Bertram Mitford (continued 3)

Sometimes two or three headmen from the surrounding kraals would come into the camp and have a talk with the Police officers; and although Vunisa did not make one of them, his people, too, seemed less restless, and no more was the stillness of night broken by the stamp and roar of war-dancing in his location. The green, rolling plains slept peaceful in the radiant sunlight of each unclouded day, and at night a beacon-like flare upon a far-away height might be a grass fire or a less harmless signal.

“What do you think of this as a new thing in blowpipes, Greenoak?” said Sub-Inspector Mainwaring, one day, coming out of his tent with an unusual-looking weapon in his hand—unusual there and then, at any rate.

Greenoak took it.

“One of these Winchesters. Yes, I’ve seen them,” he said, returning it. “New-fangled American invention. Well, I don’t think much of them.”

“Why not?” said the other, who was rather proud of his new acquisition. “I’ve always held that what we want is some sort of repeating rifle. Sort of thing, you know, that can pump in a lot of shots one after another.”

“That’s all right, if the ‘lot of shots’ hit,” said Greenoak. “If not, one shot at a time’s sufficient.”

“Well, look at that sardine tin over there”—pointing to one on the ground about seventy yards away, and bringing up the piece.

One shot, and the tin moved; another, and it leapt off the ground; another—a clean miss; likewise a fourth.

“You have a try now,” said the owner of the weapon, handing it back to Greenoak.

Up went the piece. One, two, three, four—Greenoak had hit but once. Something of a murmur stirred the group of men who had stopped to look.

“By Jove, old chap, you must be a bit off colour to-day,” cried Dick Selmes. Harley Greenoak to miss—to miss anything—however small and at whatever distance, why, that was an eye-opener to him, and, incidentally, to more than one other. Harley Greenoak—to have “his eye wiped,” and by a young Police sub-inspector! Why, it was marvellous.

“A bad workman finds fault with his tools,” said Greenoak, musingly, as he eyed the weapon, and balanced it critically. “Well, I may be a bad workman, but this is a tool I’m not used to. Wait a second while I get my .500 Express.”

He went into his tent. Several empty sardine tins were lying about.

“Now then, Mainwaring,” he said as he reappeared, “chuck up one of those, as high and as far as you can.”

The other did so; Greenoak’s rifle spoke. The tin went whizzing further into the air. Before it came to the ground another bullet struck it, and sent it skimming along some twenty yards further. A shout of applause went up from the onlookers.

“There you are,” said Greenoak, tranquilly. “It resolves itself into a matter of what you’re accustomed to. Now, I dare say a lot of practice with that new gas-pipe of yours, Mainwaring, might get one into the way of it. Still, I don’t know—” taking the weapon from him and balancing it again. “I don’t like the hang of it. The hang seems to leave a lot to be desired.”

Then its owner tried some more shots, with fair success, and then Dick Selmes tried some, but indifferently. The while Harley Greenoak watched the performance narrowly and critically; hardly foreseeing that this repeating rifle was destined to play some important part in the doings of not very far hence.

There were times when Dick Selmes would get low-spirited. There was not much doing just then, as we have said, and at such times his thoughts went back to Haakdoornfontein and its grim but kindly old owner, and more especially, of course, to Hazel Brandon. He had written to her since he left, but to his disappointment had received no reply. Harley Greenoak, who was the recipient of his confidences, as they lay in their hut at night smoking their turning-in pipe, would listen with exemplary patience, and with much kindly tact strive to comfort him; for he had given up urging any objection Sir Anson might entertain on the subject. That must take its chance, he decided. There was nothing to be downhearted about, he declared. The girl wasn’t born who would not think the better of him for having borne a man’s share in active events, and so he would find when he met her again, and more to the same effect. All of which was vastly comforting to Dick, who would turn in with the last impression that if any fellow were found bold enough to tell him that this world could contain a better chap than Harley Greenoak, why, he would take infinite pleasure in calling that man a liar.

A day or two later two express-riders, dusty and fagged with hard riding, arrived in camp with despatches. The burden of these set forth with unmistakable plainness that the recent apparent quietude was but the calm before the storm. The plotting and disaffection was all below the surface now, but it was there, and all the more dangerous for that. The Commandant, with two troops of Police and one seven-pounder gun, were marching to the Kangala, a deserted trading store, occupying a useful central position, there to go into permanent camp, and Inspector Chambers was instructed to join him there, with A. Troop, immediately on receipt of the said despatches.

“I say, but this express-riding must be a devilish exciting sort of joke,” said Dick Selmes, as he looked at the tired and travel-worn men, who stood there waiting, while their officers, having disappeared within the hut, were examining the despatches.

“Don’t know about the joke part of it, mister,” answered one of them, “but it was exciting enough this morning early. Why, we narrowly missed tumbling into a gang of hundreds of ’em, all bristling with assegais and things. And we shouldn’t have missed that if there hadn’t been the devil of a fog on at the time. We saw them, but just managed to slip away before they twigged us.”

“By Jove! You don’t say so. Here—come along to our hut and have a glass of grog. We’ve got some left, and it’ll set you up again.”

He had hooked an arm into one of each of them in that boyish impulsive way which had gone so far to build up his popularity with all in the camp. The men stared.

“Well, you are a good sort, whoever you are,” said one of them. “But we daren’t.”

“Oh, it’ll be all right. Good old Chambers won’t know. He’s too much taken up with reading his post.”

“Well, we can’t do it, sir—at least not until we’re dismissed,” the man added, rather wistfully. “By the way, is there a Mr Selmes in the camp? Maybe you’re him—are you?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Why, there are letters for you then, with those we’ve brought. They’ll be in there—with the Inspector.”

“Hurrah!” cried Dick. “And, I say, you fellows. As soon as you can break loose, don’t forget. There’s a glass of grog going over there. That’s our hut—mine and Greenoak’s,” pointing it out.

Then Chambers came forth. The men saluted, and retired.

“Letters for you, just come, Selmes,” said that genial officer.

Dick fairly grabbed them. Only two, one from his father, the other— He knew that writing. It was Hazel Brandon’s.

We are sorry to say that once within the solitude of his hut—Greenoak was somewhere about the camp—this was the one he opened first. It was in answer to his. It was not particularly long, nor worded with any pretence at style, but it was kind, almost affectionate; dwelling on all the good times they had had together, and reminding him that he must visit them at their own farm when he had got through the more exciting part of his travels. Her people would be so glad to see him—and so forth. And Dick felt as if he were treading on air. Then he read his father’s communication, and his heart smote him for not having taken it first. Sir Anson had arrived safe and sound at home again, and was all right. He referred to the rumoured coming troubles in South Africa, and hoped that if he, Dick, came in for any part of them, he would avoid attempting foolhardy feats, or running unnecessary risks, if only because he had an old fool of a father who hadn’t yet done with him—and so on. Then there was a lot of home news, and warm remembrances to Harley Greenoak, so that by the time he had done, Dick felt just as soft over this letter as he had felt over the other; and, strange to say, considering his time of life, wondered if he was worth any one taking the bother of thinking about at all.

The bustle outside aroused him to the outer world; for orders had been issued to strike camp immediately, and begin the march to the Kangala, some five and twenty miles distant. But before the start was made the express-riders got their glass of grog apiece—indeed we dare not swear they did not get two.

“By Jove, Greenoak!” said Dick, as they were hurriedly rolling up their traps. “I would like to have a run across country with these express-riders one of these days. It must be thunderingly exciting.”

“Would you? Well, it’s likely to be, just soon, if all these accounts hold bottom, and I’m more than inclined to think they do. The Commandant is an old friend of mine, and there’s no more cool-headed, intrepid man on the whole continent of Africa. If he’s on the look-out, well then it’s time other people were. But you’d better leave express-riding alone. Your dad confided you to my charge, remember.”

Dick did remember, with his father’s solicitous and affectionate letter fresh in his pocket. And yet—and yet—there was at the bottom of his mind a half-fledged lurking determination that he would take his turn at express-riding—if he saw the chance. Two men—or three—darting across a hostile country, bearing with them momentous possibilities—could any situation of adventure hold out anything more alluring? But—he said nothing more on the subject then. Harley Greenoak was sometimes away from camp—on mysterious absences.

Chapter Seventeen.

The Express-Riders.

Corporal Sandgate and Trooper Stokes rode forth from the Police camp on express duty.

They were entrusted with very important despatches indeed; to the effect that, owing to the accidental explosion of an ammunition waggon, the large force of Frontier Armed and Mounted Police in camp at the Kangala might, at any moment, find itself alarmingly short of that essential article; and containing urgent injunctions to the authorities in charge of the border post—where an ample supply was stored—to send on a sufficiency of the same, under escort, without a moment’s delay.

The two men had been specially selected for this duty. Sandgate was a young Englishman of good family, who, like many a superfluous or younger son at that time, had emigrated as a recruit for the frontier corps, beginning at the bottom. He was a fine, sportsmanlike, athletic fellow, who could ride anything and anywhere, and had soon got his first hoist on the steps of the ladder of promotion. The other man, Stokes, was a wiry, hard-bitten Colonial, no longer quite young, who had been some years in the Police, but had twice lost his step as corporal owing to an inconvenient hankering after the bottle. When away from its temptations, as in the present case, he was one of the most useful men in the Force. Each, we have said, had been specially picked for this duty; Sandgate for his pluck and dash, and a reputation for readiness of resource which he had managed to set up, Stokes for his knowledge of veldt-craft.

