CHAPTER XVII.

WITH THE SECOND DIVISION.

Meanwhile the events of the war were treading thick on each other in Zululand. A fresh disaster had ensued at the Intombe river, where a detachment of the 80th Regiment was cut to pieces, and again old soldiers spoke with sorrow and disgust of the blunders and incapacity of those at head-quarters, who by their newfangled systems had reduced our once grand army to chaos.

Such alarms and surprises, like too many of the disasters and disgraces which befell our arms in these latter wars, were entirely due to the new formation of our battalions. 'That the destruction of the regimental system by Lord Cardwell has been the original cause of all our reverses, surprises, and humiliation, there can be little hesitation in saying,' to quote Major Ashe. 'The men at Isandhlwana were not well handled, it must be admitted, but it has since leaked out that many of them would not rally round their officers, but attempted safety in flight. Dozens of the men, sergeants, and other non-commissioned officers, have since disclosed that they did not know the names of their company officers, or those of their right or left hand men.'

Hence, by the newfangled system, there could be neither confidence nor cohesion. Elsewhere he tells us that the once-splendid 91st Highlanders, 'the envy of all recruiting sergeants, could only muster 200 men when ordered to Zululand,' but was made up by volunteers from other regiments—men all strangers to each other and to their officers, and whose facings were all the colours of the rainbow. Then, after the Intombe, followed the storming of the Inhlobane Mountain, where fell the gallant Colonel Weatherley, and the no less gallant old frontier farmer Pict Nys, who was last seen fighting to his final gasp against a horde of Zulus, across the dead body of his favourite horse, an empty revolver in his left hand, a blood-dripping sabre in his right, and more than one assegai, launched from a distance, quivering in his body.

The cry went to Britain now for more troops; and fresh reinforcements came, while the army in Zululand was reconstituted by Lord Chelmsford at Durban.

There, amid a brilliant staff in their new uniforms fresh from home, was one central figure, the ill-starred Prince Imperial of France, who had landed two days after the battle of Kambula, and had been appointed an extra aide-de-camp to the general commanding.

The army was now formed into two divisions: one under Major-General Crealock, C.B., and another under Major-General Newdigate, while a flying column under Sir Evelyn Wood was to act independently. Hammersley's squadron of Mounted Infantry was attached to the Second Division, with the movements of which our story has necessarily alone to do.

The 16th of April saw it marching northward of Natal, and on the 4th of May Lord Chelmsford, who had joined it after church parade—for the day was Sunday—suggested that a reconnaissance should be made towards the Valley of the Umvolosi River to select ground for an entrenched camp, and for this purpose Hammersley's squadron and Buller's Horse were ordered to the front.

The local troopers under that brilliant officer were now clad in a uniform manner—in brown cord breeches, mimosa-coloured jackets, long gaiters laced to the knee, and broad cavalier hats, with long scarlet or blue puggarees. The open collars of their flannel shirts displayed their bronzed necks; and picturesque-looking fellows they were, all armed with sabres and rifles of various patterns, slung across the back by a broad leather sling. Their horses were rough but serviceable, and active as mountain deer.

After riding some miles over grassy plateaux and rugged hilly ground, tufted with cabbage-tree wood, on a bright and pleasant morning, the local Horse were signalled to retire, as it was discovered that a great body of Zulus were watching their movements.

Unaware of this, Hammersley, with his Mounted Infantry, rode on for three miles, till they reached a great plateau near a place called Zungen Nek, where the pathway, if such it could be styled, was bordered by mimosa thorns, and where two bullets mysteriously fired—no one could tell from where, for no enemy was to be seen—whistled through the little squadron harmlessly, though both were as close to Florian as they could pass without hitting him, and one made Tattoo toss his head and lay his quivering little ears angrily back on his neck.

At this time some officers who had cantered to the front from where the division was halted, saw the dark figures of many of the enemy creeping along in the jungle, and watching them so intently that they were all unaware of their retreat being cut off by twenty of the Mounted Infantry under a sergeant—Florian.

'Forward, and at them!' cried the latter, as his men slung their rifles and galloped in loose formation, sabre in hand, to attack the savages, but suddenly found themselves on the edge of some precipitous cliffs, some three hundred feet in height, which compelled them for a moment or two to rein up till a narrow track was found, down which they descended in single file in a scrambling way, the hoofs of the rear horses throwing sand, gravel, and stones over those in front.

When the sounds made by the descent ceased, and the soldiers gained a turfy plateau, nothing could be seen of the foe, and all was silence—a silence that could be felt, like the darkness that rested on the land of Egypt. Then there burst forth a united yell that seemed to rend the welkin, and a vast horde of black-skinned Zulus, led by Methagazulu (the son of Sirayo), who had recovered from the wound he received at Ginghilovo, came rushing on, brandishing their assegais and rifles.

This ambuscade was more than Florian anticipated, and believing that all was lost, and that he and his party would be utterly cut off to a man, he gave the order to retire on the spur, and they splashed, girdle deep, through a ford of the Umvolosi, on which, as if by the guidance of Heaven, they chanced to hit.

With yells of baffled rage the savages followed them so closely that Florian and another trooper named Tom Tyrrell, who covered the rear, had to face about and fire by turns, till the open ground on the other side was reached.

'A close shave that business,' said Tom breathlessly. 'I thought that in three minutes' time every man Jack of us would have been assegaied.'

Galloping out of range, Florian's party now rejoined that of Hammersley, who congratulated them on their escape, and they all rode together back to head-quarters. But these movements had alarmed the whole valley of the White Umvolosi.

On every hand, in quick succession, signal fires, formed of vast heaps of dried grass, blazed on the hill-tops; vast columns of black smoke shot upwards to the bright blue sky, and were repeated from summit to summit, showing that the whole country was actively alive with armed warriors, who in many places could be seen driving and goading their herds of cattle into rocky kloofs and all kinds of places inaccessible to horse and foot alike.

From the summit of the Zungen Nek a full view of the beautiful valley through which the Umvolosi rolls could be obtained, and near a place there, called Conference Hill, were seen, like a field of snow, the white tents of the Second Division shining in the bright, sunny light.

