Chapter Forty.In the Night Watch.“It’s of no use; I can’t go to sleep,” said Mark to himself, as he lay gazing out through the end of the waggon at the black darkness of the night.It seemed hotter than ever, and he turned and turned again and again, with a strange, fidgety sensation that made him feel irritable to a degree, completely driving sleep away.“What’s the matter with me?” he said to himself. “Supper, I suppose. That’s what the doctor would say. But one must eat; and I felt so horribly hungry.”He turned over again and lay watching a gloriously bright planet—Venus or Jupiter, he did not know which; but it was gradually sinking in the west, and even that made him more wakeful.“Wish I could get some water,” he muttered; “but I should only be disturbing poor Dean if I moved. There,” he half ejaculated, “my brain must have gone to sleep, though my body wouldn’t. How absurd, when I knew all the time that Dean had the watch! Hope he won’t go to sleep and let the blacks come and surprise us because he doesn’t give the alarm. How badly things do happen! He could go to sleep, of course, and I can’t. Why shouldn’t we change places? Oh dear, how hot it is! I should like to go down to the riverside and have a swim. Ugh!” he ejaculated. “And some croc hunting for food would get hold of me by the leg and pull me down. Horrid idea! The blacks,” he went on, as he dismissed the thought of the reptile—“oh, the blacks are peaceable enough now. They only wanted showing that we wouldn’t stand any of their nonsense. They are just like children.”The boy turned upon his rough couch so as to avoid the bright beams of the setting planet, and five minutes later he turned back again, feeling that he must watch it as it went down, and he felt more wakeful than ever.“It’s of no use,” he said to himself, at last, “I—can’t—go—to sleep, and it’s only waste of time.”Creeping cautiously out, he let himself drop to the earth, and then after standing listening for a few minutes to the breathing of the cattle and watching the dancing flames of the fire that was regularly kept up, he cautiously approached the ponies, speaking softly to them so that they might not be scared by the approach of a dark figure to the spot where they were tethered.First one and then another whinnied softly and stretched out its muzzle to receive his caress.“I do like horses,” he said to himself. “When once they know you they are as friendly as dogs. But you ought to have heard me, Master Dean. I think if I had had the watch I should have known if anyone had crept out of the waggon and come and spoken to the horses. I’ll tell him so.”The boy went cautiously on past the first waggon, then by the kraal, looking eagerly before him the while but making out nothing.“Taking a bit of a round, I suppose. The other side of the fire, perhaps,” he said to himself.Mark went slowly and silently on, pausing once to note that the bright planet, which seemed to grow larger and larger, was just dipping down behind the highest kopje near, and then he listened to a distant barking sound which he knew must proceed from a baboon prowling about, possibly on the watch for the approach of one of its greatest enemies—a leopard.“Everything seems to have its enemy,” thought the boy, “and the blacks are ours; but I don’t think they will come near us any—”Mark stopped short, a feeling of rage and bitterness running through him, for as he was walking slowly on, cautiously so as not to startle his cousin, he felt ready to choke with indignant rage.“Oh, I wouldn’t have thought he could have been so untrustworthy,” he said to himself, for there, just before him, seated upon one of the many loose stones, his chin upon his breast, was his cousin, sleeping profoundly.At this Mark’s first idea was to awaken the overcome boy by snatching his rifle from him and ordering him to go off to bed.“And I will too,” he said, half aloud, “and shame him in his disgrace.”He was in the act of stooping over to seize the rifle, but there was no rifle to seize.“He has stood it up somewhere,” thought the boy. “Oh, who could have believed it! And at a time like this when we might be surprised and speared before the alarm could have spread. I’ll go and tell the— no, I won’t. It shall be our secret; but I’ll say words to him that shall make him too much ashamed ever to take the watch again. Oh, where has he stood that rifle?”Mark was trying to penetrate the darkness as he stepped cautiously along, looking here and there for the missing weapon, when he felt as if a hand had been pressed upon his throat to check his breathing, for there, dimly-seen, standing pressed close up to the rock which ascended behind their camp, was the figure of an armed black, motionless as a statue, and with his spear, which looked somehow distorted, resting against his arm.For a few moments the boy could not breathe, but his heart beat with a heavy throb against his breast, while his lips parted to utter a cry that should alarm the camp. But no sound escaped from him: the silence was broken by a deeply whispered, “Baas!”“Ah–h–h–h–h! You, Mak!” sighed Mark; and the words, “How you startled me!” were ready for utterance, but they were not spoken.“Him—him—sleep,” whispered the black. “Mak watch.—Got gun.”As he spoke he raised Dean’s rifle, which was resting upon the ground in company with the black’s spear, and Mark caught at it eagerly.“Baas watch too,” said the black. “Pig gone see.”Mark raised the hand at liberty and patted their black friend upon the shoulder, asking himself the while what the man meant about the pigmy. But he was too much occupied with the thoughts that he was arranging in his mind with respect to his cousin and the black’s presence.“Why, he must have come and found him asleep, and taken the rifle to keep watch for him. No, I won’t wake him. We will stop here together till he comes to himself; and how it will bring his disgrace home to him!—Here, what’s that?” he whispered, as he turned to catch Mak by the arm.But as he did so he felt that the faint sound he heard could be nothing alarming, for the black stood silent and unmoved.Mark realised directly, though, that he was listening with head bent forward, and he began to breathe hard as with a faint rustling sound his little black companion sprang to his side and whispered something.In an instant Mak clutched Mark by the shoulder and tapped the barrel of his piece.“Shoot, shoot!” he whispered loudly, and as the boy grasped his meaning he became aware of hurrying footsteps one of the bullocks uttered a low, excited bellow, its sleeping fellows sprang to their feet, and the boy drew trigger, the report raising the echoes that were lurking amongst the black ruins waiting to be aroused. Then he fired again, past his black companions, in the direction of the approaching steps.The bellow uttered by the ox had made Dean spring to his feet, to feel for his rifle.“This way! Come!” cried Mark, making a dash for the waggon, followed by the two blacks, all running for where the men from both waggons were snatching their arms and preparing to respond to their leader’s commands.What followed was to the boys one horrible mental chaos. There were the loud yells of a strong body of savages uttering their fierce war cries, to stagger and alarm the occupants of the camp; the reports of rifles, the rush of feet, the shadowy figures of the fierce enemies, the being crushed together in a contending crowd, the eager cries of familiar voices, above all that of the doctor, giving orders which in the confusion could not be obeyed. There were harsh pantings too, blows, and the rattling made by spears against the barrels of rifles. More than once there was a raucous cry, and Mark in the wild excitement felt a strange pain through one arm, before he was trampled beneath the feet of those who were swaying to and fro fighting desperately.The last thing that seemed clear to Mark was that everything was coming to an end and he was nearly unconscious as someone cried piteously, “Oh, father! Father!”And then all was dark.
“It’s of no use; I can’t go to sleep,” said Mark to himself, as he lay gazing out through the end of the waggon at the black darkness of the night.
It seemed hotter than ever, and he turned and turned again and again, with a strange, fidgety sensation that made him feel irritable to a degree, completely driving sleep away.
“What’s the matter with me?” he said to himself. “Supper, I suppose. That’s what the doctor would say. But one must eat; and I felt so horribly hungry.”
He turned over again and lay watching a gloriously bright planet—Venus or Jupiter, he did not know which; but it was gradually sinking in the west, and even that made him more wakeful.
“Wish I could get some water,” he muttered; “but I should only be disturbing poor Dean if I moved. There,” he half ejaculated, “my brain must have gone to sleep, though my body wouldn’t. How absurd, when I knew all the time that Dean had the watch! Hope he won’t go to sleep and let the blacks come and surprise us because he doesn’t give the alarm. How badly things do happen! He could go to sleep, of course, and I can’t. Why shouldn’t we change places? Oh dear, how hot it is! I should like to go down to the riverside and have a swim. Ugh!” he ejaculated. “And some croc hunting for food would get hold of me by the leg and pull me down. Horrid idea! The blacks,” he went on, as he dismissed the thought of the reptile—“oh, the blacks are peaceable enough now. They only wanted showing that we wouldn’t stand any of their nonsense. They are just like children.”
The boy turned upon his rough couch so as to avoid the bright beams of the setting planet, and five minutes later he turned back again, feeling that he must watch it as it went down, and he felt more wakeful than ever.
“It’s of no use,” he said to himself, at last, “I—can’t—go—to sleep, and it’s only waste of time.”
Creeping cautiously out, he let himself drop to the earth, and then after standing listening for a few minutes to the breathing of the cattle and watching the dancing flames of the fire that was regularly kept up, he cautiously approached the ponies, speaking softly to them so that they might not be scared by the approach of a dark figure to the spot where they were tethered.
First one and then another whinnied softly and stretched out its muzzle to receive his caress.
“I do like horses,” he said to himself. “When once they know you they are as friendly as dogs. But you ought to have heard me, Master Dean. I think if I had had the watch I should have known if anyone had crept out of the waggon and come and spoken to the horses. I’ll tell him so.”
The boy went cautiously on past the first waggon, then by the kraal, looking eagerly before him the while but making out nothing.
“Taking a bit of a round, I suppose. The other side of the fire, perhaps,” he said to himself.
Mark went slowly and silently on, pausing once to note that the bright planet, which seemed to grow larger and larger, was just dipping down behind the highest kopje near, and then he listened to a distant barking sound which he knew must proceed from a baboon prowling about, possibly on the watch for the approach of one of its greatest enemies—a leopard.
“Everything seems to have its enemy,” thought the boy, “and the blacks are ours; but I don’t think they will come near us any—”
Mark stopped short, a feeling of rage and bitterness running through him, for as he was walking slowly on, cautiously so as not to startle his cousin, he felt ready to choke with indignant rage.
“Oh, I wouldn’t have thought he could have been so untrustworthy,” he said to himself, for there, just before him, seated upon one of the many loose stones, his chin upon his breast, was his cousin, sleeping profoundly.
At this Mark’s first idea was to awaken the overcome boy by snatching his rifle from him and ordering him to go off to bed.
“And I will too,” he said, half aloud, “and shame him in his disgrace.”
He was in the act of stooping over to seize the rifle, but there was no rifle to seize.
“He has stood it up somewhere,” thought the boy. “Oh, who could have believed it! And at a time like this when we might be surprised and speared before the alarm could have spread. I’ll go and tell the— no, I won’t. It shall be our secret; but I’ll say words to him that shall make him too much ashamed ever to take the watch again. Oh, where has he stood that rifle?”
Mark was trying to penetrate the darkness as he stepped cautiously along, looking here and there for the missing weapon, when he felt as if a hand had been pressed upon his throat to check his breathing, for there, dimly-seen, standing pressed close up to the rock which ascended behind their camp, was the figure of an armed black, motionless as a statue, and with his spear, which looked somehow distorted, resting against his arm.
