Chapter Ten.A Piece of Zulu Jockeying.After leaving Doorn Draai they trekked on through the Umsinga district, and, turning off the main road at Helpmakaar on the Biggarsberg Heights, descended to Rorke’s Drift. And it was while making their way down to that now historical point that Gerard began to realise what a waggon could do; what an incredible amount of hard knocking about it could stand; for the track seemed a mere succession of ruts and boulders, and as the huge vehicles went creaking and grinding over this, they seemed literally to twist and writhe, until it looked as though each fresh bump must shatter the whole fabric into a thousand crashing fragments. Once, but for his promptitude, the waggon of which Gerard was in charge would infallibly have overturned. However, they reached the drift without accident, and crossed the next day into the Zulu country.At first Gerard could hardly realise that he was no longer under the British flag. This side of the Buffalo river presented no appreciable difference to the side they had just left. A line of precipitous hills rose a few miles in front, and to the eastward a great lion-shaped crag, the now ill-famed Isandhlwana. But few Zulus had come to the waggons, and they struck him as wearing no different aspect to the natives on the Natal side, nor, by-the-by, did they seem in any way keen upon trading.We fear it may hardly be denied that the rose-coloured spectacles through which Gerard had first looked upon the trip and its prospects had undergone some slight dimness, and for this May Kingsland’s blue eyes were wholly responsible. For be it remembered he was very young, and the consciousness that a long time—a whole year, perhaps—must elapse before he should see her again, cast something of a gloom upon his spirits. Good-natured John Dawes saw through the change in his young companion’s lightheartedness, and laughed dryly to himself. Gerard would soon find the right cure for that sort of complaint, he said, when the real business of the trip should begin.One morning a party of half a dozen young Zulus, driving an ox, came up to them as they sat outspanned. The one who seemed to be the leader was a tall, straight, well-built fellow, with a pleasing intelligent countenance. He, like the rest, was unringed, but held his head high in the air, as though he were somebody. All carried assegais and shields. The young leader and two of the others strode up to where Gerard was sitting, and uttering the usual form of greeting, “Saku bona,” squatted down on the grass before him.Now, it happened that Dawes was away, having ridden off to some kraals a few miles distant. Gerard, thus thrown upon his own resources, began to feel something of the burden of responsibility as he returned their greeting and waited for them to speak next. But the leader, stretching forth his hand, said—“Give me that.”Gerard was cleaning a gun at the time, the double-barrelled one, rifle and shot. The Zulu’s remark had come so quick, accompanied by a half-move forward, as though he might be going to seize the weapon, that Gerard instinctively tightened his grasp on it.“Who are you?” he said, looking the other in the eyes.“Nkumbi-ka-zulu, son of Sirayo, the king’sinduna,” replied the youth, with a haughty toss of the head, denoting surprise that anybody should require to be informed of his identity. “Give me the gun; I want to look at it,” he continued, again stretching forth his hand.Gerard realised the delicacy of the situation. There was a greedy sparkle in the young Zulu’s eye as it lighted upon the weapon, which caused him to feel anything but sure that it would be returned to him again. On the other hand, Dawes, he remembered, had a poor opinion of Sirayo and his clan, and he did not want to offend the chief’s son, if he could help it. His command of the language beginning to fail him, he summoned Sintoba to the rescue.“Ask him if, he wants to trade, because, if so, theBaas(Master) will be back soon. Here is some snuff for him, meanwhile.”Nkumbi-ka-zulu condescended to accept the snuff, then, through the driver, he explained that his father had sent the black ox as a present to “Jandosi”—for such was John Dawes’s name among the natives, being of course a corruption of his own—and he, the speaker, had come to do a little trade on his own account. First of all, he wanted that gun, and as many cartridges as he could have. What was the price?Gerard replied that the gun was not for sale. It was wanted to shoot buck and birds during their trip further up-country.“Au!” exclaimed Nkumbi-ka-zulu. “You are so near the border, you can easily send back for another gun. I will give five oxen for it. Ten, then,” he added, as Gerard shook his head in dissent. Still Gerard refused.“Hau! Does he want all the Zulu country?” muttered the others, forgetting good manners in their impatience and eagerness to possess the weapon, and for this, Sintoba, who was of Zulu descent and a ringed man at that, rebuked them sternly.“Since when has the son of a chief learnt to talk with the loud tongue and windbag swagger of theAmabuna?” (Boers) he said. “Have you come here to trade or to play the fool?”“Hau, listen to the Kafula!” cried the young Zulus, springing to their feet and rattling their assegais threateningly. “Since when is the son of a chief to be reviled by a Kafula, who is doing dog at the heels of a travelling white man?”Gerard, who by this time could understand a great deal more than he could speak, looked apprehensively at Sintoba, expecting an immediate outbreak. But to his surprise the man merely uttered a disdainful click, and deliberately turned his broad back upon the exasperated Zulus. He almost expected to see it transfixed with their assegais, and stood ready to brain with his clubbed gun, for he had no cartridges handy, the first who should make an aggressive move. But no such move was made.“I return,” said Nkumbi-ka-zulu, darting forth his hand, with a malevolent look directed especially upon Gerard, “I return to my father to carry word that Jandosi rejects his present, and has left a Kafula with his waggons, and a whiteumfane(boy) to revile the son of a chief.” And turning, the whole party walked rapidly away, driving the ox before them.When they had gone a little distance, they began staging an improvised strophe the burden of whose veiled insolence took in the white race in general, and the last specimen of it the singers had seen in particular, and thus bawling, they eventually receded from sight.Gerard was terribly put about by this occurrence, and was disposed to blame himself bitterly. Surely he had been over cautions, and had brought about this hostile termination by his own awkwardness and stupidity. But to his inexpressible relief John Dawes, to whom on his return he narrated the whole affair, was not at all of this opinion.“It couldn’t have been helped,” the latter declared. “If I had been here the result would likely have been the same, for they’re cheeky young dogs those sons of Sirayo, and the old man himself is a thorough-paced old sweep. If you made any mistake at all, it was a mistake on the right side—that of firmness—and I’m not sure you made any.”Which dictum lifted a weight from Gerard’s mind.“I’m only afraid they’ll play us some trick,” he said. “Hadn’t we better get away from here as soon as possible?”“N-no. They might construe that into an act of running away. We’ll just trek on a few miles further, and see what turns up, but I don’t mind telling you I hardly like the look of things. The people are very unsettled, thanks to this disputed boundary question, and the badgering of the Natal Government. They are sulky and sullen, and flatly refuse to trade. I think we’ll get away north pretty soon.”That evening an incident occurred which, taken in conjunction with the events of the day, looked ominous. The “boy” who was sent to bring in the two horses, which were turned loose to graze, returned with only one; the other he could not find. He had hunted for it high and low, but without result.By this time the two horses had become so accustomed to the waggons that they would never stray far, and often return of their own accord; consequently, it was not thought worthwhile even to knee-halter them. Now, however, the one which the “boy” had brought back had been found much further afield than was usual, and of the other there was no trace. And the missing steed was Gerard’s mouse-coloured Basuto pony.Saddling up the horse that remained and giving orders where the waggons were to outspan, Dawes cantered away into theveldt. He returned in two hours. He had lighted upon the spoor, which led in the contrary direction from that which might have been expected, for it led in the direction of the Blood River, and therefore right away from Sirayo’s and out of the Zulu country, instead of farther into the same; and then darkness had baffled further investigation. Nevertheless, he would wager longish odds, he declared, that the missing quadruped would spend that night not a mile distant from Sirayo’s kraal.“It’s a most infernal place, Ridgeley,” he said gloomily. “It’s overhung by a bigkrantz, which is a pretty good look-out post, and surrounded by holes and caves you could stow anything away in. I don’t know how we are going to get Mouse back again short of paying through the nose for him. I must sleep on it and think out some plan. That young brute, Nkumbi! I feel quite murderous—as if I could shoot him on sight.”In view of the late occurrence, Sintoba received instructions to keep watch a part of the night, while Dawes himself took the remainder, not that he thought it at all probable that any attempt at further depredations would be made, still it was best to be on the safe side. And in fact no further attempt was made, and the night in its calm and starry beauty, went by undisturbed.The place where the waggons were outspanned was open and grassy. Around stretched the wide and rollingveldt; here a conical hillock rising abruptly from the plain, there the precipitous line of a range of mountains. About half a mile from the site of the outspan ran aspruitor watercourse, the bed of which, deep and yawning, now held but a tiny thread of water, trickling over its sandy bottom. The banks of thisspruitwere thickly studded with bush, and out of them branched several deepdongasor rifts worn out of the soil by the action of the water.It was a hot morning. The sun blazed fiercely from the cloudless sky, and from the ground there arose a shimmer of heat. Away on the plain the two spans of oxen were dotted about grazing, in charge of one of the leaders, whose dark form could be seen, a mere speck, squatting among the grass. In the shade of one of the waggons, Dawes and Gerard sat, finishing their breakfast, while at a fire some fifty yards off, the natives were busy preparing theirs, stirring the contents of the three-legged pot, and keeping up a continual hum of conversation the while.“No, I don’t like the look of things at all,” repeated Dawes, beginning to fill his pipe. “It is some days now since we crossed into the Zulu country, and the people hardly come near us. It looks as if all this talk about a war was going to lead to something. I’m afraid they are turning ugly about that boundary question. I meant to have trekked north on the west side of the Blood River, and taken this part of the country on our way back, if we had anything left to trade that is, but with all these reported ructions between the Zulus and Boers in the disputed territory, I reckon we’d be quieter and safer in Zululand proper.”“How ever will they settle the claim?” said Gerard.“Heaven only knows. Here we have just annexed the Transvaal, and got nothing for our pains but a bankrupt State whose people hate us, and a lot of awkward liabilities, and not the least awkward is this disputed boundary. If we give it over to the Dutch, Cetywayo is sure to make war on them, and therein comes the fun of our new liability. We shall have to protect them, they being now British subjects, and when we have squashed the Zulus, the Boers will turn on us. If, on the other hand, we give it over to the Zulus, we are giving away half the district of Utrecht, and turning out a lot of people who have been living there for years under what they thought good and sound title from their own government, which doesn’t seem right either. And any middle course will please neither party, and be worse than useless.”“I suppose, if the truth were known, the Transvaal claim is actually a fraud?”“I believe it is. They claim that Mpande ceded them the land. Now I don’t believe for a moment the old king would have been such a fool as to do anything of the kind, and even if he had been inclined to for the sake of peace, Cetywayo, who practically held the reins then, would never have let him. Well, if that Commission don’t sit mighty soon, it’ll be no good for it to sit at all, for there’ll be wigs on the green long before.”“I wonder if we shall ever see poor Mouse again,” said Gerard.A sound of deep-toned voices and the rattle of assegai hafts caused both to turn. Three Zulus were approaching rapidly. Striding up to the waggons they halted, and gazing fixedly at the two white men, they gave the usual greeting, “Saku bona”—and dropped into a squatting posture. They were fine specimens of humanity, tall and straight. One was akehla, but the other two were unringed. For clothing they wore nothing but the inevitablemútya. Each was fully armed with large war-shield, knobkerrie, and several murderous looking assegais.The first greeting over, Gerard asked to look at some of these. With a dry smile one of the warriors handed over his weapons, but to a suggestion that he should trade one or two of them he returned a most emphatic refusal.“What is the news?” asked Dawes, having distributed some snuff.“News!” replied the ringed man. “Ou! there is none.”“Do men travel in such haste to deliver no news?” pursued Dawes, with a meaning glance at the heaving chests and perspiring bodies of the messengers, for such he was sure they were. “But never mind. It is no affair of mine. Yet, do you seek the kraal of the chief, Sirayo? If you do, you might carry my ‘word’ to him.”The man, after a shade of hesitation, answered that Sirayo’s kraal happened to be their destination. He would carry the “word” of the white trader.“Tell him then I have lost a horse. If the chief has it found and returned to me, I will send him a bottle oftywala(Note 1), a new green blanket, and this muchgwai(tobacco), measuring a length of about a yard. I will further send him a long sheath-knife.”“We hear your words,Umlúngu. They shall be spoken into the ears of the chief. Now we must resume our road,Hlala-ni-gahle!”With which sonorous farewell the Zulus turned and strode away across theveldtat the same quick and hurried pace as before.“Just as I told you, Ridgeley,” said Dawes, lighting his pipe with characteristic calmness. “We shall have to pay some sort of blackmail. Lucky if we get Mouse back at all.”They remained outspanned all day on the same spot. About an hour before sundown two Zulus were seen approaching. They made their appearance suddenly and at no great distance, emerging from the line of scrub which bordered upon the waterspruit.