Of course I was all on fire for an opportunity to try my new rifle, and the chance came that same afternoon. For when about six miles out from Port Elizabeth, I met a Boer who was trekking in from Uitenhage, and who informed me that, about a mile back, he had been obliged to abandon one of his oxen in a dying condition; and, sure enough, a quarter of an hour later we saw the poor beast lying by the side of the road, with the aasvogels, or vultures, already gathered about it. A round dozen or more were squatted on the ground in a circle round the dying ox, while others, mere specks in the deep—blue sky, were winging their way to it from all quarters. The method of these new arrivals was to maintain their lofty flight until they arrived immediately above their destined prey; then they would begin to circle slowly downward in a wide spiral, finally hovering for some three or four seconds at a height of about twenty yards before awkwardly settling upon the ground. This was my chance; an aasvogel more or less in South Africa mattered nothing, there were plenty of them and to spare, and they were such disgusting creatures that I had no compunction at all about abandoning my usual rule, and shooting one or two of them merely in order to test my new weapon. And a very good test they afforded too, for although their downward sailing upon outstretched, motionless wings was a perfectly steady movement, it was rather deceptive as to speed, and, the movement being a circling one, it was necessary to fire at exactly the right instant, or the range would be wrong and a miss would result.
I decided to begin the test by firing at a descending vulture at what was supposed to be the extreme range of accuracy of the weapon, namely, five hundred yards; and as this was a good long distance—quite far enough to enable the bird to swerve at the flash and so cause me to miss—I came to the conclusion that the right thing to do would be to allow the vulture to sweep past until it was flying away from me, and then pull the trigger. Accordingly I loaded the piece, threw up the five-hundred-yard sight, and then walked forward, choosing a particular bird as I did so, and following it with my eye until I judged it to be at the right distance and position; then I flung up the rifle, pressed it firmly to my shoulder, covered the vulture with the sights, and fired. The next second I saw the feathers fly, the great wings flapped once, convulsively, and as the “smack” of the bullet reached my ears the bird turned a complete somersault in the air and fell to the ground stone-dead, to the accompaniment of loud shouts of wonder and admiration from my Totties.
Needless to say, I was vastly proud of my achievement, for it was far and away the longest shot that I had ever attempted. But instead of being satisfied with my success, I must needs attempt something still more difficult. Flapping down the back sight, and entirely dispensing with its use, I reloaded the weapon and determined to rely upon my eye and my judgment alone, or, in other words, upon that faculty which, by constant use, had become a sort of instinct with me. Accordingly I selected as a mark another vulture which had been in the act of descending, but which, apparently alarmed at the unusual manner in which its predecessor had accomplished the last part of its descent, was now wheeling slowly round at a height of, as I estimated, fully eight hundred yards above the earth. Training my rifle upon it, I followed the movements of the bird until it had wheeled away from me, when, carefully judging the amount of elevation required, I pressed the trigger, and was delighted the next moment again to see the feathers fly, to note the convulsive stroke of the great pinions which indicated a hit, and to see the ponderous bulk of the bird come hurtling earthward. It was a magnificent shot—I felt that I was justified in admitting that much to myself—and it satisfied me that, even now, at the beginning of my acquaintance with my new rifle, I was as much master of it as I was of my old one, and could rely upon it as implicitly. I felt that I had no need to test its capabilities further; but I once more loaded it and, walking to where the dying ox was lying, with the circle of vultures closing in around it, put the foul birds to flight, with many a croak of protest from them at my interference, placed the muzzle of the weapon at the ear of the ox, pulled the trigger, and put the poor beast out of its misery, besides saving it from the possibility of attack by the ravenous birds before the breath had entirely left its body. Three miles farther on we outspanned for the night.
The return journey—until its last stage—was as uneventful as the outward one had been. For the first three days we met, on an average, half a dozen wagons a day, trekking to Port Elizabeth from various farms in the outlying districts; but after that they became less numerous, and after the fifth day we met no more, nor did I call at any farms—which, at that length from the Bay, were few and far between—although we occasionally sighted one in the distance to the right or left of the track we were following.
On the twentieth day after my departure from Bella Vista, about an hour after we had inspanned for the day’s trek, which was to end with our arrival home shortly before sunset, as we topped a slight rise the kopje or hill upon which the house stood swung into view for the first time since I had lost sight of it some three weeks earlier; but it was still at such a distance that, with the house turning its shadowed face to me, I could not distinguish it with the naked eye, and it happened that upon that particular occasion I had forgotten to put into the voorkissie, or wagon chest, upon which the driver generally sits, the telescope that I usually carried with me upon such excursions. Nevertheless I knew that my people would be expecting my return on that day; therefore, when we outspanned about midday, instead of lighting only one fire, for the purpose of cooking our midday meal, I caused three to be lighted, at a distance of about one hundred feet apart, which was my usual method of advertising my impending arrival, feeling sure that somebody about the house would be on the lookout, and would see the three sparks of flame and columns of smoke, we being by that time within some ten miles of the place. At this distance I was generally able, in clear weather, to distinguish the long, white front wall of the house standing out against the purple shadows of the Great Winter Berg range, but on this occasion I could not, although the day was as fine and the air as clear as usual at that time of the year. Yet, strangely enough, the circumstance did not strike me as being in the least peculiar or significant, although Piet, my after-rider, made some passing reference to it. Later on in the afternoon, however, when we had again inspanned, and had been trekking for about an hour, it began to dawn upon me that things were not quite as usual at Bella Vista. In the first place, of all our flocks and herds which should have been grazing somewhere on the plain or the foothills ahead, not a horn or a hoof was to be seen. Also, the house looked different: it had the appearance of being not as high as usual; I could not see the grey thatch of its roof; and the walls, instead of being pure white, as they had been when I last saw them, were white only in comparatively small patches, the remainder being brown, and in some places black!
