Chapter Sixteen.
First Blood.
Peters was fossicking away at his shaft sinking, rather as if nothing had happened, yet all the while he was thinking out the situation from every side.
For a good deal had happened, and that since the averted tragedy of the race meeting. True to his word Lamont had made another visit to Zwabeka’s kraal, and had persisted in making it alone. This Peters would not hear of, and after considerable altercation they had gone together. But for all they elicited—anything definite, that is—they might just as well have stayed at home; yet there was a something in the demeanour of the savages that seemed to make up for this. They were altogether too cordial, too effusive—in short, over-acted their part. From this, also true to his word, Lamont had duly sent in to Orwell the deductions he had drawn.
It had been a risky venture, knowing what they did. They had avoided spending a night there, and all the while, not seeming to be, were keenly on the alert, outwardly chaffing at ease with their doubtful entertainers. Qubani was away; where, nobody knew. Au! an isanusi was not an ordinary mortal, they said. His goings and comings were perforce mysterious at times. However, they had returned in safety and had experienced no overt manifestation of hostility.
On these things was Peters pondering as he kept his boys tolerably hard at their job. The new development of affairs was particularly vexatious to him, in that he had of late detected signs that this time he was not toiling in vain. Any day, any moment, might disclose a rich field, and then what fun it would be to go to Lamont and say—“What have I always told you? We’ve ‘struck ile’ at last, and now you can get away home—and clear off all the encumbrances on your family place, and then—where the devil do I come in?” Yes, he had often rehearsed the revelation, and doing so had come to the conclusion that even luck had its seamy side.
What on earth would he do when Lamont had gone for good? Lamont would probably marry and take up his position, and then he, Peters, with all the wealth he was going to take out of this hole in front of him—why, he was far happier as things were.
You see, he was rather an out-of-the-way character was Peters.
Now a murmur among his boys attracted his attention, and Lamont himself appeared on the scene.
“Here, what the devil d’you think, Peters?” he said glumly, as he slid from the saddle. “Here’s this fellow Ancram turned up again.”
“Ancram? Good Lord! Has he come to stay?”
“Rather. He borrowed a horse from Fullerton, and he’s got luggage enough on his saddle to weigh down two railway porters. Said he had such a good time before that he must come and see us again. I couldn’t turn him away, and so there he is, damn him.”
Peters roared.
“Don’t you get your shirt out over it, old chap,” he said. “We’ll work him out with a real scare this time—and that mighty sharp.”
Here again how little did the speaker know how much earnest there was underlying this promise. The shimmer of heat rose from the pleasant roll of undulating country. The tranquil life of the veldt lay outspread around, peaceful, sunny, smiling; but—beneath?
“That’s all jolly fine,” rejoined Lamont disgustedly. “But he’s grown too knowing since he’s been at Gandela. I believe he smokes that we were ‘kidding’ him before.”
“Well, we’ll do it more to the purpose this time, and no mistake. Oh, don’t you bother about it, Lamont. We’ll get the biggest grin out of him we ever got yet. He shall earn his keep that way, by the Lord Harry!”
“It’ll have to be a big one then; I detest the chap. Well, I must be getting on. Two more rinderpest cases. What do you think of that?”
“Nothing. Wait till I get a little deeper here; and if all the cattle in Matabeleland were to snuff out, it wouldn’t matter.”
“Well, that’s what they’re going to do. This is a God-forsaken country, after all. So long.”
About an hour after Lamont had gone, two young Matabele came into the camp, and saluted pleasantly.
“Why, who are these, Inyovu?” asked Peters, seeing that in outward appearance they were the very image of his boy.
“They are my brothers, Nkose.”
“Your brothers? And what do they want?”
“They would like to work at the mine, Nkose.”
“But I don’t want them. I have boys enough.”
“But such are only Makalaka, Nkose. These are much better. Au!”
With the last exclamation the speaker turned sharply. As he did so, Peters instinctively turned his head to look in the same direction, and—received a whack on the back of it that made him stagger. A shout was raised—
“Throw him in! Throw him in!” The mouth of the shaft gaped behind him. The three young savages closed with him, and Inyovu called to the other two to pinion him while he got in another blow with the pick-handle. They were young, and athletic. Peters was not young, but was athletic too, and the struggle became a furious one. He could not draw his revolver, because, foreseeing the attempt, one of them had kept a hand upon it. Inyovu the while was dancing round the combatants, holding a pick-handle all ready to strike when he saw a chance of not felling one of his brothers instead. Then Peters saw his chance, and—kicked. Right in the pit of the stomach it caught the man who was giving him most trouble. With a gasp of anguish this fellow staggered back, then doubling up, toppled down the shaft behind him. Quick as lightning, and taking advantage of the momentary panic, Peters shot forth his left fist, and caught Inyovu under the jaw. It was a regular knock-out blow, and Inyovu dropped. The other, however, still hung on, and, looking up, the reason for this became clear.
Heading for the spot at a run came quite a number of natives, and shields and assegais glancing through the sparse bush told upon what sort of errand were these. It was manifest that the rising had begun.
Do what he would Peters could not throw off his wiry antagonist, who hung on to him like a terrier, utterly impervious to kicks or blows, the object being to prevent him from effecting his escape until the others should come up, and then—good-night! The Makalaka boys had already taken to their heels and were fleeing wildly.
Then fortune favoured him. His adversary slipped on a loose stone, and in trying to save himself loosed the hand which had been gripping the revolver holster. It was a slip there was no retrieving, and in a twinkling a bullet crashed through his ribs, sending him spinning round and round, to flatten out, face downward, to the earth.
A wild shout went up from the advancing savages. At them Peters sent one look and pointed his pistol. No, they were not near enough for a shot to prove effective, but quite near enough for him to start running—and that at nearly his best pace—homeward, for he had no horse.
As he turned to run, the pursuing Matabele set up a series of the most appalling yells; which, however, so far from appalling the object of their pursuit, caused him to laugh grimly to himself as he thought how these idiots were wasting wind in making a wholly unnecessary noise.
