We decided to give the Ozuma party the slip by getting out of the place by a different route to that by which we had come, and, once clear of the town, set off at the double. That was the hardest and most desperate race I have ever run. At every few yards great trees had been thrown across the track, and we had to scramble over these, or, wherever practicable, dive underneath. We ran for some miles along this tangled forest path, and then called a halt at the foot of a short hill, crowned by a town called Nburu-Kitti. Forming up we marched to the summit, and halting in the marketplace sent for the King. His Majesty refused to come, so we informed him that, on a second refusal, we would fire into his house. Then he came quickly enough. We told him that all we wished him to do was to promise that we should not be molested by his people, and this promise he readily gave. I then took the head of the column, followed by five or six men; then came the Maxim gun and our prisoner and his escort, followed immediately by Townsend and the rest of the force. As we were passing the last row of huts the crack of a musket rang out. I turned, thinking that some soldier had let off his rifle by mistake, but before I could ask what it was that had happened the whole column was blazing away right and left. Going back to the Maxim, I had it fixed up and trained on the town, whence a heavy fire had been opened on us through the doors and windows and from behind the walls of the compounds. It was obvious that the local King meant to do his best to rescue his friend, Ozuma Munyi.
"WE RUSHED IN AMONGST A FRIGHTENED CROWD OF SAVAGES."
I had barely taken my seat behind the gun when my helmet was shot away by a slug that tore a slight flesh wound over my right temple. I had the satisfaction, however, of seeing a whole section of wall crumble away under my first sweeping fire with the Maxim, and five dark forms fall across the ruins. Then a blinding rush of blood poured down my face, and almost simultaneously the gun jammed. Wiping the blood from my eyes, and getting a Hausa to tie a handkerchief round my head, I turned to call Townsend to have a look at the weapon, when, to my consternation, I saw him lying on the ground, with two men bending over him. Several others had also fallen. The fire from the houses was getting heavier each second, and I realized that unless we mastered it speedily we might find ourselves in a serious position. So, snatching up Townsend's sword and brandishing my revolver in my left hand, I called on some of the men to follow me and help clear the compounds. Twenty at once volunteered, and with a yell we dashed straight for the wall that had crumbled under the Maxim fire. Leaping over the foot or two remaining, we rushed in amongst a frightened crowd of savages, who, astonished at the sudden onslaught, tried to retreat through a narrow inner doorway. With bayonets and rifle-butts, bullets and sword-thrusts, we hacked and hammered at the seething mass of yelling blacks. Out of twenty-five that made for the exit, only seven got through, three of whom fell to my revolver before getting any farther. Shouting to the men to follow me, I next ran back into the roadway, ordering the native sergeant-major to form square, with the prisoner in the middle, and await further instructions. Then, with my volunteers, I made for the King's house, where we battered down the door and rushed in. As we appeared the folk inside, dropping their weapons, ran away through various huts and doorways. Some we shot down, others were bayoneted. I and a native N.C.O. went after the chief. Through some huts, and around others, dodging in and out between mud walls and partitions of matting, we followed him until at last we cornered him, as we thought, in a house that seemed to close all exit from the compound in that direction. The King dashed in, I after him, and the N.C.O. at my heels.
The house was divided into three rooms, cutting it into three equal parts. When we reached the third room, the farthest from the entrance, we came to a standstill, for it was pitch dark, and there seemed to be no windows. The heavy wooden door that led into the place stood ajar, and the N.C.O. pushed past me and rushed into the darkness. Fearing treachery, I
tried to stop him, but did not succeed in doing so. Just then there was a noise behind me like the banging of a door. I turned, but some instinct seemed to hold me where I stood. A dead silence had fallen on the place, and I must confess to a feeling that something uncanny was in the air. I could hear through the silence, as though from miles and miles away, faint shouts, and now and then a distant shot, but in the rooms around me absolute stillness prevailed. What had become of the fugitive King and my too eager N.C.O.?
