Volume Two—Chapter Eighteen.
Trapped.
“When did he begin to go lame, Sam?”
“About two hours the other side of this, Inkos. I had to lead him all the way here.”
Claverton bends down again to examine the horse’s leg, and the light of the stable-lantern reveals an expression of the most intense and hopeless disgust upon his face. The stable is that belonging to the inn half-way along the King Williamstown road, the hour is shortly after midnight, and he has only just arrived. He has ridden untiringly, not sparing his mount, which indeed can hardly go a pace further; and now his other horse, which he has been counting on as a relay, is dead lame. It will be remembered that he had left Sam on the road, with orders to rest his horse and follow him at leisure. Shortly after Sam had seen his master’s back disappear over the rising ground, the animal began to go lame. Carefully the Natal boy examined his feet. There was no shoe loose, no stone in the frog—no. Poor Fleck had strained a sinew, and, by dint of much toil and considerable pain, the horse managed to reach the inn with his fetlock swelled to a ball.
“Sam, I must get on; and at once. Is there no one here who could sell me a horse?” The native thought a moment. “There are two men who came down from the camp to-day, Inkos, but their horses are used up. There’s a Dutchman going up there, he has an extra horse. That’s it; this one over here,” and, taking the lantern, Sam led the way to the other end of the stable. Claverton ran his eye over the animal designated. It was a large, young horse, well put together and in tolerable condition, but it rolled the whites of its eyes and laid its ears back in suggestive fashion.
“Looks skittish,” mused Claverton, as with a wild snort the animal backed and began “rucking” at its tether, then bounding suddenly forward, came with a fracas against the rickety crib, and stood snorting and trembling and rolling its eyes. “Half-broken evidently. What’s the fellow’s name, Sam?”
“Oppermann. Cornelius Oppermann, Inkos.”
“H’m. Getting light,” he mused, opening the door and looking skywards. “Sam, I’m going to buy that brute anyhow, and go straight on at once. Now you must wait till the young horse is rested, and take him back to Payne’s. Fleck can stay here. And, Sam,” he went on in a graver tone, “you are to wait there till I come back. Do everything they tell you; and if they send you to me, come at once and as quickly as you can. You see?”
Sam looked crestfallen. He had reckoned upon accompanying his master back to the war. But with the unswerving loyalty of his race towards those whom they hold in veneration he made no demur, and promised faithfully to carry out his master’s wishes to the best of his ability.
Ten minutes later Claverton was standing on the stoep of the inn, bargaining with an unkempt, sandy-bearded Dutchman, who, hastily arrayed in his shirt and trousers, stood rubbing his eyes with the air of a man just aroused from a sound sleep; as, indeed, was the case.
“You can take him for forty-five pounds,” the latter was saying, having finished a cavernous yawn.
“Ha—ha—ha! Forty-five? Now look here, Oppermann,” answered Claverton in a chaffing, good-natured tone. “You’re not awake yet, man, or you’d remember the brute wasn’t worth a dollar more than twenty. He isn’t half-broken, to begin with.”
“Twenty. Nay, what? You shall have him for forty.”
“I rather want him, but I’m in no hurry,” was the reply. “Here’s thirty, down on the nail. Look.”
He pulled out some notes, and the Dutchman’s eyes glittered.
“Thirty-five?” he began.
“No. Thirty. Take it or—leave it.”
“Well, well. Give me the money,” and he held out his hand. But Claverton was not quite so “green” as all that.
“Here, Sam,” he called out. “Look. The Baas has sold me the horse we were looking at for thirty pounds,” and he handed over the money to the expectant Boer, thus making Sam a witness to the transaction. “Now go and saddle him up,” he continued.
“Are you starting so soon?” said Oppermann, with surprise. “I’m going up to the camp—we might ride together. Wait a little quarter of an hour.”
“Can’t wait a moment longer. Look sharp.”
The other disappeared with alacrity. He had been looking forward with some apprehension to his lonely journey across the hostile ground, and the escort and companionship of this cool, clear-headed Englishman would be a perfect godsend to him. So he soon hurried through his scant preparations, and by the time Claverton had settled with the host, and had saddled up, the Boer was nearly ready.
