John Ames, Native Commissioner Part 18

There had been a lull in the firing so far, but now the Matabele on the rock ridge began to open on the house from that side. The besieged were between two fires. Chary of throwing away even one shot, they forbore to reply, carefully watching their chance, however. Then it was amusing to see them stealing by twos and threes to the bar, avoiding the line of fire--laughing, as one would dodge to avoid an imaginary bullet. But as the sublime and the ridiculous invariably go hand in hand, so it was in this case. One man, incautiously exposing himself, fell. The heavy, log-like fall told its own tale even before they could spring to his aid. He was stone dead.

An awed silence fell upon the witnesses, broken at length by fierce aspirations for vengeance upon the barbarous foe; not so easy of fulfilment, though, for the latter was not in the least eager to take any of the open chances of war. His game was a waiting one, and he knew it. By keeping up a continuous fire upon the exposed points of the defence, he forced the besieged to remain ever on the alert.

The sun went down, and now the savages began to shout tauntingly.

"Look at it, Amakiwa! You will never see another. Look at it well.

Look your last on it. You will not see it rise. There are no whites left in the land."

"There are enough left to make jackal meat of you all," shouted back Jekyll in Sindabele. "_Au_! We shall see many more suns rise, and many shadows against them--the shadows of hung Amandabele." But a great jeering laugh was all the answer vouchsafed.

With the darkness the firing ceased, but those watching at the windows redoubled their vigilance, every sense on the alert lest the enemy should steal up under its cover and rush the position. Enraged and gloomy at so little opportunity being given them of avenging their comrade's death, those within almost wished they would. One of the wounded men--the police trooper, to wit--was groaning piteously. Both had been made as comfortable as was practicable, but it was painful to listen to the poor fellow's pleadings in the darkness, for, of course, they dared not strike a light. Would they not shoot him at once and put him out of his agony, he begged.

"Poor old chap! We'll see you through all right. You'll live to talk over all this again and again," was the pitying reply of a comrade.

"I don't want to; I want to be dead. Oh, it's awful--awful!"

His kneebone had been shattered by a bullet, and he was enduring terrible agony. To listen to his pitiful writhings and groans was enough to take the heart out of the most daredevil glutton for fighting.

"Here, have a drink, old man. It'll buck you up a bit," said another, groping towards him with a whisky bottle.

"Yes. Give it here. Where is it?" And the sufferer's groans were silenced in a gasping gurgle.

"Worst thing possible for him, I believe," whispered Moseley.

"Shouldn't wonder," replied Tarrant also in a whisper. "Doesn't much matter, though, the poor devil! He's a 'goner' anyhow. A knock like that means mortification, and there's no doctor here to take his leg off, nor could it be done under the circ.u.mstances if there was."

"By the Lord, Moseley," he resumed, a moment later, "I wonder if there's anything in what Jekyll said the n.i.g.g.e.rs were saying just now--that there are no whites left in the land. If this is a general outbreak, what of Hollingworth and his crowd?"

An exclamation of dismay escaped the other. Their own position was so essentially one of action that they had had little or no time to take thought for any but themselves. Now it came home to them. But for the timely warning brought by the police trooper, they themselves would have been treacherously set upon and ma.s.sacred; how, then, should those who had not been so warned escape?

"Heavens! it won't bear thinking about," he replied. "Formerly, in the Cape wars; the Kafirs didn't kill women; at least, so I've often heard.

Perhaps these don't either. Dibs, it's too awful. Let's put it to Jekyll."

But the opinion of that worthy, and of two others with experience, was not cheering either. It was impossible to say what these might do.

Most of the younger men of the Matabele nation were a mongrel lot, and a ruffianly withal One resolve, however, was arrived at--that if they succeeded in beating off their present a.s.sailants, they would hurry over to the aid of the Hollingworths.

The night wore on, and still the enemy gave no sign of his presence.

Had he cleared out, they speculated? No, that was not likely, either.

The odds were too great in his favour. It was far more likely that he was waiting his chance, either that they might strive to break through his cordon and get away in the darkness--and there were some who but for the fact of having wounded men to look after would have favoured this course--or that he would make a determined rush on the position with the first glimmer of dawn.

In the small hours of the morning the man with the shattered kneebone sank and died. He knew he was doomed, and declared that he welcomed a speedy release. Had he any message? asked the others, awed, now the time for action was in abeyance, at this pitiful pa.s.sing away in their midst. If so, they pledged themselves solemnly to attend to his wishes.

No, not he, was the answer. Anybody belonging to him would be only too glad to be rid of him, and to such the news of his death would be nothing but good news. He had never done any good for himself or anybody else, or he supposed he wouldn't be where he was.

"Don't say that, old chap," said Jekyll. "Every man Jack of us who gets away from here without having his throat cut owes it to you. If that isn't doing any good for anybody else I'd like to know what is."

"Hear, hear!" came in emphatic chorus.

"Oh well, then perhaps a fellow has done something," was the feeble rejoinder. And so the poor fellow pa.s.sed away.

But they were not to be suffered to give way to the sad impressiveness of the moment, for a quick whisper from those at the back window warned that something was taking place. At the same time those watching the front of the house gave the alarm. Straining their sight in the dimness of the approaching dawn, the besiegers made out a number of dark forms crawling up from all sides. The Matabele were renewing the attack.

Those within had already laid their plans. There were two windows in front and one behindhand at each of these two men were on guard.

