"The White Hand and the Black" (continued 4)

“Anything but that,” answered Evelyn. “Why I feel in twice the form I was in when I came.”

“You look it too.”

This was bare fact. The joyous, healthy, outdoor life in a splendid and genial climate, had set its mark upon Evelyn Carden; had heightened her outward attractions, at the first not inconsiderable, as we have shown.

“You know,” went on Edala, “there are precious few places in this country where they five the life we live—I mean as far as we womenkind are concerned. Anywhere else you’d have been stuck down to read, and play the piano, and talk gossip—with an occasional ride or drive to some similar and neighbouring place to go through the same exercises within the limit of a day. They wouldn’t have stuck you on a horse, and romped you about over all sorts of rough country, bushbuck hunting and all that. Why they’d be horrified at the bare idea—though, I forgot—we haven’t been able to teach you to shoot, yet.”

Evelyn laughed.

“I’m sorry to say you haven’t, and I’m sadly afraid now that you never will. I suppose I haven’t been caught young enough.”

Both Edala and her father had done all they knew how to impart that instruction. They had assured. Evelyn that within a week at the outside she would be able to turn over her first bushbuck. But it was of no use. She got plenty of chances, but when the rushing, frightened antelope broke covert and bounded by like the wind, her nerve played her tricks, and she would blindly lash off both barrels at anything or nothing. And then, too, the gun would kick, as even the best gun will do if badly held; and after a bruised cheekbone, and a badly aching shoulder she had decided that that form of sport was not at all in her line. They had, however, taught her how to handle a revolver, though she was very far indeed from being able to make prize shooting with the same.

The two were seated in the shade of the tall fig-trees during the hot hours of the forenoon when this conversation had taken place—this conversation which had opened with every sign of storm, and had drifted into calm haven of peace. Edala, for her part, felt all her new born jealousy allayed. She felt compunctious, even inclined to act on the other’s warning and advice. It was in quite a softened mood that she turned to her father, who now joined them, looking hot and tired.

“Here, get into this chair,” she cried, jumping up and pushing him into hers. “You look fagged. I’m going in to get you something to drink. I’m sure you want it.”

“Yes do, darling,” he answered seizing her for a moment to press a kiss on the shining aureole of her gold-crowned head. “Well, what have you two been talking about?” as he subsided thankfully into the comfortable seat.

“Many things more or less interesting. Edala has at last come to the conclusion that I’m a hopelessly bad case because I can’t do anything with that wretched gun. I told her I wasn’t caught young enough.”

“Ho—ho! Not young enough! That’s good.”

“Now don’t you start making compliments, Inqoto, because they aren’t in your line at all,” she answered, placidly. And then Edala reappeared and the golden sparkle in the decanter and the cold gurgle in the porous water ‘monkey’—was grateful sight and sound to a tired and thirsty man. Evelyn often called him by his native name. It was a complimentary one and therefore convenient. They all disliked the prefix of ‘Cousin,’ while if she conferred upon him the brevet rank of uncle why it made him out so old. So this came in handy.

“That’s good!” he cried draining the glass at one pull, and chucking it down in the grass. “You girls look cool and comfy. What have you been doing with yourselves?”

“Taking it easy.”

“So it would seem,” he laughed, looking at them both approvingly. He was thinking how different life had been to him since Evelyn Carden’s arrival. She was so eminently companionable, so tactful and sympathetic. And she looked so soothing and attractive, sitting there opposite him now; and some day she would be going away. The thought was unpleasant. The object of it looked up.

“What is troubling you? You heaved no end of a sigh.”

“Did I, dear? I suppose it was one of contentment. I’m a little tired and I’m resting. That may account for it. Getting old.”

Evelyn laughed pleasantly.

“Don’t fish, Inqoto. I’ve witnessed your prowess at shooting, but never at fishing. I suspect you’d prove as poor a hand at that as you are good at the other.”

“Well, well, if you women won’t take a man seriously, I suppose you won’t. By the way, I fell in with one of Elvesdon’s boys with a brievje for me. I took it from him to save him the trouble of coming any further. Elvesdon’s down at Tongwana’s collecting. He’ll have finished to-morrow, and wants us to go down there in the afternoon. Old Tongwana’s going to turn out a lot of his people and give a war-dance in our honour. What do you say?”

“Say? Why yes—of course,” said Edala decisively. “It’ll be no end of fun.”

“Rather,” said Evelyn.

“Well, I thought that would be the verdict, so I sent back a verbal answer on the chance of it.”

“It’s awfully kind of Mr Elvesdon,” went on Evelyn. “What a fine looking man he is, by the way.”

“Rather; and he’s a smart all round chap as well with no nonsense about him. I took to him from the very first,” answered Thornhill. But Edala said nothing, though it may be that she thought.

So they chatted on, seated there in the secure peace of the golden morning, little recking that the hours of that peace might be already numbered; that this might be the last of such days for a long and terrible time to come—if not for ever.

Chapter Twenty Two.

The War-Dance at Tongwana’s.

Elvesdon was seated at a table within an open tent, together with his clerk—a table littered with official books and documents. He rose quickly at the sound of horse-hoofs and went forth to welcome the party.

“Thornhill—how are you? Miss Carden—you are taking on a fine healthy sunburn—and as for Diane chasseresse—why words fail.”

He had taken to so nicknaming Edala since the bushbuck hunt and she seemed rather to like it. They laughed, and after a little more banter Thornhill said:

“Had any bother with the people, Elvesdon?”

“Not a grain. They’ve all paid up right willingly. It’s when we get to Babatyana’s place that we may find trouble.”

“Where is the dance to be held, Mr Elvesdon?” said Evelyn. “Here?”

“Why not? It’s as good a place as any. I’ll ask Tongwana.”

He called to the old chief, who was seated on the ground among a small group a little way off. Tongwana came forward, and saluted Thornhill, and there was a lot of talk and banter.

“I have not seen thee since the day of the ‘king of serpents’ my father,” the latter was saying.

“Whau! that was a great day, and a great snake,” chuckled the old man.

“So that’s the big chief?” commented Evelyn. “He doesn’t look particularly dignified.”

“He’s very old,” explained Elvesdon. “But whatever he looks he’s all right. He and Zavula are the best men in authority we’ve got.” Then turning again to the old chief, “What has become of Zavula, my father? Three times have I sent for him, and it is said that he is lying sick.”

“I had not heard that, Nkose. But I am growing old. The young men toss the news about from one to the other; but we old ones—au! It is good night.”

“It’s rather a rum thing, Thornhill, but I’m not quite easy in my mind about old Zavula. He came to the office to tell me a very queer story the last time I saw him, and every time I ask after him they say he is sick.”

“H’m!” said Thornhill, drily.

“He’s such a straight old chap too. Now I think we can shut up shop—you ladies would like tea, I know, before the fun begins.”

It was the middle of the afternoon, blue and cloudless. The camp was pitched upon a slight eminence, the ground falling away, grassy and open, on either side. Crowning another eminence less than a mile away stood Tongwana’s kraal—its numerous huts forming a circle after the Zulu fashion, though not surrounded by a ring fence, and near it, along a bushy ridge, stood several lesser kraals. In the clear stillness of the air the voices of their denizens and the occasional barking of dogs is distinctly borne hither.

“You’ll see something now, Evelyn,” said Edala. “A Kafir dance is no end exciting. I always long to join in.”

“How many will take part in it?”

“Oh I daresay Tongwana can turn us out a couple of hundred at a pinch,” said Elvesdon. “Perhaps more.”

Already dark forms converging in groups upon the chief’s kraal seemed, by their numbers, to give colour to the last statement.

“More, I hope,” pronounced Edala.

The police escort, who, with Prior, were to convey back the proceeds of the collecting, had saddled up and were all ready to march, when one trooper stepped forward, and saluting Elvesdon begged to be allowed to remain and witness the dancing. He was a fresh-faced intelligent looking young fellow, probably not long out from home. The magistrate could see at a glance that he was a ‘gentleman ranker.’ He seemed so eager and earnest about it that Elvesdon said:

“Very well, Parry. You can stay. Any objection, sergeant?”

“No, sir.”

The boy’s face flushed with delight. He had read plentifully about this sort of thing—in fact such reading had had largely to do with bringing him out to the country at all. Now he was going to see it—to see the real thing.

Soon arose from Tongwana’s kraal a weird, long-drawn cry. By this time the chief and every native in the immediate neighbourhood of the camp—except Elvesdon’s servants—had disappeared. The cry was echoed, then taken up by many voices till it tailed off into a kind of strophe-like chant. Then from the distant kraal a broad dark stream was issuing, its blackness relieved as it drew nearer, by many a patch of white. Suddenly the chant changed to a lower key, and its sombre thunder-notes harmonised to the measured tread of the marching warriors.

These, for their parts, offered a perfect spectacle of wild picturesqueness. Each and all had discarded any article of European clothing, and were arrayed in the fantastic, if spare adornments of native apparel; the mútya of cat-tails and cow-hide, beads and bangles, jackal teeth necklaces, flowing tufts of cow-hair, and other gimcrackery of the kind. Then too, the points of bright assegais gleamed wickedly in the sunshine, and the variegated faces of broad shields, lent colour to the wild array.

The column advanced, marching four deep. The rapping of assegai hafts against shield sticks, beat a weird accompaniment to the war-song, which, now risen to a deafening roar, ceased, with a suddenness that was almost startling, as the whole array spreading out into crescent formation, halted, and flinging the right hand aloft, shouted, as one man:

“Amakosi!” (“Chiefs!”)