Peters was as hard as nails, and absolutely sound in wind and limb—yet he started handicapped by reason of the strain upon both effected by his recent struggle. And he had about two miles to cover before reaching the homestead. Even then, was safety there? Lamont might not have returned, in all probability would not have—and then these might waylay and murder him at their leisure; whereas the two of them might have made a good show of defence. Of Ancram’s presence he took no account whatever.
All this passed through his brain as he ran—yet ran with judgment. He had not put forth his best pace as yet. A glance over his shoulder from time to time told him that his enemies, though they kept the distance equal, were not gaining on him, and that being so, he would reserve a spurt for emergencies. Thus the chase sped on, and the pursuing savages strung out upon the track of the one white man like a pack of hounds in full cry.
Ancram the while was sitting in the shade of the rough verandah, reading a novel, and, alternately, thinking. He had returned there with a purpose, and that was to force Lamont to do something for him; wherefore the ill-concealed ungraciousness of his welcome had no effect upon him whatever. He could make it unpleasant for Lamont—very unpleasant; he had already noticed a growing coolness towards the latter since he had insinuated here and there the tale—his version—of the affair at Courtland Mere. And Clare Vidal? Watching her furtively but keenly he had recognised that she entertained a high opinion of Lamont, but not of himself. Well, that might be altered, with a little judicious innuendo, as to the first, at any rate, if not as to the last. She certainly was a splendid looking girl, and ought to have her eyes opened. Lovely eyes they were, too, by Jove!
Looking up now, he saw Lamont strolling across from the stable.
“I say, old chap, do you go to bed with that magazine rifle?” he said banteringly, in allusion to the weapon the other always carried during the last few days.
“You may yet come to see the sound judgment even of that,” he answered grimly.
And such are the coincidences, the ironies of life, that even as he spoke a couple of shots snapped forth from among the thorns along the top of the river bank, together with an astonishing whoop.
“Hi-ha! Lamont! Look out! Look out! The devils are coming!”
“That’s Peters,” he said.
“Why, what the deuce—” began Ancram, looking blank, as a horrible suspicion of the truth began to dawn upon him.
Both men stood staring in the direction of the sounds. Then one of them instinctively and characteristically slipped under cover of the house. But that one was not Lamont. Now Peters appeared, sprinting in fine form across the open. Behind him, a flourish of shields above the thorn-bushes, and some threescore savages sprang forth at a run, determined to fall on the place before its surprised inmate or inmates should have time to realise what had happened. But they reckoned without one of the said inmates.
The magazine rifle spoke, and a bedizened warrior flung his shield in the air and plunged forward upon his face. Another followed suit—then another. A magazine rifle, accurately handled, is a terror, and so the assailants realised as a third went to ground, and then a fourth, and all in a moment’s space. With a loud cry of startled warning they halted, then dropped down into the cover of the bushes and stones, yet not before the marksman, detecting a momentary bunching of the crowd, had let go another shot, this time with more deadly effect still.
“What’s the bag, Lamont?” cried Peters, with a laugh, though still panting with his run.
“Five, for cert. I think two or three more are damaged as well. Fired into the brown that last time.”
“Well done—well done. Now I’m going to take a hand;” and diving into the house he quickly opened the armoury chest, of which he had a duplicate key, and produced a weapon exactly similar to Lamont’s.
“Hallo, Ancram, you back again?” he cried in hurried greeting to that worthy. “Now you’re going to see that fight you were spoiling for,” going to the window which commanded the point of attack. “Oh, blazes! The devils ain’t going to give us a show after all.”
For the enemy seemed to have vanished into empty air. Yet both knew that they were lying there meditating on the situation. Lamont’s prompt and accurate shooting had been of incalculable moral effect; and that one man, standing out in the open, should be able to do such execution, all with the same gun and not even pausing to reload, was not less so. Would that gun go on shooting for ever? was what they were asking themselves.
“Dig us out a drink, Lamont, while I keep an eye on our black brother,” said Peters. “My tongue’s hanging out after that run, I can tell you.”
“That holds good of all hands, I guess,” was the answer; and Ancram, after a considerable stiff dose, began to grow valiant and hold the fighting qualities of the concealed foe exceeding cheap.
“Don’t crow yet, Ancram,” said Peters grimly. “These are only the advance guard of a much bigger lot. You’ll get all you want of them before to-night.”
“No! Why d’you think that?” and even the abundant infusion of Dutch courage was not quite abundant enough to stifle the anxiety underlying the query.
“Because— Ah! There you are! I thought so.”
A whiz of something, together with a double report. A bullet thudded hard upon the outside wall, knocking up a cloud of chips and dust. Then a regular fusillade rattled from the nearest thorn-bushes, and the vicious hum of missiles in uncomfortable proximity. At the same time tossing shields and glinting assegais stirred along the mimosa fringe, as a swarm of savages broke into view, hurrying to the support of those who had first attacked.
Chapter Seventeen.
A Trap.
Ancram felt his face going cold and white. He was not by temperament especially brave, and had never seen a shot fired, or a blow struck in anger, with lethal weapon that is, in his life, and now the whiz and impact of these humming missiles, any one of which might knock him into the next world in less than a second, struck terror into his soul. So too did the sight of those long bright blades in the grip of these threatening savages, brawny of frame and ferocious of aspect, in their wild and fantastic war-gear of cow-tails and monkey skins and variegated hide. Not to put too fine a point upon it, he was badly scared, and, what was worse, looked all that.
“Here—hi! Hold up!” cried Lamont, as ducking spasmodically to avoid a bullet that had whizzed nearly a yard over his head Ancram cannoned violently against him. “Confound it, you’ve upset all my ‘peg,’ which is a waste of good liquor. Never mind, there’s plenty more, fortunately. You’d better have another yourself, Ancram.”
“Er—ah—I think I had.”
But the hand that held his glass trembled so violently that he spilled nearly half of what he had just mixed for himself. At the same time Peters burst into a roar of laughter, but not at this.
