The Sign of the Spider Part 24

"If only as a change from knocking on the head these defenceless devils, it's quite a blessed relief to have some real fighting," quoth Holmes.

"You'll get plenty of that, Holmes, within the next few hours," remarked Hazon dryly.

It was near midday, and the heat was torrid and sweltering. The fierce vertical sun-rays seemed to pour down upon their unshaded position as in streams of molten fire. Even the quick, excited murmurs of the men grew languid. And, having seen to all being in complete readiness, as Laurence Stanninghame sat there at his post in the torrid heat, smoking the pipe of meditation, did no thought of the home, such as it was, but which he would probably never see again, not rise up before him? If it did, it was only to confirm him in the conviction that the present position of peril--whose chances he, at any rate, was in no disposition to under-estimate--was the preferable of the two. Here freedom, activity, adventure; there galling bondage, stagnation, a ceasing to live. Yes, that time indeed seemed very, very far away. He felt no shadow of inclination towards a recurrence thereof.

Then, suddenly, with magical swiftness, the whole party was astir, and it needed a sharp, hurried command or two from Hazon and Lutali to restrain some from leaping on the rocks in order to obtain a better view of what had caused the alarm.

Between the _kopje_ and the forest belt the ground, save for an occasional roll, was entirely visible. Now, swarming out into the open, came ma.s.ses of moving figures--fleeing figures. Hazon and Laurence, who each possessed a powerful gla.s.s, were able to master the situation in a twinkling.

Close on the rear of the fugitives pressed another mult.i.tude, to the naked eye like myriad ants upon the far plain, but to those who scanned them through the powerful gla.s.ses all detail was vividly distinct--the lines and lines of tufted shields, the gleam of spear blades, the streaming feather and cow-hair adornments.

And now the hum and roar of the wild onslaught and pursuit grows momentarily louder, drawing nearer and nearer. A great cloud of dust is whirling onward, and athwart it the gleam of steel, rising and falling, the distant death-scream, as the miserable fugitives fall ripped, hacked to fragments by their ferocious pursuers. And still the terrible wave pours on.

"This is going to be a hard business," muttered Laurence between his set teeth. "How many do you size them up at, Hazon?"

"Twenty thousand, rather more than less. That's just how Cetywayo's people came on at Isandhlwana, only there they took us more by surprise.

Well, we're not a lot of soldiers here anyway to scatter all over the veldt. If they take this position they'll have to rush it, and rush it hard. Well, do you believe in the Ba-gcatya now, Stanninghame?"

Save a nod the other makes no answer, and now the attention of both men is upon the scene before them.

Some few of the fugitives, in the desperation of their terror, are gradually outstripping their pursuers. Against these whole flights of casting spears are launched, amid roaring shouts of ba.s.s laughter.

Finally the last one falls.

And now the array of the enemy is but half a mile distant from the slaver's position. Far over the plain, in immense crescent formation, the barbarian host sweeps on, now in dead silence, not hesitating a moment, for the spoor left by the slavers is broad and easy. Now it can be seen that these warriors are of splendid physique. Most of them are nearly naked save for their flowing war-adornments of hair or jackal-tails. Many are crowned with towering ostrich plumes, both black and white; others wear b.a.l.l.s of feathers surmounted by the scarlet tuft of the egret; some, again, have round their heads bands of the hide of the spotted cat; but all flaunt some wild and fantastic adornment. And the great hide shields, with their party-coloured facings and tufted tops, are Zulu shields, and the broad stabbing spear is the Zulu _umkonto_, or a.s.segai.

There is a lurid fascination in gazing upon the awful splendour of this fierce and formidable battle-rank, which set even Laurence Stanninghame's schooled nerves tingling. As for Holmes, he could hardly remain still in his excitement. But in Hazon's piercing eyes there was a glow in which the l.u.s.t of combat, despair of success, and the most indomitable resolve were about equally intermingled. The countenance of Lutali betrayed no change whatever. The bulk of the slave-hunters were scowling and eager; but the miserable slaves, realizing that ma.s.sacre awaited them, were moaning and trembling with fear. Under the slave-yoke they held their lives, at any rate, but should the enemy without win the day, why, then, they would taste the steel in common with their present oppressors. The Ba-gcatya never spared.

Now the battle-rank of the latter underwent a change. From each end of the great crescent "horns" shot out, extending farther and farther.

Still the numbers of the main body seemed in no wise to diminish. The rock-crowned mound was encircled by a wall of living men.

Then the silence was rent asunder, and that in most appalling fashion.

From twenty thousand fierce throats in concert went up the war-shout--horrible, terrifying--combining the frenzied roars of a legion of maniacs with the snarls and baying of hounds tearing down their prey. One there had heard it before, but not in such awful, soul-curdling volume as this.

And then, with heads bent, shields thrust forward, broad spears in strong ready grip, the whole circle of the Ba-gcatya host came surging up the slope.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE SIGN.

