3. JUDGEMENT OF THE MOUNTAINS
CHAPTER 1
When she climbs out of the car and has to lift her long, elegant dress slightly to get to the step, there are one or two men on the hotel porch and the sidewalk who hastily look away, because they know it is indecent for a man to see more than an inch or so of a lady’s ankle. But a few impudent ones actually turn their necks to stare at the unusually attractive girl.
The shy men are three fellows, two of whom have bushy beards. They stand aside and chat. The other two, who look neater, stand away from them by a porch pillar.
“Well, well! What man can remain calm,” is the comment of one of the blatantly staring ones. The other one laughs softly at his mate’s remark, as if he thinks it’s a bit far-fetched to talk so loudly, because the girl who climbed out of the car and is about to enter the hotel, is clearly a decent lady who will take offense if she should hear them. She has gleaming reddish-brown hair under a small, almost ridiculous hat, and her lithe, muscular but agile female body is dressed in a very neat dress.
The two fellows who quickly turned their bearded faces away and pretended they didn’t see anything, glare at the brazen fellow who dared to be so brutal as to make a remark about the lady that she could have heard. They are not yet accustomed to the new conditions here, because they have been away in the wilderness for months. As recently as 1884, a woman was almost an unknown being in these parts. Only men, and only of the most hardened types, dared to venture through the mountains here.
If they came with trek oxen following the lush pastures of the Lowveld, they had to guard the cattle practically day and night against vermin and other robbers. As a result, there was no place and time for women. And even less so if they were after gold and had to mix with adventurers from the wild parts of the world.
That girl walks up the porch steps. There is a slightly shy expression on her face because of the staring men’s eyes. For a moment, she looks hesitant, but then she goes through the front door.
A young man with a revolver at his side, had just now rushed forward when she wanted to get out of the car and offered to help her with her luggage. He had gallantly extended his hand to help her out of the car, but she said curtly. “No, thank you.”
He now walks towards the other two fellows.
“I know her,” it comes hesitantly but with a kind of pride in his voice when he comes to the others.
“But she treated you rather badly!” is the remark of a neatly dressed middle-aged man who is slyly sucking on a pipe.
“The poor girl is sometimes so withdrawn and curt these days,” he explains with importance. “I know her from Moordfontein. Her boyfriend, one Robert Viljee, to whom she was engaged, was recently shot dead in a fight there in the heart of Niemandsland.”
“Aha,” the short-built fellow says indifferently, “then one can make a move again there, or what?”
Magda du Preez goes into the hotel. She inquires from a native servant who walks through the hallway where she can speak to the owner. The black man says she must wait a while and he will call the hotel owner. He is a stout, round-faced foreigner, of which nationality Magda cannot immediately determine. He seems surprised to see such a clearly decent Afrikaans girl before him who wants to book a place for herself in the hotel. It is no ordinary occurrence to see a decent girl of this type alone at a hotel in these parts. And he wonders for a while what the reason for it may be. However, he eventually attributes it to the fact that his cobbled together shack of a hotel has undergone a considerable improvement in the recent past.
“Yes, yes, certainly, Miss,” he says. “Come this way, please.”
Things are really star
