Chapter Fifteen.
The Ticking of a Watch.
Dick’s spirits rose immeasurably as he found himself clear away, with night and the open veldt around him. He was in the pink of hard training, consequently not long did it take to cover the six or seven miles that lay between the Police camp and Vunisa’s location.
The Tsolo River rippled silvery across his way, reflecting the stars. Cautiously he forded it, the water scarcely above his ankles, but his heart in his mouth lest he should make any undue splash or cause a rattle of stones. But the din in front had now become so near and deafening that it would have drowned such fifty times over.
He was through the defile now, which was not so narrow as it looked. In front a great red glow as of numerous fires, and all his pulses were a-tingle with excitement and anticipation at the thunder of stamping feet, the roar of the rhythmical chant. But—how get near enough to see without being seen?
He glanced around, then upward. The steep slopes were not very thickly bushed, but, by advancing carefully and taking advantage of every bit of cover, he might manage to get well above the scene of the rout. Slowly, tediously, he crawled, for the most part on his hands and knees. The firelight, throwing out a dull glow, reached the hill-slopes—what if the white of his face should show up to the keen-eyed savages? And then, as he reached a point whence the whole scene lay revealed before him, Dick Selmes felt that the risk he had undertaken was amply repaid.
Beneath, in an immense open space, several huge fires were burning—their light showing up clusters of round, conical-roofed huts studded all along the valley. But the broad level was covered with human beings, if so weird and satanic-looking a crew could be defined as human. There must have been considerably over a thousand of them, decided the spectator, allowing for those who were taking part in the performance alone; for, on the outside of the actual arena, squatted several rows of women, who formed a not ineffective sort of accompaniment, by a rhythmical clapping of hands, to the war-chant of the warriors. The latter were arrayed in trappings of the most fantastic nature, tufts of cow-hair flowing from leg and arm; monkey-skins, with here and there that of the leopard; wild-cat tails too, and bunches of crane feathers sticking up from their heads. All seemed bristling with assegais, but there were no shields.
As Dick Selmes took in all this the chant suddenly ceased, and the entire mass stood in motionless silence. Then one man came forward and harangued them. He was of tall, commanding figure, and the spectator wondered if this was Vunisa, the redoubtable chief, himself. Not long, however, did he talk, but more and more did his speech work up to what seemed to the listener the highest pitch of fierce frenzy. Every head was bent forward, eagerly drinking in every word; and the deep-toned murmurs of assent which greeted some of his periods reminded Dick of those which hailed the successful shooting of the Police artillery, the first time he had seen any large number of savages together.
There was a sudden tightening of the ranks. The orator had ceased. Now arose the rhythmical strophes of the war-song, low at first and fierce, then rising till it reached a perfect roar, terror-striking in the degree of ferocity unchained which it expressed, while the stamp of feet, in perfect unison, shook the ground as it were with the rumble of an earthquake. Then the whole mighty mass moved forward in line, and the light of gushing flames gleamed redly on assegai blades as the foremost warriors went through the pantomime of striking down an imaginary foe. Up and down the great open space this was repeated several times, the rear ranks manoeuvring so as to change places with the first and get their turn, in a way that was scarcely perceptible. But—what was this?
For now, behind the surging mass of fantastically arrayed warriors, came a file of women. Each was armed with a tough knob-kerrie, and beat on the ground with a vicious whack now and then during the advance. They were finishing off the wounded after a battle.
For upwards of an hour Dick Selmes lay, witnessing this weird but striking and dramatic scene, in a state of mind little short of entrancement. There was a fascination about it that made him long to rush down the hill and shout and stamp with the rest. No wonder they wanted a strong Police camp in the neighbourhood, he thought, if this sort of thing was going on all over Kafirland; and it struck him uneasily what a mouthful their own particular camp might prove if these and a few more were to hurl themselves upon it while in that state of frenzy. The thought of the camp suggested that it might be high time to think of getting back there.
“Well, I’ve seen something to-night, and no mistake,” he said to himself. “My hat! but I’ll have the grin over Greenoak and old Chambers to-morrow.”
The flame of the fires blazed up higher than ever. As he turned to carry out his intention, he found his way barred, and that by a line of ochre-smeared, brawny savages. He marked the cruel sneer on each broad, dark face, the gleam of uplifted blades, and then realised his utter helplessness. For, fearing to wake Harley Greenoak, who would certainly have prevented his mad trip, he had refrained from going into the hut to fetch his revolver. Now he was totally unarmed.
With quick ejaculations the Kafirs hurried forward, some in crouching attitude, like cats advancing on their prey, others erect, but all with eyes fixed warily upon him, for they expected him to draw a pistol. Then they scattered, spreading out so that some should steal above and behind him.
In that moment Dick Selmes knew what it was to feel that his last hour had come. He had no knowledge of the language, so could not try the effect of parley. So, by way of signifying that he was not there with hostile intent, he extended both hands—open.
The effect was magical. Realising for the first time that he was unarmed, the savages flung themselves upon him. Powerful and in good training as he was, what could he do against numbers? At the same time, a blanket was flung over his head and face, blinding and effectually stifling him in its nauseous folds, and he was borne to the earth and effectually pinioned by many and muscular hands.
