Volume Two—Chapter Seven.A Timely Flight.Marshall’s prediction was verified. Claverton and his host returned to Fountain’s Gap at desk; but without the lost stock. They had spoored the animals down to a drift of the Kei River, and had even crossed; but in the then state of things they deemed it imprudent to a degree to venture farther into the enemy’s country; and the thieves, having a good start of them, escaped with their booty.Careful watch was kept that night in Payne’s household; but beyond a couple of alarms—not unjustifiable after the events of the last twenty-four hours, though happily false—nothing transpired.Under the influence of the cheering sunshine all were disposed to think more lightly of the situation; but Payne had formed his plans. It would not do to remain there any longer. He, in common with other settlers on that part of the Kaffrarian border, was very precariously situated. What with Kreli, just across the river, in a state of declared war; and the powerful Gaika clans, within colonial territory, liable to rise at any moment and make common cause with their brethren, George fully realised that he was in a cleft stick, hemmed in as he would thus be by hostile natives on every side. So he made up his mind to abandon Fountain’s Gap, and remove his family to Komgha; then he would have his hands free to take the field if it were still necessary. The move was to be made that morning, and all the household were hastily preparing for it.It was arranged that they should remain in the settlement for the present, till it could be seen how things would turn out. There they would be safe, as the place would be a kind of dépôt and the headquarters whence all operations for guarding the border would be carried on.“And now, George, I suppose the Kafirs will have made a bonfire of the house before I see it again,” remarked his wife, as a turn of the road hid the homestead from view.“Dunno. Impossible to predict. They may, and they may not,” sententiously replied George, whose chief object in life, at that moment, was the lighting of his pipe under the adverse circumstances of being at the same time obliged to control a pair of strong, fresh horses, none of the quietest at the best of times. He was driving a Cape cart, the ordinary family coach of the frontier settler, which, besides the said family, contained very little else, for he intended to return at once as soon as the womenkind were in safety, and load up a waggon with such of his lares and penates as it was most desirable to preserve; for the rest, well, he supposed it must take its chance. Lilian was riding—needless to specify with what escort—and Marshall, who was leading a young horse, and whose attention was wholly taken up with that intractable animal—or at any rate, said it was—rode a little way behind.“I wonder when I shall get you all to myself again, Arthur,” she said, softly.“I was thinking very much the same,” he replied. “But keep the mercury up, dear. The row may not last long.”“Yes. I must not be such a coward,” she said. “But somehow this morning, in spite of the sunshine and the glorious weather, there is something so awfully depressing over everything. The whole country seems deserted. That farmhouse we just passed spoke volumes, standing there all shut up; and there are no natives about even. It is dreadful.”She was rather pale, after the long, anxious night, depressed as with the shadow of coming woe. Claverton looked tenderly at the sweet face in its sad, delicate beauty, and wished to Heaven the Kafirs would leave them all in peace. A fight was very good fun, but, for his part, he had had enough in the way of excitement to last him all his life, at least so he thought; and now he would ask nothing better than to spend the remainder of his days in calm, undisturbed quiet, with this, his long-lost love.“Look,” he said; “there are some people coming across there—and they are Kafirs.”Lilian started. “Where? Oh, there are only a few,” said she, in a relieved tone. For now, every member of the Amaxosa race assumed, in her imagination, the form of a fierce enemy threatening destruction to her and hers.The natives, who had been crossing a bushy hollow some four hundred yards off, suddenly stopped, and began peering over the trees at the party, as if uncertain as to the reception they would meet with. Far away stretched the rolling sunny plains, and the lines of wooded hills, where here and there a thick column of smoke ascended through the clear air. One or two distant homesteads were visible—empty, and their pastures tenantless, for a general flight had taken place and the land seemed dead indeed; and there, a little way off, were the red forms of the Kafirs watching them from the bush, while the pleasant sun shone upon the bright points of their assegais.“It reminds me rather of our ride over to Thirlestane that day,” said Claverton. “It’s just such another day for sunshine and scenery.”“But not for peace,” she rejoined, softly. “Ah, if all was only as peaceful now.”“But it will be, darling. Only a little while longer,” replied he, glad to have diverted her thoughts from this unexpected source of fear. And as they rode on further and further from it, the group of armed savages could still be seen watching them from the hill, but these were too few in number to be formidable, and, moreover, the settlement was near at hand. To which another hour of journeying brought them in due course.And how changed was the aspect of the ordinarily quiet little village now! Waggons stood about everywhere, the three or four irregular streets were filled with a bustling crowd—men mounted and men afoot—men of every class and pursuit—farmer, mechanic, storekeeper, frontier policeman, with here and there a military uniform, and, amid the crowd, dark-skinned natives moved quietly about, or stood in knots at the corners, discussing the latestindaba. And the softer sex, too, held its own, in the shape of the wives and daughters of the settlers—these, for their part, of as varied a class as their lords—the ponderous frame of the blowzy Dutchvrouw, side by side with the regular features and straight profile of some tastefully-attired daughter of an old English line.But although at first sight the place wore an air of bustle and confusion, it must not be supposed that chaos reigned. A regular system of defence had been organised in the event of attack, and certain points of vantage entrenched and fortified, and the safety of the place was provided for ably and well. The surrounding country, undulating and grassy, was dotted with horses and cattle grazing. These could be driven in at a moment’s warning; and the approaches to the place, being quite open and devoid of cover, were abundantly commanded by the artillery barracks of the Frontier Armed and Mounted Police, which stood upon a hill some eight hundred yards from the village. The church, a brick and plaster building of unparalleled ugliness, would make an efficient block-house in the last extremity—surrounded as it was with a high sod wall. For those to whom their fellows’ necessities were their own opportunities, the existing state of affairs promised a rich harvest, for the stores were doing a brisk trade, and the canteens and hotels were full morning, noon, and night. On the steps of one of the latter lounged a group of men as our friends arrived.“Hullo, Payne! You don’t mean to say that’s yourself?” cried one. “Why, I thought you were going to stick to your place through it all.”“Well, and who says I’m not?” retorted Payne. “Can’t a fellow drive into the village for the day without having trekked?”“Oh, for the day!” repeated the first speaker, significantly. “Then, my good fellow, let me recommend you to remain. After that last affair we shall have old Kreli coming straight across to give as a look up, he’ll be so cock-a-hoop.”“Wish he would,” growled another. “We’d give him particular toko.”“What last affair?” said Payne, half anticipating the answer. “Has there been a fight?”“I should jes’ think there had. A few of the Police and a lot of Fingoes were tackled by the Gcalekas; but you must have heard!”“No, I haven’t; not a word.”“Well, then,” went on the other, brightening up as a man will do when he is the first to impart to you a big bit of news; “the thing was this. A lot of Gcalekas—five thousand, they say—were going across to thrash the Fingoes, and the Police were ordered out to support the Fingoes. They met, and the gun opened fire—one of them seven-pounders they were practising here with t’other day. It appears that they made very good shootin’, and mowed down the Kafirs like smoke; and then somehow or other the gun broke down, and, by George, sir, before you could say ‘knife’ the Fingoes turned tail and ran—bolted clean. Well, of course it wasn’t to be expected a few Police—a mere handful as it were—How many were there, Jim?” broke off the narrator, turning to a companion.“About one hundred and sixty.”“Yes. Well, it wasn’t to be expected they could stand against five thousand of Kreli’s chaps; and they didn’t. The order was given to retire, and then it became a job to catch the horses, and, as the Kafirs charged them, they were obliged to run for it. Some who couldn’t catch their horses were killed—six—six privates and a sub-inspector; and now old Kreli’s cock of the walk—for the time being.”“Where was the row?” asked Claverton.“Well, it was at a place called Guadana—just on the boundary of the Idutywa Reserve.”“When was it—yesterday?” inquired Payne.“No—day before. I’m expecting a chap round here directly who’s straight from up there. Come in and liquor, and we’ll get him to tell us all about it.”“The day before yesterday!” echoed Payne, opening his eyes wide—and he and Claverton looked meaningly at each other—for it was on the evening of that very day that the old Kafir had come to them with his stealthy warning, and the dread Fire Trumpet had blazed forth on the Kei hills, signalling to the expectant tribes within the colonial boundary, the news of their brethren’s victory. And it was on the following day that they two had so nearly carried the war into the enemy’s country in pursuit of the stolen cattle, all unconscious, then, of the mad rashness of the undertaking—an undertaking, which, had it been carried out, would assuredly have cost them their lives.
Marshall’s prediction was verified. Claverton and his host returned to Fountain’s Gap at desk; but without the lost stock. They had spoored the animals down to a drift of the Kei River, and had even crossed; but in the then state of things they deemed it imprudent to a degree to venture farther into the enemy’s country; and the thieves, having a good start of them, escaped with their booty.
Careful watch was kept that night in Payne’s household; but beyond a couple of alarms—not unjustifiable after the events of the last twenty-four hours, though happily false—nothing transpired.
Under the influence of the cheering sunshine all were disposed to think more lightly of the situation; but Payne had formed his plans. It would not do to remain there any longer. He, in common with other settlers on that part of the Kaffrarian border, was very precariously situated. What with Kreli, just across the river, in a state of declared war; and the powerful Gaika clans, within colonial territory, liable to rise at any moment and make common cause with their brethren, George fully realised that he was in a cleft stick, hemmed in as he would thus be by hostile natives on every side. So he made up his mind to abandon Fountain’s Gap, and remove his family to Komgha; then he would have his hands free to take the field if it were still necessary. The move was to be made that morning, and all the household were hastily preparing for it.
It was arranged that they should remain in the settlement for the present, till it could be seen how things would turn out. There they would be safe, as the place would be a kind of dépôt and the headquarters whence all operations for guarding the border would be carried on.
“And now, George, I suppose the Kafirs will have made a bonfire of the house before I see it again,” remarked his wife, as a turn of the road hid the homestead from view.
“Dunno. Impossible to predict. They may, and they may not,” sententiously replied George, whose chief object in life, at that moment, was the lighting of his pipe under the adverse circumstances of being at the same time obliged to control a pair of strong, fresh horses, none of the quietest at the best of times. He was driving a Cape cart, the ordinary family coach of the frontier settler, which, besides the said family, contained very little else, for he intended to return at once as soon as the womenkind were in safety, and load up a waggon with such of his lares and penates as it was most desirable to preserve; for the rest, well, he supposed it must take its chance. Lilian was riding—needless to specify with what escort—and Marshall, who was leading a young horse, and whose attention was wholly taken up with that intractable animal—or at any rate, said it was—rode a little way behind.
“I wonder when I shall get you all to myself again, Arthur,” she said, softly.
“I was thinking very much the same,” he replied. “But keep the mercury up, dear. The row may not last long.”
“Yes. I must not be such a coward,” she said. “But somehow this morning, in spite of the sunshine and the glorious weather, there is something so awfully depressing over everything. The whole country seems deserted. That farmhouse we just passed spoke volumes, standing there all shut up; and there are no natives about even. It is dreadful.”
She was rather pale, after the long, anxious night, depressed as with the shadow of coming woe. Claverton looked tenderly at the sweet face in its sad, delicate beauty, and wished to Heaven the Kafirs would leave them all in peace. A fight was very good fun, but, for his part, he had had enough in the way of excitement to last him all his life, at least so he thought; and now he would ask nothing better than to spend the remainder of his days in calm, undisturbed quiet, with this, his long-lost love.
“Look,” he said; “there are some people coming across there—and they are Kafirs.”
Lilian started. “Where? Oh, there are only a few,” said she, in a relieved tone. For now, every member of the Amaxosa race assumed, in her imagination, the form of a fierce enemy threatening destruction to her and hers.
The natives, who had been crossing a bushy hollow some four hundred yards off, suddenly stopped, and began peering over the trees at the party, as if uncertain as to the reception they would meet with. Far away stretched the rolling sunny plains, and the lines of wooded hills, where here and there a thick column of smoke ascended through the clear air. One or two distant homesteads were visible—empty, and their pastures tenantless, for a general flight had taken place and the land seemed dead indeed; and there, a little way off, were the red forms of the Kafirs watching them from the bush, while the pleasant sun shone upon the bright points of their assegais.
“It reminds me rather of our ride over to Thirlestane that day,” said Claverton. “It’s just such another day for sunshine and scenery.”
“But not for peace,” she rejoined, softly. “Ah, if all was only as peaceful now.”
“But it will be, darling. Only a little while longer,” replied he, glad to have diverted her thoughts from this unexpected source of fear. And as they rode on further and further from it, the group of armed savages could still be seen watching them from the hill, but these were too few in number to be formidable, and, moreover, the settlement was near at hand. To which another hour of journeying brought them in due course.
And how changed was the aspect of the ordinarily quiet little village now! Waggons stood about everywhere, the three or four irregular streets were filled with a bustling crowd—men mounted and men afoot—men of every class and pursuit—farmer, mechanic, storekeeper, frontier policeman, with here and there a military uniform, and, amid the crowd, dark-skinned natives moved quietly about, or stood in knots at the corners, discussing the latestindaba. And the softer sex, too, held its own, in the shape of the wives and daughters of the settlers—these, for their part, of as varied a class as their lords—the ponderous frame of the blowzy Dutchvrouw, side by side with the regular features and straight profile of some tastefully-attired daughter of an old English line.
But although at first sight the place wore an air of bustle and confusion, it must not be supposed that chaos reigned. A regular system of defence had been organised in the event of attack, and certain points of vantage entrenched and fortified, and the safety of the place was provided for ably and well. The surrounding country, undulating and grassy, was dotted with horses and cattle grazing. These could be driven in at a moment’s warning; and the approaches to the place, being quite open and devoid of cover, were abundantly commanded by the artillery barracks of the Frontier Armed and Mounted Police, which stood upon a hill some eight hundred yards from the village. The church, a brick and plaster building of unparalleled ugliness, would make an efficient block-house in the last extremity—surrounded as it was with a high sod wall. For those to whom their fellows’ necessities were their own opportunities, the existing state of affairs promised a rich harvest, for the stores were doing a brisk trade, and the canteens and hotels were full morning, noon, and night. On the steps of one of the latter lounged a group of men as our friends arrived.