“They ought to have given the Bayéte, to a representative of Government—confound their cheek!” murmured Elvesdon, who was filling his pipe. “That’s the salute royal, you know, Miss Carden.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” was the answer. “They look grand—grand, but a little alarming. Still I’m so glad we came.”

“Don’t know about a couple of hundred,” remarked Thornhill. “More like six or seven.”

Now again the song and dance was renewed. So catching was the latter that the European spectators found themselves beating time with their feet. The stamping of the excited warriors shook the earth, sending up long streams of yellow dust into the sunlit air. Young warriors would dart from the ranks, and leaping nearly their own height from the ground volley forth a torrent of words as they went through an imaginary pantomime of their prowess, their eyeballs white and rolling, seeming to burst from their faces, the flash of their bright blades like zig-zagged lightning. Then, with an appalling roar, the crescent extended itself on either side, and charged full speed up to the spectators hemming them now in a complete circle. Evelyn Carden gave a little cry of alarm and she felt herself growing pale.

“It’s all right. It’s part of the show,” said Elvesdon reassuringly, puffing at his pipe.

“Is it? Well, it’s rather startling,” she answered, reassured however, by the fact that the rest of the party, including Edala, remained unmoved.

There certainly was something horribly real about it. Six or seven hundred frantic savages, worked up to the wildest stage of excitement, hemming you in in a dense impenetrable circle of dark musky bodies and waving blades, roaring like wild beasts and vociferating that the said blades should shine white no longer, but red—red, may easily become a situation somewhat trying to the nerves, especially to those of the other sex. Then, suddenly, as if by magic, the uproar ceased. The warriors saluted again, then crooning a low toned, rather plaintive sounding chant, dropped back to their original position. Here they were harangued by an orator, his periods being greeted by an expressive hum. When he ceased, the whole body gathered up its weapons, and moved swiftly away over the veldt—this time in silence.

“Curtain on Act One,” said Elvesdon. “We’ll stroll up now to yonder ridge. We are going to see a sham fight, or rather a surprise. They are about to attack and capture somebody’s kraal—I couldn’t catch his name—over the other side, and make it as much like the real thing as possible. I and old Tongwana arranged it all this morning. The last harangue was with the object of bucking up the fighting men. So let’s get on.”

“It’s a splendid sight, sir,” said the young police trooper diffidently, as they walked. “I’m no end grateful to you for letting me see it.”

Elvesdon turned to him good naturedly.

“Yes, it’s an interesting show, isn’t it, Parry? By the way, you might add to your pay by knocking up a description of it for one of the home magazines—or even two. The native question is likely to come very prominently before the British public soon.”

The young fellow flushed.

“I had thought of doing something of the kind,” he said.

“All right. And if you want any information in addition I’ll give it you—of course if it’s a kind I can give,” added Elvesdon, with a meaning laugh.

On reaching the ridge they looked down upon another kraal in front of them. Its inhabitants were loafing about over their usual avocations or lack of such, in apparent ignorance of the black destruction that was about to overwhelm them. But of the assailants there was as yet no sign.

Elvesdon who had been chatting a little further with the young Police trooper was somewhat behind the party. Then he became aware of the presence of a native—an old man—who, squatted under a bush, was apparently hailing him. He stopped. The old man with shaking fingers, was fumbling in his bag, to produce therefrom—a letter.

Such a letter, dirty, greasy, enclosed in a common looking envelope, addressed moreover, to himself, in a sprawling, uneducated hand.

“Who gave you this?” he asked.

“That I know not, Nkose. One of the people.”

Elvesdon was about to open it—but just then there were signs of renewed activity below. The attacking impi was getting into position. He thrust the envelope into his pocket. It would keep. It was only some ill-spelt scrawl written by some half—educated native making excuses for not coming to pay his taxes. He was often the recipient of such. Of course it would keep. Then he rejoined the party.

“Come along, Mr Elvesdon,” cried Edala, excitedly. “They are going to begin.”

“They won’t really kill each other, will they, Mr Elvesdon?” asked Evelyn, with some real anxiety.

“They seem to get so carried away, you know. What if they should come to blows in real earnest? No, but that could not be, could it?”

He hastened to reassure her on that point. The whole programme was that of a wonderfully dramatic and realistic show got up for their entertainment. If she chose to let her imagination go, why that would only add to the excitement—to her—he appended, with an easy laugh.

He stole a glance at Edala. She was standing a little apart eagerly watching the manoeuvres beneath, a slight flush of excitement in her cheeks, and the expressive eyes wide and interested. He had deliberately come to the conclusion that it would be a difficult and dreary thing to go on living without her, and yet how would she look at it? He knew that she liked him, but he wanted her to do a great deal more than that. In all probability however, she in the brightness of her youth looked upon him as quite an old fogey. Well, he must make some opportunity of putting it to the test. Why not do so this evening, on the way home? Yes, he would; yet it was with some sinking of the heart that he realised that the test would probably break down.

“What can you be thinking about? You look quite worried.”

Edala had turned to him as he joined her, with wonder in her eyes. Here was his chance had they been alone together.

“I am, rather,” he answered in an undertone. For a moment her glance rested full upon him, then turned away.

“They are beginning down there,” she said.

The impi beneath was on the march, and they could trace its course, pouring upward through grass and bushes towards the doomed kraal. Then suddenly its stealthy advance changed into a swift charge, the while its lines extended, throwing out the terrible outflanking ‘horns,’ and with a mighty roar it hurled itself upon its objective.

The kraal was in a state of indescribable confusion; men, women and children pouring forth helter-skelter from the only side left open. In vain. Here, too, those terrible horns closed up, and there ensued a scene of discriminate massacre, to the accompaniment of the most diabolical shouts and hisses. The spectators could scarcely believe it was not real. Evelyn Carden’s face had gone quite white, and even that of Edala looked disturbed.

“What awful creatures!” said the former. “Mr Elvesdon, are you sure it isn’t real? I can hardly believe it.”

“No—no. It’s not real. But it’s marvellously well counterfeited.”

“It’s too dreadful. I don’t think I care to look at it any more.”

“Well, look at this. They are retiring now.”

The impi had formed up, and, raising a mighty song of victory was moving away from the scene of the mock massacre. Down through the valley it poured, with a movement that was partly a march and partly a dance, and the deep-toned thunder-notes of the triumph song rose to a pitch of fell ferocity that was rather terrifying, so realistic had the whole thing been.

Elvesdon suddenly remembered the letter which had been given him; and now that the show was over he thought he might as well investigate it.

But the first glance at the scrawl which he unfolded made him start. This is how it ran:

“Mr Elvesdon, resident Magistrate.

“Sir,

“You are a good man. I not want to see you hurt. I not want to see Christian ladies hurt. I am Christian too. Get your party away so soon as you ever can.

“I not give my name—but—do.

“Remember Mr Hope.”

Chapter Twenty Three.

After the Warning.

Just as he had thought, decided Elvesdon. Clearly the letter was from some half—educated native, but how different its import to that which he had expected. Was it a hoax, he wondered? Anyway its substance was sufficiently disquieting. Surely so tried and trusted a chief as old Tongwana could not be guilty of any such ghastly act of treachery as that hinted at. His people, too, had paid up their taxes without a murmur. The thing looked like a hoax.

It might be well to be on the safe side; to get his party away at once. But then his official prestige and influence would be irretrievably wrecked. He would be showing distrust—fear—of those over whom he held authority. But the sting of the whole communication lay in the concluding words, “Remember Mr Hope.”

These referred to a tragedy, which had befallen a little over a quarter of a century back. The victim had been a magistrate in Pondoland, and had been treacherously set upon and murdered, together with his two clerks, while witnessing just such an entertainment as had been provided here to-day.

Elvesdon was a boy at the time but he had since served in Pondoland—as we heard him tell Thornhill—and there at that time the event was still sufficiently fresh. But for those concluding words he would have felt inclined to set the communication down as a practical joke.

Rapidly his clear mind reviewed the position. His camp was quite a mile away; they had strolled that distance in order to gain the point whence they could overlook the mimic attack upon the kraal. The horses were knee-haltered, and grazing under the charge of his two boys, and they were a little beyond, on the other side of the camp. The impi was marching down the valley in a direction which should take it rather away from the camp than towards it. Tongwana’s kraal seemed deserted; even the women had hurried out to see the sham fight.

“We may as well get back to camp now,” he said carelessly. “The show’s about over, and we shan’t be home much before dark as it is.”

But there were two upon whom his carelessness did not altogether impose—Edala and her father. The girl, naturally sharp-witted as she was, had not failed to note the ever so slight involuntary start which had escaped him on the perusal of the missive, while Thornhill took in by instinct that something was wrong. Both, however, forebore to take any outward notice of the fact: for which he was devoutly thankful, for at all costs he must avoid alarming the weaker ones of the party. He would have given much for an opportunity of taking Thornhill into counsel, but this would have had the very effect he was anxious to avoid.

“There’s an official matter I want to get home and look into as soon as I can,” he explained carelessly. “Here, Parry. You can ride on and say I’m coming.”

He took the young Police trooper apart, as they walked.

“Look here,” he said, “and attend carefully. Go down to the camp as fast as you can walk—can walk, mind, not run—and get the horses saddled up as soon as you possibly can; ours first, you understand, not the boys’: and see that the girths are tight enough. Then all of you bring them out here to meet us; and every minute you save in doing it is a minute gained. You understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If anything happens use your own judgment, but we must have the horses as soon as ever we can, yet you must not run or show any sign of hurry. It’ll mean good for you my lad, very good. Now go.”

