Renshaw Fanning's Quest Part 12

Next morning early, the runaways visited an outlying vij-kraal belonging to a Dutch farmer named Van Wyk, and there perpetrated a peculiarly atrocious murder. The vij-kraal was in charge of a Hottentot herd, who, hearing a noise in the kraal, ran out of his hut just as the scoundrels were making off with two sheep. He gave chase, when suddenly, and without any warning, one of them turned round and shot him through the chest. The whole gang then returned, dragged out the unfortunate man's wife and three children, and deliberately butchered them one after the other in cold blood. The bodies were found during the day by the owner of the place, who came upon them quite unexpectedly. They were lying side by side, with their throats cut from ear to ear; and he describes it as the most horrible and sickening sight he ever beheld. The herd himself, though mortally wounded, had lived long enough to make a statement, which places the ident.i.ty of the atrocious miscreants beyond all doubt. It may interest our readers to learn that among the runaways were the two Kafirs, Muntiwa and Booi, who were tried at the Circuit Court recently held here, and sentenced to seven years' hard labour each for stock-stealing. The rest were Hottentots and b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

[Half-bloods are thus termed in Cape Colony parlance.] At the same time we feel it a duty to warn our readers, and especially those occupying isolated farms in the Umtirara range, to keep a sharp look-out, as it is by no means unlikely that these two scoundrels may hark back to their old retreat, and with their gang perhaps do considerable mischief before they are finally run to earth."

Not one atom of drowsiness in Renshaw now. The sting of the above paragraph, like that of the scorpion, lay in the tail. His blood ran cold. Heavens! That household of unprotected women! For Christopher Selwood was away from home on a week's absence, visiting a distant property of his, and Sellon, by way of a change and seeing the country, had accompanied him. Renshaw himself had ridden into Fort Lamport the previous day on urgent business of his own--nothing less than to interview a possible purchaser of his far-away desert farm. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances, it was no uncommon thing to leave the household without male protection for a day or two, or even longer. But now--good heavens!

He glanced at the date of the newspaper. There should be a later one, he said to himself. Feverishly he hunted about for it, trying to hope that it might contain intelligence of the recapture of the runaways.

Ah, there it was! With trembling hands he tore open the double sheet, and glanced down the columns.

"The Escaped Convicts.

"Our surmise has proved correct. The runaways have taken refuge in the Umtirara range, from whose dense and rugged fastnesses they will, we fear, long be able to defy the best efforts of the wholly inadequate police force at present at the disposal of the district.

They entered a farmer's house on the lower drift, yesterday, during the owner's absence, and by dint of threats induced his wife and daughters to give them up all the firearms in the house. They got possession of two guns and a revolver, and a quant.i.ty of ammunition, and decamped in the direction of the mountains. It is a mercy they did not maltreat the inmates."

The cold perspiration started forth in beads upon the reader's forehead.

The event recorded had occurred yesterday; the newspaper was of to-day's date. He might yet be in time. But would he be? It was three o'clock. Sunningdale was distant thirty-five miles. By the hardest riding he could not arrive before dark, for the road was bad in parts, and his horse was but an indifferent one.

In exactly five minutes he was in the saddle and riding rapidly down the street. It crossed his mind that he was totally unarmed, for in the settled parts of the Colony it is quite an exceptional thing to carry weapons. He could not even turn into the nearest store and purchase a six-shooter, for no such transaction can take place without a magistrate's permit--to obtain which would mean going out of his way, possibly delay at the office, should that functionary chance to be engaged at the time. No, he could not afford to lose a minute.

It was a hot afternoon. The sun glared fiercely down as he rode over the dozen miles of open undulating country which lay between the town and the first line of wooded hills. A quarter of an hour's off-saddle at a roadside inn--a feverish quarter of an hour, spent with his watch in his hand. Then on again.

Soon he was among the hills. Away up a diverging kloof lay a Boer homestead, about a mile distant. Should he turn off to it and try and borrow a weapon, or, at any rate, a fresh horse, and warn the inmates?

Prudence answered No. Two miles out of his road, delay in the middle, and all on the purest chance. On, on!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

AGAINST TIME.

By sundown Renshaw was in the heart of the mountains. And now, as his steed's gait warned him, it was time to off-saddle again. The river lay below, about a hundred yards from the road. Dismounting, he led his horse down through the thick bush, and removing the saddle, but not the bridle, which latter he held in his hand, allowed the animal to graze and get somewhat cooler before drinking. Then, saddling up again, he regained the road.

The latter was in most parts very bad, as it wound its rugged length through a savage and desolate _poort_ or defile, which in itself was one long ambuscade, for thick bush grew up to the very roadside, in places overhanging it. The sun had set, but a lurid afterglow was still reflected upon the iron face of a tall krantz, which, rising from the steep forest-clad slope, cleft the sky. Great baboons, squatted on high among the rocks, sent forth their deep-chested, far-sounding bark, in half-startled, half-angry recognition of the presence of their natural enemy--man; and, wheeling above the tree-tops, ascending higher and higher in airy circles to their roost among the crags, floated a pair of _lammervangers_ [A species of black eagle] whose raucous voices rang out in croaking scream over the glooming depths of the lone defile like the weird wailing of a demoniac.

Darkness fell, for there is no twilight to speak of beneath the Southern Cross, and the dull, dead silence of the mighty solitude was unbroken, save for the hoa.r.s.e roar of the river surging through its rocky channel, and the measured hoof-beats of the horse. And as he urged the animal on through the gloom all Renshaw's apprehensions seemed to renew themselves with tenfold intensity. The appalling details of the gruesome tragedy chased each other through his mind in all their red horror, and his overwrought brain would conjure up the most grisly forebodings. What if he should arrive too late! Those unprotected women helpless at the mercy of these fiends, red-handed from the scene of their last ruthless crime, devils incarnate let loose upon the earth, their lives forfeit, the noose ready for their necks, their only object to perpetrate as many hideous infamies as possible before meeting the doom that would sooner or later be theirs! No wonder the man's brain seemed on fire.