For a few moments the boy could not breathe, but his heart beat with a heavy throb against his breast, while his lips parted to utter a cry that should alarm the camp. But no sound escaped from him: the silence was broken by a deeply whispered, “Baas!”
“Ah–h–h–h–h! You, Mak!” sighed Mark; and the words, “How you startled me!” were ready for utterance, but they were not spoken.
“Him—him—sleep,” whispered the black. “Mak watch.—Got gun.”
As he spoke he raised Dean’s rifle, which was resting upon the ground in company with the black’s spear, and Mark caught at it eagerly.
“Baas watch too,” said the black. “Pig gone see.”
Mark raised the hand at liberty and patted their black friend upon the shoulder, asking himself the while what the man meant about the pigmy. But he was too much occupied with the thoughts that he was arranging in his mind with respect to his cousin and the black’s presence.
“Why, he must have come and found him asleep, and taken the rifle to keep watch for him. No, I won’t wake him. We will stop here together till he comes to himself; and how it will bring his disgrace home to him!—Here, what’s that?” he whispered, as he turned to catch Mak by the arm.
But as he did so he felt that the faint sound he heard could be nothing alarming, for the black stood silent and unmoved.
Mark realised directly, though, that he was listening with head bent forward, and he began to breathe hard as with a faint rustling sound his little black companion sprang to his side and whispered something.
In an instant Mak clutched Mark by the shoulder and tapped the barrel of his piece.
“Shoot, shoot!” he whispered loudly, and as the boy grasped his meaning he became aware of hurrying footsteps one of the bullocks uttered a low, excited bellow, its sleeping fellows sprang to their feet, and the boy drew trigger, the report raising the echoes that were lurking amongst the black ruins waiting to be aroused. Then he fired again, past his black companions, in the direction of the approaching steps.
The bellow uttered by the ox had made Dean spring to his feet, to feel for his rifle.
“This way! Come!” cried Mark, making a dash for the waggon, followed by the two blacks, all running for where the men from both waggons were snatching their arms and preparing to respond to their leader’s commands.
What followed was to the boys one horrible mental chaos. There were the loud yells of a strong body of savages uttering their fierce war cries, to stagger and alarm the occupants of the camp; the reports of rifles, the rush of feet, the shadowy figures of the fierce enemies, the being crushed together in a contending crowd, the eager cries of familiar voices, above all that of the doctor, giving orders which in the confusion could not be obeyed. There were harsh pantings too, blows, and the rattling made by spears against the barrels of rifles. More than once there was a raucous cry, and Mark in the wild excitement felt a strange pain through one arm, before he was trampled beneath the feet of those who were swaying to and fro fighting desperately.
The last thing that seemed clear to Mark was that everything was coming to an end and he was nearly unconscious as someone cried piteously, “Oh, father! Father!”
And then all was dark.
Chapter Forty One.“A Bit off his Head.”But it was not all over. When sense and feeling began to resume their seats, Mark was lying in the forest shade, dimly conscious that the sun’s rays were striking horizontally through the dark, misty shadows of some place that he had never seen before.A dull, heavy pain seemed to be pressing his head into the earth, and a sickening feeling of confusion troubled him which seemed to take the shape of one of the glorious golden rays of the sun darting and piercing him through the shoulder with the agonising pangs that accompanied fire.Then in his throbbing head there was a question that kept on repeating itself—that cry he had last heard as of someone calling piteously, something about his father, and who could it be?This went on and on for what seemed to be an endless time, and he could make out nothing else, till someone spoke in a deep, gruff voice, and said, “Yes, my lad, it is a very bad job, and I say, thank my stars I hadn’t the watch.”“Ay, messmate, and I say the same. The cooking was more in my way.”“Buck—Dan Mann,” thought Mark, for he recognised the voices; but he could not make out why it was he was lying there, nor whose father it was somebody had been calling to.He tried to think, but the more he tried to make out what it all meant the greater grew the confusion, and at last he felt too weary to try, or the power to continue the effort failed, for he lay quite still in a stupor.When his senses began to return again the sun had attacked—or so it seemed—his other side. There was a peculiar gnawing in his shoulder, and now and then a stinging pain as from a red hot ray, and while he was trying to puzzle it out, a hand was gently laid upon his forehead, where his head was most charged with pain, and he made a feeble effort to turn where he lay upon his back.“Who’s that?” he said.“Oh, Mark! Mark!” came in a familiar voice; and that voice seemed to give back the power to think.“You, Dean! What does it all mean?”“Oh, don’t you know?”Mark was silent, for like a flash came the recollection of what had passed—his going to seek his cousin, his sitting asleep, and the big Illaka standing close by in possession of the watcher’s rifle, doing the duty that had been neglected.“I was beginning to be afraid that I should never hear you speak again, and you mustn’t speak much, I’m sure, while you are so dreadfully weak. But I must talk to you a little. You do feel a little better now?”“Better? No.”“Oh, Mark, old fellow, don’t say that!”“I’m wounded, am I not?”“Oh, yes, dreadfully; and I have been in despair. I couldn’t have borne it, but Buck kept giving me hope. There were days, though, and nights, when you hardly seemed to breathe.”“Days and nights!” whispered Mark. “What do you mean? Wasn’t it yesterday? Or was it to-day, just before dawn?”“Oh, Mark! Mark! It was weeks ago!”Mark was silent for a few minutes, as he lay thinking.“Weeks!” he said, at last, and he lay perfectly silent. “Where are we now?”“Right away in the wilds somewhere, where our friends brought us after they carried us off that night. I have hardly thought of that—only of you.”“Our friends!” said Mark, at last. “Who are our friends?”“Buck and Dan and the two blacks.”“Buck and Dan!” almost whispered Mark. “I heard them talking, and thought it was a little while ago.”Strangely wild thoughts were running now through Dean’s brain. His cousin had been so long in that dreadful stupor, insensible even to the touch of those who had dressed his wounds and cooled his burning brain by applications to the spot where a blow from a club had struck him down. Was this the poor fellow’s senses returning for a short time, before—?“I can’t bear it,” whispered Dean to himself. “Speak to me again just this once, Mark,” he said aloud, “and then I want you to sleep. Both Buck and Dan say that sleep is the best thing for you now. I want you to tell me that you will get better.”Mark made no answer. He was thinking. It was coming back more and more.“Oh, I know you are badly hurt,” said Dean, at last. “I know how awful it all is, but Mark—Mark, old chap, don’t—don’t say anything to me; only tell me you are going to be better!”“I can’t speak. I can’t think. Don’t talk to me. Go away.”Dean uttered a groan of misery, and rising slowly he left his cousin to begin fighting once more against the confusion that oppressed his brain.And now as the poor fellow lay seeming to go backward into what was like so much mental darkness, he heard the gruff voices of the two men talking, and then his cousin’s words sounding as if in appeal, while soon after Mark opened his eyes to find that somebody was leaning over him. But the sun had set, and it was growing too dark now for him to make out who it was.Then he knew.“Asleep, Mr Mark, sir?”“No, Dan. What does it all mean? Is it fever?—No, no, don’t speak. I remember now. Hasn’t there been a big fight?”“Yes, sir; horrid.”“Did you get hurt?”“A bit pricked, sir.”“With a spear?” said Mark sharply.“Yes, sir. One of the black thieves made a job at me.”“But you are not hurt much?”“Quite enough, sir. But a hurt soon heals up. I want to know about you, sir.”“Yes, yes; but tell me—what about Buck Denham?”“Got enough, sir, to make him horrid wild. But he don’t mind much.”“Ah!” said Mark quietly, as he fought hard with the difficulty of thinking. “Has the doctor seen him?”“No, sir,” said the man hesitatingly.“But he ought to see him,” continued Mark, “and you too. He knows so much about that sort of thing. Why doesn’t he come and see me? There! There’s that pain back again, as if I was burnt.”“Yes, sir; it is nasty, of course. I have done all I knowed to it.”“Thank you, Dan. What is it?”“Spear, sir. But it’s quite clean; I saw to that. It’s your head’s the worst.”“Yes,” sighed Mark. “It’s my head’s the worst. Well, now go and tell the doctor to come.”Dan was silent.“Did you hear what I said?”“Yes, sir,” said the man, “but hadn’t you better try and go to sleep?”“I have been trying for hours, Dan—ever since I lay down; and then as I couldn’t I got out of the waggon and came to have a chat with you; and then—it wasn’t you, because it was—because it was—is that you, Dan?”“Yes, my dear lad; it’s me. What is it you want?”“I don’t know, Dan, only I feel as if I couldn’t think and talk properly. Who’s that?”“Buck Denham, my lad. How goes it?” said the big fellow.“I don’t know, Buck, only that—oh, Dan said that you got hurt with a spear.”“Oh, yes, my lad; a bit of a dig—made me so wild I brought the butt of my rifle down on that nigger’s head, and it was too dark to see, but I felt him roll over, and I trod on him.”“Look here—look here, Buck; I’m hurt.”“Yes, my lad; but just you lie quiet and try to sleep it off.”“Now you are talking the same. I want the doctor to come and see to Dan; and you had better let him see to you too. I say, Buck, whose father was it somebody was asking for?”“Whose father, my lad?”“Yes. I was lying in the dark, and I heard somebody call out for him.”“Here, I say, Dan, lad, what’s to be done?” said the big driver, in a soft, deep growl. “Don’t he know?”“No,” said Dan quietly. “A bit off his head still.”“What’s that you are saying?” said Mark sharply. “What is it I don’t know? Well—why don’t you speak?”“Don’t—don’t talk so much, my lad,” said Buck softly. “You are a bit off your head from that club.”“Yes—yes—oh, I understand; you are trying to make me not think about it. Ah, I can think better now. Where’s my father?”Neither of the men replied.“Yes, I do understand more now. I know, Buck, you are keeping something from me. Don’t say my father’s hurt!”The boy waited for the answer that did not come.“Then he is!” he cried excitedly. “And Dr Robertson?”Still there was no reply.“Ah, you won’t tell me! Call my cousin—no,” added the boy sharply, “don’t—pray don’t. Speak to me yourselves; I can bear anything now.”“You had better tell him, Dan, lad. He must know.”“Can’t, messmate,” came in a hoarse whisper. “You are a bigger chap than me; you tell him, for you are about right: he ought to know.”“Yes, I ought to know, Buck,” said the boy softly, and he winced with agony as he tried to raise his left hand, but let it fall directly and caught at the big fellow’s wrist with his right. “Now tell me, or tell me if I am right, for I can think now—that cloud has gone. The blacks attacked us last night?”“Ay, my lad. They stole a march on us.”“And my father?”“I dunno, my lad,” said Buck hoarsely.“The doctor, then?”“Nay, Mr Mark, sir; it was all so dark, and such rough work, that I heard him shouting to us to come on, and that was all.”“Well, is Dunn Brown here?”“Nay, my lad. He turned tail and left us in the lurch.”“Oh!” groaned Mark. “But Peter and Bob Bacon?”“They fought like men, sir, and I hope we all did; but they were too much for us, and if it hadn’t been for our two black fellows I don’t believe Dan and me would have got you two young gents out of it.”“Ah, then,” cried Mark, “you got us away?”“That’s right, sir; but it was close work, and it was big Mak kept the brutes off while Dan carried you, and I got Mr Dean up on my back while the little Pig showed us the way through the darkness.”“Then—then—” cried Mark passionately. “You—two—two strong men came away and left my father and the doctor in the hands of those wretches! Oh, cowards! Cowards! Cowards! How could you! How could you! How—”The boy fainted.
