In the Whirl of the Rising Part 27

"It was foolish of you, d.i.c.k," said Clare tranquilly. "But--I brought it for you."

"You? You brought it?"

"Yes," and diving down among some bundles under the seat, as calmly as though she were looking for a mere pocket-handkerchief, she pulled up a small travelling-bag, producing thence two revolvers and two boxes of cartridges.

"Clare, you're a jewel of a girl," p.r.o.nounced the astonished Fullerton, as he took the weapon she handed him. "But what's the other?

Wyndham's?"

"No. It's mine," calmly loading it.

"Yours? That's no lady's toy anyhow. Why where on earth did you get it?"

"Mr Lamont gave it me--when he came to see us to say good-bye."

"Lamont gave it you! Good Lord! But--why?"

"He knew there was going to be a rising, and said it might come in useful."

"He knew--Well, I think he might have given some of us the benefit of his knowledge."

"He did. He gave it to some, who hardly believed him, and to me--who did. I pa.s.sed on the benefit of it to you, but you wouldn't profit by it until too late. So here we are."

"Do you mean to tell me, Clare, that the real reason you wanted me to take you into Buluwayo was because Lamont told you there was going to be a rising?"

Clare nodded.

"That's right, d.i.c.k. If I had told you the real reason you'd only have p.r.o.nounced it one of 'Lamont's scares'--just as the others did--and refused to move. As it is you've put off the said move too long."

"Good Lord! You take my breath away!"

"I'll take it away still more directly," she said tranquilly. "What do you think of Mr Lamont having saved the whole of Gandela from being ma.s.sacred on the day of the race meeting?"

"Oh come, now, that's a little too fat!" answered Fullerton, yet not so incredulously as he would have answered, say that morning.

"Well, he did." And then she told the whole story.

"I'm hanged if it doesn't sound probable," said Wyndham. "Heavens! if only they'd rushed us that day. Oh, it won't bear thinking about."

"Sounds probable," repeated Clare. "It's more than probable--it's true.

I fell in with Mr Lamont up on Ehlatini the next morning, and he showed me all the tracks made by the impi. I picked up a couple of cow-tail armlets--or leglets--which they'd dropped, just like the ones these are wearing."

"By Jove!"

There was silence after that Wyndham was anxious to get his team through a narrowing sort of point ahead, where the ground rose abruptly to an overhanging portal on either side, and where rocks and stones, shadowed by wild fig-trees, would afford dangerous cover to the enemy were he to arrive there first, even though apparently without firearms. Under the double incentive of whip and voice the mules seemed to have forgotten their fatigue and were pulling out manfully. But to her brother-in-law's suggestion, that she should give up the front seat to him and come in at the back, Clare returned a flat refusal.

"I want to see this," she said, "and see it well. You can put up the side sail and see it from there."

"But that'll expose Lucy," he fumed.

"No, it won't. You'll be in front of her. And they haven't got guns."

There was no help for it. Wyndham pleaded, but to him too she returned a deaf ear. She sat there--calm, cool, collected, fingering her weapon, and a determined and dangerous look of battle in her eyes.

But pull the mules never so heartily the fleet-footed savages kept the pace, and kept it well. Half the police would gallop forward to check their advance with a volley, but as soon as ever they reined in their horses--lo, there was n.o.body in sight to fire a volley at. And then it became evident that the foe had divided, and that these human wolves were hunting their prey on both sides of the road.

"_I--ji--jji! Ijji--jji! Ha! Ha_!"

The vibrating, humming hiss--it must be remembered that the vowel is sounded as in every other language under the sun but the English--the deep-chested, ferocious gasp, split the air as the panting mules galloped furiously between the overhanging rocks and trees--which were now alive with swarming savages. Wyndham, cool and brave, kept all his attention centred on his team, for did that fail him--why then, good-night! Clare, with set lips, covered a huge savage who had sprung up hardly ten yards distant to launch an a.s.segai, and pressed the trigger. The brown, bedizened body sprang heavily forward, throwing shield and weapons different ways, and sank, but the pallor of her face at the sight only served to heighten the brightness of her eyes.

Fullerton, leaning out, pumped a couple of shots in a lucky moment into where three or four a.s.sailants rose together, likewise with fortunate result. Then an a.s.segai whizzed through the upper part of the waggon tilt, while another struck one of the mules in the hinder quarters, and started the poor brute kicking and squealing in such wise as nearly to stampede the whole team and get it completely out of hand. Added to which some of the police horses were prancing and shying, and rendering it all that their riders could do to stick on, let alone use their weapons. Quick to perceive their advantage, the Matabele warriors swarmed down the rocks, or leapt upward from among the bushes, redoubling the volume of their vibrating, ferocious war-hiss--dancing, leaping, clashing their axes and shields together; in short, raising a most demoniacal and indescribable din.

Fullerton, watching his side of the vehicle, was cool enough and had his full share of pluck, but he was a lamentable revolver shot, and, after three bad misses, the a.s.sailants became alive to the fact, and began to run in closer with more confidence.

"d.a.m.n this thing!" he yelled, in his excitement and mortification. "It has a pull off you'd require a steam crane to move. Clare, give me yours."