“Hullo, Payne! You don’t mean to say that’s yourself?” cried one. “Why, I thought you were going to stick to your place through it all.”
“Well, and who says I’m not?” retorted Payne. “Can’t a fellow drive into the village for the day without having trekked?”
“Oh, for the day!” repeated the first speaker, significantly. “Then, my good fellow, let me recommend you to remain. After that last affair we shall have old Kreli coming straight across to give as a look up, he’ll be so cock-a-hoop.”
“Wish he would,” growled another. “We’d give him particular toko.”
“What last affair?” said Payne, half anticipating the answer. “Has there been a fight?”
“I should jes’ think there had. A few of the Police and a lot of Fingoes were tackled by the Gcalekas; but you must have heard!”
“No, I haven’t; not a word.”
“Well, then,” went on the other, brightening up as a man will do when he is the first to impart to you a big bit of news; “the thing was this. A lot of Gcalekas—five thousand, they say—were going across to thrash the Fingoes, and the Police were ordered out to support the Fingoes. They met, and the gun opened fire—one of them seven-pounders they were practising here with t’other day. It appears that they made very good shootin’, and mowed down the Kafirs like smoke; and then somehow or other the gun broke down, and, by George, sir, before you could say ‘knife’ the Fingoes turned tail and ran—bolted clean. Well, of course it wasn’t to be expected a few Police—a mere handful as it were—How many were there, Jim?” broke off the narrator, turning to a companion.
“About one hundred and sixty.”
“Yes. Well, it wasn’t to be expected they could stand against five thousand of Kreli’s chaps; and they didn’t. The order was given to retire, and then it became a job to catch the horses, and, as the Kafirs charged them, they were obliged to run for it. Some who couldn’t catch their horses were killed—six—six privates and a sub-inspector; and now old Kreli’s cock of the walk—for the time being.”
“Where was the row?” asked Claverton.
“Well, it was at a place called Guadana—just on the boundary of the Idutywa Reserve.”
“When was it—yesterday?” inquired Payne.
“No—day before. I’m expecting a chap round here directly who’s straight from up there. Come in and liquor, and we’ll get him to tell us all about it.”
“The day before yesterday!” echoed Payne, opening his eyes wide—and he and Claverton looked meaningly at each other—for it was on the evening of that very day that the old Kafir had come to them with his stealthy warning, and the dread Fire Trumpet had blazed forth on the Kei hills, signalling to the expectant tribes within the colonial boundary, the news of their brethren’s victory. And it was on the following day that they two had so nearly carried the war into the enemy’s country in pursuit of the stolen cattle, all unconscious, then, of the mad rashness of the undertaking—an undertaking, which, had it been carried out, would assuredly have cost them their lives.
Volume Two—Chapter Eight.The Attack on the “Great Place.”It is night. Night, that is to say, for all practical purposes, though strict chronological accuracy might compel us to define it as morning; for nearly three hours have elapsed since midnight. But, be that as it may, at present it is as dark as the nethermost shades, as one of that long, silent file of horsemen, wending its way through the gloom, remarks to a comrade.A chill breeze stirs the raw atmosphere, and sweeps before it puffs of misty vapour which have been resting thickly alike upon hill-top and low-lying bottom. Overhead a few sickly stars shine forth through the flying scud, to be quickly veiled again, and replaced by another spangled patch. And, advancing at a foot-pace, comes line upon line of mounted men, moving through the darkness like the phantom horsemen of some eerie legend. Very little talking is there in the ranks. Muffled in their overcoats and with hats slouched over their faces the men ride on, stolid, and meditative, and little inclined for conversation in the damp, raw air which has a corresponding effect upon their spirits, even if orders had not been issued for quiet and caution; for it is a night march in the heart of the enemy’s country.It is difficult to distinguish face or feature of any description in the profundity of the gloom; but now and again the dull silence and the dead monotonous tramp of hoofs is relieved by the clank of arms and the jingle of a bit; or the smothered imprecation of some one whose horse has stumbled in the darkness, as he holds up the careless animal, who gives a snort of alarm. And the march continues on through the night, till at last the gloom shows signs of lightening, and we begin to make out the aspect of this bellicose-looking cavalcade advancing over the hills and dales of savage Gcalekaland. We see a number of roughly-clad, bearded men, mostly attired in serviceable corduroy and with a gaily-coloured handkerchief twined round their slouch hats, mounted on tough, wiry steeds. On their saddles are strapped blankets or mackintoshes and for arms each man carries a rifle of some sort—from the Government Snider, to the double-barrelled weapon in ordinary frontier use, rifled and smooth-barrel for varying distance or quarry. Not a few have revolvers also; and broad, heavy belts, holding at least two hundred rounds of cartridge, are buckled round them or slung over their shoulders. Many of which bullets will, I trow, find their mark in the dusky bodies of the savage enemy before the day is very far advanced. This is a corps of Irregular Horse, frontiersmen all of them. Another side of the column we see, in the gathering dawn, is composed of mounted volunteers—townsmen—whose gay uniforms, cavalry sabres, and glittering accoutrements, show out in contrast to the more sombre trappings of the corps first noticed. Yet of the two it is not difficult to predict which the enemy would rather meet in battle. Another ingredient in this martial array is the Frontier Armed and Mounted Police, two or three troops of which useful force, looking ready and soldier-like in their helmets and sober uniforms, flank the march—these are armed with short carbine and revolver. And lo, moving along, drawn by several stout horses, black and rakish-looking in the uncertain light, are the field-pieces, with their attendant gunners—a smart and efficient selection of men.The object of the expedition may be divulged by a scrap of the conversation of one of its members.“So we shall smoke the old fox out of his own earth at last,” is saying a sturdy young fellow in the ranks of the Irregular Horse.“Ha, ha! Shall we? You don’t suppose old Kreli is sitting at home waiting for us, do you?” is his comrade’s reply. “Why, he’s miles off, I expect.”“Bet you he isn’t,” cut in a third. “Bet you one to five in half-crowns we nobble old Kreli to-day.”“Ha, ha!” laughed the first speaker. “Jack’s so sure of his bet that he wants all the odds in his favour.”“Well, well, yes,” rejoined the other, briskly. “We must have a bet on, you know, just as a matter of form. But you’ll have to hand over, Hicks, my boy. You laid me long odds when we started that we shouldn’t burn Kreli’s Great Place before Christmas, and—”“And we haven’t,” interrupted Hicks. “There’s many a slip, you know, and we are not there yet; and the commander may take it into his head to—”“Ssh-h! Silence there forward, please?”The two disputants subsided. They were very near the scene of operations now, and almost immediately a halt was called. Beneath, in a hollow, lay the “Great Place,” a large collection of huts—well placed for convenience and comfort, but extremely badly for purposes of defence—on a bend of the Xora River, whose clear waters flowed gurgling past. Overshadowing the village on the one side was a great krantz, and around lay pleasant slopes of rolling pasture, relieved here and there by patches of mimosa thorns. All was wrapped in the most profound silence as the day broke. The inhabitants of the village slumbered unsuspectingly; and if the old chief was there it was extremely likely that the attacking column, drawing a cordon round the place, would have him fast shut within the trap. Meanwhile the said column rested upon its oars, and grumbled.“What the devilarewe waiting for?” fumed Hicks. “The niggers’ll all get away before we get so much as a long shot at them. And a fellow mayn’t even have a pipe while he’s waiting.”“Keep cool, old man,” replied Armitage. “Or ask Captain Jim.”“Captain Jim,” being none other than our old friend Jim Brathwaite, who, with characteristic energy, the moment war was fairly declared, had set to work to raise a select corps of his own—not a difficult proceeding, for men flocked from all parts to take service under a leader so popular and so well known for dash and daring—and in three days he had enrolled nearly a hundred picked men. This corps comprised all of our old Seringa Vale friends, and, being mainly of local origin, its members knew and trusted thoroughly each other and their leaders.“Ah, now we shall hear something,” went on Hicks, as a Police orderly was seen to ride up and confer with their leader. “The advance, I expect.”“Or the retreat,” suggested another, cynically. “Just as likely the one as the other, from all accounts.”“Hallo. There’s the enemy, by Jupiter!” cried another young fellow.All turned. A dark column was seen rapidly advancing up the hill in their rear, and more than one heart beat quicker as its owner watched the approach of this new factor in the state of affairs.“Not it,” said Naylor, quietly. “It’s the Fingoes for whom we’ve been waiting all this time. Now we shall be able to go forward.”An exclamation of wrath went along the line.“Lazy brutes!”“Waiting forthem, indeed!” and so on.“Now, men,” said Naylor, who was second in command, “here’s the programme. We are to attack on the right with the Kaffrarian fellows. At the sound of the bugle we advance, in skirmishing order, according to the number of Kafirs in the kraal, and the fight they show. If possible, we are to surround them. Now—mount!”The last order had not to be given twice, and in a moment the whole troop was moving round behind the hills, to take up their allotted position—where they waited, each man, rifle in hand, burning with impatience to begin. Scarce a sound was audible in that quiet vale; now and then a small bird fluttered up from the grass with a piping twitter, once a great black ringhals rustled away, half inflating his hood in surprised wrath at the unwonted disturbance, but even of this abhorred foe the men took no notice. They were after heavier game to-day—the heaviest of all—human game. And the mist rolled back over the bills.Suddenly a shot rings out on the morning air, then another and another. And now, on every face is an expression of the most eager expectancy, and every one grips his rifle. The hands of some of the younger men, who have never been in action before, begin to shake; but not with fear. There is something intensely exciting in this silent waiting, and they are only longing to begin. Then a volume of white-blue smoke spouts forth from a point above, a heavy boom, a hurtling rush through the air, and the shrapnel bursts with a screech and a detonation right over the nearest cluster of huts. At the same time the bugle-notes peal out from the hill-top loud and clear—the signal for the attack to begin.And the kraal wears the appearance of a disturbed ants’ nest. From everywhere and nowhere, apparently, dark forms are starting up, and the whole place is alive with fierce warriors, and shining gun-barrels, and bristling assegais; and puffs of smoke among the thatch huts, and many an ugly “whiz” in the ears of the attacking force, show that the Kafirs have opened a tolerably smart fire in return.Crack—crack—crack! echo the rifles of the assailants, as the jets of flame, which in an advancing line play upon the doomed village, draw nearer and nearer—the sharpshooters taking advantage of every bit of cover during their approach. And over and above the rattle of small-arms booms out the thunderous roar of cannon, losing itself in a hundred echoes on the wall of the great cliff opposite, and again and again bursts the screeching shell over that swarm of human beings, and very soon the groans of the stricken and the maimed and the dying begin to mingle with the fierce war-shouts of the Gcaleka warriors. These, indeed, are beginning to fall thick and fast, but still their bullets and bits of potleg (Note 1) whistle about the ears of the attacking party.“Now, men!” cries Jim Brathwaite. “One more volley and then at them. Ready!”A rattling crash as every rifle is emptied, and then with a wild cheer the men, revolver in hand, are riding at a gallop upon the kraal; but first and foremost throughout is their undaunted leader. And the Kafirs, their ranks already sadly thinned out, unable to withstand the onslaught of this mad charge, turn and fly for dear life.“Hurrah! At them, boys!” yells Jim, discharging his revolver at the foremost of two stalwart Gcalekas, who have sprung like lightning out of the very ground, as it were. The savage, however, dives to avoid the shot, which hits one of his fellow-countrymen fair in the back, and, gathering himself like a panther, leaps at his assailant, assegai in hand, aiming a furious stab at his side—but too late. The impetus of his pace carries Jim past, and the Kafir, missing his blow and his footing, falls forward on his face, to be trampled into a lifeless pulp beneath the hoofs of the horses, as the whole troop pours through the village, pistolling the fleeing or opposing enemy, and the ground is strewn with human forms, dead and dying.And now the fight has become a stampede and a rout. Shut in on three sides by the horsemen bearing down upon them, the fleeing Kafirs run like bucks along the river bank, to make good their escape ere yon dark cloud of advancing Fingoes, sweeping steadily down to cut them off, shall get in front of them. Can they do this, they may yet hope to count up their scattered remnant in the welcome shelter of that dark forest line a few miles off. At any rate, they will cut their way through the Fingo dogs, and many a fierce warrior, grinding his teeth as he grips his assegai, starts off with renewed vigour, to pour out the heart’s blood of at any rate one of his despised foes before he dies.Suddenly the flight stops, and with a rallying cry a body of the Kafirs make a stand. They are beyond the reach of the shells, and by this time the rout has scattered far over the plain; and the nearest Fingoes, who have been slowly overtaking their enemies, waver and hesitate, quailing before their former masters, who throw out at them threats and fierce taunts. The fugitives have nothing but empty guns, which being mostly muzzle-loaders, they have no time to reload. Assegais are thrown, and more than one whooping and hitherto exultant Fingo wallows in the dust, transfixed by the deadly javelin. In another minute these cowardly auxiliaries will turn and fly, as the Gcalekas, with clubbed guns and gripping their large stabbing assegais, furiously charge them, uttering their war-cry—when behold, a body of horsemen comes sweeping up, Jim Brathwaite’s troop leading, and the tide is turned. The Fingoes, inspired with fresh courage, stand, and sneak behind the whites, waiting for these to disperse the enemy, and then go quietly after them and assegai the wounded lying upon the ground.“Hallo!” cried Armitage. “Hold on; Gough’s down.”“Oh, it’s nothing, I’m not hurt,” is the plucky reply, as the young fellow leaps clear of his horse, which, stabbed to the heart by a wounded Kafir who lay on the ground, had fallen with a crash.