Twenty-three days it remained encamped there, and during that time a vast amount of useful information regarding the topography of the country in which the coming campaign would be, was furnished by the reports and sketches made by Colonel Buller, the Prince Imperial, by Hammersley, and even by Florian, who was a very clever draughtsman, and on many occasions was complimented by the staff in such terms as made his young heart swell in his breast.

But the sketches of none surpassed those of the handsome and unfortunate Prince, whose passion for information was boundless, and the questions he was wont to ask of all were searching in the extreme.

One day, when out on a reconnaisance, the Mounted Infantry were suddenly fired upon from a kraal, and in the conflict that ensued many were killed and wounded, especially of the enemy, who were completely routed.

The great and unfathomable mystery of death was close indeed to Florian on that day, and around him lay hundreds who had discovered it within an hour or less. He had narrowly escaped it by skilfully dodging a ponderous knobkerie flung at his head as the last dying effort of a warrior whose black and naked breast had been pierced by a bullet from Tom Tyrrell's rifle, and from which the crimson blood was welling as if from a squirt; and so close was the weapon to doing Florian a mortal mischief that it took the gilt spike close off the top of his helmet.

And now, on the very evening before the division broke up its camp and marched, occurred an event which proved to Florian, and to his favourite captain too, the chief one of the campaign.

How little those who live at home at ease can know of the delight it gives an exile to have tidings, by letter or otherwise, from those who are dear to them in the old country when far, far away from it! No matter how short the sentences, how few the facts, or how clumsy the expressions, they all seem to show that we are not forgotten by the old fireside; for even amid the keen and fierce excitement of war the soldier has often time for much thought of friends and home, especially in the lonely watches of the night, and a pang goes to his heart with the fear that, as he is absent, he may be forgotten.

Florian had often envied the delight with which his comrades, Tom Tyrrell or poor Bob Edgehill, who perished at Isandhlwana, and others received letters from distant friends and relatives; but month after month had passed, and none ever came to him, nor did he expect any.

In all the world there was no one to think of him save Dulcie Carlyon. How he longed to write to her, but knew not where she was.

At last there came an evening—he never forgot it—when the sergeant who acted as regimental postman brought him a letter—a letter addressed to himself, and in the handwriting of Dulcie!

His fingers trembled as he carefully but hastily cut open the envelope. It was dated from Craigengowan, a place of which he scarcely knew the name, but thought he had heard it mentioned by Mr. Kenneth Kippilaw on the eventful day when he and Shafto visited that gentleman at his office.

After many prettily expressed protestations of regard for himself—every word of which stirred his heart deeply—of joy that he was winning distinction, and of fear for the awful risks he ran in war, she informed him that the situation obtained for her had been that of companion to Lady Fettercairn, 'and who do you think I found installed here as master of the whole situation, as heir to the title and a truly magnificent property—Shafto! Perhaps I am wrong to tell you, lest it may worry you, but he has resumed his persecution of me. He often taunts me about you, and fills me with terror lest he may do me a mischief with Lady Fettercairn, as he has already contrived to do with his cousin, Miss Finella (a dear darling girl) and Captain Hammersley, the officer whose life you so bravely saved at Ginghilovo, and who, I now learn, is in your regiment. It was an infamous trick, but it succeeded in separating them and nearly breaking Finella's heart.'

The letter then proceeded to detail how Finella, to her extreme dismay and discomfiture, had dropped Hammersley's pencilled note; how Shafto had found it, and intercepted her in the shrubbery on her way to the place of rendezvous, and would only restore it on receiving, as a bribe, a cousinly kiss, which she was compelled to accord, when he rudely seized her and snatched several before she could repulse him; how Hammersley had passed at that fatal moment, and misconceived the whole situation, since when, language could not express the loathing Finella had of Shafto. That was the whole affair.

'You know Shafto and all of which he is capable,' continued Dulcie; 'so poor Finella is heartbroken in contemplating the horrid view her lover must take of her, but is without the means of explaining it away, nor will her great pride permit her to do so.'

Dulcie under the same roof with Shafto, and apparently the bosom friend of Hammersley's love! Florian had now a clue to some of the bitter remarks that, in moments of unintentional confidence, his superior had uttered from time to time.

That Shafto and Dulcie were in such close proximity to each other—meeting daily and hourly—filled Florian's mind with no small anxiety. He had no doubt of Dulcie's faith, trust, and purity; but neither had he any doubt of Shafto's subtle character and the mischief of which he was capable, and which he might work the helpless and unfortunate girl if he pursued, as she admitted he did, the odious and unwelcome love-making he had begun at Revelstoke.

As he read and re-read her letter in that hot, burning, and far-away land, how vividly every expression of her perfect face, every inflection of her soft and sympathetic voice, came back to memory, till his heart swelled and his eyes grew dim. How self-possessed she was, with all her gentleness; how self-reliant, with all her timidity.

'Should I show this letter to Hammersley?' thought Florian. 'The communication in it must concern him very closely—very dearly, and my darling, impulsive little Dulcie has evidently written it with a purpose.'

Then Florian remembered that though suave and condescendingly kind to him, especially since the episode at Ginghilovo, Hammersley was naturally a man of a proud and haughty spirit, and might resent one in Florian's junior position interfering in the most tender secrets of his life.

Florian was keenly desirous of fulfilling what was evidently the wish of Dulcie—of befriending her friend, and perhaps, by achieving a reconciliation, conferring an unexampled favour upon his officer; yet he shrank from the delicate task, while giving it long and anxious thought.

He tossed up a florin.

'If it is a head, I'll do it. Head it is!' he exclaimed, and went straight to the tent of Hammersley, whom he found lounging on his camp-bed, with a cigar in his mouth and his patrol-jacket open.

'What is up?' he demanded abruptly, as if disturbed in a reverie.

'Only, sir, that I have just had a letter,' began Florian, colouring deeply, and pausing.

'From home?'

'Yes, sir.'

'I hope it contains pleasant news.'

'It is from one who is very dear to me.'

'Oh, the old story—a girl, no doubt?'

'Yes, sir.'

'The more fool you: the faith of the sex is writ in water, as the poet has it.'

