Settlers and Scouts Part 13

"Rather not. He may be a very Nimrod in the Sunderbunds, but he's a funk-stick here. No; Coja's a better man."

"But you'll want him to interpret."

"'M. Afraid I shall. I can rub along pretty well with Swahili by this time, but we may come across a tribe who don't know it, and that would certainly be awkward. Well, Coja must come with us, then."

"What I suggest is that you should send a note to Mr. Gillespie and ask him to send up a respectable European to take charge. He might come himself; he hasn't paid you the visit he promised, and if you tell him what you're after I'm sure he'll do what he can. Besides, if we get bowled over, you know, it would be just as well he should have heard about the business beforehand, for your father's sake. And I'd send a note to the Commissioner at Fort Hall too; he may be inclined to stretch a point."

"I'll do both. A good idea to get Gillespie up here, or some one he can trust. Of course if we're lucky we shall get our rifles and things and be back here long before he could arrive. But then we mayn't. I'll write before we turn in. That's settled."

"Don't you think we ought to have some sort of a plan before we start?"

"Our plan is to go straight after the raiders, and march two miles or more to their one."

"That's all right; but what if they reckon on being pursued and lay a trap for us? You see, they were pursued last time, and they hadn't done nearly so much damage then."

"That's true," said John; "but on the other hand there's such a lot of them this time--we can divide Mohammed's five hundred by five--there's such a lot that they may think we'll not attempt to bring them to book.

Still, we ought to be on our guard. The worst of it is that if we have to go carefully we shall have to go slowly, and time's everything in this job. Hand me a cigarette and let's think it over."

"Any good asking Bill?"

"Not a bit. He can do tracking, follow his nose, but that's about all.

Besides, he's so cranky just now that he's fit for nothing. I wonder how much truth there is in this ivory yarn of his? We may get to the bottom of it by and by. But this plan of ours--any ideas, Charley?"

"Not a ghost of one. We _must_ follow the track, and that may lead us into an ambush."

"Wait a bit, though. If we could march on a line parallel to it we might go as fast as we liked without much danger."

"How could we do that--far enough away from it not to be spotted, and yet near enough not to lose it?"

"Of course we couldn't all go together; some one must keep on the track, and that must be Bill for one."

"That wouldn't be much good. How could we keep in touch with him? I've got a field-gla.s.s, but that will be useless if we have to go through much wood. We can't rig Bill up with wireless!"

"No, but I'll tell you what we can do. You take the safari on the parallel line; I'll go with Bill and take my pocket-mirror with me. It will make a fine heliograph. You know the code, of course?"

"I do, as it happens. I could signal back with my watch-case. But that won't help us if there's a wood or a hill between us."

"Well, we must chance that; and as Bill and I shall be able to go much faster than you with the safari, we can come over to you if necessary; you see what I mean: come and go between the two tracks and yet keep up with you."

"I think that's got it. I suppose it's no use thinking what we'll do when we come up with the raiders?"

"No; all will depend on when we find them, and where. I'm not going to think of that, and as we shall have to be up early to interview the chief and get our things together, I vote we go to bed."

"Don't forget your letters."

"Right. Off you go. Goodness knows when we'll sleep next."

John wrote the two letters he had spoken of, and a third, a brief note to his father explaining what had happened. Then he went to bed thoroughly tired out, and slept like a top.

Next morning one of the most serious of his difficulties was unexpectedly removed. As soon as it was light, the chief came over from the village with some of his people to beg the msungu to follow up the bad men and recover the stores they had stolen. John jumped at the opportunity. He agreed to do so if the chief would allow forty of his strongest young men to act as porters. He pointed out that the villagers had as great a cause of quarrel with the raiders as he had himself, so that the bargain he proposed was reasonable. The chief agreed to it at once. John's recent exploits in slaying the rhinoceros and the lion, his former successes against the raiders, and above all his fairness and punctuality in paying the villagers for their labour, had won him the respect of his neighbours, and they joined him with full confidence that the expedition would be successful. Preparations were quickly made, a considerable quant.i.ty of food was packed up, two runners were sent off with the letters, and by seven o'clock the safari was ready to start.

At the last moment Said Mohammed came up to John.

"With submission, sir," he said, "I offer myself as unit in this expeditionary force. I undertake to be no cipher, but integer, sir, and not a minus quant.i.ty. Need I remind you of the saying of some great and glorious general whose name I have forgotten, that an army marches upon its tummy? _Verb. sap_. Grub, sir, is the sinews of war, and astounding military gumption is no go without a cook. Furthermore, was I not honoured to interpose unworthy corpus between raging lion and your honour's n.o.bility? If so, what is a life saved if not also preserved?

Permit me, therefore, to be the life-preserver."

"All right. Hurry up! No time to waste," said John, remarking to Ferrier, as the Bengali went off to fetch his bundle: "I suppose he's afraid the place will be attacked again in our absence."