Inspector Chambers was an officer of promptitude and decision, and on Harley Greenoak waking him up in the grey of dawn with the news that Dick Selmes was nowhere in the camp, the sentries of the night before were at once called to account, and the truth came out. The young gentleman was not one of themselves, explained the defaulter, who supposed, therefore, that he was not under the same orders. Ordering the man to be put under arrest, the Inspector gave his directions, and in a surprisingly short space of time nearly the whole troop was mounted and heading at a trot for Vunisa’s location.
“That’s where we’ll find him,” pronounced Greenoak, adding grimly, “if we find him at all. He’ll have gone to look at that war-dance, sure as eggs. I ought to have known he’d be trying it and kept my eye on him.”
Pummelled, pushed, hustled, his hands and arms secured with innumerable knots of raw-hide; half suffocated, wholly nauseated by the greasy effluvium of the filthy blanket which still enveloped his head and shoulders, Dick Selmes was hurried down the hill by his captors. To his attempts at speech with them, in the hope that even one among them might understand English, the only reply was a savage growl in their own tongue, accompanied by a dig in the back with the butt end of a kerrie. Still, he did his best to keep his faculties of hearing undimmed, and, listening with all his might, it seemed as though the roar of the war-dance, instead of drawing nearer, became less marked. Whither were they taking him? All sorts of frontier stories of the old wars which he had heard came back to his mind: of the unsparing barbarities practised by these savages on any unfortunate white man who should fall into their hands; of soldiers, straggling from a column, cut off in the thick bush and slowly roasted to death with red-hot stones, or spread naked over a nest of black ants; of settlers, surprised by the suddenness of the outbreak, driven back to perish in the flaming ruins of their own homesteads. And now he himself was in the power of these very fiends! They were dragging him back to put him to some such end, to delight the whole location with the spectacle of his lingering torments. Shuddering with horror at the thought, the unfortunate fellow hardly noticed whither he was being hurried. Then he was suddenly and roughly flung to the ground, his legs tightly tied together at the ankles, by which he was now seized, and unceremoniously dragged through what he guessed to be the door of a hut.
Once within, a light was struck; the homely match of civilisation flaring feebly, but just enough to render more fiend-like still the fell, savage faces and forms decked with their wild war-trappings. This the prisoner was able to make out for a moment, for the blanket which covered his head and shoulders was removed. But only for a moment, for an effectual gag was forced into his mouth, and then the suffocating, nauseous covering was replaced. After a minute or two of muttered conversation, his captors withdrew.
And now for the unfortunate Dick Selmes followed a night of indescribable horror. To the certainty of being dragged forth at dawn to a death of unimaginable agony was added the torments of the present—the cramping pain of his bonds, the nauseous suffocation of the gag, and the bites of innumerable small pests of no account whatever to the savage, but calculated to drive a highly civilised and utterly helpless white man to the verge of insanity. Rescue! Of that there was no hope. The Police troop might hold its own on the defensive, but, after what he had seen last night, he could not believe it would stand a chance against these fierce warriors fighting on their own ground; besides, he himself would be murdered the first thing. And then he remembered how he of his own act had effectually cut off all trace as to his whereabouts. Even Harley Greenoak would fail to fathom the mystery of his disappearance—until too late. Again and again he bitterly cursed his own rashness.
Then, as the remaining hours of the night wore on, merciful Nature came to the relief of the sufferer, in that he sank into a state somewhat between sleep and unconsciousness, which at length took shape in a dream. The Police troop had come to his rescue. He could hear voices—those of the Inspector Chambers and Harley Greenoak, mingling with the deeper tones of his savage gaolers. He tried to call out, but could utter no sound. They were withdrawing; still he was perforce dumb. They had gone away. Ah, the agony of it! He strained at his bonds—nearly suffocated himself with the horrible gag. All of no avail.
Very different looked Vunisa’s location—now silent in slumber—as the Police rode up, to the weird and stirring scene it had presented throughout the best part of the night, but the yelping and barking of innumerable curs soon brought forth some of its denizens. These stood, open-mouthed with astonishment at the sight of the carbines and revolvers of the Police troopers.
“The chief,” said Harley Greenoak, decisively, “Vunisa, the chief. We have a ‘word’ to him.”
Scowling sullenly, the savages began to make the usual excuses. The chief was sick, and so on.
“A lie!” said Greenoak. “Bring him forth at once or we put the torch into every hut in this valley.”
By now all were astir. More than half the revellers had gone home, but there were yet an awkwardly large number left, even for nearly a hundred armed and mounted men. Still a hurried consultation went on, then, just as Greenoak was losing patience, the chief himself appeared.
Vunisa was a tall, powerful man, with rather a heavy and sullen face, but not without dignity even then. He had done nothing wrong, he protested; why, then, should the Government send the amapolise into his kraal and threaten to destroy it?
“The young white man who came here last night,” said Harley Greenoak. “Where is he?”
The chief turned to his followers. What was this about a young white man? Did anybody know? The while, Greenoak, who had dismounted, was watching him keenly. No. Nobody knew.
“Then Vunisa will be arrested,” he said.