The young fellow saluted, and started off down the slope at a brisk springy walk which represented nearly four and a half miles an hour. He was radiant with pride. Naturally sharp, he had to a certain extent grasped the situation, and here, after a few months in the force, he found himself entrusted with a real and critical mission, with the promise of the good word of his superior. Visions of unheard of promotion floated upon his mental sight, as he paced downward to the camp, with rapid, elastic step.

Elvesdon strove to talk cheerfully, as they took their way down at a perforce slower pace than that of the young Police trooper—but it was difficult. The ridge was well between them and the impi now, but the latter might at any moment appear over it, or where it ended farther down. Had he been alone, or alone with Thornhill, he would not have felt overmuch concerned. He was as brave a man as ever lived, and endowed with his full share of nerve. He would, if the worst came to the worst, have chanced the moral effect of a display of the confidence of authority and absolute fearlessness. But now, with these two women dependent on them for protection, why it was dreadful. He reproached himself bitterly for having brought them into this peril; for, in the disturbed and simmering state of the native locations, who could be trusted? More bitterly still, perhaps, did he reproach himself for his neglect to open the communication handed to him by the old man. Then there would have been time for them to have acted upon the warning conveyed therein, and to have withdrawn while the attention of the savages was engaged by the mimic surprise of the kraal. Now it was in all probability too late.

Now he began to revolve in his mind what should be done in the event of Parry being unable to fulfil his instructions in time. He had a fight revolver in his pocket, and he suspected Thornhill was not unarmed. But of what use were they against an overwhelming crowd, all heavily armed, and right out in the open? They might shoot down a few, but would not this exasperate the savages into murdering the girls as well? Of course it would.

The wide landscape slept in the golden sunshine, the rolling plains unfolding out into misty dimness, on the one hand; on the other the outlines of distant heights softened against the clear blue. From Tongwana’s kraal, crowning the adjacent eminence, a smoke reek rose lazily upon the still air. An idea suggested itself to Elvesdon. Why not take the bull by the horns and go straight to Tongwana’s kraal? Surely there, under, figuratively speaking, the roof of the old chief, they would be safe. But just then he could see his emissary in the act of faithfully fulfilling the duty laid upon him. Down at the camp the horses were being led in. They might find safety at Tongwana’s kraal, but the Police trooper, caught alone, would certainly be murdered, if things were as desperate as the warning embodied in the letter seemed to convey. But—if only Parry would hurry up!

Now some inkling of danger seemed to have come over the weaker side of the party. Elvesdon’s silence had told—it was impossible for him to keep up his attempts at manufactured conversation under the weight of responsibility which lay upon him. They, too, were reduced to silence, and, he became aware, were looking at him curiously and furtively.

“I don’t know that I want to see one of these native performances again,” said Evelyn Carden. “Don’t think me unappreciative, Mr Elvesdon, but really this has given me the creeps. It all seemed so fearfully natural.”

“Ah, well. It isn’t musical comedy, you know,” he answered with forced lightness.

“Old Tongwana ought to have figured in a swallow-tailed coat and a top hat and a mútya” said Thornhill. “That might have given a Gilbert and Sullivan smack to it.”

The laugh that greeted this was feeble. But now Elvesdon noted with intense relief that the horses had been saddled up at last—they themselves had more than halved the distance to the camp by that time, and of coarse could see everything that was going on there all the way.

Too late.

A burst of voices on the right front, and then the impi appeared, pouring over the ridge, forming a dense black line between them and the camp and, of course the horses. Then, extending, the warriors executed the surround manoeuvre and having thus completely hemmed in their guests—or their victims—they recommenced the war-dance.

“Oh for Heaven’s sake, Mr Elvesdon, tell them to stop and go away,” said Evelyn Carden. “This is horrible, hateful.”

Elvesdon called out to more than one whom he knew by name but if they heard him they pretended not to. If the first performance had been terrifying to the uninitiated this one was infinitely more so: the roaring and the stamping, the sea of dreadful faces and gleaming bared teeth, the forest of waving blades, and the animal-like musky odour—as the frenzied circle tightened, its dense ranks drawing nearer and nearer. It was of no use for both men to shout at the top of their voices that they had had enough of the show, and that the ladies were getting frightened. The roaring only increased and the foremost of the frenzied performers shook their blades right in their faces. Elvesdon was convinced that his last moment had come. This was exactly the Hope programme repeated. It was hard to be butchered unresisting, but any resistance would certainly involve the massacre of the girls as well.

A sort of gasp from Evelyn made him turn. She was sinking to the ground.

“I feel rather faint,” she murmured.

Elvesdon bent down to help her, and as he did so he was suddenly seized from behind by several powerful hands, most effectively pinioning him. At the same time half a dozen assegai blades were held against his chest. And precisely the same thing had happened to Thornhill.

“Resist not, either of you,” said an authoritative voice. “Any resistance and all shall die—all, all of you.”

“What does it mean?” asked Elvesdon, shortly.

“This, Ntwezi. For you two we have a use. For your women we have none. They may go home. But, only if you make no resistance.”

“We agree,” said Thornhill. “But let us see them—see them with our own eyes, depart in safety. There are their horses.”

Parry, although he was going into certain death, had ridden as near as he could to the tumult. With some difficulty he was leading two horses, and both of these were under side saddles.

“Kill him—kill him,” began to be cried. “He is Only a common policeman. He is of no use.”

“But he is of use,” shouted Elvesdon, who began now to see his way, hearing this. “No common man is he. He is only playing at police.”

This was effective. Three hostages were better than two. Parry’s life was saved—for the present, but he was ordered to dismount, and by the advice of his superior he complied. His revolver was taken from him—Thornhill and Elvesdon had been similarly disarmed—and he was immediately hemmed in by a ring of blades.

“Now tell your women to go,” said the man who appeared to be exercising chief authority. “I will send men with them to see them safe to their home.”

“May I not bid my daughter farewell?” said Thornhill, with something of a tremor in his voice, and instinctively taking a step forward. Instantly a line of blades barred his way.

“Be content, be content,” answered the chief. “You are still alive, and your women are safe. Now walk.”

“To Tongwana?”

No reply was made to this, but there was no help for it. Hemmed closely in by the huge armed force, they were marched along over the very ground which they had traversed so light-heartedly barely an hour before. No indignity was offered them, but they knew that escape was as impossible as though they had been bound with thongs—at any rate just then.

They had this consolation however. The chief had kept his word. Looking backward just before they plunged over the ridge they could make out the mounted figures of the two girls away over the plain, the armed escort, keeping pace, distributed on either side—and they were making for home, not for Kwabulazi.

Chapter Twenty Four.

Unprotected.

“What—will happen to—them?”

It was Evelyn who jerked this forth. For some time the two had ridden in silence, neither daring to trust herself to speak. Perhaps the same thought was in both their minds; they must not break down and display weakness before these savages. Certainly it was in that of Edala—who, raised among them, fully recognised the advisability of keeping-up a show of dignity towards an inferior race.

“They will not be harmed,” she answered, with a confidence she was far from feeling. There might be some among their escort who understood English, and it would never do to let an impression get abroad that such a thing as offering harm to such men as Thornhill and the magistrate, could even come within the bounds of possibility. “Who would dare to lift a hand against them? Why it would mean the hanging of every chief concerned, and a good many of the people as well.”

“Then you think they are safe—you who know these people so well?”

The question was put in a quick eager tone. Edala’s brows wrinkled.

“Don’t talk so loud, Evelyn,” she said, speaking quickly and, of design rather indistinctly. “There may be some here who understand. Better not talk about it at all, perhaps, until we’re alone. Oh, hang it—we must keep up,” she broke off roughly, as she felt her eyes brimming. “Can’t give away the show. D’you hear? We must keep up.”

The other murmured assent. The escort, stepping along at a quick walk so as to keep pace with the horses, was somewhat puzzled at the demeanour of the pair, and the warriors were talking among themselves in rapid undertones, as is the way of natives when they wish to disguise their conversation. Edala was adapting their method to English.

“I can’t make it out, Evelyn,” she said, purposely talking through closed teeth so as to be the more unintelligible to outside listeners. “None of these here are our people. In fact I hardly saw one, during the dancing, that was. I believe these are from—beyond the border.”

“What? Real Zulus?”

“Don’t mention names. That’s what I think they are,” purposely avoiding even the enunciation of the word ‘yes,’ for reasons given above. “For instance, look at those two ringed men. Their rings are differently sewn on to those on this side. You wouldn’t notice it but I do. That looks as if this was going to be a big affair, and had been carefully planned. Oh, you think I’m taking it all remarkably coolly, Evelyn—” she broke off, in the gusty voice she used in moments of excitement. “But—we must keep up—we must keep up.”

“Yes—yes,” came the quick answer.

“There’s just this I go upon,” went on Edala. “If there are two men in the world who could be reckoned on to keep their wits about them and do the right thing at the right time, those two are father and Mr Elvesdon. See my meaning?”

The other nodded.

“So we must hope for the best.”

One thing that troubled Edala was that she could get no explanation whatever from their escort. The head-ringed men had kept carefully on the outskirts of the same, and when applied to to come over and talk had ignored the appeal. After this she would not question the common or unringed ‘boy,’ so was obliged to practise patience and await developments.