The two express-riders started from the Kangala Camp at moon-rise, which took place early in the evening. It was calculated that, by riding all night, they should reach their objective, Fort Isiwa, not much later than the following midday. They could, by no means, cover the distance in anything like a straight line, nor was there, in many places, anything that could be called a track, which was where Stokes’s veldt-craft was to come in: even then their route skirted the turbulent Gudhluka Reserve, whose swarming inhabitants were just then in a particularly dangerous state of simmering unrest, and would as likely as not make short work of a couple of members of a body whom they loved not at all, given an opportunity. Once beyond this danger belt, however, there would be little or no risk, for, after that, the country was sparsely populated, and its inhabitants less disaffected. So the programme before these two was to push on for all they knew how, so as to get over the more risky portion of their ride under cover of night.

This being the case, it might have seemed a little strange that, having arrived at a point about five miles from camp, where the far from distinct waggon track forked into two, they should have reined in their horses, and sat listening.

“Tell you what, Sandgate,” muttered Stokes, cramming a quid of tobacco into his mouth—under the circumstances, for obvious reasons, the pipe must be foregone with stern self-denial. “Tell you what. It’s no good our waiting. He won’t come. He’s thought better of it. Greenoak’s likely turned up again and stopped it.”

Both men sat for a couple of minutes longer, their feet kicked loose from their stirrups. Then, as they were on the point of resuming their way, a sound caught their ears—the tread of a horse, on the way they had just come over.

“Hallo, you fellows! About given me up, I suppose?” said Dick Selmes in a low, excited tone, as he rode up.

“We were just going to,” answered Stokes, who was inclined to be short of speech and a bit sour towards so obvious a specimen of the gilded youth as this one. “And, I say, if you could keep that confounded brute of yours from jingling that swagger bit so as to be heard all over the Gudhluka Reserve, why, it’d be just as well.”

“He’ll be all right directly, soon as he’s let off a little more steam,” said Sandgate, good-humouredly, with a glance of approval at Dick’s spirited and well-groomed mount, which, in sheer enjoyment of the fresh freedom of the veldt, was tossing his head and blowing off clouds of vapour upon the cool night air.

That Dick Selmes had been able to join the two express-riders had involved some plotting; for, from the moment he had heard of their errand, incidentally through Inspector Chambers, to whose troop they belonged, he had firmly made up his mind that join them he would. But, on putting this to the Inspector, that worthy had promptly vetoed the whole business—subsequently compromising, however, by suggesting that the matter be submitted to the Commandant.

The latter, however, a fine old frontiersman born and bred, took a different view. He was a reserved, undemonstrative man, but had taken a liking to this dare-devil youngster by reason of his pluck and adaptability.

“I don’t really see why he shouldn’t go if he’s keen on it, Chambers,” he said. “The experience will do the young dog no harm, and he seems able to take care of himself. Greenoak keeps him too much in leading-strings. Oh, that,” as the Inspector, with a dry laugh, recalled a certain adventure in Vunisa’s location which would have cost our friend his life but for the shrewdness and promptitude of Harley Greenoak. “Well, yes. But, on the whole, Sandgate and Stokes are thoroughly reliable men, and will keep him in order. Of course, I need know nothing about it officially, nor need you; but if he should find his chance of slipping away after them, why, after all, he’s only our guest here, and can come and go as he chooses,” concluded the Commandant, with a twinkle in his eyes.

Harley Greenoak was away upon a critical and delicate mission which he had undertaken as a personal favour to the Commandant. As things were at present, he argued, his charge could come to no harm, at any rate for a day or two, by which time he himself would be back. All of which accounted for the comparative facility wherewith Dick had slipped away—a facility which struck our two express-riders as strange.

Something of a friendship had grown up between Dick Selmes and Corporal Sandgate. They were of the same age, had the same tastes, and, hailing from adjacent neighbourhoods in the Old Country, had acquaintance in common. On such they chatted in subdued tones, as they held on their way rapidly through the calm beauty of the African night. So far the said way was easy, as under the unerring guidance of Trooper Stokes they crossed each rolling upland, mimosa-dotted and grassy. Here and there, far-away, the mysterious dimness was relieved by the red glow of a grass fire, or might it be the weird signal of plotting savages? Soon, however, the ground became more rugged. They forded a small river, rippling deep down in a thickly bushed valley, and the steeds drank gratefully of its cool, if slightly brackish, water. Then on again.

“We must swing back again here,” said Stokes, as they drew rein on top of a ridge to loosen the girths and give the horses a quarter of an hour’s rest and feed. “There are kraals in front of us. I can smell ’em.”

“The deuce you can?” said Dick, vividly interested. “I can’t. You’re not getting at us, old chap, are you?”

To this Stokes vouchsafed no reply. He stroked his thick, wiry beard, looking unutterable contempt.

They resumed their way, sometimes making a considerable détour to avoid suspicious neighbourhood. Once the barking of dogs, alarmingly near, caused a thrill of anxious excitement. Had the tramp of their horse-hoofs been heard? they wondered, as they swerved off as noiselessly as possible. At last, what looked like a building loomed in front of them. Just behind it were three or four native huts.

“I thought so,” exclaimed Stokes. “Blamed if this isn’t old Shelbury’s store. We’ve come a leetle more out of our road than we need have done, Sandgate.”

“We’ll make it up. I say, hadn’t we better off-saddle and have some grub?” suggested Dick Selmes, cheerfully.

Stokes looked at him sourly.

“Grub!” he echoed. “You’ll get none o’ that here. Any fool could see that Shelbury’s cleared. Why, the place is all stove in and the whole show looted.”

Closer investigation proved such to be the case. The door hung on one hinge, and seemed very much battered.

“We’ll push on,” said Sandgate, with an anxious glance at the moon, now getting low. “The further we do that under cover of night the better.”

But Stokes, rapping out something about just taking half a squint inside, and catching them up again in a jiffy, was already off his horse. The other two, resuming their conversation about old times and scenes at home, held on the way he had pointed out to them. So taken up were they that it was quite a little while before it occurred to them that it might be advisable to pull up and wait for Stokes. Nor had they long to wait.

“Just as I thought,” he said, coming up. “The whole shoot has been cleared from top to bottom. You never saw such a mess in your life. But there’s no one dead inside.”

As they rode on, neither Sandgate nor Dick noticed that Stokes kept rather behind. The moon, too, had almost sunk, wherefore, perhaps, they further failed to notice that his tan-cord uniform jacket bulged.

Chapter Eighteen.

The Ordeal.

It was just the dark hour before dawn when Sandgate called a halt.

“We might safely do half an hour’s snooze here,” he said. “The gees want that amount of rest. You turn in, Selmes, and I’ll do horse-guard. No—no—don’t wrangle, man; each minute of that means so much less hard-earned snooze; besides, I’m in command here. Stokes, you look done too. Well, off you go, both of you.”

The latter, with a cavernous yawn, was off like a log. Dick, with a sleepy laugh, followed suit. Then Sandgate, loosening the girths, but not off-saddling, allowed the horses to graze, their bridles trailing on the ground, and set to work to watch.

The place in which they had halted was among some broken rocks, a small hollow, in feet, and admirably adapted for a hiding-place. The back was overhung by boulders, and in front, beyond a lip of the same, the ground fell away in a rugged slope to the bottom of a deep bushy kloof. To Sandgate, left to his lonely vigil, that brief half-hour seemed long enough. To the other two, heavy in slumber, it was as a flash.

“Now then, Selmes. Time,” he whispered, with a hand on the other’s shoulder. In a trice Dick was up, but yawning pathetically. He shivered too, for a thin damp mist was stealing athwart the rocks and bush sprays.

“All serene,” he said, ready and alert. “Kick up the other fellow.”

But although this was done, and that literally, for all the effect it produced Stokes might as well have been dead, or a bit of timber. And then, as an acrid fume rose poisonous upon the cold morning air, Sandgate stood aghast with wrath and horror. His colleague and subordinate was drunk—dead drunk.

Yet how? In a moment something of the truth flashed across his brain. That wretched trader’s store they had passed! Stokes must have found grog in there, which had been overlooked by the plunderers. His cursed instinct had moved him to go inside and explore. There was no sign of any bottle about Stokes, certainly, but this he would have been slim enough to drop unseen and unheard. Now the mystery of his lagging behind stood explained.

“Great Scott! And the despatches!” exclaimed Sandgate, horrified.

“Take ’em on, and leave him here to get sober,” suggested Dick. “He deserves it.”

But Sandgate objected to deserting a comrade in dangerous country. He himself would be reduced to the ranks, of course, kicked out of the Force most likely, but he could not abandon a comrade. To this Dick suggested that he should remain with Stokes while Sandgate rode on.

“That won’t do either, Selmes,” said the latter, gloomily. “You’re new to this country, and in my charge. No—that won’t do.”

“But think of the vital importance of the despatches,” urged Dick. “This fellow has brought it all upon himself. Besides, he’s supposed to know his way about better than both of us put together. So I say, let him take his chance.”

“We’ll have one more try,” said Sandgate.

They had, and it was an exhaustive one. They shook and hustled the stupefied man, and threw in his face what little water remained in their bottles. In vain. Stokes merely gave an inarticulate grunt, and subsided into deep slumber again. Then they tried another plan—that of placing him on his feet by main force. Still in vain. The drunken man slid to the ground again, and in their efforts to keep him up both Sandgate and Dick lost their balance, stumbled, and fell with him.

Before they could rise several pairs of muscular hands had gripped each of them, and bulky forms pressed them down. So effectually were they pinioned that they could not even reach their revolvers, which were promptly reft from them. The little hollow which was their resting-place was swarming with Kafirs, who had stolen upon them like snakes what time their attention was taken up endeavouring to restore consciousness to Stokes; even the warning which should have been conveyed by the alarmed snorting and restiveness of the horses had escaped them. They were absolutely in the power of these savages, who had surprised and captured them without giving them an opportunity of striking a blow in defence of their lives, and, to one of them, of his trust.

