HOW THE VOW WAS KEPT
A year had gone by since that memorable night, and had brought great events in its train.
The power at which all India had so lately trembled was now broken at once and for ever. At Delhi, at Laswaree, at Assaye, at Argaum, the Mahratta conquerors of Central India, with all odds of numbers and artillery in their favour, had fought gallantly to maintain their well-won renown; but numbers and artillery alike, and the utmost efforts of reckless valour, were all vain against the unconquerable "white faces from the West." From the Indian Ocean to the Bay of Bengal, not one native army was left that could look the soldiers of England in the face; and, both at home and throughout India, all men were full of the marvellous exploits of a promising young British commander, then known only as General Wellesley, but ere long to fill the whole world with the fame of the Duke of Wellington.
The East India Company's army had been increased by the formation of several new regiments; and one of the best of these was now commanded by Colonel Hardman, who had been transferred to a newly-built fort about a day's march from his former post at Huttee-Ghur.
Freddy was by this time quite well and strong again; but his father—from whose mind the haunting terror of that fearful summer was never wholly absent—had fully made up his mind to deprive himself of his son's company altogether, rather than take the risk of keeping him any longer in the fatal climate of India; and it had been settled that as soon as the country was quiet enough to make travelling safe, the boy should be sent down to Calcutta, and put on board of the first ship for England.
Evening was just beginning to darken into night, when a gaunt, haggard, wild-looking man in native dress, with a long gun on his shoulder, dragged his weary limbs heavily out of the matted thickets that fringed both sides of the road leading north-eastward to the border of Oude, and threw himself on the ground with a surly oath, which was hoarsely echoed by two other figures, as ragged and dusty as himself, that came creeping out after him.
Curiously enough, though all three were dressed as Hindus, and were very nearly as dark in complexion, they all spoke in English.
"Plenty o' dead wood for a fire, anyhow," growled the first man; "but wot's the use? It's jist like our luck, ain't it, Tom, to have a good fire and nothin' to cook at it!"
"Well, it'll keep the tigers off, if it does nothin' else," said Tom Tuffen; "though, if they was to eat us, Bob," added he, with a meaning glance at his own lean hands, "they'd have pretty nigh as poor a supper as we're a-goin' to have ourselves."
"Why, there's some o' them chupatties (thin flour cakes) left yet, ain't there, Sam?" cried Bob Burton sharply.
"Two apiece, Bob—that's all!" replied Sam Black, producing the scanty provisions as he spoke, while his two comrades hastily scraped together and set on fire a heap of dead twigs and withered leaves, round which the wanderers stretched themselves in moody silence.
The meagre meal was eaten without a word; and, in truth, the three outcasts had but too good reason to be so silent and gloomy.
After the breaking up of the robber band which they had joined, they had taken service with one native prince after another, and had passed through all the vicissitudes of wild Eastern warfare. Now revelling in short-lived luxury—now fighting for their lives against terrible odds—now heading a mutiny for arrears of pay, and sacking the palace of their so-called master—one week filling their pockets with precious stones and gold mohurs (to be instantly flung away in the wildest freaks of excess), and then a week later, struggling half-starved through swamp and jungle, with a swarm of merciless foes in hot pursuit—they had compressed into those few months the perils and adventures of a whole lifetime.
And what had all this profited them? Nothing. All their rich gains, all their daring feats, had left them as poor, and destitute, and hopeless as before.
In fact, their future seemed even darker than their past; for no one knew better than they that the savage despot of Oude—for whose court they were now making, as a last resource—even should he admit them among his soldiers, might any day reward them for their services by torturing them to death, or flinging them to the crocodiles of the Goomtee.[5]
"I'll tell yer wot hurts me most," muttered Bob Burton at last, in the tone of a man thinking aloud, rather than actually addressing his comrades; "to think o' them pals of our'n in the old regiment fightin' like men agin them coffee-coloured' heathens, one agin a dozen—and lickin' 'em too, every time—and every one in the old country's a-praisin' them, and calling 'em 'eroes; and we—wot have we been doin' all the while? Why, thievin' and murderin' along with a lot o' sneakin' blackamoors!"
"Aye," cried Tom Tuffen fiercely, "that's jist how I felt that time at Krishnabad, when I axed that old sepoy as comed there with the major, to give me a drink o' water. D'ye remember wot the old chap said? 'Ismail Beg gives his lotah (brass cup) to no man who is not worthy. I am a nimmuk-wallah[6]—I have been true to my salt; but what art thou?' Now, how do you think a Englishman feels when he finds out that even a common blackamoor's ashamed of him!"
"And d'ye see that 'ere flag yonder?" added Sam Black grimly, as he pointed to the British colours that waved jauntily in the last gleam of sunset, above the low white wall of a fort not more than a mile away. "That's the English flag, that is; and here be three Englishmen as daren't show their faces a-nigh it!"
Then followed a long and gloomy silence, each of the three unhappy men being wholly absorbed in his own sombre thoughts, as if they had now begun to realise, for the first time, the full depth of their degradation, and felt at last the whole bitterness of the harrowing contrast between what they might have been and what they were.
"It's all his fault!" muttered Bob Burton at length, his voice sounding strange and hollow amid the deepening darkness. "If he hadn't druv us to it, we wouldn't have j'ined Kala Bagh's riff-raff; and if we hadn't took up with them, we shouldn't ha' been where we are now. By Jingo, if I could have a wish granted me just this very minute, I knows wot it 'ud be!"
"To cotch 'im somewhere by hisself, and pay him out once for all—eh, Bob?" said Tom Tuffen, in a hoarse whisper.
Burton nodded silently, and Sam Black gave an assenting growl, as deadly in its meaning as the hiss of a rattlesnake.
But that menacing sound died away into a stifled gasp of terror, as there started out all at once from the encircling blackness into the ring of light cast by the fire—plain before the startled eyes of all three—a slender white figure, and a bright, smooth, child-like face, framed in golden hair!
"Is it a h'angel, Bob?" asked Sam Black, in a tremulous whisper.
"Is it a h'angel?"
"A h'angel, you fool!" said Burton, with grim scorn; "what have h'angels got to do with the likes of us? It's the devil as we b'longs to, and he'll have his own some day!"
But, at the sound of Burton's voice, the apparition sprang forward and called out joyfully, in accents that were familiar to them all—
"Is that you, Bob? Oh, I am so glad! Come along with me, quick!"
And the desperate man suddenly felt his hard, bony hand clutched by the small, soft fingers of a child.
"Why, if it ain't the little 'un hisself!" cried Sam Black, in a tone of joyful recognition, as he laid his strong hand caressingly on the boy's shoulder.
"How come you here, laddie, all by yourself?" asked Tom Tuffen, stepping forward on the other side.
"Father—come and help father!" was Freddy's only reply, as he caught hold of Tom's arm with his other hand.
"What, is he with you?" cried Burton, with a sudden and terrible change on his worn face, which was instantly answered by a murderous gleam in the eyes of his two comrades.
"The horse came down with us—it took fright at your fire, I think—and my father fell with his leg under it—and I tried to pull him out, and couldn't; so then I ran to fetch help."
The three castaways exchanged looks of terrible meaning, without uttering a word.
Seldom indeed have such men been tried by such a temptation. Here was the vengeance for which they had just been longing, placed all at once within their very grasp. Here was the man whom they most hated in all the world, lying bruised and helpless, and wholly at their mercy; and even if they did not care to kill him themselves, all that was needed was simply to leave him to his fate. But then the boy—the boy—!
"Make haste—how slow you are!" cried Freddy imperiously. "Come and get him out—quick!"
And, as if his overwhelming excitement had really made him stronger, for the moment, than the two big, hardy men whom he was urging on, both made a step forward as he spoke, with the mechanical, unconscious movement of men walking in their sleep.
But hardly had they turned toward the high-road (close beside which lay the hollow wherein the colonel and his horse had fallen), when the whole forest shook with a terrific roar—the roar of a hungry tiger springing on its prey.[7]
"Oh, the tiger—the tiger!" screamed Freddy, "he'll get father!"
And he flew like an arrow in the direction of the sound.
If ever Bob and his comrades had run in their lives, they did so then. But ere they could reach the fatal spot, there came a second roar, louder and fiercer than the last—a wild, despairing cry—and then all was still.
When the tiger made his spring upon the prostrate horse and rider, the cool old soldier, unarmed and helpless as he was, did not give himself up for lost even then, shrewdly guessing that between a large and well-fed horse and a lean dried-up man, the monster's choice would be soon made.
And so it proved. One crunch of the destroyer's mighty jaws broke the poor beast's neck, and in a moment more the tiger was rending the yet quivering carcass with tooth and claw.
And now, could the colonel have lain still where he was, all might yet have gone well. The tiger, when gorged, would probably have gone off without troubling itself about him; nay, it might perhaps have dragged away the dead horse to serve it for a second meal, and thus have freed the imprisoned man from the weight that kept him down.
But it was not to be. The pain of that heavy pressure on his hurt limb made him impatient; and his hitherto unyielding nerves were sorely shaken (as, in truth, they might well be) by thus hearing, close to his very face, the tearing of his favourite horse piecemeal by the cruel fangs that might at any moment be buried in his own flesh. Feeling the pressure of the dead beast lightened for an instant as the tiger tugged at it and rocked it to and fro, he imprudently attempted to drag himself out from beneath it.
It was a fatal error. The moment he stirred, the tiger was upon him!
For one instant, while his thick military cloak hampered the monster's teeth, he saw the fierce yellow eyes glare into his, and felt the hot, foul, rank breath steaming on his face. Instinctively he uttered one last cry for help—and then—!
There was a trample of hurrying feet—a hoarse shout—the crackle of three shots fired in quick succession—and the terror of the jungle lay dead over his victim's body, just as a native patrol, alarmed by the noise, came racing up to the spot.
Hardman was promptly freed, and, to his son's vast relief, proved to have escaped with unbroken bones, though sorely bruised and shaken; for the tiger's fangs had not reached him, and the trench into which he had fallen had saved him from the full weight of the horse's body.
The lights carried by the patrol, as well as the cloudless splendour of the rising moon, made the whole scene as clear as day; and Colonel Hardman at once recognised his three rescuers, who, seeing that he knew them, and cut off from escape by the coming-up of the native soldiers, stood waiting in sullen silence to hear what he would say.
"I don't ask who you are, and I don't want to know," said the colonel to them, with a peculiar emphasis which all three fully understood. "I can see that you are Englishmen, and that you have been down on your luck; and, at all events, I owe you a good turn for saving my life. You look like the sort of fellows that I should like to have as recruits for my new regiment—what do you say?"
What they said no one heard save themselves and the colonel. But when, thirty-two years later, Colonel Hardman (General Hardman by that time), was laid at rest beneath the elms of the quiet English churchyard of his native village, foremost among those who bore him to the grave walked, side by side with his famous son, Major Frederick Hardman, a stalwart, grey-haired, soldier-like man named Bob Burton, who had nursed the dying general, night and day, through the last hours of his final illness, and had felt amply repaid for all by the light of grateful affection that shone for a moment in the sunken eyes of his old enemy, just ere they settled into stillness for ever.
[IN LUCK'S WAY]
By FRED. WHISHAW
Matters were proceeding satisfactorily enough at Gerstonville, a farm lying some thirty miles north-east of Buluwayo, in Rhodesia. Richard Gerston had had the luck to peg out a fairly rich claim when, after the finish of the first Matabele war and the fall of old Lobengula, Buluwayo and the surrounding territories fell into the hands of the Company. Gerston had taken an honourable share in the fighting, and shared also in the privileges held out towards those who had been actively engaged in the war; and though his hopes—or dreams, as perhaps it would be more correct to call them—his dreams of finding gold upon his claim had not been realised, or had remained practically unrealised (for there were signs of gold here and there, though the precious metal had not been found in paying quantities), yet the soil was excellent, and his crops and his live-stock were doing wonders—so well indeed, that after a few months Gerston had felt justified in sending for his wife and two children from the Cape, where, for the present, they had remained waiting in anxious expectancy for the message which would enable them to start northwards in order to begin a new life in a new home in this new country.
For a year or two everything flourished. The farm had become a bit of England, though with African surroundings. Gerston's son Bruce, a lad of fifteen, was as much help to his father in the farm during working hours as his sister Kittie was to her mother in the house; while in the evening English outdoor games were the vogue; squash cricket especially, in which all the family took part, including Mrs. Gerston, who, however, according to the dictum of Bruce, "wasn't much good," and Kittie, who "played a much stronger game." Bruce had even attempted to teach a few Mashona labourers employed on the farm to wield the willow, but the result had been conspicuous failure; for not one of them displayed the smallest capacity for understanding the rules of the game, nor much inclination to run about or exert themselves after the fatigues of the day's work on the farm.
"Kittie, who played a much stronger game."
It was a beautiful summer's evening, during one of these games of "squash cricket," which was played on the rough turf outside the house, that a stranger strolled into the enclosure, an Englishman, though a hot and unkempt one, and stood still for a moment or two as his eye fell upon the unusual scene (in this part of the world) being enacted before him.
"Lord!" he muttered, "that's good! It does one good to see it."
Then he came forward, and Gerston, who was batsman on this occasion, catching sight of him, handed his bat to Kittie, and advanced to meet the stranger.
"You're welcome," he said. "Have you come far? We don't often have a visitor here afoot."
The stranger was an elderly man, though evidently wiry and active as a cat. He carried a rifle, and was dressed in "veldt" boots and the usual and appropriate costume of the country, much travel-stained and out of repair; his bearded face was lined and worn; he looked in need of rest, though obviously a hard man.
"I've come a goodish number of miles, mate, one way or another, and on my feet all the way; pretty well all over Rhodesia, you might say, and I've spent two years and more in doing it. Ah, and spent 'em well, too!" he added, with a wink, "and don't you make any mistake about it."
Gerston smiled.
"Prospecting, I daresay," he said.
The stranger nodded. "I don't choose my claim in a hurry," he continued; "I prefer to go the round and look about me. This seems a nice place. Any gold?"
"Not much," laughed Gerston; "just enough to keep us hoping for more; but the land's A1, and I'm not doing so badly."
"Ah!" ejaculated the other. "Good, good; you employ these Mashona rascals, I see. Well, look out if you're wise."
Gerston laughed again.
"Oh yes," he said, "I will look out; my Mashona boys are thoroughly domesticated; besides, they know when they are well off."
"Maybe," said the stranger; "but there is trouble in the air. I have not tramped all Rhodesia for nothing. I have seen what I have seen, and I have heard what I have heard."
Gerston received this Sphinx-like pronouncement with a smile, and the pair having by this time reached the house, the stranger was shown to his room, as naturally as though he had been an invited and expected guest.
There was no question of his begging a bed, or of any expression by Gerston of apologetical regret that the house was full; his welcome was a matter of course, for in the veldt open house is kept after the old-established Dutch fashion, and no one possessing a white skin and a smattering of European civilisation need sleep out in the air for want of a bed and a meal inside of four walls, if there be a settler's dwelling within ken.
The stranger gave his name as "Uncle Ben," and stayed for several days. He paid, as he expressed it, for his keep by giving Gerston the benefit of his experience as a prospector for gold, tramping the claim from end to end, accompanied by the boy Bruce, to whom he seemed to take a great fancy; but though this odd pair visited together every corner of the estate, and examined carefully every little kopje and gully in the place, Uncle Ben's verdict was quite unfavourable. There wasn't gold enough in the claim, he said, so far as he could judge, to coin a five-dollar piece, and the whole claim, from the point of view of the gold-seeker, was "not worth a tinker's curse."
As he delivered himself of this doleful dictum, the stranger suddenly produced a tobacco pouch, which he opened forthwith and held out to his host.
"See here," he said, "that's gold now—the real article, and I know—well, I know what I know."
"Which means, I suppose, that you could tell me where to find more of it," laughed Gerston. "Well, you're a lucky chap, and I wish you all success. When you want a partner to work the place you can come along to me."
"Ah!" said Uncle Ben sagely, "who knows?"
And Gerston, talking over this conversation afterwards with his wife, laughingly declared that he believed if the old fellow's pockets were overhauled, certain mysterious hieroglyphics intended to form a rough map would be found, and that this map would be the clue to some valuable gold shaft of which he had discovered, or imagined that he had discovered, the existence.
"There are plenty in Mashonaland," Gerston ended, "if only one could hit upon them."
Uncle Ben, as he insisted upon being called, proved a grand acquisition in the evenings, for he possessed a wonderful fund of stories, experiences of his own mostly; and these he was never tired of airing for the benefit of his listeners, of whom he had four in this house, all of the kind most charming to the narrator, because they were frankly and obviously interested and amused.
If his tales were to be believed—and the old man was accustomed to vow most solemnly that the experiences narrated were absolutely authentic—he had certainly been through every kind of adventure that the ingenuity of a humorous destiny could have invented at his expense: adventures with lions, with elephants, with Matabele warriors; perils by water and by land; in a word, every kind of experience likely to interest and enthral a listener had been his; and though, perhaps, listeners of the age of Bruce were the most delighted by his tales, they pleased almost equally listeners of any age, for they bore the stamp of truth.
It was natural, therefore, that young Bruce soon began to look upon the sturdy old stranger as a hero of the first water, a king among men, a person to be admired and loved and imitated, if the opportunity should ever arise; a mental condition on the part of Bruce which was confirmed by each new story of triumph over lions or other beasts, or of barely escaped capture by Matabeles or other bad characters.
It was while in the midst of an exciting tale of a night spent in the bare veldt within a hundred or two paces of an entire Matabele impi, during the whole of which time he dared not sleep, and scarcely allowed himself to breathe lest they should hear him; and of how at a critical moment he had sneezed—it was, in fact, exactly as Uncle Ben had reached this most critical point in his story that the sound of galloping hoofs suddenly became distinctly audible in the breathless silence into which the old man had been pouring out his yarns.
"Stop one minute, mate," said Gerston, rising; "let us see who this is. The letter-carrier, I daresay, though he doesn't generally ride that pace."
Gerston rose and went to the door. A moment later the panting horse of the new arrival pulled up at the garden gate, and the rider threw the reins over his animal's neck.
"Give me a drink, mate," he said, "I'm dead parched. Anything will do—water, or milk, or cold tea. I've brought awful news, but I can't speak till I've drunk."
"Brandy and water?" suggested Gerston; and the stranger nodding acquiescence, he was soon in possession of the "long" drink he craved.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, setting down the empty glass, "that's better. Well, the natives are up; they have risen, and are murdering the English wherever they can find them. Are you well armed here? Can you hold the house against a siege? You may have a visit from the blackguards before the night's out."
"You may have a visit from the blackguards before the
night's out."
The communication, absolutely unexpected by most of those present, fell like a bomb into the midst of the company. Gerston drew in his breath with a gasp, glancing at his wife and young Kittie, both of whom looked white and scared, though Mrs. Gerston showed her spirit by answering in a moment and with brave words her husband's eloquent glance—
"We've plenty of weapons and ammunition, and both Kittie and I can shoot a bit, if required," she said. "We shall know how to give you a helping hand, Dick; and we are not afraid, are we, Kittie?"
"Oh no, father," said Kittie, whose trembling lips proved, however, that she had not quite recovered the shock of the news.
"Well, ladies, you're a pair of the right sort, if I may say so," continued the new-comer, "and let me tell you, you'll want all your pluck and all your powder, for they can't relieve you from Buluwayo for several days; and you'll have to remember these blackguards don't spare women and children. I found poor Smithson and his wife both murdered and their house burned this very morning, before I got to their place to warn them. I'm on my rounds warning the farmers about; but God knows whether I can go any farther, for—see here—I've lost some blood; and to tell the truth, what with that and fatigue, I don't rightly know whether I'm standing on my heels or my head."
The stranger turned as he spoke, revealing a stained bandage beneath his Norfolk-coat at the neck.
"A spent assegai," he explained; "it caught me just in the fleshy bit between shoulder and neck; it was shied from an ambush as I galloped by; a few more inches one way and I should have been done for. That's the party which is heading in this direction."
"How far off was that?" asked Gerston, while his wife ran for warm water and a clean bandage.
"Ten miles," said the other, "more or less. You'd better begin fixing up your zareba at once. What's the nearest farm to yours, going east?"
"There isn't one nearer than Thomson's at the Black Kopje, twenty-five miles away; several places are bought up in between, but the owners haven't settled in yet."
"So much the better for them. Twenty-five miles? Lord! I don't know how I'm going to do it. You'd swop a horse for mine, no doubt; but in plain truth I'm fagged out, and this wound is burning like fire and fury just now!"
"Let me go instead of him, father!" suddenly exclaimed young Bruce. "I know the way, every inch of it; I could ride Donald over in an hour and a half."
Gerston looked pleased, but shook his head—
"No, no, my boy," he said, "that wouldn't do; you're not man enough yet, though I'm glad to see you've the spirit to offer. I shall ride across myself, for it's clear our poor friend here can go no farther to-day. Be getting Donald ready for me, Bruce lad, while I start with the defences."
But neither his wife nor Kittie would hear of allowing Gerston to leave them and go out upon this dangerous enterprise. He must stay, whoever else went, and look after his property and the lives of those who were dear to him.
"Let Bruce go rather than you," the mother ended, her eyes full of tears and a choke in her voice.
"Yes, do, father; let me go!" said Bruce.
"With apologies for interrupting family arrangements," began the old stranger, who chose to be called Uncle Ben, "I am the one that's got to go, and as soon as some of you have explained the road and lent me a nag, I'm off. You may be proud of this youngster of yours, boss; he's a lad of spirit, and he'll do well. Now which way do I go—north, south, east, or west?"
"I really don't know that we ought to allow you to risk your life," Gerston began hesitatingly. "The road's difficult to find if you don't know it, and it wouldn't do to get one's self lost in the veldt with those confounded chaps about, looking for white bodies to chuck their assegais at. You'd better let me go, mother; I can take pretty good care of myself; I shall be back by morning."
"Excuse me, mate," said Uncle Ben, "but I ain't one to be put off from his purpose by the danger of meeting a few Mashona fellows with assegais; I've something here that shoots straighter and harder and farther, in case it's wanted. Come, how does one steer, and what about a horse?"
It was obviously useless to waste argument upon the old fellow. His mind was made up, and it was quickly decided to let him have his way; the more so since, as a matter of fact, it was convenient enough that he should go, rather than Gerston, whose place was undoubtedly at the side of his wife and daughter, and at the head of those who would assist him to defend their lives and his property.
So Uncle Ben was duly instructed as to the road to Thomson's farm; and now it became evident that descriptions intended to direct a ride of twenty-five miles over the veldt are apt to bewilder as much as to enlighten, and that the old fellow's mind had been considerably mixed by his instructions as to the way he should go on reaching this belt of jungle or that kopje.
"You'd better let me go with him, father!" said persistent Bruce; "the cleverest veldt-traveller might lose his way between here and Thomson's. I shall surely be all right with Uncle Ben. You can give me a revolver in case of accidents."
