Chapter Twenty Nine.
Left Behind.
Even though the rescue party failed in its object in so far that no rescue was effected, still, it is more than probable that it was the saving of Denham’s life—for the present; for it had drawn off the savages and had given the wounded man time, when he recovered consciousness, to crawl into the most secure hiding-place he could find. This was in the thick of a clump of bushes, whose overhanging boughs formed a sort of natural pavilion.
In the darkness and general mêlée his fall had been unperceived, or he would have been cut to pieces then and there. He had lost his rifle, but still had his revolver and cartridges. That was something. Yet, when all was said and done, here was he alone, in the heart of a now hostile country, every hand against him did he but show himself anywhere, without food or means of procuring any, for even did he meet with game he dared not fire a shot for fear of attracting the attention of his enemies.
It was with vast relief that he discovered that his injury, though painful, was not serious. He could only conjecture that he had received a numbing blow just behind the left shoulder from a heavy knobkerrie hurled with tremendous force, and such indeed was the case. At first it seemed as though his shoulder was broken. It had swelled as though it would burst his coat, but it was only a contusion, though a severe and painful one.
Lying low in the welcome darkness of his hiding-place he could hear deep-toned voices all round him, some quite near. The impi had returned from its pursuit of the rescue party, and was searching for its dead and wounded. Here was a fresh element of danger. What if they should light upon him? Then the only course left open would be to sell his life as dearly as possible.
He could hear voices now quite close to his hiding-place. They were coming straight for him. Crouching there in the gloom, hardly daring to breathe, he unbuttoned his holster. It was empty! In the excruciating pain of his injury he had not noticed its unusual lightness. The pistol was gone. He had dropped it when falling from the horse. He was totally unarmed, and to that extent utterly helpless.
Not ten yards from his hiding-place the voices stopped. He could hear some swift ejaculations, then a groan, then another and deeper one. He had not made sufficient progress, under Verna’s tuition, to be able to make out what was being said, but he gathered that they had found a wounded comrade. Heavens! but what if the latter had seen or heard him, and should put them on his track, perhaps under the impression that he was one of themselves and needed succour?
Then something dug him as with a sharp sting, then another, then another. It was as though burning needles were being thrust into him, but he dared not move. Then another. It was literally maddening. He conjectured he had got into the vicinity of a nest of black ants, but he could not lie still thus to be devoured alive. They had managed somehow to get inside his clothing, nor dared he move either to crush or dislodge them; and the incident brought back stories he had heard from Ben Halse and others of the old-time way of torturing those accused of witchcraft: spreadeagling them over an ants’ nest to be eaten alive. The thought was not a pleasant one, bearing in mind his own helplessness, and now, did he fall into the hands of those without, such might conceivably be his own fate.
The voices had ceased. He heard a peculiar sound, then a rumbling noise as of a heavy body struggling upon the earth in the agonies of death. Then the voices were raised again, but now receding. Soon they were silent altogether.
Given a little exertion, and South Africa, by reason of the dryness of its atmosphere, is one of the most thirsty climates in the world, wherefore, now a burning thirst which had been growing upon Denham reached maddening point. At all costs he must slake it, but how—where? He knew that the Gilwana River made a bend which would bring it up to about a mile from the scene of the fight. Was it safe to venture forth? Well, he must risk it.
All seemed quiet now. The moon was rising, and he remembered how at that time barely twenty-four hours ago he and Ben Halse had given the alarm which ushered in the fight at Minton’s store. Since then another stubborn fight, and now here was he, a helpless fugitive, who more likely than not would be a dead one at any moment.
A few yards and he nearly stumbled over something lying there. It was a dead body. Stooping over it in the gathering moonlight, Denham made out that it was that of a Zulu of good proportions. It was horribly mangled about both legs, the result of a Dum-dum bullet, but there was a stab in the chest from which blood was still oozing. Now he knew the meaning of the mysterious sounds he had heard. The man had been killed by his comrades, probably at his own request, because he was too badly injured to make it worthwhile carrying him off the field.