The first thing their captors did was to bind them securely with the reims cut from their horses’ headstalls. Then a hurried consultation began among them. A man who seemed in authority—a tall, evil-looking ruffian—issued an order. The unconscious Stokes was seized and roughly turned over, face uppermost. A moment’s examination sufficing to satisfy them that he was hopelessly drunk, half a dozen assegais were driven through his body, as coolly as though his murderers were merely slaughtering a sheep; while his comrades lay sick with honour at the sight, and justifiably apprehensive as to what their own fate was destined to be.

They had not long to wait. Under the hurried directions of another man, a short, thick-set Kafir—not the one in seeming authority—they were subjected to a quick but exhaustive search, when, of course, the despatch to the officer commanding at Fort Isiwa came to light.

“This—what it say?” said the short Kafir, in very fair English, tapping the document, which he held open by one corner.

“Oh, it’s merely a letter asking for a few more horses to be sent on to Kangala,” answered Sandgate, with as much coolness as he could assume.

“That a lie!” was the prompt response. Then, threateningly, “Read that—out, so I hear it.”

“If you can talk English, surely you can read it,” answered Sandgate.

“Read it! Read!”—thrusting the paper before his face. “Read—or—”

“Or what?”

“That,” said the Kafir, pointing to the body of their murdered comrade, which the savages had already stripped, and which lay, a hideous and gory sight enough to strike terror into the survivors. But these were of the flower and pick of their nationality, and to neither of them did it for one instant occur to purchase his life by a revelation which might result in calamitous, even appalling, consequences. To both the moment was one which had reached a point of critical sublimity, as they took in the barbarous forms, the ring of cruel countenances, the dark, grisly hands grasping the ready and murderous assegai. Both were staring Death in the face very closely.

“Well, I shan’t read it,” said Sandgate, decisively.

“Nor I,” echoed Dick Selmes.

At a word from the English-speaking Kafir, a powerful, ochre-smeared ruffian seized Sandgate by the chin, and, jerking back his head, laid the sharp edge of an assegai blade against his distended throat.

“Now—will you read?” came the question again.

The natural fear of death, and that in a horrible form, brought the dews of perspiration to the unfortunate man’s brow, as the evil savage, whose hand quivered with eagerness to inflict the final slash, actually divided the skin. Yet, looking his tormentors steadily in the face, he answered—

“No!”

The man in authority said a few words. The assegai blade was lowered, and Sandgate’s head was released.

“Now,” went on the English-speaking Kafir, “we not kill you—not yet. We try hot assegai blade—between toes. That make you read, hey?”

And even as he spoke a fire was in process of kindling, which a few minutes sufficed to blow up into a roaring blaze.

If the imminence of a horrible form of death had been appalling to these two, it was nothing to this. Should they be able to stand firm under the ghastly torture that awaited, the very thought of which was enough to turn them sick? And yet—the issue at stake! The war-cloud, though brooding, had not yet burst; but did it get to the knowledge of their enemies that the only force which overawed them, and to that extent held them in check, was short of ammunition, why, the effect would be to let loose tens of thousands of raging devils, not only upon that force itself, but upon the whole more or less defenceless frontier. This was in the minds of both, as quickly Sandgate’s boot was cut from his foot, while one fiend, who had plucked a red-hot blade from the fire, stood, eagerly awaiting his orders.

“Now—will you read?”

“No!” shouted Sandgate, his eyes staring at his questioner in horror and despair. Then followed a long and shuddering groan, and in it, and the convulsive writhe of the victim, Dick Selmes seemed to share. His comrade’s agony was his own.

At a sign from the English-speaking Kafir the instrument of torment was withdrawn.

“First taste,” he said grimly. “This go on all day. How you like that? Now—you read?”

“No!” thundered the victim.

Then something else thundered. Crack! Crack! The barbarian with the hot iron pitched heavily forward, shot through the brain, while another of those holding Sandgate shared the same fate. Crack! Crack! Not a moment of interval—down went two more, and those immediately next to the prisoners; then two more in the same way. Instinctively the others sprang back, realising that this was the point of danger; but still that unceasing fire went on pitilessly decimating them. Wildly they looked at the point whence it came, but vainly, for the morning mist had so thickened that they could but dimly see the outline of the rocks which overhung the back of the hollow. A great and thunderous roar, accompanying a hail of heavy slugs into the very thick of them, completed their discomfiture. With a wholesome recollection of the artillery practice some of them had witnessed on the banks of the Tsolo River not long before, they cried that the Amapolise were upon them, and disappeared helter-skelter into the mist and the bush at the lower side of the hollow.

Our two friends could hardly believe in their good fortune. Yet—no escape was to be theirs. A man was beside them—a black man—and in his hand a knife. They would be murdered, of course, in the hour of rescue. But—he was cutting their bonds.

“Quick! Come with me,” he said in English, at the same time collecting the Police carbines and revolvers lying on the ground, which the panic-stricken Kafirs had omitted to carry away. Him they followed—Sandgate limping painfully—as he led the way to the rocks above, where, ensconced in a cleft which commanded the hollow beneath, Harley Greenoak sat coolly refilling the magazine of a Winchester repeating rifle, while an old elephant gun of enormous calibre lay on the ground beside him.

“You’re well out of that,” he said, hardly looking up. “Lucky I got back to camp when I did, and John Voss came in at the same time with the notion he had picked up that Pahlandhle’s crowd were particularly on the look-out for express-riders. I formed my plan there and then; borrowed Mainwaring’s Winchester—dashed bad shooting-gun it is too—and, with John Voss’s old elephant roer to give the idea of artillery, why—brought the whole thing off. Even then the mist counted for something.”

In the last-named both now recognised one of the smartest native detectives attached to the F.A.M. Police.

“Come along,” went on Greenoak, rising. “We must get on with those despatches. No time to lose.”

“But—they are lost,” said Sandgate, wearily.

“No, they ain’t. John’s got ’em.”

The black man grinned as he handed the paper over to the corporal.

“But our horses?” said Dick Selmes, dismayed.

“Well, I got back one of them,” answered Greenoak, equably. “One of you can ride John’s—he’s quite able to make his way back to the Kangala alone. So there are mounts for the three of us, and the sooner we get on to the Isiwa fort the better.

“Well, Dick,” he went on, “I take it you’ve found your first experience of express-riding ‘thunderingly exciting,’ as you were saying the other day.”

“I should think so—ugh!” And something like a shudder accompanied the words, as the speaker recalled their recent ghastly experience, and the lamentable fate of the unfortunate man whose body lay just beneath, and which they could not even spare the time to bury.

Chapter Nineteen.

The Ammunition Escort.

“Where did you pick up that man, Jacob Snyman?” said Harley Greenoak.

“He’s not been long attached to the Force,” answered Sub-Inspector Ladell.

“Yes, I know, but where did you pick him up?”

“That’s more than I can tell you. He’s rather a pet of the Commandant’s; helps him to find new sorts of butterflies and creeping things that the old man is dead nuts on collecting. So he took him on in the native detective line.”

Harley Greenoak did not reply, but his thoughts took this very definite shape—

“That’s all very well, but a taste for entomology on the part of an untrousered savage isn’t going to get this escort safe and sound to the Kangala Camp. One more occasion for keeping one’s eyes wide-open.”

The object of this inquiry was a thick-set, very black-hued Kafir, at the present moment not untrousered, for he wore the F.A.M. Police uniform of dark cord, and was driving one of the two ammunition waggons, which, with their escort, were just getting out of sight of the solid earth bastion of Fort Isiwa. The said escort consisted of sixty men, under the command of a Sub-Inspector, beside whom Greenoak was riding. With him was Dick Selmes. The latter now struck in—

“What’s the row with Jacob—eh, Greenoak?”

“I don’t know that I said anything was.”

“No. But you’d got on that suspicious look of yours when you spoke of him. I believe you’re out of it this time. Now, I should say Jacob was as good a chap as ever lived, even though he is as black as the ace of spades. I’ve been yarning with him a heap.”

“Have you? I think I’ll follow your example then,” returned Greenoak, reining in his horse so as to bring it abreast of the foremost of the ammunition waggons, ahead of which they had been riding.

The driver saluted. Though, as Dick Selmes had said, he was as black as the ace of spades, he had an extremely pleasant face and manner. Greenoak addressed him in the Xosa tongue, being tolerably sure that none of the Police troopers within earshot possessed anything but the merest smattering of that language, most of them not even that. Further, to make assurance doubly sure, he talked “dark.” The while, Dick and Sub-Inspector Ladell also talked.

“Tell you what, Selmes,” the latter was saying, “you’re a regular Jonah. You’re always getting yourself into some hobble, and Greenoak seems always to be getting you out of it. Now, I’ll trouble you to mind your P’s and Q’s while we’re on this service, for we can spare neither time nor men till we’re through with it. It’s an important one, I can tell you, a dashed important one.”

“Don’t I know it?” answered Dick. “Didn’t I take my full share of getting the despatches through? I couldn’t help it if that poor unlucky idiot Stokes got drunk and killed.”

“No, you certainly couldn’t help that. But you’re a Jonah, man. Yes, decidedly a Jonah.”

“A Jonah be hanged!” laughed the other, lightly. “Well, Greenoak, what have you got out of Jacob Snyman?”

“Oh, nothing,” was the casual reply. But though the speaker’s face wore its usual mask-like imperturbability, the speaker’s mind was revolving very grave thoughts indeed.

The escort, and its momentous charge, had effected a prompt and early start from Fort Isiwa, far earlier than could have been expected; for, thanks to Harley Greenoak’s skilful guidance, the way across country of the express-riders had been nearly halved. The convoy, proceeding at something of a forced pace, had covered about three hours of ground since the said start.