'I hope not, in my case and in some others, Captain Hammersley; but if you will pardon me I cannot help stating that in my letter there is something that concerns yourself and your happiness very nearly indeed.'

Hammersley stared at this information.

'Concerns me?' he asked.

'Yes, and Miss Finella Melfort: permit me to mention her name.'

The red blood suffused Hammersley's bronzed face from temples to chin, and he sprang to his feet.

'What the devil do you mean, MacIan?' he exclaimed sharply; his supreme astonishment, however, exceeding any indignation to hear that name on a stranger's lips. 'I know well that you are not what you seem by your present position in life; but how came you to know the name of that young lady?'

'She is mentioned in this letter, sir—the letter of the only being in all the world who cares for me,' replied Florian, with a palpable break in his voice.

'Mentioned in what fashion?' asked Hammersley curtly and with knitted brows.

'Please to read this paragraph for yourself, sir.'

'Thanks.'

Hammersley took the letter, and saw that it was written in a most lady-like hand.

'Dulcie?' said he, just glancing at the signature; 'is she your sister?'

'I have no sister. I think I have told you that I am alone in the world.'

'I have a delicacy in reading a young lady's letter,' said Hammersley, whose hand shook on perceiving by the next glance that it was dated from 'Craigengowan.'

Florian indicated the long paragraph with a finger; and as Hammersley read it his face became again deeply suffused.

'Permit me again, my good fellow,' said he as he read it twice, as if to impress its contents on his mind; and then, returning the letter with unsteady hand to Florian, he seated himself on the edge of the camp-bed and passed a hand across his forehead.

'Thank you for showing me this! You can understand what I felt and thought on seeing the episode this young lady explains so kindly in her letter—God bless the girl! It seems all too good to be true.'

'You do not know the vile trickery of which this fellow Shafto is capable,' said Florian.

'I do,' replied Hammersley, remembering the affair of the cards. 'Finella!' said he, as if to himself, 'how her memory haunts me! By Jove, she is a witch, a sorceress!—like that other Finella after whom she told me she is named, and who lived—I don't know when—in the year of the Flood, I think. I thank you from my soul, MacIan, for the sight of this letter, and it will be a further incitement to me to further your interests in every way within my power. Heaven knows how gladly I would betake me to my pen; but this is no time for letter-writing. By daybreak we shall be in our saddles, and on the spur to the front.'

Florian saluted his officer and withdrew, leaving him to the full tide of his new thoughts.

So she was true to him after all! The whole affair, so black apparently, seemed to be so simply and truthfully explained away by Dulcie's letter that he could not doubt the terrible misconception under which he had laboured, nor did he wish to do so. The tables were completely turned.

It was he—himself—who had cruelly wronged, doubted, upbraided, and quitted Finella, and now from him must the reparation come. His mind was full of the repentant, glowing, and gushing letter he would write her, renewing his protestations of love and faith, and imploring her to forgive him; but when could that letter be written and sent to the rear?—for the division advanced by dawn on the morrow, and there would scarcely be a halt, he supposed, till it reached Ulundi.

And how could a letter reach her from the Cape at Craigengowan unknown to Lady Fettercairn?—who, he knew but too well, was bitterly opposed to his love for Finella, and for many cogent reasons the adherent of Shafto.

How would it all end with them both now?

In a runaway marriage too probably, unless he got knocked on the head in Zululand, a process he rather shrank from now, as life seemed to be invested with new attributes, greater hopes, and greater value.

Finella's mignonne face came before him; the small, straight nose, with thin, arched nostrils; the proud yet soft hazel eyes, with thin, long lashes; the firm coral lips; the abundant hair of richest brown; and with all these came, too, the memory of her favourite perfume, the faint odour of jasmine that clung to her draperies and laces.

In a similar mood to some extent, but without the sense of having aught to explain or a reparation to make, Florian lay in another tent at some little distance, contemplating the contents of a pretty white leather toy, lined with pale blue satin—a case containing a photo—altogether an unsuitable thing for the pocket of a soldier's tunic, or to place in his haversack, it may be among cooked rations, shoe-brushes, and a sponge for pipeclay; but it contained a poor reflection, though delicately tinted, of Dulcie's own sweet face.

He continued by turns to re-read her letter and contemplate her photo till the daylight faded and the moon, golden not silver coloured, shone amid a sky wherein dark blue seemed to blend with apple green at the horizon, lighting up all the lonely landscape, and making the blue gum trees and euphorbiæ stand out in opaque silhouette, while the—to him—new constellations of that southern hemisphere seemed to play hide-and-seek, as they sparkled in and out in the cloudless dome of heaven.

As there he lay, full of his own thoughts and tender memories, he was all unaware of two evil spirits that hovered near, and were actually watching him. Both were evil-visaged personages, and though clad in the ordinary costume of Cape Colonists belonged to the Natal Volunteer Force.

One had two hideous bullet wounds but lately healed—one on each cheek—and his jaws were almost destitute of teeth, as Florian's pistol had left them; for this personage was no other than Josh Jarrett, the ex-landlord of the so-called hotel at Elandsbergen; and the other was Dick of the Droogveldt—one of the two ruffians that had pursued Florian on horseback till his fall into the bushy donga concealed him from them.

On the destruction of the town of Elandsbergen by the Zulus these two worthies, for the sake of the ample pay given to the Colonial troops, and being incapable of obtaining any other means of livelihood, had joined the Volunteer Horse, and while serving in that capacity had discovered and recognised Florian.

'He's a boss now in the Mounted Infantry; but I'll be cursed if I don't put a lead plug into him on the first opportunity—kill him as I would a puff-adder!' said Josh Jarrett fiercely, as he mumbled the last words into the mouth of a metal flask filled with that villainous compound known as Cape Smoke, while they grinned, but without fun, and winked to each other portentously.

'Hopportunities we'll 'ave in plenty, with the work as goes on here,' responded Dick of the Droogveldt (which means a dry district), 'and that cursed fellow shall never quit Zululand alive, all the more so that they say he is to be made an officer soon.'