“Hau!” exclaimed Sintoba. “It is Nkumbi-ka-zulu.”The chief’s son, with his companion, drew near, and greeted those around the waggon in an easy, offhand fashion, as though he were quite willing to forgive and forget any little unpleasantness of the day before. His father, he said, had received Jandosi’s message, and had sent him at once and in all haste to talk about it. He thought the horse might be found, but what Jandosi offered was not quite enough. There were few people at his father’s kraal. Sirayo could not get them to turn out for so little as the promised reward would amount to when divided among the searchers. Now Sirayo’s “word” was this. If Jandosi would offer, say six bottles oftywala—the whitetywalathat is drunk out of square bottles—to be distributed among the people, together with thegwaiand the other things, and a gun and some cartridges for the chief himself, something might be done; in fact, the horse was pretty sure to be found. But the gun was what the chief desired most; and in fact the gun he must have, hinted Nkumbi-ka-zulu, with a grin of hardly concealed triumph.The barefaced impudence, the open rascality of the demand, would have made the blood boil in the veins of any less even-tempered man than John Dawes. The latter, however, took it quite coolly. But all the while he was thinking out some plan whereby he might recover possession of the horse, and at the same time turn the tables on the rascally old chief and his scamp of a son. To this end, and with a view to gaining time, he engaged the latter in a protracted haggle, and mixed some gin and water for his refreshment. To his surprise, however, Nkumbi-ka-zulu refused the profferedtywala—saying he did not like it. The other Zulu, however, less particular, drained the pannikin to the very last drop, and asked for more.Would not some knives do instead of the gun? asked Dawes; or a coloured umbrella, anything in fact? The gun was almost a necessary of life, and he could not part with it. He could get another horse from the Boers on the Transvaal border, but not another gun. But Nkumbi-ka-zulu was firm. His father must have a gun, he said. There was nothing else that would be acceptable.Now while this haggle was in progress one of the spans of oxen, which had been out grazing in charge of the leader of Gerard’s waggon, was being driven leisurely in. Wondering why half the oxen should thus be left behind, Gerard drew off from the talkers, whom he understood but imperfectly, and turned to meet the “boy” in order to learn the reason. But the latter, without seeming to notice his presence, waited until he was quite near, and going behind the animals, so as to be momentarily screened from the group at the waggons, said in a low tone—“I hashe—La-pa.” (“The horse—over there.”)The words—the quick side glance towards the line of bush—were sufficient. Gerard’s pulses tingled with excitement, but he refrained from any further questioning. With an effort preserving his self-possession, he strolled leisurely back to the waggon. He took in the situation, and his coolness and promptitude at once suggested a plan.The remainder of the oxen were in almost the contrary direction to that indicated by the native as being the hiding-place of the stolen horse. Shading his eyes to look at them, he said to Dawes—speaking slowly, and with rather a tired drawl—“I think I’ll ride out and bring in the oxen. When I’m halfway there, I shall turn and bring in something else. Don’t let these two chaps stir from here till I come back. Hold them here at any price.”Even the quick observant senses of the two Zulus were baffled by the slow carelessness of the tone. They half started as they saw him fling the saddle on the remaining horse, and ride off; but, noting the direction he took, their suspicions were quite lulled. They dropped back into their easy, good-humoured, half-impudent tone and attitude.“Well, Jandosi, what do you say?” said the chief’s son. “The sun is nearly down and I must return to my father. Is he to have the gun?”“I suppose there is no help for it,” replied Dawes. “After all, I can get another gun. But that horse—he is a good horse. Wait, I will see which of the two guns I will give.” And he climbed into the waggon-tent.“That is the one, Jandosi. The double-barrel. That is the one!” cried Nkumbi-ka-Zulu, half starting to his feet as Dawes reappeared. But he dropped again into his squatting position, with marvellous celerity and a dismayed ejaculation.This change was brought about by one quick, stern, peremptory word—that and the perception that both barrels were covering him full and point-blank. And behind those barrels shone a pair of steel grey eyes, which the chief’s son knew to go with the coolest brain and steadiest hand on the whole Zulu border.“Stir a finger, Nkumbi, and you are a dead man!” continued Dawes. “The first of you who moves is dead that moment!”“Whau!” cried both Zulus, their eyes starting from their heads. But they made no attempt to move, for they knew this white man to be absolutely a man of his word. For a few minutes this singular group remained thus immovable. The cool, resolute white man, and the two savages staring in petrified consternation into the month of the deadly weapon that threatened them. Then, not even the certainty of a swift death could avail to repress the sudden start and half-stifled cry of rage and mortification which escaped them. For Gerard, having covered about half the distance towards the outlying span of oxen had now suddenly turned and was riding back at full gallop towards the line of bush.“Don’t move—don’t move!” repeated Dawes, and the ominous flash in his eyes was sufficient. Immovable as statues, the two Zulus squatted. Then a sound of distant neighing was heard, and in a few minutes Gerard was seen to emerge from the bushes, leading a second horse. It was the missing Mouse.Still Dawes did not alter his position, nor did he suffer his prisoners to. He heard his young companion arrive and tie up the horses. He heard him climb into the waggon; then, when he saw him at his side armed with the other gun, he spoke.“Since when have the Zulu people become thieves, and the son of a chief a commonishinga! (rascal) I have always boasted that in the Zulu country my property was safer than even among my own people, but I can do so no more, since my horse was stolen by the son of a chief, and his father connived at the theft.” The tone, the words, bitter and scathing, seemed to sting them like a lash.“You have found your horse, not we, Jandosi, that is all,” retorted Nkumbi-ka-zulu with a scowl of sullen hate. “How did we know he was there any more than you did yourself? You have found your horse—be content.”“I promised your father certain things, Nkumbi, if he found the horse. He hassent it backand I will keep my word. But he deserves to receive nothing at all; nor will I ever again trade in his district.”Then he lowered his piece and instructed Gerard to fetch out the articles agreed upon. In silence the Zulus received them. Rage and shame was depicted on their countenances, and their efforts to laugh off the situation were a dead failure. Among the Bantu race nothing is more disconcerting than to be caught lying, and these two scions of it felt extremely foolish accordingly.“Whau! Jandosi,” mocked Nkumbi-ka-zulu. “We are only two, armed with spears and kerries. You have fire-weapons, and four Amakafula. Yet we fear you not. Come forth from your waggons, you alone. Leave the fire-weapons behind and bring sticks, I will meet you hand to hand—man to man—and we will fight it out. I who am only a boy.”But of this valiant offer John Dawes, who was giving orders to inspan, took no immediate notice. At length he said—“You will get quite as much fighting as you can well take care of, Nkumbi-ka-zulu, if you go on a little longer on your present tack. And, mark me, anybody who tries to interfere with me will get more than enough. Farewell to you.Trek!”This last to the drivers. The whips cracked, the drivers yelled, and the waggons rolled ponderously forward. The two Zulus were left standing there a picture of mortification and disgust.“You’ve got to be firm with these chaps, Ridgeley, once you do have a difference with them,” said Dawes, in his ordinarily self-possessed and careless tone. “Well, it’s lucky we’ve got Mouse back again so cheap. That was really an uncommonly smart idea of yours, and a well-carried out one.”They trekked on the best part of the night, Gerard and Dawes thoroughly armed. Each rode on horseback, keeping a careful watch lest the treachery of the now exasperated chief should prompt some aggression under cover of night; but none took place. In the morning they beheld two large bodies of Zulus in the distance, marching to the north-westward, and could distinguish the glint of spears, and the echo of their marching song. But on whatever errand theseimpiswere bound, they evinced no desire to molest the trekkers, or even to investigate nearer; in fact, their object seemed to be rather to avoid these latter.“There’s trouble brewing,” said Dawes, with a grave shake of the head as he watched theimpisdisappearing over a distant ridge. “Those chaps are bound for the disputed territory, and if they fall foul of the Boers it’ll start the war going in fine style. I don’t like the look of things at all. The sooner we get into Swaziland the better. The Zulu country’s just a trifle too disturbed.”Note 1. This word, which properly applies to native beer, is used for any intoxicating liquor. In this instance it would mean spirits.
After leaving Doorn Draai they trekked on through the Umsinga district, and, turning off the main road at Helpmakaar on the Biggarsberg Heights, descended to Rorke’s Drift. And it was while making their way down to that now historical point that Gerard began to realise what a waggon could do; what an incredible amount of hard knocking about it could stand; for the track seemed a mere succession of ruts and boulders, and as the huge vehicles went creaking and grinding over this, they seemed literally to twist and writhe, until it looked as though each fresh bump must shatter the whole fabric into a thousand crashing fragments. Once, but for his promptitude, the waggon of which Gerard was in charge would infallibly have overturned. However, they reached the drift without accident, and crossed the next day into the Zulu country.
At first Gerard could hardly realise that he was no longer under the British flag. This side of the Buffalo river presented no appreciable difference to the side they had just left. A line of precipitous hills rose a few miles in front, and to the eastward a great lion-shaped crag, the now ill-famed Isandhlwana. But few Zulus had come to the waggons, and they struck him as wearing no different aspect to the natives on the Natal side, nor, by-the-by, did they seem in any way keen upon trading.
We fear it may hardly be denied that the rose-coloured spectacles through which Gerard had first looked upon the trip and its prospects had undergone some slight dimness, and for this May Kingsland’s blue eyes were wholly responsible. For be it remembered he was very young, and the consciousness that a long time—a whole year, perhaps—must elapse before he should see her again, cast something of a gloom upon his spirits. Good-natured John Dawes saw through the change in his young companion’s lightheartedness, and laughed dryly to himself. Gerard would soon find the right cure for that sort of complaint, he said, when the real business of the trip should begin.
One morning a party of half a dozen young Zulus, driving an ox, came up to them as they sat outspanned. The one who seemed to be the leader was a tall, straight, well-built fellow, with a pleasing intelligent countenance. He, like the rest, was unringed, but held his head high in the air, as though he were somebody. All carried assegais and shields. The young leader and two of the others strode up to where Gerard was sitting, and uttering the usual form of greeting, “Saku bona,” squatted down on the grass before him.
Now, it happened that Dawes was away, having ridden off to some kraals a few miles distant. Gerard, thus thrown upon his own resources, began to feel something of the burden of responsibility as he returned their greeting and waited for them to speak next. But the leader, stretching forth his hand, said—
“Give me that.”
Gerard was cleaning a gun at the time, the double-barrelled one, rifle and shot. The Zulu’s remark had come so quick, accompanied by a half-move forward, as though he might be going to seize the weapon, that Gerard instinctively tightened his grasp on it.
“Who are you?” he said, looking the other in the eyes.
“Nkumbi-ka-zulu, son of Sirayo, the king’sinduna,” replied the youth, with a haughty toss of the head, denoting surprise that anybody should require to be informed of his identity. “Give me the gun; I want to look at it,” he continued, again stretching forth his hand.
Gerard realised the delicacy of the situation. There was a greedy sparkle in the young Zulu’s eye as it lighted upon the weapon, which caused him to feel anything but sure that it would be returned to him again. On the other hand, Dawes, he remembered, had a poor opinion of Sirayo and his clan, and he did not want to offend the chief’s son, if he could help it. His command of the language beginning to fail him, he summoned Sintoba to the rescue.
“Ask him if, he wants to trade, because, if so, theBaas(Master) will be back soon. Here is some snuff for him, meanwhile.”
Nkumbi-ka-zulu condescended to accept the snuff, then, through the driver, he explained that his father had sent the black ox as a present to “Jandosi”—for such was John Dawes’s name among the natives, being of course a corruption of his own—and he, the speaker, had come to do a little trade on his own account. First of all, he wanted that gun, and as many cartridges as he could have. What was the price?
Gerard replied that the gun was not for sale. It was wanted to shoot buck and birds during their trip further up-country.
“Au!” exclaimed Nkumbi-ka-zulu. “You are so near the border, you can easily send back for another gun. I will give five oxen for it. Ten, then,” he added, as Gerard shook his head in dissent. Still Gerard refused.
“Hau! Does he want all the Zulu country?” muttered the others, forgetting good manners in their impatience and eagerness to possess the weapon, and for this, Sintoba, who was of Zulu descent and a ringed man at that, rebuked them sternly.
“Since when has the son of a chief learnt to talk with the loud tongue and windbag swagger of theAmabuna?” (Boers) he said. “Have you come here to trade or to play the fool?”
“Hau, listen to the Kafula!” cried the young Zulus, springing to their feet and rattling their assegais threateningly. “Since when is the son of a chief to be reviled by a Kafula, who is doing dog at the heels of a travelling white man?”
Gerard, who by this time could understand a great deal more than he could speak, looked apprehensively at Sintoba, expecting an immediate outbreak. But to his surprise the man merely uttered a disdainful click, and deliberately turned his broad back upon the exasperated Zulus. He almost expected to see it transfixed with their assegais, and stood ready to brain with his clubbed gun, for he had no cartridges handy, the first who should make an aggressive move. But no such move was made.
“I return,” said Nkumbi-ka-zulu, darting forth his hand, with a malevolent look directed especially upon Gerard, “I return to my father to carry word that Jandosi rejects his present, and has left a Kafula with his waggons, and a whiteumfane(boy) to revile the son of a chief.” And turning, the whole party walked rapidly away, driving the ox before them.
When they had gone a little distance, they began staging an improvised strophe the burden of whose veiled insolence took in the white race in general, and the last specimen of it the singers had seen in particular, and thus bawling, they eventually receded from sight.
Gerard was terribly put about by this occurrence, and was disposed to blame himself bitterly. Surely he had been over cautions, and had brought about this hostile termination by his own awkwardness and stupidity. But to his inexpressible relief John Dawes, to whom on his return he narrated the whole affair, was not at all of this opinion.
