After all, it is human to err, and Dawes for once was wrong in his judgment. Had the Swazis but stumbled upon the horrid sight, it would most effectually have killed in them any further desire to tempt their fate in a journey on their own account. They would have demanded nothing better than to hug the vicinity of the waggons as closely as possible.
With a dire foreboding of impending peril upon them the two quitted the spot, and rode back upon their track, for they had come on ahead rather further than they had intended. They had not progressed far, when Dawes said quietly—
“Don’t start, Ridgeley. But if you can do so without turning your head, look up—to the left.”
Gerard did so. High up on the slope of the hillside was a flash and shimmer of something. The slanting rays of the afternoon sun glinted upon the points of spears, upon the smooth surface of great shields. A group of armed savages sat watching the two horsemen.
Whatever their intentions might have been, whether hostile or the reverse, they made not the slightest attempt at concealment. There they sat—out in the open. Had they been watching them when they discovered the massacre; could they, indeed, have been seen from that point of vantage? That these were the perpetrators of that barbarous deed Dawes had little doubt. They were but few, certainly—a dozen at most—but how many more were concealed close at hand, ready to spring out upon them!
It was a terribly trying situation. While feigning to talk at their ease as they rode along, the nerves of both of our two friends were strung to the uttermost. Every moment might come the whiz of assegais from the bush, which in places grew right down to the path—every moment the roar of the war-shout, the swift and tiger-like charge. To Gerard especially, less accustomed to peril than his companion, and by nature less cool, the situation was desperately trying; and by the time they reached the waggons, and the spot being convenient, ordered an outspan then and there, the dark cloud of peril hovering above them seemed to brood thicker and thicker. Even the very sun seemed to set in a lurid sea of blood.