Two rough-looking fellows were talking to the landlord in front of the door as Claverton was about to start. They were the two referred to by Sam as having just come from the war.
“I say, Mister,” called out one of them. “You’re not going all the way alone, are you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, now—if I might be so bold as to advise—you be a bit careful. A lot more of them Kafirs have broken out, and there are gangs of ’em out all over this side of the Buffalo range, and that’s where you’ll have to cut through to reach the main camp—unless you go all the way round by ‘King,’ which’ll take you a day longer.”
“Well, I shan’t do that, anyhow. Thanks for the hint, all the same. Here, Sam.”
“Inkos?”
“Don’t forget what I told you, and—here—give this to Miss Lilian.”
“This” was a note, and the speaker’s tone trembled ever so slightly over the name.
“Yeh bo, Inkos,” replied Sam, earnestly. Then a sudden impulse seized him, and, bending down, he kissed his master’s foot as it rested in the stirrup. A vague superstitious thrill shot through Claverton’s heart. These natives were sometimes gifted with marvellous presage. Did this touching act of homage on the part of his humble follower portend that they would never see each other again. Claverton put out his hand.
“Good-bye, Sam. Mind what I told you.”
The native took it shyly. Then he turned away, his eyes sparkling as he held up his head proudly. His master had shaken hands with him—a black man. Death itself would be nothing to what he would willingly undergo for that master. Meanwhile the white spectators smiled indulgently among themselves. They did not sneer; a little of Claverton’s reputation had been noised abroad, and they respected him too much. But some of these Englishmen were such queer fellows. Shaking hands with a nigger, for instance—etcetera, etcetera!
The temporary diversion afforded by these preparations and precautions over, Claverton’s thoughts again ran in the old channel. He gazed on the mountain range in front of him, peak after peak rising up to the eternal blue, and remembered how they two had looked on them together from that very spot when all seemed so secure and propitious not much more than a couple of months before; and it was like the mocking smile of a demon, this same landscape smiling on him now in the bright fresh morning. Something or other made his mind recur to poor Herbert Spalding plunging overboard in the dead of night deliberately intending to take his own life, and the thought stung him like a spur. He would take not his own life, but that of the man who had taken what was far dearer to him than his own life. Every stride of his horse was bringing him nearer and nearer to his sure vengeance.
The sound of hoofs behind interrupted his meditations, and the Boer, whom true to his word he had not waited for a minute beyond the stipulated time, overtook him, riding at a gallop. He frowned. In no mood for conversation, he would be obliged to listen to and answer the commonplaces of this lout, and there was no getting rid of him. But the Dutchman was of the taciturn order. In half an hour his topics of conversation were used up, and he was content to jog along in silence by the side of his companion, who certainly gave him no encouragement to break it. Thus the day wore on, and by the middle of the afternoon they were in among the mountains. Hitherto there had been little sign of disturbance. They had passed a few farmsteads and a native kraal or two—the latter still inhabited by so-called “loyals,” in other words, natives who did not fight against the Goverment themselves, but assisted with supplies and information those who did. But even these habitations had ceased now, and they wound their way through the great gloomy gorges covered with dense bush, where the sentinel baboons eat and looked down upon them from many an overhanging cliff, which echoed their loud resounding bark.
Suddenly their steeds pricked up their ears, with an inquiring snort. Promptly Claverton’s revolver was in his hand, while his companion held his rifle—an excellent Martini-Henry—ready on his hip. Something was heard approaching.
“Kafirs!” exclaimed the Dutchman, excitedly.
“Tsh! No; it’s a horseman.”
It was—and a strange figure he cut as at that moment he appeared round a bend in the track. A middle-sized, plebeian-looking man, mounted on a sorry nag. His hair, and the wispy scraps of beard stuck about his parchment-coloured visage, were of a neutral tint; and a snub nose, and projecting lower jaw, in no wise prepossessed one towards the individual. He was arrayed in a rusty suit of black, and a dirty white tie was stuck half in half out of the throat of his clerical waistcoat, and he sat his horse “like a tailor;” but the most grotesque article of this out-of-keeping costume was his hat—a reduced “chimney-pot,” with a huge puggaree wound turban-wise about the crown, the ends falling down over the wearer’s back.
