Tales from the Veld Part 30

"Why should I give all?" she cried with renewed hope. "My husband and my son. Let him stay. Oh! let him stay!"

"Ride!" said the Commandant, sternly; then he sighed, and rode on in silence, never turning.

The boy kept his eyes fixed on his father's broad back; then a lump came into his throat.

Oom Jan touched him on his shoulder, and the boy started.

"Do not leave her so, neef," he said.

The boy looked back and waved his ragged cap. "I will come 'gain soon, little mother," he shouted.

"If the Groot Herr wills," muttered Oom Jan.

The boy looked at him sharply, then rode on with his head up and his hand firmer upon the stock of his long rifle, as long almost as himself.

Already his keen young eyes swept the veld for signs of the Zulus--and he had forgotten the little house and the little patient mother.

The village soon was left behind, and the little band went slowly over the ridge and down the long slope, into a narrow valley, and at dusk reached the broken veld that stretches up to the frowning height of Hlobane. It was very silent. The burghers smoked, but talked not; and very plain, and seeming very near, came the dismal baying of a Zulu dog from a lofty kraal on Zunguin Nek, where a fire gleamed red through the dark.

"There are men there," said the Commandant in a guttural whisper. "We must ride hard in the morning when we return."

"Ja!" said Oom Jan; "else they will cut us off. I hope they will eat and drink much this night, so that they sleep fast."

The other burghers glanced up at the red fire and round into the darkness, as if calculating which way they would ride in case they were cut off.

Young Piet Uys breathed hard. He had often looked at the steep height of Zunguin's Kop from afar--and now the dark ma.s.s that seemed to shut out half the sky oppressed him with the sense of hidden danger.

Moreover, he was hungry and cold. They had been four hours in the saddle, and it was surely time they stopped? Why didn't they tell his father that the horses would grow tired, and that men couldn't go on all night without feeding and warming themselves?

"There is water here," he ventured, "and good gra.s.s."

"Ja!" growled Oom Jan.

"Perhaps we will stop soon," said the boy timidly.

A burgher on his left grunted, and young Piet felt that he had said something stupid. There was deeper silence now, for they were riding in a hollow, and he heard the sound of eating. Why were they eating?

Perhaps they would not stop!

"If we stop," said Oom Jan, as if answering his thoughts, "we shall not get there before sun-up."

Young Piet sighed heavily and thought of his rheim bed at home, and then of the little mother. He felt now why it was she cried when he left.

This was weary work--this blundering on over rocks and through cold streams, with none of the rush and excitement he had pictured.

"And if we do not get there before sun-up," continued Oom Jan, in his slow way, "we lose the cattle and all."

"Hold still!" came a muttered command from the leader.

The men drew up, and the horses shook their heads, then p.r.i.c.ked their ears, as out of the darkness ahead came the murmur of a chant, swelling up to a deep boom, and sinking again till almost inaudible.

"They dance and make merry," said the leader. "Ride!"

Once more the horses moved on, picking their way, while each man unslung his rifle and held it with the b.u.t.t on his thigh. And louder rose that monotonous chant, mounting to the shrill notes of the women's voices, and sinking to the menacing ba.s.s of the warrior's deep chest notes; and presently there suddenly started out of the gloom a score of gleaming fires in a circle at the base of a vast bulk that stood for Hlobane.

"Pipes out!" said the leader. "Groot Andries, and you d.i.c.k Stoffel, and you Piet Uys, will stand here, keeping out of sight, and fire on the Zulus if they follow. The rest--ride!"

The two burghers and the boy remained, and the others filed out of sight. Slowly the time pa.s.sed to these three as they crouched behind rocks, with their horses tethered in a hollow, and the cold wind of the early morning numbing their fingers and biting their poorly-clad bodies, till the grey of the dawn appeared and threw the mountain of Hlobane into relief. The singing had died away as the wind rose, the fires were dim, and the silence of the early morn was over the land.

"Look!" said Groot Andries, pointing a huge hand, and a mile off on the b.u.t.tress of the mountain young Piet saw a dark ma.s.s in motion, with a few moving specks behind.

He drew his breath in sharply, and the misery left his face. "They are driving the cattle," he said.

"Ja!" said Andries, moving in his lair to get more comfortable, and sighting along his rifle.

How quickly they come. Piet could see the gleam of tossing horns--and then he counted the riders, with his father riding last. "They have not been seen," he whispered.

"Oh, ja!" growled Stoffel, "the verdomde folk come."

Piet raised his head, and his heart almost stopped, as on the left of the cattle he saw Zulus running like greyhounds, speeding to reach a kopje by which the cattle must be driven, and his startled glance roaming further, marked a thin grey whisp of smoke curling up the mountain's dark side, while his ear caught the hoa.r.s.e sound of the Zulu horn spreading the alarm.

Groot Andries turned his head and looked long.

"Alle magtij!" he cried; "they sleep not up there. May the Groot Heer help us out for our wives sake."

Young Piet stared at the big man, then glanced back up Zunguin's rock-rimmed summit, and saw tiny dark figures like ants hurrying amid the huge rocks. He moistened his lips, and looked at his horse.

"Mount and ride, neef," said Andries, softly. "Keep towards the Blood River over by Kopje Alleen. Go, little neef."

"Ja!" growled Stoffel, who was smoking furiously; "loop, little one!"

Young Piet stared at them wildly, then he looked ahead and saw the cattle coming on in a ma.s.s, with his own red heifer leading. He saw, too, his father stand alone, looking back, while the other burghers rode hard behind the cattle, and the Zulus poured along untiring. Why did his father stop? Could he not see the warriors?

"Father," he screamed; "ride!" He would have risen, but a heavy hand was laid upon him.

"Remember the order," growled Stoffel--"to keep ourselves hid."

"I will be still," said Piet, quietly. Then he saw his father throw up his gun and shoot, while another burgher halted and wheeled round with his rifle ready. With a rush the cattle swept by--the burghers after.

Not one drew rein. Not even the Commandant, who simply glanced at the three forms as he went by, last of all, saying briefly, "Shoot straight, and follow fast!"

"Wait, little neef," said Andries, "and don't fire anyhow, but single out your man. Then load, mount, and gallop."

Piet was calm now that he was called upon to act. He dropped a warrior in his stride, loaded quickly, making the ramrod spring, and was waiting by his horse with the reins of the other two all ready for their riders.

"Good neef," said Andries, as he swung into the saddle, and having momentarily checked the enemy's advance, they dashed after their comrades. A quarter of a mile further on they pa.s.sed an ambush, where three other burghers were lying in readiness, and then they dashed up to the cattle with a whoop. Young Piet, flushed with his act, looked for approval from his father, but the Commandant's gaze was fixed anxiously ahead on a column of dark figures leaping like antelopes down Zunguin's side. From the rear, too, came the loud slap of three rifles, and the angry war shout of the Hlobane warriors.

"They will head the cattle off," said Stoffel; "and we will be caught between two fires. Let us leave the cattle and ride to the left, when they will let us go free."

"That is a bad word," said the Commandant, sternly. "We go back with the cattle or not at all."

They rode, then, into a stretch of donga-worn country, where they had to slow up; and the cattle, no longer hard pressed, stood to get their wind, with their heads down and tongues lolling out.