“Bight you are. Better fall in with the dismounted men,” and away rides the speaker.Suddenly one of the Kafirs, watching his opportunity, springs like a cat on to the saddle of a trooper, and gripping him round the neck with one arm, stabs him to the heart with the other; then loosing his murderous embrace as he and his victim slide to the earth together, he runs like the wind, casting his glance from side to side in search of another possible victim, when he falls, pierced by a couple of revolver bullets. Another savage is suddenly descried by Hicks and Armitage, who are riding together, rushing at a man, who with his bridle over his arm stands coolly awaiting his approach. This man both of them have noticed during the pursuit. Working apparently alone, he has kept himself entirely free from flurry and excitement, reining in every now and then and taking a deliberate shot at long range, almost invariably bringing down one of the foe. And now they watch him, as a great sinewy Kafir rushes at him like a wild beast, now leaping high in the air, now dropping into the grass, then zig-zagging as if to get round the white man, who stands perfectly calm through it all, with a slightly sneering smile upon his face, but covering this dancing, leaping assailant with his gun-barrels.Crack! The savage falls. Then, as suddenly, he picks himself up, and with a wild shout rushes at his cool antagonist.“He’s got him, by God!” cries Hicks, as in a tension of excitement he marks the artful feint of the barbarian and, as he thinks, the turning of the tables. But the other never moves, nor does the expression of his countenance alter by a single hair’s breadth.Crack! Another report, and the fierce warrior falls, this time stone-dead, leaping nearly against the barrel which at point-blank had sent a full charge of “loopers” straight through his heart.“Whoop! Hooray!” yelled Hicks, wild with excitement. “Grand old shot, that! Thought you were a gone coon, by Jove!”The other quickly slipped a couple of cartridges into the smoking breech of his gun, and looked up with a slight smile at this remark; and what he saw soon changed the smile into an outright laugh. For Hicks was staring at him, speechless and open-mouthed, while even Armitage looked somewhat dumbfoundered.“The devil!” ejaculated Hicks, and relapsed into staring again.“That’s uncivil,” remarked the stranger, drily.“Why, hang it, it is—Claverton, no one else! Arthur, old boy, where on earthhaveyou dropped from? I vow this is the best thing that’s happened for years. We thought you must be dead and buried, hearing nothing about you,” and leaping to the ground, honest Hicks wrung his former comrade’s hand as if he would crush that remarkably useful member.Something in the last phrase jarred upon Claverton. Lilian had said much the same thing when they had met.“Well, here I am at any rate. Turned up again like the proverbial ‘shise’ coin,” he replied. “How’s yourself? Flourishing apparently. You look as if ‘the holy estate’ agreed with you. And Jack? I say, Jack; bet you two to one in anything you like you don’t drop that chap scuttling away over there.”“Done for you!” cried Armitage, sighting his rifle and drawing a bead on one of the retreating enemy, distant some seven hundred yards.“No. Hand over!” cried Claverton. “Missed him clean. Give you another shot, though.”But the other shot was likewise a failure; and the Gcaleka got off scot-free to rejoin, if he listed, the bosom of his family.“Never mind, Jack. I won’t dun you for the stakes, I only wanted to see if you had left off that villainous sporting habit of yours.”“But, Arthur—how the deuce did you come here?” went on Hicks. “You’re not a Volunteer—those fellows are all jingling with chains and whistles.”“Yes, I am. Kaffrarian Rangers, full private. And then?”“And then? Why, you must join us without any furtherindaba. We’ll have a high old time of it. Do you mean to say you can cut all your old friends and go and fight among strangers? Bosh!”Claverton whistled meditatively as he surveyed the field of battle and of flight. Here and there lay a dark object in a heap amid the grass, just as it had fallen—the slain body of a Gcaleka warrior—and scattered afar rode the pursuing horsemen.“Well, I don’t know,” he said. “I should rather like to cut in with you fellows. I’ll see if it can be managed.”“Of course you will,” said Hicks, light-heartedly. “By Jove, if that isn’t ‘the retire.’”For the clear notes of the bugle were ringing afar, and in obedience to the summons the straggling horsemen began to collect from all parts of the field, and to retrace their steps, marvelling not a little at this sudden and unlooked-for mandate. And from the chief’s village, the “Great Place,” went up a great cloud of smoke, as, having hunted out its fleeing inhabitants, the last of the attacking force had flung a torch into the thatch tenements, setting the whole in a blaze; and above the bursting flames great rolling pillars of smoke mounted to the sky.Slowly the pursuers straggled back, their horses and themselves wet with perspiration and grimy with dust and powder; many hatless, having lost their “roofing,” they said, in the hurry-scurry of the charge or of the pursuit; while a darker stain showed upon others, whether on their clothes or accoutrements—the stain of blood. The horses were panting after their long gallop, and the riders commenting freely on the events of the morning in a loud, excited tone. Many carried assegais, whole or broken, which they had taken as trophies, also bead-work, and other articles of native apparel or adornment. And in the rear marched the Fingo contingent, howling their war-song and looking intensely valiant now that the danger was over.“Manzi! Ndipé manzi!” (“Water. Give me water.”) besought a faint voice.Our party stopped, looking searchingly around. Several bodies of the enemy lay about, all apparently lifeless.“Let the skunk die,” said a rough-looking fellow, who, with several others, had joined them when the rally was sounded. “Or give him his quietus in the shape of a leaden pill. A pretty dance they’ve led us all this time, and now to be calling on us to do hospital nurse for them. Damned if I do.”“Well, a pretty dance we’ve led them to-day, at any rate. Poor devil! It won’t do any one any harm to give him a drink,” rejoined Claverton, dismounting and scrutinising the only one who showed sign of life. A tall, finely-made young Kafir lay with eyes half unclosed, and breathing heavily, apparently in great pain. Claverton bent over him as he repeated his fevered entreaty.“Well, you may do nurse, I shan’t, so good day to you,” jeered the first speaker, riding on, while Hicks and Armitage reined in a moment, looking from their newly-found chum to the wounded man as if wondering what was coming next. But Claverton, without heeding anybody, took a large flask from his pocket, and poured a little of its contents between the Kafir’s teeth. Then filling the cup with water from the river, which ran hard by, he raised the wounded man’s head, and let him drain off the desired fluid.“More,” whispered the Kafir; and having filled the little vessel again, Claverton watched hisprotégédrink the contents greedily. Then, with a deep sigh of relief, the sufferer lay back with closed eyes.“That’ll do, Arthur. Come on, now, and leave the beggar alone,” cried Hicks, impatiently. “Or are you going to set up an ‘ambulance’ all over the field?”“Don’t know,” replied the other, imperturbably. “It’s not much trouble, and we’ve been shooting such a lot of the poor devils that one may as well give one of them the consolation of a drinkin extremis.” And he stood contemplating hisprotégé, who he had ascertained was not dangerously though badly wounded by a ball in the side. Then it occurred to him that the face of the stricken savage was not altogether unfamiliar to him; but where he had seen it he could not remember.And now the war-song of the Fingoes drew nearer, and hearing it, the wounded man once more unclosed his eyes, with a mingled expression of despair and resignation and contempt. There was not a chance for him, he thought. The “dogs” would come up, and the white man would stand by and tell them to kill him. Well, what did it matter? They were dogs, and he was a warrior of the Amaxosa—nothing could get rid of that fact. Then, just as he thought his hour had come, the white man remarked in his own tongue: “Lie perfectly still and shut your eyes. If the Fingoes see that you’re alive, even though I may save you now, they will surely come back and kill you before you can get away.” And the other obeyed.Claverton slowly proceeded to fill and light his pipe, as if he had dismounted with that object and that alone, and the Fingoes, their assegais red and blood-stained, marched past, looking about as though in search of any of the dreaded foe still living. They saluted the white man with servile acclamation, and passed on.“Now,” continued he, when the savage auxiliaries were well out of the way, “wait until the coast’s clear, and then hook it. Go and tell Kreli that if he’s wise he’ll shut up fighting and come and sing small, and acknowledge that he’s made an ass of himself. You see, we don’t want to kill you fellows unless we are obliged, and then we’ll do for the lot of you. Now be off as soon as you can.”The young Kafir, who was by no means a bad-looking fellow, smiled as he softly murmured assent, and, with a grateful look in his eyes, he laid hold of his benefactor’s foot and drew it to his lips in token of gratitude.“All right,” said the latter; “now look to yourself,” and mounting his horse he overtook the rest, who had been making merry over their friend’s eccentricity.“Now you’ve done the wet-nurse trick, old chap, we’ll get back to camp and have a glass of grog,” said Armitage.“That’s a good idea,” assented Claverton. He did not mind their chaff, and would not have even if it were more ill-natured. A passing impulse had moved him to befriend this wounded savage, and he had obeyed it. And it may be that an even yet more humanising influence was at work, and that on that fierce battle-field, reeking with blood and carnage, the image of Lilian stood, viewing him with a sweet, approving smile as he listened to the agonised prayer of the stricken barbarian, who might be the first, if ever opportunity offered, to repay his charity with an assegai thrust. But having done this thing he was glad, and a softer feeling centred round his heart as if he actually heard Lilian’s approving voice in his ear.Much growling was indulged in as the burghers and volunteers, returning to camp, learned that the pursuit was to be discontinued. They had struck a decisive blow, and now were not to be allowed to follow it up. Public discontent found its expression freely and in forcible language.“Infernal nonsense?” repeated one big fellow in reply to a comrade’s observation. “I believe you. Why, what we’ve done to-day is no good at all—not one blessed ha’porth. We’ve shot a few of these fellers and chevied a few more; but what o’ that? They’re thick as bees over yonder,” and the speaker jerked one hand in the direction of the flight, while with the other he viciously crammed his short, wooden pipe.“Ay, that’s so,” assented a small, wiry-looking man. “If we had only gone straight on we could have cleared out the Manubi Bush right down to the coast, and driven the whole lot into the sea.”“Where they were going to drive us,” chimed in another.“And it’s there we should have nobbled old Kreli,” went on the former speaker. “He’s in there, mark my words—in there waiting for news—he, and Sicgau, and Botmane, and the whole bilin’ of ’em. Now we’ve burnt his old beehives here; but that’s no good, they’re built again in a day. No, sir; what we want is the old fox himself.”“And don’t we wish we may get ’im? No; it’s nurses we want to look after us,” put in another.There was a reluctant guffaw at this; but the gloom had deepened on their warlike souls.“Well, we may as well go back, streak it straight home again, if we’re going to be commanded by a set of old women,” growled the first speaker. “We didn’t come out here toplaywith the niggers, did we?”“Looks like it, anyhow, mate.”Thus amid much growling, which, however, was not directed at our friend Jim, but at the power behind that gallant leader, the camps were pitched. A portion of the Police force started off back to their headquarters at Ibeka; but here, close to the scene of their late victory, the volunteers and burgher forces remained; and at nightfall the horses were driven in and “rung,” that is to say, tethered in circles; while additional sentries were posted, and every precaution taken, the recent success notwithstanding, for they were in the enemy’s country.Jim Brathwaite was mightily glad, and no less surprised at the unexpected meeting, and warmly seconded Hicks’ suggestion that Claverton should join his corps.“Twice I noticed a fellow to-day, Arthur,” he said, “who reminded me of your straight riding; and, by George, it must have been you yourself. Well, well; we are all bound to meet again some day, however we may scatter. But what do you think that fellow Hicks has done?”“What?”“Committed matrimony. And so has Jack.”“Has he? Jack, I mean. I knew about the other. Who, and when, and where?”“Oh, that’s a very old story, Jim,” said Armitage, trying to look quite at his ease. “Claverton heard it ages ago. Give us some baccy.”They were sitting round the camp-fire. The afternoon had merged into night, and now the circle was discussing old times.“Who?—Gertie Wray—you remember her—now Mrs Jack Armitage, promoted. When?—last year. Where?—in Grahamstown,” replied Jim.And then, as others joined them, the conversation turned from things personal and retrospective, to things political and present; and the state of affairs was discussed in all its bearings.“Well, we’ve a big enough force in the field to thrash out the Gcaleka country,” Jim was saying; “but then we shall have to be constantly playing hide-and-seek with the Kafirs until we catch old Kreli. If the Gaikas don’t break out, all that the people on the border will have to do will be to guard their line so that none of these chaps can cross. If the Gaikas rise, why, then our friends there will be between two fires.”“And the Gaikas will rise,” put in Garnier—Jim’s second lieutenant—a quiet-looking, brown-bearded man of about five-and-forty. “You may take my word for that. It isn’t for nothing that they’ve been going through all the war-dancing and farrago. It isn’t for nothing they’ve been sending all their cattle away to the thickest parts of the Amatola forest. And it isn’t likely they’d sit still—they, the warrior race of all others—and let Kreli do all the fighting. And to hear ’em talk, too! Why, they’ve been coming round my place in shoals, and they don’t care what they say. Mind, they mean mischief.”“But, then, how is it they haven’t broken out already?” ventured Hicks.Garnier looked pityingly at him. “For several reasons. There’s a strong peace party among them, for one thing. For another, they heard, or rather saw—for there were lots of them present—what a hammering the Gcalekas got the other day when they attacked Ibeka; and they’re not ready. But if any of these chaps of Kreli’s get through and join them—then look out.”“Well, we can put a tremendous force into the field,” went on Jim. “Why, in the Eastern Province alone we could raise enough to finish the war in a couple of months, if they’re only put to it and not kept fooling about doing nothing.”“Yes; and if they’re properly looked after in the field,” said another. “No one can fight unless he’s fed; and with the commissariat always two days behind, no body of men will remain long contented.”“And, while they are fooling about, all their property’s going to wrack and ruin, as ours is at this damned moment,” growled Thorman, who was one of the party.“Never mind. All the more reason why we should make a thorough good thing of it while we are about it,” said another, of more cheerful disposition. “We’ll teach Jack Kafir a lesson this time, that he’ll remember.”Thus talking, they sat round that red camp-fire, which threw a fitful glow upon bronzed faces and attire, fantastic-looking in the semi-darkness and in its wild picturesqueness, until at length the bugle sounded, “lights out,” and gradually all subsided to silence. Now and again the yelp and snarl of a jackal came up from beneath, where lay the unburied corpses of the slain foe, and where a number of heaps of black smouldering ashes were all that remained of what in the morning had been the Kraal of the Paramount Chief of Kafirland.Note 1. In war-time, when lead is scarce, Kafirs manufacture tolerably efficient slugs by cutting up the legs of their iron cooking-pots.