The chief started, ever so slightly. An ominous hubbub arose among his followers, the bulk of whom dived quickly into the huts again. They had gone to arm.
In a moment they emerged, and the glint of assegai blades and the wave of hard sticks was everywhere, as the kraal became alive with swarming savages, the mutter of deep-toned voices eloquent with suppressed hate and menace. And they outnumbered the Police ten to one.
The latter had loaded with ball cartridge. Even then a sudden rush and the sheer weight of numbers was bound to overwhelm them, out in the open. But it was not made. The Kafirs seemed to hold that little armed force in wholesome respect. Still the merest accident might bring about a collision. The situation had become tense to dramatic point. What if Vunisa should persist in his disclaimer? There was a moment of dead, boding silence. Harley Greenoak broke it.
“Inspector, kindly send three of your men to search that hut,” pointing to one next to that whence Vunisa had emerged. “If the chief moves he will be shot,” he added, in the Xosa language.
Amid dead silence the three troopers entered. In a moment, from the interior of the hut, ejaculations were heard; then, through the low doorway there crawled forth a man—hatless, dirty with perspiration and smears of red-ochre; in short, with a generally dilapidated appearance. And then up stood Dick Selmes, rubbing his eyes.
“Hallo, Greenoak! Hallo, Inspector, how are you? I say, I’m jolly glad you’ve turned up. I’m more than a bit sick of spending the night tied up in an old Kafir blanket—faugh!—and not able to move finger or toe.”
“You may thank your lucky stars you’d got a watch on, and that there was just a moment of silence in which I heard it tick,” rejoined Harley Greenoak, gravely.
“Eh?”—puzzled. “That how you found me? Through the ticking of a watch?”
“That—and no other way. It’d be like hunting for a needle to look for you in this location, even if we hadn’t to fight our way out first. Well, your dad was right. You are a record for getting into hornets’ nests.”
There was no more to be done. Inspector Chambers was not going to take the responsibility of arresting Vunisa simply because this young fool had run his head, as Greenoak had said, into a hornets’ nest. So, after reading that potentate a severe lecture, he withdrew his force.
There was another who came in for a sample of the lecture, and that was Dick Selmes. If he chose to hold out his own throat to be cut, he might as well wait until he was on his own responsibility, and so on. To all of which Dick listened very penitently.
“Think they really meant cutting my throat, Inspector?” he said.
“That’s just exactly what they did intend,” interposed Harley Greenoak. “They were going to cut your throat after we had gone, and then burn the hut over you, so as to destroy all trace.”
“The mischief they were! But how do you know, Greenoak?”
“Because I overheard them saying so, as we came away,” was the tranquil reply. “They were likewise expressing disappointment at being done out of such a rare bit of fun.”
“Ugh, the brutes!” exclaimed Dick, turning in his saddle to scowl back at the dark forms gathered on the hillside, watching the retreating Police. “I’ll pay them out for it when the war begins.”
“When the war begins,” repeated Inspector Chambers. “Well, it’s our particular mission just now to prevent it from beginning at all; but if ever anybody came within an ace of starting it, why, that joker’s yourself, this very morning, Selmes. Eh, Greenoak?”
The latter nodded assent.
Chapter Sixteen.
Mainwaring’s “Gas-Pipe.”
Dick was greatly concerned over the consequences his escapade was likely to entail upon the sentry who had let him through. He said nothing about the bribe, but all unconsciously repeated the man’s own line of defence; to wit, that he supposed the defaulter had reckoned that he, being a guest, was free to go and come as he pleased. In short, he gave Inspector Chambers no peace until that good-hearted officer, glad to find a pretext for remitting punishment on anybody, promised to let the man off with a reprimand; but only on condition that Dick, on his part, would undertake not to launch out in any more madcap and foolhardy ventures on his own account while sojourning in the camp.
This act made Dick very popular among the Police, which popularity was consolidated by his free and easy, unaffected way with everybody. He entered with zest, too, into any of the amusements which they got up to vary the monotony of camp life—cricket or athletic sports, or shooting practice; and as he was in the pink of condition, and a fine runner and jumper, it was seldom that in such he would meet his match. Or if any patrol was sent out, he would not be left behind. His keenness and energy were alike unflagging.
Things seemed to be quieting down. Harley Greenoak, who would sometimes be absent for two or three days at a time, visiting this or that chief—for he could move freely among them, where with another it would have been at that juncture in the highest degree unsafe—reported that there was a more settled feeling. True the Kafir and Fingo locations were eyeing each other from beyond their respective boundaries with distrust, but there was no longer the threatening and aggressive bearing on the part of the one, or the alarmed uneasiness on that of the other. It looked as if matters would settle themselves.
Sometimes two or three headmen from the surrounding kraals would come into the camp and have a talk with the Police officers; and although Vunisa did not make one of them, his people, too, seemed less restless, and no more was the stillness of night broken by the stamp and roar of war-dancing in his location. The green, rolling plains slept peaceful in the radiant sunlight of each unclouded day, and at night a beacon-like flare upon a far-away height might be a grass fire or a less harmless signal.
“What do you think of this as a new thing in blowpipes, Greenoak?” said Sub-Inspector Mainwaring, one day, coming out of his tent with an unusual-looking weapon in his hand—unusual there and then, at any rate.
