"THE PERILS AND DANGERS OF THIS NIGHT."
What was to be done? The great, grisly brute stood there pawing and
scraping, keeping up the while his gruesome moanings, his shrill bellow.
But there was now a note of savagery in these: whether it was that the
smell of blood, and a great deal of it, had worked him up, together with
the fact of finding himself all alone, so far as his kind went--his
voice took on that strange growling note which enraged cattle take on at
times, and then--look out for mischief. And the girl stood, absolutely
unprotected, the prostrate form of her friend lying there at her feet,
helpless. Had any been there to see it her face wore the same look that
it had worn as she stood holding the big stone ready to throw, what time
Elvesdon came between her and the great snake.
She let go the whip-lash with a resounding crack in the direction of the
menacing beast. He was of the large homed kind that would have been the
delight of a _Plaza de Toros_, and looked horribly formidable, tossing
his white sharp horns in the moonlight. Then he charged.
Edala did not yield an inch as she stood over the body of her friend.
She calculated her distance to a nicety, and as coolly as if she had
been fly-fishing, she sent out the whip-lash again. Fortunately the
charge was a half-hearted one, and the cutting _voerslag_, catching the
enemy full in the eyes, brought him up as sharp as though the cruel
_banderillas_ had suddenly been stuck in his withers in the _plaza_ in
old Spain. She gave him no law. Twice in rapid succession again she
gave him the _voerslag_, and the blinded beast, mad with pain, backed,
then trotted unsteadily away.
Edala's breathing came in spasmodic gasps as she watched him out of
sight, and the reaction made her knees tremble beneath her. Oh hang it!
She must keep up, she told herself. She could not afford to follow
Evelyn's example, or what would become of them both? So this girl, with
the glorious gold-crowned head, alone there under circumstances of peril
and horror, started to work out the situation for the safety of both.
"Come Evelyn. Pull yourself together, and get up!" she cried, half
carrying, half dragging the other to the house door. "Lord! I shall
have to shy a bucket of water over her yet!" she added almost savagely,
panting from her exertion.
But this drastic remedy proved unnecessary, for Evelyn opened her eyes,
then sat up, staring about her in a dazed kind of way.
"What is it? I've been dreaming--something horrible," she said.
"Yes, you have. Never mind. Buck up now, and come inside. It's
beastly cold out here."
"Why yes. I feel tottery though. Oh Edala, what a fool you must think
me."
"No. Only, don't do it again," was the reply, accompanied by a curious
laugh. Edala was thinking--though not resentfully--of how a day or two
ago the other was lecturing her: in a way talking down to her, while
disclaiming any intent to do so. Now she was the one upon whom
everything depended. The situation was in her hands.
They went inside, and Edala mixed a glass of brandy and water.
"You drink this," she said. "Then go to sleep for an hour or two and
we'll start for Kwabulazi."
"But I hate spirits--Ugh!" with a shudder.
"So do I; and I hate medicine too; but both are necessary sometimes.
Down with it."
Evelyn obeyed, with more than one additional shudder. But the end
justified the means, for, sitting back in a low roomy armchair, she soon
felt drowsy and dropped off to sleep.
Edala felt no inclination to follow her example, on the contrary she had
never felt more wakeful in her life. She wandered from room to room.
There was her father's library, and his favourite chair and reading
lamp. There were his cherished books, and all the surrounding was alive
with his presence. She could hardly realise that he was no longer
there, but instead was a prisoner--a hostage--in the hands of
insurrectionary savages; whose wild mad scheme of rebellion could end in
no other way than that utterly disastrous to themselves, and then--?
She looked around the room, and a terrible wave of compunction, or
remorse came over her. How hard, how selfish, how unloving she had been
towards him. Who was she that she should judge him? Yet she had, and
that at every moment of the day.
