“Fullerton’s not here,” said Orwell. “He started for Buluwayo only this morning with his wife and sister. Wyndham’s driving them—”
“WHAT?”
It was Lamont who had spoken—shouted, rather. And in truth the interruption was startling. He who made it was leaning forward over the table, his dark face without a vestige of colour, his eyes staring as though already they beheld a reproduction of the grim horror upon which they had so recently gazed, only, in this case—
“Yes. But they had an escort,” explained Orwell wonderingly. “Isard sent some police with them.”
“Some police! How many?” in a dry staccato tone.
“Oh, a dozen, he told me. Some of his best men—”
“Come on, Peters,” shouted Lamont, springing to his feet and not waiting to hear any more. “We’ve got our work cut out for us, and we’ll get at it at once. An escort—a dozen police—and the whole country up in a blaze! Foster, let me have the best horse you’ve got in your stables for Peters—you shall name your own price. Now then, who’ll volunteer?” going out into the bar, where several men had already collected. It had got about somehow that something was in the wind, and more and more were rolling up at Foster’s to see what they could find out. “Who’ll volunteer? Fullerton’s been idiot enough to start his womenkind off for Buluwayo this morning. They’ll be at the Kezane Store by the time we catch them up, and we saw with our own eyes an impi, a couple of hundred strong, heading straight for that very point this morning. The whole country’s in a blaze. My farm’s been blown up, and Tewson and his family are all murdered.”
“That’s quite true,” said Peters.
“Well, Peters and I, and as many of you as will volunteer, are going to start off down the road now at once to the rescue of Fullerton’s outfit—if no one’ll join, the two of us will go alone. You see we’ve just seen white women and children who’d been cut up into pieces. Fullerton has women with him. Who’ll volunteer?”
Several men stepped forward without hesitation. Others would have, but one had no horse, another no rifle, and so forth. All these objections were met by Lamont without a moment’s hesitation.