“Bah!” exclaimed Claverton. “Why, it’s a parson. What the deuce can he be doing here?”
The stranger’s countenance lighted up with satisfaction at sight of the pair.
“This is a relief,” he said. “I thought I should never get out of this dreadful bush alive.”
“Where were you going to?” asked Claverton. “I was going to take a short cut through to Cathcart. They told me the way was safe, and now I find it isn’t. The whole bush is full of Kafirs. I could hear them calling to each other in every direction.”
“Quite sure it wasn’t baboons?”
“Oh, yes; I saw them—hundreds of them. Luckily they didn’t see me. It was in trying to avoid them that I lost myself.”
“Where did you say they were?” went on Claverton. He had formed no very high opinion of his new acquaintance, who informed him that his name was Swaysland, and that he was a missionary.
“Over in that next kloof. But you are not going on, surely? The way is not safe, indeed it is not.”
“We are, though—straight. But I—”
The words were cut short, for the young horse, all unbroken as it was, gave a violent shy, which, taking its rider unawares, nearly unseated him, so unexpected was it. And, simultaneously, several red forms rose up amid the bushes three hundred yards in their rear and poured in a rattling volley, but, as usual, firing well over the heads of their destined victims.
“By Jove! there they are,” cried Claverton. “Come along; there’s no turning back now. We must ride like the devil,” and he spurred along the path followed closely by the other two. At least two hundred Kafirs sprang up and started in pursuit, discharging their pieces as they leaped from cover with a fierce shout, and the bullets whistled around the fugitives with a sharp, shrill hiss.
“Come on, Mr Swaysland. Spur up that nag of yours; we shall get a good start here,” cried Claverton, as they reached a comparatively open plateau of about a mile in extent. But it was uphill ground and rough withal, and the pursuers were only too evidently gaining on them.
Pphit! Pphit! A bullet ploughs up the ground almost between the very hoofs of Claverton’s horse, while another splinters itself against a stone just in front.
“The devil! It’s getting lively,” he ejaculated as, without slackening speed, he looked round for a target for his revolver. The missionary was deathly white, and cut a grotesque figure, spurring up his seedy animal, almost holding on round its neck, while the flaps of his long-tailed coat and the ends of his puggaree streamed out behind him. For the life of him Claverton could not repress a laugh.
Suddenly the Dutchman lurches in his saddle and falls headlong to the ground—shot dead by one of the pursuers, whose bullet has entered between the shoulders—probably to the great surprise of the marksman. His horse, terrified, starts off, dragging him in the stirrup for a few paces, then his foot disentangles itself and he lies an inanimate heap. With a wild-beast howl the savages bound forward, and Claverton, glancing over his shoulder, can see a score of assegais flash and gleam blood-red in the sunshine, as the fierce warriors crowd round the ill-fated Boer, literally cutting him to pieces.
Like wolves delayed in the pursuit of a sledge by a forestalment of the prey which must eventually be theirs, the Kafirs halt for a moment, each eager to bury his spear-head in the body of the fallen man; but it is only for a moment. With a wild yell of triumph they press on—thirsting for more blood. A sudden groan from his companion causes Claverton to turn his head. Is he hit, too? The missionary’s face is livid with terror, and following the glance of the staring, dilated eyeballs—dilated with a fear that has almost mania in it—all hope dies within him. A dense swarm of Kafirs is issuing from the bush immediately in front, and the two white men are thus securely caught, as in a trap. For on the only side left open falls a huge precipice, down which nothing breathing can go—and live.
“God help us?” exclaimed the missionary. “We are lost,” and he fell to the ground in a dead faint.
Claverton reins in his horse, and confronts the savages, with a calm brow and revolver in hand. Death has overtaken him at last. He has stared the grim Monarch in the face full oft, but now his time has come. He feels that his lucky star has set; his meeting with Lilian yesterday—only yesterday—was the beginning of the end. What can a man do when his star has set? All this runs through his mind like a lightning-flash.