He turned away from the corpse in repulsion and horror, and as he did so the whites of the sightless eyeballs seemed to roll round as if to follow him. He felt faint and weak. There was a little whisky in his flask, and this, although of no use at all for thirst-quenching purposes, was good as a “pick-me-up.” At last the purling ripple of the river sounded through the still dawn in front. Another effort and the bank is gained.
The bank, yes. But the stream flowing down yonder between this and the other clay bank cannot be reached from here, short of diving into it, but the lay and nature of the soil points to dangerous quicksands underlying that smoothly flowing reach. With a curse of bitter disappointment, his strength weakening with every step, he turns away, to spend another half-hour in scrambling through dongas and thorns and long grass till an accessible point may be found, and all to the accompaniment of the musical water rippling merrily in his ears.
At last! Shelving down to the water’s edge, a beautiful smooth grassy sward, overhung by forest trees. The fugitive throws himself on the brink and takes a long, long, cool drink, and it is cool at the hour before sunrise. Then, infinitely refreshed, he sits up.
What is there in this flow of river, in the silence of the forest, that brings back another memory, the memory of a repulsive, agonised face; of the last shriek as the wretch is dragged under? He himself is now in well-nigh as hopeless a case. Again between himself and Verna has come Fate. Can it be that this tribute is to be exacted from him for that other’s blood? Exhausted, despairing, he sits there on the river bank. Well may he despair. Unarmed and foodless, how shall he ever succeed in finding his way back to safety?
What is that? The sound of voices coming along the river bank, and with it the unmistakable rattle of assegai-hafts. Wildly he looks around. There is nowhere to hide. In a minute they will be upon him. Ha! the river!
Just below, the current swirled between high banks, which in one place overhung. By gaining this point—and he was a powerful swimmer—he might lie perdu, half in, half out of the water. They would not think of looking for him there. Famished, weakened, aching from the dull pain in his shoulder, he let himself into the water, and swimming noiselessly downstream gained the desired haven just as some fifty Zulus, in full war-trappings, came out on the spot where but now he had been sitting. He could hear the sound of their deep voices, but they did not seem raised in any unusual tone of curiosity or excitement.
He was half in, half out of the water, clinging to a pile of brushwood that had been wedged in there. A ripple out on the smooth surface of the stream evoked another thought. Crocodiles! Heavens! had that same horrible fate been reserved for himself?
Minutes seemed hours. The water was cold in the early morning, and he was half numbed. Then he saw the Zulus cross the drift, holding their shields and assegais high above the water. One tall, finely built man led. Him he thought he recognised. Surely it was Sapazani.
Sapazani! The chief was on the friendliest terms with Ben Halse. Everything moved him to come forth and claim his protection, and then a more subtle instinct warned him not to. He remembered how he himself had been held in durance at the instance of that very chief, and the air of mystery that seemed to have hung over that extraordinary proceeding. They were not at war then, and he had been released. Now they were at war. No, he would not venture.
He waited until some time after all sounds of them had died away, then slid into the water again and swam quietly, and with a long side stroke, upstream to where he had entered. But before he was half-way something startling happened. The crash of a rifle—evidently from the high bank above him, together with a peculiar thud, followed immediately by the lashing and churning of the water just behind him. He looked back. Some large creature was struggling on the surface in its furious death throes. He shuddered. It was better to fall into the hands of the savages and take his chance than to consign himself to such a certain and horrible death as this. So in despair he emerged from the water, to find himself confronted by two men—a white man and a Zulu.
An indescribable revulsion of joy and security ran through him, nor was it dashed when he recognised the very mysterious recluse who had shown him hospitality on the night following the tragedy in that other river. The other was Mandevu.
“This time you yourself were about to become food for crocodiles,” said the former in a grim, expressionless way, as he emerged dripping from the stream.
“Wasn’t I? Well, you saved my life once, and I throw myself upon your help to save it again.”
“Why should I save it again?”