Carefully aiming so as to rake the dark ma.s.s, they let go simultaneously, then dived below the level of the sill, and not a fraction of a moment too soon. A roar of red flame poured from the darkness, both front and rear, and several bullets came humming in, burying themselves in the opposite plaster, and filling the interior with dust. The former tactics had been repeated--the storming party advancing under cover of the fire of their supports. And immediately upon the cessation of that fire, a ma.s.s of savages rose from the earth, and, quick as lightning, hurled themselves upon the store.

Then those within had their hands full. The magazine rifles, playing upon the advancing crowd, wrought fearful havoc at point-blank quarters, and bodies, in the struggles of death or wounds, lay heaped up under the windows. But the a.s.sailants paused not, pressing on with greater intrepidity than ever, seeming to laugh at death. Now their hands were on the window-sills, but before they could effect an entrance there was the same crash, the same wild spring, the same fall backward without, and mingling with the din of firearms, the unearthly vibration of the Matabele battle-hum, uttered from the chest through the closed teeth outward, "Jji-jji!" rendered the scene as one of the strivings of fiends. Then the set, awful faces of those within--visible in the glare and smoke of the rifles--battling for their lives against tremendous odds!

It could not last. Very few minutes would decide one way or the other.

Carb.u.t.t, helping defend one of the front windows, found the magazine of his rifle exhausted. Dropping back to fill it, he found his ammunition in like state--exhausted too; and at the same time the man who stepped forward to take his place received a blow with a heavy k.n.o.bkerrie that sent him down like a bullock. A big Matabele warrior was half in the room; another, quick as thought, drove his a.s.segai clean through the c.o.c.kney prospector. The entrance was forced. The besiegers held possession of the interior.

Not quite, though. The last man left alive, viz. Carb.u.t.t himself, stepped back through the compartment door and slammed it in their faces.

But what avail? They would soon batter it in. It was only staving off the evil day.

The firing without was now renewed--renewed with a fury not hitherto manifested. Yet none of the missiles seemed to take effect. But a perfect uproar was taking place, wild cries, and rushings to and fro.

Then the warriors who had entered the further compartment seemed to be crowding out as fast as ever they could. The dawn now was fairly broken. The s.p.a.ce around the house had cleared as if by magic, save for the dead and disabled. Those within the bush were retreating, turning to fire as they did so. But--_not at the store_.

Then came a low rumbling sound, which the besieged ones, hearing, looked at each other for a moment, and then broke into a mighty hurrah, for in it they recognised the sound of hoofs, and of many hoofs.

Some two score hors.e.m.e.n rode up to the door, their uniforms and trappings those of the Matabeleland Mounted Police. That this did not const.i.tute the whole of the force which had so effectually and in the nick of time come to their relief, a sound of brisk firing from the rock ridge at the back of the store served to show. A squad, having taken possession of the said ridge, was hastening the departure of the retreating Matabele.

As the besieged stepped forth they presented a not unimpressive spectacle. Haggard, unshorn; hands blackened and burnt from contact with the quick-firing magazine rifles; the anxious look telling of many hours of strained vigilance; the hard set of determined faces; and the light of battle not yet gone out of their eyes--they were in keeping with the background of bullet-battered wall and the foreground of dark corpses, grim and gory, lying stark and in every variety of contorted shape, at which the Police horses were snorting and shying.

"Just in time, Overton!" said Jekyll, hailing the officer in command, who was a friend of his. "Only just in the nick of time. They had already got inside the further room. Five minutes more would have done for us."

"You stood them off well," returned the other, dismounting. "I never thought we'd have been any good at all; thought you'd have been knocked on the head long ago." Then gravely, "Any--er--losses?"

"Four. One of your men. The one who warned us."

"Robinson, wasn't it?"--turning to a trooper, who answered in the affirmative.

"Poor chap! Hallo, Carb.u.t.t. _You_ in it, eh?"

"Glad to be out of it, too. Have a drink, Overton. I think we all deserve one."

Now the residue of the relieving force arrived. These were all dismounted men, prospectors mostly, who had either been warned in time or had fallen in with the Police during their flight. Nearly all were known to some one or other of the defenders of the store, and there was a great interchange of greeting, and more than one story of hairbreadth escapes, told by some, who, like these, had been succoured only in the nick of time.

"There's going to be the devil to pay," the police captain was saying.

"The rebellion's a general one, or precious nearly so; at any rate, in this part of the country. Zazwe's people and Umlugula's have risen, and Bulawayo was being laagered up for all it was worth when we left. We can't get any news from Sik.u.mbutana, but Madula's a very shaky customer, and if he joins in, then I'm afraid Inglefield and Ames will be in a bad way."

"Roll up, boys! Roll up!" sang out Jekyll, who had gone outside.

"There's free drinks all round this morning. 'Skoff,' too. Help get down some of these tins."

There was no lack of response to this appeal, and the sun rose upon a busy scene. Gla.s.ses and beakers clinked, and men sat or stood around, devouring "bully" beef or canned tongues and other provisions, some of the rougher sort now and then shying the empty tins in scornful hate at the dead bodies of the fallen savages--for, after all, the corpses of four of their countrymen still lay unburied within.

"You've done for thirty-one all told, Jekyll," presently remarked Overton, who had set some of his men to count the dead immediately around the place. "Not a bad bag for seven guns. What?"

"No; but we've lost four," was the grave reply.

Then, having taken in a great deal of much needed refreshment, and effected the burial of their slain comrades--the latter, by the exigencies of the circ.u.mstances, somewhat hurriedly performed--the force divided, the Police moving on to warn Hollingworth. With them went Moseley and Tarrant, while the remainder elected to stay at Jekyll's until they saw how things were likely to turn.