The road lay over gently undulating ground, dotted with mimosa, now over a rise, only to dip down again into a corresponding depression. Away, against the blue mountain range in the distance, arose here and there a column of thick white smoke in the still atmosphere. It wanted an hour to sundown. Then, suddenly, the lay of the land became steeper. Dark kloofs, thickly bushed, seemed to shoot forth like tongues, up to within a hundred yards of the high, switchback-like ridge which formed the line of march. But no Kafirs were met. It was as if the land were, in their own idiom for war, “dead.” Even the few kraals which lay just off the road here and there, showed no sign of life.

By the advice of Harley Greenoak scouts had been thrown out ahead of the convoy. To this, Sub-Inspector Ladell, who, though as plucky as they make them, was not a particularly experienced officer, had at first demurred.

“Why, dash it all, there’s no war,” he had protested. “By putting on all this show we’re making them think we’re afraid of them.”

“Well, take your own line. You’re in command of this racket, not me,” was the imperturbable rejoinder.

But the scouts were thrown out.

Now, as the convoy ascended a rise, two of these came galloping in. Several bodies of Kafirs, they reported, were massed in a shallow bushy kloof which ran up to the road ahead. They themselves had not been interfered with, but their appearance had been marked by considerable excitement. Moreover, the savages were all armed, for they had seen the glint of assegais and gun-barrels.

“Hurrah!” sang out Dick Selmes. “Now we are going to have an almighty blue fight.” But Ladell, alive to the gravity of his charge and his own responsibility, was not disposed to share his enthusiasm. Had he already got his convoy safe to the Kangala Camp, he would thoroughly have enjoyed the prospect of fighting all the ochre-smeared denizens of Kafirland—come one, come all. Now, the thing wore a different face.

“Well, we are going through,” he said grimly. Then he gave orders that the escort should form up in close order round the two waggons, and thus they gained the top of the next rise.

“Down there, sir,” said one of the men, who had brought in the news.

A bushy kloof fell away on their left front, its upper end nearly touching the road by about fifty yards. This was alive with wild forms, their red-ochre showing in contrast to the dark green of the foliage. They made no pretence at concealment either; commenting in their own tongue with free outspokenness on the Police troopers, to whom they referred derisively as a lot of half-grown boys. However, this affected the latter not at all, for the simple reason that the contemptuous comments were not understood.

Sub-Inspector Ladell was in a quandary. That the savages meant mischief he was certain. Yet no war had—officially—broken out. If he ordered the first shot to be fired, why, he incurred a grave responsibility. On the other hand, the Kafirs were drawing nearer and nearer, crowding through the bushes like a swarm of red ants. Even as many another, when in a quandary, he referred to Harley Greenoak.

The latter nodded, and turning his horse, rode a little way out from the escort in the direction of the Kafirs, yet taking care to keep himself between them and the ammunition waggons. Then he lifted up his voice and hailed the enemy. From the latter a great shout went up.

“Whau—Kulondeka!”

Kulondeka—meaning “safe”—was, it will be remembered, the name by which Harley Greenoak was known among all the tribes by whom the Bantu dialects were spoken.

“You know me,” he went on. “Good. Then come no nearer. The Amapolise have enough cartridges to keep on shooting you down like books for an entire day, or even more.”

Even as he spoke the order had been given to load and dismount. Cartridges were slipped into the breeches of carbines, and those told off to hold the horses had got them in hand. The fighting-line stood, waiting the word to fire. Harley Greenoak had not dismounted. Now he galloped quickly out of the firing-line, reining in ahead of the foremost of the ammunition waggons—that driven by Jacob Snyman.

With a sudden roar—deafening, terrific—the cloud of red savages came surging up the slope. They had flung off their blankets, and were whirling and brandishing these as they ran, with the double object of stampeding the horses, and disturbing their opponents’ aim. Then, in a crackling volley, the Police carbines spoke. More than a dozen leaping sinuous forms came to earth, clutching wildly at nothing in their stricken throes. Others halted limpingly, or subsided. The charge was checked. Though in considerable force the assailants dropped into the long grass and behind mimosa bushes or ant-heaps, to gather, if might be, courage for another attempt.

“Great Scott, Ladell, but I bagged a right and left!” cried Dick Selmes, in tremendous excitement, banging a fresh pair of cartridges into his smoking gun.

“Get out with those old shooting yarns, Selmes,” was the answer. “Why, the nearest was outside a hundred and fifty yards. You’re not going to tell me your charge of buckshot’ll kill at that distance. No. You’ll have to stick to one.”

“All right. Wait till they get nearer, and you’ll see,” retorted Dick.

As he spoke there was a wavy movement in the grass. Like lightning the Kafirs sprang up, bounding forward again, and uttering deafening yells. They had discarded the blankets now, and came straight on, each grasping a short-handled, broad-bladed assegai. It was noteworthy that, although many had firearms, they forebore to use them. The bulk of the Police escort noticed this, but only one—and he not of the Police escort—understood it. That one was Harley Greenoak.

“Aim low, men, aim low,” said Ladell, who, as we have said, though not a very experienced officer, was coolness and pluck itself.

The carbines barked, and again the assault was stayed. But now the firing and the yelling and the general racket had rendered the troop-horses restive, so that more men had to be told off to help hold them. This weakened the firing-line. And more and more Kafirs could be seen swarming up the kloof, in the rear of the original assailants.

The Police troopers were behaving admirably. Many, if not most of them, were quite youngsters, not long out from England, but the real fighting blood was there. True, they had not been literally under fire, but the spectacle of these swarming savages, and the reinforcements coming on behind, was nerve-trying enough. Why, their own small force was a mere mouthful to such as these! The sheer weight of numbers was enough to crush them; and added to this consciousness was the certainty that they were opposed to an enemy who gave no quarter, except temporarily, that those thus spared might be put to death in lingering torment. Yet they were as cool as though at ordinary musketry practice.

“Here they come again!” sang out Ladell. “Aim low, boys, and steady. Give them three volleys, as quick as you can load.”

The savages surged forward; near enough now to render distinguishable each broad, cruel face. Their sonorous war-shout had now become a strident hiss, in the hope of still further terrifying the frantic horses. A tongue of them darted round as though to outflank the position, and further confuse the mere handful of Police. The fire of the latter had now become a continuous roar.

But what of those who led the new manoeuvre?

One by one down they went, each shot fair and square through the head, and that in regular and precise order. Half a dozen—eight—thus lay. In wild panic, which was half superstition, they halted, and pressed back. While thus bunched, a deadlier fire raked them. Utterly demoralised, they dropped into cover, and incontinently crawled out of the line of fire. Seeing which, Harley Greenoak said to himself complacently—

“This old repeating gas-pipe I borrowed from Mainwaring isn’t such a bad practical joke after all.”

Then he became alive to two facts; neither of which astonished him, for he had foreseen both. One was that the enemy had had enough; the other that the team inspanned to the foremost of the ammunition waggons was in a state of wild panic—so much so indeed that its driver could no longer control it. And that driver was the very black, pleasant-mannered Kafir, Jacob Snyman.

The horses plunged and tugged wildly at the reins. So frantic were their plunges that it seemed a miracle that the whole thing was not overturned. Yet no upset took place.

No upset took place, but a bolt. The frantic animals dashed off—at headlong speed downhill—straight for where, amid the bush, the defeated Kafirs lay, broken up into sullen knots, but now, animated once more, eagerly awaiting this most welcome prize. Their driver seemed powerless to restrain the animals.

“Turn the horses, Manyelo! Turn the horses, or you have looked your last upon the sun!”

The driver, Jacob Snyman, knew the voice, even as it needed not his real name to bring home to him that he was known. Harley Greenoak, galloping abreast of the runaway team, but with his horse well in hand, was pointing a long-barrelled and very businesslike revolver straight at his head, and he had only too recently seen what Harley Greenoak could do in the shooting line. So Jacob Snyman, alias Manyelo, deciding that however valuable some thousands of rounds of cartridge might be to his expectant countrymen over yonder, life was a good deal more valuable to him—with sufficient show of pretence at succeeding—effectually turned his team, bringing it round to the escort again.

A volley of congratulations awaited.

“Well done, Jacob!” cried Sub-Inspector Ladell. “Why, man, we none of us expected to see you again with a whole skin, and so many more rounds of ammunition for John Kafir to blaze away at us with. Well done! By Jove, you stopped those fools of horses just in time!”

Jacob Snyman grinned softly, deprecatingly, and remarked that Ladell—and incidentally the Government—was his father. But Harley Greenoak said nothing.

The escort moved forward again, the savage enemy watching it from his far cover, and speculating on his chances of doing better next time. The Police were in high glee. They had beaten off a determined attack, with heavy odds against them, at considerable loss to the enemy—over forty dead had been hurriedly counted—and they themselves had come out without a scratch. To be sure, the said enemy had omitted to use any firearms, which omission they quite overlooked, or, if they gave it a thought, it was only as a subject for passing wonder. But Harley Greenoak did not so overlook it; for he knew the reason. The Kafirs wanted that ammunition, and so refrained from any act which should result in blowing it all sky high. This was why he himself, except when in pursuit of the runaway team, had kept between the waggons and the enemy.

Night fell, the moon rose, and the convoy held on its way unmolested. The Police troopers were in high spirits after their first fight. Not less exultant was Dick Selmes; and during the short halt that was made, in order to rest the horses and snatch a hurried meal, he was fighting the battle over again with characteristic exuberance. All had shown what they could do.

Towards dawn another halt was called, and the tired troopers, flinging themselves on the ground, were fast asleep in a minute. But for their officer, tired as he was, there was no rest. His anxiety increased as they drew nearer to their objective; and, by way of adding to such anxiety, a heavy mist drew down. Sharing his vigil was Harley Greenoak.

