"Oh, Lieutenant Wortley! George is gone!"
CHAPTER VIII
A STORM ON THE DRAKENSBERG
Only low-growling Hector and little Theunis, looking down from his bedroom window, saw them silently depart. In the cold gray dawn-light Petrus waved a quick "good-by" up to the wondering child and they were off.
Long before sun-up, faithful Mutla had had the three ponies up-saddled and waiting under the orchard trees. He had strapped a small roll containing a pair of blankets and a rain-coat to the front of his master's saddle, and to that of the lead-horse he had tied a large piece of biltong, or sun-dried meat, a good supply of biscuit and coffee, and fastened an iron kettle in which to make it. Petrus had hurriedly pressed a Testament into the pocket of his moleskin trousers, and made sure that the two Mausers they were carrying were well oiled. There was no time to lose. They hoped to overtake Dirk on the road.
True, the lieutenant had offered a reward of five hundred pounds in gold to the one who returned his little son alive to him; but love for his little English friend and neighbor was the real motive for Petrus' suddenly planned flight over the dangerous Drakensberg Mountains.
All night long the lieutenant, heading a large searching party of his friends and neighbors, with half a hundred Kafirs, had scoured the neighboring woods and hills for some trace of George. In a fever of excitement, Aunt Edith, who spent the night at "Weltefreden," declared it was her belief that the poor boy must have been killed—assegaied—or thrown into some stream and perhaps devoured alive by the crocodiles.
"THE SEARCHING PARTY . . . CARRIED GREAT TORCHES"