Greenoak took it.
“One of these Winchesters. Yes, I’ve seen them,” he said, returning it. “New-fangled American invention. Well, I don’t think much of them.”
“Why not?” said the other, who was rather proud of his new acquisition. “I’ve always held that what we want is some sort of repeating rifle. Sort of thing, you know, that can pump in a lot of shots one after another.”
“That’s all right, if the ‘lot of shots’ hit,” said Greenoak. “If not, one shot at a time’s sufficient.”
“Well, look at that sardine tin over there”—pointing to one on the ground about seventy yards away, and bringing up the piece.
One shot, and the tin moved; another, and it leapt off the ground; another—a clean miss; likewise a fourth.
“You have a try now,” said the owner of the weapon, handing it back to Greenoak.
Up went the piece. One, two, three, four—Greenoak had hit but once. Something of a murmur stirred the group of men who had stopped to look.
“By Jove, old chap, you must be a bit off colour to-day,” cried Dick Selmes. Harley Greenoak to miss—to miss anything—however small and at whatever distance, why, that was an eye-opener to him, and, incidentally, to more than one other. Harley Greenoak—to have “his eye wiped,” and by a young Police sub-inspector! Why, it was marvellous.
“A bad workman finds fault with his tools,” said Greenoak, musingly, as he eyed the weapon, and balanced it critically. “Well, I may be a bad workman, but this is a tool I’m not used to. Wait a second while I get my .500 Express.”
He went into his tent. Several empty sardine tins were lying about.
“Now then, Mainwaring,” he said as he reappeared, “chuck up one of those, as high and as far as you can.”
The other did so; Greenoak’s rifle spoke. The tin went whizzing further into the air. Before it came to the ground another bullet struck it, and sent it skimming along some twenty yards further. A shout of applause went up from the onlookers.
“There you are,” said Greenoak, tranquilly. “It resolves itself into a matter of what you’re accustomed to. Now, I dare say a lot of practice with that new gas-pipe of yours, Mainwaring, might get one into the way of it. Still, I don’t know—” taking the weapon from him and balancing it again. “I don’t like the hang of it. The hang seems to leave a lot to be desired.”
Then its owner tried some more shots, with fair success, and then Dick Selmes tried some, but indifferently. The while Harley Greenoak watched the performance narrowly and critically; hardly foreseeing that this repeating rifle was destined to play some important part in the doings of not very far hence.
There were times when Dick Selmes would get low-spirited. There was not much doing just then, as we have said, and at such times his thoughts went back to Haakdoornfontein and its grim but kindly old owner, and more especially, of course, to Hazel Brandon. He had written to her since he left, but to his disappointment had received no reply. Harley Greenoak, who was the recipient of his confidences, as they lay in their hut at night smoking their turning-in pipe, would listen with exemplary patience, and with much kindly tact strive to comfort him; for he had given up urging any objection Sir Anson might entertain on the subject. That must take its chance, he decided. There was nothing to be downhearted about, he declared. The girl wasn’t born who would not think the better of him for having borne a man’s share in active events, and so he would find when he met her again, and more to the same effect. All of which was vastly comforting to Dick, who would turn in with the last impression that if any fellow were found bold enough to tell him that this world could contain a better chap than Harley Greenoak, why, he would take infinite pleasure in calling that man a liar.
A day or two later two express-riders, dusty and fagged with hard riding, arrived in camp with despatches. The burden of these set forth with unmistakable plainness that the recent apparent quietude was but the calm before the storm. The plotting and disaffection was all below the surface now, but it was there, and all the more dangerous for that. The Commandant, with two troops of Police and one seven-pounder gun, were marching to the Kangala, a deserted trading store, occupying a useful central position, there to go into permanent camp, and Inspector Chambers was instructed to join him there, with A. Troop, immediately on receipt of the said despatches.
“I say, but this express-riding must be a devilish exciting sort of joke,” said Dick Selmes, as he looked at the tired and travel-worn men, who stood there waiting, while their officers, having disappeared within the hut, were examining the despatches.
“Don’t know about the joke part of it, mister,” answered one of them, “but it was exciting enough this morning early. Why, we narrowly missed tumbling into a gang of hundreds of ’em, all bristling with assegais and things. And we shouldn’t have missed that if there hadn’t been the devil of a fog on at the time. We saw them, but just managed to slip away before they twigged us.”
“By Jove! You don’t say so. Here—come along to our hut and have a glass of grog. We’ve got some left, and it’ll set you up again.”
He had hooked an arm into one of each of them in that boyish impulsive way which had gone so far to build up his popularity with all in the camp. The men stared.
“Well, you are a good sort, whoever you are,” said one of them. “But we daren’t.”
“Oh, it’ll be all right. Good old Chambers won’t know. He’s too much taken up with reading his post.”
“Well, we can’t do it, sir—at least not until we’re dismissed,” the man added, rather wistfully. “By the way, is there a Mr Selmes in the camp? Maybe you’re him—are you?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Why, there are letters for you then, with those we’ve brought. They’ll be in there—with the Inspector.”