“It couldn’t have been helped,” the latter declared. “If I had been here the result would likely have been the same, for they’re cheeky young dogs those sons of Sirayo, and the old man himself is a thorough-paced old sweep. If you made any mistake at all, it was a mistake on the right side—that of firmness—and I’m not sure you made any.”
Which dictum lifted a weight from Gerard’s mind.
“I’m only afraid they’ll play us some trick,” he said. “Hadn’t we better get away from here as soon as possible?”
“N-no. They might construe that into an act of running away. We’ll just trek on a few miles further, and see what turns up, but I don’t mind telling you I hardly like the look of things. The people are very unsettled, thanks to this disputed boundary question, and the badgering of the Natal Government. They are sulky and sullen, and flatly refuse to trade. I think we’ll get away north pretty soon.”
That evening an incident occurred which, taken in conjunction with the events of the day, looked ominous. The “boy” who was sent to bring in the two horses, which were turned loose to graze, returned with only one; the other he could not find. He had hunted for it high and low, but without result.
By this time the two horses had become so accustomed to the waggons that they would never stray far, and often return of their own accord; consequently, it was not thought worthwhile even to knee-halter them. Now, however, the one which the “boy” had brought back had been found much further afield than was usual, and of the other there was no trace. And the missing steed was Gerard’s mouse-coloured Basuto pony.
Saddling up the horse that remained and giving orders where the waggons were to outspan, Dawes cantered away into theveldt. He returned in two hours. He had lighted upon the spoor, which led in the contrary direction from that which might have been expected, for it led in the direction of the Blood River, and therefore right away from Sirayo’s and out of the Zulu country, instead of farther into the same; and then darkness had baffled further investigation. Nevertheless, he would wager longish odds, he declared, that the missing quadruped would spend that night not a mile distant from Sirayo’s kraal.
“It’s a most infernal place, Ridgeley,” he said gloomily. “It’s overhung by a bigkrantz, which is a pretty good look-out post, and surrounded by holes and caves you could stow anything away in. I don’t know how we are going to get Mouse back again short of paying through the nose for him. I must sleep on it and think out some plan. That young brute, Nkumbi! I feel quite murderous—as if I could shoot him on sight.”
In view of the late occurrence, Sintoba received instructions to keep watch a part of the night, while Dawes himself took the remainder, not that he thought it at all probable that any attempt at further depredations would be made, still it was best to be on the safe side. And in fact no further attempt was made, and the night in its calm and starry beauty, went by undisturbed.
The place where the waggons were outspanned was open and grassy. Around stretched the wide and rollingveldt; here a conical hillock rising abruptly from the plain, there the precipitous line of a range of mountains. About half a mile from the site of the outspan ran aspruitor watercourse, the bed of which, deep and yawning, now held but a tiny thread of water, trickling over its sandy bottom. The banks of thisspruitwere thickly studded with bush, and out of them branched several deepdongasor rifts worn out of the soil by the action of the water.
It was a hot morning. The sun blazed fiercely from the cloudless sky, and from the ground there arose a shimmer of heat. Away on the plain the two spans of oxen were dotted about grazing, in charge of one of the leaders, whose dark form could be seen, a mere speck, squatting among the grass. In the shade of one of the waggons, Dawes and Gerard sat, finishing their breakfast, while at a fire some fifty yards off, the natives were busy preparing theirs, stirring the contents of the three-legged pot, and keeping up a continual hum of conversation the while.
“No, I don’t like the look of things at all,” repeated Dawes, beginning to fill his pipe. “It is some days now since we crossed into the Zulu country, and the people hardly come near us. It looks as if all this talk about a war was going to lead to something. I’m afraid they are turning ugly about that boundary question. I meant to have trekked north on the west side of the Blood River, and taken this part of the country on our way back, if we had anything left to trade that is, but with all these reported ructions between the Zulus and Boers in the disputed territory, I reckon we’d be quieter and safer in Zululand proper.”
“How ever will they settle the claim?” said Gerard.
“Heaven only knows. Here we have just annexed the Transvaal, and got nothing for our pains but a bankrupt State whose people hate us, and a lot of awkward liabilities, and not the least awkward is this disputed boundary. If we give it over to the Dutch, Cetywayo is sure to make war on them, and therein comes the fun of our new liability. We shall have to protect them, they being now British subjects, and when we have squashed the Zulus, the Boers will turn on us. If, on the other hand, we give it over to the Zulus, we are giving away half the district of Utrecht, and turning out a lot of people who have been living there for years under what they thought good and sound title from their own government, which doesn’t seem right either. And any middle course will please neither party, and be worse than useless.”
“I suppose, if the truth were known, the Transvaal claim is actually a fraud?”
“I believe it is. They claim that Mpande ceded them the land. Now I don’t believe for a moment the old king would have been such a fool as to do anything of the kind, and even if he had been inclined to for the sake of peace, Cetywayo, who practically held the reins then, would never have let him. Well, if that Commission don’t sit mighty soon, it’ll be no good for it to sit at all, for there’ll be wigs on the green long before.”
“I wonder if we shall ever see poor Mouse again,” said Gerard.
A sound of deep-toned voices and the rattle of assegai hafts caused both to turn. Three Zulus were approaching rapidly. Striding up to the waggons they halted, and gazing fixedly at the two white men, they gave the usual greeting, “Saku bona”—and dropped into a squatting posture. They were fine specimens of humanity, tall and straight. One was akehla, but the other two were unringed. For clothing they wore nothing but the inevitablemútya. Each was fully armed with large war-shield, knobkerrie, and several murderous looking assegais.
The first greeting over, Gerard asked to look at some of these. With a dry smile one of the warriors handed over his weapons, but to a suggestion that he should trade one or two of them he returned a most emphatic refusal.
“What is the news?” asked Dawes, having distributed some snuff.
“News!” replied the ringed man. “Ou! there is none.”
“Do men travel in such haste to deliver no news?” pursued Dawes, with a meaning glance at the heaving chests and perspiring bodies of the messengers, for such he was sure they were. “But never mind. It is no affair of mine. Yet, do you seek the kraal of the chief, Sirayo? If you do, you might carry my ‘word’ to him.”
The man, after a shade of hesitation, answered that Sirayo’s kraal happened to be their destination. He would carry the “word” of the white trader.
“Tell him then I have lost a horse. If the chief has it found and returned to me, I will send him a bottle oftywala(Note 1), a new green blanket, and this muchgwai(tobacco), measuring a length of about a yard. I will further send him a long sheath-knife.”
“We hear your words,Umlúngu. They shall be spoken into the ears of the chief. Now we must resume our road,Hlala-ni-gahle!”
With which sonorous farewell the Zulus turned and strode away across theveldtat the same quick and hurried pace as before.
“Just as I told you, Ridgeley,” said Dawes, lighting his pipe with characteristic calmness. “We shall have to pay some sort of blackmail. Lucky if we get Mouse back at all.”
They remained outspanned all day on the same spot. About an hour before sundown two Zulus were seen approaching. They made their appearance suddenly and at no great distance, emerging from the line of scrub which bordered upon the waterspruit.
“Hau!” exclaimed Sintoba. “It is Nkumbi-ka-zulu.”
The chief’s son, with his companion, drew near, and greeted those around the waggon in an easy, offhand fashion, as though he were quite willing to forgive and forget any little unpleasantness of the day before. His father, he said, had received Jandosi’s message, and had sent him at once and in all haste to talk about it. He thought the horse might be found, but what Jandosi offered was not quite enough. There were few people at his father’s kraal. Sirayo could not get them to turn out for so little as the promised reward would amount to when divided among the searchers. Now Sirayo’s “word” was this. If Jandosi would offer, say six bottles oftywala—the whitetywalathat is drunk out of square bottles—to be distributed among the people, together with thegwaiand the other things, and a gun and some cartridges for the chief himself, something might be done; in fact, the horse was pretty sure to be found. But the gun was what the chief desired most; and in fact the gun he must have, hinted Nkumbi-ka-zulu, with a grin of hardly concealed triumph.
The barefaced impudence, the open rascality of the demand, would have made the blood boil in the veins of any less even-tempered man than John Dawes. The latter, however, took it quite coolly. But all the while he was thinking out some plan whereby he might recover possession of the horse, and at the same time turn the tables on the rascally old chief and his scamp of a son. To this end, and with a view to gaining time, he engaged the latter in a protracted haggle, and mixed some gin and water for his refreshment. To his surprise, however, Nkumbi-ka-zulu refused the profferedtywala—saying he did not like it. The other Zulu, however, less particular, drained the pannikin to the very last drop, and asked for more.
Would not some knives do instead of the gun? asked Dawes; or a coloured umbrella, anything in fact? The gun was almost a necessary of life, and he could not part with it. He could get another horse from the Boers on the Transvaal border, but not another gun. But Nkumbi-ka-zulu was firm. His father must have a gun, he said. There was nothing else that would be acceptable.
Now while this haggle was in progress one of the spans of oxen, which had been out grazing in charge of the leader of Gerard’s waggon, was being driven leisurely in. Wondering why half the oxen should thus be left behind, Gerard drew off from the talkers, whom he understood but imperfectly, and turned to meet the “boy” in order to learn the reason. But the latter, without seeming to notice his presence, waited until he was quite near, and going behind the animals, so as to be momentarily screened from the group at the waggons, said in a low tone—
“I hashe—La-pa.” (“The horse—over there.”)
The words—the quick side glance towards the line of bush—were sufficient. Gerard’s pulses tingled with excitement, but he refrained from any further questioning. With an effort preserving his self-possession, he strolled leisurely back to the waggon. He took in the situation, and his coolness and promptitude at once suggested a plan.
The remainder of the oxen were in almost the contrary direction to that indicated by the native as being the hiding-place of the stolen horse. Shading his eyes to look at them, he said to Dawes—speaking slowly, and with rather a tired drawl—
“I think I’ll ride out and bring in the oxen. When I’m halfway there, I shall turn and bring in something else. Don’t let these two chaps stir from here till I come back. Hold them here at any price.”
Even the quick observant senses of the two Zulus were baffled by the slow carelessness of the tone. They half started as they saw him fling the saddle on the remaining horse, and ride off; but, noting the direction he took, their suspicions were quite lulled. They dropped back into their easy, good-humoured, half-impudent tone and attitude.
“Well, Jandosi, what do you say?” said the chief’s son. “The sun is nearly down and I must return to my father. Is he to have the gun?”
“I suppose there is no help for it,” replied Dawes. “After all, I can get another gun. But that horse—he is a good horse. Wait, I will see which of the two guns I will give.” And he climbed into the waggon-tent.
“That is the one, Jandosi. The double-barrel. That is the one!” cried Nkumbi-ka-Zulu, half starting to his feet as Dawes reappeared. But he dropped again into his squatting position, with marvellous celerity and a dismayed ejaculation.
This change was brought about by one quick, stern, peremptory word—that and the perception that both barrels were covering him full and point-blank. And behind those barrels shone a pair of steel grey eyes, which the chief’s son knew to go with the coolest brain and steadiest hand on the whole Zulu border.
“Stir a finger, Nkumbi, and you are a dead man!” continued Dawes. “The first of you who moves is dead that moment!”
“Whau!” cried both Zulus, their eyes starting from their heads. But they made no attempt to move, for they knew this white man to be absolutely a man of his word. For a few minutes this singular group remained thus immovable. The cool, resolute white man, and the two savages staring in petrified consternation into the month of the deadly weapon that threatened them. Then, not even the certainty of a swift death could avail to repress the sudden start and half-stifled cry of rage and mortification which escaped them. For Gerard, having covered about half the distance towards the outlying span of oxen had now suddenly turned and was riding back at full gallop towards the line of bush.
“Don’t move—don’t move!” repeated Dawes, and the ominous flash in his eyes was sufficient. Immovable as statues, the two Zulus squatted. Then a sound of distant neighing was heard, and in a few minutes Gerard was seen to emerge from the bushes, leading a second horse. It was the missing Mouse.
Still Dawes did not alter his position, nor did he suffer his prisoners to. He heard his young companion arrive and tie up the horses. He heard him climb into the waggon; then, when he saw him at his side armed with the other gun, he spoke.
“Since when have the Zulu people become thieves, and the son of a chief a commonishinga! (rascal) I have always boasted that in the Zulu country my property was safer than even among my own people, but I can do so no more, since my horse was stolen by the son of a chief, and his father connived at the theft.” The tone, the words, bitter and scathing, seemed to sting them like a lash.
“You have found your horse, not we, Jandosi, that is all,” retorted Nkumbi-ka-zulu with a scowl of sullen hate. “How did we know he was there any more than you did yourself? You have found your horse—be content.”
“I promised your father certain things, Nkumbi, if he found the horse. He hassent it backand I will keep my word. But he deserves to receive nothing at all; nor will I ever again trade in his district.”
Then he lowered his piece and instructed Gerard to fetch out the articles agreed upon. In silence the Zulus received them. Rage and shame was depicted on their countenances, and their efforts to laugh off the situation were a dead failure. Among the Bantu race nothing is more disconcerting than to be caught lying, and these two scions of it felt extremely foolish accordingly.
“Whau! Jandosi,” mocked Nkumbi-ka-zulu. “We are only two, armed with spears and kerries. You have fire-weapons, and four Amakafula. Yet we fear you not. Come forth from your waggons, you alone. Leave the fire-weapons behind and bring sticks, I will meet you hand to hand—man to man—and we will fight it out. I who am only a boy.”
