Chapter Thirteen.
Checked.
For some hours we held on without difficulty. It became very hot. The sun’s rays poured down into the close, shut-in kloofs as from the lens of a gigantic burning-glass; and the atmosphere was unmoved by a single puff of wind. The horses were in a bath of perspiration, and it became evident they must be off-saddled, wherefore a halt was called in a cool, shady place, where they could enjoy to the full a much-needed rest. It was a bushy secluded spot beneath an overhanging cliff, from whose face a whole cloud of spreuws flashed hither and thither, whistling in lively alarm, but, best of all, it contained a cool clear water-hole, albeit the liquid was slightly brackish.
“Tired, Holt?” asked Brian good-naturedly, as having knee-haltered the horses, we were discussing some supplies which had been brought in a saddle-bag. “Have a drop of grog.”
“To the first I answer ‘No,’ to the second, ‘Yes,’ emphatically!” I said, catching the flask which he chucked across to me. It was a roomy metal one, with considerable carrying capacity.
“Well, this sort of forced march on an African summer day isn’t a cool and invigorating promenade,” cut in Trask. “After you, Holt.”
We had a tot all round and a smoke. Then it became time to move on again. Once a check occurred, where the thieves had manifestly separated their spoil, but the device was only a blind, and soon solved by such experienced frontiersmen as Brian and Revell. Now and again we would sight a farmhouse, with its cultivated strip of mealie land, picturesquely nestling in some bushy hollow, but such we purposely avoided, for news travels on winged feet among Kafirs, and the arrival of an armed party at one of these homesteads would be extremely likely to be notified by any of the hangers-on there to their brethren of the marauding clans inhabiting the dark, frowning fastnesses which now began to rise not far in front. Nor was there any need to ask for information, for the spoor was as plain as plain could be, and soon, after leading us up a steep hillside, it suddenly left the bush, and, cresting the ridge, struck out into an open plain, where, a few hundred yards in front stood a large native kraal, the dark forms of whose inhabitants we could see moving about among the beehive-shaped huts. But the simultaneous yell and rush of a lot of curs promptly turned the attention of the said inhabitants upon us. It looked as if our appearance had been provocative of more than ordinary excitement.
“Don’t shoot, Trask,” said Brian warningly, observing that that worthy was aiming at a couple of large, mouthing curs whom he considered in rather too close proximity to his horse’s hocks. “Don’t shoot. We haven’t time to stop and have a row here.”
“Who is your headman?” he asked the half-dozen sullen, stalwart savages who had slouched forward to meet us.
“He is not here, Umlúngu,” was the ready reply.
“Who is he, not where is he?” repeated Brian.
“He is away,” again answered the man, a tall, grizzled Kafir with an evil expression of countenance.
“Now look,” said Brian forcibly. “When did those oxen and horses pass by here? The spoor is at your very doors. One of you must go with us and carry it on, or you are responsible equally with the thieves.”
By this time quite a number of Kafirs had come forth from among the huts by twos and threes, and were clustering around, a proportion armed with tough, heavy kerries, and their demeanour was sullen and unfriendly to a degree, as they muttered among themselves in their deep bass tones. Women, too, had raised their greasy, scantily-clad forms where they had been lolling against the huts basking in the sun with their round-headed, beady-eyed brats, and were gazing at us; the while discussing us with the freedom of their sex and in no flattering terms.
“Au! We know nothing about thieves, Umlúngu,” replied the spokesman. “If any oxen came by here they did not stay here. Why not follow them further if you have followed them so far? Why trouble us?” And a great jeering guffaw greeted the words.
“Good,” said Brian. “These oxen have been stolen, and we have traced them to the gates of your kraal. You will hear a great deal more about this.”
“Whau!” exclaimed the savage, turning his back upon us. “Go. Go and find your oxen.”
Again that insolent jeering laugh went up from the onlookers, and here an unpleasant discovery forced itself upon us. By accident or design, the crowd, which was now considerable, had closed round us on every side. A serried mass of dark, musky bodies, and grim—and it seemed threatening—faces walled us in, while requests for tobacco and other things were hurled at us in tones that savoured more of demand than petition. The aim of the savages was clear. They intended to delay our advance as long as possible. We had, rather foolishly, allowed ourselves to be led into a trap.
Then occurred the unexpected. A tall Kafir, in the forefront of the mob, pointing suddenly at Revell, ejaculated in great jeering tone—
“Hau! Ibomvu!”
And the shout ran through the whole crowd.
“Ibomvu!” roared the men. “Yau! Ibomvu!” shrilled the women in the background.
I have said something as to the effect produced upon our comrade by any allusion to his flaming poll. It seemed to drive him quite mad. It mattered not that it was uttered by one man or a thousand, the effect upon him was just the same, and this held good here. In less than a second he had put his horse straight at the original offender, and with a tough seacow-hide sjambok which dangled from his wrist was cutting into that astonished and ill-advised ruffian with the fury of a madman. On head and face and naked shoulders the terrible lash descended, and the lightning-like celerity of the attack was such as to leave neither time nor thought for resistance—the victim’s one idea—if he had even one—being to escape from that awful lash, while those around, appalled by the white, infuriated countenance, and the frenzied plunging of the horse, gave way, though not before several of them had tasted the infliction; for Revell cut impartially right and left as though he were hewing his way through with a sabre. And in effect this is just what he might have been doing, for the crowd on that side opened out in wildest confusion, of which we took advantage, and in less than a minute were a couple of hundred yards from the spot.