But it was not all over. When sense and feeling began to resume their seats, Mark was lying in the forest shade, dimly conscious that the sun’s rays were striking horizontally through the dark, misty shadows of some place that he had never seen before.
A dull, heavy pain seemed to be pressing his head into the earth, and a sickening feeling of confusion troubled him which seemed to take the shape of one of the glorious golden rays of the sun darting and piercing him through the shoulder with the agonising pangs that accompanied fire.
Then in his throbbing head there was a question that kept on repeating itself—that cry he had last heard as of someone calling piteously, something about his father, and who could it be?
This went on and on for what seemed to be an endless time, and he could make out nothing else, till someone spoke in a deep, gruff voice, and said, “Yes, my lad, it is a very bad job, and I say, thank my stars I hadn’t the watch.”
“Ay, messmate, and I say the same. The cooking was more in my way.”
“Buck—Dan Mann,” thought Mark, for he recognised the voices; but he could not make out why it was he was lying there, nor whose father it was somebody had been calling to.
He tried to think, but the more he tried to make out what it all meant the greater grew the confusion, and at last he felt too weary to try, or the power to continue the effort failed, for he lay quite still in a stupor.
When his senses began to return again the sun had attacked—or so it seemed—his other side. There was a peculiar gnawing in his shoulder, and now and then a stinging pain as from a red hot ray, and while he was trying to puzzle it out, a hand was gently laid upon his forehead, where his head was most charged with pain, and he made a feeble effort to turn where he lay upon his back.
“Who’s that?” he said.
“Oh, Mark! Mark!” came in a familiar voice; and that voice seemed to give back the power to think.
“You, Dean! What does it all mean?”
“Oh, don’t you know?”
Mark was silent, for like a flash came the recollection of what had passed—his going to seek his cousin, his sitting asleep, and the big Illaka standing close by in possession of the watcher’s rifle, doing the duty that had been neglected.
“I was beginning to be afraid that I should never hear you speak again, and you mustn’t speak much, I’m sure, while you are so dreadfully weak. But I must talk to you a little. You do feel a little better now?”
“Better? No.”
“Oh, Mark, old fellow, don’t say that!”
“I’m wounded, am I not?”
“Oh, yes, dreadfully; and I have been in despair. I couldn’t have borne it, but Buck kept giving me hope. There were days, though, and nights, when you hardly seemed to breathe.”
“Days and nights!” whispered Mark. “What do you mean? Wasn’t it yesterday? Or was it to-day, just before dawn?”
“Oh, Mark! Mark! It was weeks ago!”
Mark was silent for a few minutes, as he lay thinking.
“Weeks!” he said, at last, and he lay perfectly silent. “Where are we now?”
“Right away in the wilds somewhere, where our friends brought us after they carried us off that night. I have hardly thought of that—only of you.”
“Our friends!” said Mark, at last. “Who are our friends?”
“Buck and Dan and the two blacks.”
“Buck and Dan!” almost whispered Mark. “I heard them talking, and thought it was a little while ago.”
Strangely wild thoughts were running now through Dean’s brain. His cousin had been so long in that dreadful stupor, insensible even to the touch of those who had dressed his wounds and cooled his burning brain by applications to the spot where a blow from a club had struck him down. Was this the poor fellow’s senses returning for a short time, before—?
“I can’t bear it,” whispered Dean to himself. “Speak to me again just this once, Mark,” he said aloud, “and then I want you to sleep. Both Buck and Dan say that sleep is the best thing for you now. I want you to tell me that you will get better.”
Mark made no answer. He was thinking. It was coming back more and more.
“Oh, I know you are badly hurt,” said Dean, at last. “I know how awful it all is, but Mark—Mark, old chap, don’t—don’t say anything to me; only tell me you are going to be better!”
“I can’t speak. I can’t think. Don’t talk to me. Go away.”
Dean uttered a groan of misery, and rising slowly he left his cousin to begin fighting once more against the confusion that oppressed his brain.
And now as the poor fellow lay seeming to go backward into what was like so much mental darkness, he heard the gruff voices of the two men talking, and then his cousin’s words sounding as if in appeal, while soon after Mark opened his eyes to find that somebody was leaning over him. But the sun had set, and it was growing too dark now for him to make out who it was.
Then he knew.
“Asleep, Mr Mark, sir?”
“No, Dan. What does it all mean? Is it fever?—No, no, don’t speak. I remember now. Hasn’t there been a big fight?”
“Yes, sir; horrid.”
“Did you get hurt?”
“A bit pricked, sir.”
“With a spear?” said Mark sharply.
“Yes, sir. One of the black thieves made a job at me.”
“But you are not hurt much?”
“Quite enough, sir. But a hurt soon heals up. I want to know about you, sir.”
“Yes, yes; but tell me—what about Buck Denham?”
“Got enough, sir, to make him horrid wild. But he don’t mind much.”
“Ah!” said Mark quietly, as he fought hard with the difficulty of thinking. “Has the doctor seen him?”
“No, sir,” said the man hesitatingly.
“But he ought to see him,” continued Mark, “and you too. He knows so much about that sort of thing. Why doesn’t he come and see me? There! There’s that pain back again, as if I was burnt.”
“Yes, sir; it is nasty, of course. I have done all I knowed to it.”
“Thank you, Dan. What is it?”
“Spear, sir. But it’s quite clean; I saw to that. It’s your head’s the worst.”
“Yes,” sighed Mark. “It’s my head’s the worst. Well, now go and tell the doctor to come.”
Dan was silent.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes, sir,” said the man, “but hadn’t you better try and go to sleep?”
“I have been trying for hours, Dan—ever since I lay down; and then as I couldn’t I got out of the waggon and came to have a chat with you; and then—it wasn’t you, because it was—because it was—is that you, Dan?”
“Yes, my dear lad; it’s me. What is it you want?”
“I don’t know, Dan, only I feel as if I couldn’t think and talk properly. Who’s that?”
“Buck Denham, my lad. How goes it?” said the big fellow.
“I don’t know, Buck, only that—oh, Dan said that you got hurt with a spear.”
“Oh, yes, my lad; a bit of a dig—made me so wild I brought the butt of my rifle down on that nigger’s head, and it was too dark to see, but I felt him roll over, and I trod on him.”
“Look here—look here, Buck; I’m hurt.”
“Yes, my lad; but just you lie quiet and try to sleep it off.”
“Now you are talking the same. I want the doctor to come and see to Dan; and you had better let him see to you too. I say, Buck, whose father was it somebody was asking for?”
“Whose father, my lad?”
“Yes. I was lying in the dark, and I heard somebody call out for him.”
“Here, I say, Dan, lad, what’s to be done?” said the big driver, in a soft, deep growl. “Don’t he know?”
“No,” said Dan quietly. “A bit off his head still.”
“What’s that you are saying?” said Mark sharply. “What is it I don’t know? Well—why don’t you speak?”
“Don’t—don’t talk so much, my lad,” said Buck softly. “You are a bit off your head from that club.”
“Yes—yes—oh, I understand; you are trying to make me not think about it. Ah, I can think better now. Where’s my father?”
Neither of the men replied.
“Yes, I do understand more now. I know, Buck, you are keeping something from me. Don’t say my father’s hurt!”
The boy waited for the answer that did not come.
“Then he is!” he cried excitedly. “And Dr Robertson?”
Still there was no reply.
“Ah, you won’t tell me! Call my cousin—no,” added the boy sharply, “don’t—pray don’t. Speak to me yourselves; I can bear anything now.”
“You had better tell him, Dan, lad. He must know.”
“Can’t, messmate,” came in a hoarse whisper. “You are a bigger chap than me; you tell him, for you are about right: he ought to know.”
“Yes, I ought to know, Buck,” said the boy softly, and he winced with agony as he tried to raise his left hand, but let it fall directly and caught at the big fellow’s wrist with his right. “Now tell me, or tell me if I am right, for I can think now—that cloud has gone. The blacks attacked us last night?”
“Ay, my lad. They stole a march on us.”
“And my father?”
“I dunno, my lad,” said Buck hoarsely.
“The doctor, then?”
“Nay, Mr Mark, sir; it was all so dark, and such rough work, that I heard him shouting to us to come on, and that was all.”
“Well, is Dunn Brown here?”
“Nay, my lad. He turned tail and left us in the lurch.”
“Oh!” groaned Mark. “But Peter and Bob Bacon?”
“They fought like men, sir, and I hope we all did; but they were too much for us, and if it hadn’t been for our two black fellows I don’t believe Dan and me would have got you two young gents out of it.”
“Ah, then,” cried Mark, “you got us away?”
“That’s right, sir; but it was close work, and it was big Mak kept the brutes off while Dan carried you, and I got Mr Dean up on my back while the little Pig showed us the way through the darkness.”
“Then—then—” cried Mark passionately. “You—two—two strong men came away and left my father and the doctor in the hands of those wretches! Oh, cowards! Cowards! Cowards! How could you! How could you! How—”
The boy fainted.