"No," she answered shortly. And at the same moment two warriors sprang up behind a rock and quick as lightning hurled their casting a.s.segais-- not at their human enemies, but at the mule team. Struck in the shoulder, one poor mule stumbled and plunged wildly, and only the fact that Wyndham was a first-rate whip performed the miracle that prevented it from falling entirely. Then taking advantage of the confusion, several warriors, their shields covering them, the broad stabbing spear uplifted, charged forward to stab the leaders, and thus have the whole outfit at their mercy. But they reckoned without Clare Vidal.

Small wonder that they did. Small wonder that these unsparing savage warriors, trained all their lives in battle and bloodshed and deeds of pitiless ferocity, should have overlooked the fact that in this beautiful and winsome girl there lurked a reserve of splendid Irish courage and readiness and heroism. Cool, steady-handed as a rock, she poured in succession three of her remaining four shots into the leaders of the rush, and as those behind their falling bodies halted--checked, dismayed--no less coolly and steady-handed did she reload the chambers of her pistol. And she had saved the situation--so for.

Wyndham glanced up, and dismay was in his heart. He had hoped to find easier country beyond this point, but the road continued rough, and, moreover, for some distance on, the broken, rocky, bush-grown slopes continued, so that their pitiless foes were able to keep above them and under cover. Poor Lucy Fullerton, made of far softer stuff than her younger sister, was cowering in her corner, white as death and almost fainting, and now the savages began to laugh and shout exultantly to each other. The ground seemed to grow them. From every bush and rock they sprang forth by the score. It was for them a mere waiting game.

Already the police had been cut off from the waggon, and were fighting like lions in the thick of their swarming foes; none braver than their sergeant, whose voice was everywhere, directing, encouraging--whose pistol had sent more than one of the ferocious a.s.sailants to their long home. Three of these brave fellows had already been overcome; knocked from their horses by hurled clubs, gasping out their lives, through a score of a.s.segai stabs, on the reeking road. And now the mules, utterly blown, and only saved hitherto by Clare Vidal's magnificent courage, dropped into a sullen and tired walk, out of which no effort, either of whip or voice, on the part of their driver could lift them. And at the sight, louder and more ferocious swelled the hideous Matabele death-hiss. The prey was theirs at last.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

THE RELIEF LEVY.

Not until noon of the day after their ghastly discovery did Lamont and his fellow refugees reach Gandela.

It was only at night they could travel with any degree of safety. The appearance of some armed Matabele had driven them into hiding almost within sight of poor Tewson's homestead, and for long the fall bitterness of death was on those three. For it was difficult to believe that the savages had not seen them and had gone to collect reinforcements, that they might hunt down the fugitives at their leisure. To make matters worse, their place of concealment was a deep donga leading to the river-bed, and overhung by a thicket of _haak-doorn_, so that, in the event of discovery, the enemy being right above would be able to destroy them with a minimum of risk to himself.

An ignominious end, like rats in a hole, not even the consolation of being able to fight to the last and sell their lives dearly. Yet it had been a case of 'needs must,' for there was no other hiding-place available.

The heat, too, was stifling, and their quarters horribly cramped. Their food supply had nearly run out, and, worse still, their drink. All day they had heard natives moving around them, and the barking of dogs. All day had kept continuously recurring the certainty that they were being hunted, that discovery was but a matter of minutes; and when at length night came--blessed night with its coolness and sheltering darkness--why then these three had gone through a day they were not likely to forget for the remainder of their lives.

But with morning light their peril returned, and they were reminded of this when shortly after daybreak they sighted an impi on the march.

They had barely time to flatten themselves among the clefts and boulders of a stony kopje when this force appeared in sight, and as it pa.s.sed right beneath their hiding-place they were able roughly to count its strength. The warriors were marching in open order, to the number of about two hundred, and the watchers could make out that though bristling with a.s.segais and axes, none of them appeared to carry firearms.

Here again prudence had counselled that they should lie low, and starting after dark reach Gandela the middle of that night; but by this time a strange impatience had taken hold of them, engendering recklessness. Even Ancram--starving, footsore, and utterly out of training for this sort of thing--shared in the feeling, and accordingly they resolved to chance it. This time fortune favoured them, and, having encountered no further adventures, three weary, haggard, and hungry men entered Gandela and went straight to Foster's hotel.

Though in actual point of fact the distance accomplished was nothing wonderful to a brace of hardened pioneers like Peters and Lamont, yet the constant and recurring strain, combined with the hideous and pitiful sight they had witnessed, had told even upon them. As for Ancram, he was in a state of utter collapse.

"Now, Foster, turn us on some skoff right away," said Lamont; "and we don't want to wait for it, either, at least not any longer than it takes to have a tub. Meanwhile, a bottle of your Perrier-Jouet. Here you are, Ancram," when this had been opened. "Dip your beak into this.

It'll buck you up, and, by the Lord, you want it!"

"Any news of the scare--anything fresh, that is?" asked the hotel-keeper, eyeing them curiously. These men had been through no ordinary experience, he could see that, but as yet they had told nothing.

"Well, rather. I'll tell you presently. Have you a boy handy, Foster?

I want to send a note quick to Orwell."