“What’s the matter with the bullocks?” cried Jack suddenly. “Why, father, they’re gone mad with thirst.”
“Water,” cried the General, pointing ahead. “They smell the water.”
The sensitiveness was caught up by the horses, which, like the oxen, quickened their pace, craning with outstretched muzzles, their fine instinct telling them that there was water on ahead, towards which they struggled to get.
Great care was needed now lest the water should prove to be merely a well or pool, into which the bullocks would rush, muddying the water, and perhaps trampling one another to death in their efforts to reach the refreshing liquid. But strive hard as they would, it proved to be impossible to keep the thirsty creatures back. The waggon had not proceeded so fast since they started; and the speed was growing greater, causing the great lumbering vehicle to rock and sway in a most alarming fashion. If they had encountered a rock, however small, there must have been a crash. But as it happened, they came on very level ground, sloping gently towards the north.
Klipmann, the foremost ox, a great black fellow with long horns, had proclaimed the find, and communicated the fact with a deep-mouthed bellow; and the next minute all was excitement and shouting, as the great waggon thundered and groaned along.
The first thing to be done was to detach the horses, which was no sooner done than they seemed to take fright, and went off at a gallop into the gloom ahead; then, amidst the yells and shoutings of Peter and Dirk, who danced about as if mad, efforts were made to check the oxen; but the poor beasts were frantic with thirst, and any serious attempt to stop them would have meant goring, trampling down, or being crushed by the wheels of the ponderous waggon.
The wild race lasted for a mile, during which every moment threatened to be the waggon’s last. The oxen lowed and trotted on, the waggon creaked, and the loose articles rattled and banged together. Mr Rogers and his sons panted on at the sides, momentarily expecting to see it go over, and Coffee and Chicory, who had been very slow and silent for hours, whooped and yelled and added to the excitement.
“It’s all over with our trip, Jack,” panted Dick. “We shall have to pick up the pieces to-morrow and go back.”
“Wait a bit, and let’s see. Why, what’s the General going to do?”
For all at once the Zulu had darted on ahead after snatching a kiri from Chicory’s hand, seized the foremost bullock, old Klipmann, by the horn, and, at the risk of being impaled or trampled down, he beat the stubborn bullock over the head with the club, and treating the other, its yoke-fellow, the same, he forced them into taking a different course, almost at right angles to that which they were pursuing.