"You can bet your last sovereign nothing'll happen to him while old Ben Caldecott's breath is in his body!" added the old fellow. "If he's going to be hurt, then I'm dead first, mind you; but the Mashona beggars won't catch me napping, you may bet. Besides, the lad would run quite as much risk at home to-day as riding over the veldt, seeing as how you ain't going to be let alone to sleep comfortably in your beds."
And presently, after some little opposition from his weeping mother, hotly combated by Bruce himself, and almost as hotly by Kittie, who was all for giving Bruce a chance of showing his spirit and distinguishing himself, the lad was allowed to get himself ready for departure. Preparations were in full swing for the defence of the house as the adventurous pair rode out upon their dangerous enterprise. Every scrap of cover within one hundred and fifty yards of the house was being cut down and removed, in order that the niggers, when they came, must advance over an open area well watched and easily swept by the bullets of the defenders.
Besides this, barbed wire was stretched here and there across the open space and tightly fastened to pegs about one foot in height, in order to trip up the enemy in case of a rush, when, in the confusion of their overthrow, the defenders would have the opportunity to fire several times into "the brown," as Gerston expressed it, before they should have recovered themselves.
Within the house everything was made as secure as possible against assault and battery, and every rifle and shot-gun (including two magazine rifles) was loaded and placed in the position laid down for it, only three windows being left unshuttered, for the use of sharpshooters. It had been intended to run up some kind of earthworks, surmounted by barbed wire, one hundred yards from the house, as a first line of defence; but when the native labourers were summoned to help in the work, not one of them was to be found, a significant fact which caused Gerston to look very grave.
"The rascals have had news of the rising, then," he said; "their messenger must have arrived almost as soon as ours—eh, Botley?"
Botley was the last arrival, he who had brought the disconcerting news of danger threatening.
"Before, probably," he replied. "I shouldn't wonder if it was one of your beauties that treated me to this little hole in the shoulder, on his way to join some murderous band which he and his fellows will presently bring down here to knock your head off, in gratitude for benefits conferred—the set of scurvy, thankless, godless black devils that they are!"
Without the native labourers it was quite impossible to undertake anything requiring so much expenditure in time and hard labour as earth defences, and the scheme had therefore to be abandoned.
Meanwhile we may leave Gerston and his little group of brave English hearts to defend their home and their lives as best they can against any overwhelming force that might be brought against them. Their good British spirit will not quail, we may assure ourselves, though they must fight against odds which might well appal hearts less easily daunted than theirs.
We therefore leave them with confidence to their enterprise, while we follow the steps of the oddly assorted pair to whose share has fallen the duty of riding out into unknown dangers, maybe to unavoidable disaster and death, in order to carry the message of coming peril to their unsuspecting compatriots twenty-five miles away, rather than allow a neighbour to be surprised, and perhaps fallen upon and ruthlessly murdered, he and his, for want of a word of warning.
It was late in the afternoon when the two set out upon their journey, well armed with rifle and revolver, and mounted upon the two fastest horses that Gerston's stables could supply. Young Bruce was wild with delight, scarcely, perhaps, realising the full peril of the enterprise in which he had been so eager to take a part. They spoke but little during the first half-hour's ride, being anxious to push on as fast as possible during the waning daylight. Bruce led the way, and rode so rapidly that after a while his companion bade him pull up a bit.
"It's bad policy, youngster," he whispered, "to box all your strength away in the first round. Look at my beast, he's badly blown."
This was the case. The horses were not accustomed to the present headlong method of travelling. They were used to quiet jogging about the farm-lands, or carrying their master from settlement to settlement at a respectable rate of progression; they were not in training for this kind of emergency riding.
"We'd better climb down and let them breathe a minute or two," said Uncle Ben gravely. "See here." He had loosened the bridle, and his horse instantly lowered its neck until its distended nostrils almost reached the ground, panting and wheezing in a state of breathlessness bordering upon actual distress.
"That's Donald," said Bruce; "he's a good goer, too, but he isn't used to this pace."
"Well, he shall have three minutes' law," said Uncle Ben, "or more if he needs it. Sit down a bit and we'll talk, but don't speak up at full voice. How d'you like this yer adventure, sonnie?"
"I love it," said Bruce; "it's exactly the kind of thing I do like."
"Ah—ever been in a fight, or had to struggle for your life?"
"Oh no, not yet," said Bruce. "I'm a bit young; but I hope to."
"Nor seen blood, and so on?" continued the old fellow.
"Oh, accidents and that kind of thing. I don't mind the look of blood, if that's what you mean."
"Well, I tell you, this is no child's play we're at, sonnie; recollect that. We may be caught in an ambush and assegaied before we rightly know we've been done."
"I shan't mind so much if only I can get the revolver off at them first!" said truculent Bruce.
"We may be chased and surrounded."
"Not on horseback. They don't ride, these Mashona fellows; they've no horses. We can always ride them down and be off, even if we're surrounded."
"Ain't you afraid?" persisted Uncle Ben. "Mind you, it isn't too late to go home even now. I could find the way from here."
"What are you playing at? Why d'you want me to go back?" said Bruce indignantly. "There isn't anything to be afraid of yet."
"Ah, but there may be!" said the other.
"Well, wait till there is, and then see if I funk, before you insult me!" replied Bruce; and in his indignation he spoke no more for the next five minutes, though Uncle Ben said he was a likely lad, and attempted to conciliate him with other similar compliments.
He descended, however, from the lofty pedestal of offended dignity when Uncle Ben suddenly stopped in the middle of a sentence and stood silent, listening.
"What is it? What d'you hear?" asked Bruce, forgetting dignity and everything else in the excitement of the moment.
Uncle Ben remained silent for a full minute.
"Don't you hear it?" he said. "Listen carefully. There; d'you catch it?"
Bruce listened with all his ears; but those organs, not having been tutored, as were his companion's, to catch every little sound of veldt life, could detect nothing as yet.
"You'll hear in a minute, for they're coming this way!" said Uncle Ben. "But they're a mile off or more."
"Who, who?" muttered Bruce, his throat quite dry with excitement. "The Mashona fellows?"
Uncle Ben nodded.
"Now listen again!" he said.
Bruce did so, and this time he distinctly heard the rhythmical tread of a body of men apparently moving at a quick march.
"Trotting and coming straight for us along this path," whispered the older man. "You hear them now, I see. Well, there's no cover for the horses hereabouts; what's to be done with them?"
"Why can't we charge right through the niggers?" asked Bruce, partly in ignorance, but partly in bravado, for he desired to prove to his elder that he felt no fear.
"Nonsense. Not unless you're tired of life! At any rate I ain't, though I've had more of it than you. There may be a couple of hundred men here. What's to be done about the horses, that's the point? We can hide our selves and let the rascals pass, but you can't hide the horses. Will you ride yours back, and then mine 'ud follow? You'd be able to warn them, too, up at your dad's place."
"They don't need warning; they're expecting an attack," said Bruce hotly. "I'm not going back, I tell you. The horses will go by themselves if we can't keep them. They are often sent home that way when we are out a long distance from the house and don't want them hanging about all day. Let them loose and you'll see."
"Very well—stop—for the last time, now's your chance to go back; you'll be doing a service in warning the folks at home, and no one'll suspect your pluck."
Uncle Ben did not finish his sentence; for before he had delivered himself of it, Bruce had knotted the bridle over his horse's neck, turned the animal's head homewards, given it a sounding smack on the quarter, and the intelligent creature was in full trot for its stable, tossing its head and grunting with pleasure.
"Well," muttered the older man, "I've said all I can; it won't be my fault if you run your head into mischief after this!" And having thus absolved his conscience of all responsibility for his young companion's rashness, he followed the example of that determined young person, and sent his own horse careering after its companion upon the road for home.
"Now, sonnie, come off the path," he said, "and get behind the scrub with me. We'll see the rascals pass in five minutes, and when they're gone we'll push forward more safely."
"Aren't we going to have a shot at them as they pass?" asked Bruce.
The old man looked at his companion in surprise, not unmingled with admiration.
"Well," he said, "of all the gamecocks ever I met, you're the pluckiest. Give me your hand, sonnie. I'm sorry I spoke to offend you; it wasn't meant. No, we ain't going to shoot them as they pass, for we ain't anxious, either of us, for Kingdom Come. We might kill half-a-dozen maybe if we were lucky, but you may take your last oath that they'd kill two. Now, see here, I'm to be boss of this campaign, and you're to obey orders; don't you shoot, now or ever, until you're told. You're a fine lad for courage, but there ain't enough solid wisdom and experience in you to stop a bad tooth. Now, down with you behind this rock; they'll be out of that scrub and in sight in a minute."
Uncle Ben and his young companion ducked behind their cover none too soon, for hardly had they done so when, scarcely a couple of hundred yards away, there came a line of dusky forms, four or five abreast, that broke out of the scrub cover into the open, followed at a few paces by other lines, in what appeared to Bruce to be interminable numbers. Uncle Ben, watching the lad's face, saw it flush and pale and then flush again; his hand went to the revolver at his belt, but there the old man's nervous grip arrested it.
"No, no," he whispered, "no fooling; not if you value your life."
Bruce tried to whisper back that he only meant to prepare in case of emergency, but he found himself tongue-tied, not precisely by fear, but by a numbing sensation which was the result of the sudden realisation of actual danger for the first time in his life. The feeling passed off in a few seconds, and Bruce became master once more of his nerves. And now he was able to enjoy a very unique and peculiar spectacle, the passing of a body of Mashona or Matabele warriors on the warpath. Puffing, groaning, moaning, and wheezing they went, running at a jog-trot; and almost every man of the hundred or so of them relieved his exhausted energies by uttering sounds of one description or another, from a low grunt to a loud wailing cry, all of which seemed very weird and alarming to Bruce's wondering intelligence.
"The passing of a body of Mashona or Matabele
warriors on the warpath."
"Off to your dad's!" whispered Uncle Ben, as the strange body of black fellows disappeared in the gathering dusk. "Come, we will waste no more time!"
Then the pair moved quickly forward; there were still fifteen miles to go, and every step of it must be done on foot, and quickly.
"Are you man enough to jog-trot a bit now and then," asked the older man, and Bruce, for reply, struck into a run, and led the way so quickly that his companion was glad enough when he stopped again for breath and walked. Darkness came on, and Bruce became uncertain of the way, though he knew it well by daylight.
"There's a ford, five miles from Thomson's place," he said; "if we could only hit upon that I should find the road from there on much easier."
"Take the direction as near as you can get it," said Uncle Ben, "and maybe we shall strike the river above or below the ford."
So on they trudged, now jogging at a trot, now slowing into a walk, but covering the ground quickly; for they remembered that upon their speed might hang for all they knew the lives of men and women.
A lion roared in the veldt, within a mile of the scudding humans. Bruce shuddered but went on, resolved that his companion should not see that he was frightened.
Presently the brute roared a second time, almost paralysing poor Bruce's limbs with terror; for undoubtedly the animal was much nearer at this second time of roaring. With difficulty dragging his limbs, but resolved to go through with the matter, Bruce jogged on.
He heard his companion click his rifle behind him. Suddenly there came a rush and a scurry of many swift feet, some hundred yards in front of them. The scudding throng of animals passed across the path and away, and Bruce heard a third and a fourth roar, and knew that the old lion had made his spring and had failed, and was angry over his discomfiture.
He stopped and sat down suddenly, too frightened to move forward.
"Ah," said Uncle Ben kindly, "you're pumped out, lad; we'll have a bit of a rest."
"No, it's the lion," said Bruce truthfully; "I never heard one so close before; it is awful—will he attack us?"
"Not he; he won't be such a fool; if he did, we could smash him in a minute, never fear. Why, lad, if you ain't afraid of the Matabeles, you needn't mind him! There he goes again, farther away, you see; he's thinking of his antelopes, not of us."
So up jumped Bruce and away he sped again, guessing the road as best he could by the direction, and presently the pair reached the bank of a precipitous nullah, and Bruce nearly "took a header" over the rocky edge.
"Ah!" said Uncle Ben, "good; follow the line of the nullah, it will be sure to lead us to the river."
This proved to be the case, and a mile or two farther on the river itself was reached, but at a point either above or below the ford, Bruce could not tell which.
"Why, Lord, what does it matter, we'll soon find the ford," said Uncle Ben; "you're a clever lad to have struck the river; I'm darned if I ever met a lad I liked better; work up to the left a mile or two, and if that's wrong we'll come back and try the other way, it's only a matter of a few minutes."
Bruce was getting very tired, and sighed to think that he might have to travel several unnecessary miles up and down the river; but he pulled himself together and trudged on, looking out keenly for the ford, which he should recognise if he saw it.
Once a company of antelopes—maybe they were his old friends—gave him a great scare. They had come down to drink, and the startled creatures nearly knocked him down as they rushed madly, stampeding and mobbing, from the waterside when surprised by the wanderers.
A mile was covered and part of another, and Bruce thought he began to recognise the look of the river.
"I think we are getting near the ford," he said over his shoulder.
"Good; good, lad!" replied his companion laconically, saving his breath.
But now suddenly confronted them the most crucial moment of the enterprise.
"Stop, lad!" hissed Uncle Ben from behind; "stop a moment, I hear something."
Bruce drew up instantly, crouching down as he saw his companion do.
"Listen," whispered Uncle Ben; "I think it's the Mashona fellows again; they are fording the river; we must be close to the ford; or it may be a hippopotamus or a crocodile."
Bruce listened, his heart thumping loudly at his breast. He heard splashing and grunting; a moment later came the sound of measured running.
"It is the niggers," whispered Uncle Ben hurriedly; "we cannot go back, and I see no cover inland; we must take to the water; quickly, lad, follow me into the reeds; never mind the cold, go right up to your neck if need be!"
Very quickly Uncle Ben waded into the water; it was not very cold, but the bank shelved rapidly, and a few yards out the pair were up to their chests.
The reeds were thick, and formed a good cover.
"Bend, and let the water cover you to the mouth," whispered the old man; "go right under if they seem to hear or see us, and stay under as long as your breath lasts."
Bruce nodded, shivering.
The pair of submerged Britons were not much too soon in assuming their uncomfortable position, for in a moment the Matabele fellows were practically upon them, passing abreast of them at full run, groaning and grunting after their fashion, travelling in irregular lines of three, four, or six.
Unfortunately the body of "niggers" had but half passed by when some creature of the water took occasion to splash loudly several times in close proximity to our submerged friends, but whether a crocodile, or a fish, or some animal which had waded in to drink, Bruce never knew.
"Down under water, quick!" muttered Uncle Ben; and Bruce, taking in a great gulp of breath, obeyed instantly.
As he did so he became aware of a sudden stinging sensation in the upper part of his arm. Putting his hand to the place, under water, he felt that his coat was torn.
"I must have rubbed it against a stake as I ducked," thought Bruce, and dismissing the subject, he devoted all his energy to economising the stock of breath he had laid in.
When that was exhausted, at the end of thirty or forty seconds, which seemed an eternity to him, Bruce cautiously raised the upper part of his head in order to take in a new supply. As he did so he observed the last row or two of Matabele fellows halted upon the bank, and one or two of them in the act of throwing their assegais at some object beyond him on the left. Down went Bruce again very quickly, and it was nearly a minute later that his yellow head made its reappearance above the surface. This time he saw no Matabeles, they had gone on; but the old man, Uncle Ben, had seized his arm somewhat violently, and was muttering.
Bruce shook the water out of his ears to listen.
"Come ashore quickly," said Uncle Ben. "Are you wounded, lad?"
"Wounded? Not I," said Bruce. "Why? Are you? Did they shy those assegais at us? Why, then, it may have been one that touched my arm."
"Ah, you have a scratch I see!" said the older man; but he spoke in so strange a voice, that Bruce looked up from his own torn coat and slightly bleeding arm to see what ailed his companion.
"What's up, Uncle Ben?" he said. "Are you feeling bad? Why, you're never hit, are you?"
"Just a bit," gasped the old fellow—"here in the side. The blade of the thing's in me now. O Lord, the pain of it. I'll lie down awhile, that may make me better."
"O Uncle Ben, I'm so sorry. What can I do? Is it very bad?" cried poor Bruce weakly. He felt utterly helpless and frightened.
"I may be all right presently," said Uncle Ben. "Just give me a hand while I lie down. Oh! so, that's it; now I shall soon be better." And as though to prove how much better he felt for the change of position, the wounded man then and there fainted away.
Then Bruce, in his utter helplessness and misery, began to think how vain a thing is self-confidence and the pride of mere animal courage in an inexperienced lad of fifteen years. He had been ready and anxious to undertake the dangerous enterprise all by himself. What if he had been allowed to do so?
Well, he would probably have fallen into the hands of the enemy within half-an-hour of the start; if he had escaped the first danger, he would, maybe, have died of terror when within a stone's throw of the roaring lion. Again, he might have lost his way when, in the darkness, he missed the track; and now again, but for Uncle Ben's experience and alertness, he would assuredly have been caught and murdered by the Matabeles.
Sitting, helpless and miserable, over his unconscious companion, Bruce quickly realised all this, and with the realisation came a flood of tears, the first he had shed for many a day, and wrung from him now, not by fear, but by the sense of helplessness in this crisis.
What ought he to do—what could he do? Leave this poor wounded old man to recover consciousness or to die, or to fall, maybe, into the hands of a third band of rebel niggers, to be mutilated in their barbarous fashion before the breath was out of his body; to leave him lying here, and hasten up to Thomson's farm in order to warn the family? He could find the way from here easily enough. Or should he let the farm people take care of themselves, and attend to the duty which lay to his hand; namely, to keep faithful watch and ward over his wounded companion until day at any rate, when he might settle him comfortably somewhere under cover, and proceed upon his journey?
Bruce was no fool, and it occurred to him at this point of the reflections which passed in a kind of dazed procession through his brain that the last band of Matabeles had probably come from Thomson's. They had crossed the ford as though travelling from his farm; the chance was that Thomson was either already aware of the rebellion and in full defence of his property, or murdered, he and all his folk.
"No," thought Bruce, "I shall stay by Uncle Ben until he dies or recovers, and then go on by myself."
Bruce's fit of crying did him good. He put up a prayer for help in his terrible position, and that did him good also; and when at length old Ben sighed and opened his eyes, poor Bruce was feeling brave and confident once more, and ready to face destiny, whatever it might have in store for him. But he soon saw that there was little in the old man's condition to encourage him. Uncle Ben lay on his back quite still, gazing up at the stars, and Bruce sat still also, unwilling to disturb or perhaps startle him.
"Are you there, lad?" muttered the old man presently. "I don't feel as if I could move to look about me."
"I'm here, Uncle Ben," said Bruce. "Are you lying comfortable? Do you feel bad?"
"I'm going to die, lad, and that's the truth. Give me a drop of water—in your cap. Ah! now you listen to what I have to say, my boy. You be off at once to the farm and warn them. If they like to send down to fetch me when convenient, why, they may; if not, I'd as soon die here."
"I think these last Matabeles have been up there already," said Bruce, "else what were they doing at this ford? It isn't any use going there; I'd rather stay with you here, and see to you."
"Well, God bless you for the wish anyhow, lad; it's kind in you, and you may be right about the Matabeles. Stay on a bit if you like. I don't think I shall keep you long. Give me another drink. Lord! I'm hot, burning hot. Is the sun out?" The old man began to ramble in his talk, and Bruce, in his despair and inexperience, allowed him to wander on, saying nothing, but only dabbing a little water occasionally upon the old fellow's brow.
Suddenly Uncle Ben's manner changed. He spoke quietly and rationally once more.
"Are you still there, lad Bruce?" he asked. Bruce laid a cool, wet hand upon his forehead by way of reply.
"You're a darned good lad," continued the old man, "one of the best. I wish I had a son like you, you've stood by me till I died. Now, see here, sonnie; in my inner pocket is my baccy pouch; take it before you go away and leave me; it's full of gold dust; but that's of little account; what's more important is a paper with a map scrawled upon it. I did it before we started, case of accidents. The name of the village marked with a cross is Umdhana, thirteen miles north of Salisbury. The map'll tell you the rest. Lord, I can't talk any more. It's all yours when I'm gone, for you're a good lad, one of the best!"
"Maybe you won't die, Uncle Ben!" said Bruce weakly; he knew there was not much doubt of it, but could think of nothing wiser to say.
Uncle Ben did not reply, but lay with closed eyes. After a while Bruce saw his lips move, and heard him muttering, but concluded that he was praying, and did not interrupt him. When he looked again the old man was still, nor—though Bruce watched him carefully for nearly half-an-hour—could he detect the slightest movement of breathing.
Then a great horror came over the boy, for he looked upon death for the first time; his heart failed him, and he trembled, and went away where he could not see the body; and here he sat awhile in nerveless terror, unable to collect his thoughts or to decide what was best to be done.
He sat, helpless and dazed, for an hour, by which time dawn was beginning to make faint promises of a day to come with its joy and brightness in its own good time.
"I will wait," thought Bruce, "until it is broad daylight, and then I will go to Thomson's farm."
Then he lay down and tried to fall asleep, but superstitious fears kept him mostly awake, though he dozed at intervals. Once or twice he heard stealthy noises, as though the beasts of the forest came timidly to the water to drink; but he was startled by no roarings of the greater animals, and there was nothing to alarm him save the presence, near by, of grim death. Nevertheless, when light came Bruce felt impelled to approach and look upon Uncle Ben's body once more before leaving it, and he was surprised to find that this time, and in God's fair light of day, he minded much less. He even bent and laid his hand in farewell upon the old fellow's cold forehead, and as he did so he remembered Uncle Ben's request that he would secure his "baccy pouch" and its contents. Bruce easily found this pouch, and he pocketed it without much thought of its value, if any; and having thus secured his legacy, according to the testator's wish, he certainly thought no more about it.
"Bruce felt impelled to look upon Uncle Ben's body
once more before leaving it."
Then the lad made for the ford, which was but a hundred yards or so away; and here an immense surprise was in store for him; for in the very act of crossing the ford there came towards him a figure which at first sight he took for that of a native, a Matabele warrior, though clothed, it appeared, in the tattered relics of an English suit—a flannel shirt and Norfolk coat and trousers, and carrying over his shoulder a rifle, and at his belt a long and a short assegai.
For an instant Bruce's heart failed him. He stopped dead and crouched, intending to drop upon his stomach and crawl into cover.
But the stranger, it seemed, was quick-eyed, and had already seen him.
"Aha!" he called out, "young boy Englishman! do not hide; I am not one to hurt those that have white skins!"
Bruce was soon upon his feet again at the sound of his own language, though it was spoken in an odd, guttural way, and with a peculiar accent. He stared at the stranger coming splashing through the shallow water.
"Who are you?" he blurted; "and why do you speak so curiously?"
"I am Umkopo, the white witch of the Matabele. English born, Matabele bred. What are you doing here? It is a wonder that you are alive. Death is abroad, death to the English. What do you want here, I say?"