By the time they arrived at Sipazi it was nearly dark. Edala had more than half-expected to find the homestead a mass of smouldering ruins—but no. There it stood, yet there was a something that suggested the unusual. There was no sign of life about the place for instance—no smoke rising either from the kitchen chimney or from the huts of the native servants. Could it be that the latter—together with the Indian cook—had all been murdered? Edala drew rein, and addressed the escort.

“There is our home and now we are safe. If you would return you have fulfilled your mission. If you would rest, there is food and drink yonder.”

They looked at each other and laughed queerly.

“Ride on, Nkosazana,” said one of the ringed men.

Now there was sign of life with a vengeance, for the four great dogs came charging down upon the new arrivals, open-mouthed, barking and snarling savagely.

“Don’t kill them, amadoda,” said Edala, as assegais were detached, and held with suggestive readiness. “They will not hurt.”

But the savages were not going to be done out of their fun. A number of them rushed forward. Assegais showered through the air, and the unfortunate beasts lay transfixed by several of them, apiece, kicking feebly in their death throes.

“I—jji! I—jji!” went up the death hiss from their slayers, together with great hoarse shouts of laughter.

“The cruel wretches,” murmured Evelyn, in shuddering disgust. Edala’s lips tightened, but she restrained herself. Their own lives were none too secure, and this she knew.

Meanwhile the savages having tasted blood, even though only that of animals, began questing inside the deserted huts, but found no one. No cattle was in the kraals, either, or anything about the house, except a few fowls, which they promptly assegaied.

Edala said nothing now. To have offered them hospitality after this outrage would have been to have shown that she feared them. The two girls slid from their saddles, and entered the house. Both were sick with apprehension. It was growing dusk now, and here they were at the mercy of these barbarians. Edala went to her room, and seizing her revolver slipped it into her blouse. But no one followed. Through the window they could see that the side saddles had been flung from the horses, to be replaced by a couple of ordinary ones which had been found in in the stable. Then two of the ringed men having mounted, the whole crowd moved off without another word.

The two girls looked after them, then at each other.

“No—no,” said Edala, shaking a warning finger, as she saw the other on the verge of a breakdown—her own eyes were dimming suspiciously. “We haven’t got to do that, you know. We’ve got to prove to ourselves that the old libel—only it isn’t a libel—that the first thing women do in a difficulty is to howl, has its exceptions.”

“Yes—yes. You are wonderful, Edala. I could not have believed that any girl could show the coolness and pluck you have shown. What’s the next thing to do?”

“Do? Anything—everything rather than sit still and think. To-morrow early, we’ll start for Kwabulazi.”

“Yes. Let’s. But now—do you think any of those horrible brutes will come here again to-night?”

“No—I don’t. Those weren’t our own people, you know, Evelyn, as I told you. I’m not sure, quite, what to do. If we weren’t safe at Tongwana’s I don’t know where we shall be. So well start early so as to get there before it’s hot. But—I forgot. Can you walk? It’s thirteen miles every inch, and all our horses are gone.”

“Yes. I think I can. At any rate I shall have to.”

“Well we’ll shut the shutters so that no light will leak out if there are any wandering gangs about. Come along and help me, Evelyn. We can’t walk thirteen miles—we two feeble females—on nothing, you know.”

The other saw the drift. Both were to be kept busy. There must be no time for thinking. It may be that each saw into the other’s mind.

Soon a fire was started in the kitchen, and coffee brewed.

“I wonder what has become of Ramasam,” said Edala, when they sat down to their meal. “He’s an awful coward, and must have bolted with the others. Yet, I wonder how they first got the alarm. If it wasn’t that old Patolo is as reliable as death I should have thought that he had cleared out all the cattle and goats, for decidedly someone has.”

Evelyn had not noticed this little detail in the excitement and apprehension attendant on their strange home-coming. More and more she wondered at the other’s strength, her almost awful coolness.

But in spite of their efforts real cheerfulness would not prevail. Neither cared to open her heart to the other.

“I think we’d better get some sleep,” said Edala presently. “We shall have to start soon after midnight.”

“Hark! What’s that?” The speaker’s face had gone white, and under the circumstances, with her nerves all strung to high tension, even Edala had started.

A low, indescribably hideous, moaning noise had arisen. It came from the back of the house.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” she answered. “Come and see.”

They went to the kitchen window, which looked out on the back. The moon had risen, and the ghostly light revealed the form of a large bull. He stood stamping and pawing the ground, uttering the while his hideous uncanny moanings.

“Oh, I’ll soon scoot him,” said Edala, returning to the passage to take down a raw-hide whip. “Only it’s not much use. The brute’ll be sure to come back.”

“Edala! You’re never going out to face that dreadful beast!” cried Evelyn, laying a detaining hand on her arm. Edala laughed shortly.

“You’ll see him run directly.”

But before she could reach the door the animal was seen suddenly to run forward, and disappear behind the cattle-kraal, where his moaning, in various keys, recommenced. Then he trotted back, tail in the air, emitting a shrill, half terrified bellow. To one, at any rate, of those who witnessed this performance the effect was indescribably weird.

“What does it mean?” she said.

“Nothing. The cattle often come round and make that row around the place where the goats are killed. It’s the blood, you know.”

Then she suddenly stopped, for it flashed upon her that the spot at which the moaning of the bull was at its highest and most excited pitch was not that whereon the goats were killed.

“Anyhow, I’ll just go out and scoot him. You stop here.”

Evelyn watched her go outside. At sight of her the bull paused in his stamping and scrapings and threw up his head, snuffing the air. Edala swirled the whip-lash as she advanced towards him—she would not crack it, for fear the sound might reach other ears. Then the beast lowered his head as if to charge her—backed a few paces—then thought better of it, and, turning, galloped madly away, uttering that—as it sounded in the silent and ghostly moonlight—shrill unearthly bellow.

Edala looked after the retreating beast. Her weaker instincts were all to return inside and bolt and bar the door. But some stronger motive to investigate took hold upon her—leading her steps to the spot where the beast had been most moved to his weird and mysterious rumblings.

As she turned the corner of the cattle-kraal her heart beat quicker, and her hand stole by sheer mechanical instinct to the butt of the revolver inside her blouse, not that it would be of any use against that which she expected to see and—did see.

There, in the moonlight, just out from the fence, lay a form—a human form; and it did not require two glances to determine that it was a dead human form. Mastering her overpowering horror the girl advanced. The body was ripped right open, and in the dead face, its sightless eyeballs upturned to the moon, she recognised that of the faithful old cattle-herd Patolo.

What was this? Old Patolo! Dear old Patolo, who had known her from her childhood! Never a time that she could not remember old Patolo. And now here he lay, barbarously murdered! A rush of tears came to her eyes, and with a fierce longing for revenge upon his brutal slayers, she unconsciously gripped the butt of her revolver, and perhaps it was as well, or the shock of the awful sight might have had disastrous effects.

“Oh—hh!”

Edala turned quickly, at the shuddering exclamation, uttered as it was in accents of the most indescribable horror. Evelyn, dreading to be alone, even for a moment, had followed her out.

“Go back!” she cried. “You need not see this.”

But Evelyn had seen it. Her face wore a set, stony stare.

“Come in. Come in,” said Edala, in her most brusque commanding tone, taking the other by the arm. And then that hideous moaning sound arose just behind them, together with the stamp of feet. The great bull had returned, and stood, not ten yards from them, his massive head, grim and formidable looking to the last degree in the moonlight. Evelyn collapsed. She slid to the ground in a dead faint.

Chapter Twenty Five.

“The Perils and Dangers of this Night.”

What was to be done? The great, grisly brute stood there pawing and scraping, keeping up the while his gruesome moanings, his shrill bellow. But there was now a note of savagery in these: whether it was that the smell of blood, and a great deal of it, had worked him up, together with the fact of finding himself all alone, so far as his kind went—his voice took on that strange growling note which enraged cattle take on at times, and then—look out for mischief. And the girl stood, absolutely unprotected, the prostrate form of her friend lying there at her feet, helpless. Had any been there to see it her face wore the same look that it had worn as she stood holding the big stone ready to throw, what time Elvesdon came between her and the great snake.

She let go the whip-lash with a resounding crack in the direction of the menacing beast. He was of the large homed kind that would have been the delight of a Plaza de Toros, and looked horribly formidable, tossing his white sharp horns in the moonlight. Then he charged.

Edala did not yield an inch as she stood over the body of her friend. She calculated her distance to a nicety, and as coolly as if she had been fly-fishing, she sent out the whip-lash again. Fortunately the charge was a half-hearted one, and the cutting voerslag, catching the enemy full in the eyes, brought him up as sharp as though the cruel banderillas had suddenly been stuck in his withers in the plaza in old Spain. She gave him no law. Twice in rapid succession again she gave him the voerslag, and the blinded beast, mad with pain, backed, then trotted unsteadily away.

Edala’s breathing came in spasmodic gasps as she watched him out of sight, and the reaction made her knees tremble beneath her. Oh hang it! She must keep up, she told herself. She could not afford to follow Evelyn’s example, or what would become of them both? So this girl, with the glorious gold-crowned head, alone there under circumstances of peril and horror, started to work out the situation for the safety of both.

“Come Evelyn. Pull yourself together, and get up!” she cried, half carrying, half dragging the other to the house door. “Lord! I shall have to shy a bucket of water over her yet!” she added almost savagely, panting from her exertion.

But this drastic remedy proved unnecessary, for Evelyn opened her eyes, then sat up, staring about her in a dazed kind of way.

“What is it? I’ve been dreaming—something horrible,” she said.

