“I doubt it,” Hilda answered. Her very doubt reassured me.
We began to mount a long slope. Hilda pedalled with difficulty. Not a sound was heard save the light fall of my pony's feet on the soft new road, and the shrill cry of the cicalas. Then, suddenly, we started. What was that noise in our rear? Once, twice, it rang out. The loud ping of a rifle!
Looking behind us, we saw eight or ten mounted Matabele! Stalwart warriors they were—half naked, and riding stolen horses. They were coming our way! They had seen us! They were pursuing us!
“Put on all speed!” I cried, in my agony. “Hilda, can you manage it?” She pedalled with a will. But, as we mounted the slope, I saw they were gaining upon us. A few hundred yards were all our start. They had the descent of the opposite hill as yet in their favour.
One man, astride on a better horse than the rest, galloped on in front and came within range of us. He had a rifle in his hand, he pointed it twice, and covered us. But he did not shoot. Hilda gave a cry of relief. “Don't you see?” she exclaimed. “It is Oom Jan Willem's rifle! That was their last cartridge. They have no more ammunition.”
I saw she was probably right; for Klaas was out of cartridges, and was waiting for my new stock to arrive from England. If that were correct, they must get near enough to attack us with assegais. They are more dangerous so. I remembered what an old Boer had said to me at Buluwayo: “The Zulu with his assegai is an enemy to be feared; with a gun, he is a bungler.”
We pounded on up the hill. It was deadly work, with those brutes at our heels. The child on Hilda's arm was visibly wearying her. It kept on whining. “Hilda,” I cried, “that baby will lose your life! You CANNOT go on carrying it.”
She turned to me with a flash of her eyes. “What! You are a man,” she broke out, “and you ask a woman to save her life by abandoning a baby! Hubert, you shame me!”
I felt she was right. If she had been capable of giving it up, she would not have been Hilda. There was but one other way left.
“Then YOU must take the pony,” I called out, “and let me have the bicycle!”