There was no lack of response to this appeal, and the sun rose upon a busy scene. Glasses and beakers clinked, and men sat or stood around, devouring “bully” beef or canned tongues and other provisions, some of the rougher sort now and then shying the empty tins in scornful hate at the dead bodies of the fallen savages—for, after all, the corpses of four of their countrymen still lay unburied within.
“You’ve done for thirty-one all told, Jekyll,” presently remarked Overton, who had set some of his men to count the dead immediately around the place. “Not a bad bag for seven guns. What?”
“No; but we’ve lost four,” was the grave reply.
Then, having taken in a great deal of much needed refreshment, and effected the burial of their slain comrades—the latter, by the exigencies of the circumstances, somewhat hurriedly performed—the force divided, the Police moving on to warn Hollingworth. With them went Moseley and Tarrant, while the remainder elected to stay at Jekyll’s until they saw how things were likely to turn.
“I don’t know that you’re altogether wise, all of you,” were the Police captain’s parting words. “You’ve held your own against tremendous odds so far; but when it’s a case of the whole country being up against you, I’m afraid you’ll have no show.”
But to this the reply was there were plenty of them now, and they could hold their own against every carmine-tinted nigger in Matabeleland.
It was late in the afternoon when the mounted force arrived at Hollingworth’s farm. There was a silence about the place, an absence of life that struck upon them at once.
“I expect they’ve cleared,” said Moseley. “In fact, they must have, or we’d have heard the kids’ voices in some shape or form.”
“Let’s hope so,” replied the Police captain. Then a startled gasp escaped him. For exactly what had attracted Nidia’s glance on her return attracted his—the broad trail in the dust and the blood-patches, now dry and black.
With sinking hearts they dismounted at the door, and Overton knocked. No answer.