Harley Greenoak's Charge Part 17

Scowling sullenly, the savages began to make the usual excuses. The chief was sick, and so on.

"A lie!" said Greenoak. "Bring him forth at once or we put the torch into every hut in this valley."

By now all were astir. More than half the revellers had gone home, but there were yet an awkwardly large number left, even for nearly a hundred armed and mounted men. Still a hurried consultation went on, then, just as Greenoak was losing patience, the chief himself appeared.

Vunisa was a tall, powerful man, with rather a heavy and sullen face, but not without dignity even then. He had done nothing wrong, he protested; why, then, should the Government send the _amapolise_ into his kraal and threaten to destroy it?

"The young white man who came here last night," said Harley Greenoak.

"Where is he?"

The chief turned to his followers. What was this about a young white man? Did anybody know? The while, Greenoak, who had dismounted, was watching him keenly. No. n.o.body knew.

"Then Vunisa will be arrested," he said.

The chief started, ever so slightly. An ominous hubbub arose among his followers, the bulk of whom dived quickly into the huts again. They had gone to arm.

In a moment they emerged, and the glint of a.s.segai blades and the wave of hard sticks was everywhere, as the kraal became alive with swarming savages, the mutter of deep-toned voices eloquent with suppressed hate and menace. And they outnumbered the Police ten to one.

The latter had loaded with ball cartridge. Even then a sudden rush and the sheer weight of numbers was bound to overwhelm them, out in the open. But it was not made. The Kafirs seemed to hold that little armed force in wholesome respect. Still the merest accident might bring about a collision. The situation had become tense to dramatic point. What if Vunisa should persist in his disclaimer? There was a moment of dead, boding silence. Harley Greenoak broke it.

"Inspector, kindly send three of your men to search that hut," pointing to one next to that whence Vunisa had emerged. "If the chief moves he will be shot," he added, in the Xosa language.

Amid dead silence the three troopers entered. In a moment, from the interior of the hut, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns were heard; then, through the low doorway there crawled forth a man--hatless, dirty with perspiration and smears of red-ochre; in short, with a generally dilapidated appearance.

And then up stood d.i.c.k Selmes, rubbing his eyes.

"Hallo, Greenoak! Hallo, Inspector, how are you? I say, I'm jolly glad you've turned up. I'm more than a bit sick of spending the night tied up in an old Kafir blanket--faugh!--and not able to move finger or toe."

"You may thank your lucky stars you'd got a watch on, and that there was just a moment of silence _in which I heard it tick_," rejoined Harley Greenoak, gravely.

"Eh?"--puzzled. "That how you found me? Through the ticking of a watch?"

"That--and no other way. It'd be like hunting for a needle to look for you in this location, even if we hadn't to fight our way out first.

Well, your dad was right. You are a record for getting into hornets'

nests."

There was no more to be done. Inspector Chambers was not going to take the responsibility of arresting Vunisa simply because this young fool had run his head, as Greenoak had said, into a hornets' nest. So, after reading that potentate a severe lecture, he withdrew his force.

There was another who came in for a sample of the lecture, and that was d.i.c.k Selmes. If he chose to hold out his own throat to be cut, he might as well wait until he was on his own responsibility, and so on. To all of which d.i.c.k listened very penitently.

"Think they really meant cutting my throat, Inspector?" he said.

"That's just exactly what they did intend," interposed Harley Greenoak.

"They were going to cut your throat after we had gone, and then burn the hut over you, so as to destroy all trace."

"The mischief they were! But how do you know, Greenoak?"

"Because I overheard them saying so, as we came away," was the tranquil reply. "They were likewise expressing disappointment at being done out of such a rare bit of fun."

"Ugh, the brutes!" exclaimed d.i.c.k, turning in his saddle to scowl back at the dark forms gathered on the hillside, watching the retreating Police. "I'll pay them out for it when the war begins."

"When the war begins," repeated Inspector Chambers. "Well, it's our particular mission just now to prevent it from beginning at all; but if ever anybody came within an ace of starting it, why, that joker's yourself, this very morning, Selmes. Eh, Greenoak?"

The latter nodded a.s.sent.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

MAINWARING'S "GAS-PIPE."

d.i.c.k was greatly concerned over the consequences his escapade was likely to entail upon the sentry who had let him through. He said nothing about the bribe, but all unconsciously repeated the man's own line of defence; to wit, that he supposed the defaulter had reckoned that he, being a guest, was free to go and come as he pleased. In short, he gave Inspector Chambers no peace until that good-hearted officer, glad to find a pretext for remitting punishment on anybody, promised to let the man off with a reprimand; but only on condition that d.i.c.k, on his part, would undertake not to launch out in any more madcap and foolhardy ventures on his own account while sojourning in the camp.

This act made d.i.c.k very popular among the Police, which popularity was consolidated by his free and easy, unaffected way with everybody. He entered with zest, too, into any of the amus.e.m.e.nts which they got up to vary the monotony of camp life--cricket or athletic sports, or shooting practice; and as he was in the pink of condition, and a fine runner and jumper, it was seldom that in such he would meet his match. Or if any patrol was sent out, he would not be left behind. His keenness and energy were alike unflagging.

Things seemed to be quieting down. Harley Greenoak, who would sometimes be absent for two or three days at a time, visiting this or that chief-- for he could move freely among them, where with another it would have been at that juncture in the highest degree unsafe--reported that there was a more settled feeling. True the Kafir and Fingo locations were eyeing each other from beyond their respective boundaries with distrust, but there was no longer the threatening and aggressive bearing on the part of the one, or the alarmed uneasiness on that of the other. It looked as if matters would settle themselves.

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

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

Greenoak took it.

"One of these Winchesters. Yes, I've seen them," he said, returning it.

"New-fangled American invention. Well, I don't think much of them."

"Why not?" said the other, who was rather proud of his new acquisition.

"I've always held that what we want is some sort of repeating rifle.

Sort of thing, you know, that can pump in a lot of shots one after another."

"That's all right, if the 'lot of shots' hit," said Greenoak. "If not, one shot at a time's sufficient."

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

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

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

Up went the piece. One, two, three, four--Greenoak had hit but once.

Something of a murmur stirred the group of men who had stopped to look.

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

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

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

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