But of this valiant offer John Dawes, who was giving orders to inspan, took no immediate notice. At length he said—
“You will get quite as much fighting as you can well take care of, Nkumbi-ka-zulu, if you go on a little longer on your present tack. And, mark me, anybody who tries to interfere with me will get more than enough. Farewell to you.Trek!”
This last to the drivers. The whips cracked, the drivers yelled, and the waggons rolled ponderously forward. The two Zulus were left standing there a picture of mortification and disgust.
“You’ve got to be firm with these chaps, Ridgeley, once you do have a difference with them,” said Dawes, in his ordinarily self-possessed and careless tone. “Well, it’s lucky we’ve got Mouse back again so cheap. That was really an uncommonly smart idea of yours, and a well-carried out one.”
They trekked on the best part of the night, Gerard and Dawes thoroughly armed. Each rode on horseback, keeping a careful watch lest the treachery of the now exasperated chief should prompt some aggression under cover of night; but none took place. In the morning they beheld two large bodies of Zulus in the distance, marching to the north-westward, and could distinguish the glint of spears, and the echo of their marching song. But on whatever errand theseimpiswere bound, they evinced no desire to molest the trekkers, or even to investigate nearer; in fact, their object seemed to be rather to avoid these latter.
“There’s trouble brewing,” said Dawes, with a grave shake of the head as he watched theimpisdisappearing over a distant ridge. “Those chaps are bound for the disputed territory, and if they fall foul of the Boers it’ll start the war going in fine style. I don’t like the look of things at all. The sooner we get into Swaziland the better. The Zulu country’s just a trifle too disturbed.”
Note 1. This word, which properly applies to native beer, is used for any intoxicating liquor. In this instance it would mean spirits.
Chapter Eleven.A New Terror.Several months later than the events last recorded, a largetrekmight have been seen, wending its way southward along the rugged bushveldtlying beneath the Lebombo mountains, just outside the Zulu boundary.It is evening, and the lustrous glow of the setting sun reddens the great precipices of the craggy range, tingeing with vivid gold the green roll of the bush. The lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep and goats are harmoniously mingled on the still and balmy air; and over and above this comes the rumble of the waggons and the occasional crack of a whip. A little duiker-buck springs from his form, to stand a moment, his soft eye dilating, the black tips of his tiny, horns pricked up as he listens, then darts away noiselessly into the scrub. Bright-plumaged birds flash screaming from the path as the unwonted tumult draws near, for not often are they alarmed in this wise, here in their bosky solitudes.First come a number of cattle, the vari-coloured hides dappling the prevailing green and brown of theveldt; a mixed lot too, for among the small but compact Zulu breed, towering in elephantine proportions above them, is here and there the buffalo-like frame of a Boer trek-ox with its strongly pronounced hump and great branching horns. Cows with their calves, too, are there, and an occasional thrust and clash of horns and angry low betoken the collision of two or more quarrelsome beasts, whom the herd’s kerries, however, avail to pacify even if his voice suffices not. These travel leisurely, feeding as they go, and are in excellent condition. Some little way behind comes a flock of sheep and goats, also feeding as they go, and propelled by as travel-stained and dusty-looking a native as the one who herds the cattle aforesaid. The rear is brought up by two waggons, one behind the other, each drawn by a full span of sixteen oxen. The native driver of each, walking alongside, wields his whip languidly and lazily, and the leader is so tired that he can hardly put one foot before the other, for the day has been a sweltering hot one. Even the two horses fastened behind the last waggon have no elasticity in their step, as with drooping head they plod mechanically on, and the dust hangs in a cloud above the line of march.Seated in front of the foremost waggon, smoking their pipes, are two white men, also travel-stained and dusty. In one of them we have no difficulty in recognising the weather-tanned lineaments and impassive expression of John Dawes. The other countenance—well, we might have some difficulty in recognising the owner, might excusably hesitate before pronouncing it to be that of our friend, Gerard Ridgeley. Yet he it is.For those few months of healthy open-air life have done wonders for Gerard—have wrought a greater change in him than the same number of years spent under ordinary conditions would have done. They have, in fact, made a man of him. His frame has broadened and his muscles are set. There is a firm, self-reliant look in his face, now bronzed to the hue of that of John Dawes himself, and he has grown a beard. In short, any one who saw him now would pronounce him to have become a remarkably fine-looking fellow.By no means all fun has Gerard found that up-country trading trip. Of toil—hard, prosaic, wearying—plenty has come his way. There have been times, for instance, when every muscle has been strained and aching with the labour of digging out the waggons, stuck fast over axle-deep in a mud hole—digging them out only to see them plunge in again deeper than ever; or again in offloading everything, and carrying the whole cargo piecemeal up some short but rugged acclivity impossible to avoid, and up which the great vehicles could only be drawn empty. Half fainting beneath the burning glare of a well-nigh tropical sun—toiling amid the sheeting downpour of days of rain, and that too often on a ration of mealies or hard biscuit, and a little brack or muddy water—he has never yet dreamed of shirking, never complained.That trek, too, of nearly forty-eight hours over a parched land, where each expected water-hole was a mere surface of cracked and baked mud, and the oxen with hanging tongues and saliva-dropping jaws could hardly pull half a mile per hour, and the night was as brassy as the day, and their wanderings and divergences far and wide in search of the necessary fluid was rewarded with greater exhaustion than ever, and the red surface of the burningveldtstretched grim and forbidding to the sky-line, mocking them now and again with a fair mirage—that terrible time when they sat together on the waggon in silence and wondering what the end would be, or rather when it would be, then, too, no word of complaint had escaped Gerard.Of dangers too he has borne his share. He can recall the horde of turbulent and aggressive natives crowding round the waggon of which he was in sole charge, when during a whole day his life and the lives of the two “boys” seemed to hang upon a hair,—nights spent in lonely watches, in an insecure and semi-hostile land, expecting the spears of predatory savages in the treacherous darkness. That other night, too, when he was lost in theveldtand had to lie out in the open, with hardly time to construct a hurried enclosure and collect sufficient firewood ere darkness fell, and to this slender protection alone had he been forced to trust for the safety of himself and his horse. Hardly till his dying day will he forget those terrible eyes flaming red in the light of his scanty fire, as a pair of prowling lions roared around his frail breastwork the long night through. These are but some of the dangers, some of the privations which have fallen to his lot. Yet as he looks back upon them all it is regretfully. He cannot feel unqualified satisfaction that the trip is drawing to a close.For it is drawing to a close. With all its perils and hardships it has been a very fairly successful one, as the sheep and cattle which they are driving before them serve to show. So also do such other articles of barter as can be carried in the waggons, which latter, however, are travelling light; for nearly all the stock-in-trade has been disposed of.Rumours have from time to time reached them in Swaziland and beyond, with regard to the state of Zulu affairs, and the latest of such reports has moved Dawes to decide to avoid the Zulu country, and re-enter Natal by way of the Transvaal. So to-morrow the southward course will be changed to a westward one, and the trek will be pursued along the north bank of the Pongolo.During the months our friends had spent up-country, diplomatic relations between the Zulus and the British had become strained to a dangerous tension. Both parties were eyeing each other and preparing for war.Seated on the waggon as aforesaid, our two friends are talking over the situation.“We had better give them a wide berth, Ridgeley, until we get all this plunder safe home,” Dawes was saying. “Even now we are nearer the Pongolo than I like, and in the north of Zululand there’s a pretty thorough-paced blackguard or two, in the shape of an outlying chief who wouldn’t think twice of relieving us of all our travelling stock, under colour of the unsettled times—Umbelini, for instance, and that other chap they’re beginning to talk about, Ingonyama; though I don’t altogether believe that cock-and-bull story about the blood-drinking tribe—the Igazipuza. It’s too much like a Swazi lie. Still, I shall be glad when we are safe home again.”Gerard made no answer beyond a half-absent affirmative. His thoughts were far away. In point of fact, although he looked back regretfully upon his past experiences and adventures, yet he was not entirely sorry that the trip was over. For he had not ceased to think of May Kingsland’s blue eyes and bright winsome face—had not ceased to wonder how the latter would look when he should see it again. And that would be very soon now.“My word, Ridgeley, but you’ll have some yarns to spin to old Kingsland when we look in upon him on our way,” went on Dawes. “Why, he’ll hardly believe you’re the raw Britisher he was with on board ship! I never saw a fellow take so kindly to roughing it, and things. And you’ve filled out too, and become twice the chap you were all round.”“I feel that I have,” answered Gerard, with something of a guilty start at the queer coincidence that Dawes’s thoughts should have been located on the same spot as his own. “And whatever this trip has done for me it’s thanks to you. Well, Dawes, I don’t mind telling you that I’m your debtor for life.”“Tut, tut, man! Why you’ve been worth it all to me. We’ve had a rough time mind—a rougher time by far than I expected, or than a trip of this kind’s got any business to be—and I never want a better mate than yourself, and I’ve known a good few fellows in that line, too. I say though, I wonder how your friend Maitland would have got on in your place. Not over well, I fancy. Too much of a masher—collars and cuffs kind of a bandbox chap, you know—not even good enough for a store clerk.”“He thinks himself many removes too good for me, I can tell you,” laughed Gerard, remembering the lofty contempt with which Harry had reproached him for “turning counter-jumper,” as he was pleased to put it.“He’s a chap who won’t come to over much good, I’m afraid,” said Dawes. “I wonder what has become of him.”“So do I,” said Gerard.We don’t see why the reader should share the enforced, ignorance of the two; wherefore we may as well state that Harry Maitland was at that moment seated on the counter of one of the most fifth-rate bars in Maritzburg, swinging his legs and bawling out a not over-refined song for the benefit and amusement of an audience of loafers a trifle less drunk than himself; for, without wishing inordinately to moralise, the incident throws a suggestive side-light on the contrast of the divergence of the ways of these two English lads, each stranded on his own hook in a far-away colony.“Let’s saddle up and ride on ahead, and find a good place to outspan,” suggested Dawes.This was done, and the two were soon cantering further and further from the waggons. The country, which had hitherto been bushy and rolling, now began to assume a somewhat different aspect. High conical hills rose on either hand, their slopes streaked with black, forest-clad kloofs, and the two horsemen, wending their way beneath, noticed that the long winding valley they were pursuing was carpeted with a smooth, green, meadow-like sward.“I’m rather uneasy about those Swazis of ours,” said Dawes, as they rode along. “They’re brewing some dog’s trick, I know. My impression is that they mean to desert. I can see by their sulky and hang-dog manner what it all amounts to, and this morning while they were sitting round their fire I happened to pass near enough to catch a word or two of their conversation. I heard ‘Igazipuza’ mentioned more than once. It’s quite wonderful how this form of funk has sprung up along this border, and in fact it was a long way inside Swaziland that we heard it.”“Yes. The wonder is that we got a single Swazi to go with us. But is there really such a chap as Ingonyama? You know the Zulu country pretty well.”“I never heard of him till lately,” answered Dawes. “Still he may be some petty chief, who has suddenly sprung into fame, and has gathered around him all the ruffians of the Zulu nation. Well, a few days more will show. But I don’t like our Swazis turning rusty. If they make off we can’t replace them, for this strip of country seems absolutely uninhabited. Hallo!—quick—jump down, Ridgeley!”This in harriedstaccato. For in rounding a spur, there, in front of them, right out in the open stood a fine bush-buck ram. Roused by the tramp of the horses’ feet he stood, his head thrown back, gazing curiously upon the intruders. The last idea apparently that occurred to him was that of flight.“Two hundred yards sight, not too fine,” whispered Dawes, as Gerard dropped into a sitting posture.But before the latter had time to press trigger the back was seen to leap high in the air, and fall over kicking; then, after another plunge and a kind of gasping bellow, it lay still.“By Jove! What does that mean?” cried Gerard.“It has been assegaied,” said Dawes. The buck was lying some thirty yards from the edge of the bush. Out of the latter there now emerged a tall savage, who without deigning to take any notice of the presence of strangers, walked straight up to his quarry and proceeded to cut its throat with the blade of a huge assegai.This man, as the pair rode up to him, growled out a sullen “Saku bona,” and proceeded with his work of cleaning the buck, just as if they were not there. Seen face to face he was unmistakably a Zulu, and though of fine frame and splendid proportions, both agreed that he owned about the most villainous countenance they had looked upon for many a long day. His shaven pate was crowned with the usual black shiny ring, and he wore round his loins the usualmútyaof cats’ tails. But they noticed that he was armed with several broad-bladed, close-quarter assegais, as well as two or three lighter casting ones, also a huge knobkerrie, and a full-sized war-shield of red and white ox hide.“It was a fine shot—or rather couple of shots,” said Dawes, as they stood watching the process. “Look, Ridgeley. The first assegai half ham-strung the buck just under the shoulders, the second must have gone through the heart, or very near it. Yes, it’s powerful throwing.”To Dawes’s suggestion that he should sell them the buck which he had so deftly slain, or at least a part of it, the Zulu returned a surly refusal. All the while he was cleaning the carcase he was devouring what he considered tid-bits raw—the heart, the liver, and part of the entrails. Then making a cup of his two hands, he scooped up a quantity of blood which had collected in the hollow of the carcase, and deliberately drank it. Gerard could hardly conceal his disgust, but there was something in the action that struck Dawes.“Who are you?” he asked. “Of the people of Zulu?”“Of the people of Zulu?Au!” returned the savage in a sneering tone, as he flung the carcase of the buck across his shoulder. Then standing drawn to the full height of his almost gigantic frame, his villainous countenance—rendered more repulsive still with the smears of blood from the bits of raw meat he had been eating—wreathed into a most evil grin, he shouted—“Where have you dwelt,abelúngu(white men), that you have never heard of Vunawayo? Of the people of Zulu?Ou! Igazipuza.The people who drink blood.”The last words were uttered almost in a roar—a roar of defiance and hatred and wild beast ferocity. The huge barbarian turned and disappeared among the bush.“We had better get on and find our outspan,” said Dawes, after the momentary silence which had fallen upon the pair. The apparition, coming as it did, had been rather startling. Zulus are by nature well-mannered people, and the brutal rudeness of the man they had just met could betoken nothing less than the most undisguised hostility, but, worse than all, his last words were an abundant confirmation of the ugly rumours which had been taking shape of late with regard to this mysterious and redoubtable clan.“Well, if this fellow is a specimen of them all, the Igazipuza must be a lot of picked men, both in the matter of physique and character,” said Gerard. “I never saw a finer built chap, nor a more utterly irredeemable-looking villain. And he choused me out of my shot.”“We may as well keep the affair dark as regards the other boys, but we’ll take Sintoba into counsel,” said Dawes. “The Swazis would hook it at a moment’s notice if they got wind of it. This is a good spot to outspan, and—here come the waggons.”The rumble of wheels, and the sound of voices and whip-cracking drew near, and already the cattle and sheep came into view, scattering over the meadow-like valley bottom, and soon the waggons. Then, having reached the spot, a broad level, which Dawes had selected, the waggons were outspanned, and the oxen turned out to graze, and all hands who could be spared from the duties of herding were despatched to the adjacent hillside to cut thorn bushes. With these a fairly substantial kraal or enclosure was built, the two waggons forming one side of it, and into this the cattle and sheep were driven for the night. There was a lion or two still frequenting that broken and desolate hill-country, and any number of hyaenas or wolves, as they are called in South Africa—and against such the thorn fence, frail as it was, constituted a fairly efficient protection; for wild animals are desperately suspicious of anything in the nature of a fence, and will hesitate to leap within it, fearing a trap.Hardly were these precautions completed than the night fell, and then the cheery glow of the camp-fires shone forth redly upon the darkness, and the savoury contents of cooking-pots gave out a welcome aroma. But somehow a damp seemed to have fallen upon the spirits of all. The ordinarily light-hearted natives conversed sparingly and in subdued whispers, and even Dawes and Gerard could not altogether feel unaffected by the general depression. It was as though some hidden danger were hanging over them, the more terrible because mysterious. The night wore on, and soon all sounds were hushed but the rhythmic champ champ of the ruminating cattle, and the occasional trumpet-like sneeze of a goat, and, beneath the dark loom of the hills against the star-gemmed vault, the tiger-wolves howled as they scented the flock which they dare not approach. But it was upon the first faint streak of dawn that all the alertness of those two watchers was concentrated, for that is the hour invariably chosen by the savage foe for the sudden, swift, demoralising rush, which shall overwhelm his doomed victims before they have time so much as to seize their weapons in order to sell dearly their miserable lives.
