Chapter Eighteen.
The Hostile Ground
Doppersdorp was some distance behind the two horsemen by the time the sun shot up, a wheel of flame, into the cloudless beauty of the blue vault, flooding the great plains and the iron-crowned mountain heights with waves of gold; and the air, though warm, was on these high tablelands marvellously pure and clear. It was the morning for reflections of a dazzling nature to the man who could enjoy the rare luxury of such; and to Roden Musgrave seemed a fitting continuation of the strange, wondrous enchantment of the past night.
He had persisted with a purpose in this expedition, he had told Mona, because he wanted to be out of reach of her for a brief while, to think. And now that every hoofstroke was bearing him thus out of reach, the strange prescription was indeed taking effect. Now he realised to the full what she was to his life. He had often been for days without seeing her. But then any day, any hour almost, he might have been at her side. His retrospect went to the time when he had looked upon her with something akin to dislike, even dread – dread lest the subtle power of her influence should steal him from himself, should drown his hard cold reason – the fruit of hard experience – in the sweet fumes of its intoxicating spell. But even through all this had run the misgiving that such dread was not ill-founded; for he knew that she possessed the power to do this, did she but choose to exercise it – knew it from the moment he had first looked into her eyes, and had gazed upon her exquisite grace of form and movement. And she had exercised it, and he – well, he had struggled with all the instinct of self-preservation, yet had struggled in vain. He was bound, and the bonds were of a captivity that was very, very sweet.
Yet, nothing lasts. This love of his latter-day life stirring up into a volcanic blaze of activity feelings not only dead and buried, but which he had been wont to scoff at as impossible of existence – how was it to end? In the prosaic, hard-and-fast knot of a legal bond? That, then, would be the beginning of the end. Nothing lasts. The prose, even the vulgarity, of a commonplace tie would be the beginning of disenchantment, disillusion. What then? Thus a sure and certain foresight into the future ran through the glowing, lotus-eating dream of the present, yet, with all its dark and neutral-tinted shades, only seemed to throw out the warm sun-waves of the present into greater contrast.
“I say, Musgrave, I can’t congratulate myself on having the liveliest of travelling companions,” said Darrell, with a grin. “Do you know that it’s exactly forty-seven minutes since you’ve let fall a word? I’ve been timing you.”
Roden started.
“The deuce you have! Excuse me, Darrell, I sometimes get that way. I believe you’re right. Well, I’ll make up for it now, anyway.”
The other grinned again, but said no more on the subject, and the two men pursued their way at a quick, easy pace, now halting to off-saddle at some farmhouse, now in the veldt. But Roden afforded his companion no further pretext for rallying him on account of his silence.
That night they slept at a Boer’s farm on the border of the hostile ground. The worthy Dutchman and his numerous progeny were in a high state of alarm, for rumours had come through his native hands that whole locations of Gaikas, hitherto peaceful, had risen in arms and joined Sandili, who was now trying to break through the not very closely drawn cordon of patrols, and take refuge in the dense forest fastnesses of the Amatola. He and his were going to trek into laager at once, and when he learned the destination of the two Englishmen, he stared at them as though they were ghosts already.
“Nay what. You’ll never get through,” he said, as they took their leave. “Your lives are not worth that,” flinging away a grain of salt, “if you try. Besides, it is very wrong. It is laughing in the face of the good God. You will come to harm, and you will deserve it.”
But Darrell’s laugh was loud and irreverent as he bade the utterer of this comforting prognostication farewell. He was a harum-scarum, dare-devil sort of mortal, who was afraid of nothing, yet could be cool enough when occasion arose.
Throughout the day they pursued their journey, passing now and then a deserted farmhouse, whose empty kraals and smokeless chimneys, and unreaped crops standing in the mealie lands, spoke eloquently to the desolation that reigned. “The land was dead” indeed, as the native idiom expressed it.
They had taken a straight line across the veldt, avoiding roads and beaten tracks as likely to be watched by outlying parties of the enemy. And now the farther and farther they advanced, the brighter the outlook they kept.
“You’d better note the lay of the ground well, Musgrave, if you still intend to carry out that lunatic idea of returning alone,” said Darrell.
