Mafeking Road Read Online Free

That’s all. It’s not his cunning that keeps him down. It’s his legs.
    In the meantime, the leopard had got up as far as my knees. He was studying my trousers very carefully, and I started getting embarrassed. My trousers were old and rather unfashionable. Also, at the knee, there was a torn place, from where I had
climbed through a barbed-wire fence, into the thick bush, the time I saw the Government tax-collector coming over the bult before he saw me. The leopard stared at that rent in my trousers for quite a while, and my embarrassment grew. I felt I wanted to explain about the Government tax-collector and the barbed wire. I didn’t want the leopard to get the impression that Schalk Lourens was the sort of man who didn’t care about his personal appearance.
    When the leopard got as far as my shirt, however, I felt better. It was a good blue flannel shirt that I had bought only a few weeks ago from the Indian store at Ramoutsa, and I didn’t care how many strange leopards saw it. Nevertheless, I made up my mind that next time I went to lie on the grass under the withaak, looking for strayed cattle, I would first polish up my veldskoens with sheep’s fat, and I would put on my black hat that I only wear to Nagmaal. I could not permit the wild animals of the neighbourhood to sneer at me.
    But when the leopard reached my face I got frightened again. I knew he couldn’t take exception to my shirt. But I wasn’t so sure about my face. Those were terrible moments. I lay very still, afraid to open my eyes and afraid to breathe. Sniff-sniff, the huge creature went, and his breath swept over my face in hot gasps. You hear of many frightening experiences that a man has in a lifetime. I have also been in quite a few perilous situations. But if you want something to make you suddenly old and to turn your hair white
in a few moments, there is nothing to beat a leopard – especially when he is standing over you, with his jaws at your throat, trying to find a good place to bite.
    The leopard gave a deep growl, stepped right over my body, knocking off my hat, and growled again. I opened my eyes and saw the animal moving away clumsily. But my relief didn’t last long. The leopard didn’t move far. Instead, he turned over and lay down next to me.
    Yes, there on the grass, in the shade of the withaak, the leopard and I lay down together. The leopard lay half-curled up, on his side, with his forelegs crossed, like a dog, and whenever I tried to move away he grunted. I am sure that in the whole history of the Groot Marico there have never been two stranger companions engaged in the thankless task of looking for strayed cattle.
    Next day, in Fanie Snyman’s voorkamer, which was used as a post office, I told my story to the farmers of the neighbourhood, while they were drinking coffee and waiting for the motor-lorry from Zeerust.
    â€œAnd how did you get away from that leopard in the end?” Koos van Tonder asked, trying to be funny. “I suppose you crawled through the grass and frightened the leopard off by pretending to be a python.”
    â€œNo, I just got up and walked home,” I said. “I remembered that the cattle I was looking for might have gone the other way and strayed into your kraal. I thought they would be safer with the leopard.”

    â€œDid the leopard tell you what he thought of General Pienaar’s last speech in the Volksraad?” Frans Welman asked, and they all laughed.
    I told my story over several times before the lorry came with our letters, and although the dozen odd men present didn’t say much while I was talking, I could see that they listened to me in the same way that they listened when Krisjan Lemmer talked. And everybody knew that Krisjan Lemmer was the biggest liar in the Bushveld.
    To make matters worse, Krisjan Lemmer was there, too, and when I got to the part of my story where the leopard lay down beside me, Krisjan Lemmer