Renshaw Fanning's Quest Part 13

"Windvogel I don't trust. Shouldn't wonder, indeed, if the yellow scoundrel was in league with them. Old Jacob has more than one foot in the grave--he's no good. But Gomfana, though he couldn't hit a haystack with a gun, might make useful play with a chopper if it came to close quarters. And now, look here," he went on, after a moment's hesitation; "the situation may be desperate. These seven cut-throats are fighting with a noose round their necks. Every one of their lives is forfeited, and they are all well armed. Now, is there no suggestion you can make towards strengthening the garrison?"

"Why, of course. Marian and I both know how to shoot. That makes three of us. And then we are under cover."

"Well spoken. But I can improve on that idea--if you can bring yourself to agree. Little chaps as they are, Fred and Basil are better shots than either of you, and game to the core."

Hilda Selwood gave a gasp. Her two little ones! Why, they were mere babies but yesterday! And now she was to be called upon to sacrifice them--to expose them to the peril of a desperate conflict which would fully tax the courage of grown men.

"I'd rather not, if it could possibly be avoided," she said, at last.

"Very well. But I'm much mistaken if the young scamps won't take the matter into their own hands directly they hear a shot fired. Now, how many guns have we? There's mine--two of Chris's--that makes six barrels; the boys' muzzle-loaders, ten barrels. Then Chris has a five-shooter--"

"He took that with him."

"Did he? Well, I have a six. Altogether we shan't do badly. And now you had better break the news to Marian and Miss Avory, while I slip down to the hut to rout out Gomfana. And lose no time barricading the windows. Mattresses are the thing for that--almost bullet-proof."

Arming himself with a gun and revolver, Renshaw slipped out quietly, and made his way to the huts. Gomfana, like most natives, slept heavily, and took a deal of waking; and by the time the situation was brought home to his obtuse brain some minutes had been lost. He was a st.u.r.dy youngster of about twenty--a "raw" Kafir--that is to say, one who had never been out of his native kraal, and was stupid and ignorant of European ways. But at the prospect of a fight he grinned and brightened up.

Just as they regained the house a glow suffused the sky against the mountain-top, and a few minutes later a broad half-moon was sailing high in the heavens. Renshaw hailed its appearance with unbounded satisfaction.

The two girls had already lit their candles for bed when Mrs Selwood brought the unwelcome news, judiciously omitting the ghastly tragedy, which could only horrify without encouraging the hearers. Their method of receiving it was as divergent as their characters. Marian, though she slightly changed colour, remained perfectly cool and collected.

Violet, on the other hand, turned white as a sheet, and fairly shook with terror. It was all they could do to keep her from going into wild hysterics.

"This sort of thing won't do at all, Miss Avory," said Renshaw, entering at that moment; his sable recruit hanging back in the doorway. "Why, all you've got to do is to lie down and go to sleep in perfect safety.

If we exchange a shot or two that's all it will amount to. Come, now, I should have thought you would have enjoyed the excitement of a real adventure."

Violet tried to smile, but it was the mere ghost of a smile. She still shivered and shook. And Renshaw himself seemed changed. None of the diffident lover about him now. He seemed in his element at the prospect of peril. In the midst of her fears Violet remembered Marian's eulogies on his coolness and resource in an emergency. The recollection quieted her, and she looked upon him with unbounded respect. Then she noted Marian's calm and resolute demeanour, and even fancied that the look of the latter was expressive of something like contempt--wherein she was mistaken, but the idea acted as a tonic to brace her nerves.

Having seen to the firearms and ammunition, and cautioned the women to remain where they were and allow no more light to be seen than they could help, Renshaw went the round of the house. Effie and the two little ones were sleeping soundly, so also were the two boys. Opening the door, he looked cautiously out. All was still.

He had decided that the four corner rooms should be the points of defence, and the windows accordingly were not barricaded. The others were rendered secure by fixing against each a couple of mattresses.

Then he went back to the ladies.

The house was now all in darkness, but the moonlight streaming in above the protecting mattresses gave sufficient light for all purposes.

"Now, good people," he said cheerily, "you may all go to bed. I'll call you when I want you. I'm going to watch at one corner, and Gomfana will take the other. There'll be no catching us napping. Besides, the dogs will raise the most awful shillaloo if any one heaves in sight."

Shakedowns had been improvised on the floor with rugs and pillows. In great measure rea.s.sured by Marian's unconcern, Violet consented to lie down. Mrs Selwood betook herself to her children's room.

The moon mounted higher and higher to the zenith, flooding the land with an eerie and chastened half-light. The monotonous chirrup of the tree-frog, the shrill baying of a pair of hunting jackals, the occasional cry of a nightbird mournfully echoing from the mountain side, floated to the watcher's ear. Unremitting in his vigilance, Renshaw moved silently from room to room, his unerring eye scanning the ground at every point, and keeping his sable lieutenant up to the mark, lest that worthy should be tempted to doze. But Gomfana, who was armed with an axe and some a.s.segais taken from a wall trophy, was rather thirsting for the encounter than otherwise.