Several months later than the events last recorded, a largetrekmight have been seen, wending its way southward along the rugged bushveldtlying beneath the Lebombo mountains, just outside the Zulu boundary.
It is evening, and the lustrous glow of the setting sun reddens the great precipices of the craggy range, tingeing with vivid gold the green roll of the bush. The lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep and goats are harmoniously mingled on the still and balmy air; and over and above this comes the rumble of the waggons and the occasional crack of a whip. A little duiker-buck springs from his form, to stand a moment, his soft eye dilating, the black tips of his tiny, horns pricked up as he listens, then darts away noiselessly into the scrub. Bright-plumaged birds flash screaming from the path as the unwonted tumult draws near, for not often are they alarmed in this wise, here in their bosky solitudes.
First come a number of cattle, the vari-coloured hides dappling the prevailing green and brown of theveldt; a mixed lot too, for among the small but compact Zulu breed, towering in elephantine proportions above them, is here and there the buffalo-like frame of a Boer trek-ox with its strongly pronounced hump and great branching horns. Cows with their calves, too, are there, and an occasional thrust and clash of horns and angry low betoken the collision of two or more quarrelsome beasts, whom the herd’s kerries, however, avail to pacify even if his voice suffices not. These travel leisurely, feeding as they go, and are in excellent condition. Some little way behind comes a flock of sheep and goats, also feeding as they go, and propelled by as travel-stained and dusty-looking a native as the one who herds the cattle aforesaid. The rear is brought up by two waggons, one behind the other, each drawn by a full span of sixteen oxen. The native driver of each, walking alongside, wields his whip languidly and lazily, and the leader is so tired that he can hardly put one foot before the other, for the day has been a sweltering hot one. Even the two horses fastened behind the last waggon have no elasticity in their step, as with drooping head they plod mechanically on, and the dust hangs in a cloud above the line of march.
Seated in front of the foremost waggon, smoking their pipes, are two white men, also travel-stained and dusty. In one of them we have no difficulty in recognising the weather-tanned lineaments and impassive expression of John Dawes. The other countenance—well, we might have some difficulty in recognising the owner, might excusably hesitate before pronouncing it to be that of our friend, Gerard Ridgeley. Yet he it is.
For those few months of healthy open-air life have done wonders for Gerard—have wrought a greater change in him than the same number of years spent under ordinary conditions would have done. They have, in fact, made a man of him. His frame has broadened and his muscles are set. There is a firm, self-reliant look in his face, now bronzed to the hue of that of John Dawes himself, and he has grown a beard. In short, any one who saw him now would pronounce him to have become a remarkably fine-looking fellow.
By no means all fun has Gerard found that up-country trading trip. Of toil—hard, prosaic, wearying—plenty has come his way. There have been times, for instance, when every muscle has been strained and aching with the labour of digging out the waggons, stuck fast over axle-deep in a mud hole—digging them out only to see them plunge in again deeper than ever; or again in offloading everything, and carrying the whole cargo piecemeal up some short but rugged acclivity impossible to avoid, and up which the great vehicles could only be drawn empty. Half fainting beneath the burning glare of a well-nigh tropical sun—toiling amid the sheeting downpour of days of rain, and that too often on a ration of mealies or hard biscuit, and a little brack or muddy water—he has never yet dreamed of shirking, never complained.
That trek, too, of nearly forty-eight hours over a parched land, where each expected water-hole was a mere surface of cracked and baked mud, and the oxen with hanging tongues and saliva-dropping jaws could hardly pull half a mile per hour, and the night was as brassy as the day, and their wanderings and divergences far and wide in search of the necessary fluid was rewarded with greater exhaustion than ever, and the red surface of the burningveldtstretched grim and forbidding to the sky-line, mocking them now and again with a fair mirage—that terrible time when they sat together on the waggon in silence and wondering what the end would be, or rather when it would be, then, too, no word of complaint had escaped Gerard.
Of dangers too he has borne his share. He can recall the horde of turbulent and aggressive natives crowding round the waggon of which he was in sole charge, when during a whole day his life and the lives of the two “boys” seemed to hang upon a hair,—nights spent in lonely watches, in an insecure and semi-hostile land, expecting the spears of predatory savages in the treacherous darkness. That other night, too, when he was lost in theveldtand had to lie out in the open, with hardly time to construct a hurried enclosure and collect sufficient firewood ere darkness fell, and to this slender protection alone had he been forced to trust for the safety of himself and his horse. Hardly till his dying day will he forget those terrible eyes flaming red in the light of his scanty fire, as a pair of prowling lions roared around his frail breastwork the long night through. These are but some of the dangers, some of the privations which have fallen to his lot. Yet as he looks back upon them all it is regretfully. He cannot feel unqualified satisfaction that the trip is drawing to a close.
For it is drawing to a close. With all its perils and hardships it has been a very fairly successful one, as the sheep and cattle which they are driving before them serve to show. So also do such other articles of barter as can be carried in the waggons, which latter, however, are travelling light; for nearly all the stock-in-trade has been disposed of.
Rumours have from time to time reached them in Swaziland and beyond, with regard to the state of Zulu affairs, and the latest of such reports has moved Dawes to decide to avoid the Zulu country, and re-enter Natal by way of the Transvaal. So to-morrow the southward course will be changed to a westward one, and the trek will be pursued along the north bank of the Pongolo.
During the months our friends had spent up-country, diplomatic relations between the Zulus and the British had become strained to a dangerous tension. Both parties were eyeing each other and preparing for war.
Seated on the waggon as aforesaid, our two friends are talking over the situation.
“We had better give them a wide berth, Ridgeley, until we get all this plunder safe home,” Dawes was saying. “Even now we are nearer the Pongolo than I like, and in the north of Zululand there’s a pretty thorough-paced blackguard or two, in the shape of an outlying chief who wouldn’t think twice of relieving us of all our travelling stock, under colour of the unsettled times—Umbelini, for instance, and that other chap they’re beginning to talk about, Ingonyama; though I don’t altogether believe that cock-and-bull story about the blood-drinking tribe—the Igazipuza. It’s too much like a Swazi lie. Still, I shall be glad when we are safe home again.”
Gerard made no answer beyond a half-absent affirmative. His thoughts were far away. In point of fact, although he looked back regretfully upon his past experiences and adventures, yet he was not entirely sorry that the trip was over. For he had not ceased to think of May Kingsland’s blue eyes and bright winsome face—had not ceased to wonder how the latter would look when he should see it again. And that would be very soon now.
“My word, Ridgeley, but you’ll have some yarns to spin to old Kingsland when we look in upon him on our way,” went on Dawes. “Why, he’ll hardly believe you’re the raw Britisher he was with on board ship! I never saw a fellow take so kindly to roughing it, and things. And you’ve filled out too, and become twice the chap you were all round.”
“I feel that I have,” answered Gerard, with something of a guilty start at the queer coincidence that Dawes’s thoughts should have been located on the same spot as his own. “And whatever this trip has done for me it’s thanks to you. Well, Dawes, I don’t mind telling you that I’m your debtor for life.”
“Tut, tut, man! Why you’ve been worth it all to me. We’ve had a rough time mind—a rougher time by far than I expected, or than a trip of this kind’s got any business to be—and I never want a better mate than yourself, and I’ve known a good few fellows in that line, too. I say though, I wonder how your friend Maitland would have got on in your place. Not over well, I fancy. Too much of a masher—collars and cuffs kind of a bandbox chap, you know—not even good enough for a store clerk.”
“He thinks himself many removes too good for me, I can tell you,” laughed Gerard, remembering the lofty contempt with which Harry had reproached him for “turning counter-jumper,” as he was pleased to put it.
“He’s a chap who won’t come to over much good, I’m afraid,” said Dawes. “I wonder what has become of him.”
“So do I,” said Gerard.
We don’t see why the reader should share the enforced, ignorance of the two; wherefore we may as well state that Harry Maitland was at that moment seated on the counter of one of the most fifth-rate bars in Maritzburg, swinging his legs and bawling out a not over-refined song for the benefit and amusement of an audience of loafers a trifle less drunk than himself; for, without wishing inordinately to moralise, the incident throws a suggestive side-light on the contrast of the divergence of the ways of these two English lads, each stranded on his own hook in a far-away colony.
“Let’s saddle up and ride on ahead, and find a good place to outspan,” suggested Dawes.
This was done, and the two were soon cantering further and further from the waggons. The country, which had hitherto been bushy and rolling, now began to assume a somewhat different aspect. High conical hills rose on either hand, their slopes streaked with black, forest-clad kloofs, and the two horsemen, wending their way beneath, noticed that the long winding valley they were pursuing was carpeted with a smooth, green, meadow-like sward.
“I’m rather uneasy about those Swazis of ours,” said Dawes, as they rode along. “They’re brewing some dog’s trick, I know. My impression is that they mean to desert. I can see by their sulky and hang-dog manner what it all amounts to, and this morning while they were sitting round their fire I happened to pass near enough to catch a word or two of their conversation. I heard ‘Igazipuza’ mentioned more than once. It’s quite wonderful how this form of funk has sprung up along this border, and in fact it was a long way inside Swaziland that we heard it.”
“Yes. The wonder is that we got a single Swazi to go with us. But is there really such a chap as Ingonyama? You know the Zulu country pretty well.”
“I never heard of him till lately,” answered Dawes. “Still he may be some petty chief, who has suddenly sprung into fame, and has gathered around him all the ruffians of the Zulu nation. Well, a few days more will show. But I don’t like our Swazis turning rusty. If they make off we can’t replace them, for this strip of country seems absolutely uninhabited. Hallo!—quick—jump down, Ridgeley!”
This in harriedstaccato. For in rounding a spur, there, in front of them, right out in the open stood a fine bush-buck ram. Roused by the tramp of the horses’ feet he stood, his head thrown back, gazing curiously upon the intruders. The last idea apparently that occurred to him was that of flight.
“Two hundred yards sight, not too fine,” whispered Dawes, as Gerard dropped into a sitting posture.