Chapter Forty Two.A Vain Appeal.It was one morning when Mark lay fairly collected and able to talk, and the first objects his eyes lit upon were the two blacks seated together busy crushing up some succulent leaves, which they worked between a couple of stones till they had formed them into a thick green paste. This done, the little fellow brought other leaves, covered one with the green paste, and then as Mark watched him he placed this woodland-plaster on the fleshy part of his companion’s leg and secured it in its place with some long, grassy, fibrous growth which Mak had chewed and twisted into a kind of string.This done, the black lay upon one side with his teeth at work preparing some more rough bandage, while the pigmy formed another plaster, which was in turn secured to the black’s left arm.As Mark lay there feeling too helpless and weary to move, he watched in turn the surgical applications of the pigmy, as he attended to bad cuts that had been suffered by Buck Denham and Dan.Mark did not know it then, during those next few days, but he realised afterwards that it was due to sheer weakness that with the knowledge of the terrible defeat, and that his father and friends were either killed or taken prisoners, he could lie there so calmly watching what was going on.There was much to see in the coming and going of the two blacks, who brought the food and the water they drank, while Buck Denham and Dan, badly as they were hurt, never wearied in their attentions. His cousin too was constantly at his side, ready to attend to every wish. At other times he sat gazing at him with an imploring expression of countenance as if begging not to be reproached for a catastrophe that he laid upon his own shoulders.“Who’d have thought it, Buck?” said Mark, one day, as he lay helpless, listening to the trickling water of the spring in the thick patch of forest that had been made their camp.“Thought what, sir?” said the big driver, as he emptied the last scraps of tobacco from his pouch into his homemade corn-straw pipe.“That that little black would be so grateful for what the doctor did.”“Oh, yes, sir; he’s a reg’lar little trump—the Jack, me and Dan call him, and old Black Mak the King. Those two chaps arn’t as fond of you as Christians would be, but they think a deal more of you than dogs would, and it seems to me they are a kind of people as never forgets, especially the little ’un. Anybody that has ill-used them they’d wait if it was for years till they got their chance to let them have it again, and as Dan says, they never seem as if they could do enough for one who has done them a good turn. Why, old Dan and me got so chopped about that night that we could only just crawl about after we had cooled down. Luckily in the ’citement we didn’t feel so bad, but after a day or two we could hardly move, and as to doing a bit of hunting or shooting, we were good for nothing. Why, we might have got thinking that we should starve out here in the woods, but here have we been living like fighting cocks.”“Oh, don’t talk about eating!” said Mark peevishly. “I don’t see why not, Mr Mark, sir. Dan says a bit of eating helps to put life into you.”“Ah!” said Mark, with a low deep sigh. He made an effort to turn round on the bed of leaves, that the blacks had made for him, but it was beyond his strength, and Dean, giving him a wistful look, tenderly placed him in the position he wished, Mark grasping his hand the while, and strengthening his grasp as Dean tried to draw his own hand away.The next minute to his surprise Dean found that his cousin had sunk into a deep sleep, and many hours passed before the boy awoke, still holding his cousin’s hand.That next morning was the turning point, for Mark answered a wistful look from his cousin with the words, “I couldn’t help it, Dean—no, no, no, Dean! Dean! Dean!—I say, I couldn’t help it after what had happened. There, that’s all dead and buried.”Dean hesitated, but he saw his cousin’s eyes flash, and he held out his hands and drew him into a sitting position.“Here, Dan!” cried Mark; and the little sailor sprang to him from where he was busy cooking.“Hullo, Mr Mark, sir!” he cried. “You are a-getting on!”Those words, uttered loudly, brought up Buck Denham from where he had been bathing one of the cuts he had received.“Oh, I say, Mr Mark,” he said, “you mustn’t do that! You arn’t strong enough.”“I want to get up and walk; help me,” was the reply, or rather command; and the big fellow obeyed at once, taking one side, Dean the other, and between them the poor lad took a few steps; and then his head sank sideways while he submitted to being laid back on his leafy couch, breathing hard and closing his eyes.The next day he was as insistent as before.“I want to walk. I must grow strong,” he said, sternly now. “Help me.”Another day passed, and Dean, who had left his cousin asleep while he went out to help the men to fetch water, returned to camp to look about with startled eyes, for Mark’s couch was vacant, and Dean’s first thought was that, fancying he had gained enough strength, he had started off alone.Reproaching himself with what he looked upon as neglect of his cousin, he hurried off amongst the trees, searching in the direction that he thought it probable Mark would have taken.“I’m sure he can’t have gone far,” he said to himself; and so it proved, for before long he caught sight of him.Mark, who did not hear him come up, was kneeling by a great trunk, his clasped hands resting upon the buttress, his brow bent, and his lips moving rapidly.Dean, with the nerves of his face twitching, crept silently up to where he could touch his cousin, and then resting his own hands upon those of Mark, he too bent down, and the next minute his lips were also moving.At last Mark spoke.“Oh, Dean,” he said, “a few minutes ago I thought that all was over. But oh, what a coward I have been, when perhaps all the time the poor dad, a prisoner, is comforting himself with the hope that we shall go and rescue him!”“Don’t—don’t, old chap!” cried Dean. “Callmea coward, if you like; I won’t mind. But it’s like sticking one of the Illaka’s spears into me when you, you brave old chap, keep on reproaching yourself; and every word you say is nothing but a lie.”“Brave old chap!” cried Mark mockingly, and he burst into a strange laugh which made his cousin shiver.“Don’t!” cried Dean passionately. “What does a fellow want? To be brave? Doesn’t he want to be well and strong?”“Oh, I suppose so.”“And there have you been fainting dead away over and over again. Who could be brave when he is like that?”“There, don’t talk. We are wasting time.”“What are you going to do?”“You ask me that, with your uncle waiting to be saved! Come on.”“Come on where?”“I must—I must get back to the ruins.”The boy took hold tightly of the sharp-edged buttress-like root upon which his hands had rested, and exerting the little strength that he had gained, he drew himself up erect, and then with everything swimming round, he reeled away from his support and would have fallen heavily but for the way in which Dean snatched at him, and yet, in spite of a quick effort on the boy’s part, the pair fell heavily down amongst the bushes.“It’s of no use, Mark; you are too weak and helpless. We must go on camping here for the present.”“You are quite right,” said Mark sadly, “I am as weak as a child; but we have to go.”“But you can’t,” cried Dean angrily.“I must, and I will,” cried Mark, with fierce determination. “And promise me this—”“Promise you what?” said Dean, for his cousin ceased speaking.“This,” he cried again, with passionate energy. “The others will talk about giving up now and saving ourselves, but whatever I say you must support me. Promise me you will.”“That I will.”“Oh, here you are then, gentlemen,” cried Dan forcing his way in to where the two lads were standing. “Ahoy! Buck! Heave ahead! Here they are! Why, we have been hunting for you everywhere, gents. You must be better, Mr Mark.”“Ay, that’s so,” cried Buck, coming up; “but I don’t believe we should have found you if it hadn’t been for these ’ere two. I believe little Pig here sniffed you out all the way. Aren’t you tired?”Mark shook his head, and Buck gave him a look as much as to say “I don’t believe you.”“Well, we are a good way from camp, my lad. If you will take my advice, Mr Mark, you will lie down and have a snooze while we light a fire and get ready something to eat.”“No, don’t do that,” said Mark angrily. “We must go on.”“Go on, sir? Where?”“Where? Back to the ruins.”“You can’t do it, sir. It’s just about madness. You are talking wild. What do you say, Dan? Don’t leave it all to me.”“Same as you do, messmate.”“There, Mr Mark; and I put it to you, Mr Dean; isn’t it about playing the lunatic for him to think of going to the help of Sir James, and the captain, with him like this?”“Don’t ask me, Buck,” cried Dean excitedly. “My cousin is determined to go, and I have promised to help him.”“Of course you would, sir. But Mr Mark, sir, just think!”“I have thought, Buck. It is my duty, and I appeal to you and Dan to come with me. Those faithful blacks will help, if they see you are with us, and go I must.”“Nay, sir. That’s very well for you to talk, and I suppose folks would say it is very grand to go and throw away your life trying to save your father. If they gets to know of it at home they will say you are a hero, and write about you being a fine example. All very fine for you, because you are a gentleman; but I’m only an or’nary sort of fellow, and I don’t want people to write about me.”“That will do,” cried Mark angrily. “Go with them, Dean, old fellow.” Dean shook his head.“I don’t want to be a hero,” continued Mark. “I want to save my father, and if I can’t save him I’m going to die too. There, good-bye. I have talked about people being cowards, but it is only because I am half wild with misery. You have all done your best, and I know what I want you all to do is impossible. Shake hands and say good-bye.” Mark shook hands with the men in turn. “Now you,” he said, and he held out his hand to the blacks, who advanced smiling as if they did not understand, but took it that it was something all right, and then shrank back.Mark hesitated for a moment, and there was something piteous in his look as he turned to the big driver again.“I don’t like to go like this,” he said, “but go I will. I have always looked on you as a brave man, Denham, so I will make this last appeal to you. Will you come with me and help me to save my father and the doctor?”“No, sir, I won’t,” said the man gruffly. “Nor your own friends and companions?”“No, sir.”Mark sighed.“Then I appeal to you, Dan. You will not let us two go alone?”“Can’t be done, sir,” said the little sailor, shaking his head.“Do you mean this, Dan?”“Yes, sir,” replied Dan, after glancing at his big companion.“Very well,” said Mark quietly. “I have no right to ask it. Come along, Dean; we will go alone.”Making an effort over his weakness, he strode off as nearly as he could guess in the direction of the ruins, walking fairly steadily now, neither of the pair attempting to look back, and the forest was so silent that the soft rustling of the two lads amongst the leaves sounded loud and strange.They were walking in Indian file, for Mark had told his cousin to take the lead, and immersed in their own thoughts upon the desperate nature of the attempt they were about to make, they went on and on, in and out amongst the trees that grew more open as they progressed for quite an hour, when coming upon a patch of mossy stones Mark uttered the word, “Rest,” and setting the example he sank down upon one of the stones, to lean his head upon his hand.“Do you feel weak?” asked Dean.Mark shook his head.“No,” he said; “I am getting stronger. We will go on again in a few minutes, and who knows what may happen? I feel that we shall save them yet. Ah!” he cried.For all at once the little figure of the pigmy stood before them, holding his spear across his breast as if to bar their way.“Look at that, Dean,” cried Mark. “Faithful and true to us as ever, even when those three men have forsaken us.”“They have not,” said Dean. “Look.”Startled by his cousin’s tones, Mark turned from the little black, to realise the fact that the three men whom they had left must have taken a circuitous course under the pigmy’s guidance, cut them off by the scattered stones where they were resting, and were now coming straight towards them.“Then you have repented, Buck?” cried Mark eagerly.“No, sir.”“Then why are you here?” said the boy, starting to his feet, and catching at his cousin’s arm, for his weakness seemed to be returning.“Because we think, Dan and I, that we have let you go on in your own way long enough. It won’t do, Mr Mark, and you must come back with us; eh, Dan?”“That’s right, Mr Mark, sir. I never started mutiny before, but I am in for it now. We have ris’ against our officers, and you are both prisoners.”“Prisoners!” cried Mark wildly. “You will not dare—”“Yes, my lad.”“Here, Mak!” cried Mark fiercely. “And you too,” he continued, turning upon the pigmy; “you will stand by us, after all?”“There, sir,” said Buck; “even they won’t do what you ask. Can’t you see now, my lad, how mad it is?” And the man pointed to where the two blacks had darted away amongst the trees. “There, there must be no nonsense now. We have got to save your lives. You are our prisoners, so give up like men.—Ah, I never thought of that!”For at that moment there was a repetition of the fierce yelling made familiar to them by the night attack, and they were surrounded by some fifty of the Illakas, who came rushing through the trees, flourishing their spears and looking formidable enough to make the bravest heart beat faster.
