Thinking hard, he lay there, but no solution of the problem came, and then through the still morning air a shot rang out from the far end of the valley, and at the sound the dark figures below awoke to instant life. From the ground they sprang up, out of farmhouse and kraal they poured, swarming in and among the crowd of horses some few fevered minutes, and then, mounting, streamed off at a gallop, heading for the entrance to the open veldt.
Immediately the roar of musketry arose in greeting, and from the rocks on either side a sleet of lead beat in their faces, but for a moment they held on, till, recognising the impossible, they rushed headlong back the way they had come, straight to where Graeme, with his seventy-five men, was lying.
"Bang!" went a rifle close beside him, and at the sound seventy-four others also began to speak, disjointedly; and then were suddenly silent, for their leader was up and running down the line, shouting for the fire to cease and the men to rise and fix bayonets.
"The fellow's mad," muttered Rufford, "never mind, I'll follow you, old chap, and, God! see, the men, after him like hounds," and Rufford sprang up and ran, wildly shouting, after Hector, who was bounding over the stones, swinging his knobkerrie as he went.
Onward rushed the opposing forces, the one a galloping mass of horsemen a thousand strong, the other a weak ragged line of khaki and steel. And well ahead of the advancing commando a man on a white horse led the way, a big, bearded man, white-faced and shifty-eyed; and on those shifty eyes Hector's own were fixed unwaveringly, his pace increasing as the distance between them lessened. Either he or the Dutchman must give in a moment, he knew, and the giving of the one meant the giving of his followers. They were nothing: it was between the leaders the issue lay.
Not twenty-five yards divided them, and still the big man came thundering on, his followers and Hector's checking themselves involuntarily to watch—and then suddenly the end came. The white horse, obeying his rider's mind, and not the merciless lash, swerved, reared and then began to rein back. Up went the big man's hands, "I surrender," he said, his shifty eyes roving from side to side. "I surr——" And then with a choked scream he fell forward, his face a red, featureless mask from the smash of the knobkerrie; a second time the club rose and fell, a dull crushing sound was heard, and Cornelius Van der Tann rolled sideways from his horse and fell on the ground dead.
"On, men, on," shouted Hector, "now's the time to drive it home," and he rushed on, waving the bloody knobkerrie as he went, "Ah!" and a shout of exultation burst from his lips, for again the horsemen had turned, and were galloping back to the farmhouse and kraals, where they lay for a while undisturbed.
Only for a time, for, on the mountain overlooking them, figures soon began to appear, cautiously picking their way among the rocks. A burst of firing from the buildings below greeted them, whereupon, crouching low, they came forward at a run, dodging from stone to stone, and then suddenly sank to earth and were gone. A moment's pause followed, and then came the sharp sound of shots directed straight down into the crowded kraals. It swelled to a roar, was answered by a burst of screams, and then up went the white flag. Bugles rang the "Cease fire," and silence once more.
From the far end of the valley a knot of horsemen came galloping, a red triangular flag waving in their midst. At the sight the mountain slopes around awoke to life, and brown figures started up from the ground, their white faces glaring in the morning sunlight. A ripple of movement went through their ranks, helmets flew off, and were raised aloft on rifle-barrels; a murmur arose, which swelled and grew until it merged into a roar of triumphant cheering.
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