Some hundred and fifty yards from the main dwelling was a large outhouse block, comprising stables, waggon shed, shearing house, etc. On this point Renshaw's attention was mainly concentrated. He felt sure that the miscreants would take advantage of the shadow of this building to creep up as near as they could. Another point that needed watching was the thick quince hedge which skirted the garden, and which now afforded a shade congenial to the a.s.sailants' movements.

Nothing is more trying to the nerves than a lonely nocturnal vigil.

Most men, brave enough in actual danger, would have felt the "creepy"

effect of those silent hours as they strained their eyes upon the surrounding veldt, now construing a shadow into an enemy--now hearing a whisper of voices, the tread of a stealthy footstep--in the varying and spectral sounds of the night. But Renshaw's solitary and wandering life had inured him to these things. His chief considerations now were, firstly lest the drowsy feeling, which he was doing his utmost to combat, should tend to dim his vigilance; secondly, the stilling of his cravings for just one carefully guarded pipe.

Suddenly the faintest possible creak of a footfall on the floor behind him. He turned like lightning.

"It's only me," whispered a soft voice. And a tall figure approached in the gloom.

"Marian! Why are you not lying down with the rest?"

"They're all asleep now, even Violet, Look, I've brought you some sandwiches. You hardly ate anything when you came in. You set to work upon them at once, and I'll mount sentry while you are having supper."

"How good of you!" he said, taking the plate from her, and also the gla.s.s of brandy-and-water which she had mixed for him, "Why, what have you there? A shooting iron?"

"Of course. You don't suppose I was going to leave my gun behind when we are in a state of siege, do you?"

She carried a double-barrelled breech-loader--rifle and shot cartridge-- and there was a warrior flash in her eyes visible in the moonlight, which told that she meant to use it, too, if occasion required.

"It is very lonely for you, watching all by yourself," she continued.

"I thought I would come and keep you company."

"So like you again. But look here, Marian dear. You must not be exposed to danger. Single-handed I can make such an example of the _schepsels_ that they'll probably turn and run. Still, they might let fly a shot or two. You will go back to the others if I ask you--will you not?"

Her heart thrilled tumultuously within her. In the darkness she need be at no pains to conceal the tell-tale expression of her face. Ah, but-- his tones, though affectionate, were merely brotherly. That might be, but still, whatever peril he might undergo, it should be her privilege to share it--her sweet privilege--and she would share it.

"No; I will not," she answered decisively. "I can be as cool as any one living, man or woman. Feel my hand; there is not a tremble in it." And her fingers closed round his in a firm, steady clasp, in which there was nothing nervous, nothing spasmodic.

"I believe you can," he answered, "but I was thinking of your safety."

"_My_ safety!" she interrupted. Then in a different tone, "How do you suppose they'll come, Renshaw? Walk openly to the house or try to creep up in the shadow?"

"The last. You see they showed their hand by tackling me upon the road.

Yet they may think I've turned in and bothered no more about it.

Hallo!"

"What is it?"

"I could have sworn I heard something. I've got long ears--like a donkey, you will say."

Both listened intently, the woman with less eagerness, less anxiety, than the man. There was a kind of exaltation about Marian to-night.

Her nerves were as firm as those of her male companion himself; and the certainty of a b.l.o.o.d.y conflict was to her, in her then frame of mind, a mere matter of detail.

"Ah! I thought I was right," he went on, as a premonitory "woof" from one of the dogs lying around the house was followed by a general uprising and clamour on the part of the whole lot. Then, baying savagely, they started off in fall charge in the direction of the dark line of shade thrown by the willows fringing the dam, and on the opposite side to that watched by Renshaw and his companion.

"Marian, just go to the other side and look if you can see anything.

You won't, I know, but still there's no harm in making sure."

She obeyed. From that side of the house nothing was visible except a long stretch of sickly moonlight and the line of trees. But the dogs had disappeared within the shade of the latter and were raising a clamour that was truly infernal. They seemed to be holding something or somebody in check. Then she returned to her former post.

"There's nothing there," she said, "at present. Ah!"

Three shadowy figures were flitting round the angle of the outhouse block above mentioned. They gained the shade thrown by the front of it--crouched and waited.

"Here they are," whispered Renshaw, under his breath. "I was up to that dodge. One fellow was told off to draw off the dogs, while these jokers sneaked up in the opposite direction. Look--here come the rest."

Two more figures followed the first--then another. All were now crouching in the shadow of the outhouses. Still the yelling clamour of the dogs sounded distant on the other side, kept up with unabated fury.