The White Hand and the Black Part 33

"Why--it's Hyland."

"Edala--where is he?" was the first question in the midst of a hurried embrace. "Not killed?"

"No--not that."

"What then? Wounded?"

"No. But--they've got him."

"Good G.o.d!"

"Come with me and I'll tell you all about it quietly," and she led him to Elvesdon's house where she and Evelyn had taken up their quarters.

The latter's presence he hardly noticed as he acknowledged their introduction mechanically. Then Edala gave him all particulars of the semi-tragic termination to Tongwana's war-dance.

"Why the people have known him all their lives," said Hyland. "What can be their object? I could understand if they had killed him--them--but to keep them prisoners--Oh Lord! Edala, can nothing be done to rescue them? We can't sit down and let things slide."

And he began to pace about the room. Edala shook her head, dejectedly.

"Mr Prior has been doing what he can. He has sent out two of his native detectives to try and find out where they are, and bribe the chiefs to release them. He does not believe that Tongwana had any hand in it. Nteseni might have, or Babatyana. He, by the way, has broken out, and there are rumours that old Zavula has been murdered by him."

"Well, it's quite likely. Yet that paying dodge is about the only chance at present that I can see," said Hyland, gloomily. "We must first find out where they are, and if they're alive I'll get 'em out, or go under myself--even if I have to do it alone, for I don't suppose any of these white livered curs round here would risk their skins to lend me a hand. They're first-rate at snapping at a man's heels though," he ended savagely.

Edala knew to what he was referring, and secretly writhed. The lash was stinging her too.

"Hy, darling--it's a perfect G.o.dsend that you have come. Oh, we must do something," she said, her eyes filling. Edala the light-hearted, the careless, the somewhat hard--had softened marvellously since that experience.

Then Prior came in, and Hyland greeted him cordially, for they had been great friends; in fact the magistrate's clerk was one of the very few in the neighbourhood with whom he would exchange much more than a word, for the reasons given above. Now he gave him his experiences at Ndabakosi's kraal, and subsequently.

"If I'd got off that horse I should have been a dead man," he concluded.

"So I should be if I hadn't got my shirt out, and quilted that poor lame old crock rather sinfully. Well, you see--you can trust none of these chaps after all. If there's one n.i.g.g.e.r in all Natal I should have sworn was straight it's old Ndabakosi."

So they talked on. Prior, by reason of his official position, and as the deputy of his absent chief, found himself in a sort of post of command--the detachment of Mounted Police, too, being under his orders, and it looked as if Hyland Thornhill by reason of a masterful force of will was going to share it with him, in the active line at any rate, if they came to blows with the rebels. Than this Prior asked nothing better and said so with unfeigned satisfaction.

We last saw Edala and her companion poised on the dizzy alt.i.tude of what the former called her 'aerial throne,' surrounded by peril. Moreover they had just been discovered. Manamandhla had seen them, as to that there could be no doubt. Every moment they had sat there expecting the return of those they had heard above--then death; and every such moment was bitter with the bitterness of death. Yet, when they climbed up nearly an hour later and stood, cramped and shivering, the summit of Sipazi was clear. Sorely was Edala puzzled. Clearly the Zulu had not betrayed their presence. What strange unfathomable motive could he have had in sparing their lives--hers especially, thought Edala, whose father had deliberately attempted to take his? Yet he had done so.

And in the result Prior was astounded to see at about mid-day, instead of his chief returning--for he had taken for granted the latter was spending the night at Thornhill's--two tired and haggard-eyed girls walking up to the place; and more astounded still when he recognised their ident.i.ty, and learned the strange doings they had to tell of.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

THE DEFENCE OF KWABULAZI.

All round the earthwork men were posted, many for the air was keen and biting. The stars, not yet faded, shone frostily, but there was no mist; and for this they were thankful. Each man had a gun of some sort, from an up-to-date Mauser or Lee-Metford, down to a double-barrelled shot-gun.

The first dull red streaks had begun to appear in the eastern sky, and at the sight a thrill of excitement ran along the circle, for such is almost invariably the time chosen by the wily savage for making his murderous rush. These were all prepared to give him a most unhealthy reception.

"Don't light that silly pipe, Jenkins," growled Hyland to his next door neighbour. "D'you hear? What are you doing, man? D'you think we want 'em to know we're anxiously waiting to welcome them?"

The man addressed snarled.

"Who the 'ell are you?" he grunted. "I'm not taking orders from anyone." Still he hardly dared disobey. Hyland Thornhill had a reputation for being a terror with his fists, and he was as strong as an elephant.

"I'll knock it out of your silly jaws if you attempt to light it," was the uncompromising answer. "Hallo!" as he became aware of another presence just behind him. "What are you doing here, Edala? Go in at once."

"I'm going to take a hand in this game," she answered, showing her revolver--her brother had impounded her gun, having none of his own.

