A Veldt Official: A Novel of Circumstance

by Bertram Mitford

Already they were blowing the torches into flame, chattering volubly in their destructive glee, as they told each other what a brave blaze this building was going to make. Already several were dragging up great piles of dry thorns, torn from the fencing of the empty sheep-kraals, amid roars of laughter and joking, as the sharp points would prick the naked carcasses of those who gathered them. This was fun indeed; this was sport. Many of them had worked as farm servants on just such a place as this, one or two perhaps on this very place. Now they were going to enjoy the fun of burning it to the ground, and it would make a merry blaze. And shut up within it was a white man, one of the dominant race who was surely and steadily quelling their futile rising, laying low with its deadly breech-loaders the flower of their youth by thousands. One of that now hated race would figure herein at his own holocaust. But this they did not know.

Roden Musgrave thought for a moment, and thought hard. Not for nothing had the very soul of his absent love thrilled across the mysterious dream-space of the slumber world—to save him. Not for nothing had that anguished voice sounded in his ear amid the darkness of the lonely room, to bid him waken and face the grisly peril which hung over him. A minute more, and it would have sounded too late: was it not, indeed, too late now?

There was one chance and only one—the back window. To it immediately he made his way.

That chance was that the savages had not entirely surrounded the house; and it was a poor one.

He looked swiftly but warily forth. That side seemed clear. Deeming it a deserted dwelling the Kaffirs had not thought of surrounding it. All were now gathered in front watching or aiding in the preparations for a grand blaze. Yet the light of the torches shed a glow even upon that side. Still, to hesitate was death.

He dropped through the window, and as he glided swiftly across the open space, which lay between him and the welcome shade of the fruit garden, every moment he expected the roar which should greet his discovery; the whiz of flying assegais, the crash of bullets. But fortune favoured him, and in a moment he lay crouching in the ditch behind the low sod wall, just as the flame was applied to the piles of brushwood which had been heaped against the front of the house.

His first thought had been to escape while they were busy at their congenial work of destruction. But the house stood upon an open flat, and now as the flames roared upward the whole of the surroundings were lit up as in the light of day. Only the insignificant area covered by the welcome shade of the fruit trees afforded concealment. A rat even, stealing across that illumined space, would instantly be discovered. There was no escape that way.

Peering warily through the tufted grasses which had taken root along the top of the sod wall, Roden’s gaze fell upon a scene which was indescribably barbarous and weird. From every side of the house now the flames were bursting forth; windows and doors belching out great red fiery tongues, sometimes with such fury as to drive back helter-skelter a crowd of the savage incendiaries, and in thick, rolling columns the smoke-clouds swept upward, veiling the midnight stars. And forming up in a ring around the burning dwelling the excited barbarians were executing a frenzied war-dance, their red, ochre-smeared frames demon-like as they swung half to one side then to the other, stamping their feet in unison. And above the roar and crackle of the blazing pile the fierce, throaty rhythm of the war-song rose higher and higher, louder and louder, its every note quivering with an insatiate lust for blood. Then, as the frenzy reached its height, leaving their places the savages would ran to and fro, making downward stabs in imitation of slaying those who had been driven out by the flames and were striving to escape. Others again would approach as near as they could, and make believe to be in wait for those who should climb out through the windows—receiving them on their assegais with a deep-throated, bloodthirsty gasp. The pantomime was perfect, and he who crouched there as an involuntary spectator could not forbear a cold shudder, as he witnessed thus vividly represented before him the fate from which he had so narrowly, and by a moment of time, escaped.

But had he escaped it? His present position was one the peril of which it was impossible to exaggerate. Here he lay, imperfectly concealed, within a few yards of at least a hundred barbarians, excited to the most frenzied pitch of ferocity. The fruit garden, which might have covered half an acre, was fenced on the farther side by high, thick quince hedges, through which it would be impossible to make his way noiselessly, if at all; otherwise the idea came to him of attempting flight through the back of the garden while the attention of the Kaffirs was occupied with their barbarous dance. On this side only, that which was bounded by the stone wall, was exit possible, which would mean walking out right into the teeth of his enemies. It was not to be thought of. He was securely trapped—cornered like a snared leopard. Well, he would die like one, fighting to the last. But this resolve afforded not much consolation. We doubt if it ever does.

With an eye to render his precarious position more secure if possible, he gazed warily around. At the end of the sod wall where it joined the quince hedge, he thought the ditch might be deeper, the long grass or other undergrowth thicker. The lay of the ground seemed to point that way. But how to get to it?