“There’s a nigger,” he explained, “who keeps bobbing his head round a stone, but he’s in too much of a funk to keep it there; and the expression on his face as he bobs it back again is enough to kill a cat.”
Ancram stared, and gave a sickly grin. He couldn’t have raised a spontaneous laugh then—no not to save his life. Yet these other two were keenly enjoying the joke.
“They won’t show in a hurry,” said Lamont. “These magazine guns of ours have put the fear of the Lord into them.”
“Will they go away then, and leave us?” said Ancram eagerly.
“Not much. They’ll lie low till it’s dark. Then they’ll have things all their own way.”
Ancram went pale again.
“But—but— D’you mean to say,” he stammered, “that we shall be—at their mercy?”
“Just that,” answered Lamont, who was busy lighting his pipe. “I say, Ancram, it’s different here now to that day at Courtland Mere. Slightly warmer, eh?”
He took a fiendish pleasure in the situation, as the incidents of that memorable day came before him once more. Then, and since, this man had held him up as a coward, this man standing here now with the blanched face and staring eyes. Yet if ever any man was in a blue funk, that man was Ancram—here at this moment.
“Oh, come now, Lamont,” objected the latter, with a forced laugh. “You’re humbugging, you know. You wouldn’t be so jolly cool and contented if it was really as you say.”
“As to being cool, you’ve got to be in these fixes. As for contented—I tell you I’m most infernally discontented. D’you think it’s any fun to have my place burnt down, and all sorts of things in it for which I still have a use? Well, it isn’t.”
“But ourselves—our lives?” urged Ancram wonderingly.
“We’re not going to lose those if we can help it. We’re going to skip.”
“But how? When?”
“Soon as it gets dark enough. Buck up, man. You’re in luck’s way. Why, you’ve got here just in the nick of time to see some of the fun you were hankering after that first night you arrived.”
“In luck’s way! Fun!” At that moment Ancram would have given a great deal more than he had ever possessed to find himself back safe and sound within even the doubtful security afforded by Gandela.
“You remember,” went on Lamont cruelly, “that night you arrived? It would be a jolly good job if we did have a war. It would be no end fun, and you’d enjoy it. Well, there’s a whole heap of enjoyment sticking out for you on those terms—if we get through to-night, that is.”
“What are our chances, then?”
“About one in three. Stand back. You’re getting into line with that window again.”
Ancram stepped aside with wondrous alacrity.
“Er—I say, can’t you lend me a gun of some sort?” he said.
“A gun? Done any rifle shooting?”
“Not much—in fact very little.”
“Then a bird gun is the thing for you. With buckshot cartridges it’s a terror—especially at close quarters. By Jove, Ancram! that last shoot we had at Courtland, you little thought that next time you and I were fellow guns it wouldn’t be as against the harmless homely rocketer, but the whole real live Matabele?”
“No, rather not,” answered Ancram, a little more confidently, for the cool, devil-may-care fearlessness of the other two was beginning to infect him. “And—er, Lamont, I think I’ll have another peg, if I may.”
The hot afternoon drowsed on, and the assailants, or besiegers rather, after the first few volleys made no further sign. It was clear that Lamont had accurately sized up their programme. Once, Peters had thought to descry the head of a savage peering round a bush, and had promptly sent a bullet where he judged the body should be, but there was nothing to tell with what success or not. Clearly they were playing a waiting game, for they made no attempt to occupy the cattle kraal, and rake the house from there. Those awful magazine rifles had established within them a wholesome fear.
But they had no idea of abandoning their plan, for all that. That house would be worth plundering. Its owner was known as one of the well-to-do settlers, and there would be stores of all kinds, and ammunition and firearms—good ones too. For the rest, they had already lost several warriors and thirsted for revenge.
During the hours of daylight the occupants were not idle. The position being menaced from one side only, they need only give cursory vigilance to the other, where the ground was too open for any wily savage to venture to risk his skin. So, while one watched, the other was busy putting up in portable packets a sufficiency of provisions to last for some days at a pinch, likewise as much ammunition as could be carried.
“Now we’ll have a feed,” said Lamont. “That’ll last us the night through, and spare our supplies for the road. They’re bound to burn this shack down in any case. Aren’t they, Peters?”
“Cert.”
“All right then. Now for the trap.”
And Ancram looked on with mystified eyes, while Lamont was arranging what seemed like a dummy parcel on a beam over the centre of the room, and connecting it by a string to a cross string, fastened about half a yard above the ground. This anybody exploring the room was bound to trip over, and then—down came the dummy parcel, hard and violently upon the table. Having tested it several times, he untied it from the string and chucked it into a corner.
“That’ll be all right. There’ll be some vacant places in kingdom come filled up before sunrise,” he said. And to Ancram’s inquiries as to what sort of booby trap they were concocting, the answers of both men were dark.
The sun dipped to the far horizon, throwing out his long sweeping rays of gold across the silent land. But there was no sign of the returning herd of cattle, of which Ujojo was in charge. It was significant, too, that no sign of a native servant was visible among the huts since the time that Peters had been chased in. Ujojo had, of course, run off the cattle as his share of the spoil. The few calves in the kraal were bellowing impatiently for their defaulting mothers, and some fowls were clucking and scratching about. In a few minutes it would be quite dark.
“Ready, Ancram?” said Peters.
“Ye-es. But—who’s going to fetch the horses?”
“Nobody,” said Lamont briskly. “We travel per Shanks his mare.”
“But—what’ll Fullerton say? I borrowed a horse from him.”
“Then he’ll lose it. Why, if anyone tried to get out the horses he’d make such a devil of a row over it that our scheme would be blown upon right there. And they wouldn’t funk rushing us in the dark, when we couldn’t see to shoot straight. Now then—got your gun and cartridges? That’s right. Out of that window, and stick hard to Peters. For your life walk quietly and don’t let a sound be heard. I’m going to set the trap.”
But Peters protested this was his job—protesting, however, to deaf ears.
