“Not so, Sonkwana. The road is not very familiar to me; besides, it is fitting that a councillor of the chief should start me in safety on my journey. There is safety on the road, but off it there is death,” he added darkly.
No shade of his meaning was lost upon his hearer, who made a virtue of necessity, and accepted the position in such wise as though it had been himself who had suggested it. Besides, the guard on the ridge was strong. That had yet to be passed.
On moved the waggons; on moved the whole trek; deliberately making for the exit of the hollow, the leader and driver of each in their places, the three Swazis driving the cattle, for the sheep and goats had been bartered away for cows and oxen; John Dawes walking beside the first waggon, with Sonkwana. On—past the kraal with its great circle of domed huts, but still no opposition. What did it mean? This silence, this passiveness on the part of their hitherto aggressive and turbulent gaolers was portentous.
It was a critical time for Dawes. Each moment he expected the air to be rent with the ferocious war-cry, to hear the ground rumble beneath the advance of running feet. How came it that he was allowed to march out thus with colours flying and drums beating, to march out with all the honours of war? The chief’s councillor was in his power.
No sooner had he arrived at this conclusion than his sense of security was rudely interrupted. They had gained the ridge, and now, with loud and threatening shouts, the guards rushed down upon them.
“Order them back, Sonkwana. Order them back,” said Dawes, in a quick low tone. “To hesitate is death,” he added.
The induna glanced at Dawes. The latter’s attitude, though apparently careless, he well knew was not really so. He himself would receive a bullet in the brain without being able to lift a finger, and save for a short stick he was unarmed. Reluctantly, therefore, he obeyed.
But even his authority hardly seemed to avail here. The guards, some two score of stalwart and boisterous savages, continued to advance, but with less demonstration of hostility, with less fell intent of purpose. Finally, in compliance with the energetic signalling of the councillor, they halted and began to parley.
The while the trek had not halted, and the two waggons already over the ridge were proceeding down the rugged hillside with the utmost care and deliberation. Suddenly Dawes beheld a quick, cunning expression of triumph flit across the face of the hostage, and following the glance of the latter, the curtain of despair descended in black folds once more upon his heart.
For the veldt was alive with warriors, swarming down from the ridge, charging forward in silence, swift in deadly fixity of purpose. They had already passed the cattle herds, and were making straight for himself.