For Dick, like Josh, was one of 'Cardwell's recruits,' as they are named, and had been a deserter from a line regiment. So their appearance in camp probably accounted for the two mysterious shots that Florian had so recently escaped.[*]

[*] For many interesting details of the Zulu War, I am indebted to the narrative of Major Ashe; but more particularly to the Private Journal of the Chief of the Staff.

CHAPTER XVIII.

ON THE BANKS OF THE ITYOTYOSI.

It was bitterly cold in camp that night—one of the noctes ambrosianæ in Zululand, as Hammersley said laughingly; and on the morning of the 1st June, when the thin ice stood in the buckets inside the tents, the latter were struck, and the Second Division began its march from the Blood River towards the Itelezi Hill.

'My darling little Finella—may God love you and bless you!' was the morning prayer of Hammersley as he sprung on his horse, and the squadron of Mounted Infantry went cantering forward; prior to which, Florian, after fraternally sharing a ration biscuit with Tattoo—while the animal whinnied and rubbed his velvet nose against his cheek, as if thanking him therefor—kissed him quite as tenderly as Finella ever did Fern; for a genuine trooper has a true affection for his horse.

As the squadron rode on in advance of the column, Hammersley beckoned Florian to his side, and, as they trotted on together, he asked him many a kindly question about Dulcie Carlyon, of his past life and future hopes and wishes, betraying a genuine interest which touched Florian keenly.

In due time the Itelezi Hill, a long mass, the brown sides of which were scored by rocky ravines and woody kloofs, the lurking-places of many Zulus, who acted as spies along the border, was reached; and now, on the bank of the Ityotyosi River, at a short distance from the Natal frontier, a halt was made, and another temporary camp formed on ground selected by the Prince Imperial of France, who had previously examined it.

In advance of the whole force on the same morning, the Prince had ridden on with instructions to examine the nature of the ground through which the march would lie; and with an emotion of deep interest, for which he could not account, Florian saw him ride off at full speed, accompanied by Lieutenant Carey, of the 98th Regiment, the Deputy Assistant Quartermaster-General, with six of Captain Bettington's European Horse; and pushing on over the open and pastoral country, the Prince and his party soon disappeared in the vicinity of the Itelezi Hill, which he reached about ten a.m.

On the same day Sir Evelyn Wood—with orders to keep one day's march in front of the Second Division—was reconnoitring in advance of his flying column, when the halt was made by the Ityotyosi River, where despatches from the rear overtook the staff, and a few minutes after, the General sent his orderly for Florian, whom he found carefully grooming and rubbing down Tattoo.

Though ignorant of having committed any faux pas, Florian's first idea was that he had fallen into a scrape, and with some trepidation of spirit and manner found himself before the General, who, wearing a braided patrol-jacket and a white helmet girt by a puggaree, was examining the country through a field-glass.

'Sergeant,' said he, holding forth his hand, 'I have to congratulate you.'

'On what, sir?' asked Florian.

'Your appointment to a second-lieutenancy in your regiment, as the reward of your disinterested bravery at Ginghilovo, and general conduct on all occasions. It is duly notified in the Gazette, and here is the letter of the Adjutant-General.'

Florian's breath was quite taken away by this intelligence. For a few moments he could scarcely realise the truth of what the general, with great kindness and interest of manner, had said to him. He felt like one in a dream, from which he might awaken to disappointment; and the white tents of the camp, the Ityotyosi that flowed beside them, the woods and distant hills, seemed to be careering round him, and it was only when after a little time he felt the firm grasp of Hammersley's hand, and heard the warm and hearty congratulations from him and other officers, that he felt himself now indeed to be one of them.

The first to accord him a 'a salute as Second Lieutenant' (a rank since then abolished) was Tom Tyrrell.

'Let me shake your hand for the last time, sir, as your comrade,' said he.

'Not for the last time, I hope, Tom,' replied Florian, whose thoughts were flashing home to Dulcie, and all she would feel and think and say.

An officer—he was already an officer! As his father—or he whom he had so long deemed his father—was before him. His foot was firmly planted on the ladder now, and with the thought of Dulcie's joy his own redoubled.

'Come to the mess tent,' said Hammersley. 'We must wet the commission and drink the health of the Queen after tiffin.'

For the first time on that auspicious afternoon Florian found himself among his equals, and the kindness with which they welcomed him to their circle made his affectionate and appreciative heart swell. Hammersley was President of the Mess Committee, and was a wonderful strategist in the matter of 'providing grub,' as he said.

A few rough boards that went with the baggage formed the table, and at 'tiffin' that day the menu comprised vegetable soup, a sirloin of beef, an entrée or two, for a wonder, with plenty of brandy-pawnee and 'square-face;' and what the repast lacked in delicacy and splendour was amply made up by the general jollity and good humour that pervaded the board, though, for all they knew, another hour might find them face to face with the enemy.

Would either Hammersley or Florian be spared to write to the girl he loved?

In the case of Florian it seemed somewhat impossible, especially now, when he had—all unknown to himself—two secret and unscrupulous enemies on his trail, and intent on his destruction.

Meanwhile a terrible tragedy, that was to form a part of the world's history, was being acted not very far off from where that jocund circle sat round the board presided over by Hammersley.

Sir Evelyn Wood, we have said, was reconnoitring in advance of his column, which was then on the march from Munhla Hill towards the Ityotyosi River. Scattered in extended order among the growing undulations and watercourses, the Horse of Redvers Buller were scouting.

Rain had fallen during the night, but the sky of the afternoon was clear, bright, and without a cloud, from the far horizon to the zenith.

Following, but at a distance, the line taken by the Prince Imperial and his six reconnoitring troopers, General Wood, after issuing from a dense coppice of thorn trees, interspersed with graceful date palms and enormous feathery bamboo canes, came suddenly on a deep and smooth tributary of the Ityotyosi, and after contriving to ford it at a place where its banks were fringed by beautiful acacias and drooping palms with fan-shaped leaves, to his astonishment some mounted men appeared in his front, and all apparently fugitives.

With twelve of his troopers the fearless Buller, who had seen them also, now came galloping up and rode on with Sir Evelyn, and in rounding the base of a tall cliff they came suddenly upon Lieutenant Carey, of the 98th Foot, and four troopers of Bettington's Corps, all riding at a furious pace, their horses flecked with white foam, and with sides bloody by the goring spurs.