It is a marvellous picture, that last scene in the awful drama on this lonely mountain top. The sweet golden sunshine falls upon a crowd of bounding shapes, sweeping forward in a fast diminishing semicircle, and the still air is rent with fiendish howls. Eyeballs roll with a merciless gleam, white teeth are bared in grinning triumph, and the pointed blades of the assegais bristle like a forest among the leaping, naked red bodies. And turning to confront this hideous array—calmly awaiting the approach of his destroyers, this one man—cool, fearless, and noble-looking—sits his horse, whose terrified restiveness he can scarcely curb with one hand, while in the other he holds his revolver in a firm, steady grasp. Before him, the spears of the savage host; behind, the awful brow of the cliff. A ghastly choice.
The Kafirs have ceased firing and are advancing eagerly to secure their prey. They will take him alive.
“Ha, ha, ha!” A mocking laugh goes up from their midst. “You are in a trap, white man. Better yield!” cry some; while others, eager for such a rare spectacle as a man taking a flying leap into four hundred feet of space, wave their weapons and shout madly in the hope of terrifying the horse and driving it over.
“Does even a wolf yield without biting?” is the cold, scornful answer. Not a dozen paces lie between him and the brink of the precipice, towards which he is backing his horse, step by step.
Fifty yards—forty—thirty. They approach more leisurely now, sure of their capture.
He raises his revolver and fires. One of the foremost falls headlong upon the ground, clutching it with his hands, as his body quivers in the throes of death. But the young horse, maddened by the sudden flash and report and the onward rush of the advancing crowd, plunges and rears, uttering a frenzied squeal. Three steps more. No power short of a miracle can save him now. The frantic hoof-strokes rip up the sward in long furrows—and then a plunge—a slide and a struggle—they are gone! Horse and man have disappeared. A moment of dead silence—a crash and a dull thud is heard far beneath. And then a wild shout—in which awe, and admiration, and baffled rage are all mingled—arises from the savages, one and all of whom press forward to peer over the giddy height.
Nothing can they see, however. A few leaves and broken twigs, scattered by the fall of a heavy body through the tangled bushes sprouting here and there from a crevice or ledge in the face of the cliff, float upon the air; beneath, the great sweep of dense bush lies silent and unbroken; a few vultures glide lazily off from the rugged cliffs opposite, looking in the distance like great white feathers as they soar over the broad valley; but nothing is to be seen lying below, neither horse nor man. At length their keen eyes detected a spot where the bush was slightly displaced.
“Ha—there he is! Good. His bones will be like the stamped mealies in the mortar, after that jump. Aow!”
A low laugh greeted this speech, and the Kafirs were about to turn away in quest of fresh excitement, when one of their number—a tall, evil-looking barbarian—who had been lying flat on his stomach narrowly scanning the bush beneath, exclaimed:
“Wait. Are you going to leave him on the chance of his being dead? He may not be dead, I tell you. He may not be even hurt.”
A mighty shout of laughter greeted this utterance.
“Ha, ha! Not dead—not even hurt! Whaaow! What madness! Is the white man a bird, that he can fly down there? Did any one see his wings?” Such were the derisive comments on the proposal of the first speaker, who waited with a sneer upon his face until they had done, and then went on:
“He is not a bird, but he is something else. He is a wizard—a devil. I tell you I know this white man. He is no ordinary man. I have seen him escape where no one but a wizard could have done it; not once, but twice, three times. Now, are you sure he is dead? Will you leave it to chance?”
A murmur of mingled assent and incredulity rose from the listeners. Some shook their heads and smiled scornfully, but the majority evidently thought there was “something in it.”
“And even if he is dead,” continued the first speaker. “Even if he is dead, what a war-potion could be made out of the heart of such a man! Haow!”
This decided them, and, with a ferocious hum of anticipation, they started off to descend into the valley round the end of the cliff, and make sure of their prey; leaving a few behind to secure the missionary.