Crash! crash! A long, detonating roar, then crash! again. The rock-circle is a perfect ring of flame, sheeting forth in red jets athwart the hanging sulphurous smoke. Death-yells are mingling with the fearful war-shout. Shields are flung high in the air, and dark bodies, leaping, fall forward upon their faces, to be trampled into lifelessness as their own comrades tread them down, not pausing, rushing over them as they lie.

"No, no! no quicker," reproves Hazon, who is directing here, where the a.s.sailant's force is the strongest, namely, the main body, the _isifuba_ or breast of the _impi_. "Fire steadily and low, as before, but no quicker."

His followers growl a ready a.s.sent. They are unmitigated ruffians, but terrible and determined fighters. The fanatical fatalism of the Mohammedan creed renders them utterly impervious to panic. They keep up a steady, quick-loading fire into the charging Ba-gcatya, and, aiming low, every shot tells, committing fearful havoc among the serried, onrushing ma.s.ses. Yet those terrible warriors are dauntless. Whole lines go down; still, others surge over them, and now the charge is but two hundred yards from the line of rocks.

The fore ranks hesitate, then come to a halt, crumpling back upon those behind them. The slavers, with a shrill, ringing yell, seeing their opportunity, pour a frightfully raking volley into the momentarily confused ma.s.s. Shields are clashed together, spears wildly waving. For the moment it seems as though the Ba-gcatya were fighting with each other, striving to hew their way through their own ranks in their endeavours to escape beyond the reach of that awful and destructive fire.

"Give it to them again!" growls Hazon, a lurid gleam in his deep-set, piercing eyes. "But, aim low--aim low!"

Again not a shot is thrown away. That side of the savage host falls back hurriedly, leaving the ground bestrewn with bodies, dead, dying, crushed. A perfect storm of exultant cheers greets this move.

But if a temporary retreat, it is no rout. In obedience to a rapidly-uttered, whistling signal, fully one-half of the main body swings round and hurls itself with incredible force and fury upon another point of the rock-circle, seemingly the weakest point, for here the rocks are low and apart, and have to be supplemented with bags and bales.

Laurence Stanninghame is in command here. And now his dark face flushes with the glow of a mad excitement, a perfectly transforming exhilaration. He would thunder his commands aloud, but that a deadly coolness is as indispensable almost as accuracy of aim. His orders are the same as Hazon's and uttered as calmly--but for a suppressed tremor--and as audibly.

The very earth seems to rock and reel beneath the detonating roll of the volleys, the thunderous rumble of charging feet. The dark, glaring faces of warring demons, the flinging aloft of shields, the groaning and yells, the redness of the sheeting flames, all this renders him mad--mad with the revel of conflict, with the herculean determination which is sublime above death. Here again whole lines of the enemy are down. Here again those in front would draw back if they could, but the immense weight behind hurls them on. It is the work of but very few moments.

And now the whole of the Ba-gcatya host is circling around the slaver's position, every now and again making a furious rush upon what seems a weak point of the defences. But the defenders have a way of ma.s.sing upon each point thus attacked, and that with a celerity which is truly marvellous, and the result is the same. Yet with each repulse the terrible ranks leap forward immediately, and every such charge brings them nearer than the last. Moreover, as each of their fighting leaders is picked off, another springs forward with unparalleled intrepidity to take his place. The while the barking roar of their terrific slogan rends the air in its most demoniacal clamour.

Now an idea takes hold on the minds of these ferocious legionaries, and it is pa.s.sed like lightning round the ranks. Those in the forefront haul up the bodies of the slain, and, holding them to them, stagger forward, thinking to make a buckler of the dead for the living. But the terrible rifles of the slavers drive their unerring missiles at that short range through dead and living alike, and corpse is heaped upon corpse in ghastly intertwining.

In the thickest of the tumult Hazon is here, there, everywhere--directing, encouraging, restraining. But for the demon-glow in the black eyes staring from the pale, set face, the man might have been made of marble, so little trace of emotion of any kind does he display. Laurence, too, is wary and self-contained, though getting in here and there a telling shot. Holmes, on the other hand, is firing away as fast as he can load. So far not a man has been injured. The a.s.sailants are not quite within spear-throwing distance yet.

"Ammunition hold out? Oh, yes, we have plenty of that," is Hazon's reply to a rapid, low-toned query on the part of Laurence. "But it's time they turned tail. Isandhlwana was nothing to this."

But now, with a deafening, vibrating roar the Ba-gcatya, ma.s.sing suddenly, hurl fully one-half of their force upon the point directed by Lutali. They surge up the slope in one dense charge of lightning swiftness. Bullets are hailed upon them. They waver not. The hands of the defenders are skinned and blistered by contact with the breeches of their own rifles, so hot have these become through quick firing, and still the firing is not quick enough. Stumbling, leaping, flying over the defences they come--a great cloud of dark, grim faces, and bared teeth, and protruding eyeb.a.l.l.s. They spring upon the defences, then over them. The whole might of the redoubtable foe is pouring into the natural fortress.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STUMBLING, LEAPING, FLYING OVER THE DEFENCES THEY COME.]