“That’s the very thing I have been doing. It’s easy country, this of yours, to find one’s way about in, Darrell. As for returning alone, I shall have to do that, failing an escort. Can’t stretch my rather irregular leave to straining point.”
It was late in the afternoon. They were riding along the side of a slope which was irregularly sprinkled with clusters of thick bush. Below ran a nearly dry river-bed, and beyond this rose a ragged ascent covered with spekboem scrub. Suddenly both men looked at each other, gently checking their steeds.
A sound was heard in front, at first faint, as of the displacement of a stone, then nearer, till it resolved itself into a clink of shod hoofs upon the stony veldt. Then the whistling of a popular air.
“Now what damned fool can this be kicking up all that shillaloo?” exclaimed Darrell.
The horseman appeared round the corner of a cluster of scrub. On finding himself thus unexpectedly confronted, he reined in instinctively, with a startled movement. Then seeing that the others were friends, he broke into a loud, jolly laugh.
He was a strongly built, broad-shouldered individual, bearded and sunburnt. He was clad in a nondescript uniform coat, cord trousers, and high boots, and on his head a pith helmet surmounted by a spike. He bestrode a powerful chestnut horse with a white blaze. But – and this was the first point that struck these two – he carried no firearm, not even the inevitable revolver, unless it was in his pocket.
“Where’s your gun?” said Darrell, with a grin, as soon as the first greetings and explanations were over.
“Haven’t got one.”
“But haven’t you got a revolver?”
“Devil a bit of a revolver. Look here, though, I’ve got a pipe,” producing that comforting implement. “Give us a fill.”
This was soon done. Then Darrell, whom the situation struck in its wholly comic light, laid his head back and roared.
“You fellows must have swept this side quite clear of Kaffirs – patrolled it within an inch of its life, I suppose – that you can afford to ride about the veldt in dead war-time unarmed?” he said.
The other looked up quickly; an idea seemed to strike him.
“No; now you mention it, this is just the very side that hasn’t been much looked after. Let’s off-saddle. I want to get to Cathcart before dark.”
“See there now, Musgrave,” said Darrell. “Here you have a type of the species of lunatic this country can produce. At least, I can’t imagine any other turning out a man who might be met with four hours from the Main Camp in a country swarming with hostile Gaikas, armed with nothing but a whip.”
“And a pipe,” laughed the stranger. “You’ve forgotten the pipe.”
“Well, counting the pipe even. What do you say, Musgrave? Do you know any other part of the world where they manufacture such lunatics?”
“I never heard of any,” said Roden gravely.
The jolly stranger laughed, enjoying these comments as the best possible of jokes. They had off-saddled together, and were foregathering after the manner of casually met campaigners. Roden had a very substantial flask which was not half emptied yet, and this was drawn upon for the occasion. Their new acquaintance gave the other two all the latest information. There had been a good deal of patrolling, and taking of stock, and hustling the rebel Gaikas, but just lately not much in the killing line. The Gaikas were rather fighting shy of coming to close quarters, and when run too hard, would retreat across the Kei into Kreli’s country only to swarm back again when the coast was clear.
Thus they chatted until it became time to saddle up. But just as the last strap was buckled there rang out the sharp crackle of dropping shots. It came from about half a mile lower down the kloof.
“Hallo!” cried the stranger. “My fellows are having a row with somebody.”
“Your fellows? I thought you were alone,” said Darrell.
“Pooh! they don’t count. Only four chaps going back to their billets. They’ve been volunteering and don’t like it, so they’re going back. Store-clerks, or something of the kind. A poor lot, anyway. Why, I’m doing escort to them rather than they to me, if anything. Let’s go down and see what’s the row, anyhow.”
As the three, now mounted, made their way down to the scene of strife, the shots, which had ceased for a few moments, rang out again with renewed vigour. From the sound, it was evident that two parties were engaged. Darrell laughed aloud over the delightful prospect of a certain battle, and the stranger, who was unarmed, seemed just as eager to be there as the other two.
“Lend us one of your six-shooters,” he said. “I don’t suppose they’ll come close enough to be hurt by that. Still they might.”
This remark was addressed about equally to either. Roden, however, was not over anxious to respond. If this fool chose to ride about without weapons, it was rather too much to expect those who were less idiotic to partially disarm themselves for his benefit. He’d see the fellow hanged before doing anything so feeble, he thought. Darrell, however, handed over his revolver.
