“Hurrah!” cried Jack. “I see the waggon.”
“And the oxen?” cried Mr Rogers.
“Yes, father—in-spanned. And they are flying from the fire!”
Mr Rogers uttered a prayer of thankfulness as he rode on, till at the end of a quarter of an hour they were close up with the waggon, while the oxen, with Dirk the foreloper at the head and Peter on the box, were going along in a clumsy gallop, urged by the shouts of their drivers and their natural dread of the fire, coming after them with the fury of a whirlwind.
The smoke was now blinding, the heat increasing, and it was hard work to check the horses, who strove to gallop madly away as soon as they were lightened of half their loads; for Coffee and Chicory followed the example of their father in leaping down and running to the side of the team to help urge on the frightened oxen, till they plunged along in their clumsy race.
Faster and faster in the wild race for life! the flames roaring as they came nearer! the waggon thundering over the ground, swaying from side to side, and threatening each moment to overturn!
Twice it ran upon two wheels for some distance, and the boys knew that if a stone of any size was met the waggon must be irretrievably wrecked, and they saw in anticipation the flames overtaking it, scorching up the valuables it contained, and ending by reaching the ammunition, when everything must be blown to atoms.
Mr Rogers felt that the case was hopeless. The flames were close upon them, and he was about to shout to the people to cut loose the oxen and leave the waggon to its fate, when he saw Dick spring forward to the side of the Zulu, who was with Dirk the foreloper, by the leading oxen.
Mr Rogers could not hear what his son said in the deafening roar, but he saw him point, and the foreloper and the General urged the leading oxen out of the course they were taking before the flames to one nearly at right angles, turning them so sharply that the waggon again nearly overset. It rose upon two wheels, but sank back on the others with a crash; the oxen lumbered along in their awkward gallop, and the whole business seemed madness.
Five minutes later, though, the leader saw that his son’s act had been guided by sound reasoning, for he had directed the team into a broad open space where there was nothing to feed the flames. The consequence was that as the wall of fire reached the edge of the opening it gradually flickered out there, but rushed along on either side in two volumes of flame, which joined hands, as it were, below them, and the fire went roaring along as swiftly as before.