“Yes, you have. Never mind. Buck up now, and come inside. It’s beastly cold out here.”

“Why yes. I feel tottery though. Oh Edala, what a fool you must think me.”

“No. Only, don’t do it again,” was the reply, accompanied by a curious laugh. Edala was thinking—though not resentfully—of how a day or two ago the other was lecturing her: in a way talking down to her, while disclaiming any intent to do so. Now she was the one upon whom everything depended. The situation was in her hands.

They went inside, and Edala mixed a glass of brandy and water.

“You drink this,” she said. “Then go to sleep for an hour or two and we’ll start for Kwabulazi.”

“But I hate spirits—Ugh!” with a shudder.

“So do I; and I hate medicine too; but both are necessary sometimes. Down with it.”

Evelyn obeyed, with more than one additional shudder. But the end justified the means, for, sitting back in a low roomy armchair, she soon felt drowsy and dropped off to sleep.

Edala felt no inclination to follow her example, on the contrary she had never felt more wakeful in her life. She wandered from room to room. There was her father’s library, and his favourite chair and reading lamp. There were his cherished books, and all the surrounding was alive with his presence. She could hardly realise that he was no longer there, but instead was a prisoner—a hostage—in the hands of insurrectionary savages; whose wild mad scheme of rebellion could end in no other way than that utterly disastrous to themselves, and then—?

She looked around the room, and a terrible wave of compunction, or remorse came over her. How hard, how selfish, how unloving she had been towards him. Who was she that she should judge him? Yet she had, and that at every moment of the day.

All the affection and care and consideration he had lavished upon her came back now. It would, when it was too late, he had more than once said in his bitterness—Evelyn too had all unconsciously echoed his words. And it had. Should she ever see him again—ever look upon that loving presence—to whom she had been all in all for the whole of her young life, and whom she had met with ingratitude and repulsion? In the lonely silence of the still midnight the girl who had faced physical danger with a calm front, and rare readiness of resource, broke down.

“Father darling—darling! come back to me,” she moaned. “Only come back to me, to your little one again, and all shall be so different, so different.”

She had dropped upon her knees, her head buried in the chair—his chair. Her heart seemed breaking in her sobs—her great sobs—which hardly relieved it. What if she should never see him again, to tell him how his words had been surely fulfilled—never—never? No, she could not realise it. This room, which more than any other in the house seemed sacred to his presence and—now empty of it. A large portrait of him hung on the wall. Rising she went over and pressed her lips to the cold, not too carefully dusted, glass again and again.

The sound of stirring in the other room now came to her ears. It brought her down to the hard, material side of the situation. She dashed the tears from her eyes, fiercely, determinedly, and went to join her relative. Evelyn was awake again, and was looking around in rather a frightened way.

“Oh, here you are, Edala! Shall we start? I feel ever so much refreshed now. But you, child—have you had some sleep?”

“Yes—no,” was the half-absent reply. “Start? Yes, as soon as you’re ready. Wait though. I’ll go and get some supplies for the way. Later on you’ll find it no joke walking thirteen miles across the veldt on nothing but air.”

She was all material and practical again now. In a marvellously short space of time she returned with a well packed wallet stored with provisions.

“You sling this on,” handing the other a vulcanite water bottle. “I’ll carry the skoff—and the gun. It’s a pity you couldn’t learn to shoot, Evelyn, or you might have carried another. As it is we’ll hide the other two—inside the piano. No Kafir would think of looking for them there.”

This was done, then having carefully extinguished the lights and being well wrapped up, for the nights were fresh; and in dark attire, for safety’s sake, they went forth.

“I wonder if we shall ever see the old house again,” said Edala bitterly. “It’ll probably be burned to the ground, and all father’s treasured books,”—she added, with the catch of a sob. “These brutes—who have known you all your life, and then even they fall away from you! They’ll stick at nothing.”

There was silence then as they started upon their long tramp. The bodies of the poor dogs lay where they had been slain, plainly outlined under the cold moon, whose light glared down too upon that other mangled human relic, which, fortunately they could not see. High in the air invisible plover wheeled and whistled, and down in the blackness of the kloofs, right across their way, the answering bay of hunting jackals, and the deeper voice of the striped hyena, echoed eerily upon the night. Evelyn shuddered.

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Edala. “Nothing to be afraid of there—quite the contrary. It means that our way is clear, or no animal would be kicking up all that row. That’s just what we want. Hallo—here’s our friend back again,” she broke off, as a trample of hoofs, and a quick shrill bellow, told that the bull had returned. Again Evelyn shuddered.

“Will he attack us?” she said.

“I hope not, because this time I shall have to shoot. A charge of Treble A. at ten yards’ll split even his tough skull. But the last thing I want to do is to loose off a shot at all. By the way, that’s old Blue Hump. He must have got cut off from the herd when they drove it off—or cleared on his own. He’s a vicious old brute, anyway.”

The animal was trotting parallel with their course and every now and then they could make out the great branching horns above the bush sprays. But he must have grown tired of it, or feared to come to closer quarters, for presently they Saw no more of him.

“There’s a pathway here that cuts a considerable corner,” said Edala. “Whew! how cold it is.”

It was, and in spite of the exercise and plentiful wrapping up, both girls shivered. There were stealthy rustlings in the darkness of the brake, and once a great ant-bear rushing across the road, looking pale and uncanny in the moonlight, drew a stifled shriek from Evelyn. The other laughed.

“They’re the most harmless things on earth. Hyland and I and poor Jim used to hunt them often at night with assegais.”

Thus they travelled on, and soon Evelyn became accustomed to the unwonted experience of walking all night across wild country in potential peril at every step: fortunately she was in hard physical training by now. Once Edala’s quick vision had detected a puff adder lying in the path, but a few stones hurled from a little distance, soon drove the bloated, hissing reptile to seek safety somewhere else. Now and again a great owl would drop down right in front of their faces, and they could see his head turning from side to side as he sailed along on noiseless pinions, uttering his ghostly hoot: or the ‘churn’ of the nightjar would echo weirdly from beneath some overhanging rock; or again, a tiger-wolf howled, and big beetles in blundering flight, boomed through the air. So the voices of the night were never still.

They had sat down for a brief rest, and some refreshment, then on again. Suddenly Edala grew uneasy. A white mist was settling down upon the land. This was serious; for not only might they run plump into those it was all important to avoid, but there was grave danger of getting ‘turned round’ and finding themselves back at Sipazi again. The mist deepened, and so did Edala’s growing anxiety. It was one of those thick white mists which settle down upon the land in the small hours of the morning, fearfully disconcerting from a wayfarer’s point of view, but which melt away as by magic before the sun is an hour high. But that was small comfort to these two. They wanted to be at Kwabulazi before the sun was above the horizon at all. Suddenly Edala started.

“Hark!” she whispered, stopping short.

In front—directly in front—was audible a deep, confused murmur of sound, rolling, as it seemed, from one point to another, and drawing nearer and nearer. And with it came another sound. Those who have heard it can never mistake it, and these two had heard it all too significantly of late. It was the quivering rattle of assegai hafts.

From the sounds, spread out as they were right across their front, it was manifest that a large body of natives was moving towards them in open order. The fact that they were all armed told its own tale. This was a rebel impi, and but for the friendly mist these two would have run right into it.

“Quick, Evelyn! This way!” breathed, rather than whispered, Edala.

Holding her companion’s hand she drew her after her. The way she was taking now ascended sharply, but it was the only way. The rime rolled along, now in gusty puffs. This seemed to tell that they were gaining some height. Both were panting from their exertion, but there was no such thing as pausing, for now from the sounds beneath it was evident that the savages had suddenly altered their line of march, and were coming on in the same direction as themselves. Had they heard the sound of their steps, the clinking of a stone—what not? Anyway they could not go down, these two. That was out of the question.

On and upward. A puff of damp air, now nearly in their teeth, showed that they had attained the summit of some height. Suddenly Edala seized her companion’s hand in a strong grip and held it—and its owner.

“What is it?” whispered the latter.

“We are on the edge of a big krantz, that’s all. Three or four more steps and we should have been over.”

It was even as she had said. The ground ended just in front of them, and the blast of air coming up denoted a cliff, and one of considerable height.

But now it was lightening, and they could make out the long smooth edge of the height stretching away on their left front. And—good Heavens! Now the voices sounded from that direction—advancing from that direction as though to meet the owners of those coming up behind. These two were in a trap, caught between two fires. It was evident that the savages suspected their presence—the presence of somebody—and were quartering the ground in order to clear up the mystery. And there was nowhere to hide. The mountain top was flat and grassy. Suddenly Edala gave a violent start.

“I know our bearings now,” she whispered. “We’re on the top of Sipazi. Now Evelyn, there’s one chance for us, and one only—if you’ve the nerve to take it.”

“And that?”

“My ‘aerial throne.’”

The other gasped. She remembered how her flesh had crept before, when Edala had taken her to see the famous tree, how she had turned away almost faint, as she watched the girl spring out fearlessly on to this dreadful seat—with a careless laugh as though she had just dropped into an armchair. And now she too must sit dangling over the awful height. At that moment she almost preferred to take her chance of the assegais of the savages. But that chance might possibly mean even a worse one, and the thought decided her, as Edala whispered impatiently:—

“It’s got to be done. It’s our only chance. But you can’t fall. I’ll take care of that. Come.”

The deep voices sounded alarmingly near now. We have said that the brow of the mountain went down by a grass steep that was almost precipitous, to the stump of the tree. Edala let herself down this with cat-like security of footing, keeping ever a firm hold upon her companion—her gun she wedged into the root of a stunted bush growing out from the grass.