The latter suddenly held up a hand for silence—the two men had been chatting in a low tone. Listening intently, the faintest sort of crackle, as of something burning, came to the quick ears of one of them. Now the striking of a light had been strictly prohibited.

Quick to act as to think, Harley Greenoak made straight for the ammunition waggons, which were drawn up side by side. As he gained them a figure dashed out of one, nearly upsetting him, and disappeared into the mist; so quickly indeed as to render it useless to fire at it. But a more urgent duty lay to the hand of the investigator.

The latter, without hesitation, and in defiance of orders, struck a light, as he mounted the nearest of the waggons, and well, indeed, was it that he did so. One of the ammunition cases had been stealthily removed, and the cavity thus formed was filled with chips and dry grass, besprinkled with gunpowder, while leading up to this was a fuse, cunningly contrived of rope strands and tinder wood. A red glow, like that of a well-lighted cigar, was creeping along with alarming rapidity. In less than five minutes the whole escort would be blown to atoms. It took less than five seconds for Greenoak to remove and extinguish the deadly fuse, just as Ladell came up, and with much strong language wanted to know who was striking a light contrary to orders.

The while, the fugitive, who had disappeared into the mist, had the ill-fortune to stumble over Dick Selmes, fast asleep. The latter, however, lively through recent experiences, was promptly wide awake, and grabbed him by the leg, throwing him to the ground.

“Why, it’s Jacob Snyman,” he exclaimed, recognising the other’s voice, and releasing his hold. Hardly had he done so than Greenoak, hearing the sound, came up. Too late. The fugitive had disappeared.

“Oh, I’ll soon bring him back,” cried Dick, after the first dozen words of explanation, and leaping to his feet, regardless of expostulation, and at imminent risk of being shot by the sentries, he plunged into the mist.

In hard training, he was able in a moment to bear the clink of stones as the fugitive ran. A spurt, and he came up with him. The Kafir seeing only one, and he almost certainly unarmed, drew a sheath knife, and stood waiting. And just then, as ill-luck would have it, his pursuer stumbled and fell headlong.

With an evil snarl the Kafir leapt forward. Where was the pleasant-faced, soft-mannered, civilised native now? A sheer savage this, about to shed blood, and that unnecessarily.

But out of the mist leapt two figures, and down went Snyman under the mighty fist of the Police corporal who was with Harley Greenoak. Disarmed, and rendered powerless for further mischief, he was brought back to the escort. When the nature of his misdoing got abroad, it was all Ladell could do to keep his men from lynching him. But now he was almost as anxious to get his prisoner safe to camp as he was the ammunition; and indeed he succeeded in doing both by the following midday.

“So Jacob’s as good a chap as ever lived—eh, Dick?” said Harley Greenoak, drily, when that consummation had been attained.

“By Jingo! he’d have done for me if you fellows hadn’t turned up,” laughed Dick.

Chapter Twenty.

The Traitor.

The Commandant was nothing if not thorough, and as it came home to him what a marvellous escape the ammunition escort had had, and the direful effects that would have resulted from the carrying out of the attempt—not only to the force under his command, but in consequence to many lives along the frontier—his first impulse was to order the traitor to be shot, right out of hand. Two considerations, however, moved him from his purpose, or at any rate to the postponement of it. One was that he was a man of judicial mind, and deemed it only fair that the culprit should have an opportunity of making what defence he could; the other a secret appreciation of the latter’s calm courage. For Jacob Snyman had uttered no prayer for mercy, nor had he put on the swagger of bravado. To one of the Commandant’s temperament this appealed powerfully. In fact, on thinking further, he was by no means eager to order the Kafir’s execution, and probably he was the only man in the camp wearing the Police uniform of whom this could be said. So Jacob Snyman—otherwise Manyelo—was brought before a sort of court-martial consisting of the Commandant and the commissioned officers, and was asked what he had to say.

He had nothing to say—what could he have? Then Harley Greenoak came forward, and told how he had found the fuse and the tinder in among the ammunition boxes, all ready fired. Told, too, how he had known the prisoner before and—well, had thought it right to keep an eye on his doings, and in the result had defeated his daring attempt to desert to the enemy with one of the ammunition waggons.

The Kafir smiled slightly at this, and shook his head.

“That would have been great,” he muttered in his own tongue. “But who shall perform anything if Kulondeka is there, and is determined he shall not?”

When Dick Selmes was asked to give his version of the prisoner’s attempt to murder him, he said at once that he’d rather not.

“Is it absolutely necessary, Commandant? It seems as if the wretched devil had got more on his back than he can throw off as it is,” he pleaded. “I don’t want to help drive nails into his coffin.”

“Still, you’d better tell us what you know,” was the uncompromising answer. And Dick did so.

The proceedings were as short as they were informal. No interpreting was necessary, as the prisoner spoke English glibly and well. He was asked once more if he had anything to say.

Well, he had, was the answer, but he supposed it did not amount to much. He had joined the Police only with an eye to helping his countrymen, and, why should he not? Would an Englishman not undergo risk for the sake of helping his countrymen? Well then, if this was right in an Englishman, why was it wrong in a Kafir? What Kulondeka had stated was quite correct. He had volunteered to drive the foremost ammunition waggon, with the object of preventing it—and, as he had hoped, the other also—from reaching the Kangala Camp at all; and, had he succeeded, he would have placed a large store of ammunition in the hands of his countrymen. The reason why the latter had used no firearms in yesterday’s fight, he said, was for fear of exploding this ammunition.

Those who heard were listening with extraordinary attention. There was something strangely pathetic in this smiling, unperturbed man telling his story without hope or fear on the one hand, and without bravado or defiance on the other. He was, in fact—and he knew it himself—to use Dick Selmes’ syllogism, driving the nails into his own coffin. He richly deserved his fate of course, but—

When that plan failed, went on Jacob, he had tried to blow up the waggon. No. He had not blown up the one which had been exploded before, though it was true that this event had put the idea into his head. Had he succeeded, the whole of the Police force at the Kangala would have been annihilated.

“That all?” said the Commandant, tersely.

The prisoner nodded.

“That all,” he assented, as though he had been narrating the misdeeds of somebody else, in which he had no concern whatever.

“Remove him fifty paces back,” said the Commandant.

Then the little group conferred. Harley Greenoak stood by listening to their counsels, but taking no part therein. There was a solemnity in the demeanour of the younger officers. Even Ladell, who would willingly have shot the delinquent with his own hand when caught in the act, inwardly shrank from helping to doom a man to death in cold blood, even though the man was black and richly deserved his fate. However, the safety of more than themselves called for stern necessities. The deliberation was a short one.

“Jacob,” said the Commandant, when the prisoner had been brought back. “On your own showing you have played the part of a spy, a traitor, and a would-be murderer. In half an hour you will be taken outside the camp and shot.”

“In half an hour?”

“In half an hour,” repeated the Commandant, clicking open his watch.

“Hau! May I smoke pipe o’ ’bacco first?”

“Here!” cried Dick Selmes, springing eagerly forward and wrenching open his pouch.

The Kafir calmly proceeded to fill his pipe. Then he asked for a light. No objection was raised.

“I t’ank you, sir,” he said courteously, returning the pouch, and proceeding to emit complacent puffs. There was a silence. Probably the most at his ease was the culprit, whose life had but minutes to run. The Commandant, at any time a man of few words, sat back in his camp chair, his face as impassive as wood, his gaze straight in front of him. It was a silence nobody cared to break. To Dick Selmes it was especially awesome, even terrible. He would have liked to plead for the man’s life, but he knew it would be useless. There were but eight minutes more.

The doomed one, where he was squatting, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, then half filled it again, with a little tobacco he had kept over, in the hollow of his hand. A few more puffs. There were but five minutes to run. The sun flamed in an unclouded sky, the green roll of hill and plain golden beneath his beam, and for this man, who sat there, in five minutes should be substituted the Dark Unknown. Yet he sat, placidly puffing out tobacco smoke at if he had a hundred years to live. A savage and a heathen, death seemed to hold out for him no terrors whatever.

The Commandant shut up his watch. The prisoner rose, calling out that he would like to take his farewell of a very Great One, one who was a great fighting chief and a great igqira (Doctor) as well; for whom he had found many magical things—this in reference to the Commandant’s love of collecting to which we have already heard reference made by Sub-Inspector Ladell. Further, he desired to bequeath to that Great One something valuable, a “word” of great weight, such as might be the saving of many lives. He did not ask his own as the price. He merely wanted to leave a bequest to his father and chief, the Commandant.

Thus, as the latter, having signed that he should be brought forward, the doomed one stood before his judges.

“What is that ‘word’?” said the Commandant, shortly.

“This, amakosi. The whole of the Gudhluka Reserve is up in arms, and the Kangala will be heavily attacked this very night.”

“And the chiefs—who are they?”

“Vunisa and Pahlandhle. They have been massing their men for days. Now they are ready.”

“And how have you known this, here, under arrest.”

The Kafir smiled and shook his head.

“I was not a prisoner the day before yesterday, Great One,” he answered.

“If you ran such risks for the benefit of your countrymen yesterday, how is it you will give them into our hands to-day?” asked the Commandant.

“You are my ‘father,’ Great One, whom I have lived to serve. I go to my death, but I do not want you to meet yours. To the whole of the Gudhluka Reserve the Amapolise here are as a mouthful, if taken unprepared—if taken unprepared,” he repeated.

Among the young officers there was a stir of sensation. The whole story, in their opinion, was an impudent cook-up. The fellow had invented it to save his life. Surely the Chief would not be humbugged by any such yarn as that. But then they remembered that its inventor had not even asked for his life. In their whispered remarks Inspector Chambers and the two other Inspectors took no part. They had unbounded confidence in the judgment of their Chief.