“Why should you have saved it once, if not again?”
“Not once, twice already, if you only knew it.”
Denham stared at him for a moment.
“Ah!” he said, as if a new light had dawned upon him. Then, in his frank, open, taking way, “Save it a third time, then, before you do so a fourth, for at present I’m simply starving.”
“That’s soon remedied.” He said a word to Mandevu, and in a minute or two the latter returned, leading a strong, serviceable-looking horse, and Denham’s eyes grew positively wolfish as they rested upon some bread and biltong which was unpacked from a saddle bag. “Now sit there in the sun and you’ll be dry in half-an-hour.”
The normal hard and cruel expression had given way to a sort of humanised softness in the brown, sun-tanned face of the stranger as he watched Denham sitting there in the newly risen sun, voraciously devouring that which was set before him. At last he said—
“You are a man of your word, Denham.”
“Oh, you know my name,” said the other cheerfully. Some instinct restrained him from suggesting that the advantage was all on one side.
“You have kept the condition which I placed upon you. Not even to Ben Halse’s daughter did you break it.”
“Now how do you know that?” And the question and the straight, frank glance accompanying it would have convinced the other, if he had needed convincing, that this was so.
“That doesn’t matter. I do know it. If I did not, you would not have walked away from Sapazani’s place so easily. In fact, you would never have got away from it at all.”
“I am sure I owe you an endless debt of gratitude,” answered Denham earnestly. “The only thing is I don’t believe you will ever give me a chance of showing it.”
“But I will; I am going to give you just such a chance before we part. But that will keep. Now—when are you going to marry Ben Halse’s daughter?”
Denham stared, then burst into a joyous laugh.
“When? As soon as ever I can, by God!”
The stranger looked at him curiously.
“Do you know why I have helped you?” he said.
“Not in the least.”
“On that account, and—on another. You were made for each other, and I could see it. I know.”
There was that in the tone, in the expression of the man’s face, that went to Denham’s heart. He, then, had a sacred memory, which had remained green all these years. Some telepathic thought seemed to convey this. He put forth his band and the other took it.
“May I ask,” he said, “if you devote life to befriending people in similar circumstances?”
The other laughed—the dry, mirthless laugh which was the only form of merriment in which he ever seemed to indulge.
“No, indeed. Once only, under similar circumstances. That was during the trouble in Matabeleland.”
“By Jove!”
Then fell an interval of silence, which neither seemed in a hurry to break. The sun mounted higher and higher, and grew hot. At length the mysterious stranger drew a parcel from his inner pocket. It was of no size, but carefully done up in waterproof wrappings.
“You have given me your word,” he said, “and you have kept it—I mean as to having met me at all. You can account for your escape, as may occur to you, but no word, no hint about me. Another condition I must impose upon you, and that is that you take no further part in the fighting here, but proceed straight to England, and deliver the contents of this packet in the quarter whither they are addressed. But the packet is not to be opened until you are on English soil. Do you agree?”
“Most certainly. Why, I owe you everything, even life.”
“Even life, as you say. And not even to the girl you love must you divulge the knowledge of my existence—the secrets between man and man are just as inviolable as those between man and woman. Well, you will be taken under safe guidance—absolutely safe, have no fear—to Ezulwini, but you will have to travel by byways, and therefore slowly. You see, I have watched every step you have taken ever since you came into the country, because I had marked you down as the one man who could carry out my purpose, and you will do it. Now, if you are rested, you can take this horse, and Mandevu will guide you to where you will find an efficient escort.”
“But—I can’t talk very well. And then, if we are attacked by a white force, what then? I only ask so as to know what to do.”
“Neither matters, and you will not be attacked. Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Then farewell. We shall never meet again, but I know you will carry out everything.”
“That I will. Good-bye.”
They clasped hands, and as Denham rode away from the spot he wondered whether he had been dreaming. At the top of the rise he looked back. The other had disappeared.
“Come, Nkose!” said Mandevu, his tall form striding on in front at the pace of the horse’s fast walk.