By the time we had approached close enough to distinguish as much as that, we all came to the conclusion that we knew what had happened; and I saddled and mounted my horse and, followed as usual by the two dogs, rode forward at a hand gallop to investigate. There had undoubtedly been a conflagration, which had destroyed the house; and my father and mother, with the house “boys”, had in all probability gone over to Triannon, whither, no doubt, the stock had also been driven. Still, I thought it rather strange that they had not dispatched a “boy” to meet me and explain what had happened, and whither they had gone, or at least left one about the place to afford me full information on my arrival. I finally concluded that they had done the latter, and that the lazy rascal was in his hut fast asleep, instead of keeping a watch for me, as he ought to have been doing. This last thought caused me to look particularly for the huts, and then I understood another thing that had been puzzling me: the huts no longer existed!
Seriously alarmed now—for the destruction of the house by fire by no means necessarily involved the destruction of the huts, which had stood about a quarter of a mile from the former—I pressed my heels into Prince’s flanks and urged him up the rise at his best speed, fears—born of Lestrange’s news on that night when he had ridden over to borrow ammunition—at last gripping my heart lest what he had then apprehended as just a very remote possibility might have actually come to pass. And as I at length drew near enough to observe that the massive gate in the high fence which surrounded our extensive garden was off its hinges and lying flat on the ground just inside the opening, those fears increased, and were still further strengthened when, as I rode through the opening, a whiff of tainted air like the odour of carrion reached my nostrils. Then, as I glanced about me, with eyes prepared to behold I knew not what of horror, I perceived that many of the ornamental flowering shrubs on either side of the path leading to the house were beaten down and withered, as though stampeding cattle—or a host of men—had swept over them; while far up the pathway, and even upon the stoep of the house itself, a multitude of aasvogels were squatted motionless, apparently gorged, while others were waddling slowly and heavily to and fro. Half a dozen paces farther on Prince suddenly shied so violently that he almost unseated me, as a loud flapping of wings and a great croaking arose on my right, and some fifteen of the obscene birds rose heavily into the air and winged their way a hundred yards or so farther up the garden before again settling.
The pathway was bordered, from the house to the gateway, with a hedge of flowering shrubs, backed on either side by rows of peach trees; and it was impossible for me to see from the path what lay beyond those peach trees. I therefore dismounted, and, throwing the reins to the ground, so that Prince might not walk away to the stable, forced my way through the hedge and the rows of peach trees into the more open part of the garden; and there I beheld what I was by this time fully prepared to see, but what was nevertheless a sight revolting beyond all possibility of description. I will not enter into unnecessary details, but will simply say that scattered about here and there all over that part of the garden lay the disfigured remains of some sixty or seventy Tembu warriors—they were easily identifiable by the shape of their shields and spears and the general character of their war equipment—who had evidently been shot down during a most determined and pertinacious attack upon the house. The other half of the front portion of the garden presented a similar sight, the whole bearing mute but indubitable testimony not only to the implacable determination of the savages but also to the resolution of the defenders. Yes, the worst had happened: the house had been attacked and finally destroyed, notwithstanding the desperate nature of the defence put up by its inmates; and now—my mother and father, and good old Jack Nesbitt, where were they?
To discover the answer to this momentous question was my next task, and how shall I find words to describe the passion of grief and apprehension with which I set about it? It must go undescribed, for there are certain emotions of the human heart and mind which mere words are powerless to portray. Perhaps it is well that this should be the case, for no one who has not passed through such an experience as mine could possibly understand what I endured as I made my slow way toward the ruined house, subconsciously noting, as I went, the evidences which met me on every hand of the protracted, stubborn implacability of the attack, and the resolute, unyielding character of the defence. The savages had indeed succeeded, but at what a cost! As I made my way up through that shambles of a wrecked garden I acquired a new impression of the invincible courage of the South African native which I have never since had occasion to modify.
In the face of such evidence of deadly resolution on the part of the combatants on both sides as I beheld all round me, I felt that it was hopeless to dream of the possibility that the inmates of the house had made good their escape at the last moment, for clearly the building had been completely surrounded, and the attack simultaneously delivered on all sides. The question was, had they finally met death on the points of the enemy’s spears, or had they fallen alive into that enemy’s hands? I shuddered with greater horror than ever as the latter possibility occurred to me, for I had not lived nearly sixteen years in South Africa without hearing something of the unspeakable barbarities inflicted by the savages upon those unhappy beings who chanced to be taken alive in battle by them. Better a thousand times—ay, ten thousand times—that my dear ones should perish quickly in the heat and excitement of the fight than that they should survive to be carried off to suffer—! I put the thought from me, for I felt that I should go mad if I permitted my mind to dwell upon it.