Now ensues a scene the like of which might be paralleled, but hardly surpa.s.sed, by some lurid drama of h.e.l.l. In jarring shock they meet, those within and those, till now, without--the savage legionaries of "The Spider," and the no less savage and equally determined slave-hunters. The w.a.n.goni, seeing their chance, have sprung forward to meet and roll back the a.s.sailants. But they themselves are beaten down by the broad shields, ripped with the terrible stabbing spears of the ferocious Ba-gcatya, now maddened to a.s.suage their blood-thirst, and whose crushing might, now pouring over in countless numbers, this handful shall never hope to resist. The chief, Mashumbwe, is speared and ripped. The struggle is fierce and hand-to-hand, but short. The w.a.n.goni, now a sorry remnant, are rolled back upon their allies.

Of these not a man but knows that the day is lost, that flight is impossible; that if the other half of the Ba-gcatya host has not swarmed over to take them on the rear, it is only because it is waiting to receive on its spear points all who flee. But there is no thought of flight. With all their indifference to human suffering, with all their brutality, their savagery, the slavers are as brave as any. They are indeed men picked for their desperate courage, and now, standing back to back, they begin to render the victory of the Ba-gcatya a dearly bought one indeed.

The war-shout no longer rends the air. There is a grim, fell silence in this hand-to-hand conflict, broken only by the snake-like hiss of the Ba-gcatya as an enemy goes down, by the slap and shock of shield meeting clubbed gun or stabbing knife, by the gasps of the combatants. The cloud of powder smoke hanging overhead partially veils the sun, which glowers, a blood-red ball, through this gloomy shroud.

The whole s.p.a.ce within the rock-circle is a very charnel-pit of corpses, among which the combatants stagger--victorious Ba-gcatya and vanquished slave-hunters alike--stagger and slip on a foothold of oozy gore; stab, and strike, and fall in their turn.

In the rush and the _melee_ Laurence Stanninghame has become separated even farther from his comrades,--his white comrades, that is,--nor can he by any effort hope to rejoin them. Several Arabs are around him, his own followers, swarthy sons of the Prophet, their keen eyes flashing hate and defiance upon the foe, their long ataghans sweeping a circle of light around them. In their forefront is Lutali--Lutali, whirling a great scimitar, hewing down more than one of the too venturesome Ba-gcatya, and that in spite of the broad bull-hide shield deftly wielded--Lutali, uttering a semi-religious war-cry, his erect form and keen, haughty face the very personification of absolute and dauntless valour. And he himself, wedged in by those around, can still get in now and again a telling shot from his revolver, and with every such shot one more warrior of "The Spider" has uttered his last battle cry.

No, there is no hope. Swift as lightning, a mighty brain-wave surges through Laurence's mind, and in it he sees the whole of his past life.

Yet not even this dismays him--rather does it engender a sort of half-bitter exultation. Life for him has been such a mistake, and that not through any fault of his own. It held no especial charm for him. All its sweetness has been concentrated within one short idyllic period; but even that could not have lasted--even to it would have come disillusionment. Lilith would never learn his fate. It, and that of those with him, would vanish, as others had done, into the mysteries of this great mysterious continent. All this and more--so lightning-like is the power of thought--pa.s.ses through Laurence Stanninghame's brain at this dread and awful moment.

A casting spear strikes him on the left shoulder, penetrating the flesh.

Infuriated by the sharp, sickening pang, he discharges his revolver at the supposed thrower, but his aim is uncertain. Again he draws trigger.

The hammer falls with a harmless click; the chambers are empty. And now, hard pressed by the yelling Ba-gcatya, those of his followers yet between him and the enemy stagger back, fighting furiously, while the life-stream wells from many a gashed and gaping wound. No longer can he see either Hazon or Holmes, for the forest of waving, reeking spear blades. Then one of his own followers, a hulking Swahili, mortally wounded, reels and falls, and, doing so, bears back Laurence beneath his ponderous weight. The rock-rampart is immediately behind him, and is low here. It catches the back of his knees, and now, having lost all control over his balance, grasping at empty air in wild effort to recover himself, Laurence pitches heavily backward over the rocks, and lies half stunned upon the plain without.

Those of the Ba-gcatya host in waiting on that side surge tumultuously forward, uttering yells of savage delight. This is the first of the doomed slavers who has come over; and he a white man, and of course a leader. Each warrior is eager to bury his spear-head in this man's body, and they crowd around him, every right hand raised aloft for the downward stroke.

But the fatal stroke remains undealt. Broad blades quiver aloft in a ring of steel. Each grim, bloodthirsty countenance is set and staring, stony in its indescribable expression of mingled marvel and awe, and eyeb.a.l.l.s seem to start from their sockets as their owners stand gazing down upon this prostrate white man. Then from each broad chest a gasp bursts forth:

"_Au!_ The Sign! THE SIGN OF THE SPIDER!"