“Hallo! What’s the row?” sang out Falkner, from the tent waggon, into which he had dived to fetch something or other. “Any more fellows whose heads want punching—eh, Glanton?”
“No,” I answered more sourly still. “Keep those itching knuckles of yours quiet for once—for Heaven’s sake.”
It was early morning as I have said, and we were in the act of inspanning. We had camped in an open valley, and in front lay a long acclivity of miry red track mapped out by ancient wheel ruts and rendered diabolical by a heavy rainfall during the night. It was at the head of this that the crowd had appeared, and looking at both I was all the less disposed to meet opposition with the good humour which is always advisable.
“Zulu nigga troublesome debbil,” said Jan Boom, the Xosa, who was fond of airing his English, and his contempt for those of his own colour who “had none.”
The new arrivals left us in no sort of doubt as to their intentions, for they charged straight for us, and waving their weapons roared out to us to stop.
“Tre-ek!” I yelled, seizing the whip from Mfutela, and letting out the long lash in a couple of resounding cracks which had the effect of making one fellow who was brandishing a war-axe within an ace of Tom’s nose—who was leading—skip aside with some alacrity. Jan Boom, who was driving the other waggon, was quick to follow my example, and to the accompaniment of a cannonade of whip cracking and ear-splitting yells, the two spans tugged out laboriously over the heavy miry road.
So far as our disturbers were concerned, I kept silence, by way of showing that I considered them beneath my notice, until I saw that their mouthings and gesticulations as they kept pace with us on either side, were likely to schrik our two horses, leading on behind, to the point of nearly causing them to break their reims and rush away the devil knew where.
“Who are ye?” I shouted. “Who are ye that come bellowing down upon me like a pack of kraal curs? You are not children either, for I see among you men with rings. Go away.”
But the ringed men, to my surprise, were among the most boisterous.
“Turn back, Umlungu,” cried one of them. “Turn back. It is the word of our father, Mawendhlela.”