At last, overcoming the strange feeling of apathy that like a spell had come over me, I called to my companion, inquiring where on earth he had got to. The sound of my voice rang hollow and strange in that gloomy place, and seemed to echo faintly, but there was no reply. Feeling certain now that some kind of treachery was at work, I felt in my tunic for a match, but found that I had either dropped my only box or my orderly had relieved me of it that morning, for some reason best known to himself. The solitary window in the middle room, where I had come to a full stop, was shuttered—actually nailed up. The only light that came in filtered through the chinks. I tried to burst the shutter open, but it resisted all my efforts. Then, bethinking me of my revolver, I went to the entrance of the innermost room once more, and, aiming at the floor, fired. The flash revealed the interior to me for an instant. It seemed absolutely empty! Where were the two men who had entered? Had they gone out, by any chance, through the roof, I wondered? Yet there was no sign of daylight anywhere to indicate an exit under the palm-thatch, and there was no doorway visible in the farther walls. There was nothing in the room, with the exception of a few mats lying in the middle of the floor. With the intention of going round outside the house and trying to discover for myself what the solution of the mystery could be I turned on my heel and retraced my steps, crossed the middle room once more, and passed through the doorway into the first of the three rooms.
Then I started back, nearly suffocated. A great rolling cloud of thick yellow smoke met me and completely enveloped me. In an instant I realized what it meant—the house was on fire! Making a wild dart for the shuttered window of the middle room, I banged and hammered at it with all my might and main, using both the hilt of Townsend's sword, which I carried, and the handle of my revolver, but all to no purpose. There was no doubt about it: I was completely trapped. But, meantime, what had become of all my men—the twenty enthusiastic volunteers who had smashed in the door of the compound and rushed in along with me—where had they got to? A smell of hot smoke filled the room, and from outside the roaring as of a mighty wind, accompanied by the crackling of musketry, was all the sound that I could hear. Then it suddenly dawned upon me that the crackling was not that of musketry, the roaring not that of wind—but of the town and compound on fire and fiercely blazing like the house I was entrapped in. There was no mistaking those ominous red gleams that now began to be reflected through the imperfectly-fitted shutter. Suddenly the roar became deafening, and a great lurid tongue of flame shot across the room, accompanied by a blast of heat that nearly choked me. I had barely time to make a dash for the third chamber before the fire took complete possession of the middle one. The heat and the smoke were terrible. I made a spring for the farther wall in order to try to force my way through the roof, which at this, the extreme, end of the house had not yet caught alight. Three times did I make the attempt, but each time fell back, unable to get a hand-hold on the top of the wall. At the third attempt, on staggering back, my foot got entangled in one of the mats that were lying on the floor and I tripped and fell, half fainting from the terrible smoke and heat. As I went down the mats seemed to give way, and with great force the lower half of my body—my left hip and leg—struck against the side of some kind of cavity, into which I found I had half fallen, for, whilst I had come on the floor with my hands, the rest of me swung into space. In that moment I understood, to some extent, why that house held such strange echoes.
The roaring flames overhead and the dense, stifling smoke, that, but for the excitement of my fall, would already have rendered me unconscious, now precluded any possible thought of making my escape through any of the rooms of the house, and so I turned my attention to my latest discovery, hoping against hope that it would enable me to save my life. The sides of the well seemed to be made of smooth, hardened earth, and were damp and covered with slime. Using all my strength, I let myself down to the full length of my arms until I hung well below the level of the floor. Here I managed to draw one of the mats over my head, and clung to the walls of that gloomy pit like a beetle. Kicking against the sides with the toes of my boots, I managed to make holes in the hard clay, large enough to allow of my resting my feet sufficiently to take off some of the strain from my fingers and arms. What my thoughts were at that time I do not pretend to know; I do not think I had any. For the time being I was no better than any other beetle, clinging desperately to the side of the pit, of the depth of which I had no idea. A cold, damp draught of foul air seemed to blow up from below me, and a mouldy stench sickened my nostrils.
Suddenly my dulled senses were awakened by a tremendous crash, accompanied by much hissing and spluttering, and the red light above the mat covering my head went out. As I looked up, wondering what this could mean, something fell upon the mats, forcing the one directly over me inwards and sending it floating down past me into the darkness beneath. The falling object also crushed my right hand at the same time, and the sudden pain caused me to loose my hold, so that for one awful moment I dangled helplessly, suspended only by my left hand, over that reeking pit.