The Count brought his waggon up the road in company with two other traders’ waggons—six white men and one American young lady. Thirty miles from Salisbury they found on the road the bodies of a white family—father, mother, and children,—lying, just murdered. They began to bury them, when a volley was fired on them at short range, killing a number of donkeys. They embarked in the lightest waggon, the Count losing his waggon and stores. They trekked on, pursued by rebels, who kept firing, without daring to attack, or even to show themselves out of the bush. This went on for two days and one night, till they reached Salisbury. The girl, meanwhile, had been very plucky—merely asked to be supplied with a revolver, with which to shoot herself if the worst came to the worst; and she got one of the men to promise to do it for her if her courage failed.
But they got in all right. Meanwhile, the Countess, living out at the farm, five miles from Salisbury, received warning by messenger to come in to laager; and when she delayed about it, they sent four friendlies as a guard for her. Her account of it, told in a very matter–of–fact cockney way, was most refreshing—
“You see, they had murdered our neighbours that day, and I couldn’t help thinking about it. So I didn’t go to bed that night, but just put on a blouse and skirt, and lay down on the bed, after barricading the door. Well, in the night I was startled first by a waggon going past at full speed; drivers yelling at the mules and cracking their whips,—this was the waggon going to Mazoe to rescue the women there. I could not sleep. By and by I heard a noise, and, looking through a hole in the door, I saw niggers—plenty of them—close to the house, and on three sides of it. I got the rifle, slipped on my bandolier, seized up my revolver–belt, and jumped out of the back window and ran. As I got over the wall of the garden, I upset an iron bucket with an awful clang. At the same time, my boy, running out of the kitchen, knocked against two frying–pans that were hanging up there, and made worse din. But he got away, and joined me in the bush above the house. There we hid for the rest of the night behind a gravestone. They did not burn the house; and next morning, after waiting some time, to see if any of them were about, I got so impatient about it, that I sent the boy down,—to see if my sewing–machine was all right,—and he soon came back with it. He had found it close to the well: a nigger had got it, and was clearing with it, when he was assegaied by one of the Zambesi boys. Lucky they killed him a few yards from the well; another step, and my sewing–machine would have been down the well. But the Zambesi boys were all killed—lying about round the front door. Well, then we made our way into Salisbury; and I had no sooner got there than I found that, like the stupid I was, I had brought the revolver–case, empty—in the confusion I had left the revolver behind. So, says I, I must go back and get that revolver.
The Countess Rescues her
Sewing–Machine
When her house was attacked at night by rebels, four of her native guards were killed, and she herself was compelled to hide with the surviving boy till daylight, when, the enemy having cleared out, she went back and got her sewing–machine which had been dropped by the looters among the dead boys in the garden.
“There was a patrol just then going out, so I got them to let me go with them and back to my house. I made my way through the murdered Zambesi boys, but I didn’t stop to look at them, I was that anxious to get my revolver; and I got it all right, and glad I was to come away with it; not but what it’s getting worn–out now, I think, as it wouldn’t act the other night when I wanted it to; but it’s the one I’ve shot a lion with, so I like it. Oh, he was only a very old lion; but, ye see, he used to come pretty near every night to our camp, and snap up one or other of the dogs. One night he even got into our dining–hut, where there was a ham hanging from the roof; he got on to the table to reach it down; but the table was a rickety concern and came down with him, and I had stupidly left the cloth on overnight, and a nice lot of holes he made in it with his claws. Well, one evening I heard the old brute moving in the sluit, close to the camp; so I called to the boy to get the gun, and come up with me into the waggon, and I took the revolver. Soon we heard the lion coming along the path, kicking oranges—them hard–rinded things—with his feet. I says to the boy, ‘There he is, shoot!’ But the boy couldn’t see him; and so I says, ‘Oh, if you’re going to take all night to shoot him, here goes!’ and with that I up with my revolver, and lets off a shot at him. The lion sprang forward to the waggon, and I give him another, that sent him back where he came from, and he rolled about a bit in the sluit, and died there. I had hit him right in the neck.
“What about the other night? Oh, I hate to think of it—my luck was dead out that night! Three nights ago it was, I heard a curious noise at the back of the house, here in Salisbury; so I put on my indiarubber shoes, and takes my pistol, and I slips round to see what it is; and there I find a man—a white man, mind you—trying to break into the house. So I catches him by the neck with one hand” (the Countess is a small, slim person), “and put the revolver in his face with the other, and tells ‘im to keep quiet; but he wriggles, and gets loose. Well, I catches hold of his shirt, and that tears; then I catches his trousers, they tears; and with that he bolts away. Well, I up with my pistol and fired, and fired. But whether it was the cartridges was bad, or there was something wrong with the pistol—go off it wouldn’t; and so that man got away.”