Chapter Twenty Eight.
Hunted.
On, on through the forest shades the hunted man sped, the voices of his pursuers, like hounds upon a trail, sounding deep behind him. Though strong and otherwise athletic, he was in no condition for running, especially for keeping up a long chase, the chasers being wiry, untiring savages.
The ground, too, became rough and stony, and this taxed his powers still more. His aim was to reach the rocks and holes on the Lebombo slopes; could he do so while yet at a fair distance from his enemies he stood just a chance. They might look for him for ever there, or again they might just hit upon the right place.
He set his teeth firm, and with elbows to his sides, kept on, husbanding his wind like a trained sprinter. The while, bitter thoughts surged through his mind; for it was bitter to die just then, tenfold so now that Lalanté was within his reach at last; now that a means of escape had been afforded him. He thought of Joe Fleetwood too, and wondered if he had managed to get clear away and if so in what direction. They had been separated by some little distance what time the snake-torture had begun, and if the other’s liberation had been effected in the same way as his own, even as Mtezani had given him to understand, why then it is probable that Fleetwood would head in the direction he himself was taking, to find refuge among the caves and krantzes around the spot where the object of their search lay hidden.
The bush became somewhat dense, and more tangled. Thorns caught and tore at his clothing, and now the voices of his pursuers, and the ferocious deep-toned hum which they had kept up as they ran, was growing very near. They were sure of their prey. What could a white man, and a big and heavy one such as this, do against them as a runner? He might keep it up for a time, but sooner or later they would come up with him, probably utterly exhausted. He was unarmed too. So, not hurrying themselves, they kept on at a long, steady trot—some singing snatches of a war-song as they ran.
Wyvern gripped his short-handled knob-kerrie, wondering whether it was not time to make a last stand before his strength should entirely leave him. But it occurred to him that he could make simply no fight at all. His enemies had only to keep their distance and hurl assegais at him until they had finished him off, and that without the slightest risk to themselves. Turning suddenly, to avoid a clump of haak-doorn, whose fish-hook-like thorns would have held him powerless, or at any rate so seriously have delayed him that he might just as well have given up the struggle, he became aware of a small yellowish animal blundering across his path, together with a hideous snarl just behind. To this, however, he paid no heed His enemy now was brother man, not the beasts of the forest. Just turning his head, however, for a glance back—he felt his footing fail, and then—the ground gave way beneath him. Down he went, to the bottom of what seemed a deep, covered-in donga.
Yes—that was it. Boughs and bushes, interlaced in thick profusion, all but shut out the light of Heaven from above. He estimated he had fallen a matter of over twenty feet, but the slope of the side had saved his fall. The place was, in fact, the exact counterpart of that into which the unfortunate Kafir had fallen with the puff-adder hanging to his leg, at Seven Kloofs. Well, he would be utterly at the mercy of his enemies now, and with no more facility for making a fight for it than a rat in a trap.
Bruised, half-stunned, he lay and listened. Ah! they were coming. They would be on him in a moment. The secret of his sudden disappearance would be only too obvious to their practised eyes. His time had come.
Suddenly a terrific series of roars and snarlings broke forth above. With it mingled volleys of excited exclamations in the Zulu voice, then the Usútu war-shout. The clamour became terrific. The ground above seemed to shake with it. With each outbreak of roaring, the war-shout would rise in deafening volume—then snarling and hissing, but the sounds would seem to be moving about from place to place. Then arose a mighty shout of triumphant cadence and the roaring was heard no more—instead a hubbub of excited voices, and then Wyvern, partly owing to the tensity of his recent trial, partly owing to sheer exhaustion, subsided into a temporary unconsciousness.
This is what had happened above. The lion-cub which had run across Wyvern’s path had strayed from its parent. The latter, with another cub, bounded forward just as the foremost of the pursuing Zulus arrived upon the scene. She sprang like lightning upon the first, crushing his head to fragments in her powerful jaws, and that with such suddenness as to leave him no time to use a weapon. Another, rushing to the rescue, shared the same fate, and then the whole lot came up. There were under a dozen, but they were all young men, and full of warrior courage; yet, even for them, to kill a full-grown lioness—and this one was out of the ordinary large and powerful, and fighting for her cubs to boot—with nothing but assegais and sticks, was a very big feat indeed, and appealed to their sporting instincts far more than continuing the pursuit of one unarmed white man. So with loud shouts they entered into the fray, leaping hither and thither with incredible agility so as to puzzle the infuriated beast, the while delivering a deft throw with the lighter or casting assegai. Another received fatal injuries, and two were badly torn, then one, with consummate daring, watching his opportunity, rushed in and drove his broad-bladed assegai right into the beast’s heart; and that one was Mtezani, the son of Majendwa.