But before the latter had time to press trigger the back was seen to leap high in the air, and fall over kicking; then, after another plunge and a kind of gasping bellow, it lay still.
“By Jove! What does that mean?” cried Gerard.
“It has been assegaied,” said Dawes. The buck was lying some thirty yards from the edge of the bush. Out of the latter there now emerged a tall savage, who without deigning to take any notice of the presence of strangers, walked straight up to his quarry and proceeded to cut its throat with the blade of a huge assegai.
This man, as the pair rode up to him, growled out a sullen “Saku bona,” and proceeded with his work of cleaning the buck, just as if they were not there. Seen face to face he was unmistakably a Zulu, and though of fine frame and splendid proportions, both agreed that he owned about the most villainous countenance they had looked upon for many a long day. His shaven pate was crowned with the usual black shiny ring, and he wore round his loins the usualmútyaof cats’ tails. But they noticed that he was armed with several broad-bladed, close-quarter assegais, as well as two or three lighter casting ones, also a huge knobkerrie, and a full-sized war-shield of red and white ox hide.
“It was a fine shot—or rather couple of shots,” said Dawes, as they stood watching the process. “Look, Ridgeley. The first assegai half ham-strung the buck just under the shoulders, the second must have gone through the heart, or very near it. Yes, it’s powerful throwing.”
To Dawes’s suggestion that he should sell them the buck which he had so deftly slain, or at least a part of it, the Zulu returned a surly refusal. All the while he was cleaning the carcase he was devouring what he considered tid-bits raw—the heart, the liver, and part of the entrails. Then making a cup of his two hands, he scooped up a quantity of blood which had collected in the hollow of the carcase, and deliberately drank it. Gerard could hardly conceal his disgust, but there was something in the action that struck Dawes.
“Who are you?” he asked. “Of the people of Zulu?”
“Of the people of Zulu?Au!” returned the savage in a sneering tone, as he flung the carcase of the buck across his shoulder. Then standing drawn to the full height of his almost gigantic frame, his villainous countenance—rendered more repulsive still with the smears of blood from the bits of raw meat he had been eating—wreathed into a most evil grin, he shouted—
“Where have you dwelt,abelúngu(white men), that you have never heard of Vunawayo? Of the people of Zulu?Ou! Igazipuza.The people who drink blood.”
The last words were uttered almost in a roar—a roar of defiance and hatred and wild beast ferocity. The huge barbarian turned and disappeared among the bush.
“We had better get on and find our outspan,” said Dawes, after the momentary silence which had fallen upon the pair. The apparition, coming as it did, had been rather startling. Zulus are by nature well-mannered people, and the brutal rudeness of the man they had just met could betoken nothing less than the most undisguised hostility, but, worse than all, his last words were an abundant confirmation of the ugly rumours which had been taking shape of late with regard to this mysterious and redoubtable clan.
“Well, if this fellow is a specimen of them all, the Igazipuza must be a lot of picked men, both in the matter of physique and character,” said Gerard. “I never saw a finer built chap, nor a more utterly irredeemable-looking villain. And he choused me out of my shot.”
“We may as well keep the affair dark as regards the other boys, but we’ll take Sintoba into counsel,” said Dawes. “The Swazis would hook it at a moment’s notice if they got wind of it. This is a good spot to outspan, and—here come the waggons.”
The rumble of wheels, and the sound of voices and whip-cracking drew near, and already the cattle and sheep came into view, scattering over the meadow-like valley bottom, and soon the waggons. Then, having reached the spot, a broad level, which Dawes had selected, the waggons were outspanned, and the oxen turned out to graze, and all hands who could be spared from the duties of herding were despatched to the adjacent hillside to cut thorn bushes. With these a fairly substantial kraal or enclosure was built, the two waggons forming one side of it, and into this the cattle and sheep were driven for the night. There was a lion or two still frequenting that broken and desolate hill-country, and any number of hyaenas or wolves, as they are called in South Africa—and against such the thorn fence, frail as it was, constituted a fairly efficient protection; for wild animals are desperately suspicious of anything in the nature of a fence, and will hesitate to leap within it, fearing a trap.
Hardly were these precautions completed than the night fell, and then the cheery glow of the camp-fires shone forth redly upon the darkness, and the savoury contents of cooking-pots gave out a welcome aroma. But somehow a damp seemed to have fallen upon the spirits of all. The ordinarily light-hearted natives conversed sparingly and in subdued whispers, and even Dawes and Gerard could not altogether feel unaffected by the general depression. It was as though some hidden danger were hanging over them, the more terrible because mysterious. The night wore on, and soon all sounds were hushed but the rhythmic champ champ of the ruminating cattle, and the occasional trumpet-like sneeze of a goat, and, beneath the dark loom of the hills against the star-gemmed vault, the tiger-wolves howled as they scented the flock which they dare not approach. But it was upon the first faint streak of dawn that all the alertness of those two watchers was concentrated, for that is the hour invariably chosen by the savage foe for the sudden, swift, demoralising rush, which shall overwhelm his doomed victims before they have time so much as to seize their weapons in order to sell dearly their miserable lives.
Chapter Twelve.Mutiny.At the time when Dawes and Gerard were commencing their return journey from Swaziland—having achieved, as we have said, a fairly successful enterprise—there began to get about rumours with regard to a certain tribe, or rather clan, which was credited with strange, and, to native ideas, most gruesome and repellent practices. The principal of these was a custom, or a rule rather, that each member of this weird confraternity should drink a portion of the blood of some human being slain by him. It need not be an enemy slain in battle, or even an enemy at all. Any one would do, whether man, woman, or child. From this practice the clan was said to take its name—Igazipuza—“blood-drink,” i.e. “Blood-drinkers.”Rumour could not yet quite locate its habitation nor its numerical strength. Whether, again, it inhabited the grim natural fastnesses of the Lebombo range, or the hill-country just south of the Pongolo, was equally uncertain. What was certain, however, was that its sporadic raids, and the ruthless massacre of all who fell in its way, had about depopulated the strip of debatable borderland between the Swazi and the Zulu countries. Kraals were deserted, and crops left standing, as the inhabitants fled northward in blind panic at the mere rumour of the approach of the Igazipuza, so complete was the terror inspired by the very name of this ferocious and predatory clan.Its chief was one Ingonyama, a Zulu, to which nationality belonged the bulk if not the whole of its members. Indeed, on this consideration, if on no other, would Dawes have scouted the imputed blood-drinking custom as absolutely mythical, for no one has a greater horror of coming in contact with human blood that he has not himself shed than the Zulu, and even when he has shed it, he takes the earliest opportunity of undergoing a very elaborate series of purifying rites. True, he is far from unwilling to render himself liable to the latter process, but he is scrupulously particular on the point of the observance. The clan was far more likely to owe its weird name to the war-cry of its members than to any such legendary practice. But, however sceptical John Dawes, and, through him, Gerard, might be upon the point, certain it is that the Swazis were firm believers in the lurid and repulsive legend; and, as Dawes had said, the wonder was that any of that race had been induced to enter into their service at all; indeed, they had only done so as part of their bargaining. The cattle they had acquired would need herds and drivers, and these the Swazi chiefs had agreed to supply as a portion of the barter.Now the said chiefs, talking matters over quietly with Dawes, had given their opinion that the existence of such a predatory clan was an undoubted fact. Ingonyama was a Zulu of rank, and a man of the Qulusi tribe. He was known as a skilful and dashing fighter, and had gathered around him, in his mountain stronghold, an increasing number of kindred spirits, and now had rendered his name and theirs a terror to the whole northern border. That Cetywayo should allow such a growing power to spring up within the pale of his own rule was accountable perhaps by the consideration that, pending his quarrel with the English and the probable invasion of the country, he could not afford to alienate so valuable an ally as this influential vassal; also, it might be, by the fact that Ingonyama, over and above his skill and valour as a war-chief, was accounted a witch-doctor or magician of no small cleverness and renown. Such, then, was the nature of this new form of terror which overhung the return path of the trading expedition; and gazing up at the fantastic contours of the succession of conical hills, and the gloomy belts of forest around their base—the wild fastnesses of this fierce horde—every man who took part in that trek was fully capable of appreciating the peril of the situation.The night passed without disturbance; so, too, did the somewhat dreaded hour of dawn. While making up the fire for the early cup of coffee, Sintoba took the opportunity of saying to his master—“There is going to be trouble,Inkose. Those Swazi dogs intend to run away.”“So?” said Dawes, as calmly as though the other had told him the fire was rather difficult to light.“I heard them talking it over, and Fulani says they told him all about it. They are coming to you in a body to ask for their pay, and then they are going to leave.”“So?” said Dawes again. “Now, listen, Sintoba. No one ever played me any such trick with impunity, and it is not going to be done to-day. Do you and Fulani stroll up to me while I am talking to them—quite quietly, you know, as if you were looking for aramor something which might be in the waggon. My answer to them shall not be given in a corner. Now go away, or they will suspect.”“What is to be the programme?” said Gerard, when they were alone; for although far from having attained Dawes’s ease and fluency in the Zulu language, still he had learned a great deal, and understood the burden of the above, if not every word.“Simplicity itself, Ridgeley, as you’ll see directly,” replied Dawes, sipping his steaming coffee with the utmost deliberation. “But I think our Swazi friends will not shape a course for their own country to-day. Ah, here they come.”The Swazis, to the number of six, were approaching from their side of the camp. It could be seen that they had rolled up all their effects into bundles, which were lying where they had slept. Their spokesman, a tall, lanky, wolf-faced fellow, named Kazimbi, asked if they could speak to the Inkose.“Not yet, Kazimbi,” replied Dawes, imperturbably. “Wait until I have done my coffee.”The men drew back and stood talking in smothered whispers. Dawes finished his cup, and filled himself up another, taking rather longer over it than he would ordinarily have done. Then he lighted his pipe.“Now I am ready,” he said, rising and strolling over to the waggon, where he seated himself on the disselboom. Gerard, who had hardly been able to restrain his impatience, followed.“The people want to go home, Inkose,” began Kazimbi, when they had ranged themselves in front of the two white men. “They are tired.”“Or frightened?” said Dawes, quietly.“They are grateful to you, Inkose, and call you their father. But the way is long they say, far longer than they expected it would be when they were induced to leave their own country. They are tired and footsore and want to return.”“That is not all, Kazimbi. They are frightened.”“Whou!” exclaimed the man with a half smile, and bringing his hand to his mouth with a rapid gesture. Then realising the futility of any further humbug, he said. “That is so, Inkose. We Amaswazi are not as you white people. The Amazulu hate us. There is animpiof them sent to harry our border, to kill our people, although we are not at war. We fear to go any further. This is the country of the Igazipuza. We fear them. We do not want to be killed by the Igazipuza.”And an emphatic hum of approval arose from his compatriots at the speaker’s words.“I cease to wonder that the Amazulu despise you,” said Dawes, calmly. “I cease to wonder that brave men such as they should look upon you Amaswazi as a nation of dogs, when six of its men, at the first chance of danger, wish to run away, and leave those who have paid and fed them, to bear its full brunt. Are you not dogs even to hint at such a thing?”The Swazis looked at each other, sullen but not ashamed.“It is this way, Inkose,” pursued the spokesman. “It is we who are in danger, not you. The Amazulu have no enmity against you white people. They will not harm you. They respect you. But it is us they hate. The Igazipuza will kill us and drink our blood. We must save our lives while there is yet time.”“Now have my ears been filled with the words of a fool, Kazimbi,” replied Dawes. “Listen! You say you wish to return to your own country because you fear these Igazipuza. You say in the same breath that they respect us whites and hate and despise you Amaswazi. Now are you not therefore far safer when with us, as part of ourselves, as the hands and feet of the people these Igazipuza respect, than you would be when wandering through the country by yourselves? Then indeed would they not cut the hearts out of you and drink your blood, O fool, Kazimbi, tongue and mouthpiece of five other fools? And would you not deserve it?”Disconcerted, abashed, and somewhat angry at the quiet but cutting irony thus turned upon him, Kazimbi made no immediate reply, while murmurs of impatience began to arise among his countrymen. Gerard, who had followed every word of the dialogue with the keenest of interest, noticed that Sintoba—and Fulani, the other waggon-driver, a big, strong, trustworthy native—had edged up close behind the group, though apparently engaged on some other business. The leaders, too, a couple of ordinarily intelligent native lads, were squatting hard by, watching the proceedings. None of these apparently were armed, whereas the Swazis all carried sticks.“Au!” exclaimed Kazimbi sullenly, and throwing off all disguise. “Pay us our wage, and let us depart.”“If you depart it will be without your wage, which you will have forfeited by breaking your agreement and the agreement of your chiefs,” said Dawes. “Are you prepared to face your chiefs with such a story? Are you willing to throw away the wage of all this service?”But the malcontents were past reason. The turbulent murmurs grew in volume.“We must go!” they cried. “Wage or no wage we will go. We do not want to be killed by the Igazipuza.”“Well, I say you shall not go,” said Dawes, rising to his feet.“Hau!” burst from the group. “Hau! we are going now.” And an insolent laugh went up.“Stand! The first who moves is a dead man.”The defiant laugh died in their throats. They gazed in direst consternation at the revolver presented full at them, at the resolute grey eyes behind it—at the two revolvers, for Gerard, quick to grasp the situation had covered them with his. The complete turning of the tables was ludicrous.