“Ssh-h! Silence there forward, please?”
The two disputants subsided. They were very near the scene of operations now, and almost immediately a halt was called. Beneath, in a hollow, lay the “Great Place,” a large collection of huts—well placed for convenience and comfort, but extremely badly for purposes of defence—on a bend of the Xora River, whose clear waters flowed gurgling past. Overshadowing the village on the one side was a great krantz, and around lay pleasant slopes of rolling pasture, relieved here and there by patches of mimosa thorns. All was wrapped in the most profound silence as the day broke. The inhabitants of the village slumbered unsuspectingly; and if the old chief was there it was extremely likely that the attacking column, drawing a cordon round the place, would have him fast shut within the trap. Meanwhile the said column rested upon its oars, and grumbled.
“What the devil are we waiting for?” fumed Hicks. “The niggers’ll all get away before we get so much as a long shot at them. And a fellow mayn’t even have a pipe while he’s waiting.”
“Keep cool, old man,” replied Armitage. “Or ask Captain Jim.”
“Captain Jim,” being none other than our old friend Jim Brathwaite, who, with characteristic energy, the moment war was fairly declared, had set to work to raise a select corps of his own—not a difficult proceeding, for men flocked from all parts to take service under a leader so popular and so well known for dash and daring—and in three days he had enrolled nearly a hundred picked men. This corps comprised all of our old Seringa Vale friends, and, being mainly of local origin, its members knew and trusted thoroughly each other and their leaders.
“Ah, now we shall hear something,” went on Hicks, as a Police orderly was seen to ride up and confer with their leader. “The advance, I expect.”
“Or the retreat,” suggested another, cynically. “Just as likely the one as the other, from all accounts.”
“Hallo. There’s the enemy, by Jupiter!” cried another young fellow.
All turned. A dark column was seen rapidly advancing up the hill in their rear, and more than one heart beat quicker as its owner watched the approach of this new factor in the state of affairs.
“Not it,” said Naylor, quietly. “It’s the Fingoes for whom we’ve been waiting all this time. Now we shall be able to go forward.”