A Secret of the Lebombo Part 22

"It would. But I'm perfectly certain you wouldn't funk it," laughed Lalante.

And then, paling their faces and curdling their blood, came a shrill piercing scream of agony and terror. As they turned towards it a small boy came rushing headlong through the spa.r.s.e mimosas growing along that part of the bank.

"He's in," he screamed. "Charlie. He's in the river--there."

Following his pointing finger they could see nothing, then, borne swiftly down towards them, a head rose to the surface, showing an agonised little face, in the last degree of terror, and a pair of hands feebly battling with the vast might of the flood. A second more and Lalante would have been in there too.

But that second was just sufficient for a pair of arms to close round her, effectually holding her back.

"Not you, Lalante, d'you hear! I'm a strong swimmer. Now--let me go."

He almost threw her from him, and that purposely, for stumbling against Frank, the terrified boy had promptly and firmly clutched hold of her.

She could not go into the water--and, incidentally, to her death-- without dragging him with her. In the same quick atom of time Warren, with a straight, clear, springy leap, had felt the turgid waters of the monster flood close over his head.

He had leaped to come down feet foremost, as was the safest. He risked damaging his head the less, and could see for the fraction of a moment longer the exact position of the drowning boy; and even that fraction of a moment may mean the difference between life and death in a situation such as this.

Not a second too soon had he jumped. As he rose to the surface the boy was just sweeping past him. Darting forth an arm, he seized him by the hand, but--still kept him at arm's length.

"Charlie," he said, "be plucky now and keep cool. Whatever happens, don't grab hold of me. I won't let go of you but--don't grab me."

The boy, half-dazed, seemed to understand. The while the current was whirling them down with frightful velocity. Suddenly something seized Warren by the foot, dragging him down; then as the waters roared over his head the awfulness of the moment came upon him that this was doom.

Then--he was free.

A last desperate violent kick had done it. What had entangled him was really the fork in a bough of a sunken tree. But it was time, for on rising to the surface his eyes were swelled and his head seemed to go round giddily, and his breath came in laboured pants; but he had never slackened his hold of the boy.

The latter was now unconscious, and consequently a dead weight. Warren, wiry athletic man as he was, felt his strength failing. The flood was as a very monster, and in its grip he himself was but a shaving, as it roared in his ears, its spume blinding him as it tossed him on high with the crest of its great churning waves. With desperate presence of mind he strove to keep his head. As he rose on each great wave he saw the long broad road of foaming water in front, bounded by its two dark lines of half-submerged willows--then he saw something else.

An uprooted tree was bearing down upon him, its boughs thrashing the water as the trunk rolled over and over in the surge. It was coming straight at him, borne along more swiftly than he--and his burden. One thrash of those flail-like boughs and then--his efforts would be at an end.

Desperate, but still cool, he tried swimming laterally instead of with the stream, and found that he could. Down came the swirling boughs, like the sails of a windmill, where he had been but a moment before, and this grisly peril pa.s.sed on. No sooner had it done so than the striver's foot touched something--something firm.

Something firm! Yes, it was firm. Among the whirl and lash of the willow boughs, for by his diagonal course of swimming he had reached the side here, where the swirl of the current, though powerful, was comparatively smooth, and he had touched firm ground. Warren dared to hope, with indescribable relief, that he was standing on the brink of one of those deep, lateral dongas which ran up from the river-bed, one similar to that which the Kafir had fallen into with the snake coiled round his leg. He grasped the supple and whip-like boughs, still carefully feeling out with the other foot lest he should flounder into deep water again, and gave himself over to a breathe.

Charlie now began to show signs of returning consciousness, then opened his eyes.

"Where are we? _Magtig_! Mr Warren, I thought I was drowned."

"Well, you're not, nor I either. So wake up, old chap, and hold on to these twigs so as to give me a bit of a rest; for I can tell you that sort of swim is no exercise for a young beginner."

The splashing, roaring flood whirled on, throwing up clouds of spume where here and there great waves hurled themselves on to some obstruction. Once the ghastly white head of a drowned calf rose up out of the water just by them, a spectral stare in the l.u.s.treless eyes. The lowering afternoon was darkening.

"I believe we could make for _terra-firma_--that means solid ground--if we went to work carefully," said Warren. "What do you think, Charlie?

Shall we try? The swirl up here is fairly light, and you must think you are only swimming in the kloof dam."

The boy looked out upon the roaring rush of waters and shuddered. Not among this would their venture lead them, but among much smoother water, to safety. Still, he was unnerved after his experience of that awful force, his choking, suffocating, helpless, all but drowning condition.

But he was plucky to the core.

"All right. Let's try," he said. "But keep hold of my hand, won't you."

"Of course," said Warren. And then once more they struck off, entrusting themselves to the stream, or rather to its eddies.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

IN THE ROAR OF THE FLOOD.