A roar of applause and delight arose from the few left. Auf the son of Majendwa was a man indeed—they chorused. Surely the trophies of the lioness were his. The throws of their light assegai were as pin-pricks. It was the umkonto of the son of Majendwa that had cleft the heart. And then they started a stirring dance and song around their slain enemy.
“Have done, brothers!” cried Mtezani at last. “I think we have done better than running down and killing one white man and he unarmed. Now we will take off the skin and return with it; and I think my father will no longer say I am still a boy, and unfit to put on the head-ring.”
They agreed, and in high good-humour all turned to to flay the great beast. None had any idea as to the part Mtezani had borne in the escape of the said white man, or of his motive in joining in the pursuit. Further, it is even possible that if they had, his last feat would have gone far in their eyes to justify it or, indeed, anything which he chose to do.
Wyvern awoke to consciousness in the pitch dark. His confused senses at first failed to convey any clear idea of what had happened; indeed the first shape his thoughts took was that he had been killed, and buried. The damp, earthy smell around him must be of course that of the grave, and yet he had suffered little or no pain. How had he been killed? Then suddenly and with a rush all came back—the lion-cubs and the snarl, his own fall, and the tumult overhead. He was not dead then, and now an intense joy took possession of him. All was not yet lost, no, not by any means. It must have been hours since he had fallen in there, and now, listening intently, he heard no sound outside. The Zulus must have given up the pursuit His fall into the covered-in donga had been the saving of him. Clearly the lioness had attacked the pursuing warriors and had either been slain by them or had delayed their advance to such an extent that they had not deemed it worth while to continue the pursuit; and here the strangeness of the repetition of incidents suggested itself. On a former occasion he had been spared the necessity of combating a formidable enemy in an unarmed state by the intervention of a snake, now the same thing had happened through the intervention of a lion.
And now the next thing was to get out of his friendly prison. Looking upward, the overhanging boughs and bush were faintly pierced by threads of golden moonlight; and he blessed that light for would it not make his way plain once up above? He guessed that the donga was of the same nature as the one at Seven Kloofs although here there was no river for it to open into, and to that end he slowly began to make his way downward. No easy matter was it however, in the pitchy gloom, but by dint of taking time, and exercising great care he at length came to where it opened into a kloof, and breathed the fresh air of night once more. Then he remembered that in his eagerness to get out he had left his knob-kerrie in the donga. He was now entirely unarmed.
Well, it was of no use going back to look for it. He would cut a cudgel presently, but in his eagerness to proceed, he was in no hurry to do that. He began to feel desperately hungry, but that caused him not much concern, for in the course of their wanderings together Fleetwood had put him up to what he had called “veldt-scoff,” to wit such roots and berries as were innocuous and would sustain life at a pinch. What was worse however was that a burning thirst had come upon him, and where to find water in what was, for all he knew, an utterly waterless waste, might become a most serious consideration. Still, there was no help for it. He must endure as long as he could, and a feeling of elation took hold of him as he thought of the awful experiences of the last twenty-four hours and the peril from which he had escaped; for now a sure and certain conviction was his that he had been spared with an object, and that object the happiness of Lalanté, and, incidentally, of himself.
And this spirit supported him as, hour after hour, he held on his way, now climbing the wearisome side of a steep kloof, only to find nothing but another on the further side, steering his way by the stars, and lo!—towards morning, in the waning moonlight, there rose the ridge of the Lebombo, right at hand—with its grand terraced heights of bosh and forest and krantz. And—better still—and his heart beat high with joy—he had come right upon the spot where the object of their search lay.
Yes. There was the black opening of the triangular cave about a mile ahead. In the dimness of the hour before dawn he recognised it. Hunger and thirst were forgotten now and he could have sang aloud in exultation; for within that black triangle lay hidden that which should bring him Lalanté.
In his haste to reach it he almost ran. Was it the same? At first a misgiving tortured his mind. There might be many such holes among the broken-ness of the foot-hills. No. There was the ridge from which the wretched myrmidon of Bully Rawson had fired at him. This was the place.
In his hurry he dived inside it. There was something in being on the very spot itself—besides now in the lightening dawn it would serve as a hiding-place in case any of his late enemies were still about or searching for him. The coolness of the hole was refreshing after his rapid and heating travel; so refreshing indeed that a sudden drowsiness came upon him, and he sank on the ground and fell fast asleep.
When he awoke the sun was high in the heavens. Gazing outward he could see the shimmer of heat arising from the stones. Then as he was looking around, reassuring himself as to the undoubted identity of the place, something moved. He could have sworn it was something or somebody trying to see within. Nonsense! The solitude and excitement of recent events had got upon his nerves. He looked steadily into the gloom of the interior for a moment, then turned suddenly to the entrance. Peering round the great boulder which constituted one side of this was the shaven, ringed head of a Zulu.