At this point, for the first time since leaving it, Piet Van Dorn caught sight of the timbered belt, to comprehend why he had not sooner sighted it. The reason was, the river, with some miles breadth of the adjacent terrain, being below the general level of the plain. He saw the mowana, too, under which was the laager, perceiving that he was even yet leagues from it. But distance no more troubled him; his thoughts, as his glances, being now given to two horsemen who were coming in quick gallop towards him. On their drawing nearer he recognised one of them as Hendrik Rynwald; the other not Andries Blom, but his own brother.
They had come in quest of him, sent by anxious friends, themselves as anxious as any. Rejoiced were they at the encounter, and not less he, though his joy in part proceeded from another and different cause. Never listened he to sweeter words than those blurted out by Hendrik Rynwald, a generous, guileless youth, who said, grasping his hand—
“I’m so glad, Piet, to see you safe! And won’t Sis Kattie, too! I don’t believe she slept a wink, all of last night.”
Chapter Twelve.
A Formidable Obstruction.
Explanations having been hastily exchanged, the trio of young Boers turned face toward the camp. Burning to make known the joyful news, Rynwald and Piet’s brother would have gone back at a gallop, and so Piet himself. But there was something to delay them: this the horse late chased by wilde-honden. The rain, at first refreshing the animal, had afterwards produced an opposite effect, and the result of the sudden change from heat to chill was a founder, the creature being now barely able to keep on its legs. As it could not carry him further without cruelty, its merciful master, dismounting, led it along.
This entailed slow progress, and thinking of those in the camp, with anxieties to be relieved, young Rynwald proposed galloping on ahead. To this neither of the others objected, and he was about spurring away from them, when there arose another obstruction, of a still more formidable kind. An animal it was, seen standing right on the track he would have to take—one that could not be passed with impunity. Many animals were there, for it was where several other buffaloes had been shot down, whose carcases, now mangled, were surrounded by jackals, hyaenas, and vultures. But it was not any of these that stood in Hendrik Rynwald’s way, in an attitude of angry menace. Instead, the king and master of them all—a lion; one of the largest and fiercest-looking any of the young hunters had ever seen, much less encountered. The tawny brute appeared as though he had but late arrived on the ground, coming in at the end of the feast to find only bare bones; and, being hungry, the disappointment had roused his rage to the highest pitch of fury. Having caught sight of the oncoming horsemen, he evidently intended venting his spleen, as well as appeasing his hunger, on one or other of them. He stood crouched and roaring, with mane erect and tail oscillating to and fro; both the attitude and action well-known to lion-hunters as indicative of greatest danger.