“Now we’re all right,” she whispered, as they sat wedged upon the projecting tree trunk, their feet dangling over space. “You can’t possibly fall, you know, as long as you hang on to that root, and I’m holding you. It’s a triumph of matter over mind instead of t’other way on, and as long as you forget there’s more than six foot of drop between this and the ground why you’re as jolly here as in an armchair on the stoep.”

And the other was somewhat reassured, although the situation to her was ghastly and horrible in the extreme. But now the voices drew very near indeed, were right overhead. Fortunately the mist had suddenly thickened, and the tree, which was some little way down, was quite blotted out to the vision of those above. To Edala, who understood what was said, the moment was one of awful tensity. Someone had been upon the mountain, of that they were convinced. But where could they be? There was no hiding place. Unless they had fallen over the cliff they would be here now.

Thus the discussion flowed on. Even the vibration of the tread of feet above caused the tree trunk to quiver slightly. At any moment the mist might lift. And it seemed to these two, suspended over awful space, an eternity. Then with unspeakable relief and thankfulness they heard the footsteps and voices retreating.

“Not yet,” breathed Edala. “Not yet. We must let them get clear away first. See. It’s getting lighter.”

It was. The dawn was at hand; in fact had already begun to break. The outline of the cliff above was visible now, plainly visible, and devoutly thankful did Edala feel that this lightening had been deferred as long as it had.

“My ‘aerial throne’ has its uses, Evelyn—eh?” she whispered.

Then something moved her to look up again. Her exaltation was dashed, shattered to the ground. On the brink, calmly gazing down upon them, stood the tall figure of a man—a dark man—and the outline of his figure and head-ring stood out against the sickly murk. She recognised Manamandhla. The bitterness of death had come.

For a few moments the Zulu thus stood, his eyes meeting hers. Then, without a word, he turned away and disappeared.

Chapter Twenty Six.

Of a Home-Coming.

The kraal of the chief, Ndabakosi, was in a state of somewhat unusual excitement. Men were passing from hut to hut, but there were few women to be seen. The blue smoke reeks rose to bluer sky, and the odour of kine was in the air. Around, the veldt, dotted with feathery mimosa, lay shimmering in the afternoon heat.

The kraal was a fairly large one, but somewhat of a strain must have been put upon its capacity for accommodation, for a considerable number of people seemed to be gathered here—not all together, for they kept continually passing and re-passing from hut to hut, and hardly ever in the same groups. Quite a number of them too, carried assegais, and, not a few, shields. Clearly something was in the wind.

The horseman, pacing along the dusty track of road, was not in a good humour. We regret to have to record that more than once he swore—swore right heartily too. Nothing is more conducive to such behaviour than the discovery, in the course of a hot and tedious journey, that one’s mount has gone lame. This one had just made such a discovery—wherefore—he swore.

Dismounting, he looked again at the defaulting hoof, felt the pastern. Seen thus, he was a tall, broad shouldered young fellow, light-haired, blue-eyed, straight as a dart. He was puzzled. There was nothing to account for this sudden lameness. The steed was not of the best, but it was the best he could hire when he got off the train at Telani, at an early hour that morning, in his impatience to get home. And now it was out of the question that he should reach home that night. The horse was not very lame, certainly; but it was likely to go lamer still with every mile or so.

“It’s just possible I might borrow a horse at old Ndabakosi’s place,” he said to himself, “and that can’t be more than a mile further on. Yes there it is,” as, topping a rise, he could discern a ring of domed huts crowning a kopje a little way off the road in front. “These nigger gees are beastly screws as a rule, but ‘needs must, etc.,’ and it may get me as far as Kwabulazi to-night at any rate. He’s a decent old chap is Ndabakosi, and a long cool pull of tywala won’t come in badly just now. Gee up, you brute!”

Hyland Thornhill’s visions of home-coming were pleasant in spite of the above-detailed contretemps. It would be no end jolly to see the old man again—he and his father had always been more like chums than anything else, and the confidence between them was perfect. And little Edala—she was wrong-headed on certain points, but still—what times they would have. And the strange visitor? He wondered what she would be like. Well, the more the merrier—anyway, he was going to have a ripping time of it now he had broken loose at last. He had put up a surprise visit on them, and it would all be great fun.

But between himself and Sipazi there lay—Ndabakosi’s kraal.

The latter, for a moment had been unwontedly lively; then it was as dead. When Hyland Thornhill rode up to it, two ringed men stood watching his approach with listless curiosity.

“Saku bona ’madoda!” he cried. “And the chief—how is he?”

They returned his greeting.

The chief was asleep, they said. In fact he was getting old, and was not very well.

“Au! That is bad news,” returned Hyland. “But—we are old friends. I would like to look upon his face once more. Tell him Ugwala is here,” giving his native nickname.

The two, whose faces were strange to him, looked at each other. Then one went in the direction of the chief’s hut, while the other went in another direction. The while Hyland had not dismounted. Presently the first returned.

The chief was awake, he said, and would see Ugwala presently. Meanwhile would he not dismount?

But a very strange kind of instinct had come over Hyland Thornhill, warning him to do nothing of the kind. It happened that as he sat in the saddle waiting, he had happened to see, by a side glance, the hut which the other man had entered. The doorway, for one brief moment, had been crowded with faces, whose expression there was no mistaking. His glance had also caught the gleam of assegais. All the rumours he had heard on the way down and, especially when he had got off the train at Telani, where in fact he had been seriously warned against taking this journey all alone—came back to him. He remembered, too, that many of the more reliable chiefs were reported to be disaffected.

“I will not wait, then,” he answered. “I must reach Kwabulazi to-night. Hlala-gahle.”

The other grunted a sullen reply. Hyland, as he pushed his lame horse along, did not feel at all easy in his mind. He would have felt less so still had he seen what happened a few minutes afterwards. Hardly was he out of sight of the kraal than a number of armed savages issued from it, racing over the veldt at an angle of forty-five divergent from the direction he was taking. But they knew their own plan. They knew moreover that he was riding a lame horse. And they never intended he should reach Kwabulazi that night—or ever.

As he held on his way his uneasiness took a new turn, and that on behalf of his father and sister. If things were going from bad to worse Sipazi was a lonely place. Surely his father would know better than to remain on there. Perhaps they were already in laager—he had heard that in some parts the farmers were going into laager—and again and again he cursed his luckless mount which had had the unfortunate foolishness to go dead lame just as he wanted him to put his best foot foremost.

Stung by these obtruding apprehensions, Hyland lashed his steed savagely. It sprang forward into a half-hearted canter, and again he lashed it. In front rose a long acclivity, the straight road ribanded out in red dust, in contrast to the green of the veldt. Then began a race—all unconsciously on the part of one competitor, but not so on that of others. Threescore armed savages were straining every muscle to gain the top of that acclivity the first, advancing stealthily through the mimosa bushes and long grass.

Up this the sorry horse cantered half heartedly. But Hyland Thornhill was in a bad temper now, a condition of mind begotten of growing anxiety. What was a mere quadruped to him then? And again the raw-hide lash curled round the animal’s ribs. It gave a feeble kick or two, but started off at a fairly respectable pace.

“Get on, you brute!” he growled savagely.

It may grieve the moralist, but it is hard fact that that outburst of bad temper saved the rider’s life. For by just the time saved by the enforced acceleration of the horse’s pace did he gain the top of the rise first and—became alive to what he had, by such a shave, escaped. The crawling forms were not a hundred yards distant on his right when he sighted them, and on realising that they were discovered, they bounded forward with a roar. But it was downhill work now, and Hyland sent his steed along at its best pace, soon leaving his enemies behind.

“Near thing that, damn it!” he muttered grimly, turning in his saddle to see if he was being pursued.

He was. Dark forms, strung out like a pack of hounds, were sprinting along the road in his rear. He had got a good start, but what if this confounded screw should stumble and fall? Then—good night! And Kwabulazi was not exactly near, either. He had a good, business-like revolver slung round him, concealed by his coat; but what was that against such odds? It would mean selling his life at the price of four or five of theirs, and keeping the last bullet for himself.

He had served in Matabeleland as well as in the Dutch war. He was hardened and resourceful, but among the things he had learned in the former campaign was the accepted fact that it did not do to fall into the power of hostile savages, helpless and unarmed.

But no more did he see of his pursuers, and he felt almost affectionately disposed towards his defaulting mount, as he topped the last neck, and looked down upon Kwabulazi.

What was this? The place was all alive with people. The tents of several waggons showed up white in the evening glow, and as he drew nearer he could see a number of men digging for all they were worth. They were making entrenchments. The place had gone into laager, then. His father and sister would be there, and safe. After his own experience he was filled with unutterable relief and thankfulness as he realised this.

Several of the surrounding farmers had gathered here with their families for mutual defence, and an outlying storekeeper or two, and all hands were turning to with a will to bank up an adequate breastwork. Within this the waggons, together with boxes and bales, should form an inner line of defence. There was a lull in the work as Hyland rode up.

“Dashed if it isn’t young Thornhill!” said one—an old man with a bushy grizzled beard.

“Dashed if it isn’t old Seth Curtis,” responded Hyland, coolly.

“Well that’s a damned respectful way to talk to a man old enough to be your father,” growled the other.