They reined up pale and breathlessly, and in another minute or two their terrible secret was told.

'Where is the Prince Imperial?' cried Sir Evelyn, as he rushed his horse over some fallen trees in his haste to meet the fugitives.

But Carey, who seemed as dead beat as his horse, was at first apparently incapable of replying.

'Speak, sir!' cried the General impetuously. 'What has happened?'

Still Carey seemed incapable of speech.

'Sir,' said one of the troopers, 'the Prince, I fear, is killed.'

The speaker was Private Le Toque, a Frenchman.

'Is that the case? Tell me instantly, sir!' resumed the General, with growing excitement.

'I fear it is so,' faltered Carey, in a low voice.

'Then what are you doing here, sir?'

A veil must be drawn over the rest of the interview, which was of a most painful character, wrote Major Ashe in his narrative of the occurrence.

A soldier—Tom Tyrrell, encouraged by the knowledge that his late comrade Florian was there—came rushing into the mess-tent, where Florian, with those who were now his brother-officers, was seated in happiness and jollity, bearing the terrible tidings, which spread through the camp like wildfire, and all who had horses mounted and rode forth to discover if they were true, and all spoke sternly and reprehensively of the luckless Lieutenant Carey, who eventually was tried by a court-martial, and died two years after in India, some said of a broken heart.

As Florian was one of the searchers for the slain Prince, the story of this latter's tragic death does not lie apart from ours.

It would seem, briefly, then, that the charger ridden by the Prince, when he left Lord Chelmsford's camp, and which in the end chiefly led to his death, was a clumsy and awkward animal, given to rearing and shying. After crossing the Ityotyosi, then swollen by the recent rains, the Prince and his party rode on through a district covered with grass-like rush, kreupelboom, and dwarf acacias.

The Prince, who from the time of his landing had always sought out any Frenchmen who might be among the local levies, and frequently gave them sovereigns, was riding with Le Toque by his side; and the latter, in the gaiety of his heart, and exhilarated by the beauty of the morning, sang more than one French song as they rode onward, such as—

'Eh gai, gai, gai, mon officier!'

And as they began to ascend a still nameless hill with a flat top, the Prince sang loudly 'Les deux Grenadiers,' an old Bonapartist ditty—Le Toque joining in the chorus of Beranger's chanson:—

'Vieux grenadiers suivons un vieux soldat,
            Suivon un vieux soldat!
            Suivon un vieux soldat!
            Suivon un vieux soldat!'

On the summit of the koppie the party slackened their girths, while the Prince made a sketch of the landscape. 'We may here digress to say,' adds the Cape Argus, 'that the Prince's talent with pen and pencil, combined with his remarkable proficiency in military surveying (which so distinguished the first Napoleon), made his contributions to our knowledge of the country to be traversed of great value.'

Amid the heat and splendour of an African noon they now rode on to a deserted kraal, consisting of five beehive-shaped huts, near a dry donga, or old watercourse, where they unsaddled and knee-haltered their horses to graze, while the Prince and his companions chatted and smoked, all unaware that some forty armed Zulus were actually stalking them like deer, crawling stealthily and softly on their hands and knees through the long Tambookie grass and mealies, drawing their rifles and assegais after them.

About four o'clock Corporal Grub, of Bettington's Horse, got a glimpse of a Zulu, and warned the Prince of the circumstance.

'Saddle up at once!' said the latter; 'prepare to mount!'

The brief orders had scarcely left his lips when a volley from forty rifles crashed through the long Tambookie grass and waving reeds, which bent as if before a breeze, and then the ferocious lurkers rushed with flashing and glistening teeth, bloodshot, rolling eyes, and loud yells, upon the solitary party of eight men.

Terrified by the sudden tumult, all the horses swerved wildly round; a trooper named Rogers was shot dead with his left foot in the stirrup, and those who actually got into their saddles found it impossible to control their horses, so terrific were the yells, mingled with ragged shots, and they bore their riders across the open karoo and towards the deep and dangerous donga.

Prince Napoleon's horse, a difficult one to mount at all times, and sixteen hands high, resisted every attempt at remounting in its then state of terror; thus one by one the party rode or were borne away, while the unhappy Prince endeavoured to vault into his saddle.

'Mon Prince, dépêchez-vous, si'l vous plait!' cried his countryman trooper, Le Toque, as he rushed past, lying across but not in his saddle, and then the heir of France found himself alone—alone and face to face with more than forty merciless and pitiless savages!

Who can tell what may have flashed through the brave lad's mind in that moment of fierce excitement and supreme mental agony—what thoughts of France and Imperial glory—the glorious past, the dim future, and, more than all, no doubt, of the lonely mother, who was so soon to weep for him at Chiselhurst—to weep the tears that no condolence could quench!

When last seen by Le Toque, as the latter gave a backward and despairing glance, he was grasping a stirrup-leather in vain attempts to mount the maddened animal, which trod upon him, and broke away when the strap parted; and then, for a moment, the young Napoleon covered his face with his hands—deserted, abandoned to an awful death, which no Christian eye was then to see.

All the obloquy of this tragedy was now heaped upon Lieutenant Carey, a native of the south of England. It was dark night when he got to head-quarters, and at that time nothing could be done to ascertain the fate of the deserted one.

Scarcely a man slept in our camp by the Ityotyosi River, and after 'lights out' had been sounded by the bugles, the soldiers could talk of nothing else but the poor Prince Imperial.

'The news of his death,' wrote an officer who was in the camp, 'fell like a thunderbolt on all! At first it was regarded as one of those reports that so often went round. Bit by bit, however, it assumed a form. Even then people were incredulous, only half believing the dreadful tale. The two questions first asked were—What will they say at home? and, secondly, the poor Empress? All was wildest excitement, and brave men absolutely broke down under the blow. To them it looked a black and bitter disgrace. The chivalrous young Prince, repaying the hospitality shown him by England with his sword—entrusted to us by his widowed mother—to have been killed in a mere paltry reconnaissance! to have fallen without all his escort having been killed first! to lie there dead and alone! Many there were who would have given up life to have been lying with him, so that our British honour might have been kept sacred.'

