Chapter Twenty Five.
The Impi.
The vedettes had signalled. Away over the veldt to the westward a pillar of dust was visible; and it was moving, drawing nearer. A group, outside the stockade, was watching it intently.
“What d’you make of it, Grunberger?” said Fullerton impatiently.
“I think dot was someone coming,” answered the storekeeper, who was looking through a pair of field-glasses. This instructive utterance evolved a laugh.
“That’s what we all think, old chap,” said Jim Steele. “What we want to know is who it’s likely to be. White or black, or blue or green, or what?”
“Dot was one white man and one Matabele,” said the storekeeper, still intently scanning the approaching dust. “Ach! und they ride like de devil.”
“Here, let’s have a look in, Grunberger,” cried Fullerton. “I may know who it is.”
The other resigned the glasses, and after a long look, during which the two mounted figures drew rapidly nearer, Fullerton exclaimed—
“By Jove, I do! It’s Driffield—Driffield and a boy.”
The excitement became intense. Nobody would push his horses at that pace on a hot day unless he were a born fool—which Driffield was not. Clearly there must be somebody behind him, from whom he had a strong interest in getting away.
“How about telling the captain?” suggested someone.
“Not yet,” cut in Peters, who had just joined the group. “Lamont’s sound asleep, and he needs it too, for to my knowledge he hasn’t shut his eyes for four nights. Time enough when we hear what’s in the wind.”
And that was not to be long. Driffield rolled from his horse panting with excitement and hard riding, and his tale was very soon told, and his experience was closely akin to that of Peters. He had been set upon in his camp that morning by three of his boys, but at the same time he had discovered a number of natives making for his camp at no great distance. He killed two assailants with his shot-gun, and the third took to his heels. Meanwhile, with great presence of mind, the other boy, who had remained faithful, had quickly saddled up the ponies, and the two had got away, but only just in time, for the crowd was beginning to fire at them. But on the road they were forced to make a sudden détour to avoid a big impi, which was heading straight in this direction.
“That’s news!” said Peters. “They’re likely coming for this place, expecting only to find Grunberger, all childlike and confiding. Ah!”
Again the vedette was signalling, and all eyes turned instinctively in the same direction as before. There, sure enough, where the first dust column had been sighted, arose another; no narrow thread this time but a very volume.
“That’s them, right enough,” said Driffield, while refreshing. “Let my boy have some skoff, will you, Grunberger. He’s jolly well earned it.”
If the news brought by the Native Commissioner was a source of vivid excitement to all present, no less was theirs to him. He had calculated on warning Grunberger, and if needful giving him a hand in moving his family to Gandela, which he would have had time to do while the Matabele were looting his possessions; instead of which he found the place quite strongly garrisoned, and indeed, considering its defensive facilities, it might be held against very considerable odds. And thus to hold it was the resolve of all there.
“By Jove, but you fellows were in luck,” he said regretfully. “I wish I had been there. And Miss Vidal—why, she’s splendid.”
“I can tell you she saved the whole outfit, by preventing the niggers getting at the mules before we came up,” went on his informant. “I had it from Fullerton she shot three with her own hand.”
“Three mules?”
“No—niggers—don’t be a silly ass, Driffield. Only don’t make any allusion to it when you see her. She wants to forget it.”
“Of course. Any nice girl would. And she—by Jove, she’s splendid!”
“You’re not alone in that opinion,” said the other so significantly as to draw the obvious query—
“Why?”
“Well,” lowering his voice, “Lamont seems to be making powerful running in that quarter. In fact he pretty well gave the show away in his wild eagerness to start after them the moment he heard Fullerton’s crowd was on the road at all.”
Whereby it is manifest that Lamont’s secret was not quite such a secret as he—and the sharer of it—imagined.
He, the while, together with others, was watching the approaching dust-cloud, and a council of war was held. Most were in favour of allowing the raiders to approach quite close, and then surprise them with a raking volley. This followed up quickly by another and another could not fail to demoralise them utterly. Meanwhile the pickets came riding rapidly in.
“Large force of Matabele coming up the road, sir,” reported the first.
“Right. Every man to his post,” ordered Lamont. His expression of countenance grew anxious, as soon the impi swung into view, marching in close formation, and divided into three companies—the largest and central of which kept the road, hence the dust-cloud. For he estimated that it could not be less than a thousand strong, and how was his small force going to hold its own against a determined rush on the part of such overwhelming odds?
The impi, as it drew near, presented an imposing spectacle. The warriors were in their national fighting gear. Quite half of them had been herders or mine boys for the settlers and prospectors—some perchance store-hands in the townships, but all had discarded the tattered shirt and trousers, or ragged hat, and their bronze bodies were bedecked with feather and bead adornments, and cow-tails, and monkey skins, and jackal-teeth necklaces—all of which, from a spectacular point of view, constituted an immense improvement. Then, too, the forest of great tufted shields, white or black, red or variegated, the quivering rattle of assegai hafts, making weird accompaniment to the gong-like roar of the deep voices as they marched, singing—assuredly the sight was a martial and inspiring one; but of those who beheld it their leader was not the only one to think that he might have appreciated it more fully if this enclosure contained not less than a hundred good white men instead of a bare three dozen.
The latter were watching through the chinks in the stockade—these in many places formed natural loopholes, where they did not they were made to. How long would it be before the word was given to fire? was the one thought in possession of each tense, strained mind. Then, suddenly, the advancing host came to a halt.