“Hurrah!” cried Dick. “And, I say, you fellows. As soon as you can break loose, don’t forget. There’s a glass of grog going over there. That’s our hut—mine and Greenoak’s,” pointing it out.
Then Chambers came forth. The men saluted, and retired.
“Letters for you, just come, Selmes,” said that genial officer.
Dick fairly grabbed them. Only two, one from his father, the other— He knew that writing. It was Hazel Brandon’s.
We are sorry to say that once within the solitude of his hut—Greenoak was somewhere about the camp—this was the one he opened first. It was in answer to his. It was not particularly long, nor worded with any pretence at style, but it was kind, almost affectionate; dwelling on all the good times they had had together, and reminding him that he must visit them at their own farm when he had got through the more exciting part of his travels. Her people would be so glad to see him—and so forth. And Dick felt as if he were treading on air. Then he read his father’s communication, and his heart smote him for not having taken it first. Sir Anson had arrived safe and sound at home again, and was all right. He referred to the rumoured coming troubles in South Africa, and hoped that if he, Dick, came in for any part of them, he would avoid attempting foolhardy feats, or running unnecessary risks, if only because he had an old fool of a father who hadn’t yet done with him—and so on. Then there was a lot of home news, and warm remembrances to Harley Greenoak, so that by the time he had done, Dick felt just as soft over this letter as he had felt over the other; and, strange to say, considering his time of life, wondered if he was worth any one taking the bother of thinking about at all.
The bustle outside aroused him to the outer world; for orders had been issued to strike camp immediately, and begin the march to the Kangala, some five and twenty miles distant. But before the start was made the express-riders got their glass of grog apiece—indeed we dare not swear they did not get two.
“By Jove, Greenoak!” said Dick, as they were hurriedly rolling up their traps. “I would like to have a run across country with these express-riders one of these days. It must be thunderingly exciting.”
“Would you? Well, it’s likely to be, just soon, if all these accounts hold bottom, and I’m more than inclined to think they do. The Commandant is an old friend of mine, and there’s no more cool-headed, intrepid man on the whole continent of Africa. If he’s on the look-out, well then it’s time other people were. But you’d better leave express-riding alone. Your dad confided you to my charge, remember.”
Dick did remember, with his father’s solicitous and affectionate letter fresh in his pocket. And yet—and yet—there was at the bottom of his mind a half-fledged lurking determination that he would take his turn at express-riding—if he saw the chance. Two men—or three—darting across a hostile country, bearing with them momentous possibilities—could any situation of adventure hold out anything more alluring? But—he said nothing more on the subject then. Harley Greenoak was sometimes away from camp—on mysterious absences.
Chapter Seventeen.
The Express-Riders.
Corporal Sandgate and Trooper Stokes rode forth from the Police camp on express duty.
They were entrusted with very important despatches indeed; to the effect that, owing to the accidental explosion of an ammunition waggon, the large force of Frontier Armed and Mounted Police in camp at the Kangala might, at any moment, find itself alarmingly short of that essential article; and containing urgent injunctions to the authorities in charge of the border post—where an ample supply was stored—to send on a sufficiency of the same, under escort, without a moment’s delay.
The two men had been specially selected for this duty. Sandgate was a young Englishman of good family, who, like many a superfluous or younger son at that time, had emigrated as a recruit for the frontier corps, beginning at the bottom. He was a fine, sportsmanlike, athletic fellow, who could ride anything and anywhere, and had soon got his first hoist on the steps of the ladder of promotion. The other man, Stokes, was a wiry, hard-bitten Colonial, no longer quite young, who had been some years in the Police, but had twice lost his step as corporal owing to an inconvenient hankering after the bottle. When away from its temptations, as in the present case, he was one of the most useful men in the Force. Each, we have said, had been specially picked for this duty; Sandgate for his pluck and dash, and a reputation for readiness of resource which he had managed to set up, Stokes for his knowledge of veldt-craft.
The two express-riders started from the Kangala Camp at moon-rise, which took place early in the evening. It was calculated that, by riding all night, they should reach their objective, Fort Isiwa, not much later than the following midday. They could, by no means, cover the distance in anything like a straight line, nor was there, in many places, anything that could be called a track, which was where Stokes’s veldt-craft was to come in: even then their route skirted the turbulent Gudhluka Reserve, whose swarming inhabitants were just then in a particularly dangerous state of simmering unrest, and would as likely as not make short work of a couple of members of a body whom they loved not at all, given an opportunity. Once beyond this danger belt, however, there would be little or no risk, for, after that, the country was sparsely populated, and its inhabitants less disaffected. So the programme before these two was to push on for all they knew how, so as to get over the more risky portion of their ride under cover of night.
This being the case, it might have seemed a little strange that, having arrived at a point about five miles from camp, where the far from distinct waggon track forked into two, they should have reined in their horses, and sat listening.
“Tell you what, Sandgate,” muttered Stokes, cramming a quid of tobacco into his mouth—under the circumstances, for obvious reasons, the pipe must be foregone with stern self-denial. “Tell you what. It’s no good our waiting. He won’t come. He’s thought better of it. Greenoak’s likely turned up again and stopped it.”