It was one morning when Mark lay fairly collected and able to talk, and the first objects his eyes lit upon were the two blacks seated together busy crushing up some succulent leaves, which they worked between a couple of stones till they had formed them into a thick green paste. This done, the little fellow brought other leaves, covered one with the green paste, and then as Mark watched him he placed this woodland-plaster on the fleshy part of his companion’s leg and secured it in its place with some long, grassy, fibrous growth which Mak had chewed and twisted into a kind of string.
This done, the black lay upon one side with his teeth at work preparing some more rough bandage, while the pigmy formed another plaster, which was in turn secured to the black’s left arm.
As Mark lay there feeling too helpless and weary to move, he watched in turn the surgical applications of the pigmy, as he attended to bad cuts that had been suffered by Buck Denham and Dan.
Mark did not know it then, during those next few days, but he realised afterwards that it was due to sheer weakness that with the knowledge of the terrible defeat, and that his father and friends were either killed or taken prisoners, he could lie there so calmly watching what was going on.
There was much to see in the coming and going of the two blacks, who brought the food and the water they drank, while Buck Denham and Dan, badly as they were hurt, never wearied in their attentions. His cousin too was constantly at his side, ready to attend to every wish. At other times he sat gazing at him with an imploring expression of countenance as if begging not to be reproached for a catastrophe that he laid upon his own shoulders.
“Who’d have thought it, Buck?” said Mark, one day, as he lay helpless, listening to the trickling water of the spring in the thick patch of forest that had been made their camp.
“Thought what, sir?” said the big driver, as he emptied the last scraps of tobacco from his pouch into his homemade corn-straw pipe.
“That that little black would be so grateful for what the doctor did.”
“Oh, yes, sir; he’s a reg’lar little trump—the Jack, me and Dan call him, and old Black Mak the King. Those two chaps arn’t as fond of you as Christians would be, but they think a deal more of you than dogs would, and it seems to me they are a kind of people as never forgets, especially the little ’un. Anybody that has ill-used them they’d wait if it was for years till they got their chance to let them have it again, and as Dan says, they never seem as if they could do enough for one who has done them a good turn. Why, old Dan and me got so chopped about that night that we could only just crawl about after we had cooled down. Luckily in the ’citement we didn’t feel so bad, but after a day or two we could hardly move, and as to doing a bit of hunting or shooting, we were good for nothing. Why, we might have got thinking that we should starve out here in the woods, but here have we been living like fighting cocks.”
“Oh, don’t talk about eating!” said Mark peevishly. “I don’t see why not, Mr Mark, sir. Dan says a bit of eating helps to put life into you.”
“Ah!” said Mark, with a low deep sigh. He made an effort to turn round on the bed of leaves, that the blacks had made for him, but it was beyond his strength, and Dean, giving him a wistful look, tenderly placed him in the position he wished, Mark grasping his hand the while, and strengthening his grasp as Dean tried to draw his own hand away.
The next minute to his surprise Dean found that his cousin had sunk into a deep sleep, and many hours passed before the boy awoke, still holding his cousin’s hand.
That next morning was the turning point, for Mark answered a wistful look from his cousin with the words, “I couldn’t help it, Dean—no, no, no, Dean! Dean! Dean!—I say, I couldn’t help it after what had happened. There, that’s all dead and buried.”
Dean hesitated, but he saw his cousin’s eyes flash, and he held out his hands and drew him into a sitting position.
“Here, Dan!” cried Mark; and the little sailor sprang to him from where he was busy cooking.
“Hullo, Mr Mark, sir!” he cried. “You are a-getting on!”
Those words, uttered loudly, brought up Buck Denham from where he had been bathing one of the cuts he had received.
“Oh, I say, Mr Mark,” he said, “you mustn’t do that! You arn’t strong enough.”
“I want to get up and walk; help me,” was the reply, or rather command; and the big fellow obeyed at once, taking one side, Dean the other, and between them the poor lad took a few steps; and then his head sank sideways while he submitted to being laid back on his leafy couch, breathing hard and closing his eyes.
The next day he was as insistent as before.
“I want to walk. I must grow strong,” he said, sternly now. “Help me.”
Another day passed, and Dean, who had left his cousin asleep while he went out to help the men to fetch water, returned to camp to look about with startled eyes, for Mark’s couch was vacant, and Dean’s first thought was that, fancying he had gained enough strength, he had started off alone.
Reproaching himself with what he looked upon as neglect of his cousin, he hurried off amongst the trees, searching in the direction that he thought it probable Mark would have taken.
“I’m sure he can’t have gone far,” he said to himself; and so it proved, for before long he caught sight of him.
Mark, who did not hear him come up, was kneeling by a great trunk, his clasped hands resting upon the buttress, his brow bent, and his lips moving rapidly.
Dean, with the nerves of his face twitching, crept silently up to where he could touch his cousin, and then resting his own hands upon those of Mark, he too bent down, and the next minute his lips were also moving.
At last Mark spoke.
“Oh, Dean,” he said, “a few minutes ago I thought that all was over. But oh, what a coward I have been, when perhaps all the time the poor dad, a prisoner, is comforting himself with the hope that we shall go and rescue him!”
“Don’t—don’t, old chap!” cried Dean. “Callmea coward, if you like; I won’t mind. But it’s like sticking one of the Illaka’s spears into me when you, you brave old chap, keep on reproaching yourself; and every word you say is nothing but a lie.”
“Brave old chap!” cried Mark mockingly, and he burst into a strange laugh which made his cousin shiver.
“Don’t!” cried Dean passionately. “What does a fellow want? To be brave? Doesn’t he want to be well and strong?”
“Oh, I suppose so.”
“And there have you been fainting dead away over and over again. Who could be brave when he is like that?”
“There, don’t talk. We are wasting time.”
“What are you going to do?”
“You ask me that, with your uncle waiting to be saved! Come on.”
“Come on where?”
“I must—I must get back to the ruins.”
The boy took hold tightly of the sharp-edged buttress-like root upon which his hands had rested, and exerting the little strength that he had gained, he drew himself up erect, and then with everything swimming round, he reeled away from his support and would have fallen heavily but for the way in which Dean snatched at him, and yet, in spite of a quick effort on the boy’s part, the pair fell heavily down amongst the bushes.
“It’s of no use, Mark; you are too weak and helpless. We must go on camping here for the present.”
“You are quite right,” said Mark sadly, “I am as weak as a child; but we have to go.”
“But you can’t,” cried Dean angrily.
“I must, and I will,” cried Mark, with fierce determination. “And promise me this—”
“Promise you what?” said Dean, for his cousin ceased speaking.
“This,” he cried again, with passionate energy. “The others will talk about giving up now and saving ourselves, but whatever I say you must support me. Promise me you will.”
“That I will.”
“Oh, here you are then, gentlemen,” cried Dan forcing his way in to where the two lads were standing. “Ahoy! Buck! Heave ahead! Here they are! Why, we have been hunting for you everywhere, gents. You must be better, Mr Mark.”
“Ay, that’s so,” cried Buck, coming up; “but I don’t believe we should have found you if it hadn’t been for these ’ere two. I believe little Pig here sniffed you out all the way. Aren’t you tired?”
Mark shook his head, and Buck gave him a look as much as to say “I don’t believe you.”
“Well, we are a good way from camp, my lad. If you will take my advice, Mr Mark, you will lie down and have a snooze while we light a fire and get ready something to eat.”
“No, don’t do that,” said Mark angrily. “We must go on.”
“Go on, sir? Where?”
“Where? Back to the ruins.”
“You can’t do it, sir. It’s just about madness. You are talking wild. What do you say, Dan? Don’t leave it all to me.”
“Same as you do, messmate.”
“There, Mr Mark; and I put it to you, Mr Dean; isn’t it about playing the lunatic for him to think of going to the help of Sir James, and the captain, with him like this?”
“Don’t ask me, Buck,” cried Dean excitedly. “My cousin is determined to go, and I have promised to help him.”
“Of course you would, sir. But Mr Mark, sir, just think!”
“I have thought, Buck. It is my duty, and I appeal to you and Dan to come with me. Those faithful blacks will help, if they see you are with us, and go I must.”
“Nay, sir. That’s very well for you to talk, and I suppose folks would say it is very grand to go and throw away your life trying to save your father. If they gets to know of it at home they will say you are a hero, and write about you being a fine example. All very fine for you, because you are a gentleman; but I’m only an or’nary sort of fellow, and I don’t want people to write about me.”
“That will do,” cried Mark angrily. “Go with them, Dean, old fellow.” Dean shook his head.
“I don’t want to be a hero,” continued Mark. “I want to save my father, and if I can’t save him I’m going to die too. There, good-bye. I have talked about people being cowards, but it is only because I am half wild with misery. You have all done your best, and I know what I want you all to do is impossible. Shake hands and say good-bye.” Mark shook hands with the men in turn. “Now you,” he said, and he held out his hand to the blacks, who advanced smiling as if they did not understand, but took it that it was something all right, and then shrank back.
Mark hesitated for a moment, and there was something piteous in his look as he turned to the big driver again.
“I don’t like to go like this,” he said, “but go I will. I have always looked on you as a brave man, Denham, so I will make this last appeal to you. Will you come with me and help me to save my father and the doctor?”
“No, sir, I won’t,” said the man gruffly. “Nor your own friends and companions?”
“No, sir.”
Mark sighed.
“Then I appeal to you, Dan. You will not let us two go alone?”
“Can’t be done, sir,” said the little sailor, shaking his head.
“Do you mean this, Dan?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Dan, after glancing at his big companion.
“Very well,” said Mark quietly. “I have no right to ask it. Come along, Dean; we will go alone.”
Making an effort over his weakness, he strode off as nearly as he could guess in the direction of the ruins, walking fairly steadily now, neither of the pair attempting to look back, and the forest was so silent that the soft rustling of the two lads amongst the leaves sounded loud and strange.
They were walking in Indian file, for Mark had told his cousin to take the lead, and immersed in their own thoughts upon the desperate nature of the attempt they were about to make, they went on and on, in and out amongst the trees that grew more open as they progressed for quite an hour, when coming upon a patch of mossy stones Mark uttered the word, “Rest,” and setting the example he sank down upon one of the stones, to lean his head upon his hand.