Bruce had heard of this man Umkopo, "The White Witch" as he was called. No one as yet, however, knew much about the mysterious individual, who was seen from time to time indeed, and had often befriended Englishmen in moments of danger and distress, but as to whose identity the vaguest and most varied opinions prevailed. Since the day on which Bruce met him in the manner described his history has become well known both in Rhodesia and in England; but this is not the place to recapitulate his romantic story, which, if he desires to know it, the reader may find elsewhere.
"I am on my way to Thomson's farm to warn them that the natives are up," said Bruce; "perhaps you have been upon the same errand?"
"Thomson is dead—murdered; so is his partner and the wife of his partner. Yesterday they were surprised and murdered. Bah! good English blood spilt by dogs of Matabele. Bah! I have done with them; I go with them no more; from this day I am an Englishman."
"Thomson murdered, and Hewetson and Mrs. Hewetson also!" ejaculated Bruce. "Then I am too late! Oh, how glad I am that father was warned in time!"
"Who is your father?" asked Umkopo.
"His name is Gerston. We farm the claim called Gerstonville——"
"I know," interrupted Umkopo; "and he sent you on here alone to warn Thomson. Does he hate you?"
"Rot!" said Bruce; "of course not. I was not alone; my companion is dead."
"Dead? What, killed by these dogs, like Thomson and the others? For each one I will kill ten Matabele, I swear it; and how have you escaped?"
"We hid in the water. Something splashed as they passed, and they threw an assegai and killed poor Uncle Ben; he lies just here, quite close."
"Ah, ah! show me! show me!" said Umkopo.
Bruce led his new friend to the place where lay the dead man, looking as though he slept quietly by the riverside, weary with travelling.
"Oh," cried Umkopo, with something very like a sob in his voice, "I knew him well; I have hunted with him. He was a good man—a brave man. I have learned from him many things."
To Bruce's immense surprise Umkopo threw himself upon the ground, and lay rolling and groaning a while, evidently overcome with grief.
Suddenly he rose.
"Come," he said, "we will make a hole, and put him in it. If they find him here they will cut and tear his body, because he was better than they, and braver and wiser. They shall not have him."
So with a little help from Bruce poor old Uncle Ben received burial at the hands of Umkopo, and right glad was Bruce that it was not destined that his friend should be left to be mutilated by savage enemies, or to be eaten by savage beasts or vultures.
"Now," said Umkopo, when this good work was finished, "we go together to Gerstonville. If they were warned in time, they will not yet be overcome; and if they still hold out, you shall see what will happen when the Mashona dogs see that Umkopo has come."
Bruce did not quite like the stranger. His manner of speaking was so strange, and his appearance so weird and even alarming; but he was evidently friendly disposed, and it was certainly comforting to have an escort or a companion—Bruce preferred the word companion—as far as Gerstonville.
But his half-fear of the man and every feeling of dislike soon passed away in wonder and curiosity as, on the way homewards, Umkopo waxed garrulous, and spoke of his own career—of his deeds among the great beasts of the veldt; of his bearding, on a certain occasion, of the terrible old King Lobengula, whom all the world feared, excepting, apparently, this wonderful fellow; and of many adventures and struggles with the Matabele people, who would not, for many years, acknowledge him as their principal "Witch" or magician.
"It was this that persuaded them in the end," said Umkopo, concluding his story, and patting lovingly the butt of his rifle: "this is the real witch, not I."
So interesting and absorbing was the conversation of his new friend that Bruce scarcely had time to realise that he was terribly tired, as indeed he had every right to be; and the pair had come within a mile or so of home, when Umkopo suddenly stopped and assumed an attitude of listening. When he did so Bruce listened also, and distinctly heard the sound of shooting, continuous shooting.
"Ah!" said Umkopo, "good! the dogs have not got into your father's kennel; now you shall see how Umkopo will sweep them away like the leaves that fly in wind-time! Come."
Umkopo seized the boy's hand, and set off at so rapid a run that even Bruce—as active a lad as you would find in all Rhodesia—could scarcely keep up with him, and was obliged indeed to pant to him presently to stop.
"No, no, not stop," said Umkopo, "not far now—run; Umkopo has learned from the springbok!"
Bruce pulled himself together, took deep breaths, and struggled gamely on. Once they stopped for a moment or two, Umkopo having glanced in the lad's face, and seeing that he was really distressed for breath. During those moments Bruce caught sight of Umkopo's expression, and was astonished and almost supernaturally alarmed at it. Umkopo's eyes were wild and blazing with a weird lustre; he held his chin high and his shoulders back, and muttered words, as he gazed straight in front of him, which Bruce did not understand, and which he concluded were in the Matabele lingo. He looked, Bruce thought, like an inspired prophet, the White Witch all over, excepting that his skin was scarcely to be described as "white," being, as a matter of fact, about half-way between that pale tint and the hue of the Mashona native.
Then on they scudded once more, and in a minute or two they had reached a spot within a furlong of the farmhouse, from which they saw plainly all that was being enacted at or about the building.
There were three separate groups of attacking natives, each hidden from the house by protecting cover of scrub or rock. Now and again a dark form or two rushed headlong towards the building, when a shot from an upper window would send the rash fellow either hurrying back into the cover or head first into the earth, where he would writhe and kick for a moment, and then lie still. Numbers of still, dark forms dotted the ground at all distances from the house, while a grim heap of the slain within forty yards of it, proved that some charge of the enemy en masse had with difficulty been stopped in time.
"Come," said Umkopo, suddenly and unexpectedly, "now you shall see!"
He started to walk rapidly towards the nearest body of natives. Bruce hesitated to follow, not quite comprehending his intentions, and more than half-mistrusting the wisdom of the proceeding.
"Come, I say!" repeated Umkopo, looking back over his shoulder; "fear nothing; I am Umkopo, the great White Witch!" And Bruce, rather than appear to be afraid, gripped his rifle and followed.
The Matabeles apparently recognised Umkopo at the instant of his appearance, for they sent up a babel of noise, every tongue of the two hundred there assembled seeming to contribute to the din of welcome, or the reverse—of delight or of rage, Bruce could not tell which, for the noise was deafening, and individual voices quite undistinguishable.
"They are angry," said Umkopo, "for they know that they act against my commands. What matter!"
A few individuals rushed forward, as though to fall upon Umkopo as he came; two threw assegais.
Without seeming to take aim Umkopo instantly shot both men; they fell dead almost at the same moment.
Then Umkopo said a few words in the native tongue, words which immediately raised a babel of din even louder than the first. Again Umkopo held up his hand and spoke, spoke fiercely and solemnly, as it seemed to Bruce, who could not, however, understand a word. One or two assegais were thrown, and again the aggressors were shot dead, almost before their weapons had left the hands that hurled them.
Then suddenly the whole body of men, with howls and yells and angry grimaces, turned and moved away, Umkopo standing, like implacable Fate, watching their departure. In five minutes they were a quarter of a mile away; in ten, they had disappeared out of sight.
"Go into the house, you," said Umkopo; "you have seen what you have seen. Tell them Umkopo will drive away the other dogs as he has driven these."
Full of wonder and admiration, Bruce did as Umkopo suggested. Yet, anxious as he was to see his parents and tell his story, he could not forbear to wait and watch Umkopo's dealings with the next batch of niggers before finally turning his back and hastening towards the house.
Here, it may be believed, a rapturous greeting awaited him; for, the horses having returned riderless, it had been a matter of miserable doubt to his parents whether Bruce was alive or dead.
Bruce enjoyed greatly the praise which was certainly his deserved portion, and he was still in the midst of the tale of his experiences when Umkopo suddenly reappeared. The White Witch made no greeting to any one present. He merely inquired "where the cartridges were kept—Winchester," and being shown the place, helped himself liberally and departed almost without a word. He did, however, honour Bruce with a whack on the shoulder.
"Aha!" he said, "we shall meet one day; you shall be a fine Englishman when you are grown full-size—like Umkopo!"
There was no more trouble at Gerstonville that day from the rebel natives; but the family did not, on that account, relax in the slightest degree their watchfulness; for though Umkopo had apparently frightened these bands away, there was no certainty that they, or others, would not return.
But on the following afternoon a body of Englishmen, many of them known to Gerston, rode in from Buluwayo, and these were greatly relieved to find that Gerston and his family were safe; they had not expected it, they said.
"You are luckier than many," said the leader, "and that's the sad truth; this rising's a very serious business. Get your light valuables together and come along, all; Buluwayo itself's in danger, but you'll be safer there than here."
"What, leave my house, and farm, and all I have to the mercy of any rascally niggers that come along to loot and burn!" exclaimed Gerston; "not I!"
"It's unpleasant, I own; but you'll have to do it, mate. Better that than certain outrage and murder."
"We could hold out for a week!" persisted Gerston, unwilling to surrender his house and his goods.
"Very likely. But after that week, what then? This rising won't be quelled for many a week, my friend, take my word for it. You'll have to come. I tell you we expect to be attacked in Buluwayo itself."
"Then maybe we are as safe here as there," said poor Gerston, feeling that his argument was untenable, and that he must indeed, as Bromley said, leave all and retire with these good fellows to the capital. His house and farm, his furniture and goods, valued English things, which had come so far and cost so much, and which represented, in fact, his all—it was hard indeed to surrender them; but the lives of his wife and children were dearer still, and must be saved at all costs, and he knew it, though in argument he fought awhile against the inevitable.
So poor Gerston collected his money and his papers, set his live-stock free to roam where they would, until the "Matabele thieves" should find and appropriate them, and set out for Buluwayo, in which growing city he was obliged perforce to remain until the native disturbance, which developed practically into a small war, was quelled.
Afterwards, as soon as he could do so safely, he lost no time in riding over with Bruce to the place where, until those evil days, had stood the homestead, with its farm-buildings and comfortable, though simply built, house and adequate cowsheds and stables. But alas! he found no trace of the home in which he had taken so great a pride and delight, excepting, indeed, sundry heaps of ashes and bits of blackened wood and twisted iron. Gerston stood and surveyed the scene of ruin and desolation. His heart felt very heavy, though he had scarcely expected to find any more favourable a state of affairs than this.
"I thought so, Bruce," he muttered; "we are ruined, my lad, through no fault of ours. We shall have to begin life over again. It is hard, but we will do it; the land is ours, but our capital has gone."
"We can have a try for Uncle Ben's gold, father," said Bruce unexpectedly. "Let you and I ride up north to the place shown in his map; mother and Kittie are all safe in Buluwayo. It's worth trying. He seemed very serious about his gold."
Gerston reflected. "I don't much believe in Rhodesian gold," he said; "but if your heart is set upon it, we may as well go. Meanwhile the authorities can be deciding what compensation is to be given to poor chaps who are ruined by their mismanagement of the natives."
So up northward went father and son, the latter full of sanguine hope, the former depressed and gloomy, having little belief in his lucky star, which seemed to have set so completely that it would never rise again. To the village called Umdhana they went, and there, using the old man's map, they searched far and wide for the old deserted gold shaft which, according to his scribbled directions, existed in this place, four miles from the village, at a spot designated in his rough plan. It was a wild-looking spot. Rank vegetation grew high and dense on every side, rendering the search for any object, especially when its location, within a few hundred yards, was uncertain, very difficult and discouraging.
For two days Bruce and his father wandered dejectedly about the veldt, hoping against hope that in the end they would stumble upon the old native crushing stones and the remains of the furnace which Uncle Ben's notes declared to be still in existence, and marking the very spot where, at a distant date, some enterprising Matabele fellow had endeavoured to exploit a vein of the precious metal, leaving it scarcely touched.
After two days of failure Gerston was tired of the search. He disbelieved in this gold mine. It existed, he said, only in the brain of a half-crazy old man, who imagined he had found what never actually existed. "We shall employ our time better, sonnie, felling trees at home, and building a new house where our poor old shanty stood."
"Perhaps, father!" Bruce sadly assented. He would much rather have stayed another day or two, being young and sanguine. "But I don't think Uncle Ben was even a bit crazy. We can't go on looking for ever, though." Bruce was angry and depressed. A vulture sat blinking upon a rock close by, and the lad picked up a stone to throw at the evil-looking creature, by way of working off his disappointment and chagrin.
He picked up his stone to throw it, but the vulture noticed his movement and heavily took wing. Bruce remained with the stone in his hand; it was a curious-looking stone, and he first glanced and then gazed carefully at it.
"The lad picked up a stone to throw at the
evil-looking creature."
"Father," he said presently, "look at this; is it anything particular—I mean, is it, could it possibly be—" Bruce's face had gone red with a certain wild idea that suddenly entered his brain; his voice sounded dry and curious.
Gerston took the stone and looked carefully at it. "By all that's happy and wonderful, Bruce," he exclaimed, "I do believe it's a nugget."
A nugget it was; and though the old disused gold mine, which they presently found close to this very spot, proved, like most of the Rhodesian gold veins, somewhat disappointing, yet it yielded, together with Bruce's nugget, more than sufficient to enable Gerston to rebuild his house and farm buildings, and to stock and furnish both in a manner quite superior to their former style.
And when the Company "came down handsome" with a good sum for compensation, Gerston felt that things were rosy indeed, and that when young Bruce made friends one memorable afternoon with poor old Uncle Ben he had indeed been, little as he expected it, "in luck's way."
As for Uncle Ben's baccy pouch and the untidy hieroglyphic which did duty for a map or a plan, they are Bruce's very most treasured possessions. He would not part with them for the wealth of the Transvaal!
["SAMANA KAY"]
By HARRY COLLINGWOOD
I was within a few days of reaching my twenty-third birthday when it was my fortune to secure a berth as only mate aboard a very smart and handsome little brig of two hundred and sixty-five tons, named the Lancashire Witch, hailing out of Liverpool, and bound from that port to Kingston, Jamaica, with a cargo of sugar-mill machinery and Manchester goods.
We sailed on the twenty-eighth of January 18—, with a piping north-easter blowing over our taffrail that swept us right away from the Bar Lightship into the north-east trades without obliging us to start tack or sheet, brace or halliard, from the moment when our "old man" took his departure from the Saltees light. The trade-winds were blowing fresh too, so that we made a phenomenally quick but otherwise uneventful run across the Atlantic until we arrived within some three hundred miles of the Turks Islands, where the wind suddenly failed us, and we fell in with light, hazy, rainy weather, with occasional short spells of flat calm, and variable shifting airs that obliged us to take in all our studding-sails and jockey the little hooker along as best we could under all plain sail. It was tedious, irritating work, for there was so much box-hauling of the yards that the watch could find time for nothing but tending the braces, and all hands of us, fore and aft, were driven nearly frantic.
At length, on the fourth day of this kind of work, the sky gradually thickened up in the southern board, the sun became a pallid, shapeless blotch of watery light in the heavens, and there were other signs that a change of weather was brewing. Yet there was nothing to indicate that the change was imminent; we therefore contented ourselves with the maintenance of a watchful eye upon the signs of the times, and left all our flying kites abroad, in order that we might derive the utmost possible advantage from the languid and scarcely perceptible breathings of the atmosphere that reached us we scarcely knew from where, so light and evanescent were they.
Thus matters went with us throughout the day, the aspect of the sky altering so subtly and gradually, that it was only at the change of the watches, after a four hours' spell below, that one was able to detect any very marked difference. When, however, I was called at eight bells of the afternoon watch I at once noted so pronounced an increase in the threatening aspect of the sky that I felt assured of the near approach of the impending change; and as the skipper did not seem disposed to take the initiative, I suggested that all hands should go to work at once to snug down the ship and prepare her for the coming conflict. Unfortunately, however, the "old man" did not take the same view of the matter that I did; he had been on deck the whole afternoon, and the menacing appearance that had at once impressed me had been occurring so gradually and subtly that he had scarcely noticed it; moreover, there was now a small, hot breeze coming up from the southward that was fanning the nimble little brig along at a speed of nearly four knots, and he was evidently disinclined to forego so great an advantage.
"Yes," he said, when I expressed the opinion that we should have an outburst before long, "it is coming, slowly but surely; but I don't think we shall have it for another hour or two. I don't notice much difference from what it was at noon, except that the sun has vanished, and there is perhaps a little more movement in the muck overhead. I believe we may venture to hang on for another half-hour or so; we shall still have plenty of time to snug down before dark."
I felt rather doubtful of this; but the skipper was a dreadfully opinionated, obstinate man, and I knew that argument, or anything approaching it, would be worse than useless with him. I therefore made no reply, but walked to the skylight, and took a peep at the barometer that hung there. The mercury had fallen more than half an inch since I had last glanced at it just before going to my cabin after dinner.
"Well," inquired the skipper, as I turned away, "what does it say?"
"Twenty-eight, thirty-five," I replied.
"Ay," he remarked, "it is going down steadily; it will be a regular teaser when it comes."
Yet he did not—as I hoped he would—give the order to shorten sail, although the wind was now steadily freshening in puffs, while the sky to windward was darkening and growing ever more threatening of aspect even as one watched it. Meanwhile all hands were on deck, evidently standing by for a call, and casting increasingly anxious glances alternately aft and to windward.
At length one bell struck; and while the sound was still vibrating in the air, the skipper—his obstinate spirit perhaps satisfied now that he had held on for the half-hour he had mentioned—gave the order for all hands to shorten sail.
"Clew up and furl everything except the main-topsail, which you may close-reef, Mr. Burt," he said to me, "and let the hands look smart about it."
"Ay, ay, sir," I answered. Then to the men: "Let go the royal, top-gallant, and fore-topsail sheets and halliards; also your jib, staysail, and main-topsail halliards; man your clew-lines, bunt-lines, and down-hauls, and get the canvas off her as quickly as you can. A couple of hands aloft each to the fore and main royals and roll them up, stowing the top-gallant sails and the main-royal and top-gallant staysails on your way down; and, hark ye, lads, see that you make a snug stow of it, so that nothing blows adrift by-and-by in the darkness, to give us trouble. Now bowse out the reef tackles of your main-topsail; and after you have done that, man your fore and main clew-garnets, and get the courses snugged well up to the yards. Hurrah, bullies, be as lively as you like; let us get the barkie snug while we have light enough to see what we are about!"
The men, who had evidently been impatiently awaiting these orders, sprang about the decks like wild-cats, letting go, clewing up, and hauling down fore and aft with frantic energy, yet working with the method of men who not only knew thoroughly what they were about, but were also perfectly aware of the vital importance of getting through their work in the shortest possible amount of time. In a few minutes, therefore, every sail was off the ship, except the main-topsail, and the hands were on the yards, rolling up the canvas as though for dear life, while the skipper held the wheel, and I dashed hither and thither, letting go this rope and dragging upon that, as called upon by the men aloft. Meanwhile, to facilitate the operation of reefing and furling, the brig was kept broad away, or very nearly dead before the wind.
Suddenly there arose a wild yell aloft of "Man overboard!" and glancing up from what I was about at the moment, I was just in time to catch a glimpse of the body of a man flashing downward—apparently from the larboard mainyard-arm—ere it vanished, with scarce a splash, into the leaden-hued water alongside.
Suddenly there arose a wild yell aloft of "Man overboard!"
Quick as thought the skipper whipped out his knife, and cut adrift a life-buoy that hung over the port quarter, letting it drop into the water within a fathom or two of where a small blot of foam marked the spot of the man's disappearance; while I, forgetful of everything else, sprang to the port-quarter boat, and slashed away with my knife at the gripes that held her. In another moment I was joined by two men from aloft who had come down by way of the backstays; and while the skipper jammed the wheel hard down and brought the brig to the wind, with the canvas that remained unfurled, slatting and thrashing as though it would jerk the sticks out of her, the three of us lowered the boat somehow, and tumbled over the side into her, unhooking the tackles, and getting handsomely away from the ship without a mishap, although it was by this time breezing up fresh, and the brig must have been going through it at a speed of fully six knots.
The two men who were with me threw out their oars and got the boat's head round, while I, grasping the yoke-lines, stood up in the stern-sheets watching for the man. Presently I caught sight of him; but heavens! what a long distance he was away from us, half a mile at least, and dead to windward, with the breeze freshening every moment, and a nasty, short, choppy sea getting up that seemed to stop the boat dead every time that a wave struck her.
"Pull, men!" I exclaimed anxiously; "bend your backs to it and put her along, or we shall lose the poor fellow after all. By the way, who is he?"
"Sam Pilcher, sir," answered the fellow who was pulling stroke. "He was at the yard-arm, and we was rollin' up the mainsail. The sail was thrashin' about a goodish bit, and it must ha' jerked him off."
"Perhaps so," I agreed. But I did not pursue the conversation, for I was getting terribly anxious; I had lost sight of the man of whom we were in search, and feared that he had gone down; the sky was momentarily growing blacker and assuming a more threatening appearance to windward; the wind and the sea were rising like magic; and the brig was driving away to leeward like smoke from a galley funnel. The men, too, were glancing anxiously over their shoulders and dragging away at the heavy oars like demons; it was evident that they fully shared the uneasiness that had taken possession of me, and were longing to complete their task and get the boat's nose round pointing toward the brig.
"See anything of him, sir?" at length demanded the man who had previously spoken.
"Not just at this moment," answered I, "but I expect we shall find him hanging on to the life-buoy. Ay, there is the buoy," I continued, as the small white circle swung up on the breast of a sea, "and—yes—yes—there is the man clinging to it. Give way, bullies; another five minutes and we shall have him!"
The two men toiled at their oars with superhuman energy, their laboured breathing and the sweat that literally poured off them bearing eloquent witness to their exertions, while the boat "squashed" viciously into every sea that met her, flinging the spray right aft and drenching us to the skin; yet despite it all we seemed to make little or no headway, and when a full five minutes had sped we were still quite fifty fathoms away from the man. Then I suddenly lost sight of the poor fellow. He was clinging to the buoy when it sank behind the crest of an on-coming sea; but when the buoy swept into view again on the next slope it was empty.
At this trying moment the sky suddenly darkened into a deeper and more menacing gloom, and the next moment I saw a dense rain-squall sweeping along toward us. The men noticed it too, and one of them anxiously inquired—
"How fur is he off now, Mr. Burt? Is there any chance of our gettin' hold of him afore that squall strikes us?"
"If we don't I doubt it's all up with un, for I can't keep on at this here game much longer," muttered the other.
"Try another spurt, lads!" I exclaimed; "another dozen strokes will do it!"
My little crew responded gallantly to my adjuration; but in another moment the squall was upon us, the rain descending like a cataract, and in an instant everything beyond the length of the boat was hidden by the dense curtain of falling water.
The rain lasted for nearly ten minutes, beating the sea down until its surface was like oil, and the men availed themselves of the opportunity to get a little more way upon the boat; but presently I bade them cease pulling, feeling convinced that we must be quite close to the buoy, although I could see nothing of it. Then the rain suddenly ceased, and the wind with it, revealing the buoy right under the boat's bows; but, alas, the man was gone! We recovered the buoy, and then all stood up to see if we could discover our missing shipmate, and presently we saw his cap floating some ten fathoms away; but the owner had vanished. We shouted several times, thinking that possibly the poor fellow might have been washed off the buoy, yet be still afloat somewhere not far distant, although undistinguishable in the rapidly deepening gloom; but no answer came. Then I suddenly bethought me that night and storm were together closing down upon us, and I turned to look for the brig. There she was, just distinguishable in the thickness to leeward, with far too much of her canvas still blowing loose from her yards and stays, and I turned suddenly sick with anxiety for our own fate as I noticed that she was nearly three miles away.