CHAPTER XIX.

FINDING THE BODY.

'Fall in, the Mounted Infantry!' cried the voice of Hammersley, when with earliest dawn strong parties were detailed from the camps of the Second Division and Sir Evelyn Wood to scout the scene of the tragedy; and as his squadron rode forth in the grey light with rifle-butt resting on the thigh, just as the dawn began to redden the summit of the Itelezi Hill, Florian remembered that this mournful search was his first duty as an officer; but the calamity clouded the joy of his promotion, and would be always associated with it.

He felt himself again the equal of Dulcie Carlyon; but, still, to what end? He could not go home to her, nor could she come there to him, a combatant in Zululand; besides, he knew well enough that an officer's pay, unless when on service, is not sufficient for himself without the encumbrance of a wife; and with this enforced practical view of the situation he could only sigh as he rode on and thought of poor Dulcie.

As some of the Volunteer Horse went to the front, Florian became conscious that two, wearing huge, battered hats, who rode together, were regarding him furtively, and with a curiously hostile and scowling expression; and his heart gave a kind of leap when he recognised in these, two of the ruffians whose odious features were indelibly impressed upon his memory by the adventures of that horrible night in the so-called hotel at Elandsbergen—Josh Jarrett and Dick of the Droogveldt, with his short, thickset figure, small, dull eyes, and heavy, bull-dog visage.

That they would work him some mischief, if possible, in their new capacity he never doubted; and possibly enough it was their design to do so, secretly and securely, amid the often confused scouting and scampering to and fro of the Mounted Infantry among bush and cover of every kind. But, as they were then going to the front, he thought it unwise to move in the matter at the time; besides, they might be knocked on the head, and all on the ground were thinking only of the Prince Imperial.

A deep silence hovered over the ranks of the various searching parties that rode round by the base of the flat-topped Itelezi Hill. The swallow-tailed banneroles of the 17th Lancers, who looked handsome and gay in their white helmets and blue tunics faced and lapelled with white, fluttered out on the morning wind; but the iron hoofs of their horses fell without a sound on the soft and elastic turf of the green veldt. Occasionally a low murmur would be heard as the searchers drew nearer the fatal kraal, and the lance was slung and the carbine grasped instinctively when at times the black Kaffir vultures, hinting of a dreadful repast, rose from among the tall, feathery Tambookie grass, and, croaking angrily, winged their way aloft as if enraged and interrupted.

Driving out roughly by lance point and rifle bullet about a hundred Zulus from some holes and scrub, several of the Lancers under Lieutenant Frith, their adjutant, and the Mounted Infantry under Hammersley, next drew near the fatal donga, which some officers crossed on foot. Among those who were in advance of all the rest was Lieutenant Dundonald Cochrane, of the Cornish Light Infantry.

'Look!' cried Hammersley to Florian, as Cochrane was seen to pause and with reverence take off his helmet. Then a hum went along the ranks of the searchers, who all knew what he had found.

And there, on the sloping bank of the donga in the evening sunshine, with his head pillowed on some sweet wild-flowers, nude as he came into the world, save that a reliquary and locket with his father's miniature were round his neck—supposed to be potent fetishes—lay the poor young Prince, the guest of Britain, the hope of Imperial France, and the only son of his mother, dead, and gashed by sixteen assegai wounds, among them the usual cruel Zulu coup de grace—the gash in the stomach.

It was found that, though an accomplished swordsman, he had failed to use his sword—the sword of his father the Emperor—which had dropped from the scabbard in his attempts to mount; but that, seizing an assegai which had been hurled at him, he had defended himself till he sank under repeated wounds; and a tuft of human hair clenched in his left hand attested the valour and the desperation of his resistance.

His faithful little Scottish terrier was found dead by his side.

All around him the ground was trampled, torn, and stained by gouts of blood.

A bier was now formed by crossed lances of the 17th Lancers, covered by cut rushes and a cavalry cloak. Reverently and almost with womanly tenderness did our soldiers raise the body, and on this bier, so befitting to one of his name, Prince Napoleon was borne by loving hands by the rough and rugged track that led towards the hill of Itelezi; while all around the place where they had found him were flowers of gold and crimson tint, where in the gouts and pools of blood bright-winged moths and butterflies were battening.

That the Prince was duly prepared to meet any fate that might befall him the remarkable prayer composed by him fully attests. It was found in his repositories, and was published in the papers of the time.

The entire Second Division was under arms to receive his remains when brought into the camp beside the river. The body was borne through the lines on a gun-carriage, wrapped in linen and shrouded by a Union Jack; the funeral service was performed by the Catholic chaplain to the forces, and Lord Chelmsford acted as chief mourner. Though tolerably accustomed to bloodshed now, a profound impression of gloom pervaded the faces of the troops.

By mule-cart the body was sent to Pietermaritzburg, and in passing through Ladysmith there occurred a scene that was touching from its simplicity. This is a small village in the Division of Riversdale or Kannaland, where the body remained for the night at the entrance thereof, in the bleak open veldt, under a guard of honour; but from the school-house there came forth, and lined the roadway, a procession of little black children, who, to the accompaniment of an old cracked harmonium, sang a hymn, as the soldiers of the 58th Regiment took the body away, and sweetly and softly the voices of the little ones rose and fell on the chilly air of the morning.

'This,' says Captain Thomasson, of the Irregular Horse, in his narrative, 'was but one mark of the feeling that all in the colony, whatever their age, colour, position, or sex, had at the sudden and terrible close of that bright young life. And it may safely be affirmed that not one disassociated in his mind from the thought of the dead son, the recollection of the blow awaiting the widowed mother.'

The next striking scene was at Durban, the only port in Natal Colony, where the troops handed over the remains to the blue-jackets of H.M.S. Shah for conveyance to England.

Here the poor old majordomo of the Prince was left behind. He was so inconsolable for the loss of his master, that it was feared he would lose his reason, and more than once he said, with simple truth and bitterness:

'My master would not have abandoned one of them!'

CHAPTER XX.

THE SKIRMISH AT EUZANGONYAN.

