CHAPTER XIX.
ELANDSBERGEN.
Next morning when the picquet was relieved young Sheldrake, who paid Hammersley's company in absence of the latter, who was soon expected with a strong draft from England, said to Florian—
'Look here, MacIan, I've made a stupid mistake. The company's money I have left among my heavier baggage in the fort beyond Elandsbergen, and I have got the Colonel's permission to send you back for it. This is just like me—I've a head, and so has a pin! The Quartermaster will lend you his horse, and you can have my spare revolver and ammunition. Have a cigar before you go,' he added, proffering his case, 'and look sharp after yourself and the money. There is a deuced unchancy lot in the quarter you are going back to. We don't advance from this till to-morrow, so you have plenty of time to be with us ere we cross the river, if you start at once.'
'Very good, sir,' replied Florian, as he saluted and went away to obtain the horse, the revolver, and to prepare for a duty which he intensely disliked, and almost doubted his power to carry out, as it took him rearward through a country of which he was ignorant, which was almost without roads, and where he would be single-handed, if not among savages, among those who were quite as bad, for in some of these districts, as in the Orange Free State and Boerland, there swarmed broken ruffians of every kind, many of them deserters; and, says an officer, 'so great, in fact, was the number of these undesirable specimens of our countrymen assembled in Harrysmith alone that night was truly made hideous with their howlings, respectable persons were afraid to leave their houses after nightfall, and the report of revolvers ceased to elicit surprise or curiosity. I have been in some of the most notorious camps and towns in the territories and mining districts of the United States, but can safely assert that I never felt more thankful than when I found my horse sufficiently rested here to continue my journey.' There were lions, too, in the wild plains, for some of our cavalry horses were devoured by them; the tiger-cat and the aarde-wolf also.
With a knowledge of all this Florian loaded his revolver, looked carefully to the bridle and stirrup leathers of his horse, received a note from Mr. Sheldrake to the officer commanding the little fort near the foot of the Drakensberg, and left the camp of No. 2 column on his solitary journey, steering his way by the natural features of the country so far as he could recall them after the advance of the 10th January, and watching carefully for the wheel tracks or other indications of a roadway leading in a westerly direction; and many of his comrades, including Bob Edgehill, watched him with interest and kindly anxiety till his white helmet disappeared as he descended into a long grassy donga, about a mile from Rorke's Drift.
The evening passed and the following day dawned—the important 12th—when Zululand was to be invaded at three points by the three columns of Lord Chelmsford; the advance party detailed from Colonel Glyn's brigade to reconnoitre the ground in front got under arms and began to move off, and Sheldrake and others began to feel somewhat uneasy, for there was still no appearance of the absent one.
* * * *
The country through which Florian rode was lonely, and farmhouses were few and many miles apart. Its natural features were undulating downs covered with tall waving grass, furrowed by deep, reedy water-courses; here and there were abrupt rocky eminences, and dense brushwood grew in the rugged kloofs and ravines.
The air was delightful, and in spite of his thoughts the blood coursed freely through his veins; his spirits rose, and, exhilarated by the pace at which his horse went, he could not help giving a loud 'Whoop!' now and then when a gnu, with its curved horns and white mane, or a hartebeest appeared on the upland slopes, or a baboon grinned at him from amid the bushes of a kloof.
Before him stretched miles of open and grassy veldt, and the flat-topped hills of the Drakensberg range closed the horizon. The vast stretch of plain, across which ever and anon swept herds of beautiful little antelopes, was covered with luxuriant grass, which seemed smooth as a billiard-table, and over it went the track, which he was always afraid of losing. But, if pleasant to look upon, the veldt was treacherous ground, for hidden by the grass were everywhere deep holes burrowed by the ant-bears, and into these his horse's forelegs sank ever and anon, to the peril of the animal and his rider too. Thus Florian was compelled to proceed at a canter with his reins loose, while he sat tight and prepared for swerving when his nag, which was a native horse, prepared to dodge an apparent hole, which they can do with wonderful sagacity.