“Well then, for God’s sake, Lamont, be careful,” he whispered earnestly.
For all they had primed him liberally with ‘Dutch courage’ Ancram’s heart sank into his boots, as he found himself in the fresh, cool night air, and realised that anything over a hundred savages lurked within hardly more than three times that number of yards of him, thirsting for his blood. No need to enjoin caution upon him. He stepped as though walking on hot bricks. Suddenly he gave a violent start, and some special extension of the mercy of Providence alone restrained him from blazing off his gun. For he felt, rather than heard, stealthy footsteps behind him. Then the merest whisper breathed through the darkness.
“It’s all right. I’ve done it. Now let’s get on.”
And Ancram’s knees tottered under him in the revulsion of feeling. No murderous savage was this, stealing up to transfix him in the darkness. It was only that they had been joined by Lamont.
“Whau! it is near the time,” whispered Jabula, a fighting induna of the old Insukamini regiment. “It will never be darker than this, and these fools will be asleep by now. They believe we have gone away.”
“Not yet, not yet,” cautioned another man of equal rank. “When they have drunk a little more they will be less watchful I know these whites and their ways.”
After some more whispered discussions it was agreed that they should wait a little longer; and they lay there, in the darkness, impatiently fingering their blades, and thinking hungrily over all the good things they would find within that house when they had cut its occupants to pieces.
Savages rarely embark on night attacks, any more than they are keen to venture against unknown odds. These knew the odds they were facing: two cool and resolute men—of Ancram’s presence they were unaware—armed with rifles which seemed to require no reloading, and who rarely missed their aim. If such were to be overpowered, without terrific loss of life to themselves, it must be during the hours of darkness. That was the only chance, and even it was a desperate one. But for nearly two hundred of them to retire before two men, however resolute, however well-armed—no, that was not to be thought of.
The time had come, and now each supple, crawling shape moved noiselessly through the darkness. Those who had white among their war adornments had removed such, and were indistinguishable from the blackness that enveloped them. On the edge of the cover they halted, listening intently, but that dark silent house, now quite close, gave forth no sound, showed no glimmer of a light. They moved forward once more, those creeping snakes, a portion of them spreading out over the open ground, their tactics being to surround the place completely, lest its occupants should endeavour to escape in the darkness.
The circle closed in, and now they were right under the walls. Still no sound! What did it mean? Simply that the man who had counselled further delay had spoken the right word. The occupants were probably fast asleep.
Softly, noiselessly, Jabula put forth his hand and grasped the handle of the door; softly, noiselessly, he turned it. To his amazement the door readily opened. It was not even fast.
He whispered a moment to those behind him, and he and several others entered the room. Then, as prearranged, a blaze sprang up as one of them had struck a match and lighted an impromptu torch of grass and sticks intertwisted, and rubbed over with grease. More amazement! There, in an arm-chair, with back towards them, lounged the figure of a man. The broad-brimmed hat was pulled rather forward over the eyes, as though its wearer were fast asleep.
“U’ Lamonti!” murmured Jabula; adding, by way of injunction, “He is sleepy with drink. Do not kill him. We will take him alive.”
For a moment the induna and those inside the door stood contemplating the sleeping figure, the fitful glare of the impromptu torch lighting their savage faces and blood-covetous eyes. They felt no further misgiving. The other white man would be asleep too—also drunk. What surpassing fools these Amakiwa were.
“Wake, Lamonti,” said Jabula, advancing to the arm-chair and its occupant. “Lo, we have come to visit thee.”
And those were the last words he ever spoke, for he had tripped and stumbled over a line of taut string stretched across the room, and at the moment he did so there was a concussion that might well have shaken the world, together with a most awful and appalling roar; which, however, those within or around did not even hear, inasmuch as they, together with Lamont’s homestead, had been literally blown from the face of the earth.
When the sun rose the following morning, it rose upon a strange scene. The site of Lamont’s homestead was now represented by a huge pit surrounded by a jumble of stones and fragments of wood and of iron—human remains, also fragmentary, in ghastly profusion, mixed with half-charred shields and fused and twisted metal. And outside the radius of this indescribable ruin, an odd savage here and there was picking himself up, and blinking dazedly as he asked a comrade what had happened, and was surprised that though he could see the latter’s lips moving he could not hear one word of what was said. Indeed it would be long before those who had escaped with life would recover from the shock of that awful concussion, even if they ever did.
Chapter Eighteen.
The Fugitives.
“But—this is surely not the way to Gandela,” whispered Ancram, when they had got over about three miles.
“Quite right. It isn’t,” answered Peters. “We’ll get there kind of roundabout. You see, if by any chance our trap should miss fire, and they come after us, they’d head along the straight road to Gandela. Where’d we be then?”
“But,” objected Ancram, looking dubiously at the black line in front, just discernible in its loom against the stars, “isn’t this the line of forest where we heard the lions that evening? We are not going into that—at night, too—surely?”
“Right again—as to the first. For the second—wrong. We are.”
“But—the lions?”
“We must chance them.”
“I told you the great god Chance counted for a lot up-country, eh, Ancram?” cut in Lamont.
The other made no reply. What with those beastly Matabele behind, with their beastly assegai blades, keen and bright and hungering for his vitals, and a ramping and a roaring lion—or perhaps several—ready to spring out on him from those black depths, his heart was in his boots. He would have given something now to have taken Lamont’s advice and to have cleared right out of this infernal country. Let them but come through this safely, and then how blithely would he bid good-bye to Matabeleland, and all its abominable conditions of life, for ever.
They seemed to be following a game path as they threaded the black depths of the forest. Peters led the way, and it was a marvel to Ancram how he kept the track. Peters might be a bit too patronising and familiar under ordinary circumstances, but under such as these Peters had his uses—by Jove, he had!
“Look out for snakes, Ancram,” said Lamont, who was bringing up the rear. “They often lie out in a path like this at night.”
Ancram started, instinctively stopping, with the result that the other cannoned into him. His nerves all unstrung he came near emitting a shout.