Meanwhile the two men who constituted my boat's crew had risen to their feet and were, like myself, peering anxiously hither and thither in the hope of discovering the missing man. Failing to find him, however, we again shouted, and then paused, fruitlessly listening for a reply.
It was while we were thus breathlessly listening that a faint, low, moaning wail gradually made itself audible, strengthening and deepening in tone even as we listened, until within the space of a few seconds the sound had resolved itself into the unmistakable piping of rapidly rising wind. Instinctively our glances went, with one accord, into the fast-deepening blackness that loured in the southern quarter, and as we looked I saw a long line of pallid white stretching along the horizon and sweeping toward us at terrific speed. At the same instant one of the men with me yelled—
"O my God! look to wind'ard, Mr. Burt! See that white squall comin' down upon us, sir! What had we better do? It's no good tryin' to fetch the brig; she's a good three mile away, and the wind'll be on us in another two minutes!"
"No, no," I answered; "we must weather it out as best we can. Lay the two oars together and bend the end of the painter round the pair of them in the middle, then veer them away as a floating anchor to keep her head to wind. It is our only chance."
No sooner said than done; but not a moment too soon; we had barely time to complete even these brief and simple preparations when the gale swept down upon us with a screaming yell that was absolutely terrifying, and in an instant we were enveloped in a gloom that was not night, but that yet resembled it in so far that we could scarcely see each other, while the white water boiled in over both gunwales, and the air was thick with scud-water that lashed our faces and hands so cruelly that we could not face it, but were fain to crouch in the bottom of the boat and allow our arched shoulders to take the full brunt of the pelting. As to attempting to do anything for the preservation of the boat and our own lives, it was out of the question; the wind smote us with such merciless fury that it was positively difficult for us to breathe, and had we been foolish enough to endeavour to use an oar it would have been torn from our grasp in an instant. Fortunately for us no such effort was needed, our impromptu sea-anchor kept the boat's head to the wind, and although the foam and scud-water were gradually filling our little craft, the process was so slow that I was not very seriously alarmed at it, believing that the squall would be over before our danger from that source became imminent.
The first spite of the squall lasted about ten minutes, after which it moderated to the strength of a strong gale, when the sea at once began to rise, and very soon it was breaking over the boat so vindictively that it kept the three of us busy baling all the time, and even then it was with the utmost difficulty that we were able to keep her free. Meanwhile the night had fallen upon us, dark as the inside of a cavern, and as for the brig, we had seen nothing of her since the first outburst of the squall. We were drenched to the skin, and were both hungry and thirsty, with not a drop of fresh water or the smallest fragment of anything eatable in the boat, and no prospect of obtaining either until we should be picked up. Our plight was therefore by no means an enviable one. The two men who constituted my crew presently began to discuss the probability of the brig returning in search of us; but I must say that, for my own part, I had very little hope of any such thing, and still less that, in the event of the skipper undertaking such a search, he would be successful. But I did not think he would make any such attempt; he would probably believe that the boat had been swamped and all hands of us drowned at the outburst of the squall, and being now short-handed, he would consequently deem it his duty to waste no time upon what he would regard as an utterly useless search, but to make the best of his way to his port of destination. The two others thought differently, and were so completely overwhelmed with consternation at the mere suggestion that their view might be a wrong one, that I did not further attempt to rob them of the small fragment of hope to which they so desperately clung. Besides, there was the possibility—just the bare possibility—that the dawn might prove their surmise to be correct.
In about two hours' time from the outburst of the squall the gale broke, and by midnight—as nearly as it was possible for us to guess at the time—the wind had dwindled away to a fresh breeze, while the sea had so far gone down that it no longer broke into the boat, which we were consequently now enabled to bale dry.
With all the skipper's faults he had his good points, and one of them—much more common nowadays than it was at the period of my adventure—was to keep every item of a boat's equipment in her; and the great importance and advantage of this was now very strongly brought home to us. For not only had we with us the full complement of oars, rowlocks, and other ordinary fittings, but there was also the boat's mast and sails—a sprit mainsail and foresail—snugly enwrapped in a painted canvas case and securely lashed to the thwarts. The moment, therefore, that it was safe to do so, we had the means to make sail.
It would probably be about two bells in the morning watch when, having stepped the mast, we bore up under a double-reefed mainsail, and ran away to the northward in search of the brig, which we hoped to find some ten miles to leeward of us. An hour later a brightening of the sky along the eastern horizon heralded the dawn, and shortly afterward the sun rose brilliantly, flushing the sky around him with a thousand delicate, evanescent tints of pink and gold, the presage of a fine day.
We at once inaugurated a keen look-out for the brig, or some other craft—I was in no wise particular, so long as we were picked up; but when we had run an estimated distance of ten miles to leeward the horizon was still bare. Then came the question of what was the next thing to be done—whether we should continue to run to leeward in further search of the brig; whether we should remain where we were, in the hope that she would shortly heave into view in search of us; or whether we should haul up on a westerly course and endeavour to intercept her. The latter was my suggestion, founded upon the opinion I had formed that the skipper had probably given us up as lost; but the idea conveyed was so unwelcome to my companions that eventually we determined to heave to and remain where we were, that the brig might have every chance to find us if the skipper should undertake the search. Accordingly we hauled the foresheet over to windward, lashed the helm hard down, and stripped for a wash-down in sea-water while our clothes were drying in the sun. One of the seamen was for going overboard for a swim, but I dissuaded him; and it was probably fortunate for him that he listened to me, for while we were still engaged upon our ablutions two big sharks made their appearance close alongside the boat, and began to circle round her with a persistency and deliberation that unpleasantly suggested the impression that they had come to stay.
Meanwhile, with the appearance of the sun the wind dropped fast, until by about eight o'clock it had died away to a flat calm, leaving the water oil-smooth everywhere, save where the fins of the persistent sharks cleft the surface into two thin, wedge-like ripples as they lazily cruised to and fro, never widening the space between them and the boat by more than half-a-dozen fathoms.
Eight o'clock! breakfast time! and here were we three unfortunate men, keenly hungry, and our throats parched with a rapidly increasing thirst that threatened to quickly become a torment, without the smallest morsel of bread or the merest sip of water to divide between us, and with no hope of getting any either so long as the calm lasted—unless, indeed, we could find a ship by searching for her. Obviously this was the only thing to be done; so, not without a muttered curse or two at the cruelty of fortune, we rolled up the sails, unstepped the mast, threw out the oars, and headed the boat to the northward, in which direction we thought the brig might possibly be found. And, as we pulled, the two sharks doggedly followed us, swimming side by side, with their snouts about a fathom astern of the aftermost edge of the rudder, which distance they maintained as truly as though they had been in tow.
Noon arrived and passed, finding us still with nothing in sight, ravenously hungry, and with our mouths slimy with a thirst so imperious that the man who was pulling the bow oar suddenly stooped over the side, scooped up a little salt water in his palm, and quickly drank it, exclaiming in answer to my warning cry—
"I was bound to do it, Mr. Burt, even if I has to suffer for it a'terwards. This here thirst is just maddenin'!"
"Ay, Joey, it is that," agreed the other man. "Have your sup o' salt water done yer any good, mate?"
"No, I don't know as it have, Ned; I didn't take enough of it for that," was the reply.
No more was said; but about half-an-hour afterwards "Joey" snatched another sip, despite everything I could say to dissuade him; and a little later his mate followed his example.
"It's no good talkin', Mr. Burt," he replied to my expostulations; "drinkin' salt water may perhaps make a man mad, but I shall pretty soon go mad if I don't drink something, so what's the odds? And where's the brig; what's the 'old man' up to with her? why ain't he lookin' for us? He ain't lookin' for us, that's sartin, or we should have hove the old hooker into view long afore this. Dash me if I don't begin to think as you're right, Mr. Burt, about his havin' give us up for lost, or else where is he? He ain't hereabouts nowheres, and so he must be headin' for his port, leavin' us here to die o' hunger and thirst! It's murder, that's what it is; downright murder, and nothin' else! What right have he to go and suppose that this here boat foundered in the squall and drownded us? And what are we to do now, 'bandoned out here in the Hatlantic with never a bite nor a sup to keep the life in us?"
"There is no doubt in my mind," I answered, "that our best plan will be to head to the south'ard and west'ard for the Caycos Passage, and so give ourselves a chance to be picked up by either an outward or a homeward bound ship, for we shall be running right into the track of both. It is, of course, most unfortunate that it has fallen calm with us, but I do not believe it will last long; and when once a breeze springs up a sail may heave into view at any moment and pick us up."
It was difficult to fully persuade these two untutored men of the uselessness of searching further for the brig; but eventually I won them round to my view, and we at once hauled up on a south-west course—as nearly as we could hit it off by the sun—pulling hard until sunset, in the hope that the brig might be found in this new direction, for we were convinced that she must be at no great distance from us. But at sunset the horizon was still bare, and the disappointment was so bitter that we were unable to resist any longer the exhaustion that had been steadily growing upon us all day, so the oars were laid in, and with one consent the three of us flung ourselves down in the bottom of the boat, with the result that I instantly fell into a deep slumber.
I slept all through the night, but was awakened next morning, just as the day was dawning, by the man Ned, who, I found, was shaking me furiously by the shoulder as he shouted, in terrified accents—
"Mr. Burt, Mr. Burt, wake up, sir! Where's Joey, where's Joey? He ain't in the boat! Lord ha' mussy upon us! have he gone overboard, d'ye think, sir?"
I started to my feet, vaguely comprehending that something was wrong, but scarcely realising what it was. I found that there was a pleasant little breeze blowing from the north-east—that could only have sprung up very recently, from the look of the water, which was merely rippled, without any sea—and that poor Ned, gaunt and cadaverous of feature, with his deeply-sunken eyes glowing with the scorching fever of long-continued thirst, was glaring at me with an expression of terror that was near akin to madness.
"What is the matter, Ned? Why are you glaring at me like that, man? and what is it you are saying about Joey?" I stammered, in the confusion of a sudden and violent awakening out of a profound sleep.
"What am I sayin' about Joey?" reiterated the fellow. "Why, I am sayin', Mr. Burt, that he ain't in the boat, and where is he? what's happened to 'im?"
Then I fully realised, for the first time, that there were but two of us in the boat, and that the man known as Joey had vanished as completely as though he had never been, leaving no sign or indication of what had become of him. One thing was certain, he was not in the boat, and that fact meant that he had gone overboard. Involuntarily I glanced astern, as though expecting to see him swimming near us; but there was no sign of him. There was a horribly significant fact, however, that instantly caught my attention, and that was, that whereas yesterday there had been two sharks following us, there was now but one!
"Ned," said I, "what is the use of asking me what has become of Joey; how do I know? I have been asleep the whole night until now; and when we all stretched out together you know as well as I do that Joey was with us. How long have you been awake?"
"Not five minutes, Mr. Burt, sir," answered Ned. "I just woke up, looked round, saw that Joey wasn't in the boat, and then I called you, sir, right off the reel."
"Well," said I, "there can be no doubt whatever as to poor Joey's fate, although neither of us happened to witness it; he has gone overboard, most probably during a fit of madness induced by drinking salt water. Let his fate be a lesson to you not to indulge that fatal practice, however greatly you may be tempted. And now, since poor Joe is gone, and we can do nothing to help him, let us get the canvas on the boat and make the best of this fine fair wind."
Sail was made upon the boat, and we soon had the satisfaction of finding ourselves sliding along before the wind at a speed of between four and five knots. I took the yoke-lines, believing that I could steer a truer course than Ned, while he maintained a sharp look-out for a sail. Hour after hour dragged wearily by however, and still the ocean remained deserted, save for our own tiny sail; and meanwhile our hunger and thirst grew apace, until there were times when my torment was so exquisitely keen that I felt sorely tempted to follow Joey's example, and end it all.
As for Ned, although the springing up of the fair wind seemed to hearten him up a bit at first, I noticed that, as the day wore on without result, despair was taking an ever stronger clutch upon him; and several times he cried out that it was all over with us, and we might as well give up, finishing off with a whole string of bitter curses upon the skipper and his shipmates for deserting him. It was curious to note the intense selfishness that misfortune had so quickly developed in the man; he spoke of the misfortune as his, not ours; and he execrated the captain and crew for deserting him, not us.
And so the day dragged wearily on, and night—cool, placid, and brilliant with the countless millions of stars that jewelled the sky—fell upon us, finding us still alone and unrescued. Ned, with the new-born selfishness bred in him by his sufferings, coiled himself away in the bows of the boat and fell asleep—or seemed to do so—as soon as it fell dark, without excuse, apology, or offer to relieve me at the yoke-lines, although I had been steering all day. He remained thus for about an hour and a half, betraying great restlessness, and then, rising to his feet, half stumbled, half crawled aft into the stern-sheets.
"I can't sleep, so I might as well give up trying," he muttered. "You give me the lines, and lie down yourself, Mr. Burt; maybe you'll be luckier than me, and get a bit of a nap."
"Thanks, Ned, I will," answered I; and without further ado I stretched myself at his feet in the bottom of the boat, and straightway fell asleep.
I do not think I could have slept, however, more than ten minutes when I suddenly found myself broad awake again, with every nerve a-tingle and every muscle braced, as though I had suddenly and without warning been brought face to face with some awful, deadly peril. I opened my eyes, and the first object that met my sight was the star-glint upon the long blade of a sheath-knife which my companion was poising above my breast. Another second, and the blade flashed downward, my hand instinctively dashing upward to meet and ward off the blow, and the next instant Ned and I were fighting together for life, my antagonist being uppermost, while my right hand gripped his right wrist so powerfully that presently he dropped his knife with a cry, and flinging himself upon me, strove to seize my throat with his disengaged hand. In the struggle that ensued I somehow managed to scramble to my feet, despite the efforts of my antagonist to keep me down, and my next endeavour was to force Ned forward into the eyes of the boat, so that I might securely lash him with the painter until the frenzy that seemed to have suddenly seized him should have passed off. Then—God knows how it happened, I swear it was not intentional on my part—all in a moment Ned seemed to stumble or throw himself backwards over the gunwale of the boat, and before I could do anything to save him he was gone. Instantly there was a savage rush and a furious swirl in the water alongside, the boat was struck a violent blow beneath her water-line, and in the icy starlight I distinctly saw the white gleam of a shark's belly as he turned on his side to seize my unfortunate shipmate. Then came another momentary swirl of water, in the midst of which the monster—without doubt the same shark that had been following us so persistently—disappeared, dragging the unfortunate seaman with him; and there was I, sick and faint with horror, left alone in the wide waste of waters.
"Ned seemed to stumble or throw himself backwards over
the gunwale of the boat."
What happened to me immediately upon the occurrence of this dreadful tragedy I do not know; but when I came to myself I found that I had somehow made my way back into the stern-sheets of the boat, and that I was grasping the yoke-lines and the mainsheet, while—quite unconsciously, and by instinct—I was keeping the little craft dead before the wind.
I have only a very confused impression of how I spent the remainder of that terrible night; I think that horror and privation combined must have made me delirious, for I have a vague recollection of having caught myself alternately crying, laughing, cursing, and singing; with the one fixed idea that the boat must be kept dead before the wind predominating over everything else. I remember also complaining bitterly, aloud, at the inordinate length of the night, and then being dully surprised at the reappearance of the sun.
With the return of daylight, however, I seemed to get better again, in so far as that my senses fully returned to me; but the anguish I endured from hunger and thirst is not to be described in words. And still, look where I would, the horizon remained bare; it really seemed as though I had unaccountably drifted into some spot of ocean unknown to navigation, yet I knew that I was actually in a well-frequented highway.
Suddenly, when the sun was about two hours high, I caught sight of a small floating object almost directly ahead and at no great distance from the boat, and, curiosity prompting me, I shifted my helm for it. At first I could not guess what it was, but when within half-a-dozen fathoms of it I saw that it was a small turtle, asleep. With infinite caution I steered the boat so as to pass it within arm's reach, and as I ranged up alongside I was fortunate enough to seize it by a fin, whereby I was enabled to lift it into the boat. The creature probably weighed about six pounds, but in my exhausted condition it taxed my strength to the utmost to secure it. No sooner was it in the boat, however, than I cut off its head with Ned's knife, and drank the blood, which restored me in a truly marvellous manner; then, with a lavish expenditure of time and trouble, I at length contrived to get the shells apart and to make a sparing meal of the raw flesh. Doubtless it was a sufficiently disgusting repast, but in my famished condition it seemed that I had never in all my life tasted anything half so delicious. Toward evening I devoured the remainder of the flesh, despite the fact that it had already grown perceptibly putrid; and then I must have fallen asleep, and slept soundly throughout the night, for when consciousness returned I was astonished to find that the day was breaking.
My good fortune of the previous day led me now to maintain a bright look-out for turtles as well as ships; but the day proved a blank in regard to both, as did the next day also, by the evening of which I seemed to be in as pitiable a condition as though I had never caught a turtle at all. Then ensued a period of steadily increasing torment, that at length so far robbed me of reason that I lost all count of time, day and night becoming simply alternate eternities of indescribable anguish. Whether I instinctively retained control of the boat, or whether I allowed her to drift along at her own sweet will, I shall never know; but my next recollection is of awaking out of a kind of stupor to see—in a hazy, uncertain, dreamlike manner—a blotch of greyish-green upon the horizon ahead, to which I at first attached no significance, but which as the boat gradually neared it, impressed itself at length upon my semi-paralysed consciousness as land. Yet even when I comprehended thus much I still failed to realise the tremendous importance of my discovery, and I can only attribute it to instinct rather than reason that I took the boat round to the lee side of the island before beaching her. But when, as I rounded the low point and hauled up to the wind, I caught my first whiff of the land and what was growing upon it, my senses seemed to revive, and I looked about me, with a glimmer of returning intelligence, for a suitable spot at which to land.
And, as I looked, the gleam and sparkle of water trickling down the beach caught my eye; and instantly I seemed to go quite mad with joy, springing to my feet and laughing, shouting, singing, crying, dancing, and, in short, behaving like the demented being that I was. I headed the boat straight for that particular spot, and as she grounded I fell headlong overboard and crawled upon hands and knees through the shallow water and up the beach until I reached the tiny rivulet, into which I at once plunged my face.
Oh, the exquisite, indescribable delight and enjoyment of that first drink! I shall never forget it! Since then I have tasted the choicest vintages, and have partaken of beverages cunningly compounded to afford the utmost gratification to the palate, but never have I tasted anything half so inexpressibly delicious as that draught of pure spring water! I fortunately had sense enough to drink very slowly and sparingly, and thus escaped the ill effects that would undoubtedly have otherwise ensued; and my next business was to look for something to eat. This presented itself in the form of a quantity of shell-fish, which I gathered without difficulty along the water's edge, and roasted in a fire kindled with the assistance of my flint and steel.
The absolute ease with which I had thus at once obtained food and water assured me that I need have no apprehension upon that score; and, with my mind thus relieved, I flung myself down upon the hot, dry sand, under the protecting shadow of an overhanging bush, and at once fell into a profound sleep.
It was within about an hour of sunset when I awoke, greatly refreshed, but with a ravenous appetite; and I had just time to procure, prepare, and consume another meal of roast shell-fish, and to take a long, satisfying draught of water, when night fell, and I again flung myself upon the sand, where I had previously rested, to sleep soundly until morning.
My first care when I awoke next morning was to find a spot where I might bathe without fear of sharks; and this was discovered at no great distance, in a large rock pool, deep enough to allow of my swimming in it. Greatly refreshed by my dip, I next set about providing breakfast; and when I had at length satisfied my appetite, I deemed it advisable to effect a thorough exploration of my island kingdom. My territory was of so limited an extent that this exploration was effectually accomplished by noon; the islet being of the kind known in the West Indies as a "Kay," with nothing very remarkable about it, except that in one part it rose to a height of about one hundred feet, and was covered with vegetation right down to high-water mark. These islets are frequently low; and I considered myself fortunate in having come ashore upon one of some height, as I should thus be afforded an exceptional opportunity to survey the ocean and maintain a look-out for passing vessels.
I thought I could not better employ the afternoon than in ascending to the summit of this hill; and accordingly, as soon as I had provided and partaken of another meal, I started out from my "camp" with this intention. The ground was so densely overgrown everywhere that there appeared to be but scant choice as to route; I therefore plunged straight into the bush and began to force my way upward as well as I could, and a very hot and fatiguing task I found it. I made fairly good progress, however, for about half-an-hour; and then suddenly, and without any warning, I found myself sinking downward through a dense carpet of creepers, and before I could do anything to save myself, down I went, a distance of perhaps twenty feet, falling so heavily that I was stunned for several minutes, and when I revived I found that my head was cut and bleeding.
I was in profound darkness; but after sitting quietly for a time to recover my scattered senses I became conscious of a very faint and feeble glimmer of light, following which I eventually came to a mass of broken and fallen rock, through which the light filtered, and by working at this diligently for something like two hours I at length succeeded in removing enough to enable me to creep into the open air once more, when I found myself upon the weather side of the island, at the base of a low, crumbling, rocky cliff. I carefully noted the spot, determining to return on the morrow with torches to explore the cavern thus strangely discovered, and then made the best of my way back to my camp.
On the following morning I carried out my resolution, finding—as my experiences of the previous day had led me to suppose—that the cavern was of considerable extent; but I met with nothing remarkable until I reached its farther extremity—close to the spot where I had fallen through—when I suddenly came upon several skeletons, clad in the ragged remains of what had once been clothing, and girt with leather belts, to which were buckled old-fashioned, rusty hangers, and into which, in most cases, were thrust one or a pair of rusty flintlock pistols. Moreover, several of these grisly relics of humanity grasped long, dagger-shaped knives or pistols in their bony hands; and after surveying their attitude and general grouping for some time, it gradually dawned upon me that I was gazing upon the result of a savage and protracted fight! Indeed, it looked as though a fierce and deadly quarrel had arisen over a gambling transaction of some sort, for a closer scrutiny revealed the fact that the sandy floor was strewn with gold and silver coins, which I subsequently discovered were Spanish.
My first impulse was to beat a precipitate retreat; my second to still further investigate. The second impulse prevailed; and richly was I rewarded, for right at the far extremity of the cavern I came upon a number of massive chests, which, upon breaking them open, I found to contain gold in coin, bars, and cups, vases, candlesticks, crosses, and other products of the goldsmith's art, all the articles being of most beautiful and elaborate workmanship, while many of them were thickly encrusted with gems that, to my inexperienced eye, seemed to be of almost fabulous value! There was no doubt about it, I had literally fallen upon one of those pirate hoards that one so often reads about but so very seldom discovers. Having completed my survey, I filled my pockets with gold coin, and returned to my camp to think matters over, taking care to block and conceal the entrance to the cave behind me.