Both men sat for a couple of minutes longer, their feet kicked loose from their stirrups. Then, as they were on the point of resuming their way, a sound caught their ears—the tread of a horse, on the way they had just come over.
“Hallo, you fellows! About given me up, I suppose?” said Dick Selmes in a low, excited tone, as he rode up.
“We were just going to,” answered Stokes, who was inclined to be short of speech and a bit sour towards so obvious a specimen of the gilded youth as this one. “And, I say, if you could keep that confounded brute of yours from jingling that swagger bit so as to be heard all over the Gudhluka Reserve, why, it’d be just as well.”
“He’ll be all right directly, soon as he’s let off a little more steam,” said Sandgate, good-humouredly, with a glance of approval at Dick’s spirited and well-groomed mount, which, in sheer enjoyment of the fresh freedom of the veldt, was tossing his head and blowing off clouds of vapour upon the cool night air.
That Dick Selmes had been able to join the two express-riders had involved some plotting; for, from the moment he had heard of their errand, incidentally through Inspector Chambers, to whose troop they belonged, he had firmly made up his mind that join them he would. But, on putting this to the Inspector, that worthy had promptly vetoed the whole business—subsequently compromising, however, by suggesting that the matter be submitted to the Commandant.
The latter, however, a fine old frontiersman born and bred, took a different view. He was a reserved, undemonstrative man, but had taken a liking to this dare-devil youngster by reason of his pluck and adaptability.
“I don’t really see why he shouldn’t go if he’s keen on it, Chambers,” he said. “The experience will do the young dog no harm, and he seems able to take care of himself. Greenoak keeps him too much in leading-strings. Oh, that,” as the Inspector, with a dry laugh, recalled a certain adventure in Vunisa’s location which would have cost our friend his life but for the shrewdness and promptitude of Harley Greenoak. “Well, yes. But, on the whole, Sandgate and Stokes are thoroughly reliable men, and will keep him in order. Of course, I need know nothing about it officially, nor need you; but if he should find his chance of slipping away after them, why, after all, he’s only our guest here, and can come and go as he chooses,” concluded the Commandant, with a twinkle in his eyes.
Harley Greenoak was away upon a critical and delicate mission which he had undertaken as a personal favour to the Commandant. As things were at present, he argued, his charge could come to no harm, at any rate for a day or two, by which time he himself would be back. All of which accounted for the comparative facility wherewith Dick had slipped away—a facility which struck our two express-riders as strange.
Something of a friendship had grown up between Dick Selmes and Corporal Sandgate. They were of the same age, had the same tastes, and, hailing from adjacent neighbourhoods in the Old Country, had acquaintance in common. On such they chatted in subdued tones, as they held on their way rapidly through the calm beauty of the African night. So far the said way was easy, as under the unerring guidance of Trooper Stokes they crossed each rolling upland, mimosa-dotted and grassy. Here and there, far-away, the mysterious dimness was relieved by the red glow of a grass fire, or might it be the weird signal of plotting savages? Soon, however, the ground became more rugged. They forded a small river, rippling deep down in a thickly bushed valley, and the steeds drank gratefully of its cool, if slightly brackish, water. Then on again.
“We must swing back again here,” said Stokes, as they drew rein on top of a ridge to loosen the girths and give the horses a quarter of an hour’s rest and feed. “There are kraals in front of us. I can smell ’em.”
“The deuce you can?” said Dick, vividly interested. “I can’t. You’re not getting at us, old chap, are you?”
To this Stokes vouchsafed no reply. He stroked his thick, wiry beard, looking unutterable contempt.
They resumed their way, sometimes making a considerable détour to avoid suspicious neighbourhood. Once the barking of dogs, alarmingly near, caused a thrill of anxious excitement. Had the tramp of their horse-hoofs been heard? they wondered, as they swerved off as noiselessly as possible. At last, what looked like a building loomed in front of them. Just behind it were three or four native huts.
“I thought so,” exclaimed Stokes. “Blamed if this isn’t old Shelbury’s store. We’ve come a leetle more out of our road than we need have done, Sandgate.”
“We’ll make it up. I say, hadn’t we better off-saddle and have some grub?” suggested Dick Selmes, cheerfully.
Stokes looked at him sourly.
“Grub!” he echoed. “You’ll get none o’ that here. Any fool could see that Shelbury’s cleared. Why, the place is all stove in and the whole show looted.”
Closer investigation proved such to be the case. The door hung on one hinge, and seemed very much battered.
“We’ll push on,” said Sandgate, with an anxious glance at the moon, now getting low. “The further we do that under cover of night the better.”
But Stokes, rapping out something about just taking half a squint inside, and catching them up again in a jiffy, was already off his horse. The other two, resuming their conversation about old times and scenes at home, held on the way he had pointed out to them. So taken up were they that it was quite a little while before it occurred to them that it might be advisable to pull up and wait for Stokes. Nor had they long to wait.
“Just as I thought,” he said, coming up. “The whole shoot has been cleared from top to bottom. You never saw such a mess in your life. But there’s no one dead inside.”
As they rode on, neither Sandgate nor Dick noticed that Stokes kept rather behind. The moon, too, had almost sunk, wherefore, perhaps, they further failed to notice that his tan-cord uniform jacket bulged.