“Good Lord! Oh, it’s you, Lamont!” he ejaculated, the perspiration pouring from him. “I say, though, how the deuce am I to look out for snakes, or any damned thing else, when I can’t see an inch beyond the end of my nose? Eh?”
“Of course. I thought I’d warn you, that’s all.”
It amused Lamont to play upon his fears. This fellow had thrust himself upon him all unbidden, and had requited his hospitality first of all by trying to blackmail him, and then by disseminating slanders about him; slanders relating to his cowardice. And the fellow himself was an arrant coward. Assuredly he deserved punishment, and now he was getting it. The process of administering it was rather a congenial amusement.
Suddenly there broke forth upon the night a loud booming roar. The very air seemed to vibrate with it.
“Good God! What’s that?” gasped Ancram. A smothered chuckle on the part of his companions was the first answer.
“The rats are in the trap,” said Lamont. “Were, rather, because now they’re nowhere; no, nor the trap either.”
“Rats? Trap? I don’t quite follow, Lamont,” said Ancram helplessly, “Don’t you remember wondering what sort of booby trap I was setting? Well I was rehearsing then with a dummy. After you two had cleared, I rigged up the real thing, and it consisted of I shouldn’t like to say how many pounds of dynamite. It seems to have answered finely. Only, Ancram, I shan’t be able to entertain you again under my more or less inhospitable roof for a good long time to come, because my poor old shack has just been blown off the face of the earth, and with it. Heaven knows how many Matabele.”
“D’you mean to say you’ve blown up your own house, Lamont?”
“Not me—but the confiding savage who’d called to cut our three throats while we were asleep—as he thought. We knew he would, and—he did.”
“By Jove, what a sell for them! Why, you’re a genius, Lamont!” pronounced Ancram admiringly.
“Anyhow,” said Peters, “it’s been the saving of our lives so far, for otherwise, directly they found we weren’t in the place, they’d have started out to look for us. Now they won’t, because there’ll be few enough left to do it, and those’ll be more’n sick of us by this time.”
“It’ll be the saving of the lives of a good many white men, when the news spreads, as it soon will,” appended Lamont. “It’ll make ’em think twice before they meddle with houses in future—too much tagati about the job—and so our fellows will get a show.”
He was thinking, too, of the stories he had filled up old Qubani with, on the Gandela race-course, as to how the ground immediately around the township was extensively mined; and now this last manoeuvre of his would go to confirm it. The savage has a holy horror of unseen danger. He might, indirectly, have been the means of again saving Gandela, at a very perilous and critical time. Then he fell to wondering whether Clare Vidal was already away and safe at Buluwayo.
Day broke upon an expanse of wild, hilly country, moderately bushed. Huge baboons barked at them from their fastnesses among the piles of craggy boulders which heaved up here and there against a drear and lowering sky, and which seemed a perfect rookery of predatory birds—falcons and buzzards and kites—soaring and circling aloft. And now a halt was called.
“About time too,” groaned Ancram. “I don’t believe I could have gone a step farther.”
The other two made no comment upon this, but both were thinking the same thought. A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and that link in this chain spelt Ancram. He was dead tired already, he declared, and his boots were wearing holes in his feet into the bargain. And the situation was serious enough in itself. They had no doubt but that the whole native population was up in arms, and here they were, only three, and afoot at that, in the heart of the hostile ground. True they were well-armed, and two of them, at any rate, resolute and full of resource; but even that wouldn’t count for much with an entire population against them.
“Well, see how you feel after a feed, Ancram,” said Lamont. “We can rest here a bit too. In fact, it’s none too safe travelling in the daytime at all.”
They were out of the forest belt now, and the spot marked out for their halt was on the side of a great granite kopje, with long tambuti grass and acacia growing right up around its base. Hence they could see, and not be seen. Lamont and Peters took turn about to watch, while the other two slept. A friendly squabble took place between them as to who should take first watch, and, as usual in such a case, Peters had to ‘obey orders.’
It was a wretched day. The dreary cloudiness had turned to drizzle. Under ordinary circumstances the prospect of rain would have been heart rejoicing. Now, with his homestead blown to bits, and no prospect of returning to his farm, possibly for months, or doing any good with it when he got there, the watcher was wishing the longed-for rain somewhere else. In spite of the night’s exertions he felt no desire for sleep, and as he sat there, while the other two snored, gazing forth on the drear wildness of the scene before him, why was it that his thoughts should revert so persistently to Clare Vidal? Yet they did. He recalled that scene on the race-course, and somehow he could remember every word she had said, and how she had said it. Then that last visit he had made at Fullerton’s, and entirely at her request—what a strange, witching enchantment had hung around her all the time! She had made much of him, but in such an insidious and tactful way—what did it all mean? He had always been a bit of a misogynist, and had looked upon women and their fascinations with a kind of contemptuous aloofness, only broken through when he knew and became engaged to Violet Courtland. And now at last he could dwell upon that day at Courtland Mere without a stirring of the mind, unless it were a stirring of relief. But—why?
The day wore on, and it was not until late in the afternoon that the sleepers awoke.
“What’s this?” said Peters sharply, sitting upright. “Lamont—what the devil’s this? Here it’s nearly time to start again, and you never turned me out to take my watch. How about your own snooze, eh?”
“Don’t want one. You do. So that’s all right.”
“You needn’t kick up such an infernal row, Peters,” snapped Ancram, irritable with fatigue and discomfort, as he rolled over on the other side and snored afresh.
“Oh, let the wretched devil snooze,” said Lamont. “I don’t want to. I couldn’t close a peeper if I were paid to.”
That night they travelled on again, using extra caution, for they had got into populated country where there were kraals about. One of these they came right upon in the darkness, and the deep-toned voices of its inhabitants came quite clearly to them. Then the furious barking of dogs, who had heard or scented them, made a lively moment; however, thanks to the merciful darkness, they were able to withdraw.
At daybreak the following morning they were even more perilously situated, for the land was flat and sparsely bushed, and it was only by keeping the cover of an overhung and nearly dry river-bed that they could find any concealment at all. Moreover, a smoke here and there at no great distance located a kraal.