"I met with nothing remarkable until I reached its
farther extremity."
My discovery had not robbed me of all appetite, and as I returned I industriously gathered shell-fish for my dinner. It was while thus employed that, happening to instinctively glance at the horizon, as I repeatedly did, my gaze met the white upper canvas of a ship just showing above the ocean's edge. For a full quarter of an hour I watched her, at the end of which time it became evident that she would pass my island at a distance of some ten or twelve miles. In an instant my resolution was taken; and forgetting all about dinner, I dashed at full speed for my boat, flung myself into her, and pushed off to intercept the stranger. The course that she was steering favoured me; and at eight bells that afternoon I was standing on the deck of the barque British Queen, telling my story—except that part relating to the treasure, which I kept most religiously to myself. The British Queen happened to be bound to Kingston, and four days later I landed upon the wharf there, having meanwhile ascertained that my island was that known as Samana Kay. The Lancashire Witch had not arrived, nor was she ever afterwards heard of, the inference being that she had foundered in the squall which was the beginning of my adventure.
My first anxiety now was to convert my Spanish coin into British currency; and this, by the exercise of considerable patience and caution, I contrived to accomplish in about a week, without arousing any suspicion, so far as I was aware; the result being that I found myself the possessor of one hundred and twenty pounds sterling, which I have since had reason to believe was rather less than half what I ought to have received. With this sum, however, I had no difficulty in chartering and fitting out a stout little falucha of some forty tons, manned by four negroes—one of whom was her owner—in which, about a fortnight after my arrival in Kingston, I sailed for Samana Kay.
It took us eight days to reach the Kay, under the lee of which the falucha came to an anchor; and I lost no time in making my way to the cavern. I was terribly afraid that—although it had evidently remained undiscovered for so many years—somebody might have found it and carried off the treasure during my absence; but no, everything was still there, just as I had left it; and little by little I conveyed the whole aboard the falucha and stowed it away in the stout cases I had provided, the negro crew taking no notice of me; indeed, when they were informed that I did not require their assistance, they needed no further encouragement to sleep all day. The labour of transferring the whole of the treasure to the falucha kept me busy for a trifle over three weeks; but I did not grudge it, for when at length we weighed for Kingston, with the whole of it in the falucha's hold, I considered that I was not far short of being a millionaire!
That same night—or, rather, during the small hours of the following morning—while I was vainly striving to sleep in the small, hot, cockroach-haunted cabin of the falucha, a terrific hubbub and shouting suddenly arose on deck, and as I leapt out of my bunk to ascertain the cause of the outcry, the little hooker staggered and reeled almost to her beam-ends under a violent blow, accompanied by the sounds of crashing and rending timber, and the loud inrush of a large volume of water. There was no need, now, for investigation; we had been run down; and, feeling that the falucha was rapidly sinking beneath my feet, I made a spring for the companion-ladder, and somehow contrived to claw my way on deck. While I was doing this the shouting on deck suddenly ceased, and as I emerged from the companion-way I was just in time to see the dark bulk of a large ship sliding rapidly away on a taut bowline. I shouted loudly for help, but the craft was already some fifty fathoms to windward, and my shouting evoked no reply. And while I had my hands to my mouth, and was taking breath for another hail, the falucha quietly cocked up her stern and plunged to the bottom, bows foremost, taking all my treasure with her, and dragging me down for a considerable distance after her. At length, however, all but suffocated, I rose to the surface again, and found floating quite close to me the falucha's mast, with the yard and sail attached, and to this I held on until close upon noon next day, when the British ship Duchess of Devonshire, homeward bound, picked me up. Six weeks later I stepped ashore on the wharf of London Dock, with two pounds in my pockets, the joint contribution of the skipper and mates of the Duchess of Devonshire, and with the clothes I stood up in.
["HARI RĀM, THE DACOIT"]
By E. F. POLLARD
Author of "Roger the Ranger," "A New England Raid," &c. &c.
CHAPTER I
"H urrah! you are a brick, Frank!" and Gilbert Lindsay sprang across the room and came down with an energetic thud on his brother's shoulder. "Gently," said the young man, "no need to damage me by way of gratitude. I'm just as pleased as you are, lad."
"When shall we start?" asked Gilbert cheerily.
"As soon as we can get our outfit," said Frank, "and we will set about that to-day. I'm off to the city; you had better come with me."
So the two brothers started together in good spirits. Frank Lindsay was considerably relieved by the fact that he was not to be separated from Gilbert, his mother's last charge to him. He was himself only five-and-twenty, had been educated as an engineer, and was already noted as a man of promise. This had resulted in an offer of an appointment as chief engineer to the Ganges Coal mine, in the Damuda district of Bengal. He had, however, hesitated to accept what most men would have jumped at, as it meant separation from Gilbert, who was at an age when a boy needs either a father or brother's control. Gilbert was sixteen, still at school, with no home where he could spend his vacations, for the two brothers were virtually alone in the world. Frank had therefore almost decided to make the sacrifice and throw the appointment over, when Gilbert said carelessly—
"Why not take me with you? I mean to be an engineer like yourself, and I might just as well begin my apprenticeship with you as go on grinding at school."
Frank said nothing at the time, but the next day he spoke to Mr. Jacob, one of the managers of the Company, who, having boys of his own, understood Frank's scruples. He therefore facilitated matters, and it was settled that Gilbert should accompany his brother to India as an articled pupil, and, as soon as he was of definite use, to receive suitable remuneration.
It was with a certain sense of elation that Gilbert bade his masters and schoolfellows farewell. Going to India was a step in life; he felt no longer a schoolboy, but a man.
"You'll be tiger and leopard hunting whilst we're grinding away at Homer and Virgil, scanning verses and all that rot," said his especial chum Harry Marsden, as they strolled round the old playground together for the last time.
"You shall have my first skin, Harry," answered Gilbert with magnanimous generosity.
"Thanks," answered Harry; but the prospect did not console him for the loss of his friend.
Both Frank and Gilbert soon found their sea-legs, and after the first few days thoroughly enjoyed the voyage.
On reaching Calcutta Frank found a telegram awaiting him, requesting him to use all possible despatch to reach the mines.
Upon inquiry he found there was a train leaving Calcutta at nine o'clock for Giridhi, the terminus of the East Indian Railway branch line running up to the Ganges Coal-mines. He decided, therefore, to start that same night, by which means they would reach their destination the following morning about six o'clock, and arrive at the mines a couple of hours later.
"We've the whole day before us," said Frank, "so I think I'll hunt up my old friend Fergusson; he's in the police; and I'm pretty sure he's in Calcutta at the present time. I've got his address somewhere."
He looked in his pocket-book, where he found it, and calling a ghari, drove to Circular Road. Fergusson was delighted to see them; but when he heard where they were bound for, he burst out laughing and exclaimed: "Well, you're going into a nice hornet's nest, a district which is giving Government at this moment more trouble than any in the Presidency!"
"Indeed," said Frank, "and why?"
"It's overrun with Dacoits," answered Fergusson. "At their head they have a notorious rascal, named Hari Rām. Rumour runs that he is a sort of Robin Hood. He plunders the rich, and shares his booty with the poor, who consequently protect him in such a fashion that we cannot lay our hands on him; he just slips through our fingers. He politely declares he will do the English no harm, and so far he has kept his word. I have not heard of a single case of an Englishman being attacked; but the native merchants are having a bad time of it. He waylays their carts, carries off their bullocks, and robs them of their cotton, or cocoons, as the case may be. Not a day passes but what we have reports of Hari Rām's misdoings."
"Rather a bad look-out," said Frank. "It seems absurd that the Government cannot lay hands on him."
"It won't seem so absurd to you when you know the country better," answered Fergusson, "especially the native class; but, of course, it must be put a stop to. Caught he must be, and punished pretty severely, or the country won't long be habitable; in its present state it's wholly unsafe."
Gilbert had listened to this conversation with considerable zest. He had not imagined there could be anything so delightful as Robin Hoods in India. Tigers and leopards he was prepared for, but to chase a real live robber was an adventure beyond his wildest imaginings.
"What do you call these robbers, sir?" he asked.
"Dacoits," answered Fergusson. "Are you inclined to give this one a chase?" he said with a smile. "I think you'll find him too tough for you. He's up, they say, to every imaginable dodge; no one can get near his hiding-place. Government is thinking of offering a reward for his capture; but I doubt if even that will have the least effect in his case. If he makes a haul he shares it with his fellows, so they have nothing to gain, indeed much to lose, by his capture."
"It would be decidedly mean of them," exclaimed Gilbert indignantly.
"That's of no account," said Fergusson, laughing. "An Indian's standard is considerably below par; as a rule, he will do anything for money. But now I must show you Calcutta."
It was already late in the afternoon and the heat had somewhat subsided, so ordering his ghari, he drove them to Garden Reach, and altogether entertained them with Anglo-Indian hospitality. In due time he accompanied them to the station at Hooghly to meet the nine o'clock express. So they parted with mutual satisfaction, and the hope of meeting at some future time. It was scarcely six o'clock when the Lindsays reached Giridhi, a most desolate sort of terminus. Frank was beginning to wonder how he should get to his destination, when a native came up and salaamed to him, talking rapidly. Being perfectly unacquainted with Hindustanee, Frank failed to understand a word he said, and only caught the repeated title "Sahib."
"What does the fellow want?" he asked, turning to one of the railway officials for explanation.
"He says he has been sent to meet you, sir, with a shari and ponies, and they are waiting outside the station; the ponies are very impatient."
"What about our luggage?" asked Frank.
"Coolies will carry it for you. You had better start without delay."
Following this advice, the two brothers signed to the chaprassi, and pointed out the different packages on the platform as being their possessions, to all of which the man acquiesced by salaaming, which amused Gilbert considerably.
On leaving the station they saw a small vehicle on high wheels, which rolled from side to side according as the prancing and kicking of the ponies jerked it first one way, then the other. The two young men looked at it curiously, questioning in their own minds how they were even so much as to get into it.
"Well!" said Gilbert, "if we're not thrown out of this concern before we've travelled a quarter of a mile we may think ourselves lucky."
"It does seem risky," said Frank; "but I suppose it's all right."
The syce had already sprung into his seat. There was much noise and screaming, and tramping of ponies' feet, but somehow Frank and Gilbert, being agile, managed to scramble into the vehicle. Then the ponies' heads were let loose and the animals dashed off, obliging the occupants to hold tight to the sides for fear of being thrown out. After a short time, however, they settled down, and became aware that though the mode of locomotion was intensely uncomfortable, it was by no means so dangerous as it seemed.
The country through which they passed was perfectly wild; there was indeed no main road, only what the natives call a chachha road, which means a rough, unmade path.
After a short time the conveyance drew up before a bungalow, and the syce sprang to the ground.
"I suppose this is our destination," said Frank, and forthwith he and Gilbert swung themselves out of their rickety chariot with a certain thankful feeling at finding themselves once more on terra firma.
"Mr. Lindsay," said an English voice, and looking round, Frank recognised a fellow-countryman.
"I'm afraid you've had rather a bad time of it," the speaker continued.
"Oh! not at all," answered Frank, "it is a mere matter of habit; after the first we stuck on pretty firmly and felt no further alarm."
"Wretched concern," said their new acquaintance, "but I thought it better than a palki; at least it was quicker, and we want you badly. I must introduce myself—James Dickson, overseer," and he held out his hand, which both Frank and Gilbert shook heartily.
"I got a fright yesterday," continued Dickson; "we had a sort of slip in the mine and the machinery seemed to give way. But it's a shame to talk business after your journey, before you have had a bath and got some refreshment. Here, you fellows, show the sahibs to their rooms and see that the baths are ready, then we'll breakfast."
"We shall certainly be glad of both," said Frank; "but at the same time, if you consider my presence at the mine necessary, I'm quite ready to accompany you there at once."
"When you have had your baths and changed your clothes you will find me on the verandah," said Dickson. "We will breakfast and talk business at the same time; there are a few things I should like to explain to you before you go to the mines."
"Very good," said Frank, "we will not keep you waiting long."
CHAPTER II
The next few days Gilbert found himself cast on his own resources, for the condition of the mine was such as to require Frank's uninterrupted attention, and the lad, of course, could be of no use; the mere fact of seeing after him would have been a hindrance. The exploits of Hari Rām still retained their charm for him; he was never tired of talking of him, and he went about with the police officer gathering information as to the man's doings, to the great amusement of the station.
Scarcely a day passed but complaints were brought of robberies committed in the district by Hari Rām's gang. The authorities seemed perfectly incapable of tackling these men. They were utterly fearless, and roved about with impunity. In appearance and dress—if a dhoti[8] can be dignified by that name—they were just like the ordinary native, so it was difficult to identify them....
"Gilbert Lindsay!"
The lad started up in bed, and by the light of the moon saw Jenkins, the police superintendent, standing in the doorway.
"We've had a notice," he said, "and we're off, if you like to come with us."
"Rather!" answered Gilbert.
"Then hurry up," said Jenkins, "there's no time to be lost."
Gilbert needed no second bidding, slipped into his clothes, saying as he passed Frank's door—
"I'm off with Jenkins, Frank."
"Keep out of mischief," called out the elder brother.
"All right," answered Gilbert, and he joined the officer on the verandah.
A tumtum was waiting to take them to the neighbouring station some miles off, from whence news had been received that a native merchant's house had been despoiled; it was believed the robbers were still lurking about in hiding. Superintendent Jenkins was in high spirits, for a runner had brought the news, so no time had been lost.
"We must nab some of them this time!" he said cheerily. "I wanted a clue to their whereabouts; now I've got it, and need only follow it up."
It was midnight when they started, and they were more than half-way to their destination, driving at a good pace through the jungle, when suddenly two naked figures leaped out from behind a group of trees, and springing at the horse's head, caused it to rear and prance, so as to endanger the safety of the occupants of the tumtum.
The superintendent stood up, pistol in hand, shouting—
"Let go, you rascals, or I'll fire!" and suiting the action to the word, he cocked his pistol and fired at the foremost figure. The shot missed, and almost instantaneously he perceived that the horse was loose—he guessed at once that the traces must have been cut; the tumtum swerved and turned on its side, depositing the superintendent on the road.
Like lightning the thought crossed Gilbert's mind—
"They want to prevent our reaching the village. If only I could checkmate them!"
With that he started at a quick run, trusting that in the still dim light he might escape observation. He had often won pretty stiff races at school, but he was out of training now, and had hardly covered half a mile when he heard the swift sound of naked feet gaining upon him. Still he would not give in. He knew, from having driven over the ground before, that he was on the road to a tea-planter's bungalow. If he could only reach that he could give the alarm; but the hope was soon squashed. He felt himself caught in a vigorous pair of arms.
"Now, young sahib, lie still; no harm happen to you. Hari Rām never hurt sahibs, only they must not stop his way or hinder his work."
"So you are Hari Rām, the great Dacoit?" said Gilbert. "I'm delighted to see you; at the same time I would rather you hadn't upset the tumtum and perhaps killed my friend. What are you going to do with me, may I ask?"
"Keep you quiet till evening; it is not good for sahibs to be out in the heat; then I'll put you on your way back to the mines. I mean you no harm. You wanted to catch the men who took some of the mahajan's[9] money, only a little, and they gave half to the poor; now I have stopped you doing so. These mahajans are bigger thieves than we are, and make the poor suffer; it is the will of Eshwar that they should be punished." Gilbert could just see that he was a tall muscular man with handsome features, the bold black eyes shining under his white turban; he was quite naked save for the dhoti, and his dark mahogany skin shone, from the frequent application of oil, like a well-polished piece of furniture. He stood Gilbert's scrutinising examination with perfect good-humour.
"You'll know me when you next see me," he said.
"You'll know me when you next see me."
"Yes, I should know you anywhere," answered Gilbert.
Just at that moment they heard the clatter of horses' feet.
"It's the Miss Sahiba!" said Hari Rām, and instantly bolted. Turning round, Gilbert saw a girl coming quickly over the brushwood, mounted on a splendid horse and followed by a syce.
"This is luck!" thought Gilbert. The rider saw him, and checked her horse, asking—
"Has anything happened? It's unusual for an Englishman to be alone in the jungle at this time in the morning."
Rapidly Gilbert recounted what had taken place. The girl listened attentively.
"Then you don't know what has become of your friend?" she said.
"Only that he was knocked over," said Gilbert.
"And you have been quietly entertaining Hari Rām?" she continued with a smile.
"Yes," said Gilbert; "but I am sorry to say he has escaped. He was going to take me with him, but you startled the hare, and he was off like a shot."
"Oh! he always is," answered the girl. "But now we had better see after your friend. How far do you suppose he is from here?"
"Not half a mile," answered Gilbert. "If you will ride forward I will follow."
All this has been long to tell, but had really occupied but a short time. When Gilbert and the girl reached the spot where the attack had been made, they found the driver had secured the horse, but could not proceed because of the damage the tumtum had sustained; also Superintendent Jenkins had been considerably injured. He had fallen on his head and his face was badly cut about, but he was conscious.
When Jenkins saw Gilbert returning with a companion he was greatly relieved, and called out—
"Well, youngster, you've managed at least to fall on your feet."
"By a mere fluke," said Gilbert. "What shall we do now?"
"Do!" exclaimed the superintendent. "We're within a few miles of Pokharia, and if you hurry up you'll be there in no time. Let the police know what's happened, and that the rascal is on the loose somewhere in the neighbourhood; tell them to turn out as many men as they can and beat the jungle. Off with you, there's no time to lose!"
"All right," said Gilbert, and he prepared to go.
"I'll turn back with you to my father's house," said the girl; "it lies on your way." Then bending down to Jenkins she added, "We will send a palki as quickly as possible for you; it will not be long;" and therewith she and Gilbert went off.
"It's just as well you're not alone," she said, "as Hari Rām might pounce on you again to prevent your getting on; he may be watching us now, so we'll take a cross road. I always ride the first thing in the morning," she continued, "the earlier the better; it's fortunate for you I started to-day even earlier than usual."
"It most certainly is," said Gilbert. "A minute later and I should have been far away in the jungle. I wonder where Hari Rām puts up."
"Anywhere and everywhere," answered his companion. "You're lucky to have seen him. I wish I had. He's an awfully fine fellow, you know, if he weren't a Dacoit. Other people may hear of his misdoings, but there's not a day passes but I hear of his kindnesses to his fellow-countrymen, and the natives worship the ground he treads on. We shall never catch him, and if the truth's told, I don't want him to be caught."
"Rank treason," said Gilbert laughing.
"There's our bungalow," said the girl, pointing to an unusually large thatched building, just distinguishable through the trees.
The syce had run all the way back, and told his master that some Englishmen had been attacked by the Dacoits, and that a young sahib had only just escaped being carried away by Hari Rām himself. Mr. Macgregor was on the point of starting to see what had happened when the two young people entered the compound.
"Hullo, Vansie, what's up?" he called out. "Is this the young man who was beset by the Dacoits?"
"Yes, father," said Vansie, springing lightly to the ground. "He's all right, but there's a smashed-up tumtum, and the police superintendent badly hurt. You must send for him at once."
The Scotchman whistled.
"I wonder what the Government is about, to let this thing go on?"
"It's a shameful state of affairs! a perfect disgrace!" said Mr. Macgregor indignantly. "Walk in, sir," and he was leading the way into the bungalow, when his daughter interfered, saying—
"Father, you must send a palki off at once."
"Allah Baksh," called out Mr. Macgregor, "see that two palkis and bearers are got ready sharp. Tell Miss Sahiba's syce to go with you, he knows the place."
"If you will excuse me," said Gilbert, "I'll go on to Pokharia without delay. It is important that the people there should know we were coming with help, and how we have been stopped."
"Of course it is," said Mr. Macgregor, "but you cannot go alone. As soon as we've had breakfast, I'll go with you."
Though loth to delay, Gilbert could not very well refuse. It was still quite early, and it would not take more than half-an-hour to reach Pokharia. The khansamah was already laying the table on the verandah, and preparing chottâ hazari.[10] Mr. Macgregor was impatient, for he was very angry. These continual raids of the Dacoits, though they did not personally attack him, kept the whole country in a state of turmoil. He was a large tea-planter, a widower, and Vansie, the girl we have just introduced to our readers, was his only child. She was tall and lithe, only sixteen years of age, and yet she was a perfect woman, with a delicate olive complexion, of that peculiar whiteness consequent upon the climate. Her features were straight and delicate, the lips well cut and marvellously red; her eyes were dark, with a certain languor in them, made more so by the long curled eyelashes, and delicately-pencilled eyebrows. Gilbert thought he had never seen anything so beautiful.
"Why do you go to Pokharia; the men are sure to have escaped, and we know Hari Rām is far away by this time," she said to her father.
"That's not so certain," he answered; "he's pretty daring, and is as likely as not to remain in the neighbourhood out of bravado."
Vansie pouted.
"Well, I think it's a horrid thing to be chasing a man who, after all, does us no harm."
"Do you call it doing no harm attacking the superintendent?" said her father. "Nonsense, Vansie; it's ridiculous for you to stand up for a thief and a robber!"
The girl moved away from the table, with a smile on her lips.
"Well, one thing is certain: you're not likely to catch him," she said. "I'll go and order the rooms to be got ready for the gentleman," and nodding to Gilbert as if they were old friends, she entered the house.
At that moment the horses came round.
"If you're ready we'll start at once," said Mr. Macgregor. "But you have not yet told me your name."
"Gilbert Lindsay. I'm brother to the new engineer of the Ganges mines."
"I've heard of him," said Macgregor, "I shall be glad to make his acquaintance."
"I'll tell him so," said Gilbert. "He has been much occupied since we came, but I'm sure he'll be delighted to know you."
When they mounted to ride away; Gilbert turned to look back at the bungalow, and saw Vansie standing on the steps. She waved her hands and called out mockingly—
"Good sport! good sport!"
"Good sport! good sport!"
Her father shook his fist at her, and said laughingly, "The misdeeds of this Hari Rām have fascinated her. I believe she would be quite angry if he were caught."
"He's a very handsome fellow," said Gilbert, "if he were only clothed like a Christian. He was by no means discourteous to me. I almost wish he had carried me off. I should like to have seen a little more of him."
"Well, I'd like to see him before a magistrate," said Macgregor, "hear him sentenced to a good term of imprisonment, and sent to the Andaman Islands; that's the only way we shall be rid of him and his whole gang; they would never hold together without him."
They were not long reaching Pokharia, and rode straight to the missionary's house.
"You are too late," said Mr. M'Call. "The rascals have got off again. The robbery took place early last evening just after sunset. Pooran was the man robbed. He happened to be out, and when he came back he found his house regularly looted. I sent a runner straight off to Damūdá for the police, but this delay has given the Dacoits time to betake themselves to the hills or the jungle."
"Well, I propose we telegraph straight to head-quarters," said Macgregor. "I'm quite willing myself to ride to the first telegraphic station to send the message. Something must be done without delay."
