The Wide World Magazine.
Vol. XXII. DECEMBER, 1908. No. 129
The Terror in the Sanctuary.
A CHRISTMAS STORY FROM NATAL.
By Mrs. K. Compton.
A lady’s account of the fearful ordeal she underwent as a young girl on anestate in Natal—locked up in a tiny church, whither she had gone topractise a Christmas voluntary, with a huge python!
It was Christmas Eve, and one ofthe hottest days I remember duringmy sojourn in Natal. The recollectionof that day, spite of the manyyears that have since passed, is sovividly imprinted on my mind that I can stillsee the heated atmosphere as it danced andshimmered over the cotton bushes and the rowsof beans down the hillside.
The last stroke of the twelve o’clock gongsummoning the gangs of Kaffirs to their middayrepast and siesta had died away, and nevera sound broke the stifling noontide stillnesssave the booming of the surf on the lonely sea-shore,three miles distant from my father’splantation—the Beaumont Estate, as it is nowcalled. The eye ached as it travelled over theglaring, sun-dried landscape that lay stretchedbefore me, and sought grateful relief in theshady depth of the dark orange grove andspreading loquat trees that sheltered theveranda on which I lounged on my luxuriouscane couch.
My father was a retired Anglo-Indian officer,who, having won distinction during the IndianMutiny, had taken up a “military grant” ofabout two thousand acres of land in the Colonyof Natal. He judged this to be an excellentopening for my brother Malcolm, who, althoughshowing a strong desire to follow in his father’smilitary footsteps, lacked the capability andapplication requisite to pass the competitiveexaminations for the Army.
We had been, by this time, about three yearsin the Colony, and had half the estate undercultivation. Whether father was satisfied withthe results I do not know. But, drowsilyreviewing the situation on this particular afternoon,I came to the conclusion that a man whohas spent the best years of his life in the Armycannot metamorphose himself immediately intoan agricultural success.
I was aroused from my cogitations by Malcolm’svoice exclaiming: “Why, Jessie, I dobelieve you were asleep!”
“I was, very nearly,” I confessed. “Thisheat makes the physical exertion of unclosingmy eyelids a task to which I do not feel equal.”
“When are you going down to the church?”he asked, as he tapped his cane against the legof his long riding-boot.
“Now,” I declared, sleepily, “if you will comewith me. Sam says he has got enough flowersand greenstuff to fill two churches.” Sam, Ishould explain, was the Kaffir boy whose dutyit was to