The unfortunate preacher was still lying where he had fallen in a faint, and the Kafirs had been too fully occupied with their principal foe to pay any attention to him. Now, however, they clustered round him, examining him curiously.
“Get up, white man!” cried one of the party, roughly, adding force to the injunction by a sharp prick with his assegai. The victim gave a groan and opened his eyes, but shut them again with a gasp of terror, and a prayer for mercy escaped his lips at the sight of the scowling dark faces and gleaming assegai points, some of them red with blood.
A muttered consultation took place. The captive must be taken to the chief, Sandili. He was the first white man captured alive during the war.
“Whaow! It is not a warrior, it is a miserable Umfundisi,” (Preacher) said the most important man of the group, with a contemptuous scowl on his fierce, wrinkled countenance. “We shall frighten him to death if we are not careful. Here, Umfundisi!” he continued in a persuasive tone. “Get up. We are not going to hurt you. Don’t be frightened.”
The poor missionary could hardly believe his ears.
“No, no. I am not frightened,” he replied, in a quavering voice, sitting up and looking around; while several of the younger Kafirs spluttered with laughter at his abject appearance. “No, no—you will not hurt me; I am your friend. I like the Kafirs. You know me—I am a man of peace—not a fighting man—a man of peace.”
The savage leader contemplated him with a sneer upon his face, then with a muttered injunction to the rest, he turned away with a grunt of contempt, whisking the tops off the grass-stalks with his knobkerrie as he strode off in the direction taken by the bulk of the party. A scream of terror arose from the unfortunate missionary. His hands had already been tied behind him; and just then one of the young Kafirs, in sheer devilment, jerked his head back and held the cold edge of an assegai against his throat. The unhappy prisoner thought his hour had come, and closed his eyes, shuddering. A roar of laughter arose from the spectators, and his tormentor let go of him, uttering a disdainful “click.”
“Take care,” warned one of the older men. “You’ll kill him with fear, among you. That won’t do. He must be taken to the Great Chief.”
Meanwhile the searching party had reached the base of the cliff and were working their way along with some difficulty through the bush, while two men remained above to designate the exact spot where the fugitive had fallen. So dense and tangled was the profuse vegetation that it was some time before they could find it, and the rock above, half veiled by largish trees growing up against its surface, afforded no clue. Suddenly a shout announced that the object of their search was found. There, in a hollow formed by its own weight, lay the unfortunate horse. Its legs were doubled under its body, the bones in many places had started through the skin, and it was horribly mangled. The girths had given way and the saddle lay, bent and scratched, partly detached from the carcase. It was a horrid sight.
By twos and threes the Kafirs straggling up, clustered around with exclamations of astonishment. Then a shout arose:
“Where is the white man?”
They looked at one another in blank amazement. There was the horse, sure enough—but—where was the rider?
Where, indeed? The ground all round had been carefully searched, and, unless he was gifted with wings as some of them had derisively suggested, he could not have escaped, for at that point the cliff was sheer. Involuntarily they glanced upwards as if they half expected to see him soaring in the air, laughing at them. They turned over the carcase of the horse, with a kind of forlorn hope that he might be lying crushed beneath—but no—he was not there, nor had they even expected he would be. Fairly puzzled they shook their heads, and a volley of ejaculations expressing astonishment, dismay, even alarm, gave vent to their unbounded surprise.
“There is no trace. He has disappeared into air?” they said.
From all this discussion the tall barbarian who had first suggested the search, had stood aloof. Now he struck in with a kind of “I told you so” expression in his look and voice:
“Did I not say that the white man was a wizard? Who laughs now? Where is he? Where is the man who jumped from yon height?”
He might well ask. For of the fugitive, alive or dead, there was absolutely no trace. Had his body stuck in one of the trees, or rested on a ledge? No. Those above could see every projection in the rock, and the trees were free from any such burden. And around the spot where the horse lay and on to which it had fallen straight, there was no sign or shadow of a footmark to show whither the human performer of that fearful leap had betaken himself, even if he had reached the ground alive—which was impossible. He had melted into air, and it was nearly evening; to continue the search would be useless.