray police. I would not go farther. Three hours we sat in the saddle, glaring at each other, before the police came. He asked to dismount, but I wouldn't let him. It was the weariest guard I ever kept. ' The moon was nearly down, when we heard the gallop of my men across the misty veldt. They came nearer and nearer. I made up my mind for a bolt, but Groethode seemed much easier, observing how fearful they all were of him. I put my carbine within two inches of his arm, and swore I'd drive a bullet through it if he didn't submit to be handcuffed, and he knew I'd keep my word. So he bore it like a lamb, only when my sergeant, who was a big fellow, had done tying his legs beneath the horse, he just seemed to let his hands drop on him, and poor Thorpe went down like a bullock. We left him there and galloped home. A month afterwards Groethode was hanged, with eight murders sworn against him, and many another suspected ' ' I hope you'll have no such captures on these fields,' I said. 'I almost hope not; but you see, when ;i man thinks of adventures l'ke that, life here seems a bit dull. What dyon think that incarnate devil's first crime was : He had a bit of a quarrel with a neighbour, so small a thing, that the man accepted a supjie when they met along the road. Groethode made him drunk, plastered his head with tar, and set it alight. He was not eighteen then ! Good-bye, sir, and I wish you bport with the plovers !'