The road took a sudden trend downwards. The river must be crossed here.

The drift was a bad one in the daytime, at night a dangerous one. But the latter consideration, far from daunting him, rather tended to brace Renshaw's nerves. Warily he urged his horse on.

The water was up to the saddle-flaps--then a step deeper. The horse, now almost swimming, snorted wildly as the roaring whirling flood creamed around him in the starlight. But the rider kept him well by the head, and in a trice he emerged panting and dripping on the other side.

Suddenly in front from the bush fringing the road there flashed forth a faint spark, as of a man blowing on a burnt stick to light his pipe.

All Renshaw's coolness returned, and gathering up his reins, he prepared to make a dash for it. Then the spark floated straight towards him, and--he laughed at his fears. It was only a firefly. On still. He would soon be there now. Another drift in the river--splash--splash-- out again--still onward.

Suddenly the horse p.r.i.c.ked forward his ears and began to snort uneasily.

Now for it! Still it might be only a leopard or a snake. But all doubt was speedily nipped in the bud by a harsh voice, in Dutch, calling upon him to stop.

Peering forward into the darkness, he made out two figures--one tall, the other short. They were about a dozen yards in front, and were standing in the middle of the road as though to bar his pa.s.sage. There was no leaving the road, by reason of the bush which lined it on either side in a dense, impenetrable thicket.

This was by no means Renshaw Fanning's first experience of more or less deadly peril, as we have already shown, and his unswerving coolness under such circ.u.mstances was never so consummately in hand as now, when not merely his own life, but the lives of others dearer to him still, were in the balance. His mind was made up in a flash.

"Clear out, or I'll shoot you dead," he answered, in the same language, whipping out his pipe-case, and presenting it pistol fashion at the shorter of the two men, who was advancing as if to seize his bridle.

The resolute att.i.tude, the quick, decisive tone, above all perhaps the click, strongly suggestive of c.o.c.king, which Renshaw managed to produce from the spring of the implement, caused the fellow instinctively to jump aside. At the same time came a flash and a stunning report.

Something hummed overhead, and most unpleasantly near. The other man had deliberately fired at him.

Then Renshaw did the best thing he could under the circ.u.mstances. He took the bull by the horns.

He put his horse straight at his a.s.sailant, at the same time wrenching off his stirrup--no mean weapon at a push. But the fellow, losing nerve, tried to dodge. In vain. The horse's shoulder hit him fair and sent him floundering to earth; indeed, but for the fact that the animal, frenzied with fright, swerved and tried to hang back, he would have been trampled underfoot.

Again Renshaw did the best thing he could. Mastering a desire to turn and brain the ruffian before he could rise, he rammed the spurs into his horse's flanks and set off down the road at a hard gallop; not, however, before he was able to recognise in his a.s.sailants a Hottentot and a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Luckily, too, for three more flashes belched forth from the hillside a little way above the scene of the conflict, but the bullets came nowhere near him. Then upon the still silence of the night he could hear other and deeper tones mingling with the harsh chatter of his late a.s.sailants. There was no mistaking those tones. They issued from Kafir lips. He had walked into the very midst of the cut-throat gang itself--had come right through it.

Then the question arose in his mind, would they pursue him? He was certain they had no horses, but he had still about four miles to go, and his own steed was beginning to show signs of distress. The fleet-footed barbarians could travel almost as fast on two legs as he could on four.

They might pursue him under cover of the bush and converge upon his line of flight at any moment. And then his heart sank within him as he thought of a certain steep and very stony hill which still lay between him and his journey's end.

How his ears were strained; how every faculty was on the alert to almost agonising pitch as, peering back into the silence of the gloom, he strove to catch the faintest sound which should tell of pursuit.

"Up, old horse! Nearly home now!"

The dreaded hill was reached. Minutes seemed hours to the rider, till at length its crest was gained. Then far below in front there twinkled forth a light, and then another. The sight sent a surging rush of relief through Renshaw's heart.

"Thanks be to G.o.d and all the blessed and glorious company of heaven,"

he murmured reverently, raising his hat.

For he knew that those lighted windows would not have shone so peacefully had any red horrific tragedy been there enacted.

He was yet in time.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

THE MIDNIGHT FOE.

"Why, it's Renshaw!" cried Mrs Selwood, who, hearing the sound of hoofs mingling with the barking of the dogs, had come to the door. "We didn't expect you till to-morrow. Well, you're just in time. A few minutes more and we should all have gone to bed. Call Windvogel to take your horse, and come in."

"I'll let him run; he's about done up," he answered, removing saddle, bridle, and headstall, and turning the animal adrift.

"Has your business fallen through?" she asked, as he followed her into the pa.s.sage and closed the door.

"It has had to stand over. Come in here, Hilda"--leading the way into an empty room. "I have something to tell you. No--never mind the light. The fewer lights shown the better."

Then in as few words as possible he told her of the danger which hovered over them.

Hilda Selwood came of a good old colonial stock, and was not lacking in nerve. Still she would not have been a woman had she realised the frightful peril which threatened herself and her children without a shudder.

"We must do what we can, Renshaw," she said. "Perhaps they will not attack us."

"'Perhaps' is a sorry word to start campaigning upon. What we've got to do is to ensure them as warm a reception as possible if they do. My opinion is that they will, if only that they seem to have been watching the road. I believe they have ascertained by some means or other that Chris is away. What people have you on the place just now?"

"Very few. There's Windvogel and old Jacob and Gomfana. That's all."