“Until there is no more Inxele. Soon there will be no more Inxele.”
“By Jove, there’s no mistaking that for a hint,” said Wyvern in English. “There must be mischief brewing against our exemplary friend. Oughtn’t we to warn him?”
“Not much. Bully Rawson’s big enough and quite ugly enough to take care of himself. Nor does he deserve anything of the kind after his little tricks,” answered Fleetwood decisively. “Besides, it’s him or us, and you know what we’ve come up here for, Wyvern. I’m afraid you’ll never be practical, and it’s time you learnt to be by now. I’ve never shirked helping a friend in a row, but I’m not going out of my way to stick my head into a hornet’s nest for such an unhung blackguard as this.”
“Hallo! What the deuce is up!” exclaimed Wyvern as the furious gallop of a horse drew near. Nor was the mystery long in solving, for there dashed right into the camp, and at headlong pace, no less a personage than he whom they had just been discussing. Moreover he was bleeding from a wound in the hand, and another in the head.
“Chaps,” he roared, flinging himself unsteadily from the saddle. “Get out the shooters mighty quick. The Usutus have looted my kraal, and are coming on, hot foot, behind me. They’ll be here in a sec.”
Fleetwood and Wyvern looked at each other, and both thought the same. Instead of putting their heads into a hornets’ nest for this ruffian, he had brought the hornets’ nest about them.
“Oh, ah, but it can’t be helped,” he jeered, reading their thoughts. “We’re all in this together. You’re white men and you can’t refuse to stand by another white man. So get out the shooters, and we’ll give ’em hell directly.”
Our friends’ camp consisted of a strong scherm, made of thorn boughs tightly interlaced. Within this stood the two waggons, and at nightfall the horses and oxen were brought inside, a necessary precaution, for the bushy and broken fastnesses of the Lebombo range still contained a few lions. Now, even as they were getting out arms and ammunition, the boys who were outside came running in in alarm. Hlabulana, seated on the ground, was taking snuff with his usual imperturbability. Mtezani stood, equally imperturbable except that he gripped his shield and broad assegais in such wise as to suggest that he was ready for as much fight as anybody chose to put up for him.
There was not long to wait. The scherm was erected in an open space, and now from the lines of cover, swarms of Zulus were issuing. The full-sized war-shields and certain personal adornments left no doubt as to their errand being the reverse of a peaceful one, as they poured forward ringing in the scherm on every side. And, swift with thought there flashed through Wyvern’s brain the knowledge that they two had attained the object of their search just too late. What could three men do against this swarming number, with no cover but a bush fence, and as for aid from without why there was no such thing possible!
Fleetwood, standing on a waggon box, raised his voice to try and obtain a parley, but even while he was doing so, a shot rang out, then another and another, and with them he realised that the time for parleying had gone by. For Bully Rawson, judging it best to take the bull by the horns, had jumped to the side of the scherm and was pumping the contents of a Winchester repeating rifle into the thickest of the on-rushing mass. Several were seen to fall, and now with an awful roar of rage, the whole body hurled itself upon the barricade like a wave upon a rock.