It is night. Night, that is to say, for all practical purposes, though strict chronological accuracy might compel us to define it as morning; for nearly three hours have elapsed since midnight. But, be that as it may, at present it is as dark as the nethermost shades, as one of that long, silent file of horsemen, wending its way through the gloom, remarks to a comrade.
A chill breeze stirs the raw atmosphere, and sweeps before it puffs of misty vapour which have been resting thickly alike upon hill-top and low-lying bottom. Overhead a few sickly stars shine forth through the flying scud, to be quickly veiled again, and replaced by another spangled patch. And, advancing at a foot-pace, comes line upon line of mounted men, moving through the darkness like the phantom horsemen of some eerie legend. Very little talking is there in the ranks. Muffled in their overcoats and with hats slouched over their faces the men ride on, stolid, and meditative, and little inclined for conversation in the damp, raw air which has a corresponding effect upon their spirits, even if orders had not been issued for quiet and caution; for it is a night march in the heart of the enemy’s country.
It is difficult to distinguish face or feature of any description in the profundity of the gloom; but now and again the dull silence and the dead monotonous tramp of hoofs is relieved by the clank of arms and the jingle of a bit; or the smothered imprecation of some one whose horse has stumbled in the darkness, as he holds up the careless animal, who gives a snort of alarm. And the march continues on through the night, till at last the gloom shows signs of lightening, and we begin to make out the aspect of this bellicose-looking cavalcade advancing over the hills and dales of savage Gcalekaland. We see a number of roughly-clad, bearded men, mostly attired in serviceable corduroy and with a gaily-coloured handkerchief twined round their slouch hats, mounted on tough, wiry steeds. On their saddles are strapped blankets or mackintoshes and for arms each man carries a rifle of some sort—from the Government Snider, to the double-barrelled weapon in ordinary frontier use, rifled and smooth-barrel for varying distance or quarry. Not a few have revolvers also; and broad, heavy belts, holding at least two hundred rounds of cartridge, are buckled round them or slung over their shoulders. Many of which bullets will, I trow, find their mark in the dusky bodies of the savage enemy before the day is very far advanced. This is a corps of Irregular Horse, frontiersmen all of them. Another side of the column we see, in the gathering dawn, is composed of mounted volunteers—townsmen—whose gay uniforms, cavalry sabres, and glittering accoutrements, show out in contrast to the more sombre trappings of the corps first noticed. Yet of the two it is not difficult to predict which the enemy would rather meet in battle. Another ingredient in this martial array is the Frontier Armed and Mounted Police, two or three troops of which useful force, looking ready and soldier-like in their helmets and sober uniforms, flank the march—these are armed with short carbine and revolver. And lo, moving along, drawn by several stout horses, black and rakish-looking in the uncertain light, are the field-pieces, with their attendant gunners—a smart and efficient selection of men.
The object of the expedition may be divulged by a scrap of the conversation of one of its members.
“So we shall smoke the old fox out of his own earth at last,” is saying a sturdy young fellow in the ranks of the Irregular Horse.
“Ha, ha! Shall we? You don’t suppose old Kreli is sitting at home waiting for us, do you?” is his comrade’s reply. “Why, he’s miles off, I expect.”
“Bet you he isn’t,” cut in a third. “Bet you one to five in half-crowns we nobble old Kreli to-day.”
“Ha, ha!” laughed the first speaker. “Jack’s so sure of his bet that he wants all the odds in his favour.”
“Well, well, yes,” rejoined the other, briskly. “We must have a bet on, you know, just as a matter of form. But you’ll have to hand over, Hicks, my boy. You laid me long odds when we started that we shouldn’t burn Kreli’s Great Place before Christmas, and—”
“And we haven’t,” interrupted Hicks. “There’s many a slip, you know, and we are not there yet; and the commander may take it into his head to—”
“Ssh-h! Silence there forward, please?”
The two disputants subsided. They were very near the scene of operations now, and almost immediately a halt was called. Beneath, in a hollow, lay the “Great Place,” a large collection of huts—well placed for convenience and comfort, but extremely badly for purposes of defence—on a bend of the Xora River, whose clear waters flowed gurgling past. Overshadowing the village on the one side was a great krantz, and around lay pleasant slopes of rolling pasture, relieved here and there by patches of mimosa thorns. All was wrapped in the most profound silence as the day broke. The inhabitants of the village slumbered unsuspectingly; and if the old chief was there it was extremely likely that the attacking column, drawing a cordon round the place, would have him fast shut within the trap. Meanwhile the said column rested upon its oars, and grumbled.
“What the devilarewe waiting for?” fumed Hicks. “The niggers’ll all get away before we get so much as a long shot at them. And a fellow mayn’t even have a pipe while he’s waiting.”
“Keep cool, old man,” replied Armitage. “Or ask Captain Jim.”
“Captain Jim,” being none other than our old friend Jim Brathwaite, who, with characteristic energy, the moment war was fairly declared, had set to work to raise a select corps of his own—not a difficult proceeding, for men flocked from all parts to take service under a leader so popular and so well known for dash and daring—and in three days he had enrolled nearly a hundred picked men. This corps comprised all of our old Seringa Vale friends, and, being mainly of local origin, its members knew and trusted thoroughly each other and their leaders.
“Ah, now we shall hear something,” went on Hicks, as a Police orderly was seen to ride up and confer with their leader. “The advance, I expect.”
“Or the retreat,” suggested another, cynically. “Just as likely the one as the other, from all accounts.”
“Hallo. There’s the enemy, by Jupiter!” cried another young fellow.
All turned. A dark column was seen rapidly advancing up the hill in their rear, and more than one heart beat quicker as its owner watched the approach of this new factor in the state of affairs.
“Not it,” said Naylor, quietly. “It’s the Fingoes for whom we’ve been waiting all this time. Now we shall be able to go forward.”
An exclamation of wrath went along the line.
“Lazy brutes!”
“Waiting forthem, indeed!” and so on.
“Now, men,” said Naylor, who was second in command, “here’s the programme. We are to attack on the right with the Kaffrarian fellows. At the sound of the bugle we advance, in skirmishing order, according to the number of Kafirs in the kraal, and the fight they show. If possible, we are to surround them. Now—mount!”
The last order had not to be given twice, and in a moment the whole troop was moving round behind the hills, to take up their allotted position—where they waited, each man, rifle in hand, burning with impatience to begin. Scarce a sound was audible in that quiet vale; now and then a small bird fluttered up from the grass with a piping twitter, once a great black ringhals rustled away, half inflating his hood in surprised wrath at the unwonted disturbance, but even of this abhorred foe the men took no notice. They were after heavier game to-day—the heaviest of all—human game. And the mist rolled back over the bills.
Suddenly a shot rings out on the morning air, then another and another. And now, on every face is an expression of the most eager expectancy, and every one grips his rifle. The hands of some of the younger men, who have never been in action before, begin to shake; but not with fear. There is something intensely exciting in this silent waiting, and they are only longing to begin. Then a volume of white-blue smoke spouts forth from a point above, a heavy boom, a hurtling rush through the air, and the shrapnel bursts with a screech and a detonation right over the nearest cluster of huts. At the same time the bugle-notes peal out from the hill-top loud and clear—the signal for the attack to begin.
And the kraal wears the appearance of a disturbed ants’ nest. From everywhere and nowhere, apparently, dark forms are starting up, and the whole place is alive with fierce warriors, and shining gun-barrels, and bristling assegais; and puffs of smoke among the thatch huts, and many an ugly “whiz” in the ears of the attacking force, show that the Kafirs have opened a tolerably smart fire in return.
Crack—crack—crack! echo the rifles of the assailants, as the jets of flame, which in an advancing line play upon the doomed village, draw nearer and nearer—the sharpshooters taking advantage of every bit of cover during their approach. And over and above the rattle of small-arms booms out the thunderous roar of cannon, losing itself in a hundred echoes on the wall of the great cliff opposite, and again and again bursts the screeching shell over that swarm of human beings, and very soon the groans of the stricken and the maimed and the dying begin to mingle with the fierce war-shouts of the Gcaleka warriors. These, indeed, are beginning to fall thick and fast, but still their bullets and bits of potleg (Note 1) whistle about the ears of the attacking party.
“Now, men!” cries Jim Brathwaite. “One more volley and then at them. Ready!”
A rattling crash as every rifle is emptied, and then with a wild cheer the men, revolver in hand, are riding at a gallop upon the kraal; but first and foremost throughout is their undaunted leader. And the Kafirs, their ranks already sadly thinned out, unable to withstand the onslaught of this mad charge, turn and fly for dear life.
“Hurrah! At them, boys!” yells Jim, discharging his revolver at the foremost of two stalwart Gcalekas, who have sprung like lightning out of the very ground, as it were. The savage, however, dives to avoid the shot, which hits one of his fellow-countrymen fair in the back, and, gathering himself like a panther, leaps at his assailant, assegai in hand, aiming a furious stab at his side—but too late. The impetus of his pace carries Jim past, and the Kafir, missing his blow and his footing, falls forward on his face, to be trampled into a lifeless pulp beneath the hoofs of the horses, as the whole troop pours through the village, pistolling the fleeing or opposing enemy, and the ground is strewn with human forms, dead and dying.
And now the fight has become a stampede and a rout. Shut in on three sides by the horsemen bearing down upon them, the fleeing Kafirs run like bucks along the river bank, to make good their escape ere yon dark cloud of advancing Fingoes, sweeping steadily down to cut them off, shall get in front of them. Can they do this, they may yet hope to count up their scattered remnant in the welcome shelter of that dark forest line a few miles off. At any rate, they will cut their way through the Fingo dogs, and many a fierce warrior, grinding his teeth as he grips his assegai, starts off with renewed vigour, to pour out the heart’s blood of at any rate one of his despised foes before he dies.
Suddenly the flight stops, and with a rallying cry a body of the Kafirs make a stand. They are beyond the reach of the shells, and by this time the rout has scattered far over the plain; and the nearest Fingoes, who have been slowly overtaking their enemies, waver and hesitate, quailing before their former masters, who throw out at them threats and fierce taunts. The fugitives have nothing but empty guns, which being mostly muzzle-loaders, they have no time to reload. Assegais are thrown, and more than one whooping and hitherto exultant Fingo wallows in the dust, transfixed by the deadly javelin. In another minute these cowardly auxiliaries will turn and fly, as the Gcalekas, with clubbed guns and gripping their large stabbing assegais, furiously charge them, uttering their war-cry—when behold, a body of horsemen comes sweeping up, Jim Brathwaite’s troop leading, and the tide is turned. The Fingoes, inspired with fresh courage, stand, and sneak behind the whites, waiting for these to disperse the enemy, and then go quietly after them and assegai the wounded lying upon the ground.
“Hallo!” cried Armitage. “Hold on; Gough’s down.”
“Oh, it’s nothing, I’m not hurt,” is the plucky reply, as the young fellow leaps clear of his horse, which, stabbed to the heart by a wounded Kafir who lay on the ground, had fallen with a crash.
“Bight you are. Better fall in with the dismounted men,” and away rides the speaker.
Suddenly one of the Kafirs, watching his opportunity, springs like a cat on to the saddle of a trooper, and gripping him round the neck with one arm, stabs him to the heart with the other; then loosing his murderous embrace as he and his victim slide to the earth together, he runs like the wind, casting his glance from side to side in search of another possible victim, when he falls, pierced by a couple of revolver bullets. Another savage is suddenly descried by Hicks and Armitage, who are riding together, rushing at a man, who with his bridle over his arm stands coolly awaiting his approach. This man both of them have noticed during the pursuit. Working apparently alone, he has kept himself entirely free from flurry and excitement, reining in every now and then and taking a deliberate shot at long range, almost invariably bringing down one of the foe. And now they watch him, as a great sinewy Kafir rushes at him like a wild beast, now leaping high in the air, now dropping into the grass, then zig-zagging as if to get round the white man, who stands perfectly calm through it all, with a slightly sneering smile upon his face, but covering this dancing, leaping assailant with his gun-barrels.
Crack! The savage falls. Then, as suddenly, he picks himself up, and with a wild shout rushes at his cool antagonist.
“He’s got him, by God!” cries Hicks, as in a tension of excitement he marks the artful feint of the barbarian and, as he thinks, the turning of the tables. But the other never moves, nor does the expression of his countenance alter by a single hair’s breadth.
Crack! Another report, and the fierce warrior falls, this time stone-dead, leaping nearly against the barrel which at point-blank had sent a full charge of “loopers” straight through his heart.
“Whoop! Hooray!” yelled Hicks, wild with excitement. “Grand old shot, that! Thought you were a gone coon, by Jove!”
The other quickly slipped a couple of cartridges into the smoking breech of his gun, and looked up with a slight smile at this remark; and what he saw soon changed the smile into an outright laugh. For Hicks was staring at him, speechless and open-mouthed, while even Armitage looked somewhat dumbfoundered.
“The devil!” ejaculated Hicks, and relapsed into staring again.
“That’s uncivil,” remarked the stranger, drily.
“Why, hang it, it is—Claverton, no one else! Arthur, old boy, where on earthhaveyou dropped from? I vow this is the best thing that’s happened for years. We thought you must be dead and buried, hearing nothing about you,” and leaping to the ground, honest Hicks wrung his former comrade’s hand as if he would crush that remarkably useful member.
Something in the last phrase jarred upon Claverton. Lilian had said much the same thing when they had met.
“Well, here I am at any rate. Turned up again like the proverbial ‘shise’ coin,” he replied. “How’s yourself? Flourishing apparently. You look as if ‘the holy estate’ agreed with you. And Jack? I say, Jack; bet you two to one in anything you like you don’t drop that chap scuttling away over there.”