“Do you feel weak?” asked Dean.
Mark shook his head.
“No,” he said; “I am getting stronger. We will go on again in a few minutes, and who knows what may happen? I feel that we shall save them yet. Ah!” he cried.
For all at once the little figure of the pigmy stood before them, holding his spear across his breast as if to bar their way.
“Look at that, Dean,” cried Mark. “Faithful and true to us as ever, even when those three men have forsaken us.”
“They have not,” said Dean. “Look.”
Startled by his cousin’s tones, Mark turned from the little black, to realise the fact that the three men whom they had left must have taken a circuitous course under the pigmy’s guidance, cut them off by the scattered stones where they were resting, and were now coming straight towards them.
“Then you have repented, Buck?” cried Mark eagerly.
“No, sir.”
“Then why are you here?” said the boy, starting to his feet, and catching at his cousin’s arm, for his weakness seemed to be returning.
“Because we think, Dan and I, that we have let you go on in your own way long enough. It won’t do, Mr Mark, and you must come back with us; eh, Dan?”
“That’s right, Mr Mark, sir. I never started mutiny before, but I am in for it now. We have ris’ against our officers, and you are both prisoners.”
“Prisoners!” cried Mark wildly. “You will not dare—”
“Yes, my lad.”
“Here, Mak!” cried Mark fiercely. “And you too,” he continued, turning upon the pigmy; “you will stand by us, after all?”
“There, sir,” said Buck; “even they won’t do what you ask. Can’t you see now, my lad, how mad it is?” And the man pointed to where the two blacks had darted away amongst the trees. “There, there must be no nonsense now. We have got to save your lives. You are our prisoners, so give up like men.—Ah, I never thought of that!”
For at that moment there was a repetition of the fierce yelling made familiar to them by the night attack, and they were surrounded by some fifty of the Illakas, who came rushing through the trees, flourishing their spears and looking formidable enough to make the bravest heart beat faster.
Chapter Forty Three.Prisoners.It was the day following their being made prisoners—the party of four, Mak and the pigmy having seemed to melt away amongst the trees at the first onset of the Illakas and not having been seen since.The two boys were utterly disheartened, while their companions, tightly bound, with the canes which were twisted and knotted about their arms and wrists and thoroughly secured behind their backs, looked despondent, Dan in particular, who kept fixing his eyes upon Mark and then turning to shake his head at his companion.For all had had a long and wearisome tramp, urged on by their captors, who at the slightest suggestion of hanging back made threatening gestures with the points of their spears. To the wonder of his party, this last misfortune had seemed to act like a stimulus to Mark, and though slowly, he had kept on as well as he could and had only broken down twice; but now this was the third time, and after what Dan muttered to Buck was “a crackling jabbering,” their captors made preparations for lighting a fire, and some of them went off as if in search of food, while the prisoners gladly sank down to rest.“Say, messmate, drop a word or two to the poor chap.”“All right,” growled Buck, and he turned to where Mark lay alone with his eyes closed. “Come, hold up, Mr Mark, sir. Never say die. They don’t mean to kill us, or they’d have done it before. What do you say, Dan?”“Same as you do, messmate. But what do you say to waiting until night and then as soon as they are all asleep make an escape of it?”“Can’t be done, cookie, and Mr Mark knows as well as as I do that he’d break down before we had gone a couple of score yards. Wish I’d got my waggon here, and the span of oxen. That would just suit you now, sir.”“Don’t talk to me, Buck; don’t talk to me.”“Must, sir. I want to cheer you up a bit. Don’t be rough upon us two. We never meant to let you go on by yourselves, and we set the little Pig after you directly to keep his eye on you, ready for us to come up soon as you gave in and couldn’t walk any farther. And it’s my belief that that little chap has been creeping about among the leaves ever since we started again.”Mark looked at him listlessly, and then half closed his eyes again, utterly exhausted.“Where do you think they are going to take us, Buck?” asked Dean.“Oh, we two have been turning that over, sir, and we both think the same thing. The black brutes have been on the hunt after us ever since we got away, and now that they have caught us they are taking us back to our old camp.”“What makes you think that?” said Dean.“Those two sugar-loaf kopjes that lie right out yonder,” said Buck, giving his head a wag to indicate the clumps of rock that he alluded to.“But those look like the kopjes that we could see from the big wall beyond the waggons.”“That’s right, sir,” said Buck. “They were a good way off, because the air is so clear here. But that’s the way we are going, and sooner or later we shall be there.”“What is it? Feel faint?” said Dean, for his cousin shuddered.“No,” was the half whispered reply. “I can’t bear to think of it. It means so much, Dean.”“Then don’t think,” said Dean. “What’s the good. What’s gone by can’t be altered now.”“You don’t understand me,” said Mark passionately. “The past is bad enough. It is what we have to face when we get there.”“You mean—” began Dean sadly, and then he stopped.Mark was gazing at him wildly, and Dean seemed to read now fully what his cousin meant.“Oh, don’t think that,” he said at last, in a choking voice. “These blacks are savage enough, but as Buck said, if they meant to kill us they would have speared us before now.”“Yes,” said Mark, “and I daresay he’s right; but I was thinking of what happened during that horrible fight in the darkness.”“Ah–h–h!” sighed Dean softly; and no more was said.Later on the blacks brought their prisoners half cooked food from their fire, which was scarcely touched, and water from the spring by which they were camped for the night; and of this they drank with avidity.Then came the soft darkness, with the light of the great stars seeming to the boys to gaze pityingly down upon them; and then as the eager chattering of their captors ceased, the great silence of the forest fell upon them, bringing with it the sweet reward of the utterly wearied out.Twice over in the night Mark, however, awoke with a start, the first time to listen to the deep barking roar of a lion which approached the prisoner, but without bringing any sense of dread.It was a familiar sound to him, that was all; and as at intervals it came nearer and nearer and the thought occurred to the boy that the savage beast might be waiting to make a spring, it did not trouble him in the least. The position was curious, that was all; and the last time he heard the beast’s roar Mark found himself wondering what it would feel like to be suddenly snatched away, and he was still wondering, when all grew utterly still and lonely and then he started, knowing he had been asleep, but quite convinced that something had crawled close up to him and had lightly drawn its paw across his breast.“The lion!” he thought, and then he remembered having read about those who had been seized by one of these great beasts having felt mentally stunned and so helpless and free from fear and pain that they had made no attempt to escape, and thinking that this was exactly his case, he lay trying to pierce the darkness so as to make out the shape of the fierce beast whose jaws might at any moment close upon his arm.Just then one of the blacks sprang up, to utter a yawn and shake himself, while from close behind Mark’s head something leaped away, making bound after bound.Silence again as Mark lay listening to the one of their captors who had sprung up, and who now uttered a long-drawn yawn and lay down again.It must have been quite half an hour after that Mark, though he had heard nothing approach, felt the touch of his late visitor’s paw laid heavily upon his breast, and as if fascinated the boy lay without moving, until the paw—no, it was a hand—a small hand—was laid across his mouth, and directly after a pair of lips, quite warm, rested upon his right ear, and the word “Baas” was breathed therein.“The pigmy!” thought Mark, and there was the sensation as of a great sob of joy struggling from his throat.That was all; but the incident meant so much. There was a friend who was free, watching over the blacks’ prisoners, and the next minute a feeling of confidence pervaded the boy’s breast, for he was now sure that the inseparable Mak would be near at hand.
It was the day following their being made prisoners—the party of four, Mak and the pigmy having seemed to melt away amongst the trees at the first onset of the Illakas and not having been seen since.
The two boys were utterly disheartened, while their companions, tightly bound, with the canes which were twisted and knotted about their arms and wrists and thoroughly secured behind their backs, looked despondent, Dan in particular, who kept fixing his eyes upon Mark and then turning to shake his head at his companion.
For all had had a long and wearisome tramp, urged on by their captors, who at the slightest suggestion of hanging back made threatening gestures with the points of their spears. To the wonder of his party, this last misfortune had seemed to act like a stimulus to Mark, and though slowly, he had kept on as well as he could and had only broken down twice; but now this was the third time, and after what Dan muttered to Buck was “a crackling jabbering,” their captors made preparations for lighting a fire, and some of them went off as if in search of food, while the prisoners gladly sank down to rest.
“Say, messmate, drop a word or two to the poor chap.”
“All right,” growled Buck, and he turned to where Mark lay alone with his eyes closed. “Come, hold up, Mr Mark, sir. Never say die. They don’t mean to kill us, or they’d have done it before. What do you say, Dan?”
“Same as you do, messmate. But what do you say to waiting until night and then as soon as they are all asleep make an escape of it?”
“Can’t be done, cookie, and Mr Mark knows as well as as I do that he’d break down before we had gone a couple of score yards. Wish I’d got my waggon here, and the span of oxen. That would just suit you now, sir.”
“Don’t talk to me, Buck; don’t talk to me.”
“Must, sir. I want to cheer you up a bit. Don’t be rough upon us two. We never meant to let you go on by yourselves, and we set the little Pig after you directly to keep his eye on you, ready for us to come up soon as you gave in and couldn’t walk any farther. And it’s my belief that that little chap has been creeping about among the leaves ever since we started again.”
Mark looked at him listlessly, and then half closed his eyes again, utterly exhausted.
“Where do you think they are going to take us, Buck?” asked Dean.
“Oh, we two have been turning that over, sir, and we both think the same thing. The black brutes have been on the hunt after us ever since we got away, and now that they have caught us they are taking us back to our old camp.”
“What makes you think that?” said Dean.
“Those two sugar-loaf kopjes that lie right out yonder,” said Buck, giving his head a wag to indicate the clumps of rock that he alluded to.
“But those look like the kopjes that we could see from the big wall beyond the waggons.”
“That’s right, sir,” said Buck. “They were a good way off, because the air is so clear here. But that’s the way we are going, and sooner or later we shall be there.”
“What is it? Feel faint?” said Dean, for his cousin shuddered.
“No,” was the half whispered reply. “I can’t bear to think of it. It means so much, Dean.”
“Then don’t think,” said Dean. “What’s the good. What’s gone by can’t be altered now.”
“You don’t understand me,” said Mark passionately. “The past is bad enough. It is what we have to face when we get there.”
“You mean—” began Dean sadly, and then he stopped.
Mark was gazing at him wildly, and Dean seemed to read now fully what his cousin meant.
“Oh, don’t think that,” he said at last, in a choking voice. “These blacks are savage enough, but as Buck said, if they meant to kill us they would have speared us before now.”
“Yes,” said Mark, “and I daresay he’s right; but I was thinking of what happened during that horrible fight in the darkness.”
“Ah–h–h!” sighed Dean softly; and no more was said.
