He put out his hand, and the next moment almost wished he hadn’t, when Jim Steele was doing his best to wring it off. The cheering was wildly renewed.
“Boys,” went on the latter, raising his glass. “Here’s Captain Lamont, and his jolly good health. And if he’ll raise a corps to take the veldt and help straighten out this racket, I’m going to be the first man to join. I don’t suppose there’s a man jack in this room that won’t join. Is there?”
“No—no.”
The answer was an enthusiastic roar. And as they drank his health they struck up the usual chorus under the circumstances—‘For he’s a jolly good fellow’—until the room rang again. And if the watchful savage was crawling about the dark veldt outside, in a scouting capacity—and who shall say he was not—he must have decided that Makiwa was singing war-songs with extraordinary go and zest—not to say indulging in a Tyay’igama dance (see note), by way of celebrating his victory.
Then Lamont made a little speech. He thanked them for responding so readily to his call for volunteers, but he knew that they would thank themselves for the rest of their lives that it had been given to them to be the means of averting the horrible tragedy they had been the means of averting. The whole country now was up in arms. These savages spared neither age nor sex, he had already seen enough—and Peters would bear him out there—to prove that. Probably they would hear of more and similar massacres elsewhere before long, but at any rate he, for one, was going to help the country in which he had lived since its opening up—to help it to the best of his ability; and whether they served with him or not he hoped and believed every man jack in that room was going to do the same.
As for himself, Jim Steele had been good enough to emphasise anything he might have done, but exactly the same and more might be said of every man who had fought that day in defence of their two fellow-countrywomen, and of none more than of Wyndham, who although he had had no opportunity of firing a shot at the would-be woman-slayers, had none the less by his coolness and skill contributed to the safety of the party as thoroughly as though he had shot a score of Matabele with his own hand.
Wyndham had just come in, and a shout of cheering greeted his appearance at these words. When this had abated Lamont went on.
They were not out of the wood yet, he said. They had either got to wait here until relieved or take the ladies back to Gandela themselves, and he himself favoured the first plan. Were they alone they would reckon it part of the day’s work to fight their way, if necessary, to whatever point at which their services were most required. But the events of the afternoon had shown they were an inadequate force for escort purposes, though providentially they had been brought through that time. Again, he repeated, he could not claim to have done more than any other man who was with him, where all did so well; and to the end of his days, be they many or few, one of the proudest recollections of his life would be that of the couple of dozen or so of men who fought side by side with him, against tremendous odds, to save their fellow-countrywomen from falling into the barbarous hands of murderous and treacherous savages.
Roars of cheers greeted the closing of this speech; and then they fell to the discussion of Jim Steele’s notion. For the idea had caught on. It was determined that those who had fought that day should form the nucleus of a corps to take the field under Lamont and Peters, and that the said corps should be known as Lamont’s Tigers.
“Dat is a goot name,” said Grunberger, nodding his head approvingly. “We will now drink de health of Lamont’s Tigers. Chentlemen, name your drinks.”