Chapter Eighteen.
The Ordeal.
It was just the dark hour before dawn when Sandgate called a halt.
“We might safely do half an hour’s snooze here,” he said. “The gees want that amount of rest. You turn in, Selmes, and I’ll do horse-guard. No—no—don’t wrangle, man; each minute of that means so much less hard-earned snooze; besides, I’m in command here. Stokes, you look done too. Well, off you go, both of you.”
The latter, with a cavernous yawn, was off like a log. Dick, with a sleepy laugh, followed suit. Then Sandgate, loosening the girths, but not off-saddling, allowed the horses to graze, their bridles trailing on the ground, and set to work to watch.
The place in which they had halted was among some broken rocks, a small hollow, in feet, and admirably adapted for a hiding-place. The back was overhung by boulders, and in front, beyond a lip of the same, the ground fell away in a rugged slope to the bottom of a deep bushy kloof. To Sandgate, left to his lonely vigil, that brief half-hour seemed long enough. To the other two, heavy in slumber, it was as a flash.
“Now then, Selmes. Time,” he whispered, with a hand on the other’s shoulder. In a trice Dick was up, but yawning pathetically. He shivered too, for a thin damp mist was stealing athwart the rocks and bush sprays.
“All serene,” he said, ready and alert. “Kick up the other fellow.”
But although this was done, and that literally, for all the effect it produced Stokes might as well have been dead, or a bit of timber. And then, as an acrid fume rose poisonous upon the cold morning air, Sandgate stood aghast with wrath and horror. His colleague and subordinate was drunk—dead drunk.
Yet how? In a moment something of the truth flashed across his brain. That wretched trader’s store they had passed! Stokes must have found grog in there, which had been overlooked by the plunderers. His cursed instinct had moved him to go inside and explore. There was no sign of any bottle about Stokes, certainly, but this he would have been slim enough to drop unseen and unheard. Now the mystery of his lagging behind stood explained.
“Great Scott! And the despatches!” exclaimed Sandgate, horrified.
“Take ’em on, and leave him here to get sober,” suggested Dick. “He deserves it.”
But Sandgate objected to deserting a comrade in dangerous country. He himself would be reduced to the ranks, of course, kicked out of the Force most likely, but he could not abandon a comrade. To this Dick suggested that he should remain with Stokes while Sandgate rode on.
“That won’t do either, Selmes,” said the latter, gloomily. “You’re new to this country, and in my charge. No—that won’t do.”
“But think of the vital importance of the despatches,” urged Dick. “This fellow has brought it all upon himself. Besides, he’s supposed to know his way about better than both of us put together. So I say, let him take his chance.”
“We’ll have one more try,” said Sandgate.
They had, and it was an exhaustive one. They shook and hustled the stupefied man, and threw in his face what little water remained in their bottles. In vain. Stokes merely gave an inarticulate grunt, and subsided into deep slumber again. Then they tried another plan—that of placing him on his feet by main force. Still in vain. The drunken man slid to the ground again, and in their efforts to keep him up both Sandgate and Dick lost their balance, stumbled, and fell with him.
Before they could rise several pairs of muscular hands had gripped each of them, and bulky forms pressed them down. So effectually were they pinioned that they could not even reach their revolvers, which were promptly reft from them. The little hollow which was their resting-place was swarming with Kafirs, who had stolen upon them like snakes what time their attention was taken up endeavouring to restore consciousness to Stokes; even the warning which should have been conveyed by the alarmed snorting and restiveness of the horses had escaped them. They were absolutely in the power of these savages, who had surprised and captured them without giving them an opportunity of striking a blow in defence of their lives, and, to one of them, of his trust.
The first thing their captors did was to bind them securely with the reims cut from their horses’ headstalls. Then a hurried consultation began among them. A man who seemed in authority—a tall, evil-looking ruffian—issued an order. The unconscious Stokes was seized and roughly turned over, face uppermost. A moment’s examination sufficing to satisfy them that he was hopelessly drunk, half a dozen assegais were driven through his body, as coolly as though his murderers were merely slaughtering a sheep; while his comrades lay sick with honour at the sight, and justifiably apprehensive as to what their own fate was destined to be.
They had not long to wait. Under the hurried directions of another man, a short, thick-set Kafir—not the one in seeming authority—they were subjected to a quick but exhaustive search, when, of course, the despatch to the officer commanding at Fort Isiwa came to light.
“This—what it say?” said the short Kafir, in very fair English, tapping the document, which he held open by one corner.
“Oh, it’s merely a letter asking for a few more horses to be sent on to Kangala,” answered Sandgate, with as much coolness as he could assume.
“That a lie!” was the prompt response. Then, threateningly, “Read that—out, so I hear it.”
“If you can talk English, surely you can read it,” answered Sandgate.
“Read it! Read!”—thrusting the paper before his face. “Read—or—”
“Or what?”