Now they came upon the combatants – the white ones, at any rate. In a small ravine, which ran down at right angles to the river-bed, four men were lying behind stones and bushes. Opposite, puffs of blue smoke were issuing from the dense scrub, and the whizzing screech of potleg or slug hummed viciously over the beleaguered four, and unpleasantly near their newly arrived allies.
Clearly, as the stranger had said, his men were not up to much, for, as they lay there behind their scant cover, they were pumping in shots at large, with the whole dense forest-clad slope for a target. For of an enemy, beyond the jetting smoke puffs, and the very unpleasant screech of the missiles overhead, there was no outward and visible sign.
“Cease firing, men!” sang out the strange. “Do you want to use up all your darned ammunition at nothing at all?”
They looked round, evidently relieved at this fresh accession to their very slender fighting strength. And now the firing from the opposite bank suddenly ceased.
The three had secured their horses behind a clump of euphorbia, where they would be protected from stray shots as much as possible. The steeds of the others stood saddled and bridled beside their riders, for the men had been suddenly fired on while advancing along the hillside, and, acting upon their first impulse, had flung themselves from the saddle and rushed into cover. The place was about as bad for defensive purposes as it could well be, for it was commanded at the rear by a horseshoe-like range of rocks.
“A real rotten place to ‘stand off’ a war-party from,” muttered Roden. Then louder: “Do you see that bare patch of riverbank, Darrell?” pointing to a rocky shelving bit of shingle just visible where the slope of the hill shut out farther view, some four hundred yards below the left front. “Well, keep your eye brightly upon that, for I have an idea that’s where they’ll try and cross. Ha! I thought so – ” he broke off. And with the words his piece was at his shoulder, and through the long jagged stream of smoke and flame Darrell could see a dark form leap with extended arms, and fall in a heap upon the spot indicated.
“Maghtaag! What a shot!” cried Darrell, amazed at the other’s quickness and accuracy of aim.
“That’ll hold them back a little,” went on Roden rapidly. “Now, you watch all the approaches. I’m going up yonder,” pointing to the overhanging ridge. “That’s where they’ll try next, I know. This isn’t the first time I’ve been in this sort of thing.” And before the other could get in a word, he was gone.
Crawling, climbing with the agility of a cat, and the craft of the savages against whom he was pitted, Roden was not long in gaining his self-chosen position. Half-sunk in a cranny, his head hidden by three or four large spiky aloes, he peered forth upon the whole plan of battle. Just then the fire of the concealed Kaffirs broke out afresh, their missiles humming among the rocks beneath.
“That means a change of plan,” he said to himself. “They are going to cross below, out of sight, and gain this ridge. Ah!”
Bound the slope of the hill, and invisible to the beleaguered ones, was a drift, with something of a waggon track leading up from it. Into this, dark forms were quickly plunging, one by one, then disappearing in the thorn-brake which lined the river on this side. Quite a number had crossed, and meanwhile the fire in front was being kept up hotter than ever.
The thorn-brake ended about two hundred yards from the crest of the ridge, and that distance of stony open ground had to be passed in order to gain the latter. Lying there now, with his finger on the trigger, Roden’s glance was fixed upon this area, and there was a hard, set frown upon his brows, as of a man who knew that he had a very stern undertaking indeed upon his hands.
There was a stir on the edge of the thorn-brake; a bird or two dashed out in wild alarm. Then there emerged a crouching shape, followed by another and another. These beckoned backward, and soon others stepped forth, till there must have been a score. Roden’s heart beat quick. This game of hide-and-seek was becoming interesting. It was exciting.
He gazed upon the advancing Kaffirs – brawny, athletic savages, glistening with red ochre. The roll of their white eyeballs was plainly visible to him as they glided forward a few paces, then halted to listen, then glided on again. There was a gleam of triumph in their cruel eyes, for they knew that, did they once gain that rocky ridge, they would hold the little handful of whites below very much at their mercy. And they were coming straight for it, little knowing the reception that awaited them.
Drawing his breath hard, he still waited, letting them come on nearer and nearer. He did not mean more than he could help of that score of warriors to regain the cover of the thorn strip, and the nearer they were to him, the longer they would take to reach it.