The latter sat, stroking his long beard as he gazed thoughtfully at the prisoner. A lifelong experience had taught him that no white man ever got thoroughly to the bottom of the innermost workings of a Kafir’s mind. He might think he did, only to find that it was just the moment when he did not. He himself was partial to the natives, and no man was more appreciative of the good points in the native character. He knew, too, that a native is very much a creature of irresponsible impulse. This boy, who would cheerfully have sacrificed them all yesterday, felt now concerned at the possible risk to his Chief. He had accompanied the latter on many a collecting expedition in pursuit of his natural history studies, and had entered into these with enthusiasm and zest; here, then, was a motive, here a presumption that his weighty warning might be a true one. None knew better than himself either, the marvellous, if mysterious, methods which these people had of flashing news from point to point almost with telegraphic swiftness, wherefore he had no reason to doubt that this one knew what he was talking about.

“Attend now, Jacob,” he said. “You made a grave attempt yesterday against the safety of all here, and it did not succeed. To-day you are, as you say, making an attempt to ensure our safety. If that succeeds it will wash out the other attempt.” Then to those who custodied him, “Take him to the guard-hut, iron his legs at any rate, and put two sentries on guard—until further orders.”

Jacob Snyman, otherwise Manyelo, saluted and was led away. He knew now that his life was saved.

Dick Selmes and one or two more noticed an almost imperceptible but approving nod on the part of Harley Greenoak, standing behind the Commandant, as this decision was given. The latter rose. The proceedings were ended. It was near evening now, and the whole Force was immediately put in preparation for giving its expected assailants a particularly warm reception.

“Well, you’re a plucky young swine anyhow, Jacob,” growled one of the troopers who was fixing on the leg irons. “Darned if I didn’t think we should be shovelling you underground just now, instead of anchoring you tight in a snug hut. But if you don’t get us our big fight to-night, the old man’ll still have you shot.”

“Oh, you get your fight right enough,” answered the prisoner, with a careless laugh. “Quite as much fight as you want, no fear. I say—any one got pipe o’ ’bacco to spare?”

“Here you are, you young swab, although you did try to blow us all sky high,” said the man, lugging out half a handful. “Still you’re plucky enough anyway.”

Chapter Twenty One.

The Attack.

The camp of the Frontier Armed and Mounted Police at the Kangala lay wrapped in the stillness of profound slumber.

It was the darkest hour of night—that before the dawn. Even that would not have been dark, for the moon had not yet set, but a thick mist lay upon the land, blotting out everything in its confusing, bewildering folds; damp too, so that the shivering men, sleeping on their arms, disposed at their posts instead of within the comparative snugness of their kennel-like patrol tents, needed but little rousing in the event of the expected happening. But strict orders for silence had been issued, also that no light was to be struck on any pretext whatever; wherefore these shivering ones were perforce denied the solace of the warm and comforting pipe. The troop-horses on the picket lines were beginning to bestir themselves, as an occasional snort and stamp would testify.

The Commandant came out of one of the huts which had been erected for the use of the officers; he had not slept in it, any more than that night had any man under his command, officer or private trooper. He glanced upward, as the lightening of the mist showed a pale, wrack-swept moon, then held up against the latter something that looked uncommonly like an ordinary large-sized pickle-bottle. No newly invented projectile was this, however, it being in fact just what it looked, and it contained something nondescript of the lizard tribe, reposing motionless on the harmless-looking chemical which constituted the jar a miniature lethal chamber. For the cool, self-possessed officer in command of the frontier force was known to science as an enthusiastic naturalist, as we have already pointed out.

He did not start in the least at the sound of an almost imperceptible tread behind him.

“That you, Greenoak?” was all he said, without taking his attention off the jar. “My specimen’s dead by now. I think, though, I’ll put him inside the hut in case of accidents.” Then, reappearing, “Well? I suppose we shall be hard at it in an hour?”

“Less than that,” replied Harley Greenoak. “Listen!”

Out in the mist the shrill, long-drawn, laughing bay of a jackal rang out, then again. It was answered by another, on the opposite side of the camp, and about at the same distance from it.

“That doesn’t seem to ring quite true, does it?” said Greenoak.

“No, it doesn’t. And there’s a mathematical precision about it unusual among the beasts of the field,” was the answer.

Greenoak nodded.

“Right you are, Commandant,” he said. “Listen. The mathematical calculation keeps up.”

For, on the other front came the same sound at exactly the same distance in that direction. It was answered by the two who had first given tongue, but now all these three voices seemed to be receding. This ordinary nocturnal sound would have attracted the attention—we dare say—of no other there present, but to the keen experienced ears of the Commandant and the up-country hunter the note, as the latter had said, did not ring true.

The camp was situated upon an open plateau, with a sparse mimosa growth beginning about a hundred yards from the defences, and stretching away to much thicker bush half a mile further on the south front and the two corresponding sides. Here the ground sloped away to a low range of hills, distant enough, however, not to command the position. On the north, or rear, the ground was almost entirely open. A low sod wall and a shallow trench surrounded the camp on all sides, and had been constructed in a square formation. The ammunition supply, now abundant, thanks to Harley Greenoak and the bravery of the express-riders, was securely disposed, and, at the same time, readily get-at-able. Only one of the two seven-pounders constituting the Police artillery battery was present—the other being away on service elsewhere—and this was trained so as to protect the south front.

In obedience to orders, quickly and noiselessly issued, every man was now at his post. The excitement was tense, painful. Most of those present had never been in action, a proportion had never even witnessed the taking of human life in any form. But they were well officered, and by none better than by their Commandant. He, utterly calm and self-contained, his helmet towering nearly a head above the group of officers surrounding him, stood, stroking his long beard; and, as he uttered a dry witticism or two in an undertone in response to their remarks, his thoughts running about equally on the work in front, and the latest “specimen” he had captured, was as a very pillar of strength to some of the untried younger men there present.

“By George, the Chief’s splendid!” exclaimed Dick Selmes, who, in his eagerness, was right in among the front rank of the fighters.

“Silence there!” came the whispered but sharp mandate of a sergeant. “Oh, it’s Mr Selmes? Well, if you’re not in the ranks you are for the present,” he added meaningly.

Dick apologised and shut up. He was in such a state of suppressed excitement that it was all he could do to keep silence.

Now the dawn was lightening, and with it the mist. Harley Greenoak whispered a word or two to the Commandant. Both stood listening intently, and, in a moment, the officer in charge of the seven-pounder moved swiftly from the group. A red flash belched forth dully through the mist, together with a resonant roar, and with the bursting of the shrapnel, some six hundred yards away on the front face of the position, came sharp, startled yells of dismay and of agony. Harley Greenoak’s fine, well-nigh supernatural sense of hearing had told him that at this front were massed a considerable body of the savage enemy.

Grimly, justifiably elate, the gunners in a trice had rammed home the next charge. And then with the widening dawn, the mist rolled back like a curtain, and this is what it revealed.

The thicker bush line, barely half a mile distant, was pouring forth dense masses of Kafirs. They seemed to swarm like disturbed red ants; and now, with a tremendous and vibrating roar, the whole of this formidable array swept forward upon the Police camp.

“Seems to me we’re taking on all the Kafirs in Africa,” said Inspector Chambers, lowering his glass. “Thousands and thousands anyhow.”

The Commandant issued some orders, characteristically laconic and few. He and Harley Greenoak were the only two men present who betrayed absolutely no sign of any excitement.

The swarming assailants had halved the distance now, and their front ranks, dropping into cover, began opening a furious fire upon the camp. Two troopers were hit, but not fatally. Then the seven-pounder spoke again, and with the reverberating boom the bursting shrapnel fell beautifully over a point where the savages were massed thickest. But, so far from dismaying them, it had the effect of urging them on to the attack, so as to get it over as quickly as possible, which was just what the Commandant intended should happen.

Those in the enemy’s firing-line leaped up and charged forward in skirmishing order, dropping into cover every now and then to deliver a rapid volley. So far, from the Police camp not a rifleshot had been fired. Only the seven-pounder boomed as quickly as it could be loaded, every time dropping its shrapnel where likely to prove most effective.

In crescent formation the front line of the savages had now reached within three hundred yards of the camp. They had ceased all shouting, and were coming on in silence; grim, naked figures, save for their fantastic war-adornments. Then the Police carbines barked. The men had been especially enjoined to fire low, and in the result, at such close range, the blow to the onrushing enemy was felt, and as the first discharge was quickly followed by another and another, his ranks staggered, swayed this way and that, then dropped down into cover again.

This was the opportunity of the assailed and, incidentally, of Harley Greenoak. For cover was very scant so near the camp, and when two men got behind a stone or ant-heap that would not have sheltered one, why, the bullets had a pitiless knack of finding them out. Utterly demoralised, the skirmishers crawled away to a remoter point where the bush grew thicker, and for upwards of an hour kept up a straggling fire. But they never repeated their first rush. The back of the fight seemed to have been broken by the terrible execution done during that same rush. At last, utterly panic-stricken, they fled.

Now A. Troop was ordered to complete the blow by a pursuit; under so experienced an officer as Inspector Chambers there was no chance of it being drawn too far. And we may be sure that Dick Selmes did not remain behind.

For the first time now he realised the sights and horrors of a battlefield. Wherever he looked it was to behold some stark and gory corpse, even piles of them where the deadly shrapnel had done its work. Wounded Kafirs too, groaning and twisting in their pain—ugh! It was horrible! But, as the Police came up with the rear masses of the flying enemy, the fierce excitement revived. The horrors were forgotten.

Chapter Twenty Two.

The Two Chiefs.

“Hallo! Here’s a chap we’ve overlooked,” sang out Dick, turning his horse. Four troopers followed him. A little to the right of the pursuit a solitary Kafir was standing, peering over a bush. As the five charged up to him, revolver in hand, he sank to the ground.

