The War of the Axe by J. Percy-Groves

Page 1 of 74

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

The War of the Axe Adventures in South Africa By J. Percy-Groves Illustrations by John Schonberg Published by Blackie and Son, 49-50 Old Bailey, London.

The War of the Axe, by J. Percy-Groves.

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________ THE WAR OF THE AXE, BY J. PERCY-GROVES.

CHAPTER ONE.

THE SURAT CASTLE--OUR HERO--A ROUGH NIGHT IN THE ATLANTIC--AFTER THE GALE--LAND HO!

In the early summer of the year of grace 1844 the _Surat Castle_, a fine clipper barque of 400 tons burthen, left the London docks on a voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, with a valuable cargo and several passengers, including a small draft of volunteers and recruits for the Saint Helena regiment. The _Surat Castle_ traded regularly between the port of London and Table Bay, and so well-known was she as a fast-sailing, seaworthy vessel, with excellent accommodation, and such was the popularity and reputation of her commander and part-owner, Captain John Ladds, that many Cape gentlemen, who had occasion to make the trip to the old country and back every two or three years, preferred taking their passage in her rather than in the ordinary mail-packets.

Amongst the cabin passengers who were now returning to the Cape in the _Surat Castle_ was a good-looking lad of sixteen--a fine, well-built youngster, with a cleanness of make and shape that bespoke muscular strength and activity combined, and whose sun-burned healthy face and clear well-set eye bore ample evidence that he was in capital condition; in fact, sound in wind as well as limb.

Thomas Flinders, for that was the lad's name, was the only son of a retired major of the Cape Mounted Riflemen, who had, with the money realised by the sale of his commission, purchased a farm in the neighbourhood of Cape Town, and there settled down with his family, "turning his sword into a ploughshare." On this farm Master Tom first saw the light of day, and there he lived until within a few weeks of his eleventh birthday, when Major Flinders, finding that his son and heir was becoming somewhat troublesome and self-willed, packed him off to England to be educated at Rugby, under the great and good Doctor Arnold, who was then in the zenith of his fame. Five years of public-school life--three under Doctor Arnold [Arnold died in 1842], and two under his successor--worked wonders with young Flinders, and developed him into a plucky, straightforward English lad, full of fun and exuberant spirits, but without a spark of vice in his composition; a gentleman in the truest and noblest sense of the word, holding in hearty contempt aught that savoured of meanness or "bad form." Nor had the lad's physical education been neglected, for he became a very fair hand at most outdoor games and sports; from fives to football, from quoits to hare-and-hounds, and could play rough-and-tumble with any boy of his own weight. And now Tom Flinders, having imbibed the regulation quantum of Latin and Greek and a modicum of mathematics, together with a very proper notion of his position as an ex-school-house boy and a member of the upper-fifth, had left Rugby for good, and was returning to the land of his birth under the nominal charge of Captain Ladds, who was an old friend of the major's.

Prev - Next >>

Share this book

Table of contents (by pages)