And now a terrific hubbub arose in our rear. A glance over our shoulders showed the crowd roaring forward on our track, while among others who had dived into the huts to arm, we could see the bright gleam of assegais.
“Face round,” cried Brian, “and aim, but for your lives don’t fire. If we can’t scare them to a halt we must turn and run. But—no shooting.”
We wrenched our horses round. The roaring, surging rush of oncoming savages poured forward, then stopped. Four gun barrels sending forth their contents into the thick of the mob would create awful havoc, and there were four more in reserve, for we each had double barrels. Besides, they knew we could gallop out of reach at no loss to ourselves. So they halted, brandishing sticks and assegais, and howling out every kind of taunting and abusive epithet.
“Ibomvu! Yau! Ibomvu!” yelled Revell, in return, making his sjambok whistle through the air as he flourished it round his head. “Come on, all of you, and taste this. I’ll cut the whole lot of you to thongs! I’ll show you how Ibomvu can burn!”
This speech, in Kafir, raised another roar of menace and defiance, but the savages were not inclined to accept the invitation therein embodied, wherefore we turned our horses’ heads, and proceeded leisurely onward.
“Go on, go on,” howled the mob after us. “Go and find your oxen! They—up yonder—will know how to talk with you.”
No further interruption occurred, and before us lay the tell-tale track, as clear as need be. At length the wooded heights rose immediately in front, and we halted for another short off-saddle.
“Now look here,” began Brian, throwing himself on the ground, and filling his pipe. “It’s evident these chaps don’t care whether we follow them or not, but I believe we shall come up with them this evening, and we shall have a little over three hours of daylight to do it in. The sort of treatment we met with just now is a good earnest of what we’ve got to expect. And there are only four of us.”
“Hooray for a row!” cried Trask.
“Yes, but we don’t want a row if it can possibly be avoided. We’re between the devil and the deep sea, which for present purposes may be taken to mean that none of us must fire a shot unless our lives depend upon it, and then, if possible, fire blank.”
This oration was interrupted, and that by a thud of approaching hoof strokes and a sound of deep voices and laughter. A track wound round the hillside lower down, and we saw about a score of mounted Kafirs sweep past, chattering and laughing at the top of their voices. It was clear that this gang was returning from a visit to some canteen, for the condition of more than one of their number was not a little precarious, swaying and lurching in their ragged saddles as they belaboured their wretched undersized steeds.
“All as drunk as pigs,” whispered Revell. “By George! That looks like Kuliso.”
A tall, finely-made man, clad in an ancient pair of trousers and a red blanket and wearing an ivory ring on his left arm rode at the head of the gang, evidently a chief, for he was rather more drunk than the rest, and seemed to occupy a greater share of attention.
“No, it isn’t,” returned Brian. “I don’t know who it is, though.” And in a trice the weird equestrians, their red blankets streaming behind them, were whirled out of sight, and having given them time to get further on their way, we resumed our own.
There was nothing in itself gloomy or forbidding in the series of densely-wooded heights which now rose in front of us. Peaceful solitude rather than lurking danger was the idea conveyed by that winding succession of deep valleys and lofty hills slumbering in the golden light of the waning afternoon, yet the network of rugged ravines we were about to penetrate had, in former times, been the scene of more than one bloody encounter wherein the advantages had all lain with the wild denizens of the place. Many a dark episode could those tangled glens have told, of patrols surprised and outnumbered in the thick bush, of brave men struck down by the assegai of the savage, or dragged off, wounded and disabled, to be put to a lingering death of torture. Even at that time the locality held an evil repute as the haunt of cattle thieves and desperate characters generally.
We crossed a kind of deep basin shut in on all sides by wooded hills, then through a narrow poort overhung by aloe-fringed krantzes widening out into just such another basin. In fact, we seemed to have got into a veritable labyrinth of such—and through my own mind, at any rate, passed the thought—How were we going to get out? Then the clamour of dogs in front, and we suddenly came upon a kraal.
“Straight on,” said Brian. “We can’t stop. No time to waste.”
The inhabitants gave us rather a sullen greeting, but made no demonstration, staring after us in lowering silence. And now the way became wilder and more rugged still, and the spoor, yet plain as ever, led us far down into a jungly glade, where the monkey ladders hung like trellis work from the twisted limbs of great yellow-wood trees, and here in the shaded gloom of the forest—for this was no mere scrub, but real forest—night seemed already to be drawing in.
“What’s this?” said Brian, turning in his saddle to look back, as a long shrill cry arose in the distance, from the direction of the kraal we had left behind us.
“I hope they are not raising the country on our heels.”
We paused and listened. The sound was repeated, far away behind us.
“Well, we must take our chance. ‘Push on’ is the word.”
For some time we rode on in silence, over the same sort of ground as I have already described. And now the sky was glowing with blades of golden effulgence, as the rays of the declining sun lengthened, touching for a moment the face of a great iron-bound krantz starting up, here and there, from the dark impenetrable bush. A pair of crimson-winged louris darted across our path, but otherwise sign of life was there none. Somehow we felt that we must be very close upon the marauders, who might number ten or a hundred. Every moment had become one of tense excitement and expectation.