“No kill. I hit,” he said, in English. “Hit bad—in the leg.”

There was no mistake about that. From a neat bullet-hole in the calf, blood was oozing. However, dismounting, the men kicked his assegai out of his reach.

“No kill,” repeated the fellow, spreading out his hands. “I tell you something—something you like hear.”

Dick Selmes, who, of course, had not the remotest intention of killing a wounded man, here assumed an aspect of the most merciless ferocity. He pointed his revolver at the Kafir’s head.

“Tell away,” he said. “If it’s not worth hearing, I’ll scatter your brains, by Caesar’s ghost I will!”

“It worth hearing,” answered the other. “How you like take chief, eh?”

“Chief? Which chief?”

“Vunisa. Pahlandhle. Two chief.”

“Go on. Only remember if you humbug us, then,—good-night.” And Dick touched the helpless man’s head with the muzzle of his pistol, as an earnest of what was to come.

“You go on up dere,” went on the Kafir. “Two tree—Kafir-boen—over rock. Rock hang over hole—same as place where we take you. Vunisa—Pahlandhle—they hide there—wait till Amapolise done killing Kafir—then they get away. You take them same as we take you—easily.”

Now Dick Selmes remembered. The voice, the face, came back to him. Why, this was the English-speaking Kafir who had ordered them to read the despatches, and had directed the torture of Sandgate because they refused. Had the fellow been armed, and fighting, he would have shot him with infinite satisfaction, as the recollection of that ghastly experience came back. But it was manifestly out of the question to shoot an unarmed and helpless man; besides, this one was giving him information which set all his blood tingling with the prospect of a glorious adventure—if it were true. If so, and it were carried out successfully, such a feat was bound to procure sure and rapid promotion to the four young Police troopers with him.

“I know the spot he means, Selmes,” said one of these, a Colonial-born man, who understood veldt-craft and spoke the Xosa language fluently. “And I think he’s very likely telling the truth.”

“Oh, I tell truth,” said the wounded man. “Dey not my chiefs—and Pahlandhle eat up my cattle. I like to see him shot.”

“If you’ve told us a lie, that’s what you’ll be,” said Dick, “you may take your oath upon that. We’ll come back for you, never fear.”

“Oh, I not fear,” said the other, easily. “If you grab chiefs, I like to join Police as ’tective. How that?”

“That’s for the Commandant. But I expect he’ll take you on,” answered Dick, airily. “Come along, you chaps. We’ll bag these two, or not go back at all.”

“Rather,” was the unanimous answer. As we have said, Dick Selmes was exceedingly popular in the Force since he had been its guest. He put on no “side” whatever, and had shown rare pluck whenever opportunity for such had occurred. These four would have followed him anywhere; the more mad and dare-devil the adventure the better.

“Now, Sketchley, you must be guide,” he said to the Colonial man. “If this fellow’s lying, of course we’ll come back and shoot him. Here—what’s your name?”

“Tolangubo. English—where I work before—call me John Seapoint.”

The mist, which had lightened on the plain, still hung heavy on the higher ridges. This was all in their favour.

Under the guidance of Sketchley, the Colonial-born trooper, they were not long in reaching their objective.

“We’ll leave the horses here,” said this man. “Now—silence is the word, I need hardly say. You, Simpson, you’re a clumsy beast, you know, but for Heaven’s sake don’t kick so much as a little stone this time.”

The reply was a growling promise to punch the speaker’s head when all was over, and they started their stealthy climb. Not long did it take, and then, at a word from Sketchley, all halted for a hurried breather.

Above was the lip of the hollow the Kafir had described. There were the two trees overhanging—all corresponded exactly. But what if the said hollow were bristling with armed savages? What if they had walked into a palpable trap—was the thought that occurred to them now. Tolangubo had not said that the two chiefs were alone, they now remembered; immediately consoling themselves with the thought that it would not have made much difference if he had.

With beating hearts the five peered over the ridge. There, not a hundred yards distant, squatted four Kafirs. Four. Which of the two were the chiefs?

“That’s Vunisa,” whispered Dick Selmes, excitedly. “I’d swear to him anywhere.”

But the whisper, faint though it was, reached the ears of the keen-witted savages. These sat bolt upright, listening. All four, with a subtle movement, reached for their arms; two for their rifles, the others for their assegais.

“That settles it,” breathed the Colonial man. “The ones with the guns are the chiefs. Now, we mustn’t give away the smallness of our force. Let ’em think there’s a crowd behind. Come on, now.”

The five advanced, covering the group with their revolvers.

“Yield, chiefs!” cried Sketchley, in the Xosa tongue. “If a man moves he is shot.”

A man did move, making a sudden spring to get away. Him Sketchley promptly and unerringly shot dead. This told. The remaining three stood, sullenly awaiting events.

“Drop your weapons, or you are all shot,” he went on.

The Kafirs stared, and, believing him, sulkily obeyed.

“Don’t quit covering them for a moment,” cried Dick Selmes. “I’ll go in, and tie them up.”

They had brought reims from their horses’ headstalls. With these Dick now approached. There was no mistaking the chiefs. Vunisa and Pahlandhle were both elderly men of powerful build, the other was a mere boy. Both seemed to treat the affair as entirely beneath their notice, and, making a virtue of necessity, submitted to have their arms bound behind them, in sullen silence, the while the Police troopers were covering them effectually and at close quarters with their revolvers. But hardly had this operation been completed than the other, whom they had left to the last, with a spring and a rush disappeared into the mist, leaping and zigzagging to dodge the bullets which were fired after him.

“Here’s a howling joke,” said Trooper Sketchley. “He isn’t touched, and now he’s gone to raise a rescue. Those chaps’ll rally like the deuce to get back their chiefs.”

“Will they?” said Dick Selmes, smart, alert, with the tingling sense of adventure. “Come along then. We’ll wheel them back to camp before there’s time for any bother of that sort. The old Commandant’ll look mighty surprised, I’ll bet.”

So these five hair-brained youngsters started off; shoving their august prisoners along at a pace which sorely tried the dignity of the latter. When they gained the lip of the hollow, Sketchley gave a signal to halt.

The mist was all driving back, leaving one side of the hill bare. But this was by no means as it had been when they came up it. The stones and bushes, glistening with dew, were now alive with red-ochred forms, swift-moving, lithe, stealing upward; assegais and guns held ready in sinewy, eager grip. Then, as the helmets of two careless troopers showed above the ridge, there was a sudden roaring discharge of firearms, and the vicious “whigge” overhead showed that the “pot-legs” and bullets were beginning to fly.

Now these five were in a tight hole. The Kafirs, rallying to the rescue of their chiefs, were coming on to storm that hill with a fixity of purpose which left nothing to be desired or to be hoped for. They reckoned on finding at least fifty men up there, and these were only five.

“A few more steps, and both chiefs will be shot,” sang out Sketchley, in their own language.

But it seemed to stay the rush not at all. Swarming through the bushes, they still kept on. In a minute or two they would rush the position.

“Give them a volley!” yelled Dick Selmes.

This was done, but with scant effect.

Slapping in their reloads, the men delivered another, this time with considerable effect, for it checked the advance. But the worst of it was that, further out, they could see more and more Kafirs coming up to the support of these. Then a shout went up.

“Release the two chiefs, white men, and we will leave you.”

They looked at each other. What chance had they of holding their own against such odds—but on the other hand, could they trust the promises of the savages? This, in substance, Sketchley called out in reply.

“Au!” exclaimed Pahlandhle, with some eagerness. “We you can trust. You are only a few foolish boys. Let us go, and then you may go home yourselves. None of these will harm you.”

“None,” echoed Vunisa, emphatically.

“Well, and what do you all say?” asked Sketchley, having translated this.

“I’ve got people at home,” said one of the troopers, meaningly.

“So have I,” declared another.

“Let’s put it to the vote then,” went on Sketchley. “It’s on the cards they’ll keep their word, and then we’ve had all this bother for nothing. Otherwise, candidly, I don’t believe we’ve the ghost of a chance. Now then?”

The two who had first spoken were for surrendering the chiefs. Sketchley and the other trooper were against it.

“Now then, Selmes,” said the latter. “You’ve got the casting vote.”

Dick was inclined to hold out, but what right had he to sacrifice these men’s lives? Besides, had not he also “got people at home”? He wavered. Then something occurred which decided him, decided them all. For just then the mist parted all round. A strong body of Police, attracted by the firing, was swarming up the hill.

The answer of the besieged was another volley, this time with effect. All four shots told—one man had been left in charge of the captive chiefs, with revolver ready to shoot both dead in the event of their countrymen gaining a foothold on the ridge. Then another volley with like effect. These young Englishmen, you see, were now in the most dangerous position of all to their enemies—that of “cornered”—and they shot deadly, and cool. The original assailants, who, heartened by their reinforcements, had sprung up to renew the attack, now began to drop behind cover again.

“Give ’em another!” yelled Dick.

“No. Wait till they show,” corrected Sketchley. “No good lessening the wholesome scare they’ve got of us by blazing at stones.”

Even as he spoke the savages became alive to this new turn of events, and reckoning they would soon be caught between two fires, were, with warning cries to each other, beginning to glide away. But between the two fires a good few were consumed before they managed to; for the shots from above were now coolly and carefully timed, and those from below, especially where Harley Greenoak got his foresight on to a brown red body, told with terror-striking effect. In a very few minutes there was not a Kafir left on the hillside.

“Hi! Here! Hullo, Greenoak, here we are,” sung out Dick Selmes. “You’re just in time, but we’ve bagged the two chiefs. Come along.”

