“We accept them,” he said. “I am ready.”
“Very well. Now you two may return and carry my ‘word’ to Matanzima. When he comes he will find his friends just as they fell. We do not harm wounded men.”
The two ambassadors saluted again, and turning, strode away from the camp, escorted to the brow of the hill by a couple of sentries, while the hostage was placed under a strict guard. They gave him something to eat, and he was well treated though carefully watched. But not for a moment would he unbend from the grave, dignified reserve wherewith he had wrapped himself. Communicativeness was not in the bond, and to all their questions he returned laconic and evasive replies. It was evident that he was not to be “drawn.” Once during their march Lumley, having just given him a pipe of tobacco, asked where Sandili was.
“Chief,” replied the Kafir, in a tone of quiet rebuke. “If I were to ask you where your general and your amasoja (soldiers) were at this moment—what should you say?”
“I should say, ‘Damn your impudence,’” muttered Lumley, half angrily, as he turned away feeling very much snubbed; but Claverton, listening, thoroughly enjoyed the retort.
“Don’t be unfair, Lumley,” he said. “This fellow has his wits about him. He’s no ordinary nigger, I can see.”
“No, he isn’t, confound him,” growled the other, unmollified.
Meanwhile the hostage stalked along among his guards, and showed not the smallest concern as to his own fate. Evidently the conditions would be observed in good faith, and of that fact he was aware. In a trifle more than an hour, now, he would be set at liberty—when lo, cresting the brow of a hill, one of the saddest and most eloquent tokens of savage warfare burst upon the eyes of the party. Beneath, lay what had been a flourishing homestead, now a heap of débris and blackened ruins, from which, as they gazed, little lines of smoke still arose, showing that the work of destruction was but recent. The roof had fallen in but the walls still stood, with their gaping window-holes like the eyeless sockets of a skull, and fragments of charred rafters stood out overhead, the fleshless ribs of the frame of the once sheltering roof-tree. And in contrast to this sad work of desolation, a fine fruit-garden fronted the house, the trees weighed down beneath their luscious burdens—the fig and the pomegranate, blushing peaches and yellow pears, golden apricots, and quinces ripening in the high, straight hedges which shut in the orchard. Extensive lands under cultivation lay along in the bottom, and these had not been interfered with.
“This can’t have been done long,” observed Lumley, surveying the ruin. “Shouldn’t wonder if it was the same gang that attacked us.”
“Very likely. Stop. Here’s a part of it not so smashed up. Let’s have a look round,” said Claverton, dismounting.