“Done for you!” cried Armitage, sighting his rifle and drawing a bead on one of the retreating enemy, distant some seven hundred yards.
“No. Hand over!” cried Claverton. “Missed him clean. Give you another shot, though.”
But the other shot was likewise a failure; and the Gcaleka got off scot-free to rejoin, if he listed, the bosom of his family.
“Never mind, Jack. I won’t dun you for the stakes, I only wanted to see if you had left off that villainous sporting habit of yours.”
“But, Arthur—how the deuce did you come here?” went on Hicks. “You’re not a Volunteer—those fellows are all jingling with chains and whistles.”
“Yes, I am. Kaffrarian Rangers, full private. And then?”
“And then? Why, you must join us without any furtherindaba. We’ll have a high old time of it. Do you mean to say you can cut all your old friends and go and fight among strangers? Bosh!”
Claverton whistled meditatively as he surveyed the field of battle and of flight. Here and there lay a dark object in a heap amid the grass, just as it had fallen—the slain body of a Gcaleka warrior—and scattered afar rode the pursuing horsemen.
“Well, I don’t know,” he said. “I should rather like to cut in with you fellows. I’ll see if it can be managed.”
“Of course you will,” said Hicks, light-heartedly. “By Jove, if that isn’t ‘the retire.’”
For the clear notes of the bugle were ringing afar, and in obedience to the summons the straggling horsemen began to collect from all parts of the field, and to retrace their steps, marvelling not a little at this sudden and unlooked-for mandate. And from the chief’s village, the “Great Place,” went up a great cloud of smoke, as, having hunted out its fleeing inhabitants, the last of the attacking force had flung a torch into the thatch tenements, setting the whole in a blaze; and above the bursting flames great rolling pillars of smoke mounted to the sky.
Slowly the pursuers straggled back, their horses and themselves wet with perspiration and grimy with dust and powder; many hatless, having lost their “roofing,” they said, in the hurry-scurry of the charge or of the pursuit; while a darker stain showed upon others, whether on their clothes or accoutrements—the stain of blood. The horses were panting after their long gallop, and the riders commenting freely on the events of the morning in a loud, excited tone. Many carried assegais, whole or broken, which they had taken as trophies, also bead-work, and other articles of native apparel or adornment. And in the rear marched the Fingo contingent, howling their war-song and looking intensely valiant now that the danger was over.
“Manzi! Ndipé manzi!” (“Water. Give me water.”) besought a faint voice.
Our party stopped, looking searchingly around. Several bodies of the enemy lay about, all apparently lifeless.
“Let the skunk die,” said a rough-looking fellow, who, with several others, had joined them when the rally was sounded. “Or give him his quietus in the shape of a leaden pill. A pretty dance they’ve led us all this time, and now to be calling on us to do hospital nurse for them. Damned if I do.”
“Well, a pretty dance we’ve led them to-day, at any rate. Poor devil! It won’t do any one any harm to give him a drink,” rejoined Claverton, dismounting and scrutinising the only one who showed sign of life. A tall, finely-made young Kafir lay with eyes half unclosed, and breathing heavily, apparently in great pain. Claverton bent over him as he repeated his fevered entreaty.
“Well, you may do nurse, I shan’t, so good day to you,” jeered the first speaker, riding on, while Hicks and Armitage reined in a moment, looking from their newly-found chum to the wounded man as if wondering what was coming next. But Claverton, without heeding anybody, took a large flask from his pocket, and poured a little of its contents between the Kafir’s teeth. Then filling the cup with water from the river, which ran hard by, he raised the wounded man’s head, and let him drain off the desired fluid.
“More,” whispered the Kafir; and having filled the little vessel again, Claverton watched hisprotégédrink the contents greedily. Then, with a deep sigh of relief, the sufferer lay back with closed eyes.
“That’ll do, Arthur. Come on, now, and leave the beggar alone,” cried Hicks, impatiently. “Or are you going to set up an ‘ambulance’ all over the field?”
“Don’t know,” replied the other, imperturbably. “It’s not much trouble, and we’ve been shooting such a lot of the poor devils that one may as well give one of them the consolation of a drinkin extremis.” And he stood contemplating hisprotégé, who he had ascertained was not dangerously though badly wounded by a ball in the side. Then it occurred to him that the face of the stricken savage was not altogether unfamiliar to him; but where he had seen it he could not remember.
And now the war-song of the Fingoes drew nearer, and hearing it, the wounded man once more unclosed his eyes, with a mingled expression of despair and resignation and contempt. There was not a chance for him, he thought. The “dogs” would come up, and the white man would stand by and tell them to kill him. Well, what did it matter? They were dogs, and he was a warrior of the Amaxosa—nothing could get rid of that fact. Then, just as he thought his hour had come, the white man remarked in his own tongue: “Lie perfectly still and shut your eyes. If the Fingoes see that you’re alive, even though I may save you now, they will surely come back and kill you before you can get away.” And the other obeyed.
Claverton slowly proceeded to fill and light his pipe, as if he had dismounted with that object and that alone, and the Fingoes, their assegais red and blood-stained, marched past, looking about as though in search of any of the dreaded foe still living. They saluted the white man with servile acclamation, and passed on.
“Now,” continued he, when the savage auxiliaries were well out of the way, “wait until the coast’s clear, and then hook it. Go and tell Kreli that if he’s wise he’ll shut up fighting and come and sing small, and acknowledge that he’s made an ass of himself. You see, we don’t want to kill you fellows unless we are obliged, and then we’ll do for the lot of you. Now be off as soon as you can.”
The young Kafir, who was by no means a bad-looking fellow, smiled as he softly murmured assent, and, with a grateful look in his eyes, he laid hold of his benefactor’s foot and drew it to his lips in token of gratitude.
“All right,” said the latter; “now look to yourself,” and mounting his horse he overtook the rest, who had been making merry over their friend’s eccentricity.
“Now you’ve done the wet-nurse trick, old chap, we’ll get back to camp and have a glass of grog,” said Armitage.
“That’s a good idea,” assented Claverton. He did not mind their chaff, and would not have even if it were more ill-natured. A passing impulse had moved him to befriend this wounded savage, and he had obeyed it. And it may be that an even yet more humanising influence was at work, and that on that fierce battle-field, reeking with blood and carnage, the image of Lilian stood, viewing him with a sweet, approving smile as he listened to the agonised prayer of the stricken barbarian, who might be the first, if ever opportunity offered, to repay his charity with an assegai thrust. But having done this thing he was glad, and a softer feeling centred round his heart as if he actually heard Lilian’s approving voice in his ear.
Much growling was indulged in as the burghers and volunteers, returning to camp, learned that the pursuit was to be discontinued. They had struck a decisive blow, and now were not to be allowed to follow it up. Public discontent found its expression freely and in forcible language.
“Infernal nonsense?” repeated one big fellow in reply to a comrade’s observation. “I believe you. Why, what we’ve done to-day is no good at all—not one blessed ha’porth. We’ve shot a few of these fellers and chevied a few more; but what o’ that? They’re thick as bees over yonder,” and the speaker jerked one hand in the direction of the flight, while with the other he viciously crammed his short, wooden pipe.
“Ay, that’s so,” assented a small, wiry-looking man. “If we had only gone straight on we could have cleared out the Manubi Bush right down to the coast, and driven the whole lot into the sea.”
“Where they were going to drive us,” chimed in another.
“And it’s there we should have nobbled old Kreli,” went on the former speaker. “He’s in there, mark my words—in there waiting for news—he, and Sicgau, and Botmane, and the whole bilin’ of ’em. Now we’ve burnt his old beehives here; but that’s no good, they’re built again in a day. No, sir; what we want is the old fox himself.”
“And don’t we wish we may get ’im? No; it’s nurses we want to look after us,” put in another.
There was a reluctant guffaw at this; but the gloom had deepened on their warlike souls.
“Well, we may as well go back, streak it straight home again, if we’re going to be commanded by a set of old women,” growled the first speaker. “We didn’t come out here toplaywith the niggers, did we?”
“Looks like it, anyhow, mate.”
Thus amid much growling, which, however, was not directed at our friend Jim, but at the power behind that gallant leader, the camps were pitched. A portion of the Police force started off back to their headquarters at Ibeka; but here, close to the scene of their late victory, the volunteers and burgher forces remained; and at nightfall the horses were driven in and “rung,” that is to say, tethered in circles; while additional sentries were posted, and every precaution taken, the recent success notwithstanding, for they were in the enemy’s country.
Jim Brathwaite was mightily glad, and no less surprised at the unexpected meeting, and warmly seconded Hicks’ suggestion that Claverton should join his corps.
“Twice I noticed a fellow to-day, Arthur,” he said, “who reminded me of your straight riding; and, by George, it must have been you yourself. Well, well; we are all bound to meet again some day, however we may scatter. But what do you think that fellow Hicks has done?”
“What?”
“Committed matrimony. And so has Jack.”
“Has he? Jack, I mean. I knew about the other. Who, and when, and where?”
“Oh, that’s a very old story, Jim,” said Armitage, trying to look quite at his ease. “Claverton heard it ages ago. Give us some baccy.”
They were sitting round the camp-fire. The afternoon had merged into night, and now the circle was discussing old times.
“Who?—Gertie Wray—you remember her—now Mrs Jack Armitage, promoted. When?—last year. Where?—in Grahamstown,” replied Jim.
And then, as others joined them, the conversation turned from things personal and retrospective, to things political and present; and the state of affairs was discussed in all its bearings.
“Well, we’ve a big enough force in the field to thrash out the Gcaleka country,” Jim was saying; “but then we shall have to be constantly playing hide-and-seek with the Kafirs until we catch old Kreli. If the Gaikas don’t break out, all that the people on the border will have to do will be to guard their line so that none of these chaps can cross. If the Gaikas rise, why, then our friends there will be between two fires.”
“And the Gaikas will rise,” put in Garnier—Jim’s second lieutenant—a quiet-looking, brown-bearded man of about five-and-forty. “You may take my word for that. It isn’t for nothing that they’ve been going through all the war-dancing and farrago. It isn’t for nothing they’ve been sending all their cattle away to the thickest parts of the Amatola forest. And it isn’t likely they’d sit still—they, the warrior race of all others—and let Kreli do all the fighting. And to hear ’em talk, too! Why, they’ve been coming round my place in shoals, and they don’t care what they say. Mind, they mean mischief.”
“But, then, how is it they haven’t broken out already?” ventured Hicks.
Garnier looked pityingly at him. “For several reasons. There’s a strong peace party among them, for one thing. For another, they heard, or rather saw—for there were lots of them present—what a hammering the Gcalekas got the other day when they attacked Ibeka; and they’re not ready. But if any of these chaps of Kreli’s get through and join them—then look out.”
“Well, we can put a tremendous force into the field,” went on Jim. “Why, in the Eastern Province alone we could raise enough to finish the war in a couple of months, if they’re only put to it and not kept fooling about doing nothing.”
“Yes; and if they’re properly looked after in the field,” said another. “No one can fight unless he’s fed; and with the commissariat always two days behind, no body of men will remain long contented.”
“And, while they are fooling about, all their property’s going to wrack and ruin, as ours is at this damned moment,” growled Thorman, who was one of the party.
“Never mind. All the more reason why we should make a thorough good thing of it while we are about it,” said another, of more cheerful disposition. “We’ll teach Jack Kafir a lesson this time, that he’ll remember.”
Thus talking, they sat round that red camp-fire, which threw a fitful glow upon bronzed faces and attire, fantastic-looking in the semi-darkness and in its wild picturesqueness, until at length the bugle sounded, “lights out,” and gradually all subsided to silence. Now and again the yelp and snarl of a jackal came up from beneath, where lay the unburied corpses of the slain foe, and where a number of heaps of black smouldering ashes were all that remained of what in the morning had been the Kraal of the Paramount Chief of Kafirland.
Note 1. In war-time, when lead is scarce, Kafirs manufacture tolerably efficient slugs by cutting up the legs of their iron cooking-pots.
