Not one drew rein. Not even the Commandant, who simply glanced at the three forms as he went by, last of all, saying briefly, “Shoot straight, and follow fast!”
“Wait, little neef,” said Andries, “and don’t fire anyhow, but single out your man. Then load, mount, and gallop.”
Piet was calm now that he was called upon to act. He dropped a warrior in his stride, loaded quickly, making the ramrod spring, and was waiting by his horse with the reins of the other two all ready for their riders.
“Good neef,” said Andries, as he swung into the saddle, and having momentarily checked the enemy’s advance, they dashed after their comrades. A quarter of a mile further on they passed an ambush, where three other burghers were lying in readiness, and then they dashed up to the cattle with a whoop. Young Piet, flushed with his act, looked for approval from his father, but the Commandant’s gaze was fixed anxiously ahead on a column of dark figures leaping like antelopes down Zunguin’s side. From the rear, too, came the loud slap of three rifles, and the angry war shout of the Hlobane warriors.
“They will head the cattle off,” said Stoffel; “and we will be caught between two fires. Let us leave the cattle and ride to the left, when they will let us go free.”
“That is a bad word,” said the Commandant, sternly. “We go back with the cattle or not at all.”
They rode, then, into a stretch of donga-worn country, where they had to slow up; and the cattle, no longer hard pressed, stood to get their wind, with their heads down and tongues lolling out.
It was only a brief rest; but the Zunguin warriors profited by it, and their fleetest men were already rounding the cattle to turn them up the hill. There rang out the sharp crack of a rifle, and one of the black warriors pitched forward on his face.
“Keep your fire,” said the Commandant, sternly, as he looked round at his son. “Was that you, Piet? It was a good shot, my little one.”
Piet hung his head, and looked askance to see whether any of the men were laughing at him, but they were never so far from laughter as then. Several were hedging away to the left, looking at the Commandant out of the tail of their small eyes, ready for the bolt across the rolling plain to the Blood River.