PRESTER JOHN

CONTENTS

i. The Man on the Kirkcaple Shore
ii. Furth! Fortune!
iii. Blaauwildebeestefontein
iv. My Journey to the Winter-Veld
v. Mr Wardlaw Has a Premonition
vi. The Drums Beat at Sunset
vii. Captain Arcoll Tells a Tale
viii. I Fall in Again with the Reverend John Laputa
ix. The Store at Umvelos'
x. I Go Treasure-Hunting
xi. The Cave of the Rooirand
xii. Captain Arcoll Sends a Message
xiii. The Drift of the Letaba
xiv. I Carry the Collar of Prester John
xv. Morning in the Berg
xvi. Inanda's Kraal
xvii. A Deal and Its Consequences
xviii. How a Man May Sometimes Put His Trust in a Horse
xix. Arcoll's Shepherding
xx. My Last Sight of the Reverend John Laputa
xxi. I Climb the Crags a Second Time
xxii. A Great Peril and a Great Salvation
xxiii. My Uncle's Gift Is Many Times Multiplied



CHAPTER I

THE MAN ON THE KIRKCAPLE SHORE

I mind as if it were yesterday my first sight of the man. Little I
knew at the time how big the moment was with destiny, or how often that
face seen in the fitful moonlight would haunt my sleep and disturb my
waking hours. But I mind yet the cold grue of terror I got from it, a
terror which was surely more than the due of a few truant lads breaking
the Sabbath with their play.

The town of Kirkcaple, of which and its adjacent parish of Portincross
my father was the minister, lies on a hillside above the little bay of
Caple, and looks squarely out on the North Sea. Round the horns of
land which enclose the bay the coast shows on either side a battlement
of stark red cliffs through which a burn or two makes a pass to the
water's edge. The bay itself is ringed with fine clean sands, where we
lads of the burgh school loved to bathe in the warm weather. But on
long holidays the sport was to go farther afield among the cliffs; for
there there were many deep caves and pools, where podleys might be
caught with the line, and hid treasures sought for at the expense of
the skin of the knees and the buttons of the trousers. Many a long
Saturday I have passed in a crinkle of the cliffs, having lit a fire of
driftwood, and made believe that I was a smuggler or a Jacobite new
landed from France. There was a band of us in Kirkcaple, lads of my
own age, including Archie Leslie, the son of my father's session-clerk,
and Tam Dyke, the provost's nephew. We were sealed to silence by the
blood oath, and we bore each the name of some historic pirate or
sailorman. I was Paul Jones, Tam was Captain Kidd, and Archie, need I
say it, was Morgan himself. Our tryst was a cave where a little water
called the Dyve Burn had cut its way through the cliffs to the sea.
There we forgathered in the summer evenings and of a Saturday afternoon
in winter, and told mighty tales of our prowess and flattered our silly
hearts. But the sober truth is that our deeds were of the humblest,
and a dozen of fish or a handful of apples was all our booty, and our
greatest exploit a fight with the roughs at the Dyve tan-work.

My father's spring Communion fell on the last Sabbath of April, and on
the particular Sabbath of which I speak the weather was mild and bright
for the time of year. I had been surfeited with the Thursday's and
Saturday's services, and the two long diets of worship on the Sabbath
were hard for a lad of twelve to bear with the spring in his bones and
the sun slanting through the gallery window. There still remained the
service on the Sabbath evening--a doleful prospect, for the Rev. Mr
Murdoch of Kilchristie, noted for the length of his discourses, had
exchanged pulpits with my father. So my mind was ripe for the proposal
of Archie Leslie, on our way home to tea, that by a little skill we
might give the kirk the slip. At our Communion the pews were emptied
of their regular occupants and the congregation seated itself as it
pleased. The manse seat was full of the Kirkcaple relations of Mr
Murdoch, who had been invited there by my mother to hear him, and it
was not hard to obtain permission to sit with Archie and Tam Dyke in
the cock-loft in the gallery. Word was sent to Tam, and so it happened
that three abandoned lads duly passed the plate and took their seats in
the cock-loft. But when the bell had done jowing, and we heard by the
sounds of their feet that the elders had gone in to the kirk, we
slipped down the stairs and out of the side door. We were through the
churchyard in a twinkling, and hot-foot on the road to the Dyve Burn.