Volume Two—Chapter Nine.A Lull in the Storm.A dry, scorching wind is whirling the pungent red dust-clouds along the streets of King Williamstown, and early though it be, not much more than nine o’clock, life is at the moment exceeding unpleasant for dwellers in the Kaffrarian capital as the hot blast sweeps down the wide streets and over the great arid square, powdering the thirsty eucalyptus trees with a layer of sand, penetrating even the coolest and tightest of houses. A day on which an easy-chair and nankeen garments seem absolute necessities, and yet in the busy frontier town there is as much life and stir as usual. Waggons load and unload before the principal stores; their oxen standing or lying in the yokes, poor and attenuated, for the season is a bad one indeed, further up, the country is suffering from a veritable drought. Men move about singly or by twos and threes, some in the semi-military uniform affected by officers holding a command in some frontier corps, others lightly clad and in broad sombrero-like hat or pith helmet. Round the native shops and canteens bronzed Kafirs squat and jabber, or, jumping on their weedy, undersized nags, dash off at a gallop down the street. Here and there, a Police trooper, the snow-white cover of his peaked cap gleaming in the son, rides briskly away from the telegraph office, and the scarlet uniforms of a detachment of regulars, as they march up from the river, returning from their morning bathe, make a glow of shining colour in the close, dusty street. It is an ill wind, however, that blows nobody good, as the drinking-bars could testify; for the number of persons who enter those useful institutions in the course of the morning—each and all with precisely the same remark, that it being externally so dry they stand all the more in need of a wet within—is so large that I will not attempt to reveal it.Leaving the stir and the whirl of the brisk trading centre, we will pass to a comparatively quiet quarter. In the verandah of a small house, on the outskirts of the town, some one is standing, looking intently through a pair of field-glasses, which are levelled at a distant object, evidently a horseman rapidly approaching by the road leading from the Transkei. For a moment she stands eager and motionless, gazing with all her might at that dusty road in the distance; then a red flush of disappointment tinges the beautiful face as she drops the glass from her eyes, and the graceful, erect figure suddenly assumes an unconscious droop.“The fifth time this morning,” she murmurs to herself, dejectedly. “I declare I won’t look again, it’s unlucky.”“So it is, dear. ‘A watched kettle never boils,’ you know,” says a cheery female voice at her elbow. “That’s why I haven’t been watching for George. He’ll come, all in good time; and so will the other one. But you really mustn’t stay out in this heat, Lilian, you’ll be ill, and then shan’t I catch it!”“Oh no, I won’t,” answered Lilian, with a laugh and a blush. “Besides, I like the heat.”“Do you? I wish I did, for I’ve got to go out in it. I’m not even going to ask you to come, because I know it will be impossible to get you off that verandah until—until—well, until,” concluded Annie Payne with another cheerful laugh, as she started upon her unwilling errand, whatever it was.Left to herself, Lilian looked wearily out on the wide expanse of sun-bakedveldt, watching ever the white straggling road where it lost itself over the rise. Once a figure appeared on the sky-line, and her heart gave a great bound, but it was only a pedestrian, her eyes were sufficiently practised now to tell her that, without the necessity of looking through the glass. The heat and the scorching wind were nothing to her. It might have been the most exhilarating weather, and she would not have felt the difference, for to-day her lover would return—return to her, after more than two months of campaigning, two months of danger and hardship and separation; and now she watched the road, impatiently pacing the verandah, and longing for his arrival. Yet he came not. She had done nothing but scan the approaches to the town through the field-glass; but what to the naked eye had more than once looked like the well-known form, had speedily changed to that of some ungainly Dutchman, or sooty native, when the powerful lens was brought to bear upon it.Yes, the campaign is over now—at least, for the present; and the volunteers and burgher forces are returning home, leaving to the Mounted Police and Regulars the task of patrolling the Gcaleka country—that being about all there is left to do. The summer is well advanced; in fact, it wants only a fortnight to Christmas, and the frontiersmen composing the colonial forces decline to remain any longer doing mere patrol work. They have borne their part gallantly in the actual fighting, and now that this is at an end they rightly deem themselves entitled to return. So there is great rejoicing in the little domicile in King Williamstown where George Payne has installed his household during his absence at the front, and now, on this bright, though overpoweringly hot day, Lilian stands in the verandah watching for the return of her lover.What an anxious time to her have been those two months! How she has thought of him, and in spirit been with him all through the campaign! How eagerly she has sought out every scrap of news of the forces in the field, whether in the newspaper reports or the telegramsaffiché-d outside the post office! And at night she has lain awake picturing all manner of dreadful contingencies till her pillow was wet with tears; but she can do nothing—nothing but weep and pray. And now the time of waiting is past, and she will see him again to-day, and lay her head upon his breast and feel that life is too good to live.But if he should not come till to-morrow or the next day! Something may have detained him. An accident perhaps, such things do happen. Her head begins to ache, and she goes into the house in search of some cooling restorative. She has the house to herself fortunately—for the children are out somewhere—and sinking into a low chair she holds her handkerchief, steeped in the grateful liquid, to her throbbing brows. At last, with a sickening sense of blankness—of hope deferred, at her heart, she falls asleep, worn out by the heat and the watching coming upon a night of wakefulness.The molten hours creep on. The deep bass voices of a group of Kafir passers-by, momentarily break their stillness; the thrifty German housewife opens the door of the dwelling opposite—for it is a new quarter, and the houses are built almost in theveldt—and throws a pailful of stuff to her fowls, which run clucking up; but no tramp of hoofs disturbs the midday quiet.Suddenly Lilian awakes. Is it an instinct, or is it the clink of a spur and a light, firm tread on thestoepoutside, that makes her start up and hasten to the door? In the passage she collides against a man who is entering, and with a quick exclamation he catches her in his arms.“Arthur—love—is it indeed you? I am not dreaming, am I?” she murmurs, clinging tightly to him, the rich voice vibrating with uncontrollable emotion. “It is you—at last—darling. And I have been waiting and watching so long—till I began to think all sorts of dreadful things must have happened,” and raising her head from his breast she looks at him, laughing and weeping at the same time in her ecstasy of joy.“Yes; it’s myself all right,” he replies, kissing away the tears from her cheeks and eyes. “But I shall begin to think it’s some one else directly, because this is far and away too good for me—too good for me to believe in. Lilian, my life! Every day since we parted I have been looking forward to and waiting for this.”“Ah God! I have got my darling back again safe—safe!” she murmurs almost inaudibly, but Claverton hears it, and he does not answer, he only tightens his clasp of the lithe, willowy figure which he holds in his embrace, and covers the soft dusky hair, lying against his cheek, with passionate kisses. A thousand years of ten times the peril and hardship he has gone through since they parted would be a small price to pay for such a moment as this, he thinks. They make a pleasant picture, those two, as they stand there. He—well-knit, grave, handsome, in the rough picturesqueness of his campaigning attire, his features bronzed by exposure to sun and climate, and with his normal air of quiet resolution deepened and enhanced by a sense of many dangers recently passed through; looking at her with a tender, protecting reverence. She—soft, graceful, and clinging—the sweet lips curving into a succession of radiant smiles even while her eyes are yet wet with the tears which an uncontrollable feeling of love and thankfulness has evoked.“So you thought I was never going to put in an appearance, darling?” he says, at length.“Ah, how I waited and longed! But I can forget it now—now that I have got you. Wait! You look so much better for the dreadful time you have been through, dearest, so strong and well. And you are not going off again, are you? The war is over now.”“I hope so,” is his rather weary reply. “I’m tired of ruffians and camp life—utterly sick of them. Not but what the said ruffians are rather good fellows; but peace is better than fighting, when all’s said and done. By the way, how is it we have the house all to ourselves? This is an unusual run of luck, my Lilian.”“Mrs Payne is out somewhere, and the children too. And—”“And—why didn’t you go with them, instead of moping in here alone all the morning?”“Arthur!”“Lilian! Don’t look so shocked, my darling. Do you think I don’t know perfectly, that you wouldn’t lose a chance of getting the first glimpse of a certain broken-down and war-worn ragamuffin?”A shadow darkened the light. Both looked up quickly as a slim, well-made native, standing in the doorway, raised his hand above his head and sang out lustily, “Inkos!”“Hallo, Sam!” cried Claverton, not best pleased with the interruption. “How are you getting on?”The native showed a double row of dazzling “ivories” as he grinned in genuine delight at seeing his master back again.“Did you kill many—very many of the Amaxosa, my chief?” he asked, in the Zulu tongue.“H’m. Many of those who got in front of my gun-barrels up there, met with bad accidents,” replied his master, drily.Sam chuckled and grinned. His exultation could hardly contain itself.“Ha, Missie Liliane,” he said, in his broken English, “Sam he tell you so. Inkos, he kill lots, lots of Amaxosa nigga. He shoot, shoot them—so, so,” and he began snapping his fingers vehemently, and otherwise pantomiming the sharp-shooting of a body of skirmishers. “Sam, he tell you so, Missie Liliane. Amaxosa nigga no good! They no can hurt Inkos. Sam, he tell you so. Inkos, he shoot, shoot them instead. Amaxosa nigga no good. Haow!”“Sam, you rascal, shut up that,” cried Claverton, good-humouredly. “Cut found to the stable and look after the horse; I’ve ridden the poor brute nearly to death. Give him a good rub down, and see that he’s cool before he drinks. D’you hear?”“Teh bo ’Nkos,” answered Sam, and he disappeared; and they could hear him as he passed beneath the open window, humming to a sort of chant of his own: “Aow! Amaxosa nigga no good—no good.”“Has that chap behaved himself while I’ve been away, darling?” asked Claverton.“Behaved himself? Why, he’s the best of boys. Sometimes when I felt very, very downhearted about the war, that dear, good Sam would try all in his power to cheer me up, and persuade me that you would be sure not to come to harm, love. He used to declare that the Kafirs were sure to run away whenever you appeared, and he cut such extraordinary antics, always bringing in that ridiculous phrase of his, that he kept me in fits of laughter. Yes, he has been as good as possible.”“That’s a feather in Sam’s cap, and a deuced good thing for him. Wasn’t it queer, my falling in with all the old lot up there? They were all just the same; even Jeffreys hasn’t quite laid by his scowl, and as for Jack Armitage, he’s a greater lunatic than ever. I hope our little friend keeps a tight rein on him at his hearth and home, for in the field there was no holding the fellow. He has started a frightful thing in bugles, which he toots upon vehemently on the smallest provocation, though, by Jove, I was glad enough to hear that braying old post-horn once, when Brathwaite’s men turned the tables in our favour in an awkwardish scrimmage.”It was a remarkable coincidence that as he uttered these words a terrific fanfare should be sounded outside.“That’s it! Jack’s post-horn for anything!” cried he, making for the window. “Talk of the—ah’m! Wonder what the fellow’s doing here. And, look, there’s George Payne and the rest of them.”The whole lot of them it was, and a minute later they all entered, laughing and talking at a great rate.“Why, Jack, what the deuce areyoudoing up here?” cried Claverton, in astonishment.“We forgot it might be necessary to obtain Mr Claverton’s permission to tread the streets of King Williamstown,” demurely said a voice at his elbow, before the other could reply.Claverton turned.“Oh—ah—ah’m! Sowedid. I forgot. How d’you do, Mrs Armitage?” he said, looking quizzically down at the bright, saucy face of the speaker.Gertie Armitage—néeWray—laughed and blushed as she shook hands with him. She looked much the same as when last we saw her, a trifle saucier, perhaps, but that was only natural, said her friends, seeing that she had to look after madcap Jack.That worthy, meanwhile, was endeavouring to initiate Payne’s son and heir into the mysteries of the key bugle, but the youngster could evoke no sound from the same, and was ready to cry with chagrin.“Look here, Harry, this is the dodge,” and, putting the instrument to his lips, he emitted a series of diabolical and heartrending blasts.“Jack—Jack!” cried Claverton, stopping his ears, “for Heaven’s sake drop that fiendish row, or you’ll have all the Germans in the quarter scuttling under their beds, thinking that the Gaikas have risen, and some fellow has come to commandeer them to go to the front.”“Fiendish row! There’s gratitude for you,” retorted Armitage. “He didn’t call it a fiendish row that day down near the Bashi, did he, Payne?”“No, it was all right then,” rejoined Claverton. “Music in the wrong place, you know, degenerates into a diabolical row. Keep the old post-horn for the ghosts at Spoek Krantz, Jack. They’d appreciate it keenly.”“Oh, the ingratitude of human nature!” exclaimed the bugler. “But I’ve left Spoek Krantz.”“Have you? Ah, I thought the ghosts would be too much for you some day. Where are you now?”“Nowhere. Got a roving commission. When the country’s quiet again I’m going to take over that place next door to Hicks. By the way, you should just see Hicks now, a model family man. Would hardly leave his missis and brace of kids even to go and have a shot at old Kreli. We almost had to lug him away by force.”“When the country is quiet again I’m going to do this,” he had said, and in such wise do we mortals airily make our plans. Meanwhile all was hilarity and gladness and contentment in that circle, for was it not a reunion of those dear to each other, after the trials, and perils, and privations of a hard chapter of savage warfare?Lilian was very happy in the days that followed; and to her lover, after the rough camp life, the toil and the battle, with all the hardening associations, the sunny quiet spent in the companionship of this refined, beautiful woman, was as the very peace of Heaven. Oft-times as he watched the sweet eyes kindle at his approach, and heard the firm, low voice shake ever so slightly, his heart would thrill and his cheek flush with a fierce elation over his absolute sense of possessing the rich, the priceless gift of her entire love; and then would succeed a momentary wave of despondency as he thought how this must be far too much happiness to fall to his lot, and with the thought something very like an unspoken prayer—wild, passionate, and unbridled in burden even as his own resolute nature—would shape itself within his heart, that rather than again experience such a blow as that which had sent him forth a desolate wanderer years ago—he might die—a hundred deaths, if need be, so that obliteration came to him at last. And had there been room for it, his tenderness towards Lilian would have redoubled with these reflections; but there was not—it was always the same.“Be quick, darling,” he said to her one day, as she was leaving the room for a moment to fetch some necessary implement missing from her work-basket. “I hate to have you out of my sight for half a minute more than is inevitable.”The two were alone together, and he pitched his book across the room impatiently as he spoke. She turned and came back to him.“Why, I wonder you’re not quite tired of me,” she said, with her sunny smile, bending over him and toying with his hair.“Tired of you!MyLilian. The only being on earth for me to love. The capacity has been kept so long in reserve that now there’s no holding it.”She bent lower and laid her cheek against his brow. “Yes, Arthur. We are both alone in the world for each other—are we not?” she whispered; then, suddenly escaping from his would-be detaining arm, she darted to the door, turning to flash upon him a bright, loving look before she went out; and he, rising, kicked over a chair and then another, and opened and threw down three or four books without gleaning an idea of their contents, and walked to the window, then back again, and whistled, and otherwise fidgeted outrageously until her return.Lose not a minute of your happiness, ye two; gather to the full the sweets of the present, even while ye may, for ye know not what the future may have in store. Even yet the war-cloud hangs threatening on the horizon; it has lifted, but has not vanished. Amid the rage of the elements may suddenly fall peace. It is but a lull in the tempest.To some of his former companions-in-arms, who lived in the town or neighbourhood, Claverton was an unfailing source of wonder.