Two or three of the principal natives of the village dropped in—one man who owned several carts, and who did a large business in raw cocoons, complained bitterly of the difficulty of transport. "The natives are half-hearted," he said. "Hari Rām is so open-handed amongst the poor that they think there is more to be lost than gained if he were apprehended. We, the mahajans, are obedient servants to Government, therefore Government ought to protect us."
"Of course it ought," said Macgregor; "but it's no use sending a couple of men; we must have a score, and that soon. I think the fact of the agent being injured in this last fray will have some effect. I'm willing to take the responsibility myself and ride at once to the telegraphic station if some of you will accompany me. I hardly think it safe for me to go alone."
"We will go with you, only don't let the servants hear," said Pooran. "They make a perfect idol of Hari Rām; he has spies all over the place."
The heat was too great to think of starting before evening, so they remained at the mission station. Then Mr. Macgregor, accompanied by two native merchants and their servants, set out. Gilbert with the missionary, who was also somewhat of a doctor, went to Macgregor's place to see after the wounded man. As they approached the house they saw an Indian woman crossing the compound, carrying a child on her hip. The missionary turned and looked at her.
"I know that woman," he said; "she was at Pokharia last week."
They found Jenkins the superintendent in a great measure recovered from his accident.
"I shall be all right to-morrow, and able to return to Damūdá," he said.
"Who was that handsome Indian woman we met as we came into the compound?" asked Gilbert of Vansie as they sat together on the verandah.
"She's Rajhani, my foster-sister; her mother was my dhai. She married and left the district, and I had not seen her for the last three or four years, when suddenly one day not long ago she appeared bringing me her baby, who was ill. I gave it some simple remedy, at least my ayah did, but to-day she came for her husband, who, she said, was down with fever. I asked her where she came from, and who her husband was, but she gave me no answer, and went off with barely a thank you."
"She is splendidly handsome," said Gilbert, "but has an evil face for all that."
"I think not," replied Vansie. "She rather looks as if she had some trouble. She seems to have heard of last night's attack, for she asked me how the sahibs were. I told her they were not much injured, but that I was afraid the Government would take active measures for finding Hari Rām.
"'They'll not get him, they'll never get him!' she said passionately, and I thought I saw tears in her eyes.
"'Do you know him, Rajhani?' I asked.
"'I've seen him,' she answered sullenly. Her manner was so strange that it struck me as just possible her husband might belong to the gang.
"'Well,' I said, 'perhaps you might warn him that he is going a little too far, and that he'll be caught some day unless he mends his ways.
"'He'll never do that as long as he is free,' she exclaimed, and went off."...
"You'll come out soon and see us again," Vansie said to Gilbert the following morning before he left, "and bring your brother with you. Father will give you both some good shooting in the jungle."
"Certainly I will," said Gilbert, with a sense of pleasure at having found a place which was so homelike.
A week later, Superintendent Jenkins came into Frank's bungalow in a very irate state of mind.
"There," he said, throwing down a letter, "that's all the reward a man gets for doing his duty. The Commissioner declares we must be shilly-shallying with the natives, and he will himself come down and see whether he can't catch this Hari Rām."
"Let him; he'll soon find out his mistake," said Frank. "I was up with Gilbert at Macgregor's the day before yesterday, and he says it will be tremendous work to nab him. He's protected by all the natives, and can pass from one village to the other without fear of being betrayed."
"Well, that remains to be proved," said Jenkins. "At all events the Commissioner is coming in full force with a whole army of police."
"Ah! well, you must put the best face on it you can," said Frank. "If Hari Rām is caught it will be a good thing for the country. My opinion is that he's hovering somewhere about here. Let who will catch him, I'm glad it's not my business. I much prefer the prospect of a shooting party with Macgregor next week. He is really a nice fellow. Came over and asked Gilbert and me to go there. Of course we have accepted."
"I can understand it is preferable. Hunting Dacoits is not in your line of business," said Jenkins, and with that they parted.
CHAPTER III
On the day fixed Frank and Gilbert rode to Mr. Macgregor's place in the cool of the evening, arriving in time for dinner. The tiger hunt had been arranged for the following morning; there was known to be an almost impenetrable covert of vines and creepers in the thickest part of the jungle, and several natives affirmed that it was the lair of a tiger of unusual size and ferocity. He had been very destructive and had done considerable mischief in the neighbouring villages, so that the killing of him excited much interest.
Mr. Macgregor had invited two or three other gentlemen, planters like himself, to join the party; thus making up half-a-dozen Englishmen with breech-loaders and pistols; a dozen natives were told off to accompany them, so that it was a fairly large party.
The following morning when they started, Frank Lindsay and Mr. Macgregor rode foremost, a syce running before them. By degrees they found themselves some distance in advance of their party, and wishing to keep together, Mr. Macgregor rode back to tell the others to hurry up; thus Frank and the syce were, so to speak, isolated. At that very moment a tiger sprang upon the syce. Frank instantaneously flung himself off his horse and struck the animal across the loins with the butt of his heavy riding-whip. Dropping his prey, the tiger turned on his assailant, seized him by the thigh and hurled him to the ground. Instinctively Frank threw his arms round the head of the enraged animal, but in a second he would have been torn to pieces, had not a man leaped out of the jungle and fired at the tiger, who once more dropped his prey and retreated with an ominous growl into the thick jungle.
"In a second he would have torn Lindsay to pieces."
The man who did this deed of daring courage stood for a second over Frank and just asked—
"Are you all right, sahib?" to which Frank answered, "I'm alive, but desperately hurt, I'm afraid."
Then his rescuer drew himself up, waved his hand, and threw himself back into the thick jungle. Frank was quickly surrounded by his friends; he was in great agony, his leg was fearfully mauled and was bleeding profusely. The syce he had risked his life to save was dead. Macgregor, with the help of his friends, did his utmost to stop the bleeding, and ordered some of the natives to make a sort of stretcher with the branches of the trees; others he sent back to the bungalow to warn Vansie, and to get a doctor.
Gilbert was in despair; it was piteous to see his white agonised face as he held his brother in his arms.
"Will the brute come back?" he asked.
"Not likely," answered Macgregor. "I should think he was mortally wounded; the man took good aim."
"Do you know who he was?" asked Gilbert.
"No, but now I come to think of it, being a native he had no right to firearms; he must have been one of those outlaws."
"Pray don't quarrel with him. It's a mercy he was armed," said Frank with a groan.
"No, indeed we won't," answered Mr. Macgregor, "even if we came across him, we should have to let him go scot free, I think. There, are you easier now?"
With infinite care they slipped Frank on to the stretcher, but nevertheless the agony was so great that he lost consciousness. Gilbert thought he was dead; Macgregor laid his hand on his shoulder and said kindly—
"Steady, lad, he's only fainted."
"Oh!" said Gilbert with a short gasp, as he rose and stood on one side to let the bearers lift their burden.
Of course the hunt was over for that day. Two or three of the party went into the jungle with some of the natives and found the tiger had fallen dead a couple of hundred yards from where he had been shot. He was a huge creature, and other men had to be fetched to enable them to skin him and take the trophy home.
The young native doctor, called in the emergency to attend Frank, assured Gilbert that though the wound was severe and likely to lay his brother up for some time, it was not mortal. As he could not be moved, Mr. Macgregor begged the brothers to consider his house their home; a chaprassi was therefore despatched to fetch clothes, &c., from their own bungalow and to notify Frank's accident to the authorities.
"Do you know who saved my brother's life?" Gilbert asked Vansie, the first time they found themselves alone.
"No, how should I?" she answered; "do you know?"
"It was Hari Rām himself," answered Gilbert. "I recognised him as he stood over my brother and then rushed back into the jungle. I was close to him, I think he saw me, for he smiled and waved his hand to me."
Vansie's eyes shone.
"I'm not surprised; it was exactly the sort of thing he'd do," she said.
"I was just going to call out 'Hari Rām' when I remembered he was an outlaw, and that every man's hand was against him, so I checked myself," continued Gilbert; "and now, whatever happens, I'll never run that man down or put any one on his track."
"Hari Rām does not understand he is doing wrong by taking the law into his own hands, and I do not suppose he ever will," said Vansie. "He knows the native merchants are liars and greedy after gain, and that Government winks at their extortions, so he settles the matter according to his own ideas. I'm glad you have made up your mind not to meddle in the matter; let them catch him if they can."
Gilbert agreed with her, and so the matter dropped.
"Frank, has Miss Vansie told you the news?" and Gilbert threw himself into a chair beside his brother's invalid couch on the verandah.
"No, what news?" he said.
"The Commissioner arrived yesterday at Damūdá, his camp was pitched, and there was a great display of police about the place. He was questioning everybody, he even rode to Pokharia and interviewed the people there. He says he expects to catch his man and clear the country in a fortnight."
"I hope he may not be disappointed," said Frank dryly. "What does Jenkins say?"
He had hardly put the question when they saw the superintendent enter the compound. A syce ran to hold his horse from which he flung himself, and then the brothers saw he had a broad grin on his face and seemed immensely amused.
"What's up?" said Gilbert.
"The Commissioner's in a fine rage," he said. "Hari Rām has just done him in the neatest possible manner," and sitting down he burst out laughing.
The sound of merriment brought Vansie out.
"What is it?" she asked.
"A new exploit of Hari Rām's," said Frank; "come and hear it." She looked unusually serious.
"I wish he would stop or go away," said Gilbert; "he'll get himself hanged. What has he done now?"
"A perfect Robin Hood's exploit," said the superintendent. "It must have got to his ears that the Commissioner scoffed at him, and he determined he would give him a taste of his prowess, and he just has! Last night, notwithstanding the cordon of police, he managed to wriggle himself into the Commissioner's tent, to carry off his watch, shirt studs, and all his money; not satisfied with this, he tickled the Commissioner's feet without awaking him, but he succeeded in making him wriggle his legs apart in such a fashion that Hari Rām drew his sword and stuck it up to the hilt through the mattress; this feat accomplished, he went off as silently as he came. Imagine the Commissioner's feelings when he awoke and saw the position he was in! He was in a white rage, I promise you, and to make matters worse, before he had recovered himself, a native policeman rode up and presented him with a small parcel which had been just left at the office, to be delivered immediately. Upon opening it he found his watch, chain, studs, and money, and on a slip of paper was written: 'With Hari Rām's humblest salutations to his High Mightiness Commissioner Gibson.' You should have seen his face, it was as good as a play!"
"It was cheek!" said Gilbert, rubbing his hands in a state of high delight. "What's the Commissioner going to do?"
"Move heaven and earth to catch his man," answered Jenkins. "It's already posted up at the mines: '500 rupees reward for whoever unearths Hari Rām, or gives information as to his whereabouts.'"
"It won't do," said Vansie. "The natives will never betray him."
"Well, they are not doing him really any kindness," said Jenkins, "for he'll only get a heavier punishment in the long run. At present he might escape with imprisonment, but presently it will mean hanging."
"He'd rather run the risk, I expect," said Frank.
After six weeks Frank was still invalided, so Gilbert went every day down to the mines, brought messages and queries in the evening, carrying back his orders the following morning.
He and Vansie grew to be great friends; they quarrelled and they made it up like girl and boy as they were.
Great excitement ensued when the reward was offered for the apprehension of Hari Rām; the subject caused endless discussion. Days and even weeks went by without producing any result; whether the warning had driven Hari Rām out of the district, or caused him to take extra precautions, the result was the same, nothing was heard of him. The Commissioner fumed and fretted.
"The man must be taken," he declared.
"My Lord, you will not do this thing; if you do, you will be caught and hung up like a dog."
So spake Rajhani, lying prostrate at the feet of her lord and husband, Hari Rām. He looked down upon her, frowning.
"Go hence!" he said; "who art thou to speak thus?"
"The Miss Sahiba told me yesterday that the Commissioner was like a raging lion, his men are everywhere; she bade me tell you so, if you are caught you will be hanged," said Rajhani.
In a fit of blind anger, Hari Rām stretched out his foot and kicked the woman.
"Dost think I will suffer that thief of a mahajan to go on draining the people? He is rich and he will not pay his drivers the price other merchants do. I will therefore stop his well-laden carts and pay them for him. Get thee gone!" and with another kick he turned away.
With a mingled expression of sorrow and anger in her face, Rajhani rose. She was not quite like other Indian women. Till her mother died she had been brought up with Vansie, then her father married her to Hari Rām and she left the district. Her nature was gentle and she had imbibed a certain amount of religious knowledge, but an Eastern woman is a thing with no personality, a creature to be driven to and fro like the leaves in autumn. So she had suffered and her soul was ofttimes angry within her. Her love for Hari Rām was so strong and of so jealous a nature that she could not endure to be parted from him, but would follow him from place to place though the journeys were long and difficult. But for her cunning and great care it is doubtful whether he would so long have escaped detection.
Now she rose from the ground, and her large eyes were full of fierce passion and determination. She picked the little naked baby up from the floor of the mud hut, bound it on to her hip, muttering—
"He shall not be hanged," and went forth.
"Of course, if there is any fear of the man being attacked we must send him protection. You had better tell off a dozen men. At the same time I should keep the matter quiet. Let the mahajan start as if he knew nothing; but be in the neighbourhood, and if he is attacked show yourselves," the Commissioner spoke thus in answer to a report Superintendent Jenkins had just brought in.
At that very moment the tent curtain was pushed on one side and a chaprassi entered, followed by an Indian woman.
"Sahib," he said, salaaming, "this woman says she must speak with your Mightiness, so I have brought her to you."
The Commissioner looked up, and for a second examined the woman, who had stepped forward, and with outstretched hands, salaaming to the ground, said—
"I have news for you, my lord."
"Who is she? Do you know her, Jenkins?" asked the Commissioner.
"No, sir; and yet I have seen her somewhere more than once," he answered.
"I will tell the sahibs my name when I have made known my business," she said, speaking in English, and she drew forth a paper. "I come for that," she continued, laying on the table before the Commissioner a large sheet, advertising the Government reward for the apprehension of Hari Rām.
"Well, have you come to inform upon the man?" said the Commissioner.
"If you take him, will you hang him?" she asked sullenly.
"He shall not be hanged."
"We certainly shall if we take him red-handed, unless we shoot him first; but we should prefer getting hold of him and sending him out of the country. A man like Hari Rām does not care when death overtakes him; the galleys are a worse punishment."
"But they come back from there," said the woman.
"Oh yes," answered the Commissioner with a smile. "Are you thinking of saving his life?"
"I am Hari Rām's wife," she answered, drawing herself up proudly and looking the Commissioner in the face.
The two officials glanced at each other in astonishment.
"And you have come to tell us where we can find your husband? You're a nice young woman," said Jenkins.
Under the dark skin the woman's face blushed.
"You will give me money and you will not kill him?" she said.
"Yes, we will give you the reward promised here," said the Commissioner; "and if we can take him quietly we will not hurt him."
"You speak truly, the Sahib Log do not lie. Weigh me out the five hundred rupees and I will take you to his hiding-place."
The Commissioner did as she asked; the money was weighed out, Rajhani watching the silver with a stern face as it was poured into a bag she had evidently brought with her for the purpose.
"She might be Judas," said Jenkins, turning away with disgust.
She heard him, and lifted her beautiful pathetic eyes for a second, then lowered them quickly, as the last rupee joined its fellows.
"I am ready," she said.
"I should like to see the end of this affair," said the Commissioner. "Tell off a squad, Jenkins; you had better come too."
He was in high spirits at the prospect before him.
"Just keep your eye on the woman," he said in a low voice to a subaltern; but Rajhani heard, and called out—
"You need have no fear, my lord sahib; life is better than death. What I have said I will do."
"There, you have but to go and take him," and Rajhani pointed to a mud hut, hidden in the very thickest part of the jungle.
"Let me not see my lord," she cried bitterly, and threw herself face downwards on the earth.
It was early morning, the Commissioner and his party had encamped for a few hours, to start again before dawn.
"Two of you stay behind and guard the woman in case she has played us false," commanded Superintendent Jenkins.
Through the long jungle grass the party advanced till within a few yards of the Dacoit's retreat, then they made a rush towards a narrow passage leading to the hut, and were met by a man, stark naked, brandishing a sword in his hand.
"Hari Rām, if you make one step forward I will shoot you like a dog," shouted the Commissioner, whilst two of his men sprang upon the Dacoit, seized him by the throat, tore the sword out of his hand, and tripped him to the ground. Where he fell he lay, a vanquished lion.
"Hari Rām, if you make one step forward,
I will shoot you like a dog."
Whilst they were pinioning him he just asked—
"A woman betrayed me; is it not so?"
"Your own wife; none other. She preferred five hundred rupees to a husband who beats her," said one of the men laughing.
"You lie! I did not beat, I only kicked her," said Hari Rām. "Well, she has had her revenge; surely I shall have mine."
He was standing up now, his hands and feet manacled; looking round, as if he thought to see her, but he was disappointed. Just as his captors were marching him off, a child crept out of the hut and raised a piteous wail.
"The cub," said one of the men; "must we take him too?"
"No need," whispered another, "the tigress is not far off."
Hari Rām heard, and, lifting up his voice, shouted something in Hindustanee which made Rajhani shiver as she lay on the ground; but she rose boldly and called back—
"Be of good courage, Hari Rām, my beloved, life is better than death. In captivity thou wilt learn wisdom."
"Five years at the penal settlement in the Andaman Island; that's the sentence, and every one says it's far more lenient than he deserves. Perhaps it is, but I'm awfully sorry for him. After the trial I went to see him in prison, and told him so. He thanked me in his courteous way, saying, 'I shall not die, I am strong. When I come out Rajhani may not perhaps think life is better than death,' and he smiled grimly."
Such was Gilbert's tale. He had just returned with Mr. Macgregor from attending Hari Rām's trial, the result of which both Vansie and Frank had anxiously awaited all day.
"What could possess her to do it?" Vansie repeated for the twentieth time.
"I have told you before," said Frank, "the Commissioner was spreading a net to catch him, and sooner or later, unless he desisted from his predatory habits, he would have fallen into his enemies' hands. If he were taken in the act of robbery, and may be of murder, his wife knew he would be hanged. From this she determined to save him, and she certainly has done so. She acted according to her lights; what more could be expected of her?"
"I said as much to Hari Rām," put in Gilbert; "but he answered—
"'A woman cannot think—a woman has no soul.'"
"What a shame!" said Vansie.
Frank turned and looked at her, and their eyes met.
"Yes, it is a shame," he said, smiling.
Gilbert saw the look.
"Oh, that's it," he thought. "Well, it will be pleasant to have her for my sister at least."
In due time this very thing came to pass. Frank's long convalescence threw him and Vansie so much together that it was not difficult to foresee the result. Frank fell desperately in love with the planter's daughter, and though socially he might have aimed higher if he had bided his time, he nevertheless considered himself the most fortunate of men when Vansie consented to be his wife. A few days before the marriage, Gilbert came to him and said—
"I don't think I will be an engineer, Frank; one in the family is enough. Mr. Macgregor has offered to take me on his estate, initiate me into the secrets of tea and coffee growing, and in time make me a partner. You know I have a few hundreds of my own when I come of age, so, if you'll consent, I should like to accept his offer. I'm sure the life will suit me better."
Frank hesitated; he would have preferred Gilbert following a profession, but he saw he was set upon the new plan, so he consented; and when Vansie came to live at Frank's bungalow, Gilbert took up his residence with Mr. Macgregor. But long before this happened, Hari Rām had been sent off to the Andaman Island to work out his sentence; and then a strange thing happened. Rajhani purchased carts and bullocks, and hired men to load them at the mines and transport the coal to the terminus at Giridhi. By degrees the business grew, and she managed it with such energy that the company decided to employ no one else for the conveyance of coal, and every one said she would soon be a rich woman, that the 500 rupees for which she had sold her husband were daily multiplying by her wise administration. But her existence was a hard one; she was hated and despised by her own people. More than once her life was threatened, but the order had gone forth among the natives—
"Let her alone; Hari Rām will be his own avenger."
A few months after her husband's banishment she suddenly appeared before Vansie leading her eldest boy by the hand and with a new-born babe slung at her side.
"See," she said proudly, "I have given him life and two sons, and now I will make him so rich that when he comes back he can give of his own to the poor, and need be no longer a Dacoit."
And so her motive became clear to Vansie. She laboured by night and by day to increase her store, living meanwhile poorly, denying herself all save the very necessaries of existence. A hunted look came into her eyes, and as time went on she faded into a mere shadow of her former self; but the wealth increased, and her boys grew, and were finer and handsomer than their fellows.
"My lord, thy servant craves forgiveness; behold, I received 500 rupees for selling thee into captivity. I bring thee 5000 rupees, with bullocks and carts; thou left me with but one son, I bring thee two."
So spake Rajhani, lying prostrate at Hari Rām's feet, as he landed after his long exile. The remembrance of those five years of misery was fresh upon him, the iron had entered into his soul, and he spurned her from him; but a young man touched his arm and called him by his name—
"Are you blind, Hari Rām?" he said; "surely she has done wisely. She has laboured for you in love and patience; you must see she betrayed you for very love, to save your life."
The Hindu stood as one dazed; through the mist of superstition and anger a faint gleam of something better crept into his soul. He had himself thought to redress wrongs, had failed, and had suffered. He turned and looked fixedly first at the woman still lying prostrate before him, then at Gilbert Lindsay, who had spoken.
"Sahib," he said, and his voice trembled.
"You are too brave a man to despise her for what she has done, Hari Rām," Gilbert continued. "See, she has come to you in all humility, with children and wealth, so that from henceforth you may live prosperously. Five years is but a little span in a man's life. Lift her up and go home with her and your children; let this hour be as the rising of the sun at the dawn of a new day."
Slowly, as a man feeling his way, Hari Rām stretched out his hand, and lo! it rested on the head of his eldest born. A smile crept over the stern features.
"You speak as a god, sahib," he said. "The evil day has surely passed away; she was right, it is good to live."
[A JUNGLE DRAMA]
By GEO. MANVILLE FENN
CHAPTER I
"W ell," said the major, "I hardly know what to do. It's very hot."
"Awful, sir," said Hollins, making an effort to take out his handkerchief to wipe his face. "I feel as if I were being stewed."
"Do you good," said the major smiling. "You'd be all the better for losing two stone weight."
"Yes," the great fellow sighed, in a melancholy tone, and he looked down at his huge proportions and gently shook his head.
"I should have thought you would have been content to sit under a shady tree, and if you must kill something, have a shot or two at the crocs as they come down to meet the tide, or fish for whatever there is from the banks."
"That's just what I should like, sir," said Hollins pathetically. "I don't want to go. It's all Beecher's doing. He's such a restless little beggar. I have told him over and over again that it's too hot to do anything."
Beecher looked up sharply and smiled.
