Not one atom of drowsiness in Renshaw now. The sting of the above paragraph, like that of the scorpion, lay in the tail. His blood ran cold. Heavens! That household of unprotected women! For Christopher Selwood was away from home on a week’s absence, visiting a distant property of his, and Sellon, by way of a change and seeing the country, had accompanied him. Renshaw himself had ridden into Fort Lamport the previous day on urgent business of his own—nothing less than to interview a possible purchaser of his far-away desert farm. Under ordinary circumstances, it was no uncommon thing to leave the household without male protection for a day or two, or even longer. But now—good heavens!
He glanced at the date of the newspaper. There should be a later one, he said to himself. Feverishly he hunted about for it, trying to hope that it might contain intelligence of the recapture of the runaways. Ah, there it was! With trembling hands he tore open the double sheet, and glanced down the columns.
“The Escaped Convicts.
“Our surmise has proved correct. The runaways have taken refuge in the Umtirara range, from whose dense and rugged fastnesses they will, we fear, long be able to defy the best efforts of the wholly inadequate police force at present at the disposal of the district. They entered a farmer’s house on the lower drift, yesterday, during the owner’s absence, and by dint of threats induced his wife and daughters to give them up all the firearms in the house. They got possession of two guns and a revolver, and a quantity of ammunition, and decamped in the direction of the mountains. It is a mercy they did not maltreat the inmates.”
The cold perspiration started forth in beads upon the reader’s forehead. The event recorded had occurred yesterday; the newspaper was of to-day’s date. He might yet be in time. But would he be? It was three o’clock. Sunningdale was distant thirty-five miles. By the hardest riding he could not arrive before dark, for the road was bad in parts, and his horse was but an indifferent one.
In exactly five minutes he was in the saddle and riding rapidly down the street. It crossed his mind that he was totally unarmed, for in the settled parts of the Colony it is quite an exceptional thing to carry weapons. He could not even turn into the nearest store and purchase a six-shooter, for no such transaction can take place without a magistrate’s permit—to obtain which would mean going out of his way, possibly delay at the office, should that functionary chance to be engaged at the time. No, he could not afford to lose a minute.
It was a hot afternoon. The sun glared fiercely down as he rode over the dozen miles of open undulating country which lay between the town and the first line of wooded hills. A quarter of an hour’s off-saddle at a roadside inn—a feverish quarter of an hour, spent with his watch in his hand. Then on again.
Soon he was among the hills. Away up a diverging kloof lay a Boer homestead, about a mile distant. Should he turn off to it and try and borrow a weapon, or, at any rate, a fresh horse, and warn the inmates? Prudence answered No. Two miles out of his road, delay in the middle, and all on the purest chance. On, on!