Lalante and her small brother, watching from the bank the earlier struggle with the awful forces, were at first frantic with grief and horror; then the sense of having someone dependent on her was as a nerve-bracing tonic to the girl, and she recovered a modic.u.m of coolness.

"Come, Frank," she said. "We must run along the bank, and see if we can be of any help at all."

The weeping youngster brightened up a little, as seizing him by the hand she dragged him along with her, both running for all they knew. But the ground was rough and uneven; if it had not been they could never have kept pace with the swiftness of the flood. Then it dipped abruptly, yet still they managed to stumble along. Up the next rise, panting, their hearts beating as though they would burst, and then--they saw Warren and his burden suddenly sink from sight. At the same time Lalante's foot caught in some twisted gra.s.s, and down she came, full length, dragging the boy with her.

She tried to get up, but could not do more than struggle to her knees, then fall again. She was too utterly breathless and exhausted to be capable of making further effort. The last she had seen of them, too, was as a numbing physical blow. She could only lie there panting in great sob-like gasps. The little fellow threw his arms round her neck and sobbed too.

"Oh, Lala, will they get out? Do say. Will they get out?"

Even then Warren's words were hammering in her brain "...against which the strongest swimmer would have that much chance"; words uttered calmly and authoritatively, scarce a minute before he himself had taken that fatal leap. What chance then had he--had they? And they had already gone under.

"Darling, I'm afraid there's--there's--no hope," she said, unsteadily.

"But come. We will walk along the bank--I am quite powerless to run any more--in case we should sight them again. Tell me. How did it happen?"

"We were standing on the bank, shying sticks into the river and watching them float down. Then a great piece of the bank gave way, and Charlie was in."

Lalante could hardly restrain a storm of tears. One of her little brothers--her darling little brothers--of whom she was so fond, and who looked up to her for everything, to be carried away like this by the great cruel river, and drowned before her very eyes--oh, it was too awful! What a tale, too, to carry back to their father! And the prompt, cool, brave man--he who at that very moment had been expressing the hope that he might never be called upon to stand such a test, because if so he was sure he would be found wanting--he too had gone, had given his life for that of another. Lalante was not a Catholic, but human instinct is ever the same, and if ever prayers went up that a soul should have its eternal reward, one went up--none more fervent--from her during those awful moments on behalf of Warren.

The rain had begun again, and was now a steady downpour, while lower and lower the murk descended, blotting out the opposite _rand_. Great shiny _songo-lolos_, or "thousand legs," squirmed among the mimosa sprays in repulsive festoons, and in the splashy softness of the thoroughly soaked ground--ordinarily so hard and arid--the foot sank or slipped. The river, too, in whose ordinarily nearly dry bed the small boys had so often disported themselves, or catapulted birds along the banks--now a great bellowing monster--had taken its toll of one of them. All was in keeping, as the darkness brooded down; the splash of the rain, the hopelessness, the death, the despair; a scene, a setting of indescribable gloom and horror, as these two dragged themselves wearily step by step, staring at the long rush of foam-flecked flood in a very whirlwind of grief. Then, upon the blackness of this misery, came a sound.

"Lala--did you hear that?" panted the boy, eagerly.

"Yes. Wait!" gasped Lalante, holding up a hand.

The sound was repeated. It came from some distance lower down, and took shape as a hail. The girl even thought to descry in it her own name, and to both it came as a very voice from Heaven.

"Man--Lalante," panted Frank, in uncontrollable excitement, "but that's Mr Warren."

"Yes, it is. Why, then in that case, Charlie's there too, for I know he'd never leave him," answered the girl tremulously and half-laughing, in the nervous reaction of her grat.i.tude. Then she lifted her own voice in a loud, clear call that might have been heard for miles in the stillness. They listened a moment, and an answering hail was returned.

"Come. They may still need our help," she said. "Go steady though. We mustn't exhaust ourselves this time."

First sending forth another long, clear call, to which Frank added the shrillness of his small but carrying voice, they started off along the river bank. It seemed miles, hours, as they stumbled along, now over a stone, now crashing into a bush--but every now and then sending forth another call, which was answered, thank G.o.d, now much nearer. At last, through the gloom, for by this it was almost dark, they made out two figures coming slowly towards them.

"Charlie--my darling, whatever made you do it?" began Lalante as she hugged the smallest of these; womanlike mingling a touch of scold with the joy of the restoration.

"Oh, Lala, you're not cross, are you? I couldn't help it," was the answer, in a tired voice.

"Cross--cross! Oh, you darling, how should I be cross!" raining kisses all over the wet little face. Then, unclasping one arm, she held out a hand.

"Oh, Mr Warren!" was all that she could say, but it seemed to express everything.