The speakers were in their camp on the banks of the Loongie River, stationed there to overawe a couple of the native sultans, who had been trying to oust another Malay potentate, and divide his dominions between them. The said Rajah had appealed to the governor of the Straits Settlements for help, and a couple of companies of the 800th Light Infantry were sent up the river in the Flash gunboat to settle the matter, whereupon the two sultans slunk back into their own dominions on either side of the river. The troops were landed, and went into camp at Ijong, the persecuted Rajah's capital of bamboo and woven palm. The gunboat went up the river as far as she could go, and, as Rob Hollins said, let off her poppers to startle the crows, and then went back to Penang, leaving the military to go on overawing the pugnacious Malays, which they did by going on parade every morning to make a show, after which they ate, drank, smoked, slept, and played games, leading a lazy life in a country which seems to have been made on purpose to do nothing in with all your might.
"Humph!" ejaculated the major, with his eyes half closed.
"He's just like a mongoose," grumbled Hollins slowly; "always jumping up and poking his nose into everything."
The major grunted.
"Look here, you two boys," he said, "I must have a nap, and your chatter's a nuisance. Do you want to get fever and sunstroke?"
Beecher laughed.
"I only want to go up the river in one of the bigger boats, sir, to be rowed up to the clear water beyond the tideway. We should be under the attap awning all the time, and I want to see if there are any fish to be caught, or any birds or beasts to be shot."
"Well, I suppose you must. You'll be back before dark, of course?"
"Oh no; I meant for us to camp for the night, and come back to-morrow. There wouldn't be time to go up far enough without."
"You'll get fever," said the major shortly. "The jungle teems with it."
"We should sleep in the boat," said Beecher.
"Humph! Well, take care of yourselves, and don't get into any trouble with the people."
"No fear, sir. Come along, Rob."
The big lieutenant rose with a sigh, the major sank back in his seat under the awning stretched in front of the native house he had made his head-quarters, and the sentry on duty, the barrel of whose rifle was hot as he presented arms, looked longingly at the young men as they walked down to the bamboo landing-stage at the river side, and selected one of the smallest and most attractive looking of the nagas or dragon boats swinging by its fibre rope to a post, with its crew of six on board squatting under the palm-leaf awning, and chewing betel till their protruding lips were scarlet with the juice.
Negotiations were opened up directly by Beecher, who had picked up enough of the Malay language to converse with a certain amount of ease; and he was all eagerness and animation as he spoke, while the tawny Malay boatmen remained apathetic in the extreme, and calmly enough gave the young man to understand that it was hot, that the work would be hard, and that it would be much better to sit as they were on their heels chewing sireh, lime, and betel-nut.
"But there'll be plenty of sport," said Beecher. "We shall shoot and fish, and take any amount of provisions, so that we can camp out comfortably high up the river for the night."
That would be quite out of the question, it seemed. The whole six would want to be back at the campong at sunset.
"Why?" asked Beecher impatiently.
Because they must be. What would their wives say?
"Gammon!" cried Beecher, flashing out the word in a way that made the men stare. Not that they understood its meaning, but they did the words in their own tongue which followed it. "I don't believe you've any one of you got a wife."
"They walked down to the bamboo landing-stage at the
river side."
The young officer's haphazard shot had gone home, for a smile which broadened into a grin appeared on face after face, as the boatmen looked at each other, their sleepy eyes brightened, and, after a few words had been exchanged among themselves, the Malay who seemed most in authority turned to Beecher, and the negotiations were at an end.
"Get plenty of food for your own use," said the young officer. "We'll send our servants down with what we want, and we'll start in an hour."
The Malay nodded, and the officers turned away.
"Lazy beggars," said Hollins slowly. "How you can manage 'em, Dick! I couldn't have done that."
"You could if you liked to try," said Beecher. "Now then, let's see about our guns and tackle. Where are those fellows of ours? Never here when they're wanted."
Beecher was wrong, for a keen-looking young fellow who had been watching them ever since they left the major's side, suddenly stepped forward and saluted.
"Want me, sir?"
"Oh, there you are, Jerry. Here, we're going."
"Up the river, sir? Yes, sir; all right, sir. Guns, rods and tackle, landing net. Reevolvers and cartridges. Take anything to heat, sir?"
"Yes, of course; a good basketful of provisions. Coffee, kettle, and cups."
"I see, sir."
"And we shall sleep in the boat to-night."
"Exactly, sir. Skeeter net, blankets, and waterproof. Won't take a thin mattress, I suppose, sir?"
"Oh no: that will be enough. Where's Mr. Hollins's servant?"
"'Sleep, sir. Going to take him too?"
"Oh yes," broke in Hollins; "we'll have him. Can you wake him up, Jerry, and tell him to get my traps together, the same as you get for your master?"
"Can I, sir?" said the man, with a peculiar smile. "Oh yes, sir, I can wake him up."
"That's right; then I needn't trouble about it."
"No, sir; of course not, sir. I'll see that everything's put on board."
"The sooner the better," said Beecher. "Off with you."
In little more than an hour everything was on board the naga, which was pushed off from the landing-stage, the officers and their servants being under the light palm-leaf awning, and the crew sending the long light boat through the water at a pretty good rate, for the tide was with them, and in a very short time a bend in the river had hidden boats, native huts and houses, and the last traces of the little military camp.
CHAPTER II
There was a certain amount of monotony about the banks of the muddy winding river, but to Beecher, whose high spirits seemed to effervesce within his veins and through his nerves, all was bright and beautiful, and he laughed to himself as he noted now that the Malays seemed quite transformed, and they toiled away to force the boat through the water, chattering till one of them started a low sweet minor air, keeping time to the beat of the oars, and the rest joining in.
"Come, old chap," cried Beecher; "rouse up and load; we may get a shot at something soon."
"All right; you shoot then," answered Hollins, with a yawn. "I'll wait till it isn't so hot."
"It will be dark then, and you will not get a chance."
"All right. Don't want one. You shoot, and I'll look on."
"Ugh! what a lazy beggar you are!"
"'Tis my nature to, dear boy; but I say, load my gun while you're at it."
"What for, if you're not going to shoot?"
"Perhaps I am, boy. Anyhow, I'll be ready. I've been thinking."
"Sleeping, you mean."
"No, I don't. Thinking with my eyes shut."
"Well, what have you been thinking?"
"I've been thinking that we're a pair of jolly fools."
"Of course; but why?"
"To trust ourselves with these cut-throat scoundrels of Malays. Each one has his horrible wavy kris tucked in the folds of his sarong."
"Pooh! What of that? Custom of the country."
"Yes, and it's the custom to dig it into any one they don't like. Argal, as the chap in the play says, they don't like us."
"Rubbish! Aren't we going to feed them and give them silver dollars?"
"Yes, but they'd prefer to kris us for a set of infidels, and pitch us overboard to the crocs."
"You've no faith in them, then?"
"Not a bit."
The men kept on as if their thews and sinews were of steel, and would have continued to send the boat along at the same speed had not Beecher interfered and explained to the Malay leader that as the tide was in their favour all that was necessary was for two of the men to dip their oars from time to time so as to keep the naga's head straight. By this there would be more chance of a shot or two being obtained, while they would all be fresher when they reached the end of the tidal flow, where the river was shallower, and they would have the stream to contend against.
The men laid in their oars, and for the next two or three hours of the glowing day the boat drifted steadily on, with the banks growing more and more beautiful, and shot after shot offering itself in the shape of gaily plumaged bird, monkey, or crocodile; but Beecher seemed to have grown as dreamy and thoughtful as his companion, and let chance after chance slip by.
"Why, you're not half bloodthirsty to-day, young 'un," said Hollins, rousing himself up a little at last. "Why don't you shoot?"
"Don't know," was the reply. "Perhaps it's because everything is so beautiful. It seems a shame to fire. It's like gliding along in some dream."
"Was," said Hollins, quite briskly. "I feel more awake now. There's another of those crocs!—Going to fire?"
"No, I don't want to kill anything now."
"Nor do I," said Hollins. "Let's have something to eat."
"Yes, sir; directly, sir," came from the stern of the boat, proving that every word uttered had been heard. "Now Joey, stir about and help."
The two men rapidly unpacked the basket of provisions, and a few minutes later the young officers were hard at work with knife and fork, while the Malay boatmen looked on curiously and wondered what Jerry meant to do with the wine bottle that he had been cooling by wrapping it up in wet flannel, dipping it in the river from time to time, and exposing it afterwards to the full force of the sun as if to keep it warm.
By this time the progress of the boat had grown slower and slower, the water less muddy, and as the young officers bade their servants give certain portions of the provisions to the boatmen and make their own meal, they noted with satisfaction that the end of the tide had been reached. Thenceforth the river began to grow bright and clear, there was a cessation of muddy deposit upon the leaves and twigs which dipped below the surface, and the oars were laid in by the men who had been using them, a couple taking their places, one in front, the other astern, each armed with a long bamboo pole, with which they thrust the boat along against the clear rippling stream, now broken up into shallows and swirling deeps.
They had very little so-called sport, but plenty of enjoyment in spite of Hollins's growls; and that evening they cast their rough anchor beneath the shady trees of a little island in mid-stream, and soon after made themselves comfortable for the night, sleeping soundly, in spite of their novel position and the savage noises which came from the jungle on either side.
CHAPTER III
"Now then, wake up, old fellow!" cried Beecher; "breakfast's nearly ready."
Hollins started up, to find that Jerry was making the coffee ashore on the island, and soon after an excellent meal was enjoyed, before the boat was poled up stream once more.
"Likely places for fish," said Hollins again and again, as the boat glided by some beautiful dark pool.
"Why don't you have a try, then?" said Beecher.
"Oh, I don't know. Seems a pity to get lugging the poor things out of the cool water into this broiling sunshine."
"You'd have to catch them first," said Beecher drily.
"Yes, and I'm such an unlucky beggar with a rod. You look out, and if you see anything like a big trout or a salmon basking, blow him out of the water."
"No fear," said Beecher coolly. "Nothing of the kind here. I don't suppose there's much beside those little gudgeony five-barbed fish they call Ikan Sambilang."
"Ikan Sambilang!" said the head-boatman, nodding, smiling, and pointing downwards.
"You hit the bull's-eye, boy," said Hollins. "Well, I'm not going to wet a line for the sake of catching fish like them. But what rubbish to come."
"Rubbish, man? Look on both sides. Did you ever see anything more beautiful?" cried Beecher enthusiastically.
"H'm! tidy," said Hollins.
"Tidy! It's glorious. Fancy all this lovely line of bank on either side, and no one to live here. What a home for a country gentleman anywhere."
"Bah! All humbug, lad. Looks very pretty from a boat, but inside it's all impenetrable jungle; soppy and squishy, and without a path."
The day glided by as they went gently onward higher and higher up the river, whose sides still looked like vast walls of verdure. They fished a little and shot less, for in spite of all that they said the beauties around seemed to have the effect of checking their desire to slay, so that very few birds fell to their guns.
"But it's very jolly all the same," said Beecher, as the great heat of the day began to grow less. "We don't get many adventures, and I must shoot something. Why—hullo! What does this mean?"
Hollins made no answer, but started from his place to look up the river, as a couple of banks of oars churned up the surface, sending a large prahu round a broad bend of the stream a quarter of a mile away.
"Don't know," said Hollins slowly. "She's full of armed men, for you can see the spear heads glistening. Well, we mustn't go back, or they'll think we're afraid."
"Of course: we must go on."
"Of course: we must go on."
"Yes, tell them to go on rowing or poling."
"Come, look sharp," cried Beecher. "Pull away, but give that big prahu plenty of room."
The men turned to their leader, who was frowning and looking as if he had not heard, gazing the while down stream.
"Do you hear me?" cried the young officer angrily. "Pull all of you, pull."
But the Malays sat perfectly still, looking gloomy and sullen, while Beecher's eyes began to flash with resentment.
"Steady, boy," growled Hollins. "This is a trap."
"A trap! What do you mean?"
"Look behind you, my lad, and don't jump out of your skin."
"Another prahu!" ejaculated the young officer, between his teeth, as he saw a vessel which looked to be fellow to the one gliding down stream, coming rapidly up from some five hundred yards below. "Why, where did that come from?"
"Some tree-curtained inlet, I suppose," growled Hollins. "What are we going to do?"
"Go on shooting; they're nothing to do with us."
"Aren't they? I'm afraid they are."
"Why do you say that?" said Beecher huskily.
"Look at our men—no: don't seem to notice them. I'm afraid it's like this: we asked them to take us up the river into a trap, and the beggars have done it. Dick, lad, they've uncovered the hilts of their krises—cleared for action."
"No, no, they wouldn't dare, with our men lying at the camp."
"I don't know that. It looks bad. Our lads can't help us now."
"Then we must help ourselves," said Beecher, through his teeth. "If that dog there has betrayed us into the hands of the enemy, curse him! he shall have the contents of my gun."
"Steady!" said Hollins gravely. "He knows what you are saying by your tone, and his right hand has stolen to the hilt of his kris. This is a time for diplomacy. We're not strong enough to fight."
"Strong or weak, I'm not going to give up without making some one pay for it. Here, Jerry, you two get hold of those revolvers, and if it comes to the worst, use them."
"Got hold on 'em, sir. I've been slipping in the cartridges ever since I see that boat."
"Then keep them out of sight," growled Hollins, in a deep voice. "We're not the first Englishmen who have been in a tight place. Dick, lad, one of us'll have to come the British officer and do a bit of the bully. What's a Rajah or a Sultan to an officer of Her Majesty out for his pleasure?"
"That's the right form, Rob," said Beecher huskily. "You must do the talking, then. They'll be afraid of you."
"All right; only stand by me and tell me what to say."
"A kreasy boat in front, and a kreasy boat behind, and six of these here smudgy beggars waiting to cut our throats. Joey, this is coming out for a day's pleasure!" whispered Jerry. "I say, are you awake now?"
"Never more wide in my life, lad. All right: never say die. Form square."
CHAPTER IV
Hollins's man supplemented his muttered command "Form square!" with a sharp double click made by the lock of the pistol he held with one hand in his breast, and this sound gave the final touch to his master's rousing up to act with decision in what was evidently a very critical case.
The next moment Beecher glanced at his friend admiringly, for, to use his own words, "Rob was all there," and the calm British officer was speaking.
"Keep that pistol quiet and out of sight, sir," he said sharply. "Sit down both of you."
And as his order was promptly obeyed he turned to Beecher.
"Throw your gun in the hollow of your arm, old lad," he said softly. "We're out shooting. I think I shall know what to say."
As he spoke he began to fill his pipe, keeping his eyes averted from the coming prahus, and then struck a match and lit up, calmly sending forth great clouds of smoke, before turning to watch the nearest boat, which was coming with a rush.
"They'll run us down, Rob," whispered Beecher huskily.
"No, they won't," was the calm reply. "They couldn't come here at all; the water's too shallow. Row well, don't they?" he continued, watching the prahu critically.
"Oh, how should I know?" cried Beecher.
"Look then," said Hollins coolly. "Why, they've got two brass pop-guns in their bows—Lelahs, don't they call them?"
"Look here, Rob," said Beecher hoarsely; "what's the good of going on like that? We must make a running fight of it. I'm going to present my two barrels at these fellows of ours, and tell them to row for their lives. It will be all down stream now."
"You're going to do nothing of the sort, my lad," growled Hollins. "We have not come to fight. It would only mean throwing away our lives. At the first menace on your part these brown beggars would chance the crocs and go overboard to swim to the nearest prahu. We must brazen it out. Funk means failure, so cucumbers must be red-hot pokers to the coolness we've got to show."
Almost as he spoke the prahu that was descending the stream crowded with men and bristling with razor-edged spears, was suddenly checked, the rowers then uttering a shout and backing water in obedience to a sharp tap on a gong.
So well was this managed that the light vessel was brought up where the channel ran deep, a dozen yards from the officers' boat, and kept there by means of bamboo poles thrust down fore and aft.
The next moment an order was shouted to the boatmen, who lowered their oars with alacrity, and took a few strokes to lay the little naga alongside the prahu.
"Now's your time, Dick; let 'em have it. Ask what the devil are they up to, in Malay."
"I thought I was to coach you," said Beecher in a low tone; "but all right;" and he rose to the occasion, shouting angrily at their men, and then as the naga grazed against the sides of the prahu, he faced the swarthy-looking fellow in gay plaid sarong and natty scarlet cap who was frowning down at them.
"Hullo, old fellow," he cried. "What is it?"
"Come on board, all of you," was the fierce answer.
"All right; keep it up," said Hollins coolly, as he puffed away at his pipe.
"I'm not going on that miserable craft as a prisoner," said Beecher stubbornly.
"No, but we must go as visitors. Needs must when somebody drives. Keep it up, boy: we're fencing as to who shall go first. All right, then, I will," he cried cheerily, and, double gun in hand, pipe fast between his teeth, he stepped up and sprang over the side on to the split bamboo deck, facing the captain of the prahu and the fierce-looking crew of Malays, and closely followed by Beecher and their two men.
As Hollins, big, broad-shouldered, and manly, looking the very perfection of a muscular young Englishman, stepped on the deck, smiling, half-a-dozen of the spear-armed crew darted forward, and as many hands were outstretched to seize him by the shoulders, two of the men catching hold of his gun.
In an instant his aspect was changed. A fierce frown darkened his brows, and with an angry roar he swung himself round, snatching his gun from the detaining grasps, and clearing a space round him, as he cried in English—
"Keep back, you insolent dogs!"
Beecher's heart seemed to rise to his throat, as he dropped the barrels of his own gun in his left hand, in answer to the movement on the part of the Malays, a dozen spears being levelled at him, while the captain looked on frowning, his hand resting upon his kris.
"Tell the captain here that we are British officers up the river shooting, Dick, my lad, and say he is to order his men to treat us with respect."
Beecher turned to the captain, and spoke to him haughtily in the native tongue, making the Malay frown and sign to the men, who raised their spears on the instant.
"Whose men are you?" continued Beecher. "Sultan Salah's?"
The captain answered in the affirmative.
"Take us to him then at once."
The captain hesitated for a moment.
"Do you hear me?" cried Beecher sharply.
The Malay made a gesture, gave an order or two, and a couple of the men descended into the officers' boat, made it fast astern, and as the second prahu came up, the first was already in motion. Then a brief colloquy ensued between the captains of the two vessels as they glided by, and the second followed them down stream.
"Very prettily fired off, Dick, lad," said Hollins; "but put in a little more powder next time. There's nothing like making a good bang."
"I'm not such a big gun as you are," said Beecher.
"You fire sharply, though, my lad. There: come along; let's look round the boat. Take it coolly; we're not krissed yet, and if we give it the sultan in his bamboo palace in the same way he'll drop us both as 'taters too hot for handling."
"I only hope he may."
The fierce-looking Malay crew looked puzzled as the young men began to saunter about the prahu, as coolly as if they were invited visitors, examining the rolled-up matting sails, the long sweeps used, and pausing long by the two little brass swivel guns.
"Ask him how far these will carry?" said Hollins.
Beecher turned to the captain and put the question, making the man frown; but he laughed directly after, and replied.
"Humph! poor clumsy things," growled Hollins contemptuously. "I could make better practice with a big gas-pipe plugged at one end."
"I'm not going to tell him that," said Beecher; "and I shouldn't like to stand at the plugged-up end."
"No," said Hollins with a laugh. "It wouldn't be very safe. Do best for a rocket-tube. Here, hold hard! Look at those two paroquets, Dick. We must have them."
A couple of brightly plumaged birds were crossing the river at a goodly height and quite fifty yards away, and quick as thought, Hollins raised his gun, fired right and left, and brought them down, when a murmur of surprise and admiration ran along the deck, as the birds fell into the gliding stream, and lay fluttering and splashing the surface.
"Tell our men to pick 'em up, lad.—Bah! Too late!" For all at once a hideous head appeared above the surface, there was a sharp snap repeated, the birds were gone, and the crocodile's head disappeared.
"Gone," said Hollins coolly, as he thrust in a couple more cartridges. "Hullo! where are we for now? Going to run us ashore?"
Beecher looked up as wonderingly as his companion, for the men, in obedience to an order, began to pull short, doubling their strokes, and the head of the prahu was turned for the leafy curtain on the right bank. Directly after swish, swish, they were driving right through the pendant boughs, which swept over the deck of the vessel, lightly brushing the heads of rowers and armed men, and a minute later they were in a wide sluggish branch of the river, of whose existence a stranger would have been perfectly ignorant, it being as thoroughly concealed by the dense jungle as the clump of palm and bamboo built houses in the distance, which formed the campong or town.
At the first glimpse seen through the winding inlet this seemed to be small; but fresh houses and sheds kept opening out, the sluggish stream widened, showing scores of boats of various sizes, and to the young men's surprise seven or eight elephants could be seen tethered by the hind-leg to the stumps of trees.
A loud shout arose as the prahu, closely followed by its companion, glided into sight, and later on a few men came running towards them from a crowd gathered in an open space before one of the largest buildings, which looked like an ornamental barn raised up on posts.
Something important was evidently going on, for there was a strong body of armed men, some of whom were gaily dressed, their natty caps, sarongs, and kerchiefs being of brightly coloured silks, while their weapons flashed in the sunshine.
"Drawn up in honour of their English guests," said Hollins, laughing.
"No, they have two men bound in the middle there. Prisoners, I suppose," replied Beecher.
They had not much time given them for thought, the prahu being cleverly steered alongside a row of bamboo posts, upon which a kind of rough landing-stage had been made, and the captain advanced to his prisoners and bade them disembark.
"Certainly," said Hollins smiling. "Ask him where his chief is."
The captain pointed, and as he did so a stunted sickly-looking man, more quietly dressed than those around, detached himself from the crowd and came towards the prahu, followed by about a dozen attendants and guards, some bearing krises by the blade with the ornamental handles resting upon their shoulders, while spearmen closed up behind.
The party on leaving the prahu was followed also by a guard of spearmen, and as they neared the chief approaching from the crowd, the captain gave a peremptory order and the party stopped short. But to his anger and astonishment Hollins turned to his companion.
"Come on, lad," he said; "we're not going to be marched up as prisoners. We're visitors to his swarthy highness," and he strode on with his gun resting in the hollow of his arm.
"Beg pardon, sir," came from behind, in Jerry's voice; "aren't we to come too?"
"Yes, of course," cried Hollins. "Both of you. Come on."
"There, didn't I say so?" cried Jerry, apostrophising one of the spearmen, who checked his advance. "Don't you hear what the guv'nors say?"
Without a moment's hesitation the two servants made a rush forward and took their places behind their masters, who strode up at once to the group in front, the sultan looking puzzled and clapping his hand to his kris, while his guards levelled their spears.
"Never mind their skewers, lad," said Hollins; "come straight on, and offer to shake hands. Tell him we're English officers, and his men have brought us to see him. I'll do the bounce and show."
Beecher played his part to the letter, and the puzzled chief shook hands, unwillingly enough, and then as if forced by his strange guests to offer them a friendly welcome, he led them to the large house, signed to them to enter, and in a few minutes later sultan and guests were seated upon the mat-covered bamboo floor, partaking of a light meal, surrounded by attendants, the two English servants well to the front and carefully supplying their masters' wants.