They were now just within a hundred yards. Carefully sighting the foremost, so as to get two in line, he let go. The effect was startling. Of the two warriors, one dropped on his face, stone dead; the other lay kicking and struggling. The survivors sent up a wild yell of dismay and alarm. Some halted for a moment irresolute, while others dropped down flat, even behind mere pebbles, in their instinctive seeking for cover. But immediately a second ball hummed into their midst, drilling through the heart of another, and spinning him round to the earth. Again from the roar on the smoke-crowned ridge came another messenger of death, and at the same time, by way of keeping up the illusion of numbers, though at too long range to take effect, Roden poured his shot-barrel, loaded with a heavy charge of loepers, into the disconcerted assailants. The latter waited no longer. Some leaping and zigzagging to render themselves an uncertain mark, others, gliding and crawling like snakes, they made their way back to the cover they had left, just as fast as they could get there.
Even then they were not all to escape. For he who held that rock-crowned ridge had learned the art of quick-loading, and that in a hard and sharp school. In a twinkling the smoking shell was out of the breech, and a fresh cartridge in its place; in less than a twinkling an unerring sight was again taken, and an enemy fell. Two more were dropped before the security of the thorns was gained, one dead, the other badly wounded.
The crisis over, Roden’s pulse began to beat with excitement. He had driven back a score of enemies with the loss of a quarter of their number, in something less than three minutes; he – single-handed. He had saved the position, and, in all human probability, the lives of his companions. No wonder he felt a little excited. And then immediately he became deadly cool.
Was it instinct – second sight – what? Wheeling round, with lightning rapidity, he discharged his piece almost without aiming. The glistening, sinuous frame of a savage heaved itself up from a point of rock not ten yards behind, and toppled heavily over into the hollow beneath. Roden had turned only in the very nick of time. The Kaffir was aiming full at his back, and at that distance could not have missed. He was settled, anyhow; but what about the rest?
For contrary to expectation the savages had designed to seize this position from both sides at once. While he had been playing such havoc with one division the other had crept up to occupy the ridge on the side he could command least – for it was a little above him – and indeed had occupied it; for he could see a movement or two among the rocks in the rear of the spot where he had dropped the last enemy.
And now he began to realise that he was in a hard, tight place. The newly arrived force of Kaffirs was already beginning to fire down into the hollow beneath. Those whom he had driven back into cover, on learning that they had only one enemy to deal with, would soon find a way of coming up.
And indeed this promised to be the case, for now the savages began to shout and call to each other; and all the while the fire upon those in the hollow beneath grew hotter and hotter. Ammunition was probably not profusely plentiful with those four homeward-bound whites, and might soon be exhausted.
Just then the enemy’s fire suddenly ceased. What did it mean? Away down the river bank, Roden from his elevated perch could see the stirring of the bushes; and his quick practised eye, following the movement, could see it was a retreating one. Then against the now declining sun something gleamed and shone forth again in many a sparkle of glittering light. It was the gleam of arms.
Away across the plain, advancing at a hard canter, came a number of mounted figures. A glance was enough. It was a patrol, and a strong one. They were saved.
But only just in the nick of time.
Chapter Nineteen.
A Dark Mystery of the Veldt
The predominating impulse in the mind of Roden Musgrave when he awoke the next morning in Darrell’s tent, in the Main Camp, was to saddle up his horse, and betake himself back to Doppersdorp as quickly as his steed could convey him thither; and as he stepped forth, and his eye wandered over the array of tents, and waggons, and fires, and cooking pots, and accoutrements, and men of all sorts and sizes, Dutch burghers and town volunteers, and Fingo and Hottentot levies, the impulse grew stronger still. Here was a huge mass of different phases of humanity, hundreds strong, and now that he was here the associations of the place failed to interest him, for he was familiar with them all. The sort of adventure which held any fascination for him was of the nature of that which he had gone through the day before; but all this organised crowd under arms was devoid of attraction for him. He had seen it all before.
Darrell, whose tendency never inclined to minimising any exploit in which he had borne a part, had spread the account of the day’s scrimmage far and wide; and how Roden had saved the position, and shot down half-a-dozen Kaffirs in less than that number of minutes. This soon grew to a full dozen, and so on, which to Roden himself was mightily distasteful. For, the affair over, and he and his comrades in safety, his wish was, if anything, that he had not shot anybody at all. He would gladly have brought back the slain Kaffirs to life again, if that were possible; but anyhow, he saw nothing to brag about in the fact of having shot them. He was thoroughly sick of all reference to the matter.
