Sellon, hardly able to put one foot before the other, had reached his horse. Staggering with exhaustion, he just managed to throw himself into the saddle. But he had completely lost his head.
“Down the gully, Sellon—it’s our only chance—but it’s neck or nothing. Follow my lead—and—keep your head.”
It crossed Renshaw’s mind to deliver another shot. But it would only be precious time lost. There were at least fifty of their assailants. One shot, however fatal, would not stop them, and it was of the first importance to keep beyond range of the poisoned arrows.
Rugged as the gully had seemed in ascending, it was a tenfold more formidable business now. It was like riding down a flight of stairs, with the difference that here the evenness of the stairs was lacking. Large boulders and small ones, sharp stones and smooth stones, loose stones and rubble—all had to be got over somehow. And then, that awful precipice at the bottom!
And now the cliffs resounded with the shrill yells of the pursuers. They had reached the head of the gully, and, dropping from rock to rock with the agility of monkeys, were gaining on the two white men. Renshaw, turning warily in his saddle, while still keeping an eye on the guidance of his steed, got in one revolver shot at a gaunt Koranna, who had sprung to the top of a boulder, and was on the point of launching a spear. The fellow threw up his arms and toppled backwards, but not before he had hurled his weapon, which, inflicting a flesh wound on Sellon’s horse, caused the animal to squeal and bound forward.
Perfectly unmanageable, frenzied with pain and terror, the horse shot past Renshaw, his rider vainly endeavouring to restrain him. One stride—two—three—the horse was among the loose rubble on the cliffs brow. There was a prodigious plunging of hoofs—a cloud of dust and gravel—a slide—a frantic struggle—then with a scream, which even at that stirring moment curdled the listeners’ blood, the poor steed disappeared into space—while his rider, who, in the very nick of time, had slipped to the ground, stood bewildered and pale at the thought of the frightful danger he had escaped.
But there was peril enough behind to allow no time for thought. The barbarians, profiting by the moment’s confusion, came swarming down the rocks, yelling and hissing like fiends. A shower of assegais and arrows came whizzing about the ears of the fugitives.
The latter, in about three bounds, had cleared the fearful “elbow” overhanging the abyss, and which they had crossed so circumspectly in cold blood the previous day. Rounding it safely, they had gained one advantage; they were out of arrow range for the moment.
“Lay hold of my stirrup-leather,” cried Renshaw, “and run alongside. There’s clear going now for some way to come.”