“Old enough to be, but thank God he isn’t. I’m quite content with the one I’ve got,” answered Hyland shortly. He was not inclined to be cordial towards the speaker, or towards anyone there. He resented the attitude the neighbours had taken up towards his father, and didn’t care how much they knew it. “Where is he, by the way?”

There was no answer. A sort of blankness came over the group which had gathered. Each looked at the other. Hyland felt his face growing white and cold. His fists instinctively clenched.

“Can’t some idiot answer?” he snarled savagely, glaring at the blank faces, with a murderous longing to run ‘amok’ and dash his fists in to them all. Then a girl’s voice sounded forth clear and full.

“Why—it’s Hyland.”

“Edala—where is he?” was the first question in the midst of a hurried embrace. “Not killed?”

“No—not that.”

“What then? Wounded?”

“No. But—they’ve got him.”

“Good God!”

“Come with me and I’ll tell you all about it quietly,” and she led him to Elvesdon’s house where she and Evelyn had taken up their quarters. The latter’s presence he hardly noticed as he acknowledged their introduction mechanically. Then Edala gave him all particulars of the semi-tragic termination to Tongwana’s war-dance.

“Why the people have known him all their lives,” said Hyland. “What can be their object? I could understand if they had killed him—them—but to keep them prisoners—Oh Lord! Edala, can nothing be done to rescue them? We can’t sit down and let things slide.”

And he began to pace about the room. Edala shook her head, dejectedly.

“Mr Prior has been doing what he can. He has sent out two of his native detectives to try and find out where they are, and bribe the chiefs to release them. He does not believe that Tongwana had any hand in it. Nteseni might have, or Babatyana. He, by the way, has broken out, and there are rumours that old Zavula has been murdered by him.”

“Well, it’s quite likely. Yet that paying dodge is about the only chance at present that I can see,” said Hyland, gloomily. “We must first find out where they are, and if they’re alive I’ll get ’em out, or go under myself—even if I have to do it alone, for I don’t suppose any of these white livered curs round here would risk their skins to lend me a hand. They’re first-rate at snapping at a man’s heels though,” he ended savagely.

Edala knew to what he was referring, and secretly writhed. The lash was stinging her too.

“Hy, darling—it’s a perfect godsend that you have come. Oh, we must do something,” she said, her eyes filling. Edala the light-hearted, the careless, the somewhat hard—had softened marvellously since that experience.

Then Prior came in, and Hyland greeted him cordially, for they had been great friends; in fact the magistrate’s clerk was one of the very few in the neighbourhood with whom he would exchange much more than a word, for the reasons given above. Now he gave him his experiences at Ndabakosi’s kraal, and subsequently.

“If I’d got off that horse I should have been a dead man,” he concluded. “So I should be if I hadn’t got my shirt out, and quilted that poor lame old crock rather sinfully. Well, you see—you can trust none of these chaps after all. If there’s one nigger in all Natal I should have sworn was straight it’s old Ndabakosi.”

So they talked on. Prior, by reason of his official position, and as the deputy of his absent chief, found himself in a sort of post of command—the detachment of Mounted Police, too, being under his orders, and it looked as if Hyland Thornhill by reason of a masterful force of will was going to share it with him, in the active line at any rate, if they came to blows with the rebels. Than this Prior asked nothing better and said so with unfeigned satisfaction.

We last saw Edala and her companion poised on the dizzy altitude of what the former called her ‘aerial throne,’ surrounded by peril. Moreover they had just been discovered. Manamandhla had seen them, as to that there could be no doubt. Every moment they had sat there expecting the return of those they had heard above—then death; and every such moment was bitter with the bitterness of death. Yet, when they climbed up nearly an hour later and stood, cramped and shivering, the summit of Sipazi was clear. Sorely was Edala puzzled. Clearly the Zulu had not betrayed their presence. What strange unfathomable motive could he have had in sparing their lives—hers especially, thought Edala, whose father had deliberately attempted to take his? Yet he had done so.

And in the result Prior was astounded to see at about mid-day, instead of his chief returning—for he had taken for granted the latter was spending the night at Thornhill’s—two tired and haggard-eyed girls walking up to the place; and more astounded still when he recognised their identity, and learned the strange doings they had to tell of.

Chapter Twenty Seven.

The Defence of Kwabulazi.

All round the earthwork men were posted, many for the air was keen and biting. The stars, not yet faded, shone frostily, but there was no mist; and for this they were thankful. Each man had a gun of some sort, from an up-to-date Mauser or Lee-Metford, down to a double-barrelled shot-gun.

The first dull red streaks had begun to appear in the eastern sky, and at the sight a thrill of excitement ran along the circle, for such is almost invariably the time chosen by the wily savage for making his murderous rush. These were all prepared to give him a most unhealthy reception.

“Don’t light that silly pipe, Jenkins,” growled Hyland to his next door neighbour. “D’you hear? What are you doing, man? D’you think we want ’em to know we’re anxiously waiting to welcome them?”

The man addressed snarled.

“Who the ’ell are you?” he grunted. “I’m not taking orders from anyone.” Still he hardly dared disobey. Hyland Thornhill had a reputation for being a terror with his fists, and he was as strong as an elephant.

“I’ll knock it out of your silly jaws if you attempt to light it,” was the uncompromising answer. “Hallo!” as he became aware of another presence just behind him. “What are you doing here, Edala? Go in at once.”

“I’m going to take a hand in this game,” she answered, showing her revolver—her brother had impounded her gun, having none of his own.

“Not if I know it. Clear back in again at once, d’you hear.” Then in a tender undertone, “Be sensible, little girl. Go inside, and keep all those women from yelling themselves to death with funk directly. You can do it.”

She obeyed, with no further demur.

“‘The Lord is King,’” quoted with a sneer, the man just taken to task, to his neighbour on the other side. “But it seems to me that old Thornhill’s pup is king over Him.”

“Meaning yourself?”

“Oh, you’re so damn funny, Bridson. You’ll bust yourself if you don’t watch it,” rejoined the other resentfully.

Hyland, the while, was occupying himself by drawing a cross-nick with a pocket-knife on the apex of each of his Lee-Metford bullets. The gun was a rifle and smooth bore, and with a heavy charge of Treble A in the shot barrel, was calculated, as he put it, to stop the devil himself at no distance; anyhow many black devils would probably undergo the experiment before the day was an hour older. He had just finished on the last bullet when something caused him to throw up his head, rigid and motionless, listening intently. He had caught the faintest possible suspicion of that unique sound—the quiver of assegai hafts.

“Pass the word round ‘Stand by’,” he whispered to each of his neighbours. One ignored it—he recently rated, to wit. Who the devil was young Thornhill, to come here skippering the whole ship? he wanted to know—to himself.

Hyland was sighting his piece. In the fast lightening dawn his keen vision had detected a tongue of dark figures flitting stealthily out of the mimosa bushes some couple of hundred yards away—and striking out a line which should bring them round to the back of the entrenchment. This was the encircling manoeuvre, he decided. And then he let go.

But the detonation, and the wild yell of more than one stricken savage—for he had fired into them bunched up—was drowned by an appalling roar, as a dense mass sprang up among the low bushes on that front, and, waving shield and assegai, charged straight for the earthwork.

“Aim low—aim low,” was each man’s injunction to his neighbour as the firearms crashed: in the semi-light making a circle of jetting flame. With effect too, for the front rows went down like mown corn.

“Ho-ho-ho! Haw-haw! Hooray!” were the varying forms of hoarse guffaw that went up, and the joke was this. Those immediately behind the fallen ones, pressed on over the bodies of the latter, intending to rush the earthwork before the defenders should have time to reload. But they, too, went down in sheaves, and that before another shot had been fired. They had got into an entanglement of barbed wire, which had been stealthily and quickly fixed round the defences the night before, but after dark, lest the watchful eyes of scouts should perceive it and so prepare their countrymen, for this surprise. And now the surprise was complete.

“Give it ’em again!” shouted Hyland, setting the example. This time the fire was not directed upon those who had fallen among the wire entanglement, but on those immediately behind them. The effect was awful. The whole roaring, struggling mass fell back upon itself—then, dropping to the ground, glided away like snakes among the long grass, and many were picked off while doing so. Then, those especially who had shot-guns, played upon those who were trying to extricate themselves from the wires. They could not take prisoners, and they had their families to defend. The odds were tremendous against them: it was necessary to read the enemy a severe lesson, to inflict upon him a stunning loss. Hyland Thornhill for one, the probable fate of his father clouding his brain as with lurid flame, raked the struggling bodies again and again with charges of heavy buckshot. The carnage was ghastly, sickening, but—necessary. The alternative was the massacre of themselves and of their women and children.

The latter had been stowed within the Court house for safety, and now with the lull in the attack the frightened screeches of some of the former, and the unanimous howling of most of the latter were dismally audible. Edala had carried out her brother’s injunction and was trying to reassure and pacify them. Evelyn too was ably seconding her, and soon with some effect. The sight of these two, calm and unconcerned, carried immense weight.

“What’s that you’re saying, Prior?” said Hyland Thornhill, turning his head, for he had not moved from his post. “Not come on again? Won’t they? You’ll see. I’m only wondering what devil’s move they’re up to this time. They’re too many, and we’re too few for them to give up in any such hurry. Pity that infernal wire has been cut or we’d soon have them between two stools.”

This was in allusion to the telegraph, which early in the previous afternoon had been discovered to be not working. The magistrate’s clerk, and some of the older farmers had been holding a hurried council of war.