Later on the blacks brought their prisoners half cooked food from their fire, which was scarcely touched, and water from the spring by which they were camped for the night; and of this they drank with avidity.
Then came the soft darkness, with the light of the great stars seeming to the boys to gaze pityingly down upon them; and then as the eager chattering of their captors ceased, the great silence of the forest fell upon them, bringing with it the sweet reward of the utterly wearied out.
Twice over in the night Mark, however, awoke with a start, the first time to listen to the deep barking roar of a lion which approached the prisoner, but without bringing any sense of dread.
It was a familiar sound to him, that was all; and as at intervals it came nearer and nearer and the thought occurred to the boy that the savage beast might be waiting to make a spring, it did not trouble him in the least. The position was curious, that was all; and the last time he heard the beast’s roar Mark found himself wondering what it would feel like to be suddenly snatched away, and he was still wondering, when all grew utterly still and lonely and then he started, knowing he had been asleep, but quite convinced that something had crawled close up to him and had lightly drawn its paw across his breast.
“The lion!” he thought, and then he remembered having read about those who had been seized by one of these great beasts having felt mentally stunned and so helpless and free from fear and pain that they had made no attempt to escape, and thinking that this was exactly his case, he lay trying to pierce the darkness so as to make out the shape of the fierce beast whose jaws might at any moment close upon his arm.
Just then one of the blacks sprang up, to utter a yawn and shake himself, while from close behind Mark’s head something leaped away, making bound after bound.
Silence again as Mark lay listening to the one of their captors who had sprung up, and who now uttered a long-drawn yawn and lay down again.
It must have been quite half an hour after that Mark, though he had heard nothing approach, felt the touch of his late visitor’s paw laid heavily upon his breast, and as if fascinated the boy lay without moving, until the paw—no, it was a hand—a small hand—was laid across his mouth, and directly after a pair of lips, quite warm, rested upon his right ear, and the word “Baas” was breathed therein.
“The pigmy!” thought Mark, and there was the sensation as of a great sob of joy struggling from his throat.
That was all; but the incident meant so much. There was a friend who was free, watching over the blacks’ prisoners, and the next minute a feeling of confidence pervaded the boy’s breast, for he was now sure that the inseparable Mak would be near at hand.
Chapter Forty Four.A Surprise.Morning again, after a long sleep, and the rest and the feeling of confidence that had come like an inspiration enabled Mark to partake of some of the rough food brought to them by the blacks; and when in obedience to the latter Mark and his companions arose, he was better able to resume the march, which lasted till towards evening, while about noon they passed between the two kopjes, where they were allowed an hour’s rest, and as the afternoon grew older, familiar objects made the boys’ hearts bound and sink again with despair. For they were convinced now that before night they would reach the ruins, where the blacks who had made the first attack would be doubtless awaiting the portion of their tribe who had been so successful in their raid after the escaped party.There was no doubt about it now, and as the boys walked together their countenances showed the emotions that swelled their breasts.At one time their hearts seemed to sink lower with despair, and when this was at its worst, hope would come again as they marked portions of the ruins which they had visited; clumps of trees that had afforded them shade; plains that had never failed to furnish them with bucks when out with the rifle.Later on they caught again and again rays that darted, reflected from the river which had supplied their fish. Several times too they sprang coveys of the partridge-like birds that had been so welcome to their table; and at such times as this, with the full intent of cheering up the drooping spirits of Mark, little Dan had drawn his attention to a drove of antelopes or a flock of birds, with some merry suggestion connected with his old fire place—his kitchen, he termed it—at the ruins.Mark smiled feebly, and Dan shrank away to the side of Buck.“I didn’t do much good, messmate,” he said, “but it’s wonderful how he’s kept up. It’s my belief, and I says it ’cause I know, and no one better, what it was to be as weak as a cat and as sick as a dog after my fever—it’s these ’ere plains as does it. Soon as I had started up country I began to grow. One day I was like a little kid—just a baby, you know. Next day I was a toddler just beginning to walk. Next day I was a little boy as could run; and so I went on breathing and growing till—you know what I was like, feeling as if I was alive again, and I was a man ready and willing for aught.”Buck grunted and frowned at the ruins they were approaching.“What’s the matter, messmate? Cheer up, can’t you!”“Can’t, Dan. I’m a-thinking of my two span of bullocks.”“Oh, they’ll be all right.”“Not they, Dan. I know what these blacks are. They will have sat down for one of their great big gorges. But if they have eaten six-and-forty of my bullocks I’ll never forgive them—there!”“Well, we shall soon see, messmate.”“I’m afraid, my lad, as we shan’t see.”“Well, but I didn’t finish,” said Dan. “I was talking about Mr Mark. The way in which he has pulled up has been just like me, and he’d be just wonderful only he’s so low-sperrited about his governor—and no wonder. Young Mr Dean too’s just as bad, and he arn’t got the pluck left in him to do his cousin no good. Heave to alongside of him and say a word or two.”“All right; but who’s to heave to with his arms and legs all tied together behind him like a market calf?”“Well, it arn’t worse for you, messmate, than it is for me. I don’t like it a bit, and it’s all very well to call a fellow’s arms his feelers, but there arn’t a bit of feel left in mine.”“No,” said Buck, “and I don’t feel as if I’d got any. Just look and see.”“Oh, they are all right, messmate. I did think of setting to and gnawing through them canes last night; but they would only have tied them up again, and tighter too.”Buck nodded, giving his companion in misfortune a friendly look, and as he was about to approach closer to Mark, he stopped to whisper, “I don’t know what to say, mate, for whenever I look at the poor plucky chap and think about all he’s gone through, I feel as if I should like to sit down and howl. But there, that will do. I have thought on it now.”The next minute, after making a quiet approach so as not to draw the attention of the blacks who were driving them, as he said, “like a span o’ oxen,” Buck was alongside of the two boys.“Say, Mr Mark,” he said, “don’t that there big kopje put you in mind of going up and finding that there cave?”Mark started, for his thoughts had a far different trend, and he shook his head.“I’ve been a-thinking of it, sir, ever since it come into sight. ’Member finding that there walking mummy as Dan said was such an old ’un?”Mark shook his head.“Oh, but you do, Mr Dean. I wish we had had time, all of us, to have got up there before the niggers came that night. We could have kept them back for a twelvemonth if we had only knowed.”Poor Buck had joined the boys with the best intentions, but seeing the look of agony Dean directed at him he slackened his pace and let the pair go on without another word.“Why, what’s the good of that?” said Dan, as the two men were alongside again. “You didn’t half talk to ’em.”“Didn’t half talk to ’em, my lad? I talked a deal too much. Why, I no sooner opened my mouth than, as they said of the chap, I put my foot in it. Well, what’s it going to be?” continued the big fellow sadly—“regular heartbreaking work for those two poor young chaps? I can’t talk much about it, but I have thought a deal.”“So have I, messmate.”“Ah,” said Buck, “I’m afraid it’s all over with the poor old governor. Fine old English gentleman he was.”“Ay,” said Dan, “and the poor doctor too. Talk about a man, Buck—they don’t build many craft like him. Thorough gentleman down to the ground, and all the same a regular working man too. If there’s anything he couldn’t do it’s because it arn’t been invented yet. My word, messmate, what a skipper he would have made! I should just like to have gone through life as his first mate.”“Ah,” said Buck, “well, we shan’t be long before we know the worst. Look! Here they come, yelling and shouting and singing welcome home to our lot. Now, what’s it going to be next?”“Ah, that’s what I want to know,” said Dan. “They arn’t cannyballs, or it would mean a big fire and a wholesale roast.”“Haw, haw!” ejaculated the big fellow, in a dismal attempt at a laugh. “Why, they will be making you cook, Danny. Well, if they do, put me out of my misery first, and good luck to ’em! They will find me pretty tough. I know what I should like to do, Dan. I have been wishing that I was a nigger like our Mak. He is just like a heel. No matter what happens he’s always able to slip out of the way. But just now I don’t wish I was a nigger. I should just like to be one of them Malay kris chaps, get my arm set free, and then run amuck.”“What’s the good of that, messmate? They’d only spear you at last.”“Well, I should have sarved some of them out for what they’ve done to the boss and the doctor, and what they are a-going to do to them two poor lads.”Buck Denham ceased speaking, for a party of about sixty of the Illakas came rushing out, yelling, from the ruins, and brandishing their spears, joining the boys’ captors and beginning to indulge in a furious kind of war dance, a savage triumph, in which the prisoners were surrounded and hurried right in amongst the ruins to the opening of the kraal, and where the clearing had been made by the travellers and explorers of the wondrous ruins.Mark and Dean allowed themselves to be forced unresistingly along, wild-eyed and staring, but not with fear, for self for the time being had no existence in their minds.Their wildly staring eyes were searching here, there and everywhere for a glimpse of Sir James and the doctor. But they looked in vain.It is, they say, the unexpected that occurs, for all at once as the prisoners were standing right in the middle of the kraal, surrounded by fully a hundred of the gesticulating, yelling and spear-waving blacks, there was the clattering of hoofs and a shrill and seemingly familiar ear-piercing whistle.“Look, look!” cried Mark wildly, as a feeling of rage pierced his breast. “Look at him! The coward! He has come to join these wretches’ triumph!”“Ah!” cried Dean excitedly.“Then he arn’t going to stop,” growled Buck.“No,” added Dan savagely. “He just ketched sight of me. Oh, if I—”He got no farther, but stopped in astonishment as great as that of the surrounding blacks, for, whistling loudly as he galloped up on one of the ponies, and followed by the other three, and apparently leading a charmed life, careless too of the threatening spears, Dunn Brown swooped at full speed into and round the kraal, and then away again out of the opening towards the plain to join the advancing line of dust-clothed helmeted men who, raising the genuine old English cheer, were led on by a couple of mounted officers, and the next minute every stone and hillock of the ruins was being occupied; a bugle sounded, and then—Crack! Crack! Crack! every report being repeated scores of times as it rattled amongst the ruined walls. The little peaceful home of the explorers had become a miniature battlefield.There was a wild yelling and the hurling of spears, as for a few minutes a brave enough resistance was being offered by the savage tribe; but soon there was the peculiar spirit-thrilling metallic rattle of bayonets upon rifles, and then with black figures falling in all directions the company of British infantry swept through the kraal and cleared the little camp to line the great wall, and, taking up this commanding position, to bring down the enemy as they fled.It was only the work of minutes, and before long the wall at the back of the camp had its coigns of vantage lined, and was sending forth its little puffs of smoke, while Captain Lawton had sprung from his horse, and cut free the prisoners, and was warmly shaking hands with each in turn.“Thank God, my lads, we are here in time!” he cried. “But your father—the doctor—where are they?” he added. “Don’t say that—”“Hooray!” came faintly, quite a distant cheer, which was answered by the men upon the wall and taken up by every British soldier within hearing, and followed up by the triumphant notes of the bugle as it sounded cease firing—for the fight was at an end.There was another cheer in the distance, and another, and the boys, whose breasts were still swelling with emotion, doubled by the captain’s words—his appealing “Don’t say that—” now stared vainly and unable to comprehend why it was that fresh shots were raising the echoes again in the direction of the cavern kopje; and it was not till Buck Denham on one side, Dan Mann on the other, caught Mark, wincing and grimacing with pain from their numbed arms, and pointed, that the truth came home.Both he and Dean were beginning to have some glimmering of the truth, and then it was enforced by a volley fired from the slope leading down from the cavern.It was only a little volley fired from four rifles, but it was as if the echoes of the old ruins had multiplied it as being from four thousand.It was so little, but meant so much, for it was fired by Sir James, the doctor, and the two keepers, who had found a refuge in the old medicine man’s sanctuary, which, in spite of fierce besieging, they had managed to hold until the rescue came.