“We seem to have got into a beastly dangerous corner,” grumbled Ancram. “When are we going to get to Gandela.”
“We’d have got there to-day, only we’ve come out of our way to warn Tewson. We’ll strike his place directly.”
Then Ancram broke forth. So they had come out of their way, and run their heads into this perilous hobble when by now they might have been safe and sound at Gandela—and all for this! What had they got to do with warning other people! Hadn’t they enough to do to save their own lives! Who was this Tewson, when all was said and done? Some beastly cad, he supposed.
“He’s a white man,” answered Lamont, “and he’s got womenkind and children at his place.”
But Peters was boiling over.
“You infernal, selfish, cowardly swine,” he began. “Let me tell you that we help each other in this country. And if it wasn’t that we were in the hobble we are, I’d have pleasure in punching that silly, selfish, rattletrap noddle of yours till your own mother wouldn’t know it from a rotten pumpkin.”
Let it not be supposed this was all Peters said, but then his remarks were not for publication—in toto, whereas the record of the same—in parte—is.
The fierce tone and threatening attitude cowed Ancram, and he shrunk back, staring apprehensively.
“Ease off, Peters. Ease off,” muttered Lamont. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s half off his chump with tire and scare.”
This was no more than the truth. Ancram was almost used up. Totally unaccustomed to roughing it or swift emergency, physically in the poorest possible training, his experiences of the last two days—the sight of bloodshed, the forced marches afoot over rough ground, perils real or imaginary dogging every step, had about done for him, and had brought out all the worst that was in him. Peters growled like a savage dog baffled of a bone, and relapsed into sullen silence.
At no great distance now they made out a homestead, right above the high river bank. Still and peaceful it looked in the early morning, too still it seemed to two out of the three, who with a quickening of the pulses wondered if they were too late. No sign of life was there about the place. No smoke rose from the chimney, and the native huts behind the house had a deserted look. Well, the family might have received warning, and escaped.
But, as they reached the house, any such hope quickly died. A horrible object met their gaze—the body of a man, a white man, stripped and frightfully hacked and gashed. Right in front of the door it lay, the position telling its own tale. The unfortunate man had been attacked by his treacherous murderers, as all unsuspecting he had stepped forth, probably to confer with them.
“That’s Tewson,” pronounced Peters shortly.
A groan drew their attention to Ancram, who was staring at the horrible sight with a kind of fell fascination. His gaze was livid, and his hands were working convulsively. There was a glare almost of mania in his eyes.
“Buck up, Ancram,” said Lamont, not unkindly. “You must pull yourself together, you know. This is the first, but I’m afraid not the last sight of the kind we shall see before we are through with this tangle. Here, have some of this,” producing his flask.
Peters and Lamont were looking at each other, and again the same thought was in both their minds. Here lay the poor remains of Tewson himself, but his household consisted of his wife, her sister, and three or four children. What lay behind that door?
It had to be done. As the door was opened, both men instinctively started back, then, rallying, they entered. In less than a minute they returned to the open air, almost reeling, and from the faces of these two strong, resourceful, resolute men every vestige of colour had faded. They had looked upon bloodshed and death before, as we know, had grown inured to horrible sights; but that of white women and children, literally cut into pieces, had been reserved for them until now.
“No, you’d better not see it, Ancram,” warned Lamont, putting forth a restraining hand. “There’s no necessity for you to. Peters, one of us must go in there again. The time’s important—the time it occurred, you know. We might find some clue.”
Peters nodded, and they entered together. There was a clue. On a side-table was the beginning of a letter, which looked as if one of the wretched women had been interrupted while writing. It was spattered with blood.
“It’s dated the day before yesterday,” said Lamont; “the day we were attacked. Good Lord! I wish when we set our trap then we had put enough stuff to blow every one of those Matabele devils to his own place, instead of a dozen or so.”
“Amen,” said Peters.
It never occurred to either of them that their wish had been very nearly fulfilled.
“Well, we’d better get into Gandela as soon as we can and give the alarm. They won’t laugh this time, unfortunately. After that I, for one, am going where I can shoot as many of these devils as it is possible to shoot.”
“Same here,” said Peters. “No quarter, either.”
These two men, you see, were changed now. Far from cruel or merciless by disposition, they had looked upon a sight which should render them both, as similar sights did many another in the early days of that wholly unprepared-for outbreak.
Chapter Nineteen.
Fullerton’s Move.
A light mule-waggon stood at Fullerton’s door. By the time the process of loading it—now begun—was completed it would no longer be a light waggon.
Before that stage was attained, however, Fullerton was making nasty remarks on the wholly unnecessary quantity of baggage without which lovely woman professes herself unable to move—at least his spouse pronounced them to be nasty, and, of course, she ought to know.
“Do stand up for us, Mr Wyndham,” she appealed.
“Wouldn’t be fair. You’re two to one as it is,” answered Wyndham, tugging at a refractory strap, for he was engaged in harnessing the mules.
“Oh, here—I say, Clare. We haven’t got a traction engine to move this outfit,” grumbled Fullerton, as his sister-in-law appeared, together with another quite exasperating bundle. “No we haven’t. Only mules.”
“It’s all right, Dick. Put that in somewhere,” was the serene answer. “Only, don’t squash it more than you can help, because there are things in it that’ll spoil.”
Fullerton grunted, and the work of packing and stowing went on, the bulkier and heavier articles of baggage having been fastened on behind with reins.
“That’s all right,” said Wyndham, looking up from the last buckle. “Now I think we can all get in.”
It had taken some little while and a great deal of importunity to bring Richard Fullerton round to the Buluwayo scheme, and even then his womenkind had given every reason but the real one for wanting to go there. He was endowed with his full share of obstinacy; however, he came round at last. At last! Just so. A great deal was destined to turn upon those two monosyllables.
