The Fire Trumpet Part 61

"Ay, that's so," a.s.sented a small, wiry-looking man. "If we had only gone straight on we could have cleared out the Manubi Bush right down to the coast, and driven the whole lot into the sea."

"Where they were going to drive us," chimed in another.

"And it's there we should have n.o.bbled old Kreli," went on the former speaker. "He's in there, mark my words--in there waiting for news--he, and Sicgau, and Botmane, and the whole bilin' of 'em. Now we've burnt his old beehives here; but that's no good, they're built again in a day.

No, sir; what we want is the old fox himself."

"And don't we wish we may get 'im? No; it's nurses we want to look after us," put in another.

There was a reluctant guffaw at this; but the gloom had deepened on their warlike souls.

"Well, we may as well go back, streak it straight home again, if we're going to be commanded by a set of old women," growled the first speaker.

"We didn't come out here to _play_ with the n.i.g.g.e.rs, did we?"

"Looks like it, anyhow, mate."

Thus amid much growling, which, however, was not directed at our friend Jim, but at the power behind that gallant leader, the camps were pitched. A portion of the Police force started off back to their headquarters at Ibeka; but here, close to the scene of their late victory, the volunteers and burgher forces remained; and at nightfall the horses were driven in and "rung," that is to say, tethered in circles; while additional sentries were posted, and every precaution taken, the recent success notwithstanding, for they were in the enemy's country.

Jim Brathwaite was mightily glad, and no less surprised at the unexpected meeting, and warmly seconded Hicks' suggestion that Claverton should join his corps.

"Twice I noticed a fellow to-day, Arthur," he said, "who reminded me of your straight riding; and, by George, it must have been you yourself.

Well, well; we are all bound to meet again some day, however we may scatter. But what do you think that fellow Hicks has done?"

"What?"

"Committed matrimony. And so has Jack."

"Has he? Jack, I mean. I knew about the other. Who, and when, and where?"

"Oh, that's a very old story, Jim," said Armitage, trying to look quite at his ease. "Claverton heard it ages ago. Give us some baccy."

They were sitting round the camp-fire. The afternoon had merged into night, and now the circle was discussing old times.

"Who?--Gertie Wray--you remember her--now Mrs Jack Armitage, promoted.

When?--last year. Where?--in Grahamstown," replied Jim.

And then, as others joined them, the conversation turned from things personal and retrospective, to things political and present; and the state of affairs was discussed in all its bearings.

"Well, we've a big enough force in the field to thrash out the Gcaleka country," Jim was saying; "but then we shall have to be constantly playing hide-and-seek with the Kafirs until we catch old Kreli. If the Gaikas don't break out, all that the people on the border will have to do will be to guard their line so that none of these chaps can cross.

If the Gaikas rise, why, then our friends there will be between two fires."

"And the Gaikas will rise," put in Garnier--Jim's second lieutenant--a quiet-looking, brown-bearded man of about five-and-forty. "You may take my word for that. It isn't for nothing that they've been going through all the war-dancing and farrago. It isn't for nothing they've been sending all their cattle away to the thickest parts of the Amatola forest. And it isn't likely they'd sit still--they, the warrior race of all others--and let Kreli do all the fighting. And to hear 'em talk, too! Why, they've been coming round my place in shoals, and they don't care what they say. Mind, they mean mischief."

"But, then, how is it they haven't broken out already?" ventured Hicks.

Garnier looked pityingly at him. "For several reasons. There's a strong peace party among them, for one thing. For another, they heard, or rather saw--for there were lots of them present--what a hammering the Gcalekas got the other day when they attacked Ibeka; and they're not ready. But if any of these chaps of Kreli's get through and join them-- then look out."

"Well, we can put a tremendous force into the field," went on Jim.

"Why, in the Eastern Province alone we could raise enough to finish the war in a couple of months, if they're only put to it and not kept fooling about doing nothing."

"Yes; and if they're properly looked after in the field," said another.

"No one can fight unless he's fed; and with the commissariat always two days behind, no body of men will remain long contented."

"And, while they are fooling about, all their property's going to wrack and ruin, as ours is at this d.a.m.ned moment," growled Thorman, who was one of the party.

"Never mind. All the more reason why we should make a thorough good thing of it while we are about it," said another, of more cheerful disposition. "We'll teach Jack Kafir a lesson this time, that he'll remember."

Thus talking, they sat round that red camp-fire, which threw a fitful glow upon bronzed faces and attire, fantastic-looking in the semi-darkness and in its wild picturesqueness, until at length the bugle sounded, "lights out," and gradually all subsided to silence. Now and again the yelp and snarl of a jackal came up from beneath, where lay the unburied corpses of the slain foe, and where a number of heaps of black smouldering ashes were all that remained of what in the morning had been the Kraal of the Paramount Chief of Kafirland.

Note 1. In war-time, when lead is scarce, Kafirs manufacture tolerably efficient slugs by cutting up the legs of their iron cooking-pots.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER NINE.

A LULL IN THE STORM.

A dry, scorching wind is whirling the pungent red dust-clouds along the streets of King Williamstown, and early though it be, not much more than nine o'clock, life is at the moment exceeding unpleasant for dwellers in the Kaffrarian capital as the hot blast sweeps down the wide streets and over the great arid square, powdering the thirsty eucalyptus trees with a layer of sand, penetrating even the coolest and tightest of houses. A day on which an easy-chair and nankeen garments seem absolute necessities, and yet in the busy frontier town there is as much life and stir as usual. Waggons load and unload before the princ.i.p.al stores; their oxen standing or lying in the yokes, poor and attenuated, for the season is a bad one indeed, further up, the country is suffering from a veritable drought. Men move about singly or by twos and threes, some in the semi-military uniform affected by officers holding a command in some frontier corps, others lightly clad and in broad sombrero-like hat or pith helmet. Round the native shops and canteens bronzed Kafirs squat and jabber, or, jumping on their weedy, undersized nags, dash off at a gallop down the street. Here and there, a Police trooper, the snow-white cover of his peaked cap gleaming in the son, rides briskly away from the telegraph office, and the scarlet uniforms of a detachment of regulars, as they march up from the river, returning from their morning bathe, make a glow of shining colour in the close, dusty street.