“That,” said the Kafir, pointing to the body of their murdered comrade, which the savages had already stripped, and which lay, a hideous and gory sight enough to strike terror into the survivors. But these were of the flower and pick of their nationality, and to neither of them did it for one instant occur to purchase his life by a revelation which might result in calamitous, even appalling, consequences. To both the moment was one which had reached a point of critical sublimity, as they took in the barbarous forms, the ring of cruel countenances, the dark, grisly hands grasping the ready and murderous assegai. Both were staring Death in the face very closely.
“Well, I shan’t read it,” said Sandgate, decisively.
“Nor I,” echoed Dick Selmes.
At a word from the English-speaking Kafir, a powerful, ochre-smeared ruffian seized Sandgate by the chin, and, jerking back his head, laid the sharp edge of an assegai blade against his distended throat.
“Now—will you read?” came the question again.
The natural fear of death, and that in a horrible form, brought the dews of perspiration to the unfortunate man’s brow, as the evil savage, whose hand quivered with eagerness to inflict the final slash, actually divided the skin. Yet, looking his tormentors steadily in the face, he answered—
“No!”
The man in authority said a few words. The assegai blade was lowered, and Sandgate’s head was released.
“Now,” went on the English-speaking Kafir, “we not kill you—not yet. We try hot assegai blade—between toes. That make you read, hey?”
And even as he spoke a fire was in process of kindling, which a few minutes sufficed to blow up into a roaring blaze.
If the imminence of a horrible form of death had been appalling to these two, it was nothing to this. Should they be able to stand firm under the ghastly torture that awaited, the very thought of which was enough to turn them sick? And yet—the issue at stake! The war-cloud, though brooding, had not yet burst; but did it get to the knowledge of their enemies that the only force which overawed them, and to that extent held them in check, was short of ammunition, why, the effect would be to let loose tens of thousands of raging devils, not only upon that force itself, but upon the whole more or less defenceless frontier. This was in the minds of both, as quickly Sandgate’s boot was cut from his foot, while one fiend, who had plucked a red-hot blade from the fire, stood, eagerly awaiting his orders.
“Now—will you read?”
“No!” shouted Sandgate, his eyes staring at his questioner in horror and despair. Then followed a long and shuddering groan, and in it, and the convulsive writhe of the victim, Dick Selmes seemed to share. His comrade’s agony was his own.
At a sign from the English-speaking Kafir the instrument of torment was withdrawn.
“First taste,” he said grimly. “This go on all day. How you like that? Now—you read?”
“No!” thundered the victim.
Then something else thundered. Crack! Crack! The barbarian with the hot iron pitched heavily forward, shot through the brain, while another of those holding Sandgate shared the same fate. Crack! Crack! Not a moment of interval—down went two more, and those immediately next to the prisoners; then two more in the same way. Instinctively the others sprang back, realising that this was the point of danger; but still that unceasing fire went on pitilessly decimating them. Wildly they looked at the point whence it came, but vainly, for the morning mist had so thickened that they could but dimly see the outline of the rocks which overhung the back of the hollow. A great and thunderous roar, accompanying a hail of heavy slugs into the very thick of them, completed their discomfiture. With a wholesome recollection of the artillery practice some of them had witnessed on the banks of the Tsolo River not long before, they cried that the Amapolise were upon them, and disappeared helter-skelter into the mist and the bush at the lower side of the hollow.
Our two friends could hardly believe in their good fortune. Yet—no escape was to be theirs. A man was beside them—a black man—and in his hand a knife. They would be murdered, of course, in the hour of rescue. But—he was cutting their bonds.
“Quick! Come with me,” he said in English, at the same time collecting the Police carbines and revolvers lying on the ground, which the panic-stricken Kafirs had omitted to carry away. Him they followed—Sandgate limping painfully—as he led the way to the rocks above, where, ensconced in a cleft which commanded the hollow beneath, Harley Greenoak sat coolly refilling the magazine of a Winchester repeating rifle, while an old elephant gun of enormous calibre lay on the ground beside him.
“You’re well out of that,” he said, hardly looking up. “Lucky I got back to camp when I did, and John Voss came in at the same time with the notion he had picked up that Pahlandhle’s crowd were particularly on the look-out for express-riders. I formed my plan there and then; borrowed Mainwaring’s Winchester—dashed bad shooting-gun it is too—and, with John Voss’s old elephant roer to give the idea of artillery, why—brought the whole thing off. Even then the mist counted for something.”
In the last-named both now recognised one of the smartest native detectives attached to the F.A.M. Police.
“Come along,” went on Greenoak, rising. “We must get on with those despatches. No time to lose.”
“But—they are lost,” said Sandgate, wearily.
“No, they ain’t. John’s got ’em.”
The black man grinned as he handed the paper over to the corporal.
“But our horses?” said Dick Selmes, dismayed.
“Well, I got back one of them,” answered Greenoak, equably. “One of you can ride John’s—he’s quite able to make his way back to the Kangala alone. So there are mounts for the three of us, and the sooner we get on to the Isiwa fort the better.
“Well, Dick,” he went on, “I take it you’ve found your first experience of express-riding ‘thunderingly exciting,’ as you were saying the other day.”
“I should think so—ugh!” And something like a shudder accompanied the words, as the speaker recalled their recent ghastly experience, and the lamentable fate of the unfortunate man whose body lay just beneath, and which they could not even spare the time to bury.