Pukele being a native, and having such an important communication to make as that a refugee white woman was under his charge whom he desired to place under theirs, it was not in him to make it in three words, nor would these have understood him if he had. He, however, stood waiting for their answer. A fourth trooper dashed from the bush.
“What are you waiting for, you blanked idiots?” he yelled. “Here’s a bloody nigger, ain’t there? Well, then—Remember Hollingworth’s!”
With the words he discharged his revolver almost point-blank into Pukele’s chest. Another echoing the vengeful shout, “Remember Hollingworth’s!” fired his into the body of the faithful protector of the only survivor of Hollingworth’s, which slowly sank to the earth, then toppled forward on its face.
The troopers looked upon the slain man with hate and execration. They, be it remembered, had looked upon the bodies of their own countrymen and women and children, lying stark under all the circumstances of a hideous and bloody death. Then the first man who had fired, dismounted and seized the dead warrior’s weapons, administering a savage kick to the now motionless corpse. So Pukele met with his reward.
“Get into cover again. There may be more of ’em!” he enjoined. And scarcely had they done so than the rest of the troop—for which these had been acting as flying scouts—having heard the firing, came hurrying up.
The affair was reported. Those in command jocosely remarking that it seemed a devil of a waste of ammunition to fire two shots into one nigger, who was neither fighting nor running away. Orders were given to keep a sharp look-out ahead, in case the slain man should be one of the scouts of an impi, and the troop moved on. It was, in fact, a relief troop which had been formed to search for and rescue such whites in the disturbed districts who had not already been massacred, and of such it had found and rescued some. Now it was returning.
Soon it was reported that the scouts had descried something or somebody, moving among the granite boulders of an adjacent kopje. Field-glasses were got out.
“By George, it’s a woman. A white woman!” cried the officer in command, nearly dropping his glass from his hand. “She looks the worse for wear too, poor thing. Another of these awful experiences, I’ll bet a dollar. She’s seen us. She’s coming down off the kopje. But we don’t want to scare her with all our ugly faces, though. Looks like a lady too, in spite of her tatters, poor thing,” he went on, with his glass still at his eyes. “Moseley, Tarrant—you might step forward and meet her, eh? We don’t need all to mob her in a body.”
“We’ve met her before, I think, colonel,” said the latter, who had also been looking through his field-glasses. “And that was at Hollingworth’s.”
“No!”