“I should never have known the fellow,” one of them would say, as they discussed him among themselves. “Why, most of us in camp used to look upon Claverton as a man with no more heart than a stone. A fellow who would close the eyes of his twin brother and then sit down to a jolly good breakfast, and crack a joke about it,”—the speaker’s idea of the acme of callousness. “And now he’s making a perfect fool of himself about a girl—hardly leaves her for a moment, they say. I can’t understand it,” and the speaker knocked the ashes out of his pipe with a jerk and a shrug, implying half pity, half contempt.“You could if you had seen her,” said another, quietly. “She’s awfully fetching.”“So I’m told. But still—such a hard nail as Claverton. I can’t make it out.”Thus spoke his companions-in-arms. It could not be expected, however, that these plain, honest, matter-of-fact frontiersmen should give him credit for possessing a two-sided nature. They merely spoke of him as they had seen him.One day the two were walking along the upper end of the market-square. It was in the middle of the forenoon, and though warm, a fine day, and the traffic on the footway was tolerably brisk, while around an auctioneer’s table a goodly crowd was assembled, and the sale went on in spirited fashion. They were stopped by some mutual acquaintance, and Claverton, taking advantage of the incident, left Lilian talking to these, while he dived into the throng for a moment to speak to some one whom he had suddenly caught sight of. When he returned, he found Lilian standing alone, their friends having taken their leave and passed on.“So sorry you’ve had to wait, darling—even a minute. Why, what is it?” For she was looking a trifle perturbed.“Nothing. Really nothing. Let’s go on.”“Is it the heat? We’ll go home. It is rather overwhelming, of course; I ought to have remembered,” he said, anxiously.“No, it isn’t too hot in the least,” she answered. Then taking a quick, furtive look behind: “Arthur—wait—now look round—quick! There’s somebody following us.”He turned rapidly and scanned the crowd. No one seemed to be making of them a special point of observation.“I don’t see any one out of the common. See if you can point him out, dear.”“No. He is gone; I could see him shrink out of sight directly I looked round the second time,” she said, excitedly, twirling the handle of her sun-shade. “I wouldn’t say anything at first, thinking it might be my fancy; but I could see him eyeing you as you went in among all those people just now. He was standing on the pavement—there.”“Well, he’s disappeared now, at any rate,” said Claverton, again looking carefully around. “What was the animal like—white or black?”“Neither. A sort of dirty brown colour, not at all like a native of these parts. He had woolly hair, though, and a hideous, wrinkled face with two pointed, shark-like teeth; and he was looking at you so fiercely,” and she shuddered. “And oh—Arthur—when I looked round again and saw those glaring eyes following on so close behind us, it quite frightened me.”Claverton was puzzled. Nine Englishmen out of ten would have gently pooh-poohed the idea as mere fancy; but his life had been too full of strange and startling experiences for that.“Have you no secret enemy? No one who would owe you a grudge?” she continued, in a tone of deep anxiety. “That man looked murder at you.”“N-no; I can’t call to mind any. Most likely a case of mistaken identity. The fellow must have taken me for some one else, and bolted directly I looked round for fear of being brought to book. That was it, dear, depend upon it; so don’t think anything more about the concern,” he concluded, with the air of a man who has successfully solved a mystery. But he wished he had caught a glimpse of the mysterious individual all the same.The incident had a depressing effect upon Lilian which she was quite unable to shake off. That some terrible danger was hovering over and threatening her lover she was certain; and the idea of being tracked and watched by a secret foe was to her fraught with horror. But it was for him she feared—for this man whom every day rendered more unspeakably dear to her, and for whom, retiring, even timid as her nature was, she could be brave as a lion, even to the giving of her own life to shield him from harm. Of his past she knew but little—as yet he had not told her much, and in all the fulness of her love and trust she took a pride in abstaining from asking him; but that it had been more eventful than the lives of most men of his age she had gathered, and what relentless enemies might he not have, now surely and stealthily pursuing him? Many a glance of admiration was cast on her—in her serene, dignified beauty, which the troubled thoughtfulness now clouding her face only seemed to enhance—as they passed along the busy streets; and people began to inquire of each other who those two were who were never seen apart, and who looked such a well-matched couple.Meanwhile, the political outlook was becoming gloomier every day, for the warlike tribes of the Gaikas and Hlambis—whose locations comprised some of the wildest and most inaccessible parts of Kaffraria—were on the verge of revolt. The stage of sullen restlessness and daring outrage was about to culminate in open warfare, and no doubt now existed that these savages intended to rise and make common cause with their brethren the Gcalekas, who, though decimated and dispersed, were as far as ever from being subdued. And, when compared with the rising now threatening, the fighting in Gcalekaland was a mere fleabite, for the latter had been localised in the Transkei, whereas this would envelope the whole Eastern frontier in the flames of war. Day by day the low rumblings of the gathering storm increased, and from far and near the families of the settlers came crowding into King Williamstown. Every hotel and lodging-house was crammed, and not a room was obtainable for love or money. Many lived in their tent-waggons, failing more substantial shelter, and the pastureland in the immediate neighbourhood seemed in danger of exhaustion from the multitudes of live stock which grazed thereon. The telegraph was actively at work, hourly flashing its messages of alarm or reassurance according as the latest turn of events warranted; while many-tongued rumour hinted at a decisive move pending on the part of the enemy beyond the border simultaneously with the rising of the tribes within the same. It was understood that the burgher forces were liable to be called out at any moment, and among the townsmen fresh volunteers were enrolled, and drill and parades went on night and day in view of the probability that the regular troops in garrison would be ordered to take the field, and that the townspeople must be ready to protect themselves.And as if the scourge of impending war—the merciless warfare of the savage—was not enough, the land lay parched up with drought. Transport-riders from up-country had gruesome tales to tell of roads lined with rotting carcases or bleached skeletons of trek-oxen, which had succumbed unable to find nourishment in the burnt-up grass, or perishing on the margin of water-holes reduced to patches of dry, baked mud—pointing to their own attenuated spans in corroboration of their statements. The crops were failing, and, already in some districts, the appearance of locusts in sufficiently formidable swarms was reported; and the scant herbage, which the drought had spared, would be in danger of disappearing entirely before this new and redoubtable plague. Trade was at a standstill, and, amid the all-pervading apprehension and gloomy outlook, it was universally held that the sooner the rising took place the better. So Christmas approached; but it was not with joy or gladness that men’s hearts looked forward to the kindly festival in that burning Southern midsummer, for the deserted farms and homesteads told their own tale, and the savage enemy sullenly sat still, biding his own time. The war-cloud hung brooding over the land darker and darker.
A dry, scorching wind is whirling the pungent red dust-clouds along the streets of King Williamstown, and early though it be, not much more than nine o’clock, life is at the moment exceeding unpleasant for dwellers in the Kaffrarian capital as the hot blast sweeps down the wide streets and over the great arid square, powdering the thirsty eucalyptus trees with a layer of sand, penetrating even the coolest and tightest of houses. A day on which an easy-chair and nankeen garments seem absolute necessities, and yet in the busy frontier town there is as much life and stir as usual. Waggons load and unload before the principal stores; their oxen standing or lying in the yokes, poor and attenuated, for the season is a bad one indeed, further up, the country is suffering from a veritable drought. Men move about singly or by twos and threes, some in the semi-military uniform affected by officers holding a command in some frontier corps, others lightly clad and in broad sombrero-like hat or pith helmet. Round the native shops and canteens bronzed Kafirs squat and jabber, or, jumping on their weedy, undersized nags, dash off at a gallop down the street. Here and there, a Police trooper, the snow-white cover of his peaked cap gleaming in the son, rides briskly away from the telegraph office, and the scarlet uniforms of a detachment of regulars, as they march up from the river, returning from their morning bathe, make a glow of shining colour in the close, dusty street. It is an ill wind, however, that blows nobody good, as the drinking-bars could testify; for the number of persons who enter those useful institutions in the course of the morning—each and all with precisely the same remark, that it being externally so dry they stand all the more in need of a wet within—is so large that I will not attempt to reveal it.
Leaving the stir and the whirl of the brisk trading centre, we will pass to a comparatively quiet quarter. In the verandah of a small house, on the outskirts of the town, some one is standing, looking intently through a pair of field-glasses, which are levelled at a distant object, evidently a horseman rapidly approaching by the road leading from the Transkei. For a moment she stands eager and motionless, gazing with all her might at that dusty road in the distance; then a red flush of disappointment tinges the beautiful face as she drops the glass from her eyes, and the graceful, erect figure suddenly assumes an unconscious droop.
“The fifth time this morning,” she murmurs to herself, dejectedly. “I declare I won’t look again, it’s unlucky.”
“So it is, dear. ‘A watched kettle never boils,’ you know,” says a cheery female voice at her elbow. “That’s why I haven’t been watching for George. He’ll come, all in good time; and so will the other one. But you really mustn’t stay out in this heat, Lilian, you’ll be ill, and then shan’t I catch it!”
“Oh no, I won’t,” answered Lilian, with a laugh and a blush. “Besides, I like the heat.”
“Do you? I wish I did, for I’ve got to go out in it. I’m not even going to ask you to come, because I know it will be impossible to get you off that verandah until—until—well, until,” concluded Annie Payne with another cheerful laugh, as she started upon her unwilling errand, whatever it was.
Left to herself, Lilian looked wearily out on the wide expanse of sun-bakedveldt, watching ever the white straggling road where it lost itself over the rise. Once a figure appeared on the sky-line, and her heart gave a great bound, but it was only a pedestrian, her eyes were sufficiently practised now to tell her that, without the necessity of looking through the glass. The heat and the scorching wind were nothing to her. It might have been the most exhilarating weather, and she would not have felt the difference, for to-day her lover would return—return to her, after more than two months of campaigning, two months of danger and hardship and separation; and now she watched the road, impatiently pacing the verandah, and longing for his arrival. Yet he came not. She had done nothing but scan the approaches to the town through the field-glass; but what to the naked eye had more than once looked like the well-known form, had speedily changed to that of some ungainly Dutchman, or sooty native, when the powerful lens was brought to bear upon it.
Yes, the campaign is over now—at least, for the present; and the volunteers and burgher forces are returning home, leaving to the Mounted Police and Regulars the task of patrolling the Gcaleka country—that being about all there is left to do. The summer is well advanced; in fact, it wants only a fortnight to Christmas, and the frontiersmen composing the colonial forces decline to remain any longer doing mere patrol work. They have borne their part gallantly in the actual fighting, and now that this is at an end they rightly deem themselves entitled to return. So there is great rejoicing in the little domicile in King Williamstown where George Payne has installed his household during his absence at the front, and now, on this bright, though overpoweringly hot day, Lilian stands in the verandah watching for the return of her lover.
What an anxious time to her have been those two months! How she has thought of him, and in spirit been with him all through the campaign! How eagerly she has sought out every scrap of news of the forces in the field, whether in the newspaper reports or the telegramsaffiché-d outside the post office! And at night she has lain awake picturing all manner of dreadful contingencies till her pillow was wet with tears; but she can do nothing—nothing but weep and pray. And now the time of waiting is past, and she will see him again to-day, and lay her head upon his breast and feel that life is too good to live.
But if he should not come till to-morrow or the next day! Something may have detained him. An accident perhaps, such things do happen. Her head begins to ache, and she goes into the house in search of some cooling restorative. She has the house to herself fortunately—for the children are out somewhere—and sinking into a low chair she holds her handkerchief, steeped in the grateful liquid, to her throbbing brows. At last, with a sickening sense of blankness—of hope deferred, at her heart, she falls asleep, worn out by the heat and the watching coming upon a night of wakefulness.
The molten hours creep on. The deep bass voices of a group of Kafir passers-by, momentarily break their stillness; the thrifty German housewife opens the door of the dwelling opposite—for it is a new quarter, and the houses are built almost in theveldt—and throws a pailful of stuff to her fowls, which run clucking up; but no tramp of hoofs disturbs the midday quiet.
Suddenly Lilian awakes. Is it an instinct, or is it the clink of a spur and a light, firm tread on thestoepoutside, that makes her start up and hasten to the door? In the passage she collides against a man who is entering, and with a quick exclamation he catches her in his arms.
“Arthur—love—is it indeed you? I am not dreaming, am I?” she murmurs, clinging tightly to him, the rich voice vibrating with uncontrollable emotion. “It is you—at last—darling. And I have been waiting and watching so long—till I began to think all sorts of dreadful things must have happened,” and raising her head from his breast she looks at him, laughing and weeping at the same time in her ecstasy of joy.
“Yes; it’s myself all right,” he replies, kissing away the tears from her cheeks and eyes. “But I shall begin to think it’s some one else directly, because this is far and away too good for me—too good for me to believe in. Lilian, my life! Every day since we parted I have been looking forward to and waiting for this.”
“Ah God! I have got my darling back again safe—safe!” she murmurs almost inaudibly, but Claverton hears it, and he does not answer, he only tightens his clasp of the lithe, willowy figure which he holds in his embrace, and covers the soft dusky hair, lying against his cheek, with passionate kisses. A thousand years of ten times the peril and hardship he has gone through since they parted would be a small price to pay for such a moment as this, he thinks. They make a pleasant picture, those two, as they stand there. He—well-knit, grave, handsome, in the rough picturesqueness of his campaigning attire, his features bronzed by exposure to sun and climate, and with his normal air of quiet resolution deepened and enhanced by a sense of many dangers recently passed through; looking at her with a tender, protecting reverence. She—soft, graceful, and clinging—the sweet lips curving into a succession of radiant smiles even while her eyes are yet wet with the tears which an uncontrollable feeling of love and thankfulness has evoked.
“So you thought I was never going to put in an appearance, darling?” he says, at length.
“Ah, how I waited and longed! But I can forget it now—now that I have got you. Wait! You look so much better for the dreadful time you have been through, dearest, so strong and well. And you are not going off again, are you? The war is over now.”
“I hope so,” is his rather weary reply. “I’m tired of ruffians and camp life—utterly sick of them. Not but what the said ruffians are rather good fellows; but peace is better than fighting, when all’s said and done. By the way, how is it we have the house all to ourselves? This is an unusual run of luck, my Lilian.”
“Mrs Payne is out somewhere, and the children too. And—”
“And—why didn’t you go with them, instead of moping in here alone all the morning?”
“Arthur!”
“Lilian! Don’t look so shocked, my darling. Do you think I don’t know perfectly, that you wouldn’t lose a chance of getting the first glimpse of a certain broken-down and war-worn ragamuffin?”
