AN AWAKENING.
Ten or a dozen tall savages were advancing through the somewhat sparse scrub. Yielding to a first impulse of self-preservation, Laurence, quick as thought, stepped behind the stem of the tree-fern. Then he peered forth.
His first glance, keen and quick, took in every detail. His assailants were fine warrior-like men, ferocious looking, in great crested headgear of plumes. Their bodies were adorned with cow-hair circlets, but, save for a short kilt of cat's-tails and hide, they were quite unclad. They carried large shields of the Zulu pattern, and a sheaf of gleaming spears—some light, others heavy and strong with the blade like a cutlass.
Who, what could they be? he wondered. They were too fine and stately of aspect—with their lofty, commanding brows, and clear, full glance—to belong to any of the tribes around. They were not Wangoni—they wore too striking a look to come of even that fine race. Who could they be?
His conjectures on that head, rapid as they were, ceased abruptly, for a perfect volley of spears came whizzing about him, several burying their heads deep within the stem of the tree-fern. Well indeed for him that he had so rapidly placed even that slight rampart between himself and his enemies.
Deeming parley better than fight, under the circumstances, Laurence began quickly upon them in a mixture of Swahili and Zulu, declaring that he could be no enemy to them or to their race. But a loud mocking laugh drowned his words; and, seeing that the savages had suddenly half crouched behind their shields for a charge, his quick, resourceful brain grasped the situation at once. A puff of smoke, a jet of flame from behind the tree-fern. One of the warriors fell forward on his shield, beating the earth with his great limbs in the throes of death.
They had hardly reckoned upon this. Crouching low, now they glide away among the scrub, keeping well within cover. But that solitary, determined man, flattened there against the tree-fern, draws no hope from this. Their manœuvre is a simple one enough. They are going to enfilade the position. Surrounded on all sides, and by such foes as these, where will he be? for he has no cover.
But in Laurence Stanninghame's stern eyes there is a lurid battle-glow, a very demon light. His enemies will have his life, but they will purchase it at a long price. A dead silence now reigns, and through it he can hear the stealthy rustle made by his foes in their efforts to surround him. Were he in the comparative security of cover, or behind a rampart of any sort, he might hope, by a superhuman effort of quick firing, to hold them back. As it is, he dare not move from behind his tree, suspecting an intention to draw him thence.
The sun flames blood-red upon the lagoon and upon a flight of flamingoes winnowing above the mirror-like surface, and, as though the situation were not deadly and desperate enough, the shimmer of light and water has, even in that brief glance, brought a spot in front of his eyes, at the moment when, if ever, his sight should be at its clearest and quickest. The odds against him are indeed terrible. He can hardly hope to come through; yet to his assailants it well may prove the dearest victory they have ever won.