"A bad look-out if it is."

"Well, we shall soon find out whether the whole gang of the raiders are on the march. If they are, I don't think they'll come back, and as n.o.body else has molested us for more than a year I think we may be pretty easy. Now, khansaman, buck up; we're off."

John had already decided that every member of the party should go on foot. Donkeys might prove a great nuisance if the country was difficult; moreover, mounted men would form conspicuous objects in the plains. Accordingly Ferrier and he had donned stout-soled boots, and set off to tramp after Bill and Coja, who had gone ahead with the chief to select the men for the safari. Said Mohammed brought up the rear.

CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH--Tracking the Raiders

The two white men had just forded the river when they met the porters marching to the farm to fetch the loads laid there in readiness for them. It was plain that the chief was in earnest, for the forty young men were the most stalwart in his community. Each carried his bow and arrows, and as John turned and watched them striding lithely along he thought they would prove no mean antagonists in a fight. He went on with Ferrier to the village, had a short conversation with the chief, and then set off with Bill on the trail of the raiders, leaving Coja and Said Mohammed to bring the safari. He wished to go a few miles ahead in order to examine the trail and get some guidance of his course before the others came up.

At the outset the spoor was very easy to follow. The ground in the immediate neighbourhood of the village was soft red soil, on which the print of feet could be clearly seen. But it was impossible at first to distinguish the marks of the raiders from those of the villagers.

Presently, however, they came to a stretch of gra.s.s-land, the gra.s.s cropped short by the villagers' cattle. Here again the trail was so crossed and mingled with the hoof-marks of the animals that had grazed there since daybreak that it was impossible to learn anything from it.

But by and by the gra.s.s grew longer, and the pa.s.sage of a numerous body of men through it was plainly indicated. There were two distinct tracks, one a narrow path, the other, a few yards to the left, broader.

Both the white men were sufficiently experienced in African travel to know that the former was the track of the bearers among the party, proceeding in single file; the latter that of the Swahilis, who, insolent in their strain of Arab blood, domineer over the native tribes.

"They're going pretty fast," said John, as they marched on; "fast, that is, for men carrying loads."

"How do you know?" asked Ferrier.

"By the look of the spoor. Stop a minute and bend down. Here are the footprints of the n.i.g.g.e.rs, you see, about thirty inches apart. Every man trod in the steps of the man in front, so that the prints are particularly clear. I know they went fast because their feet turned in a lot; look at the marks; you can't carry a load at any pace with your feet splayed. Now look at the other trail. The footsteps are farther apart--three feet, I should think; and one or two of the men had sandals; there's a flatter impression than bare feet make. I rather guess that the Swahilis set the pace and made the natives keep up: they could do that because if there's a lot of them they needn't all carry loads at the same time."

"I say, we could have done without Bill," said Ferrier, with a laugh, as they went on. "Did he teach you that?"

"No. I did some scouting at school. Bill can't make any inferences from what he sees, but he's got sharper eyes than I have, and can often spot the trail when I've lost it, especially on hard ground. The worst of this habit of marching in Indian file is that one can't tell how many the party consists of; at least, I can't; perhaps a more experienced scout could judge from the depth of the impression of the footprints.

Look here; just as I thought. They stopped here to change loads. The Swahilis made a group here; the carriers put their loads on the gra.s.s at the side of the path; see how it's pressed down. Here's the mark of one of my ammunition boxes, I'll swear; and the next man had a cargo of maize; here are some of the grains."

"How far do you reckon they went before camping?"

"Well, judging by what Said Mohammed said, they made their attack between one and two--the hottest part of the day, when everybody would be sleepy. Allowing a couple of hours to sack the village and get the loads together, they might start at four and march till seven, so that in about an hour's time we ought to get to their last night's camp. The trail runs fairly straight, so it looks as if they're making direct for their refuge in the hills, and I hope to goodness it's pretty far away: the farther it is the better our chance of coming up with them before they get there. It runs west-nor'-west, you see" (he had taken out his pocket compa.s.s), "which leads to the foothills of Kenya. We ought to find ourselves on rocky ground presently, and may lose the trail."

"Hadn't we better wait for our men now?"

"We'll come to the raiders' camp first. Coja won't lose us; and I want to see what sort of camp they made: it may help us."

They hastened on. At one point the track swerved to the east to avoid a steep incline, but returned to its former direction immediately that had been pa.s.sed. At another it led due west, skirting a swamp, at the edges of which the footprints were still deeper in the soft mud, which was, however, beginning to dry in the sun's rays. Then it crossed a shallow stream, and John wondered at first why the raiders had marched for some little distance up the bank before crossing, since the stream was fordable anywhere. He understood when Bill pointed to a long depression in the soft earth at the brink: a crocodile had lain there, and the men had given it a wide berth, for if it had heard or seen them it would have slipped noiselessly into the water and seized some hapless fellow as they crossed.