Morning again, after a long sleep, and the rest and the feeling of confidence that had come like an inspiration enabled Mark to partake of some of the rough food brought to them by the blacks; and when in obedience to the latter Mark and his companions arose, he was better able to resume the march, which lasted till towards evening, while about noon they passed between the two kopjes, where they were allowed an hour’s rest, and as the afternoon grew older, familiar objects made the boys’ hearts bound and sink again with despair. For they were convinced now that before night they would reach the ruins, where the blacks who had made the first attack would be doubtless awaiting the portion of their tribe who had been so successful in their raid after the escaped party.
There was no doubt about it now, and as the boys walked together their countenances showed the emotions that swelled their breasts.
At one time their hearts seemed to sink lower with despair, and when this was at its worst, hope would come again as they marked portions of the ruins which they had visited; clumps of trees that had afforded them shade; plains that had never failed to furnish them with bucks when out with the rifle.
Later on they caught again and again rays that darted, reflected from the river which had supplied their fish. Several times too they sprang coveys of the partridge-like birds that had been so welcome to their table; and at such times as this, with the full intent of cheering up the drooping spirits of Mark, little Dan had drawn his attention to a drove of antelopes or a flock of birds, with some merry suggestion connected with his old fire place—his kitchen, he termed it—at the ruins.
Mark smiled feebly, and Dan shrank away to the side of Buck.
“I didn’t do much good, messmate,” he said, “but it’s wonderful how he’s kept up. It’s my belief, and I says it ’cause I know, and no one better, what it was to be as weak as a cat and as sick as a dog after my fever—it’s these ’ere plains as does it. Soon as I had started up country I began to grow. One day I was like a little kid—just a baby, you know. Next day I was a toddler just beginning to walk. Next day I was a little boy as could run; and so I went on breathing and growing till—you know what I was like, feeling as if I was alive again, and I was a man ready and willing for aught.”
Buck grunted and frowned at the ruins they were approaching.
“What’s the matter, messmate? Cheer up, can’t you!”
“Can’t, Dan. I’m a-thinking of my two span of bullocks.”
“Oh, they’ll be all right.”
“Not they, Dan. I know what these blacks are. They will have sat down for one of their great big gorges. But if they have eaten six-and-forty of my bullocks I’ll never forgive them—there!”
“Well, we shall soon see, messmate.”
“I’m afraid, my lad, as we shan’t see.”
“Well, but I didn’t finish,” said Dan. “I was talking about Mr Mark. The way in which he has pulled up has been just like me, and he’d be just wonderful only he’s so low-sperrited about his governor—and no wonder. Young Mr Dean too’s just as bad, and he arn’t got the pluck left in him to do his cousin no good. Heave to alongside of him and say a word or two.”
“All right; but who’s to heave to with his arms and legs all tied together behind him like a market calf?”
“Well, it arn’t worse for you, messmate, than it is for me. I don’t like it a bit, and it’s all very well to call a fellow’s arms his feelers, but there arn’t a bit of feel left in mine.”
“No,” said Buck, “and I don’t feel as if I’d got any. Just look and see.”
“Oh, they are all right, messmate. I did think of setting to and gnawing through them canes last night; but they would only have tied them up again, and tighter too.”
Buck nodded, giving his companion in misfortune a friendly look, and as he was about to approach closer to Mark, he stopped to whisper, “I don’t know what to say, mate, for whenever I look at the poor plucky chap and think about all he’s gone through, I feel as if I should like to sit down and howl. But there, that will do. I have thought on it now.”
The next minute, after making a quiet approach so as not to draw the attention of the blacks who were driving them, as he said, “like a span o’ oxen,” Buck was alongside of the two boys.
“Say, Mr Mark,” he said, “don’t that there big kopje put you in mind of going up and finding that there cave?”
Mark started, for his thoughts had a far different trend, and he shook his head.
“I’ve been a-thinking of it, sir, ever since it come into sight. ’Member finding that there walking mummy as Dan said was such an old ’un?”
Mark shook his head.
“Oh, but you do, Mr Dean. I wish we had had time, all of us, to have got up there before the niggers came that night. We could have kept them back for a twelvemonth if we had only knowed.”
Poor Buck had joined the boys with the best intentions, but seeing the look of agony Dean directed at him he slackened his pace and let the pair go on without another word.
“Why, what’s the good of that?” said Dan, as the two men were alongside again. “You didn’t half talk to ’em.”
“Didn’t half talk to ’em, my lad? I talked a deal too much. Why, I no sooner opened my mouth than, as they said of the chap, I put my foot in it. Well, what’s it going to be?” continued the big fellow sadly—“regular heartbreaking work for those two poor young chaps? I can’t talk much about it, but I have thought a deal.”
“So have I, messmate.”
“Ah,” said Buck, “I’m afraid it’s all over with the poor old governor. Fine old English gentleman he was.”
“Ay,” said Dan, “and the poor doctor too. Talk about a man, Buck—they don’t build many craft like him. Thorough gentleman down to the ground, and all the same a regular working man too. If there’s anything he couldn’t do it’s because it arn’t been invented yet. My word, messmate, what a skipper he would have made! I should just like to have gone through life as his first mate.”
“Ah,” said Buck, “well, we shan’t be long before we know the worst. Look! Here they come, yelling and shouting and singing welcome home to our lot. Now, what’s it going to be next?”
“Ah, that’s what I want to know,” said Dan. “They arn’t cannyballs, or it would mean a big fire and a wholesale roast.”
“Haw, haw!” ejaculated the big fellow, in a dismal attempt at a laugh. “Why, they will be making you cook, Danny. Well, if they do, put me out of my misery first, and good luck to ’em! They will find me pretty tough. I know what I should like to do, Dan. I have been wishing that I was a nigger like our Mak. He is just like a heel. No matter what happens he’s always able to slip out of the way. But just now I don’t wish I was a nigger. I should just like to be one of them Malay kris chaps, get my arm set free, and then run amuck.”
“What’s the good of that, messmate? They’d only spear you at last.”
“Well, I should have sarved some of them out for what they’ve done to the boss and the doctor, and what they are a-going to do to them two poor lads.”
Buck Denham ceased speaking, for a party of about sixty of the Illakas came rushing out, yelling, from the ruins, and brandishing their spears, joining the boys’ captors and beginning to indulge in a furious kind of war dance, a savage triumph, in which the prisoners were surrounded and hurried right in amongst the ruins to the opening of the kraal, and where the clearing had been made by the travellers and explorers of the wondrous ruins.
Mark and Dean allowed themselves to be forced unresistingly along, wild-eyed and staring, but not with fear, for self for the time being had no existence in their minds.
Their wildly staring eyes were searching here, there and everywhere for a glimpse of Sir James and the doctor. But they looked in vain.
It is, they say, the unexpected that occurs, for all at once as the prisoners were standing right in the middle of the kraal, surrounded by fully a hundred of the gesticulating, yelling and spear-waving blacks, there was the clattering of hoofs and a shrill and seemingly familiar ear-piercing whistle.
“Look, look!” cried Mark wildly, as a feeling of rage pierced his breast. “Look at him! The coward! He has come to join these wretches’ triumph!”
“Ah!” cried Dean excitedly.
“Then he arn’t going to stop,” growled Buck.
“No,” added Dan savagely. “He just ketched sight of me. Oh, if I—”
He got no farther, but stopped in astonishment as great as that of the surrounding blacks, for, whistling loudly as he galloped up on one of the ponies, and followed by the other three, and apparently leading a charmed life, careless too of the threatening spears, Dunn Brown swooped at full speed into and round the kraal, and then away again out of the opening towards the plain to join the advancing line of dust-clothed helmeted men who, raising the genuine old English cheer, were led on by a couple of mounted officers, and the next minute every stone and hillock of the ruins was being occupied; a bugle sounded, and then—Crack! Crack! Crack! every report being repeated scores of times as it rattled amongst the ruined walls. The little peaceful home of the explorers had become a miniature battlefield.
There was a wild yelling and the hurling of spears, as for a few minutes a brave enough resistance was being offered by the savage tribe; but soon there was the peculiar spirit-thrilling metallic rattle of bayonets upon rifles, and then with black figures falling in all directions the company of British infantry swept through the kraal and cleared the little camp to line the great wall, and, taking up this commanding position, to bring down the enemy as they fled.
It was only the work of minutes, and before long the wall at the back of the camp had its coigns of vantage lined, and was sending forth its little puffs of smoke, while Captain Lawton had sprung from his horse, and cut free the prisoners, and was warmly shaking hands with each in turn.
“Thank God, my lads, we are here in time!” he cried. “But your father—the doctor—where are they?” he added. “Don’t say that—”
“Hooray!” came faintly, quite a distant cheer, which was answered by the men upon the wall and taken up by every British soldier within hearing, and followed up by the triumphant notes of the bugle as it sounded cease firing—for the fight was at an end.
There was another cheer in the distance, and another, and the boys, whose breasts were still swelling with emotion, doubled by the captain’s words—his appealing “Don’t say that—” now stared vainly and unable to comprehend why it was that fresh shots were raising the echoes again in the direction of the cavern kopje; and it was not till Buck Denham on one side, Dan Mann on the other, caught Mark, wincing and grimacing with pain from their numbed arms, and pointed, that the truth came home.
Both he and Dean were beginning to have some glimmering of the truth, and then it was enforced by a volley fired from the slope leading down from the cavern.
It was only a little volley fired from four rifles, but it was as if the echoes of the old ruins had multiplied it as being from four thousand.
It was so little, but meant so much, for it was fired by Sir James, the doctor, and the two keepers, who had found a refuge in the old medicine man’s sanctuary, which, in spite of fierce besieging, they had managed to hold until the rescue came.