It is an ill wind, however, that blows n.o.body good, as the drinking-bars could testify; for the number of persons who enter those useful inst.i.tutions in the course of the morning--each and all with precisely the same remark, that it being externally so dry they stand all the more in need of a wet within--is so large that I will not attempt to reveal it.

Leaving the stir and the whirl of the brisk trading centre, we will pa.s.s to a comparatively quiet quarter. In the verandah of a small house, on the outskirts of the town, some one is standing, looking intently through a pair of field-gla.s.ses, which are levelled at a distant object, evidently a horseman rapidly approaching by the road leading from the Transkei. For a moment she stands eager and motionless, gazing with all her might at that dusty road in the distance; then a red flush of disappointment tinges the beautiful face as she drops the gla.s.s from her eyes, and the graceful, erect figure suddenly a.s.sumes an unconscious droop.

"The fifth time this morning," she murmurs to herself, dejectedly. "I declare I won't look again, it's unlucky."

"So it is, dear. 'A watched kettle never boils,' you know," says a cheery female voice at her elbow. "That's why I haven't been watching for George. He'll come, all in good time; and so will the other one.

But you really mustn't stay out in this heat, Lilian, you'll be ill, and then shan't I catch it!"

"Oh no, I won't," answered Lilian, with a laugh and a blush. "Besides, I like the heat."

"Do you? I wish I did, for I've got to go out in it. I'm not even going to ask you to come, because I know it will be impossible to get you off that verandah until--until--well, until," concluded Annie Payne with another cheerful laugh, as she started upon her unwilling errand, whatever it was.

Left to herself, Lilian looked wearily out on the wide expanse of sun-baked _veldt_, watching ever the white straggling road where it lost itself over the rise. Once a figure appeared on the sky-line, and her heart gave a great bound, but it was only a pedestrian, her eyes were sufficiently practised now to tell her that, without the necessity of looking through the gla.s.s. The heat and the scorching wind were nothing to her. It might have been the most exhilarating weather, and she would not have felt the difference, for to-day her lover would return--return to her, after more than two months of campaigning, two months of danger and hardship and separation; and now she watched the road, impatiently pacing the verandah, and longing for his arrival. Yet he came not. She had done nothing but scan the approaches to the town through the field-gla.s.s; but what to the naked eye had more than once looked like the well-known form, had speedily changed to that of some ungainly Dutchman, or sooty native, when the powerful lens was brought to bear upon it.

Yes, the campaign is over now--at least, for the present; and the volunteers and burgher forces are returning home, leaving to the Mounted Police and Regulars the task of patrolling the Gcaleka country--that being about all there is left to do. The summer is well advanced; in fact, it wants only a fortnight to Christmas, and the frontiersmen composing the colonial forces decline to remain any longer doing mere patrol work. They have borne their part gallantly in the actual fighting, and now that this is at an end they rightly deem themselves ent.i.tled to return. So there is great rejoicing in the little domicile in King Williamstown where George Payne has installed his household during his absence at the front, and now, on this bright, though overpoweringly hot day, Lilian stands in the verandah watching for the return of her lover.

What an anxious time to her have been those two months! How she has thought of him, and in spirit been with him all through the campaign!

How eagerly she has sought out every sc.r.a.p of news of the forces in the field, whether in the newspaper reports or the telegrams _affiche_-d outside the post office! And at night she has lain awake picturing all manner of dreadful contingencies till her pillow was wet with tears; but she can do nothing--nothing but weep and pray. And now the time of waiting is past, and she will see him again to-day, and lay her head upon his breast and feel that life is too good to live.

But if he should not come till to-morrow or the next day! Something may have detained him. An accident perhaps, such things do happen. Her head begins to ache, and she goes into the house in search of some cooling restorative. She has the house to herself fortunately--for the children are out somewhere--and sinking into a low chair she holds her handkerchief, steeped in the grateful liquid, to her throbbing brows.

At last, with a sickening sense of blankness--of hope deferred, at her heart, she falls asleep, worn out by the heat and the watching coming upon a night of wakefulness.

The molten hours creep on. The deep ba.s.s voices of a group of Kafir pa.s.sers-by, momentarily break their stillness; the thrifty German housewife opens the door of the dwelling opposite--for it is a new quarter, and the houses are built almost in the _veldt_--and throws a pailful of stuff to her fowls, which run clucking up; but no tramp of hoofs disturbs the midday quiet.

Suddenly Lilian awakes. Is it an instinct, or is it the clink of a spur and a light, firm tread on the _stoep_ outside, that makes her start up and hasten to the door? In the pa.s.sage she collides against a man who is entering, and with a quick exclamation he catches her in his arms.

"Arthur--love--is it indeed you? I am not dreaming, am I?" she murmurs, clinging tightly to him, the rich voice vibrating with uncontrollable emotion. "It is you--at last--darling. And I have been waiting and watching so long--till I began to think all sorts of dreadful things must have happened," and raising her head from his breast she looks at him, laughing and weeping at the same time in her ecstasy of joy.