A shadow darkened the light. Both looked up quickly as a slim, well-made native, standing in the doorway, raised his hand above his head and sang out lustily, “Inkos!”
“Hallo, Sam!” cried Claverton, not best pleased with the interruption. “How are you getting on?”
The native showed a double row of dazzling “ivories” as he grinned in genuine delight at seeing his master back again.
“Did you kill many—very many of the Amaxosa, my chief?” he asked, in the Zulu tongue.
“H’m. Many of those who got in front of my gun-barrels up there, met with bad accidents,” replied his master, drily.
Sam chuckled and grinned. His exultation could hardly contain itself.
“Ha, Missie Liliane,” he said, in his broken English, “Sam he tell you so. Inkos, he kill lots, lots of Amaxosa nigga. He shoot, shoot them—so, so,” and he began snapping his fingers vehemently, and otherwise pantomiming the sharp-shooting of a body of skirmishers. “Sam, he tell you so, Missie Liliane. Amaxosa nigga no good! They no can hurt Inkos. Sam, he tell you so. Inkos, he shoot, shoot them instead. Amaxosa nigga no good. Haow!”
“Sam, you rascal, shut up that,” cried Claverton, good-humouredly. “Cut found to the stable and look after the horse; I’ve ridden the poor brute nearly to death. Give him a good rub down, and see that he’s cool before he drinks. D’you hear?”
“Teh bo ’Nkos,” answered Sam, and he disappeared; and they could hear him as he passed beneath the open window, humming to a sort of chant of his own: “Aow! Amaxosa nigga no good—no good.”
“Has that chap behaved himself while I’ve been away, darling?” asked Claverton.
“Behaved himself? Why, he’s the best of boys. Sometimes when I felt very, very downhearted about the war, that dear, good Sam would try all in his power to cheer me up, and persuade me that you would be sure not to come to harm, love. He used to declare that the Kafirs were sure to run away whenever you appeared, and he cut such extraordinary antics, always bringing in that ridiculous phrase of his, that he kept me in fits of laughter. Yes, he has been as good as possible.”
“That’s a feather in Sam’s cap, and a deuced good thing for him. Wasn’t it queer, my falling in with all the old lot up there? They were all just the same; even Jeffreys hasn’t quite laid by his scowl, and as for Jack Armitage, he’s a greater lunatic than ever. I hope our little friend keeps a tight rein on him at his hearth and home, for in the field there was no holding the fellow. He has started a frightful thing in bugles, which he toots upon vehemently on the smallest provocation, though, by Jove, I was glad enough to hear that braying old post-horn once, when Brathwaite’s men turned the tables in our favour in an awkwardish scrimmage.”
It was a remarkable coincidence that as he uttered these words a terrific fanfare should be sounded outside.
“That’s it! Jack’s post-horn for anything!” cried he, making for the window. “Talk of the—ah’m! Wonder what the fellow’s doing here. And, look, there’s George Payne and the rest of them.”
The whole lot of them it was, and a minute later they all entered, laughing and talking at a great rate.
“Why, Jack, what the deuce areyoudoing up here?” cried Claverton, in astonishment.
“We forgot it might be necessary to obtain Mr Claverton’s permission to tread the streets of King Williamstown,” demurely said a voice at his elbow, before the other could reply.
Claverton turned.
“Oh—ah—ah’m! Sowedid. I forgot. How d’you do, Mrs Armitage?” he said, looking quizzically down at the bright, saucy face of the speaker.
Gertie Armitage—néeWray—laughed and blushed as she shook hands with him. She looked much the same as when last we saw her, a trifle saucier, perhaps, but that was only natural, said her friends, seeing that she had to look after madcap Jack.
That worthy, meanwhile, was endeavouring to initiate Payne’s son and heir into the mysteries of the key bugle, but the youngster could evoke no sound from the same, and was ready to cry with chagrin.
“Look here, Harry, this is the dodge,” and, putting the instrument to his lips, he emitted a series of diabolical and heartrending blasts.
“Jack—Jack!” cried Claverton, stopping his ears, “for Heaven’s sake drop that fiendish row, or you’ll have all the Germans in the quarter scuttling under their beds, thinking that the Gaikas have risen, and some fellow has come to commandeer them to go to the front.”
“Fiendish row! There’s gratitude for you,” retorted Armitage. “He didn’t call it a fiendish row that day down near the Bashi, did he, Payne?”
“No, it was all right then,” rejoined Claverton. “Music in the wrong place, you know, degenerates into a diabolical row. Keep the old post-horn for the ghosts at Spoek Krantz, Jack. They’d appreciate it keenly.”
“Oh, the ingratitude of human nature!” exclaimed the bugler. “But I’ve left Spoek Krantz.”
“Have you? Ah, I thought the ghosts would be too much for you some day. Where are you now?”
“Nowhere. Got a roving commission. When the country’s quiet again I’m going to take over that place next door to Hicks. By the way, you should just see Hicks now, a model family man. Would hardly leave his missis and brace of kids even to go and have a shot at old Kreli. We almost had to lug him away by force.”
“When the country is quiet again I’m going to do this,” he had said, and in such wise do we mortals airily make our plans. Meanwhile all was hilarity and gladness and contentment in that circle, for was it not a reunion of those dear to each other, after the trials, and perils, and privations of a hard chapter of savage warfare?
Lilian was very happy in the days that followed; and to her lover, after the rough camp life, the toil and the battle, with all the hardening associations, the sunny quiet spent in the companionship of this refined, beautiful woman, was as the very peace of Heaven. Oft-times as he watched the sweet eyes kindle at his approach, and heard the firm, low voice shake ever so slightly, his heart would thrill and his cheek flush with a fierce elation over his absolute sense of possessing the rich, the priceless gift of her entire love; and then would succeed a momentary wave of despondency as he thought how this must be far too much happiness to fall to his lot, and with the thought something very like an unspoken prayer—wild, passionate, and unbridled in burden even as his own resolute nature—would shape itself within his heart, that rather than again experience such a blow as that which had sent him forth a desolate wanderer years ago—he might die—a hundred deaths, if need be, so that obliteration came to him at last. And had there been room for it, his tenderness towards Lilian would have redoubled with these reflections; but there was not—it was always the same.
“Be quick, darling,” he said to her one day, as she was leaving the room for a moment to fetch some necessary implement missing from her work-basket. “I hate to have you out of my sight for half a minute more than is inevitable.”
The two were alone together, and he pitched his book across the room impatiently as he spoke. She turned and came back to him.
“Why, I wonder you’re not quite tired of me,” she said, with her sunny smile, bending over him and toying with his hair.
“Tired of you!MyLilian. The only being on earth for me to love. The capacity has been kept so long in reserve that now there’s no holding it.”
She bent lower and laid her cheek against his brow. “Yes, Arthur. We are both alone in the world for each other—are we not?” she whispered; then, suddenly escaping from his would-be detaining arm, she darted to the door, turning to flash upon him a bright, loving look before she went out; and he, rising, kicked over a chair and then another, and opened and threw down three or four books without gleaning an idea of their contents, and walked to the window, then back again, and whistled, and otherwise fidgeted outrageously until her return.
Lose not a minute of your happiness, ye two; gather to the full the sweets of the present, even while ye may, for ye know not what the future may have in store. Even yet the war-cloud hangs threatening on the horizon; it has lifted, but has not vanished. Amid the rage of the elements may suddenly fall peace. It is but a lull in the tempest.
To some of his former companions-in-arms, who lived in the town or neighbourhood, Claverton was an unfailing source of wonder.
“I should never have known the fellow,” one of them would say, as they discussed him among themselves. “Why, most of us in camp used to look upon Claverton as a man with no more heart than a stone. A fellow who would close the eyes of his twin brother and then sit down to a jolly good breakfast, and crack a joke about it,”—the speaker’s idea of the acme of callousness. “And now he’s making a perfect fool of himself about a girl—hardly leaves her for a moment, they say. I can’t understand it,” and the speaker knocked the ashes out of his pipe with a jerk and a shrug, implying half pity, half contempt.
“You could if you had seen her,” said another, quietly. “She’s awfully fetching.”
“So I’m told. But still—such a hard nail as Claverton. I can’t make it out.”
Thus spoke his companions-in-arms. It could not be expected, however, that these plain, honest, matter-of-fact frontiersmen should give him credit for possessing a two-sided nature. They merely spoke of him as they had seen him.
One day the two were walking along the upper end of the market-square. It was in the middle of the forenoon, and though warm, a fine day, and the traffic on the footway was tolerably brisk, while around an auctioneer’s table a goodly crowd was assembled, and the sale went on in spirited fashion. They were stopped by some mutual acquaintance, and Claverton, taking advantage of the incident, left Lilian talking to these, while he dived into the throng for a moment to speak to some one whom he had suddenly caught sight of. When he returned, he found Lilian standing alone, their friends having taken their leave and passed on.
“So sorry you’ve had to wait, darling—even a minute. Why, what is it?” For she was looking a trifle perturbed.
“Nothing. Really nothing. Let’s go on.”
“Is it the heat? We’ll go home. It is rather overwhelming, of course; I ought to have remembered,” he said, anxiously.
“No, it isn’t too hot in the least,” she answered. Then taking a quick, furtive look behind: “Arthur—wait—now look round—quick! There’s somebody following us.”
He turned rapidly and scanned the crowd. No one seemed to be making of them a special point of observation.
“I don’t see any one out of the common. See if you can point him out, dear.”
“No. He is gone; I could see him shrink out of sight directly I looked round the second time,” she said, excitedly, twirling the handle of her sun-shade. “I wouldn’t say anything at first, thinking it might be my fancy; but I could see him eyeing you as you went in among all those people just now. He was standing on the pavement—there.”
“Well, he’s disappeared now, at any rate,” said Claverton, again looking carefully around. “What was the animal like—white or black?”
“Neither. A sort of dirty brown colour, not at all like a native of these parts. He had woolly hair, though, and a hideous, wrinkled face with two pointed, shark-like teeth; and he was looking at you so fiercely,” and she shuddered. “And oh—Arthur—when I looked round again and saw those glaring eyes following on so close behind us, it quite frightened me.”
Claverton was puzzled. Nine Englishmen out of ten would have gently pooh-poohed the idea as mere fancy; but his life had been too full of strange and startling experiences for that.
“Have you no secret enemy? No one who would owe you a grudge?” she continued, in a tone of deep anxiety. “That man looked murder at you.”
“N-no; I can’t call to mind any. Most likely a case of mistaken identity. The fellow must have taken me for some one else, and bolted directly I looked round for fear of being brought to book. That was it, dear, depend upon it; so don’t think anything more about the concern,” he concluded, with the air of a man who has successfully solved a mystery. But he wished he had caught a glimpse of the mysterious individual all the same.
The incident had a depressing effect upon Lilian which she was quite unable to shake off. That some terrible danger was hovering over and threatening her lover she was certain; and the idea of being tracked and watched by a secret foe was to her fraught with horror. But it was for him she feared—for this man whom every day rendered more unspeakably dear to her, and for whom, retiring, even timid as her nature was, she could be brave as a lion, even to the giving of her own life to shield him from harm. Of his past she knew but little—as yet he had not told her much, and in all the fulness of her love and trust she took a pride in abstaining from asking him; but that it had been more eventful than the lives of most men of his age she had gathered, and what relentless enemies might he not have, now surely and stealthily pursuing him? Many a glance of admiration was cast on her—in her serene, dignified beauty, which the troubled thoughtfulness now clouding her face only seemed to enhance—as they passed along the busy streets; and people began to inquire of each other who those two were who were never seen apart, and who looked such a well-matched couple.
Meanwhile, the political outlook was becoming gloomier every day, for the warlike tribes of the Gaikas and Hlambis—whose locations comprised some of the wildest and most inaccessible parts of Kaffraria—were on the verge of revolt. The stage of sullen restlessness and daring outrage was about to culminate in open warfare, and no doubt now existed that these savages intended to rise and make common cause with their brethren the Gcalekas, who, though decimated and dispersed, were as far as ever from being subdued. And, when compared with the rising now threatening, the fighting in Gcalekaland was a mere fleabite, for the latter had been localised in the Transkei, whereas this would envelope the whole Eastern frontier in the flames of war. Day by day the low rumblings of the gathering storm increased, and from far and near the families of the settlers came crowding into King Williamstown. Every hotel and lodging-house was crammed, and not a room was obtainable for love or money. Many lived in their tent-waggons, failing more substantial shelter, and the pastureland in the immediate neighbourhood seemed in danger of exhaustion from the multitudes of live stock which grazed thereon. The telegraph was actively at work, hourly flashing its messages of alarm or reassurance according as the latest turn of events warranted; while many-tongued rumour hinted at a decisive move pending on the part of the enemy beyond the border simultaneously with the rising of the tribes within the same. It was understood that the burgher forces were liable to be called out at any moment, and among the townsmen fresh volunteers were enrolled, and drill and parades went on night and day in view of the probability that the regular troops in garrison would be ordered to take the field, and that the townspeople must be ready to protect themselves.
And as if the scourge of impending war—the merciless warfare of the savage—was not enough, the land lay parched up with drought. Transport-riders from up-country had gruesome tales to tell of roads lined with rotting carcases or bleached skeletons of trek-oxen, which had succumbed unable to find nourishment in the burnt-up grass, or perishing on the margin of water-holes reduced to patches of dry, baked mud—pointing to their own attenuated spans in corroboration of their statements. The crops were failing, and, already in some districts, the appearance of locusts in sufficiently formidable swarms was reported; and the scant herbage, which the drought had spared, would be in danger of disappearing entirely before this new and redoubtable plague. Trade was at a standstill, and, amid the all-pervading apprehension and gloomy outlook, it was universally held that the sooner the rising took place the better. So Christmas approached; but it was not with joy or gladness that men’s hearts looked forward to the kindly festival in that burning Southern midsummer, for the deserted farms and homesteads told their own tale, and the savage enemy sullenly sat still, biding his own time. The war-cloud hung brooding over the land darker and darker.