Clearly the Matabele were not quite satisfied as to the place being so innocent-looking and deserted as they had expected. For one thing, there were no horses or cattle grazing about anywhere within sight, these, of course, having been brought within at the earliest alarm. This looked suspicious.
They were obviously holding a consultation, but had lowered their voices so as not to be heard by whoever might be inside. Then about a score of them, leaving the others, came a little nearer.
“Ho, Gumbega,” called out one, hailing the storekeeper by the nearest approach to his name that the native tongue could roll itself round. “Are you from home that your gate is all barred up and made extra strong?”
“No, I am here,” replied Grunberger, in obedience to a whisper from Lamont. “But that was done by the captain’s orders.”
“The captain! What captain?”
“The captain of about a hundred men who arrived here yesterday. Look at all the rifles.”
There was no mistake as to this. Rifle barrels protruded through the chinks so that the whole of that side of the stockade seemed to glisten with them. The savages were obviously nonplussed. A strongly defended place containing a hundred well-armed whites—or even half that number—constituted a nut which, large as their own force was, they did not care to crack—at any rate not just then. So without a word those who had come forward returned to the main body, and the whole impi resumed its way, taking care to let them see, however, that it had no intention of drawing any nearer to the place.
“Come out and look, Lucy,” said Clare, who had been dividing her attention between watching what was going on and trying to reassure her terrified sister. “It’s a splendid sight, and we don’t get an opportunity of seeing a big Matabele regiment on the march every day, and in full war-paint too.”
“A splendid sight! Ugh, the horrible wretches! I never want to set eyes on them again.”
And the speaker shuddered, and stopped her ears as though to shut out the receding thunder of the marching song.
“But, Mrs Fullerton, there’s nothing to be frightened of,” urged the storekeeper’s wife. “They’re going right away.”
An idea struck Clare. Going outside, the first person she ran against was Lamont.
“Piers,” she said in a low tone, “where are they going?”
“I suspect they are making straight for Gandela.”
“Will they—take it?”
“No reason why they should, if only Orwell and Isard have condescended to act on my repeated warning, and put the place into a state of defence.”
“And if not—?”
He looked at her for a moment without answering. Then he said—
“In that case these will have things all their own way.”
“How awful!”
“Well, we must hope for the best.”
“What if we had started to return there to-day?” she said suddenly, “We should have had to reckon with these. The mules are in no condition to travel out properly, and they could soon have overhauled us.”
“Ah!”
Then she subsided into silence. Even her courageous spirit had fallen upon a kind of reaction. The morning had been so bright and happy, and now a shadow of horror and gloom seemed to have darkened upon the land. Bloodshed, massacre everywhere, would it never pass? The other seemed to read her thoughts.
“Do not give way to depression, my Clare,” he said. “Keep up your own brave heart. We are quite safe here, with ordinary precaution, and you may be sure that nothing of that will be wanting. This cloud will pass, and all will be brighter than ever.”
“I seem to have a presentiment. Oh, it is horrible! And there is bloodshed on my hands too.”
“There is none,” he replied emphatically. “No, none. What you were forced to do to defend the life of your helpless sister does not count for one single moment. Darling, did we not settle all that last evening?”
“Yes, we did. You are a born comforter, dearest. But I believe it is my love for you that is making a coward of me. What if—if I lost you before this horrible war is over?”
“Now—now—now!” adopting a rallying tone, although thrilled to the heart by her words. “You must not indulge in these fancies or my bright and winsome Clare will be quite somebody else. I shall have to call Peters to cheer you up. See how he is keeping those jokers in a roar over there.”
This was a fact, but not an accident. Peters, ever watchful where his idolised friend was concerned, had gathered together quite a crowd, a little way apart, and was clearly regaling it with abundant humour—which he possessed—and this with the sole intent that these two should have a little time together uninterrupted.
“Yes, he can be very entertaining,” said Clare. “And I like him so much. Do you know, darling, he simply adores you.”
“I know he does his level best to make me beastly conceited.”
“He told me how you risked your life to save his during the retreat on the Shangani.”
“Did he, confound him! Then it was a distinct act of mutiny, for he’s under strict orders to let that well-worn chestnut be forgotten. I’ll have him put under arrest for disobedience to orders, since by popular vote I seem to have been put in command here.”
“But you weren’t in command here when he told me, so you can’t come down upon him. How’s that?” and she laughed brightly.
“In that case I suppose I can’t,” he allowed, rejoicing greatly that she had shaken off her vein of depression. “But you know, dearest, that sort of thing was done over and over again during that very Shangani business, for one, by other men, and nobody thought of making a fuss about it. It was taken quite as a matter of course, and naturally it genuinely annoys me when Peters tries to make a sort of scissors and paste-pot hero of me.”
“I shall claim the right to reserve my own opinion, all the same,” she declared with mock loftiness. “By the way, who is Mr Peters? He seems something of a mystery.”
“Yes. He delights in humbugging the curious. Nobody is ever an atom the wiser concerning him.”
“But—you know.”
“Yes, I know all about him.”
“And—you won’t tell me?”
“No.”
It came out quite naturally but quite decisively.
“Then you will have secrets from me?”
“Other people’s secrets—certainly.”
“And—your own?”
“I haven’t got any.”
During this apparent skirmish they had been looking each other straight in the eyes. But the skirmish was only apparent. “Oh, I do love a man who knows his own mind,” said the girl delightedly. “Why, I was not even trying you, for I knew beforehand what your answer would be.”
“I know you were not. Well, if you really want to know anything about Peters, the only possible way of doing so is to—ask Peters.”
Then they both laughed—laughed long and heartily.