“You take the lines first stage, Fullerton, or shall I?” asked Wyndham, the outfit being, in fact, his property. On hearing of the Fullertons’ projected move he had immediately proffered it, and volunteered to drive them himself. Such an opportunity of being in Clare’s society for three whole days was one not to be thrown away, and of showing to advantage before her during the time, for he was a first-rate whip. Fullerton was not.
“Er—you’d better tool us, I think,” said the latter. “I might be able to drive four-in-hand, but I believe I’d be rather out of it with eight.”
“Oh, it’s just as easy. Still—do as you like.” And Wyndham, climbing to his seat, took the reins, and away went the team at a brisk trot. It was a lovely morning, but inclined to be hot, and as they topped the mimosa-studded rise, and in a minute Gandela was shut out of sight behind them, there was a sense of exhilaration permeating the whole party which promised that the trip was likely to prove an enjoyable one.
“Well, Lucy,” said Fullerton, expanding accordingly, “I believe I’m rather glad you two girls persuaded me into this run. A spell at the Buluwayo Club will come in first-rate. You get rather sick of a poky little hole like Gandela.”
“Pity you wouldn’t let yourself be ‘persuaded’ a week ago,” rapped out the conjugal retort. “Or even more. You’d have been in the thick of the Buluwayo Club at this moment.”
“Yes, you took a deal of persuading, Dick,” supported Clare. “It would have been much better if we had started a week earlier.”
There was an unconscious gravity in her tone that did not seem to fit the subject or the occasion. But she was thinking of the grave urgency of Lamont’s warning—that they should remove at once; and of this, of course, the others were in complete ignorance.
“Oh well, a week more or less doesn’t matter a row of pins,” returned Fullerton unconcernedly. “That’s one good point about this jolly country, at any rate. No one need ever be in a hurry.”
“Nor ever is,” appended Wyndham. “Hallo! Here are some police Johnnies coming along.”
Riding single file along a narrow path, which would converge with the high road a little farther on, they made out a small party of Mounted Police—a dozen in all. They gained the main road just at the same time as the mule-waggon crossed the path. The sergeant rode up and saluted.
“Going to Buluwayo?” said Wyndham.
“Yes, sir. And Captain Isard said we’d better keep with you for the way.”
“Sort of escort, eh?”
“That’s it, sir.”
“Escort!” echoed Fullerton. “Why, what the devil do we want with an escort? We haven’t got the Administrator on board.”
“Well, sir,” said the sergeant, “the niggers have been a bit sulky of late, over the wholesale shootin’ of their cattle, and it’s a wide stretch of country, and the captain said that as we were going to Buluwayo in any case, it’d do no harm if we kept with your waggon.”
As a matter of fact the men were not ‘going to Buluwayo in any case,’ but had been specially told off by their commanding officer to escort this outfit thither. It—for all purposes in his eyes—spelt Clare Vidal. In spite of his former rejection he had not got over his weakness for that extremely attractive young person, and here was a right royal chance to ingratiate himself with her; for of course he would contrive to let her know later that it was solely upon her account that the escort had been furnished. Isard had accepted Lamont’s warning with a considerable pinch of salt, still there was no doubt but that there was unrest among the natives, and where Clare was concerned it was as well to be on the safe side. The safe side! Well, Isard was steeped to the crown of his handsome and soldierly head in the British and military tradition of despising your enemy, wherefore, of course, the presence of a dozen of his Mounted Police was sufficient to overawe every squalid nigger in Matabeleland, or the whole lot of them put together.
“There’s something in that, sergeant,” said Wyndham, “and it’s very good of the captain to have thought of it.” Then, as the sergeant having saluted again and dropped behind, he went on—
“By George, that’s very considerate of Isard. He’s not at all the sort of fellow I should have expected a thing of that sort from. Well, Miss Vidal, you’ve got the experience of travelling under an armed escort. Quite romantic, isn’t it?”
“Quite. But, as you say, it’s very kind of Captain Isard all the same,” answered Clare, the only one who was behind the scenes as to the situation. Lamont’s warning to herself had been urgent and definite, yet her brother-in-law’s provoking obstinacy had caused him to put off and put off. The limit of the time named must nearly have been reached, and, remembering this, secretly she hailed the presence of those armed police with a feeling of devout thankfulness.
“But—is there really any danger?” said her sister anxiously. “Because if there is, I, for one, vote we turn back.”
“Danger! Pho!” rapped out Fullerton contemptuously. “I suppose Lamont has been putting about one of his chronic scares, or something of that sort. Turn back? No fear. We’re in for a jolly trip.”
Whereby it is manifest that in a small place like Gandela, things will leak out. Assuredly nothing could look more peaceful than the aspect of things as they pulled up at the mixture of store and wayside inn where they were to outspan after the first stage. The wild veldt, aglow in the shimmering heat, the drowsy hum of native voices, the sleepiness and calm of the place—no suggestion of a cataclysm lay here.
“Hallo, Langrishe!” sang out Wyndham, as a lank, parchment-faced man lounged forward, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. “Any news? We’re bound for Buluwayo. How’s the scare getting on?”
“Scare? I don’t know nuth’n about any bloomin’ scare, and don’t want to.”
“Don’t believe in it, eh?”
The storekeeper fired off a very contemptuous ejaculation, and turned to help Wyndham to unharness the mules. Fullerton also bore a hand, contriving however to be of more hindrance than help.
“What’ll you take, sergeant?” said Wyndham, as, the above operation completed, they adjourned to the bar. The sergeant named his—and taking up the usual dice-box Wyndham and Fullerton threw between them.
“Mine,” pronounced the former. “By the way, Langrishe, there are a dozen thirsty police outside. Serve them a good tot all round.”
In the rough dining-room a small Makalaka boy was spreading a murky cloth on a murkier table. The inhabitants of the room were mostly flies, and, incidentally, Lucy and Clare. But they were used to these little defects of detail, by that time.
“Can’t give you anything but tinned stuff, ladies,” said Langrishe, gruffly apologetic. “Everything fresh has died of the drought or the rinderpest.”