CHAPTER V
"What's going to be the end of this?" said Beecher at last, as they sat sipping excellent coffee and smoking huge cigarettes, the tobacco being inclosed in a sheath of palm sprout.
"Don't know yet," replied Hollins coolly. "The sultan will give us some tiger-shooting off his elephants, perhaps.—No, no, not now, old chap," he added quickly. "It's too hot, and too soon after lunch.—What does he say, boy?"
"That he wishes us to come out and see something that we stopped, by arriving as we did."
"Oh, very well. If he really is going to treat us civilly we are at his service," cried Hollins, rearing his bulky form above the sultan, as he rose to his feet. "Here, give me your hand, my royal personage."
The sultan shrank as if staggered by his visitor's freedom, but the great hand was extended before him, and as if there were magnetic influence at work he slowly raised his own, allowed it to be grasped, and by its help rose erect.
"Come," he said, in his own tongue.
"Yes, I understand that," said Hollins.
"Be careful," whispered Beecher. "Don't overdo it, man."
"Not lay it on too thick? Must, or we shall never make them understand the colour of the paint. Here, you two lads keep close behind us," he cried, "and if they try to stop you, call to me."
The sultan led the way out to the crowd, which remained evidently waiting for their chief's return, for a low murmur arose as they approached, while the two men kneeling bound in the midst, surrounded by guards, raised their heads to gaze with a half-stupefied, half-wistful stare in their direction.
"What does it mean?" said Hollins, in a low voice, as they followed the sultan's example and sat upon the seats placed ready. "We didn't interrupt an execution, did we?"
"Execution? Oh no. Punishment of some kind, though. Look at them. It can't be anything very bad, for they're chewing their betel calmly enough."
"So bad, I'm afraid, that I shouldn't like to change places with them.—Well," he said aloud to a couple of the Malays who like most of their fellows were glaring at them fiercely, "what do you think of an Englishman?"
"Think they don't like the look of you, old fellow," said Beecher smiling. "You're too big for their taste."
For every face they encountered was shadowed by an unpleasant scowl, and it seemed as if at a word every man's hand would have been raised against them.
"I don't know that we want to see these poor wretches punished," whispered Beecher.
"No," said Hollins in a low growl; "but we're in for it now."
"But it is evidently serious. There's a man behind them who looks like the executioner."
"Ah, that one," said Hollins. "I believe you're right: but they all look like executioners to me, and as if they'd make us take our turn next. Look here, lad, if they do begin any of their tricks, I'm going to turn ugly and make a rush for our boat. There she is, tied on to the stern of the prahu."
"Pst! Look," whispered Beecher, for the sultan glanced towards them, smiled, and then made a sign to his men.
Quick as thought a couple of Malays seized one of the fettered men, jerked him forward, and then forced him back into a kneeling position.
The poor wretch was bare save for the check sarong bound about his loins, and he made no resistance, going on calmly chewing his scrap of betel-nut, and remaining erect in his kneeling position, as the men on either side hung away, holding each by his upper arm.
What followed was as rapid as it was horrible, the executioner going through a series of movements with a skill which seemed to prove him to be well accustomed to his dreadful task.
Beecher longed to retreat, but sat there as if fascinated, while the operator stepped swiftly and silently behind the victim—culprit, enemy, or murderer, who could say? In one hand the man had a tuft of white cotton-wool, in the other a small pistol-handled kris, with a thin perfectly straight blade.
He placed the cotton-wool like a pad upon the prisoner's shoulder with his left hand, just in the hollow by the collar-bone. Then with his right he passed the sharp point of his straight kris between the fingers which held the cotton pad in its place, closing them so that the little kris stood perfectly upright like a great nail waiting to be driven home.
The next instant the right hand delivered a sharp blow upon the hilt of the kris, and it was driven right down the victim's chest, and as sharply drawn out again through the cotton-wool, which wiped away every trace of blood, as the wretched creature fell forward upon his face without a struggle—pierced through the heart.
Beecher sat firm as a rock; but as the kris was withdrawn a spasm seemed to shoot through his own breast, and a thick mist gathered before his eyes like a veil.
It was apparently minutes before the cloud lifted, and Beecher once more saw clearly, shuddering as if with cold, as the executioner was withdrawing his kris through the cotton pad, and he uttered a faint gasp as he realised the fact that this was the second victim falling forward upon his face.
There was a peculiar hissing noise behind where Beecher sat, as if some one had drawn his breath sharply through his teeth, and he turned quickly, to see the two regimental servants looking very white; but their faces were as hard as if cut in wood.
"Horrible!" said Hollins, in a low, hoarse voice; "and the people all looking on as if it were a fête! Ugh! I can stand leading our lads in a charge, and get warm at it, but this gives me the chilly blues."
"Yes, horrible!" said Beecher; "and that Rajah sits smiling as if he enjoyed it."
"Well, you haven't much room to talk; you sat through it all as coolly."
"I?" exclaimed Beecher.
"Yes; I watched you. Well, I suppose it's all over, and we may as well come to an understanding with my lord here. I want to go. But I say, I hope he didn't see me showing the white feather. Did he?"
"The white feather! Nonsense! You didn't move a muscle."
"Couldn't if I'd wanted to. Here: the sultan's speaking to you."
Beecher turned and faced the smiling chief.
"There are more to die," said the latter coolly.
It was on the tip of the young man's tongue to say, "After we have gone!" but he checked himself, feeling that they would lose all the prestige they had earned by shrinking now, and he simply bowed his head, rising as the sultan did, and walking in company with his string of attendants, some of whom bore the stools upon which they had been seated.
"Where are they going now?" growled Hollins; "to one of the prahus?"
It seemed like it, for the sultan stopped short opposite one of the vessels lying off the inlet shore.
Beecher caught his lower lip between his teeth, and gave a quick glance about him, taking in all he could without moving his head. There were the two prahus in front, crowded on the shore side with men, and a short distance to the left was the boat in which they had ascended the river, quite empty, for the crew were now in the first prahu. There were plenty of other boats near, lying tied up to posts, or the trees which overshadowed much of the inlet; but nothing seemed to offer an easy way of escape unless they could reach their boat after dark, cast off, and trust to the stream to bear them down to their camp.
"Seems to me," growled Hollins softly, breaking in upon his companion's musings, "that we fellows have only to put on a good face and bounce about a bit, to make these swarthy scoundrels respect us. I want to know, though, whether his High and Mightiness here will let us go peaceably after he has finished his show. Why, Dick, lad, we seem to have dropped in upon jail delivery day."
"What do you mean?" said Beecher sharply, as he heard Jerry once more draw a sharp hissing breath.
"More prisoners. They're bringing them out from that hut yonder."
"Ah!" exclaimed Beecher, in a low excited whisper; "the wretches, the fiends! They're surely not going to kill those two girls. Oh, I can't stand this!"
"Quiet, man!" growled Hollins. "It's as much as our lives are worth to interfere."
"My life will be nothing to me if I sit here and see this horror. Here, Rajah. Those women; they are not going to be killed?"
"Yes," said the sultan, showing his teeth in a pleasant smile. "They escaped, and were brought back. My wives."
"But to be killed?"
"Yes. They will go to the river; and there——"
He laughed pleasantly, and placed his hands together, the wrists touching, the palm and fingers widely apart, and then brought them together sharply, in imitation of the closing of a crocodile's jaws.
"But it is horrible!" cried Beecher excitedly. "The English Government will never allow this."
"Quiet, man," whispered Hollins excitedly. "What can the English Government do now?"
"It's duty," whispered back Beecher excitedly. "We represent it: two officers of her Majesty's forces."
"Four of us altogether," said Hollins sternly, "standing on the edge of danger ourselves. Why, man, there must be five hundred of the sultan's people here."
"I don't care if there are five thousand," said Beecher hoarsely. "I say it shall not go on."
"I thought I was to do the brag and bullying, lad?"
"Will you stand by me?" panted Beecher.
"Of course."
"Your gun is loaded?"
"Yes."
"Jerry—Joe."
"Yes, sir," said the former sharply, and his companion's lips moved.
"You have the revolvers?"
"Yes, sir."
"Loaded?"
"Every chamber, sir."
"Stand by us, then, if we have to fight."
"Right, sir," said the man coolly, and Hollins's man nodded his head and tightened his lips till they looked like a thin red line drawn tightly over the lower part of his face.
"It's horribly rash, my lad, and we've no right to interfere with a Rajah's domestic institutions," said Hollins in a dry, harsh voice that did not sound like his own.
"You can't sit still and see those two women murdered."
"Don't suppose I can," was the reply. "What shall I do? Shoot the Rajah?"
"I don't know yet. Wait and see. Yes, I know.—Here, Jerry."
"Sir."
"There are crocodiles in this part of the river?"
"Yes, sir, waiting to take them two poor things under. Both pretty, sir, and don't look sixteen."
"Listen, then. If I give the word, dare you swim to our boat and cut it loose?"
"No, sir."
"What?"
"Don't dare, sir, because of them great ugly efts; but you're my officer, sir; just you order me to, and I'm blessed if I don't try."
"Good words, matey," said Joe huskily. "If you don't, I will."
"Then if it comes to the worst, and I say, 'In the Queen's name,' dash in, cut the rope, and bring the boat ashore. Open your knife in your pocket now."
"'Tis open, sir—'case I wanted to stick it into one of these brutes o' niggers."
"Good. Wait till the people are watching those women, and slip the revolver into my hand."
"Right, sir."
Almost at that moment, while the two wretched girls were being brought, shrinking and trembling, towards where the sultan was seated, one of them seemed to have suddenly realised the horrible fate which awaited her: possibly she caught her first glimpse of the flashing water, and she uttered a wild shriek that as Jerry afterwards said went through him like a knife.
"That's done it, Dick," growled Hollins in a whisper. "That's done it. I'm wound up now. Say when you're ready."
In the midst of the excitement, and every one's attention centred upon the girls, the second following her companion's example—shrieking and struggling wildly, as each was dragged towards the sultan by a couple of his followers, Beecher felt the handle of a revolver thrust into his hand, which closed upon it, and placed it in the waistband of his trousers.
The shrieks of the two unfortunate victims were now horrible, and as they were dragged close up to where the four Englishmen sat, thrilling with horror, panting with suppressed energy, they saw the girls stretch out their arms to the master whose wretched slaves they were, and mingled with their shrieks, which pierced the utter silence around, were inarticulate appeals for mercy.
The next moment the cries ceased as if a hand had been laid upon each pair of quivering lips, for Beecher suddenly sprang to his feet, shouting "Stop!" and turned to the sultan.
"Sir," he cried hoarsely, "we your guests appeal to you as Englishmen to pardon and spare these poor women, however much they have offended against you."
Every eye was fixed now upon the speaker, as he stood there bareheaded and quivering with excitement, and looking for the first time in his life, big, almost grand, his face flushed, his breast heaving, every inch an Englishman and soldier of his Queen.
"Sit down," said the sultan, smiling up at the speaker in the most imperturbable manner; and though Beecher did not see it, Hollins did: his hand stole softly to the folds of his silken sarong, where it rested upon his kris. "Sit down."
"And see this cruel murder? I cannot, sir. I appeal to you to spare their lives."
"Sit down," said the sultan in the same low tone; but the smile was as ferocious as that of some beast of prey. "Sit down, or——"
His eyes flashed luridly now, and there was an ominous rustle from behind, which made Hollins give a sharp look back at the guards.
"Then In the Queens Name!" shouted Beecher, raising his double gun, and before the words had left his lips Jerry leaped past him, and in a series of bounds reached the edge of the water to disappear with a tremendous splash.
As Jerry made his first bound his master was in the act of rushing towards where the two girls were being now held down upon their knees by the men who had dragged them to the sultan's feet, when quick as lightning the savage chief made a blow at him with his kris, which fell short, for, driven with the full force of Hollins's tremendous arms, the butt of his double gun crashed against the side of the tyrant's head, and he rolled over and over among his attendants.
"The butt of his double gun crashed against the side
of the tyrant's head."
This daring attack on majesty seemed to have a paralysing effect upon the group of spearmen and swordbearers, who hung together for a few moments in utter wonder and dismay.
They were moments well utilised, for in that brief space of time the men who held the girls went over, two from blows dealt by Hollins with the butt of his gun, the others from strokes delivered by Beecher and Joe with the revolver he had drawn.
All this without a shot being fired, and for the moment the prisoners were free.
Fortunately for their would-be defenders, the girls were not timid creatures ready to faint, or cripple the arms of those who fought. For they sprang to their feet and looked wildly round for an opening by which to escape.
"To the naga—to the naga!" shouted Beecher, who saw his man in the act of reaching the bows of the light boat, and as an arm rose above the water there was the flash of a knife-blade in the sunshine, and the boat was free and being urged with the stream towards the shore.
The girls dashed along the bank, fully grasping the fact that escape lay in that direction, and it was time, for a yell of suppressed rage now arose, as the Malays recovered from their panic, spears were levelled, krises flashed in the light, and they commenced their attack.
"The girls dashed along the bank."
But their movements were slow and stealthy like those of the tiger preparing to spring, for three Englishmen faced them, each with deadly weapons ready to flash out destruction, as they backed in the direction of their boat.
"Don't fire, boys; don't fire," growled Hollins. "Give the girls time to get on board. Look back, Joe, has Jerry got it ashore?"
"Pretty close, sir," said the man shortly. "Hooroar! One of the girls has jumped in. Yes, there goes the other. Won't leave us in the lurch, will they?—No. Hooroar again! they've took to the oars and are holding her in. Jerry's getting ashore again, legs and all, sir—not touched."
"Here you are, gents," came in that individual's familiar accents. "Let 'm have it hot, and make a run for it."
"No!" roared Hollins. "Keep your formation till we're abreast; then retire singly. You first, Joe."
There was a bristling hedge of spear-points approaching, and a snarling roar of voices rose, while suddenly a spear was thrown from the first prahu, but only to fall short of the retreating party, yards away upon the bank. Still that was the signal for a shower.
"They won't hurt," growled Hollins. "But if these brutes begin—Ah, I expected it.—Steady!—From the left.—Fire!"
A shot flashed from Beecher's gun as the spears began to fall about them, and a man dropped. Another fell from Hollins's fire, and another as Joe's revolver cracked. Then Beecher fired his second barrel, and drew his revolver.
At the same moment a dripping hand snatched the empty gun from his grasp, and a couple of cartridges from his sporting bandoleer.
"Good man and true," growled Hollins, as he fired. "Aboard now, Jerry; take more cartridges, and cover our retreat. Steady, and keep up a good covering fire. Steady, Joe, steady."
The firing was kept up, and the next minute they were abreast of the boat, which was held to the shore by the two brave girls.
"Right, man. Aboard now," cried Hollins calmly, as a shot from the boat's stern told that Jerry had begun work; and directly after a sharp crack came from the bows, telling that Joe had reached his place, men dropping at every carefully aimed shot.
"Crack!"
"Hah!" ejaculated Beecher, as a spear passed through his sleeve.
"Hurt, lad?" growled Hollins. "Aboard if you can."
"Nothing much. Follow quickly," said Beecher, between his teeth, and the next moment Hollins stood alone upon the shore, to fire both barrels of his reloaded gun in succession, before turning and leaping aboard, the impetus given by his heavy body sending the boat yards from the bank, while the two girls began to row.
As soon as the last man left the bank the Malays rushed forward and began to hurl their spears, nearly every one striking the boat, till at a word from Hollins a little volley was fired, and, four less in number, the enemy shrank back.
"Now lads," said Hollins coolly, "let us have your pieces; we'll keep up the fire. You take two of the oars, and help the girls. Send her along with a rush, for they're beginning to unmoor that first prahu. Dick, lad, we must begin practice now on the men at the sweeps, or the game will soon be up. Oh, for half a company of our brave lads! But good heavens, man! are you much hurt?"
"No; only a cut, which bleeds a deal. Tie your handkerchief round, and I can fire steadily enough. They're unmooring the prahu. Can you hit that man casting off the rope there ashore?"
Crack!
"Yes, that's downed him," said Hollins coolly reloading. "Hah! we're out of the reach of spears for the present."
"Till the prahu comes after us to run us down," muttered Beecher.—"Well, if ever they hear of it at home they'll say it was bravely done."
CHAPTER VI
"Cease firing," said Hollins, after carefully wiping the breech of his piece, "and no bugle to sound. Are you all charged?"
"Yes—yes, sir," was the reply.
"That's right. I'd better relieve one of these ladies, for we must row for our lives. But how are you, Dick?"
"Sick as a dog, old chap," said the young man smiling; "but I haven't time to faint. I can take a shot now and then, though, when they come in sight again." For as he spoke they swept round a bend, and the busy scene of excitement about the prahus and sampans, into which armed men were springing, passed from their sight.
"Good; I'll pull then. Wish we had a pair of sculls that I could take so as not to interfere."
"Why not put one of these oars over and I'll steer?" said Beecher faintly.
"We want no steering now, my lad," cried Hollins; "the thing is to go full speed for the hanging boughs, and rush through into the open river.—Here, hi!—What's the matter?" he cried excitedly.
"Better come and pull, sir," said Jerry excitedly; "these here dark misses want to go another way, I think."
The men had seized oars, and the girls dipped theirs vigorously, one of them pulling a few strokes with all her might, and then raising her blade and turning to look ahead, saying a word or two at intervals to her toiling sister in distress, who, after a few more dips, began to pull again with all her might.
The result was that the next minute the prow of their light boat was straight for what seemed to be the tree-studded bank, into which they rushed, with a sharp rustling sound as the hanging boughs swept over the roof of the palm-leaf awning, and they glided on into the gloomy shadow of a winding waterway some ten yards wide, the rowers softly dipping their oars, and one of them holding up a hand to enforce silence.
The sign was needed, for not many minutes had elapsed before there were shouts, the heavy beating of sweeps, and it was as evident to those in the boat as if they could see that a prahu had gone by the hidden opening through which they had passed, and was making at full speed for the river.
Hollins drew a deep breath, and passed his hand across his forehead.
"A respite, lad," he said; "but as soon as they see the main river clear they'll be back. Ask the girls if the men are to row again."
The question was not necessary, for one of the pair now signed to the two servants to resume their pulling, and the boat's speed was redoubled, while Beecher changed the form of his question, and the girl laughed.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "Prahu can't come along here. Water not deep enough."
"But the sampans?"
"Yes, and boats like this," said the girl. "Then you shoot and kill."
As she spoke she signed to the men to stop rowing, and the naga was turned into a side opening, and after a few minutes into another and another. For to the surprise of the young officers they found that this side of the river was one wide swamp full of dense vegetation, through which there was a perfect network of sluggish streams, forming a very labyrinth, in and out of whose mazy waterways they now rowed on and on in almost perfect silence, not a sound being heard but the dip of the oars and the soft washing of the agitated water among the straight columnar trunks which rose out of the black mud.
They went on for hours, till with the darkness the strange croaking and shrieking night sounds of the forest began. After many windings, they were amongst hanging boughs again which swept the top of their palm cabin, and the next minute were clear, with the bright stars overhead and the boat being carried seaward by the rushing stream.
Suddenly Hollins started and pointed to a light about a hundred yards away, and the girls began to row towards the opposite bank to avoid what was evidently the mooring light of a good-sized vessel anchored in mid-stream.
The moments which followed seemed to be the most crucial through which they had passed, for they were forced by the sharp current very near a prahu, whose sides loomed up darkly, and at any moment it seemed that spears might come whirring into the boat.
But they cleared it unseen, to encounter fresh dangers from sunken trees, shoals, and other obstacles which they could not avoid in the darkness, and before they had drifted many hundred yards below the enemy there was a sharp jerk, a grinding sound, and they were fast upon a shoal, the boat only becoming more immovable with the efforts made to get her free.
There was nothing for it but to wait till daylight, when to their mortification they found that a thrust or two in the right direction was sufficient to set them free. Then the oars were seized and once more they rowed for life and in full expectation of seeing the prahu they had passed coming at full speed round one of the bends.
Within an hour their expectation was fulfilled, for one of the girls suddenly started up and pointed to the long light vessel with its oars flashing in the rising sunlight, as she came on at a speed double that which with every nerve strained they could get up in the naga.
"The game's up after all, Dick," muttered Hollins. "Well, we must do what we can with the guns. Plenty of cartridges, haven't we?"
Beecher looked at him wistfully, and slowly shook his head, but the next moment a thrill ran through his breast, and he rose up in his place, waving his hat.
"Saved!" he shouted. "Pull, lads, they'll see us soon."
Beecher was right, for a signal was made from a large boat a quarter of a mile down stream, manned by many rowers, and with the barrels of rifles glistening in the sun.
For at the first sign of day breaking a strong party with the regimental surgeon had started under the major in search of the missing officers, and it was none too soon, the help arriving in the midst of a brave defence being made by the occupants of the naga.
A few shots from the rifles of the rescue party were sufficient though, to turn the tables, the prahu, after the loss of about a dozen men, beating a retreat up stream.
Two days later the sultan sent a couple of prahus full of armed men to demand the return of his wives.
Hollins and Beecher were both present when the sultan's officers were received in audience, and Beecher, whose arm was in a sling, acted as interpreter between them and the major.
"If I did what I liked, sir," said the young officer, "I'd bid them tell their master to come and fetch the girls."
"Well, that's not a bad message, Beecher," said the major, smiling; "it sounds British. Tell them that."
Beecher spoke out at once, and the embassy went off, as Hollins said, "with a flea in its ear."
THE END
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
Edinburgh & London
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See "Yule Logs," 1898 (Longmans & Co.), "The King of Spain's Will."
[2] I need hardly say that this feat is quite authentic.—D. K.
[3] To show that I have not overstated the condition of the East India Company's armies during the rise of England's Eastern empire, it is sufficient to quote the description given by a great historian of the soldiers with whom Clive achieved the capture of Covelong and Chingleput: "The only force available for this purpose was of such a description that no one but Clive would risk his reputation by commanding it. It consisted of five hundred newly levied Sepoys, and two hundred recruits who had just landed from England, and who were the worst and lowest wretches that the Company's crimps could pick up in the 'flash-houses' of London."
[4] There are still men in India who can testify that this exploit, marvellous as it may appear to outsiders, has had more than one parallel.—D. K.
[5] It was not till 1856 (under the rule of Lord Dalhousie) that Oude was annexed to the British dominions; and, up to that time, the misrule of its native princes was the byword of all India. A favourite pastime with one of these model sovereigns was the sudden letting loose of a number of venomous snakes in the midst of a crowd of market-people!
[6] Literally "salt fellow"—a phrase implying that a man has been, as the Hindus say, "true to his salt."
[7] The presence of a tiger so close to a beaten road is (as I can bear witness from my own experience) not at all an unheard-of thing in Northern India even at the present day.—D. K.
[8] Loin cloth.
[9] Rich merchant.
[10] Little breakfast.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Obvious printer errors have been corrected. Otherwise, the author's original spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been left intact.