Conquering, however, his homing impulses, he suffered Darrell to persuade him into taking part in a two days’ patrol, which turned out a deadly monotonous affair; for no sign of an enemy did they see, and a cold, drizzling rain fell the whole time. Mightily glad was he when it was over, and they returned to the Main Camp, and more than ever was he resolved to start back for Doppersdorp on the following morning.
“Where on earth did you pick up your ideas of arranging a fight, Musgrave?” said Darrell, as, having finished their supper of ration beef and Boer brandy, they and two or three others were taking it easy in the tent of the former, their pipes in full blast. “Any fool could see you were no new hand at that sort of thing, by the way in which you grasped the ins and outs of the position the other day.”
“Oh, I saw something of the Indian wars out West a few years ago. By the way, Darrell, what was the name of that lunatic we picked up the other day, armed with only a quince switch?”
“Bolton. He’s a law-agent, and broker, at Barabastadt. And, confound him, he forgot to give me back the revolver I lent him.”
“Serves you right for being such a fool as to lend it him. Now that’s a thing I’d never do. I’d see him hanged first. If the fellow had lost his gun by accident, it would be another thing; but to go about without one, out of mere swagger and bounce, and then come down on the first sensible cuss he meets, to rig him out with his! No, no. It’s a little too thin.”
“That’s how fellows come to grief in war-time,” struck in another man. “They get so confoundedly careless, and at last they do it once too often. It always happens. I say, Musgrave, tell us something about that Indian business. Are the redskins as good at a fight as Jack Kaffir?”
“They’re just as good at one as any fellow need wish. But now, if you don’t mind, I’m most confoundedly sleepy, and would as soon turn in as not.” And in a very few minutes, in spite of the talk and discussion going on around him, he was fast asleep.
Roden held to his resolve and, notwithstanding all persuasion to the contrary, he started soon after sunrise. To many a man, not more timid than his kind, that return journey of seventy or eighty miles, the bulk of it over the hostile ground, might well have seemed a formidable undertaking, the more so that it was a solitary journey. This one, however, entered upon it with no great concern. He had brought off riskier things than that, he said in his casual way, in reply to misgivings more than once expressed by Darrell and the rest. As for the solitary side of the matter, he rather preferred it. Fighting was out of the question. It would be a case of leg-bail entirely, and that was a game at which one could play better than two. Again, the presence of one was more likely to pass unnoticed than that of two.
“You keep your weather eye skinned, Musgrave, and a particularly bright look-out for small gangs,” was Darrell’s last injunction having ridden a few miles out from camp with him. “Sandili is trying to slip through into the Amatola at one rush, but sending that, he’s sending his chaps through in driblets. Shouldn’t wonder if you fell in with a patrol or two. But if you’re spotted by the niggers, no matter how few, leg it; do you hear? leg it; for you never know how many more are close by.”
“Pho! They ain’t mounted, and if they were, wouldn’t know now to ride. I’ve raced a whole day in front of a wild, mad, yelling war-party of Sioux devils; and if your John Kaffir can make things warmer than that, Darrell, he’s welcome to try.”
“Eh? The deuce you have!” said Darrell in amazement. “Here, I’ll come a mile or two farther, and let’s have the yarn.”
“No, no. I don’t feel like yarning – anyway just now. Well, so long. No fear about me. I’m not going to turn up missing.”
The ride, though lonely, was a delightful one. The day was of unclouded loveliness and the air fresh and exhilarating as a cordial. Away on either hand stretched the grand open country, rolling in wide grassy plains, heaving up into rugged and stony ranges, here and there deepening into a bush-grown river-valley. The life of the wild veldt was never still – the cheery whistle of spreews, glinting from spray to spray in sheeny flashes of light, and the metallic, half-grating note of the yellow thrush; the soft shout of the hoopoe, echoing from the distance, mingling with the softer voices of doves, which were dashing alarmed from the grotesque heads of the plumed euphorbia, disturbed by the horse’s tread. Great webs lay spread from bush to bush, each containing several huge spiders, black and horny; and of these the horseman would now and again receive a shower right in his face – not being always able to guide his horse so as to clear them. But the insects, though hideous, were quite innocuous, and, relishing the encounter as little as the human party to the same, dropped off immediately upon contact. Buck, too – the wary bushbuck and dainty little duiker – would rustle up with a mighty disturbance, to bound away in the scrub or long grass, flashing a white flag of defiance.