The transmission rearwards of the Prince's remains causing a day's delay in the advance of the division, Florian gladly availed himself of it to write to Dulcie a letter full of love and all the enthusiastic outpouring of his heart to one who was so far away; to express his astonishment on learning that she was an inmate of the same house with Shafto, their bête noir, of whom she was to beware, he added impressively.

He told of his military success—of all that might be in store for them yet; for Florian had, if small means at present, the vast riches of youth and hope to draw upon, especially in his brighter moments, and—if spared—his future promotion from the rank of second-lieutenant was now but a thing of time.

There had not been much brightness in his life latterly; but it was impossible for him not to admit that the dawn of a happier day had come, and that he had made substantial progress in his profession.

He told her—among many other things—of Vivian Hammersley's friendship and favour for himself, even when in the rank and file, and of his pride and gratitude therefor; of the change her letter to himself had made in Hammersley's views of Miss Melfort, for whom he sent an enclosure from the Captain, lest watchful eyes—perchance those of Shafto—might examine too closely the contents of the Craigengowan post-bag; and from old experience they knew what the man was capable of—not respecting even 'the property of H.M. Postmaster-General.'

For, now that Florian was an officer, his friend Hammersley, though proud as Lucifer and at times haughty to a degree, was, under the circumstances, not loth to avail himself of Dulcie's assistance in this matter, so necessary to his own happiness; so the two missives in one were despatched, and with an emotion of thankfulness that was deep and genuine, Florian dropped it into the regimental post-bag at the orderly-room tent, for conveyance with the mail to Durban.

The Second Division began its forward march on the 3rd of January, and encamped half a mile distant from the kraal near which the Prince Imperial had perished, while Sir Evelyn Wood's column, advancing by the left, proceeded along the further side of the Ityotyosi. Already the bad rations to which they were reduced—eight pounds of inferior oats and no hay—were telling severely on the horses of the 17th Lancers and Mounted Infantry.

On the 4th, when encamped on the bank of the Nondweni River, a cavalry patrol, under Redvers Duller, Hammersley, and others, had a narrow escape from being cut off by two thousand five hundred Zulus, of whom, on the following day, the entire cavalry column went forth in search.

When the whole mounted force was getting under arms, Hammersley threw away the end of a cigar before falling in, and said to Florian—

'Look here, old fellow, I have been thinking about you. I am not a millionnaire, you know, but I have enough and to spare. You have not, I presume—pardon me for saying so; but now that you are an officer, and must want many things, my cheque-book is at your disposal, if you wish to draw on old Chink the Paymaster.'

'A thousand thanks to you, Captain Hammersley,' replied Florian, his heart swelling and his colour deepening with gratitude; 'but I have no need to trespass on your kindness—I want nothing here; we are all pretty much alike in Zululand—officer and private, general and drum-boy.'

'Yes, by Jove! but in the time to come?'

'Thanks again, I say, dear Hammersley, but I am inclined to let to-morrow take care of to-morrow, especially while campaigning in Zululand.'

'Tiresome work I find that, with all my zeal for the service,' observed Hammersley, as the entire cavalry force moved off about four in the morning, when the sky and landscape were alike dark. 'We have much bodily endurance, and run enormous risks which the people at home don't understand or fully appreciate, because our antagonists are naked savages, though second to no men in the world for reckless valour; thus honour may be accorded to us but scantily and grudgingly, because they are savages and not civilised enemies, or, as some one says of the days of the Great Duke, when so many thousand men in red coats and blue breeches met and beat so many thousand men in blue coats and red breeches.'

General Marshall, with the King's Dragoon Guards and 17th Lancers, had reconnoitred the country in advance as far as the Upoko River, and there effected a junction with Buller's command on the same ground where the latter had escaped the ambuscade referred to.

On a green plain below it a great mass of Zulus, sombre and dark, spotted with the grey of their oval shields, was seen hovering, the flash of an assegai-head sparkling out at times when the sun arose, and near them, enveloped in smoke and all sheeted with flame at once, were some kraals that had been set on fire by the Irregular Horse; so the scene, if beautiful, was also a stirring one.

Above the vast mountain opposite, where the Upoko (a tributary of the great White Umvulosi, which flows towards the sea) was rolling in golden sheen between banks clothed with date palms, Kaffir plums, flowering acacias, and thornwood, the uprisen sun was shining in all his glory. The mountain was torn by ravines and studded with mimosa groups. On the left of the troops rose the vast Inhlatzatye, or mountain of greenstone, turned to crimson in the morning sun, its base clothed with lovely pasture, and twenty miles in its rear was known to be Ulundi, the great military kraal of Cetewayo, the chief object of the advance.

In the immediate foreground was the force of cavalry, with all their white helmets and sword blades shining in the sun, the dark blue of the Lancers, and the sombre uniforms of the Irregular Horse, relieved and varied by the bright scarlet of the King's Dragoon Guards and the mimosa-coloured tunics of the Mounted Infantry.

The sharp blare of the trumpets sounded 'the advance.'

'Buller's Horse to the left!' cried the officer of that name, digging spurs into his charger; 'Whalley's to the right! Frontier Light Horse and Hammersley's Mounted Infantry the centre!'

Uncovering to the flanks, the formation was made at a canter, and the forward movement began. During the morning Florian had more than once (till his men required his attention) an unpleasant sense of the presence of two secret enemies on the ground, which made him look frequently to where the oddly costumed volunteer troopers were advancing, and before that day's fighting was quite over he had bitter cause to know that both were in the field.

The 1st King's Dragoon Guards had been quartered in the same barracks with the regiment to which these two deserters belonged, and, feeling themselves now in hourly expectation of recognition by some of them, the camp of the Second Division had become perilous for the two desperadoes, and on that day they had resolved to 'levant,' but not before effecting their villainous purpose, if possible.

They knew well that by the rules of the service, at foreign stations, when there is no doubt as to the identity of a deserter, he is sent at once to his own corps to be dealt with there; moreover, they know that the fact of their serving with the Volunteer Horse constituted another crime—that of fraudulent enlistment; and neither had any desire to be tied to the wheel of a field-piece and flogged as an example to others, for that punishment had not been quite abandoned yet.