That too, did not afflict them, and they discussed Paysandu tongue in that rough-and-ready veldt shanty with an appetite not always present at the most dainty and glittering of snowy tables. Then after a brief rest the mules were inspanned again. “Going to outspan at Skrine’s?” said Langrishe, as, having settled up, they bade him good-bye.
“Don’t know,” answered Wyndham; “I’d like to get on to the Kezane.”
“You can’t. It’s too far and too hot. You’ll bust them mules.”
“Oh well, I’ll see how they get on. So long, Langrishe, we’ll look in on the way back.”
Poor Langrishe! he was a rough pioneer in a rough country, but a good fellow enough according to his lights. Little they thought, that gay and light-hearted party, as they bade him good-bye—little he thought himself—that not merely his days, but his hours were numbered—and that not even two figures would be needed to write the number of them; for one of the awful features of that ghastly rising was that it whirled down upon its victims as a veritable bolt from the blue. And its victims were scattered, singly or by twos and threes, throughout the length and breadth of the land.
Craftily Wyndham had manoeuvred that Clare should share the front seat with him. She could see the country better, he declared, and if there was more sun there was more air than in the back seat. Clare herself was nothing loth, and moreover the move met with Fullerton’s approval. That sybaritic engineer, feeling genial after a plain but plentiful lunch and two or three long whiskies-and-sodas, felt likewise a little drowsy; and the back seat was more comfortable for the purpose of forty winks. Wyndham was actuated by another motive. He was proud of his driving and he wanted the girl to witness and appreciate it. And she did, and said so, thereby raising Wyndham to the seventh heaven of delighted complacency.
More than once he stole a glance of admiration at the beautiful, animated face beside him. The heat, and a modicum of dust, seemed to affect her not one whit. Poor Lucy Fullerton in the back seat, not less drowsy than her proprietor, was looking a trifle red and puffy from the effects of both, but Clare, in her fresh and cool attire and straw hat, was as fresh and cool and smiling as though heat and dust did not exist. She did not even want to put up a sunshade, that most abominable of nuisances on the part of the sharer of your driving seat, what time your way lies over none too smooth roads, and through an occasional stony and slippery drift. And they chatted and joked merrily and light-heartedly as they sped over the sunlit landscape with its variety of towering granite kopje near by and hazy line of distant ridge far away against the deep blue of heaven’s vault, what time both Fullertons snored placidly behind, one discordantly, the other lightly.
“Our good Fullerton is guilty of a snore fit to give a dead man the nightmare, isn’t he, Miss Vidal?” said Wyndham presently, turning his head to look at the offender. That estimable engineer lay back in his corner in an uncomfortable attitude, his mouth wide open and emitting sounds that baffle description. “I really think we ought to wake him.”
Clare laughed. “No, no. Let him alone. He’s quite happy now.”
“He reminds me of a man who was one of a shooting party I was with up on the Inyati. There were several of us, and we slept in a scherm, very snug and jolly we were too. But the moonlight nights were heavenly, and I was restless and couldn’t sleep—so I used to get up and light my pipe, and stroll about outside, and admire the view, and all that sort of thing. Well, after a couple of nights or so the chap who slept next me objected—swore I was an outrageously restless beggar and disturbed him half a dozen times a night, and wouldn’t I go and sleep on the other side of the scherm in future? I put it to him how the demon could I be anything but restless when I found myself turned in alongside of a saw-mill in full blast—not even a respectable saw-mill either, and one of regular habits, but one that started on a hard-grained slab and buzzed through that, then struck a hard knot and bucked and kicked and returned to the charge, and finally screamed through it, and no sooner had it resumed the even tenor of its way than a nail had to be negotiated. Well, as for the cutting through of that nail, I give it up. I suppose the infernal regions alone could produce such sounds of soul-splitting stridency as those evolved by my next-door neighbour’s blowpipes when it got to that.”
Clare was convulsed.
“How did you settle it?” she said.
“Why, he went and turned in alongside of a man who was stone deaf in one ear, and half in the other, so it didn’t matter. Fullerton is a terror to snore, too, and with a little more practice he’ll be as good as the other man. Just listen to him.”
“Eh? What’s that about me?” ejaculated the object of this remark, starting up spasmodically, and rubbing his eyes. “Why, I believe I’ve been asleep.”
“I don’t know about that, old chap,” laughed Wyndham. “What we do know is that you must have worked off a biggish contract in the plank sawing line, since we last heard the sound of your manly voice. Don’t we, Miss Vidal?”
“Well, this scooting through the air—hot air too—makes one snoozy,” explained Fullerton, uttering a cavernous yawn. “Hallo! I must have been asleep a good time, we’re at Skrine’s already.”
They had topped a rise, and now on the slope beneath, and in front, stood two or three buildings, with the usual native huts and goat kraal behind. But about the place no sign of life showed.
“Great Scott! I believe there isn’t a soul on the place,” said Wyndham anxiously. “No, I thought not,” as they rattled up to the door, and saw that it was securely shut, and that of the stable padlocked. Then, putting his head round the tent of the waggon, “Sergeant!”
“Sir?” answered the non-com. trotting up.
“Fall back just out of earshot with your men, and do a little language for us, will you? We can’t, we’ve got ladies with us. Skrine’s store’s no good. Skrine’s away and his idiotic stable’s locked up. No use outspanning here.”
The police sergeant spluttered—and those in the waggon laughed. Yet not very light-heartedly. It was really a nuisance, for it meant that they must push on another stage to the Kezane Store—the original plan, but one which Wyndham had already recognised that Langrishe was right in advising him to abandon; for the heat and the pace had already told on the mules.
They would have laughed less light-heartedly, or rather they would not have laughed at all, had they known that about a mile back, and only a few hundred yards from the road, the bodies of Skrine and three other men, who had fled thus far for their lives, were lying among the bushes, their skulls smashed, and their poor faces hacked and gory beyond recognition, stamped with the ghastly imprint of their awful death-agony, staring upward to the serene and cloudless blue of heaven.