“None of Retieff’s party escaped, did they?” asked Hardy.
“Not one, unless you count my father and myself, and we had the narrowest of narrow escapes. We were seen by an Induna, who was late in attending the feast, and he instantly told Dingaan. He at once sent half a dozen of his fleetest men after us. They were on foot, and our horses, though cumbered with two riders, at first left them a long way behind. But the Zulus are wonderfully swift of foot, and their powers of endurance are still more surprising. When we reached the Tugela, they were not a hundred yards behind us. The river was not high, but it was with the greatest difficulty that our jaded horses could cross it. The Zulus came up before we had reached the bank, and hurled their weapons at us. One of the assegays struck Mr Scheren, who was sitting behind my father, and he fell dead into the river. Another grazed my horse’s flank, while a third stuck in the saddle, nailing Wilhelmine’s gown to it. Fortunately for us, Dingaan’s order forbade any Zulu to pass into Natal, for we could have gone no farther, and could have offered no effectual resistance.”
Chapter Eight.
“What is to be our next halting-place?” asked George of Ernest Baylen, as they rode out in the rear of the party on the following morning, having waited behind to see that none of the articles removed from the waggons on the previous day had been forgotten. “We have a long day’s journey before us, I expect.”
“We shall stop at Colenso,” replied Ernest, “rather a neat little town, and growing fast in size and importance. It stands near the Little Tugela. After that our next halting-places will be Helpmakaar, then Dundee, and lastly Newcastle. We might go farther to-day, but I expect we shall have some trouble in passing the Mooi. It is a good deal swollen by the heavy rain and the overflow of the Tugela. The flood, as yet, has fallen but very little.”
He pointed as he spoke to the river, which lay at the distance of a mile or two. George drew his rein for a moment, quite entranced by the varied features of the landscape before him. There was a stretch of green veldt, reaching almost from the point where they had bivouacked to the river’s banks, which were densely fringed with mimosas and willow-trees, through which its waters glanced, here and there, bright in the sunshine. To the right and left the ground was broken into declivities, clothed in many places with brushwood, in others presenting picturesque outlines of rock and shrub, while in the far distance towered the range of the Drakenbergs, the grandest mountains of Southern Africa.
“What are those dark objects I see floating about in the water?” inquired George, pointing with his whip to a broad bend in the river, which for some distance in both directions was free from wood on either side.