“We can sell our lives dearly,” exclaimed Bernhard; “that we can at least do. I have thirty bullets at least in my pouch, and in my horn thirty charges of powder. We may beat off a large party of the enemy.”
“The Matabili are not easily beaten off,” remarked Hans: “they rush on in a body, and though you may kill some, the others are upon you before you can have time to load. If we could have some of those many-barrelled guns that I have heard of which fire off several times one after the other, we could do nothing but kill more before we were killed; but with our roers only, we can do but little.”
Whilst the men were thus talking in the twilight, Katie and her sister, fully awake, joined them before their presence was known; and hearing this last remark, the quick-witted girl at once suspected that the horses were unfit to continue their journey.
“We can walk, Hans,” said Katrine, as she touched his shoulder, “we can walk, though, perhaps, not so fast as you can; but we can walk ever so far.”
“If it were walking only, Katie, it would not be much; but it may be we should have to run, and that at a greater speed than a Matabili could follow; that is why I fear.”
“Well, leave us here, and you go on, and bring us back help. The ‘Mensch’ will soon come to us, and we could stop here till they arrive.”
“We live or die together, Katie; I will never leave you here,” exclaimed Hans. “But there is something to be thought of, though. Victor and Bernhard, let me tell you my plan.”
The two men turned from the horses, whose pitiable condition they had been contemplating, to Hans, and waited for his words. After a moment’s thought, Hans exclaimed, “It is our best chance, and it will succeed. This is the plan:—The black horse is as yet well. You Bernhard, or you Victor, as you may choose, upsaddle at once, and ride for our lager. As soon as you reach it, tell Maritz, or any one who is our friend, of our being left in the desert. I have horses among the people, and there are those who will help us. Come back with help and with horses, and we will get safe again among our people.”
“And where will you be, Hans?” was Victor’s inquiry.
“I,” said Hans, “will move on to that range of hills; there are kloofs and rocks there amidst which I can easily find a place of security for Katie and her sister; for the rest trust a hunter. They shall neither starve nor be made prisoners whilst I live. So now, which of you will go? it is the post of danger to go as much as to remain. You, Bernhard, are the lightest man, and ought thus to ride fastest. In six days you should be back, and by that time we shall be accustomed to a rough life.”