“Let’s get in one of these shamming cusses and question him,” went on Hyland. “He’s sure to be, but it’ll help pass time. Hey—you!” he called out in the vernacular. “You with the scratched toes. Get up and come over here at once, or I’ll blow twenty holes into your carcase with a very heavy charge of shot. You know me. I’m Ugwala.”

The name was magical. The man addressed, a sturdy muscular fellow who had been shamming death, raised his head and asked to be reassured on the word of Ugwala that his life should be spared. This was done, and he clambered over the earthwork.

“Whose people are these?” began Hyland, who had risen and joined the rest. “Those of Ndabakosi?”

“All people, Nkose,” was the reply. “Some of Babatyana, some of Nteseni, some from over the river.”

“Do they expect to take this place?”

“Au Nkose! They knew not that Ugwala had come into it,” answered the man, with a somewhat whimsical smile, the inference being intended that had they known of his presence they would not have attempted such a forlorn hope.

“Are you from beyond the river?”

“E-hé, Nkose.”

“Who are leading these?”

The man looked at him, and shook his head. But he made no reply. Hyland repeated the question.

“I cannot betray my chiefs,” was the answer.

“Oh then you’ll have your brains blown out,” came the savage rejoinder. But it was not uttered by Hyland. It came from the man whom he had prevented from lighting a pipe. He had drawn a revolver and was pointing it right into the face of the Zulu. But in a moment Hyland’s arm flew up, and the pistol, jerked from the other’s grasp, spun away into the air.

“I have the promise of Ugwala,” said the savage, calmly, showing no sign whatever of trepidation.

“That’s quite right,” said Prior emphatically. “Damn it. The fellow’s quite right not to give away his chiefs. Hallo—what’s up now? Here, sergeant, shove him into the lock-up with leg-irons on. We can’t have him escaping just now, anyway.”

All possibility of any pursuance of the quarrel on the part of the aggrieved Jenkins was at an end—for the present at any rate. All hands saw that which told that their work was by no means done. They would need all their coolness and energy for the next half hour—after that, things wouldn’t much matter either way. The horses were picketed inside, and outside the defences a large enclosure had been hastily constructed of thorn bushes, and into this the trek oxen were driven at night, making quite a respectable herd. Three sides of this kraal were well covered by the fire of the defenders, but the fourth, of course, was not. Losing no time after their first repulse the assailants had, with incredible rapidity, breached this fence and were driving out the whole herd. But not as spoil—no not yet. For them they had another purpose, and grasping its import the defenders realised what new peril threatened.

Away up the valley the oxen had been driven by a number told off for the purpose, and now they were returning. By this time the animals were becoming uneasy and excited—tossing their heads and throwing up their tails, and bellowing wildly as they ran.

“Here, Prior. Is there any paraffin about, or kerosene?” asked Hyland eagerly. “Because I have an idea. Only—sharp’s the word.”

“Yes. Come along.”

They went into the store and in a second Hyland had got off the head of a paraffin tin. There were some old sacks in the corner. Seizing one of these he quickly deluged it with the liquid. He rolled his eyes around impatiently.

“A pole—Prior, damn it! I must have a pole of some sort.”

“Here you are,” dragging one out from under some rubbish. It was an old pole which had been used for hoisting a flag on occasions of national festivity. Hyland seized a chopper, and having split the thinner end of the pole, inserted the paraffin-soaked sacking in such wise that it should be held gripped within the cleft. Then they went out.

“Now you fellows,” he cried. “They’re going to drive the oxen bang over us and rush us under cover of them, and I’m going to split the herd. Cover me well when I skip back, but don’t shoot wild.”

A hurried murmur of applause. It was a feat whose daring was about equalled by the quickness of resource which had devised the plan.

The oxen were coming on now at a canter, about a hundred all told. The impi had thrown out ‘horns’ so that the terrified animals, beset by a leaping, yelling crowd on either side, had no option other than to rush blindly ahead.

Hyland Thornhill leaped over the breastwork, armed with his impromptu torch. Carefully avoiding the wires, he advanced about fifty yards and lighted it. The oxen were about twice that distance from him—rendered frantic by the yells and whistling of the savages urging them on behind. The flame roared up the soaked sacking, and as he waved this about, on a level with the eyes of the animals, Hyland fired off a series of appalling yells worthy of the savages themselves. Would his plan succeed? Those watching it seemed turned to stone. The oxen were almost upon him—they could not stop. Then, as he charged them with the flaming ball, they were suddenly seen to split off into two sections, and in wild mad career to dash through those who would have turned them back, galloping away into distance. Almost before the enemy, coming on behind, could take in this feat its daring perpetrator was back within the defences again. A ringing cheer broke forth. It was answered from the other side.

Usútu! ’Sútu!

The roar of the terrible black wave as it rolled forward. It was full daylight now, and the tossing shields, and broad blades gripped in each right hand were clearly discernible. The war-shout of the late King told that these were largely made up of those from beyond the river. The defenders had to meet the dreaded Zulu charge.

Would it never be turned? The guns of the defenders grew hot, with the rapidity of the fire. Assegais came whizzing over the breastwork—one, striking a man between the shoulders as he lay at his post, literally pinned him to the earth—but no one had time to notice this. That awful raking of the front ranks, combined with a wholesome dread of the barbed wire, whose disastrous effects they had witnessed, had brought the savages to a halt. Assegais, however were hurled in showers, killing another man and wounding several. For a moment the fate of the day hung by a hair, but the terrible incessant fire, and that from guns that seemed to need no reloading, was too much. The line wavered, then dropping to the ground, the assailants crawled away among the grass and bushes as before.

A sigh of relief that was almost a murmur, escaped the defenders. Grim, haggard-eyed, they looked furtively at each other, and each, in the face of his fellow, saw the reflection of his own. Each and all had been within the Valley of the Shadow. It had seemed not within their power to turn that last charge, but—they had done it. An odd shot or two was fired at long range after the retreating army, and then men found speech, but even then that speech was apt to be a little unsteady.

“I say, Prior!” cried one devil-may-care fellow, who had borne a tiger’s share in the fight. “How about ‘The Governor of North Carolina’? We must drink Thornhill’s health. He saved this blooming camp.”

“Ja-ja, he did,” was the response on all sides.

“Oh damn all that for bosh!” was the half savage, half weary, comment on the part of him named.

There was a laugh—a somewhat nervous laugh—the effect of the strain.

“All right,” said Prior. “Elvesdon has some stuff, but we mustn’t clean him out of it all, you know. Ugh! These dead devils look rather disgusting,” for he was not used to the sight of bloodshed. “We must keep the women from seeing them.”

“Master,” said a timid voice, on the outskirts of the crowd. “I make good dinner now for all gentlemen?”

There was a roar of laughter and a cheer. The voice had proceeded from Ramasam, Thornhill’s Indian cook, who had spent the time of the fight in the kitchen of Elvesdon’s house, green with scare.

“Well done, Ramsammy. So you shall,” cried Prior.

“Zulu nigger all run away now, masters?” queried the Indian. Whereat the roar redoubled—the point of the joke being that the speaker was a very black specimen of a Madrassi, some shades darker than the darkest of those he had defined as “Zulu nigger.”

Chapter Twenty Eight.

“Can the ‘Ethiopian’ Chance his Skin?”

“Well, we’ve managed to run our necks into a nice tight noose, Thornhill,” was Elvesdon’s first remark as he realised that they were virtually prisoners in the hands of insurrectionary savages, which meant that their position would grow more and more dangerous every day.

“The next thing is to get them out of it,” rejoined Thornhill fighting his pipe, and puffing away calmly as he walked.

“What about the ladies—will they be safe?”

“Oh yes. If they’d wanted them they’d have brought them along with us.”

“Sure?”

“Dead cert.”

Elvesdon felt immeasurably relieved. Now, more than ever; now that he was separated from her; might never even see her again; he realised what Edala had become to him. She had fascinated him from the very first, and of late had become part of his life. But it would not do to give way to depression. If Thornhill, who knew these people better than he did, had no anxiety about his daughter’s ultimate safety, why surely he himself need have none.

“You see, this hasn’t come to anything as yet,” went on Thornhill, “whatever it’s going to do. Now they know that to interfere with white women in any way would be to bring about a general bust-up, which as yet, they’re probably not ready for. But likely enough they’ve got wind that there’s an idea of arresting some of the chiefs, and are holding us as sort of hostages. Have you any notion that there’s any such idea on foot?”

“I’ve heard nothing about it officially or in any other capacity. But if such a programme is on the boards we shall get our throats cut if it’s carried out. Is that the meaning?”

The other nodded.

“Well Parry,” went on Elvesdon, cheerfully, “you wanted to see the war-dance but you didn’t bargain for this, eh? I suppose you’ve read about this sort of situation too.”

“Often, sir. But people always manage somehow to get out of it I notice.”

“And so shall we.”

Cheered by the optimistic demeanour of his official superior, and the no less calm one of his other companion in adversity the young Police trooper began to enjoy the situation. What would his people at home say if they could see him now, a prisoner in the hands of armed savages?

It was no end exciting; for of course they would manage to escape. As he had said, people always did—in books. Poor boy!

Those who custodied them, even as those forming the escort for the two girls, were not communicative. To the question as to where was Tongwana the reply was short. The chief had gone away. To that as to where they were bound for it was shorter still. They would see.

It was dark when they reached a large kraal, situated in a wide, bushy valley. The country as they journeyed had become more and more wild and broken. Thornhill declared they couldn’t be far from the Tugela Valley, which seemed to point to an intention on the part of their custodians to rush them over the Zulu border, for the sake of better concealment.