While Colonel Buller's force was advancing, the Zulus had moved off by companies in singularly regular formation, and taken post in the rocky ravines at the base of the Euzangonyan Hill, which was covered with thick scrub and high feathery reeds, that swayed to and fro in the wind like a mighty cornfield.

After crossing the river, the Irregulars and Mounted Infantry at full speed advanced to within three hundred yards of the foe, and leaped from their saddles, with rifles unslung. The horses were then led forward out of fire, or nearly so, by every third file, told off for that purpose.

Kneeling and creeping forward by turns, the fighting line opened a steady fire upon the partly concealed Zulus, whose dark figures were half seen, half hidden amid the smoke that eddied along the slopes of the hill, and this continued till the watchful Buller, who was surveying the position through a field-glass from the summit of a knoll, discovered from a flank movement that the Zulus had a large force in reserve, and, in a wily manner, were luring his troops on to destruction.

He ordered his bugle to sound the 'retire' and the whole to recross the river, but not before several men were killed or wounded, with fifteen horses placed hors de combat; then the Queen's cavalry were ordered to advance to the attack with lance and sword.

In his saddle, Florian watched them advance in imposing order, led by that preux chevalier, Drury Lowe, the hero of Zurapore, where the pursuit and the destruction of Tantia Topee were achieved in the Indian war. When Buller's scouting horse, skilled marksmen even from the saddle, and mounted on cattle nimble as antelopes, had partly failed, he could scarcely hope to achieve much with his heavy Lancers and still heavier Dragoon Guardsmen; but sending a troop of the latter to guard against any chance of the Zulus creeping down the bed of the river, he led three troops of Lancers close to the margin, where the marigold figs grew in profusion, and the yellow Kaffir melons, large as 40-pound shot, were floating in the current; and splashing through, he deployed them on some open ground beyond, full of that fiery confidence that there is nothing in war which the genuine dragoon cannot achieve.

'By Jove!' exclaimed Hammersley, 'but it is sad to see these splendid Lancers going in for this kind of work. It is hopeless for them to charge such a position, and attempt, at the lance's point, to ferret these savages out of their holes and dongas.'

From the Euzangonyan Hill the Zulus were now firing heavily, but as their rifles were all wrongly sighted—if sighted at all—their bullets went high into the air. Between these and Lowe spread a mealie-field, which he believed to be full of other Zulus, and resolved to let all who might be lurking there feel what the point of a lance is, he rode straight at it.

'Trot—gallop—charge!' sounded the trumpets; and with their horses' manes and the banneroles of their levelled lances streaming backward on the wind, the 17th rushed on, sweeping through the tall, brown stalks of the dead mealies, but found no Zulus there.

When clear of the mealies, Lowe ordered some of the Lancers to dismount and open fire with their carbines on those Zulus who were lurking on the hill-slope among some thorn-trees, and there many were shot down, and their half-devoured and festering remains were found by our soldiers in the subsequent August.

After punishing them severely, the cavalry were recalled, but not before there were some casualties among the Lancers, whose adjutant, Lieutenant Frith—a favourite officer—was shot through the heart, and brought to camp dead across the saddle of his charger.

From fastnesses that were quite inaccessible to horsemen, the Zulus, covered by an undergrowth of prickly thorns and plants with enormous brown spiky leaves, continued to fire heavily, wreathing all the hill-side in white smoke, streaked with jets of fire; while another portion of them, yelling and running with the swiftness of hares, lined the bed of the river and opened a sputtering fusilade in flank, rendering the whole position of our cavalry most perilous.

'Retire by alternate squadrons!' was now the order for the cavalry, and beautifully and steadily was the movement executed.

'Fours about—trot,' came the order in succession from the leaders of the even and odd squadrons.

A front was thus kept to the Zulus, but the hope to lure them from their fastnesses by a movement they had never seen before, and to have a chance of attacking them in the open, proved vain; and upon broken and steep ground, on which it would have been impossible for any cavalry force to assail them, they were seen swarming in vast black hordes round the flanks of the Euzangonyan Hill, and still maintaining a sputtering but distant though defiant fire, while the cavalry and other mounted men fell back towards their respective columns; and now it was that the calamitous outrage we have hinted at occurred.

When the cavalry began to fall back by alternate squadrons, it was remarked that two men of the Irregular Horse lingered at a considerable distance in the rear, still firing occasionally, as if they had not heard the sound of the trumpet to 'retire.'

'Those rash fools will get knocked on the head if they don't come back,' said Hammersley to Florian, as they were riding leisurely now at a little distance in rear of their men. 'They are nearly six hundred yards off. Well, we have not got even a scratch to-day,' he added, laughing, as he manipulated and proceeded to light a cigar; 'and now to get back to camp and have a deep drink of bitter beer. By Jove, I am thirsty as a bag of sand.'

'And I too,' said Florian.

Again the 'retire' was sounded, now by two trumpeters together, but without avail apparently.

At that moment two rifle-shots came upon the speakers, delivered by the very men in question, and then they were seen to gallop at full speed, not after the retreating column, but at an angle towards the north-west, on perceiving that their shots had taken fatal effect; for Hammersley, struck by one, fell from his saddle on his face, and rolled over apparently in mortal agony, while Florian felt Tattoo give a kind of writhing bound under him and nearly topple over on his forehead till recovered by the use of spur and bridle-bit. Florian at once dismounted, for the horse was seriously wounded; but he could only give a despairing glance at his friend, if he meant to act decisively and avenge him.

'These scoundrels are deserters doubly—I know; follow me, men, we have not a moment to lose!' cried Florian, in a voice husky with rage, grief, and excitement, as he leaped upon poor Hammersley's horse; and with a section of four men, one of whom was Tom Tyrrell, he spurred after them at full speed, without waiting for orders given or permission accorded.

If he was to act at all, there was no time for either.

He never doubted for a moment that they were Josh Jarrett and Dick of the Droogveldt, who were boldly attempting to escape in the face of the column after failing to shoot himself, and who had now fully thousand yards start of him and his pursuing party.

END OF VOL. II.

BILLING & SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.