On the sixth day from Cape Town, they came up with a large wagon stuck in a mud-hole.  There was quite a party of Boers, Hottentots, Kafirs, round it, armed with whips, shamboks, and oaths, lashing and cursing without intermission, or any good effect; and there were the wretched beasts straining in vain at their choking yokes, moaning with anguish, trembling with terror, their poor mild eyes dilated with agony and fear, and often, when the blows of the cruel shamboks cut open their bleeding flesh, they bellowed to Heaven their miserable and vain protest against this devil’s work.

Then the past opened its stores, and lent Christopher a word.

“Barbarians!” he roared, and seized a gigantic Kafir by the throat, just as his shambok descended for the hundredth time.  There was a mighty struggle, as of two Titans; dust flew round the combatants in a cloud; a whirling of big bodies, and down they both went with an awful thud, the Saxon uppermost, by Nature’s law.

The Kafir’s companions, amazed at first, began to roll their eyes and draw a knife or two; but Dick ran forward, and said, “Don’t hurt him:  he is wrong here.”

This representation pacified them more readily than one might have expected.  Dick added hastily, “We’ll get you out of the hole our way, and cry quits.”

The proposal was favorably received, and the next minute Christopher and Ucatella at one wheel, and Dick and the Hottentot at the other, with no other help than two pointed iron bars bought for their shepherds, had effected what sixteen oxen could not.  To do this Dick Dale had bared his arm to the shoulder; it was a stalwart limb, like his sister’s, and he now held it out all swollen and corded, and slapped it with his other hand.  “Look’ee here, you chaps,” said he:  “the worst use a man can put that there to is to go cutting out a poor beast’s heart for not doing more than he can.  You are good fellows, you Kafirs; but I think you have sworn never to put your shoulder to a wheel.  But, bless your poor silly hearts, a little strength put on at the right place is better than a deal at the wrong.”

“You hear that, you Kafir chaps?” inquired Ucatella, a little arrogantly—­for a Kafir.

The Kafirs, who had stood quite silent to imbibe these remarks, bowed their heads with all the dignity and politeness of Roman senators, Spanish grandees, etc.; and one of the party replied gravely, “The words of the white man are always wise.”

“And his arm blanked* strong,” said Christopher’s late opponent, from whose mind, however, all resentment had vanished.

     * I take this very useful expression from a delightful
     volume by Mr. Boyle.

Thus spake the Kafirs; yet to this day never hath a man of all their tribe put his shoulder to a wheel, so strong is custom in South Africa; probably in all Africa; since I remember St. Augustin found it stronger than he liked, at Carthage.