“We hold twelve lives here,” said Dawes, “and you are but six. The first man who moves will be shot dead, and once we begin shooting, in half a minute there will not be one of you left standing. Now you, Kazimbi, walk six paces away from the rest. Only six.”Grey with apprehension, the Swazi obeyed. No sooner had he gained the requisite distance than he was seized from behind by Sintoba and Fulani, and securely bound withreims. The others standing huddled together like sheep, still covered by the deadly six-shooters, whose dread capacities they knew only too well, were round-eyed with fear. And behind them they caught a glimpse of the two leaders, each armed with a broad-bladed stabbing assegai, which had come forth from some cunning place of concealment.“Tie him across the waggon wheel,” said Dawes. And in a trice the spokesman of the malcontents was spread-eagled across the wheel, triangled in such wise that he could move neither hand nor foot.Dawes took a couple ofreimsfrom an after-ox yoke, and deliberately tied a knot in each. No longer was there any necessity to hold the others covered with the pistols. They were completely cowed. Then speaking, he said—“You are a set of miserable cowards, you Amaswazi. You thought yourselves just strong enough to defy me and run away and leave me in the lurch, but you have found out your mistake. Now this is my word to you. You will return to your duties as before, until I choose to dismiss you, and it will depend upon your future behaviour whether I shall fine you a part of your wage for this mutinous conduct or not. You will either do this or—face the other alternative. Here it is. If you refuse, you may go. But you go without food or blankets or arms, not even a stick. Very likely I shall follow you up in the bush, and shoot some or all of you. But I shall not shoot you dead, only in the leg or somewhere that will disable you. Then when the Igazipuza find you, as I have no doubt they will, it is no swift and easy death that will be yours. I should not wonder if they spent the whole day burning you with fire. Even if you escape them and return home, what will your chief say to you for deserting me, and thus causing him to break his word, for by some means or other I will take care to let him know. But, first of all, I shall spend the whole morning flogging Kazimbi here. I believe him to be the fomenter of all the discontent. I think he may very likely die under the lash before I have done with him, but am not sure. Now take your choice. Which is it to be?” concluded Dawes, whirling the knottedreimsin the air, and bringing them down with a sounding swish upon the disselboom of the waggon.The Swazis, completely cowed, stared stupidly at the speaker. Kazimbi, triced up all ready for the lash, turned grey with fear, and moaned piteously for mercy. Whatever course the others might decide to follow, he would not desert, he protested. He would be the white men’s dog to the end of time, only let them spare him now. It was hard that his skin should depend on the decision of the others, he pleaded—drawing down upon himself the somewhat grimly ironical retort that, whereas he had been their spokesman, now they were his.“We will remain as before,” said the others, almost immediately. “We will fulfil our duties until we are no longer wanted.”“Very good,” said Dawes, with the self-possession of a man who had foreseen this result all along. “Untie Kazimbi.”On returning to where they had left their property, such of the Swazis as possessed assegais found that those weapons had been removed. Their sticks only were left them. Then orders were given to inspan and the trek was resumed.As though to obliterate their former misconduct, the behaviour of the malcontents was admirable. But the eye of their masters was ever upon them. Dawes and Gerard, riding on horseback, had a knack of turning up here, there, and everywhere during the trek. No opportunity for desertion was allowed them.“I don’t know quite what to think, Ridgeley,” said Dawes, as they rode on a little ahead, about an hour before the evening outspan. “We’ve squashed their devilment for the time being, but, after all, we are very much at their mercy. Theschelmsmight hook it any hour of the night they chose, for all we’d be the wiser. We can’t mount guard over them all night—besides, it’s bad policy.”“Why shouldn’t we mount guard over them all night—one of us by turns? It would be no joke if they did clear out. We should be mighty short handed with all the trek stock. Besides, they might betray us to these Igazipuza they seem in such a mortal funk of.”“Not the least chance of that. They’d get the worst of it themselves. Besides the Igazipuza know all about us by this time—even if they haven’t been watching us all along. Remember that fellow who killed our buck—Vunawayo!”“The idea of being watched is distinctly demoralising,” said Gerard. “There’s a sort of creepy, eerie feeling about the notion, don’t you know.”“I’m inclined to plead guilty to something of an error of judgment,” said Dawes. “A fellow of my experience ought to have known better than pooh-pooh any native story however tall. I didn’t believe in the existence of these people, and now I do. The chap we met yesterday left us under no sort of doubt as to their existence. I’m afraid we shall have trouble with them yet. All this stock we’ve got along is temptation enough to any thieving gang. No. We ought to have avoided this border altogether, and trekked straight down to Luneburg. Well it’s of no use now talking of what ought to have been done. We must just push on and trust to luck to get us through.”Nothing in Nature suggested the brooding peril which overhung their path. The deep blue of the sky was without a cloud. The scenery of this beautiful wilderness, with its boldly outlined hills, was wild and romantic, but not forbidding. There was plenty of the smaller species of game to be shot for the going after—partridges and francolin, and a bush-buck or so—and the warm air was musical with the voices of ringdoves, with many a strange bird-call from the black strips of bush which belted the slopes of the hills.“Hallo, hallo! What’s all this?” said Dawes, suddenly, as they rounded a spur.There was a prodigious flapping of wings, and a cloud of great white vultures rose from the ground to join a number of others which were wheeling lazily overhead. At sight of the horsemen, however, the swooping circles widened and the great birds darted off. In a moment they seemed to disappear.“Here’s a chap who can’t fly!” cried Gerard, eagerly, putting his horse at one of theaasvogels, who, thoroughly gorged, could only waddle along like a puffin. And then a cry of horror escaped him, and his face paled. Boiling gently down the slope of the ground, where the vulture had let go of it, was a severed head—the head of a native child of about nine or ten years of age. Grim and gory, with the eyes picked out by the carrion birds, the frightful object rolled. Gerard felt nearly sick with horror. At the same time Dawes’s horse, shying violently, nearly unseated his rider.The slope of the hill here was covered by a low, bushy scrub. Lying about among this, contorted into ghastly attitudes, were several bodies, all natives, and representing all ages and sexes. They had been torn by the vultures, and ripped and mangled by their slayers, and the appearance they presented to those who thus came upon them wholly unexpectedly in the midst of the wilderness was inexpressibly hideous and horrible. Three of the bodies were those of full-grown men, the rest women and children—thirteen persons in all. They were covered with assegai-stabs, out of which the blood seemed yet to ooze, and they were all ripped up, a circumstance which pointed to their slayers being of Zulu nationality. Why had these poor creatures, thus travelling peaceably through the country—for fragments of mats and other articles pointed to the probability of it being a family trek—been thus fallen upon and ruthlessly butchered—men, women, and children, even to the month-old baby speared again and again on its mother’s back? Who had done it? The two white discoverers of the massacre looked at each other, and the mind of each shaped the same reply—Igazipuza.A shadow passed between them and the sun, then another and another. The vultures, having become accustomed to the cause of their first alarm, had gathered again, impatient to drop down to their horrible feast. To Gerard it seemed that all the virtue had gone out of the sweet golden sunlight, yielding place to a flaming brassy glare, and the atmosphere seemed to reek of blood.“Poor devils!” said Dawes. “They’re ‘eaten up’ and no mistake. We had better not let on about this to the ‘boys,’ or all that diplomacy this morning is just thrown away. Nothing on earth would keep them from taking to their heels.”After all, it is human to err, and Dawes for once was wrong in his judgment. Had the Swazis but stumbled upon the horrid sight, it would most effectually have killed in them any further desire to tempt their fate in a journey on their own account. They would have demanded nothing better than to hug the vicinity of the waggons as closely as possible.With a dire foreboding of impending peril upon them the two quitted the spot, and rode back upon their track, for they had come on ahead rather further than they had intended. They had not progressed far, when Dawes said quietly—“Don’t start, Ridgeley. But if you can do so without turning your head, look up—to the left.”Gerard did so. High up on the slope of the hillside was a flash and shimmer of something. The slanting rays of the afternoon sun glinted upon the points of spears, upon the smooth surface of great shields. A group of armed savages sat watching the two horsemen.Whatever their intentions might have been, whether hostile or the reverse, they made not the slightest attempt at concealment. There they sat—out in the open. Had they been watching them when they discovered the massacre; could they, indeed, have been seen from that point of vantage? That these were the perpetrators of that barbarous deed Dawes had little doubt. They were but few, certainly—a dozen at most—but how many more were concealed close at hand, ready to spring out upon them!It was a terribly trying situation. While feigning to talk at their ease as they rode along, the nerves of both of our two friends were strung to the uttermost. Every moment might come the whiz of assegais from the bush, which in places grew right down to the path—every moment the roar of the war-shout, the swift and tiger-like charge. To Gerard especially, less accustomed to peril than his companion, and by nature less cool, the situation was desperately trying; and by the time they reached the waggons, and the spot being convenient, ordered an outspan then and there, the dark cloud of peril hovering above them seemed to brood thicker and thicker. Even the very sun seemed to set in a lurid sea of blood.
At the time when Dawes and Gerard were commencing their return journey from Swaziland—having achieved, as we have said, a fairly successful enterprise—there began to get about rumours with regard to a certain tribe, or rather clan, which was credited with strange, and, to native ideas, most gruesome and repellent practices. The principal of these was a custom, or a rule rather, that each member of this weird confraternity should drink a portion of the blood of some human being slain by him. It need not be an enemy slain in battle, or even an enemy at all. Any one would do, whether man, woman, or child. From this practice the clan was said to take its name—Igazipuza—“blood-drink,” i.e. “Blood-drinkers.”
Rumour could not yet quite locate its habitation nor its numerical strength. Whether, again, it inhabited the grim natural fastnesses of the Lebombo range, or the hill-country just south of the Pongolo, was equally uncertain. What was certain, however, was that its sporadic raids, and the ruthless massacre of all who fell in its way, had about depopulated the strip of debatable borderland between the Swazi and the Zulu countries. Kraals were deserted, and crops left standing, as the inhabitants fled northward in blind panic at the mere rumour of the approach of the Igazipuza, so complete was the terror inspired by the very name of this ferocious and predatory clan.
Its chief was one Ingonyama, a Zulu, to which nationality belonged the bulk if not the whole of its members. Indeed, on this consideration, if on no other, would Dawes have scouted the imputed blood-drinking custom as absolutely mythical, for no one has a greater horror of coming in contact with human blood that he has not himself shed than the Zulu, and even when he has shed it, he takes the earliest opportunity of undergoing a very elaborate series of purifying rites. True, he is far from unwilling to render himself liable to the latter process, but he is scrupulously particular on the point of the observance. The clan was far more likely to owe its weird name to the war-cry of its members than to any such legendary practice. But, however sceptical John Dawes, and, through him, Gerard, might be upon the point, certain it is that the Swazis were firm believers in the lurid and repulsive legend; and, as Dawes had said, the wonder was that any of that race had been induced to enter into their service at all; indeed, they had only done so as part of their bargaining. The cattle they had acquired would need herds and drivers, and these the Swazi chiefs had agreed to supply as a portion of the barter.
Now the said chiefs, talking matters over quietly with Dawes, had given their opinion that the existence of such a predatory clan was an undoubted fact. Ingonyama was a Zulu of rank, and a man of the Qulusi tribe. He was known as a skilful and dashing fighter, and had gathered around him, in his mountain stronghold, an increasing number of kindred spirits, and now had rendered his name and theirs a terror to the whole northern border. That Cetywayo should allow such a growing power to spring up within the pale of his own rule was accountable perhaps by the consideration that, pending his quarrel with the English and the probable invasion of the country, he could not afford to alienate so valuable an ally as this influential vassal; also, it might be, by the fact that Ingonyama, over and above his skill and valour as a war-chief, was accounted a witch-doctor or magician of no small cleverness and renown. Such, then, was the nature of this new form of terror which overhung the return path of the trading expedition; and gazing up at the fantastic contours of the succession of conical hills, and the gloomy belts of forest around their base—the wild fastnesses of this fierce horde—every man who took part in that trek was fully capable of appreciating the peril of the situation.
The night passed without disturbance; so, too, did the somewhat dreaded hour of dawn. While making up the fire for the early cup of coffee, Sintoba took the opportunity of saying to his master—
“There is going to be trouble,Inkose. Those Swazi dogs intend to run away.”
“So?” said Dawes, as calmly as though the other had told him the fire was rather difficult to light.
“I heard them talking it over, and Fulani says they told him all about it. They are coming to you in a body to ask for their pay, and then they are going to leave.”
“So?” said Dawes again. “Now, listen, Sintoba. No one ever played me any such trick with impunity, and it is not going to be done to-day. Do you and Fulani stroll up to me while I am talking to them—quite quietly, you know, as if you were looking for aramor something which might be in the waggon. My answer to them shall not be given in a corner. Now go away, or they will suspect.”
“What is to be the programme?” said Gerard, when they were alone; for although far from having attained Dawes’s ease and fluency in the Zulu language, still he had learned a great deal, and understood the burden of the above, if not every word.
“Simplicity itself, Ridgeley, as you’ll see directly,” replied Dawes, sipping his steaming coffee with the utmost deliberation. “But I think our Swazi friends will not shape a course for their own country to-day. Ah, here they come.”