"Not if I know it. Clear back in again at once, d'you hear." Then in a tender undertone, "Be sensible, little girl. Go inside, and keep all those women from yelling themselves to death with funk directly. You can do it."

She obeyed, with no further demur.

"'The Lord is King,'" quoted with a sneer, the man just taken to task, to his neighbour on the other side. "But it seems to me that old Thornhill's pup is king over Him."

"Meaning yourself?"

"Oh, you're so d.a.m.n funny, Bridson. You'll bust yourself if you don't watch it," rejoined the other resentfully.

Hyland, the while, was occupying himself by drawing a cross-nick with a pocket-knife on the apex of each of his Lee-Metford bullets. The gun was a rifle and smooth bore, and with a heavy charge of Treble A in the shot barrel, was calculated, as he put it, to stop the devil himself at no distance; anyhow many black devils would probably undergo the experiment before the day was an hour older. He had just finished on the last bullet when something caused him to throw up his head, rigid and motionless, listening intently. He had caught the faintest possible suspicion of that unique sound--the quiver of a.s.segai hafts.

"Pa.s.s the word round 'Stand by'," he whispered to each of his neighbours. One ignored it--he recently rated, to wit. Who the devil was young Thornhill, to come here skippering the whole ship? he wanted to know--to himself.

Hyland was sighting his piece. In the fast lightening dawn his keen vision had detected a tongue of dark figures flitting stealthily out of the mimosa bushes some couple of hundred yards away--and striking out a line which should bring them round to the back of the entrenchment.

This was the encircling manoeuvre, he decided. And then he let go.

But the detonation, and the wild yell of more than one stricken savage-- for he had fired into them bunched up--was drowned by an appalling roar, as a dense ma.s.s sprang up among the low bushes on that front, and, waving shield and a.s.segai, charged straight for the earthwork.

"Aim low--aim low," was each man's injunction to his neighbour as the firearms crashed: in the semi-light making a circle of jetting flame.

With effect too, for the front rows went down like mown corn.

"Ho-ho-ho! Haw-haw! Hooray!" were the varying forms of hoa.r.s.e guffaw that went up, and the joke was this. Those immediately behind the fallen ones, pressed on over the bodies of the latter, intending to rush the earthwork before the defenders should have time to reload. But they, too, went down in sheaves, and that before another shot had been fired. They had got into an entanglement of barbed wire, which had been stealthily and quickly fixed round the defences the night before, but _after dark_, lest the watchful eyes of scouts should perceive it and so prepare their countrymen, for this surprise. And now the surprise was complete.

"Give it 'em again!" shouted Hyland, setting the example. This time the fire was not directed upon those who had fallen among the wire entanglement, but on those immediately behind them. The effect was awful. The whole roaring, struggling ma.s.s fell back upon itself--then, dropping to the ground, glided away like snakes among the long gra.s.s, and many were picked off while doing so. Then, those especially who had shot-guns, played upon those who were trying to extricate themselves from the wires. They could not take prisoners, and they had their families to defend. The odds were tremendous against them: it was necessary to read the enemy a severe lesson, to inflict upon him a stunning loss. Hyland Thornhill for one, the probable fate of his father clouding his brain as with lurid flame, raked the struggling bodies again and again with charges of heavy buckshot. The carnage was ghastly, sickening, but--necessary. The alternative was the ma.s.sacre of themselves and of their women and children.

The latter had been stowed within the Court house for safety, and now with the lull in the attack the frightened screeches of some of the former, and the unanimous howling of most of the latter were dismally audible. Edala had carried out her brother's injunction and was trying to rea.s.sure and pacify them. Evelyn too was ably seconding her, and soon with some effect. The sight of these two, calm and unconcerned, carried immense weight.

"What's that you're saying, Prior?" said Hyland Thornhill, turning his head, for he had not moved from his post. "Not come on again? Won't they? You'll see. I'm only wondering what devil's move they're up to this time. They're too many, and we're too few for them to give up in any such hurry. Pity that infernal wire has been cut or we'd soon have them between two stools."

This was in allusion to the telegraph, which early in the previous afternoon had been discovered to be not working. The magistrate's clerk, and some of the older farmers had been holding a hurried council of war.

"Let's get in one of these shamming cusses and question him," went on Hyland. "He's sure to be, but it'll help pa.s.s time. Hey--you!" he called out in the vernacular. "You with the scratched toes. Get up and come over here at once, or I'll blow twenty holes into your carcase with a very heavy charge of shot. You know me. I'm Ugwala."

The name was magical. The man addressed, a st.u.r.dy muscular fellow who had been shamming death, raised his head and asked to be rea.s.sured on the word of Ugwala that his life should be spared. This was done, and he clambered over the earthwork.

"Whose people are these?" began Hyland, who had risen and joined the rest. "Those of Ndabakosi?"

"All people, _Nkose_," was the reply. "Some of Babatyana, some of Nteseni, some from over the river."

"Do they expect to take this place?"