A RUDE AWAKENING
Our hunting trip over, Jack and I left M'ngulu, our Somali hunter, and the nigger driver in charge of the ox-waggon, which was to follow us at leisure to Vryburg. On their arrival we purposed to sell oxen and horses and waggon, pay off our men, and depart by train for Cape Town, thence to England, and thence again to our new treasure island in the Gulf of Finland.
As on our ride from Vryburg, we now took nothing with us excepting our light rifles and ammunition, our one remaining revolver, brandy, blankets, a small supply of tinned food, and two small kegs of water (of which we had learned the necessity by the bitter experience of our two days' waterless wanderings in the jungle near Ngami).
It was but a hundred or so of miles to Vryburg, but we were determined to enjoy the return ride thoroughly, and to keep ourselves in food by the way through the medium of our rifles, though we did not look to have anything in the way of adventures, since our friends James Strong and Clutterbuck were no longer by to afford us the excitement of a race to the treasure ground, with its added interest of possible shots from behind or from an ambush.
I cannot say that I was sorry to feel that Strong was well out of the way, and probably half-way to England by now. I do not like the feeling, when travelling, that every tree may have an enemy behind it, only waiting for an opportunity to put a bullet into you as you come along. I am a plain man, and like a quiet manner of travelling best—the civilised kind, without the excitement of ambushes and cock-shots, and so on.
We did not go far each day, for there was no hurry. M'ngulu and the nigger were going to spend a few days at Ngami, to rest the oxen, before starting after us; but we ourselves would rather pass our time in the veldt than at Vryburg. So we hunted antelopes, and shot all manner of birds that looked queer but tasted excellent, and we camped out at night, and enjoyed life amazingly, as any two young Britons would under similar circumstances; for we had had a successful and delightful hunting expedition, and we were on our way home to England with the secret of the treasure safely buttoned up in our breast pockets; the object of our journey had been attained; the present moment was full of delight—what could any man desire more than this?
We were no longer afraid of lions at night. As a matter of fact, they were rare enough so far south, and in all probability the one we had shot at Ngami, before the waggon reached us, was the same animal which had captured and devoured poor Strong, junior, that terrible night at the treasure field. There were plenty farther north, as we well knew. But now we were thirty or forty miles south of Ngami, and on the highroad to Vryburg, and there was not much danger of a night surprise from any of our old friends.
Hence we were somewhat careless when on the watch over the camp fire. Nominally we still took our sleep in turn and watched during the interval; but as a matter of fact, the function of watching was honoured by us in the breach more than in the observance, and it often happened that we both slept soundly for hours together. Thus when, on the fourth night, a most unexpected and alarming surprise broke over us, like a thunderclap from a clear sky, we found that we had been living in a fool's paradise.
For once, old Jack—generally so much more to be depended upon than I, being a more gifted person all round, and infinitely smarter and more wide awake than your humble servant, the present scribe—old Jack, the acute, was caught napping. It was his watch, and he ought, undoubtedly, to have been awake—wide awake. Instead of that he was asleep—fast asleep—when, as he described the event afterwards, he was awakened by being stirred in the ribs by someone's foot.
Assuming that it was I who took this liberty with him, Jack lashed out with his own foot, and hacked someone violently upon the shin, eliciting an oath which, I am glad to say, Jack instantly realised could not have proceeded from lips so refined as mine.