The Swazis, to the number of six, were approaching from their side of the camp. It could be seen that they had rolled up all their effects into bundles, which were lying where they had slept. Their spokesman, a tall, lanky, wolf-faced fellow, named Kazimbi, asked if they could speak to the Inkose.
“Not yet, Kazimbi,” replied Dawes, imperturbably. “Wait until I have done my coffee.”
The men drew back and stood talking in smothered whispers. Dawes finished his cup, and filled himself up another, taking rather longer over it than he would ordinarily have done. Then he lighted his pipe.
“Now I am ready,” he said, rising and strolling over to the waggon, where he seated himself on the disselboom. Gerard, who had hardly been able to restrain his impatience, followed.
“The people want to go home, Inkose,” began Kazimbi, when they had ranged themselves in front of the two white men. “They are tired.”
“Or frightened?” said Dawes, quietly.
“They are grateful to you, Inkose, and call you their father. But the way is long they say, far longer than they expected it would be when they were induced to leave their own country. They are tired and footsore and want to return.”
“That is not all, Kazimbi. They are frightened.”
“Whou!” exclaimed the man with a half smile, and bringing his hand to his mouth with a rapid gesture. Then realising the futility of any further humbug, he said. “That is so, Inkose. We Amaswazi are not as you white people. The Amazulu hate us. There is animpiof them sent to harry our border, to kill our people, although we are not at war. We fear to go any further. This is the country of the Igazipuza. We fear them. We do not want to be killed by the Igazipuza.”
And an emphatic hum of approval arose from his compatriots at the speaker’s words.
“I cease to wonder that the Amazulu despise you,” said Dawes, calmly. “I cease to wonder that brave men such as they should look upon you Amaswazi as a nation of dogs, when six of its men, at the first chance of danger, wish to run away, and leave those who have paid and fed them, to bear its full brunt. Are you not dogs even to hint at such a thing?”
The Swazis looked at each other, sullen but not ashamed.
“It is this way, Inkose,” pursued the spokesman. “It is we who are in danger, not you. The Amazulu have no enmity against you white people. They will not harm you. They respect you. But it is us they hate. The Igazipuza will kill us and drink our blood. We must save our lives while there is yet time.”
“Now have my ears been filled with the words of a fool, Kazimbi,” replied Dawes. “Listen! You say you wish to return to your own country because you fear these Igazipuza. You say in the same breath that they respect us whites and hate and despise you Amaswazi. Now are you not therefore far safer when with us, as part of ourselves, as the hands and feet of the people these Igazipuza respect, than you would be when wandering through the country by yourselves? Then indeed would they not cut the hearts out of you and drink your blood, O fool, Kazimbi, tongue and mouthpiece of five other fools? And would you not deserve it?”
Disconcerted, abashed, and somewhat angry at the quiet but cutting irony thus turned upon him, Kazimbi made no immediate reply, while murmurs of impatience began to arise among his countrymen. Gerard, who had followed every word of the dialogue with the keenest of interest, noticed that Sintoba—and Fulani, the other waggon-driver, a big, strong, trustworthy native—had edged up close behind the group, though apparently engaged on some other business. The leaders, too, a couple of ordinarily intelligent native lads, were squatting hard by, watching the proceedings. None of these apparently were armed, whereas the Swazis all carried sticks.
“Au!” exclaimed Kazimbi sullenly, and throwing off all disguise. “Pay us our wage, and let us depart.”
“If you depart it will be without your wage, which you will have forfeited by breaking your agreement and the agreement of your chiefs,” said Dawes. “Are you prepared to face your chiefs with such a story? Are you willing to throw away the wage of all this service?”
But the malcontents were past reason. The turbulent murmurs grew in volume.
“We must go!” they cried. “Wage or no wage we will go. We do not want to be killed by the Igazipuza.”
“Well, I say you shall not go,” said Dawes, rising to his feet.
“Hau!” burst from the group. “Hau! we are going now.” And an insolent laugh went up.
“Stand! The first who moves is a dead man.”
The defiant laugh died in their throats. They gazed in direst consternation at the revolver presented full at them, at the resolute grey eyes behind it—at the two revolvers, for Gerard, quick to grasp the situation had covered them with his. The complete turning of the tables was ludicrous.
“We hold twelve lives here,” said Dawes, “and you are but six. The first man who moves will be shot dead, and once we begin shooting, in half a minute there will not be one of you left standing. Now you, Kazimbi, walk six paces away from the rest. Only six.”
Grey with apprehension, the Swazi obeyed. No sooner had he gained the requisite distance than he was seized from behind by Sintoba and Fulani, and securely bound withreims. The others standing huddled together like sheep, still covered by the deadly six-shooters, whose dread capacities they knew only too well, were round-eyed with fear. And behind them they caught a glimpse of the two leaders, each armed with a broad-bladed stabbing assegai, which had come forth from some cunning place of concealment.
“Tie him across the waggon wheel,” said Dawes. And in a trice the spokesman of the malcontents was spread-eagled across the wheel, triangled in such wise that he could move neither hand nor foot.
Dawes took a couple ofreimsfrom an after-ox yoke, and deliberately tied a knot in each. No longer was there any necessity to hold the others covered with the pistols. They were completely cowed. Then speaking, he said—
“You are a set of miserable cowards, you Amaswazi. You thought yourselves just strong enough to defy me and run away and leave me in the lurch, but you have found out your mistake. Now this is my word to you. You will return to your duties as before, until I choose to dismiss you, and it will depend upon your future behaviour whether I shall fine you a part of your wage for this mutinous conduct or not. You will either do this or—face the other alternative. Here it is. If you refuse, you may go. But you go without food or blankets or arms, not even a stick. Very likely I shall follow you up in the bush, and shoot some or all of you. But I shall not shoot you dead, only in the leg or somewhere that will disable you. Then when the Igazipuza find you, as I have no doubt they will, it is no swift and easy death that will be yours. I should not wonder if they spent the whole day burning you with fire. Even if you escape them and return home, what will your chief say to you for deserting me, and thus causing him to break his word, for by some means or other I will take care to let him know. But, first of all, I shall spend the whole morning flogging Kazimbi here. I believe him to be the fomenter of all the discontent. I think he may very likely die under the lash before I have done with him, but am not sure. Now take your choice. Which is it to be?” concluded Dawes, whirling the knottedreimsin the air, and bringing them down with a sounding swish upon the disselboom of the waggon.
The Swazis, completely cowed, stared stupidly at the speaker. Kazimbi, triced up all ready for the lash, turned grey with fear, and moaned piteously for mercy. Whatever course the others might decide to follow, he would not desert, he protested. He would be the white men’s dog to the end of time, only let them spare him now. It was hard that his skin should depend on the decision of the others, he pleaded—drawing down upon himself the somewhat grimly ironical retort that, whereas he had been their spokesman, now they were his.
“We will remain as before,” said the others, almost immediately. “We will fulfil our duties until we are no longer wanted.”
“Very good,” said Dawes, with the self-possession of a man who had foreseen this result all along. “Untie Kazimbi.”
On returning to where they had left their property, such of the Swazis as possessed assegais found that those weapons had been removed. Their sticks only were left them. Then orders were given to inspan and the trek was resumed.
As though to obliterate their former misconduct, the behaviour of the malcontents was admirable. But the eye of their masters was ever upon them. Dawes and Gerard, riding on horseback, had a knack of turning up here, there, and everywhere during the trek. No opportunity for desertion was allowed them.
“I don’t know quite what to think, Ridgeley,” said Dawes, as they rode on a little ahead, about an hour before the evening outspan. “We’ve squashed their devilment for the time being, but, after all, we are very much at their mercy. Theschelmsmight hook it any hour of the night they chose, for all we’d be the wiser. We can’t mount guard over them all night—besides, it’s bad policy.”
“Why shouldn’t we mount guard over them all night—one of us by turns? It would be no joke if they did clear out. We should be mighty short handed with all the trek stock. Besides, they might betray us to these Igazipuza they seem in such a mortal funk of.”
“Not the least chance of that. They’d get the worst of it themselves. Besides the Igazipuza know all about us by this time—even if they haven’t been watching us all along. Remember that fellow who killed our buck—Vunawayo!”
“The idea of being watched is distinctly demoralising,” said Gerard. “There’s a sort of creepy, eerie feeling about the notion, don’t you know.”
“I’m inclined to plead guilty to something of an error of judgment,” said Dawes. “A fellow of my experience ought to have known better than pooh-pooh any native story however tall. I didn’t believe in the existence of these people, and now I do. The chap we met yesterday left us under no sort of doubt as to their existence. I’m afraid we shall have trouble with them yet. All this stock we’ve got along is temptation enough to any thieving gang. No. We ought to have avoided this border altogether, and trekked straight down to Luneburg. Well it’s of no use now talking of what ought to have been done. We must just push on and trust to luck to get us through.”
Nothing in Nature suggested the brooding peril which overhung their path. The deep blue of the sky was without a cloud. The scenery of this beautiful wilderness, with its boldly outlined hills, was wild and romantic, but not forbidding. There was plenty of the smaller species of game to be shot for the going after—partridges and francolin, and a bush-buck or so—and the warm air was musical with the voices of ringdoves, with many a strange bird-call from the black strips of bush which belted the slopes of the hills.
“Hallo, hallo! What’s all this?” said Dawes, suddenly, as they rounded a spur.
There was a prodigious flapping of wings, and a cloud of great white vultures rose from the ground to join a number of others which were wheeling lazily overhead. At sight of the horsemen, however, the swooping circles widened and the great birds darted off. In a moment they seemed to disappear.
“Here’s a chap who can’t fly!” cried Gerard, eagerly, putting his horse at one of theaasvogels, who, thoroughly gorged, could only waddle along like a puffin. And then a cry of horror escaped him, and his face paled. Boiling gently down the slope of the ground, where the vulture had let go of it, was a severed head—the head of a native child of about nine or ten years of age. Grim and gory, with the eyes picked out by the carrion birds, the frightful object rolled. Gerard felt nearly sick with horror. At the same time Dawes’s horse, shying violently, nearly unseated his rider.
The slope of the hill here was covered by a low, bushy scrub. Lying about among this, contorted into ghastly attitudes, were several bodies, all natives, and representing all ages and sexes. They had been torn by the vultures, and ripped and mangled by their slayers, and the appearance they presented to those who thus came upon them wholly unexpectedly in the midst of the wilderness was inexpressibly hideous and horrible. Three of the bodies were those of full-grown men, the rest women and children—thirteen persons in all. They were covered with assegai-stabs, out of which the blood seemed yet to ooze, and they were all ripped up, a circumstance which pointed to their slayers being of Zulu nationality. Why had these poor creatures, thus travelling peaceably through the country—for fragments of mats and other articles pointed to the probability of it being a family trek—been thus fallen upon and ruthlessly butchered—men, women, and children, even to the month-old baby speared again and again on its mother’s back? Who had done it? The two white discoverers of the massacre looked at each other, and the mind of each shaped the same reply—Igazipuza.
A shadow passed between them and the sun, then another and another. The vultures, having become accustomed to the cause of their first alarm, had gathered again, impatient to drop down to their horrible feast. To Gerard it seemed that all the virtue had gone out of the sweet golden sunlight, yielding place to a flaming brassy glare, and the atmosphere seemed to reek of blood.
“Poor devils!” said Dawes. “They’re ‘eaten up’ and no mistake. We had better not let on about this to the ‘boys,’ or all that diplomacy this morning is just thrown away. Nothing on earth would keep them from taking to their heels.”
After all, it is human to err, and Dawes for once was wrong in his judgment. Had the Swazis but stumbled upon the horrid sight, it would most effectually have killed in them any further desire to tempt their fate in a journey on their own account. They would have demanded nothing better than to hug the vicinity of the waggons as closely as possible.
With a dire foreboding of impending peril upon them the two quitted the spot, and rode back upon their track, for they had come on ahead rather further than they had intended. They had not progressed far, when Dawes said quietly—
“Don’t start, Ridgeley. But if you can do so without turning your head, look up—to the left.”
Gerard did so. High up on the slope of the hillside was a flash and shimmer of something. The slanting rays of the afternoon sun glinted upon the points of spears, upon the smooth surface of great shields. A group of armed savages sat watching the two horsemen.
Whatever their intentions might have been, whether hostile or the reverse, they made not the slightest attempt at concealment. There they sat—out in the open. Had they been watching them when they discovered the massacre; could they, indeed, have been seen from that point of vantage? That these were the perpetrators of that barbarous deed Dawes had little doubt. They were but few, certainly—a dozen at most—but how many more were concealed close at hand, ready to spring out upon them!
It was a terribly trying situation. While feigning to talk at their ease as they rode along, the nerves of both of our two friends were strung to the uttermost. Every moment might come the whiz of assegais from the bush, which in places grew right down to the path—every moment the roar of the war-shout, the swift and tiger-like charge. To Gerard especially, less accustomed to peril than his companion, and by nature less cool, the situation was desperately trying; and by the time they reached the waggons, and the spot being convenient, ordered an outspan then and there, the dark cloud of peril hovering above them seemed to brood thicker and thicker. Even the very sun seemed to set in a lurid sea of blood.