An important expedition.
The delay caused by the presence of the Zulus was excessively trying to Captain and Mrs Broderick. The more they heard from Denis about Lionel, the more they were convinced that he was their lost child. Ellen and Rose were persuaded that they should know him at once, as they had often carried him about and nursed him, though the rest were too young to recollect more than that they had had a little brother, who had disappeared while a baby. Biddy declared that she could pick him out from among a thousand if she could once set eyes on him. She recollected what Master Rupert had been, and looking at him as he now was, she was positive as to what Master Walter would have become.
“Sure, if Master would let me, I’d start off at once by meself, an’ not care for the Zulus, or lions, or other bastes in the way, and soon bring him back safe an’ sound in me arms,” she exclaimed in her enthusiasm.
“You would find it a more difficult task than you suppose, Biddy, to make your way all alone through the wilds,” said Percy. “It was no easy matter for Denis and me, with our rifles in our hands, and well accustomed to tramping. If my father will let me go, with Vermack, and Matyana, and Denis, and Umgolo, I am sure I can persuade Hendricks to let Lionel return with me.”
To this Mrs Broderick objected. She was sure that Percy was unfit to perform the journey, which might be of considerable length, as Hendricks, it was supposed, was travelling almost in an opposite direction, and might before they could overtake him, be several days ahead. She dreaded also the danger to which he might be exposed; besides which, it was doubtful whether Hendricks, deeply attached as he was known to be to the boy, would give him up to any one but to his father, who alone could be certain that Lionel really was his son. It was possible, after all, that the child might belong to a family of Boers, slaughtered by the Zulus, and that Denis might have been mistaken in the idea he had formed, when trying to instruct him, that he had previously known English.
Mangaleesu and Kalinda, though they both were cross-questioned and examined over and over again, could throw no further light on the subject than they had already done. They only knew that the boy had been brought to the kraal by another tribe, all of whom were now dead; and although they had taken an interest in the child, they had made no further inquiries about him. Captain Broderick therefore kept to his resolution of setting out with his two attendants as soon as it was ascertained that the Zulus had left the neighbourhood. In the meantime the defences of the farm were increased as much as possible, in case the Zulus should venture to attack it.
The night was passing by quietly. Crawford volunteered to keep watch, Mangaleesu also offered his services, so that those who had been on foot the previous night might obtain the rest they required. Rupert and Denis joined them shortly after midnight. They were continually going round the whole circuit of the stockade to see that the men who were ported at the different angles had their eyes open, and that the enemy were not stealing up, as it was thought possible they might attempt to do, to take them by surprise.
Crawford had just returned to the platform in front of the house, when Mangaleesu pointed across the river, towards the Zulu camp. No fire was to be seen, and Crawford remarked that the flames had sunk completely down, although there was still a glow as if from hot embers.
Rupert and Denis soon afterwards came up.
“That looks as if they had gone away at last,” observed Rupert, “and I hope that my father will be able to set out to-morrow.”