“Game lies close – that’s a good sign,” meditated the horseman. “But it goes like the devil once it is up – that’s a bad one. Well, it may be a good one too, meaning only that this section has been well patrolled.”
It was tantalising, very, as he watched the animals bound away in gracefully flying leaps, affording the sweetest of shots from the saddle. But he who now rode there dared not pull a trigger, for it might easily cost him his life, and that was a possession he did not want to lose just then.
It was an exciting ride withal – keenly so; for every turn of the way might bring him face to face with an enemy. If he topped a rise of the ground, might he not run right into the teeth of a hostile band on the other side? As he rode along the slope of a bush-clad hill, for he avoided the bottom of defile or ravine, he more than half expected the “whizz” of missiles from the ambushed savage lurking concealed above. Yes, it was an exciting ride, a perilous ride, yet he travelled at an easy pace, knowing better than to fall into the blunder of pressing his steed in order that it might the more quickly be got over.
At first he enjoyed the exciting possibilities of the journey – the strong dash of peril – as, keenly on the alert, he urged his steed forward. It reminded him of old times. But each and every excitement has its limits, and as the hours went by the tension relaxed, the strain upon his nerves subsided. He began to think upon other matters than potential danger. That last farewell under the stars – the recollection of it coursed sweet and warm through his being; his pulses bounded with the very gladsomeness of living. Soon they would meet again, and – what a meeting!
For this voluntary absence of his had borne its fruit. But a few days; yet it had seemed to need only this to consolidate and weld this strange, bewildering love of his latter-day life. In the rough duties he had voluntarily undertaken during that brief period – the patrolling, the tireless bivouac under the stars; the shots exchanged with the lurking enemy; the jovial, but not very boisterous revelry of camp life – that image was ever-present, sweet, smiling, radiant-eyed; and try as he might, he could not banish it.
Now the shadow of a cloud swept across his path, together with a gleam of blue lightning. Creeping stealthily up, their jagged outlines gradually obliterating the blue arch, leaden cloud-piles were spreading, and puffs of hot wind set the grasses singing. In sharp, staccato boom, the electric voice spoke overhead, but no rain fell. It was a dry thunderstorm, often the most perilous.
He was riding just beneath the apex of a long, sparsely-bushed ridge. Already, as he began to descend, the lightning was darting down upon the height in vivid streams, which the sharp, startling thunder-crack seemed to accompany rather than to follow.
“This is getting a trifle sultry, and the veldt here is crusted with ironstone,” he said to himself. Then turning his horse, he held ever downward. Half-darkened, the scene was now desolate enough – the long slopes of the kloof, and the ridges cut clear against the livid thundercloud. Down in the hollow several “bromvogels,” the great black hornbill of South Africa, were strutting amid the grass, uttering their drumming bass note. These flapped away heavily on the near approach of the horseman, and rising high overhead, were soon winging their aerial course seemingly to the thundercloud itself.
Suddenly the horse stopped short, and, with ears cocked forward, stood snorting, with dilated eyes gazing upon the dark line of bush in front. Roden’s meditations took to themselves wings, and drawing his revolver, as more convenient at close quarters than the rifle, shifted the latter into his bridle hand, and sat for a moment intently listening.
Not a sound.
It was a nerve-trying moment. The savage war-shout, the crash of firearms, the “whiz” of assegais – that was what it would only too likely bring forth. Still silence, save for the bass grumblings of the thunder.
Then there was a winnowing of wings, and a huge bird arose. Roden knew it for a vulture, of the black and non-gregarious kind. A vulture! That meant the presence of death.
So far reassured, for the bird would not have been there had the scrub concealed living men, he cautiously made his way between the bushes to the spot whence he had seen the funereal scavenger arise, and again the horse started and shied, spinning half round where he stood. One glance, and the secret was out. In the long grass lay the body of a man – a Kaffir.