As there could now be no doubt that there were hostile Kafirs at no great distance, I advised Mr. Boyce, who was in charge of the store, to lock up everything and accompany us to Bulawayo, which he did.
We started at sundown, all of us taking it in turns to carry our wounded comrade, and reached the post station, twelve miles from Bulawayo, soon after midnight. Here we passed a wretched night in the mule stable, as we were all wet through, a soaking rain having come on about an hour previously, which lasted for the rest of the night.
I sent two men on at once to Bulawayo, asking that a cart and a doctor might be sent out for the wounded men in the morning. The cart was sent, but no doctor could be spared. However, by mid-day we reached Bulawayo, and the wounded men were soon made comfortable in the hospital.
CHAPTER XI
O'Connor's wonderful escape—The importance of the Native Question in Rhodesia.
In the course of conversation, during our journey to Bulawayo, Mr. Boyce, the manager of Mr. Dawson's store on the Umzingwani, told me that, on the night before our arrival there, a miner named O'Connor had reached the store in a dreadful condition, having been terribly beaten about the head by Kafirs, from whose tender mercies he had escaped on 24th March. This poor fellow had been sent in to the hospital on the morning of the day on which we readied the store, and as his escape was a most remarkable one, I will tell it as I heard it from the man's own lips.
O'Connor, it appears, was engaged in mining work together with two other miners named Ivers and Ottens, on a reef called the Celtic, situated some mile and a half from Edkins' store.
On the morning of Tuesday, 24th March, after their early cup of coffee, the three miners were discussing matters in general, and more particularly the fact that during the last few days thirteen of their boys had run away for no apparent reason, unless it were that they had gone off to take part in a beer drink at the neighbouring kraal of Gorshlwayo. About seven o'clock they had an early breakfast, and shortly afterwards Ottens went off to see the Native Commissioner, Mr. Bentley, who was living at the police camp not far from Edkins' store. Then Ivers went away to see how the work was progressing at one of the shafts on the Celtic reef, leaving O'Connor alone. He, after kneading a loaf of bread and placing it in the sun to rise, went into his hut, and sitting down on his bed, threw his hat on a chair beside him, and lit his pipe. He had been sitting smoking some few minutes, when he was suddenly startled by the loud and angry barking of Ottens' dogs, Captain and Snowball, just outside his hut. "The angry condition of the dogs was so unusual," said O'Connor, "that I give you my word I thought there was a lion in the camp." Jumping up, he ran to the door of the hut, only to find a Kafir standing just on one side of the entrance with a musket pointed towards him in his hands. "For an instant," said O'Connor, "I was paralysed, and retreated back into the hut, the door of which was immediately afterwards blocked by a crowd of Kafirs all armed with heavy knob-kerries. Then, seeing that they had come to murder me, I became mad, and rushed in amongst them. I succeeded in wresting two knob-kerries from them, and with these I fought desperately, always making my way towards the mouth of No. 1 shaft, which was something over 100 yards from my hut. I was repeatedly knocked down, and heavy blows were continually rained upon me, but, now on my knees, again on my feet, and sometimes rolling, I got to the mouth of the shaft with the remains of two broken sticks in my hands."