They started back to camp without delay. Just before reaching it, one of the four troopers, who was given to pessimism, remarked—

“Old Chambers’ll get all the kudos for to-day’s job. We shan’t.”

It may be said that in the event the speaker was wrong. The Commandant was far too wise and too just a man to allow a meritorious service to go unrecognised. In the event, too, it transpired that these four had performed a very meritorious service indeed, and all of them, except one man who left the Force, his time having expired, got promotion as soon as practicable.

Chapter Twenty Three.

The Commandant’s Joke.

“Hallo, Selmes, what’s the row with you?” said Trooper Sketchley, suddenly noticing that Dick’s face had gone rather white. “Confound it, you didn’t get hit, did you?”

Harley Greenoak, who was riding a little way in front, keeping a watchful eye on the captive chiefs, instinctively reined in his horse, having just overheard. The movement annoyed Dick Selmes. It seemed to him to savour of leading-strings; and had not he borne part in two good fights—three, in fact, for this capture of the two chiefs was better than a fight. It was a bold dash and a fight combined.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he answered, rather testily. “Something seemed to knock me during that last volley. I expect it was a spent pot-leg or splinter of rock. But it’ll keep till we get back to camp.”

“Where did it knock you?” said Greenoak.

“Here. Bridle arm. Rather ride with the right.”

“All serene. But—just haul up your sleeve, if you can.”

No fuss. No calling a halt. Just a plain injunction. Such was Harley Greenoak. Dick obeyed.

“You’ll be all right, Dick,” pronounced Greenoak, after a brief scrutiny, during which he strove to conceal the anxiety he felt. “It’s as you say, a spent pot-leg. But it has made a nasty jagged scratch all the same, and we’ll get the sawbones at it soon as we’re in. You may thank your stars it was a spent one, or you’d have had a broken arm for some time to come.”

“Never mind. We’ve boned the chiefs,” said Dick, delightedly. “That sweep Vunisa, he’s the beggar who’d have cut my throat that night they tied me up in a bag. Jolly glad we’ve boned him. Bit of turning the tables there.”

“We ought to enlist you, Selmes,” said Sub-Inspector Mainwaring, who was in command of the body that had so opportunely come to the rescue. “You’re a tiger for pulling off anything out of the way.”

“Well, I hope I’ll go through some more jolly old scraps with you fellows,” answered Dick. “The war seems to have begun in earnest now.”

“Don’t know. This may have broken the whole back of it. Eh, Greenoak?”

“May, or may not,” answered the latter, who was not going to commit himself to an ordinary conversational opinion at that stage.

They were joined by the other half of the pursuit under Inspector Chambers. One man had been killed. A desperate savage, fairly cornered, had sprung like a wild-cat upon the unfortunate trooper and assegaied him fair and square as he sat in his saddle, being himself, however, immediately shot. Three more were wounded with assegai cuts. But, all things considered, the Police had come off with flying colours, and all hands were in high spirits.

On the way, they picked up the wounded Kafir, Tolangubo, who had given the information which had led to the capture of the chiefs. He had proved useful enough already, and might prove so again, thought Inspector Chambers when the man expressed a desire to join the Police as a native detective. But, watching his opportunity, he besought Harley Greenoak to enjoin upon the four troopers on no account to let out that he had been instrumental in that, for in such event he could be of no use at all, as the vengeance of his countrymen would be certain to overtake him, and then—why, a dead man was more useless than a dead ox, since you could neither eat him nor use his skin—he added, somewhat humorously.

On reaching camp the two chiefs were lodged in the guard-hut, Jacob Snyman having been now released and allowed to return to duty. He had shown his good faith. The attack against which he had warned them had been made in real earnest, and now in the flush of victory, the would-have-been traitor found himself rather popular than otherwise. All the same, a watchful eye was kept upon him. Vunisa and Pahlandhle accepted the position with sullen philosophy. They were told that they would be kept as hostages for the good behaviour of their people—an announcement which filled them with no exhilaration, remembering as they did, though keeping the knowledge to themselves, that the Gudhluka Reserve was a very Alsatia, and comprised plenty of turbulent spirits, whose allegiance to themselves was purely nominal. But there they were, and their rations were regular, and the Police were not stingy with tobacco; so the philosophy of the savage stood them in good stead: “Sufficient unto the day.”

“Well, Greenoak. It seems to me we are making a real frontiersman of our friend here,” said the Commandant, going on the while sorting out and otherwise arranging his “specimens,” as calmly as though they had not spent the morning in defeating and thoroughly routing a few thousand of bloodthirsty savages. “Wounded too? Never mind, Selmes. Think what a lot of yarns you’ll have to spin to the people at home.”

“Oh, I don’t mind that, Commandant. But—er—Blunt says it’s a toss up whether I’ll be able to take a hand in any more fights for a month or so. And by that time the war may be over.”

“Hope so, I’m sure,” was the dry reply. “Eh, Greenoak?”

The latter nodded.

For the Police surgeon—Dr Blunt—a tall, pleasant-mannered Irishman—had examined and duly dressed Dick’s wound, informing him that, although not serious, it was not a thing to play the fool with.

“You see, Selmes,” he said, “you are such a rash, impetuous beggar. I suppose if some nigger were to sneak in to-night and tell you he knew where to capture old Kreli, you’d start out on the spot and try and do it. Well, let me remind you there’s such a thing as blood-poisoning. It’s all right now, but if you get acting the ass with this thing, open and running as it’ll be for the next few days, why, there’s no telling. No, my boy. You’ll have to wear your arm in a sling till I tell you to take it out. What then? Why, you’ll only look the more interesting. Anyway, it’s only your left fin.”

This was some consolation. For it enabled Dick to sit down and write a full, true, and particular account of the two battles and their sequel to Hazel Brandon, and, incidentally, to his father, to be sent when the Commandant should elect to send through despatches reporting recent affairs.

“What do you make of this beast, Greenoak?” went on the Commandant, as he extracted the last captured lizard specimen from the lethal pickle-bottle.

“Don’t know. I’m not up in scientific natural history.”

“Well, he’s quite an uncommon variety. Shall have to look him up when I get back to my library.”

Greenoak exchanged a comical look with Dick Selmes. The Commandant, for the moment, attached more importance to the capture of this miserable, uninviting little specimen of the lizard tribe, than he did to the stirring and momentous events of the last couple of days. And yet—were the alarm again to be given, no man in that camp would be more readily on the spot, the very personification of cool and calm collectedness.

There were other humours in the life of the camp which every now and then would come to the fore. One day a trooper, charged with trying to shoot himself with his carbine, was marched before the Commandant. The latter looked at him in a half-abstracted, lack-lustre sort of way, then ordered him extra musketry practice—“for,” he added, with characteristic dryness, “a man who can’t hit himself at no yards isn’t likely to be able to hit an enemy at so many.”

Then Corporal Sandgate returned to the Kangala and reported for duty. His foot was quite healed now, and all he asked for were a few chances of being even with the brutes who had tortured him.

“Well, the prime mover in it is here in the camp now, old chap,” said Dick Selmes. “But you won’t be able so much as to punch his head, for he’s shot through the leg. Besides, I believe the old man’s contemplating taking him on as a native ’tec.” And he told the other how the Kafir had put them in the way of capturing the two chiefs.

“Well, you’ve been in luck’s way, Selmes,” said Sandgate, wistfully, “although you’ve got winged yourself. You’ve come in for a lot of hard, lively service, while I’ve been kicking up my heels rotting in hospital at Isiwa. Some fellows have all the luck. Mine, of course, is to be reduced, if not hoofed out of the Force.”

“Bosh! Not a bit of it. Buck up, old chap! You’re far too useful to the Force for that. Why, man, you did a splendid service. If I had been in your place I expect I’d have given away the whole show.”

But Sandgate refused to be comforted. He had been found wanting when engaged upon service of vital importance. There was no getting behind that.

A few days later he was sent for by the Commandant. It happened that he and Dick were chatting together at the time.

“All up,” he said resignedly. “Told you so.”

The Commandant was seated in front of his hut. An express had just ridden in, and, together with Inspector Chambers, he was going through the correspondence. He looked up.

“Corporal Sandgate, yes,” he said, as the other saluted in silence. “Well, I can hardly call you that now. You are relieved of your rank.”

“Yes, sir. I expected no less,” answered the poor fellow, saluting again, and making as if to withdraw.

“One moment. Read that,” said the Commandant, handing him a folded letter in blue official foolscap.

Sandgate, again saluting, took it mechanically. As he glanced down the sheet, he gave a start, and his handsome sun-browned face lost all its colour, then flushed, as he mastered, in cold official phraseology, that on account of his heroic endurance, which had resulted in the saving of vitally important despatches entrusted to his care, from falling into the hands of the enemy, and by reason of his general efficiency and zealous service, he was appointed to the rank of Sub-Inspector in the room of the late Sub-Inspector Francis Madden of D. Troop, killed in action at the Qora River.

Sandgate entertained no clear idea of what happened when he had grasped the purport of this announcement, only a confused recollection of not being quite responsible for his actions. In point of fact he sprang forward impulsively, and, seizing the Commandant by the hand, shook it again and again without ceremony.

“Oh, sir! This is all your doing,” he cried. “And I—can’t say anything.”

“Then don’t try,” was the answer. And a kindly smile lurked in the ordinarily imperturbable face. The joke was one which appealed to its owner.

Just after this, troop after troop of armed and mounted levies came pouring into the Transkei. Every part of the Colony had responded to the call, and the Gcaleka country was swept from end to end, its defeated inhabitants retreating sullenly across the Bashi, there to billet themselves, more or less by force, upon the weaker tribes which occupied the country further to the eastward. But these reinforcements, relieving the Police, enabled the latter to withdraw to the frontier, where it might be that in the near course of events their services would be even more urgently needed.