One man, however, had let go no opinion. Lying full length, his field glass adjusted upon a convenient rock, he had been steadily scanning the burning kraal in the distance during all the foregoing discussion, ignoring the latter as though he were alone on the ground. Now he spoke.
“There’s no Southern Column thereat all. No sign or trace of a camp.”
This dictum was received with dissent, even with a little derision.
“Who’s set it on fire then, Blachland?” said one of the exponents of the latter phase, with a wink at the others. “You’re not going to tell us that Lo Bengula’s set his own shop alight?”
“That’s about what’s occurred,” was the tranquil reply. “At least I think so.”
“It’s more’n likely Blachland’s right, boys,” said one of the scouts, speaking with a pronounced American accent. “He’s been there anyway.”
With renewed eagerness every glass was once more brought to bear. There appeared to be four great columns of smoke, and these, as they watched, were merging into one, of vast volume, and now bright jets of flame were discernible, as the fire licked its way along the thatch of the grass huts. Then something strange befel. They who watched saw a fresh outburst of smoke rise suddenly like an enormous dome from the centre of that already ascending, seeming to bear aloft on its summit the fragments of roofs, fences, débris of every description, and then they were conscious of a mighty roar and a vibrating shock, as the whole mass subsided, releasing the flames, which shot up anew.
“That’s an explosion!” cried some one excitedly. “Old Lo Ben’s not only burnt his nest, but blown it up into the bargain.”
For some time further they lay there watching the distant work of destruction. Then it was decided that their number should be divided, and while some returned to the column to report the result of their observations, the remainder should push on, and get as near Bulawayo as they possibly could—an undertaking of no slight risk, and calling for the exercise of unflagging caution, for there was no telling what bands of the enemy might be hovering about in quite sufficient strength to prove dangerous to a mere handful, though the opinion was that the bulk of the nation’s forces, with the King, had fled northward.
“Well, Percy? Tired of this kind of fun yet?” said Blachland as he and his young kinsman rode side by side, the two or three more also bent on this service advancing a little further on their right flank.