All the affection and care and consideration he had lavished upon her
came back now. It would, when it was too late, he had more than once
said in his bitterness--Evelyn too had all unconsciously echoed his
words. And it had. Should she ever see him again--ever look upon that
loving presence--to whom she had been all in all for the whole of her
young life, and whom she had met with ingratitude and repulsion? In the
lonely silence of the still midnight the girl who had faced physical
danger with a calm front, and rare readiness of resource, broke down.
"Father darling--darling! come back to me," she moaned. "Only come back
to me, to your little one again, and all shall be so different, so
different."
She had dropped upon her knees, her head buried in the chair--his chair.
Her heart seemed breaking in her sobs--her great sobs--which hardly
relieved it. What if she should never see him again, to tell him how
his words had been surely fulfilled--never--never? No, she could not
realise it. This room, which more than any other in the house seemed
sacred to his presence and--now empty of it. A large portrait of him
hung on the wall. Rising she went over and pressed her lips to the
cold, not too carefully dusted, glass again and again.
The sound of stirring in the other room now came to her ears. It
brought her down to the hard, material side of the situation. She
dashed the tears from her eyes, fiercely, determinedly, and went to join
her relative. Evelyn was awake again, and was looking around in rather
a frightened way.
"Oh, here you are, Edala! Shall we start? I feel ever so much
refreshed now. But you, child--have you had some sleep?"
"Yes--no," was the half-absent reply. "Start? Yes, as soon as you're
ready. Wait though. I'll go and get some supplies for the way. Later
on you'll find it no joke walking thirteen miles across the veldt on
nothing but air."
She was all material and practical again now. In a marvellously short
space of time she returned with a well packed wallet stored with
provisions.
"You sling this on," handing the other a vulcanite water bottle. "I'll
carry the skoff--and the gun. It's a pity you couldn't learn to shoot,
Evelyn, or you might have carried another. As it is we'll hide the
other two--inside the piano. No Kafir would think of looking for them
there."
This was done, then having carefully extinguished the lights and being
well wrapped up, for the nights were fresh; and in dark attire, for
safety's sake, they went forth.
"I wonder if we shall ever see the old house again," said Edala
bitterly. "It'll probably be burned to the ground, and all father's
treasured books,"--she added, with the catch of a sob. "These brutes--
who have known you all your life, and then even they fall away from you!
They'll stick at nothing."
There was silence then as they started upon their long tramp. The
bodies of the poor dogs lay where they had been slain, plainly outlined
under the cold moon, whose light glared down too upon that other mangled
human relic, which, fortunately they could not see. High in the air
invisible plover wheeled and whistled, and down in the blackness of the
kloofs, right across their way, the answering bay of hunting jackals,
and the deeper voice of the striped hyena, echoed eerily upon the night.
Evelyn shuddered.
"Oh, that's all right," said Edala. "Nothing to be afraid of there--
quite the contrary. It means that our way is clear, or no animal would
be kicking up all that row. That's just what we want. Hallo--here's
our friend back again," she broke off, as a trample of hoofs, and a
quick shrill bellow, told that the bull had returned. Again Evelyn
shuddered.
"Will he attack us?" she said.
"I hope not, because this time I shall have to shoot. A charge of
Treble A. at ten yards'll split even his tough skull. But the last
thing I want to do is to loose off a shot at all. By the way, that's
old Blue Hump. He must have got cut off from the herd when they drove
it off--or cleared on his own. He's a vicious old brute, anyway."
The animal was trotting parallel with their course and every now and
then they could make out the great branching horns above the bush
sprays. But he must have grown tired of it, or feared to come to closer
quarters, for presently they Saw no more of him.
"There's a pathway here that cuts a considerable corner," said Edala.
"Whew! how cold it is."
It was, and in spite of the exercise and plentiful wrapping up, both
girls shivered. There were stealthy rustlings in the darkness of the
brake, and once a great ant-bear rushing across the road, looking pale
and uncanny in the moonlight, drew a stifled shriek from Evelyn. The
other laughed.
"They're the most harmless things on earth. Hyland and I and poor Jim
used to hunt them often at night with assegais."
Thus they travelled on, and soon Evelyn became accustomed to the
unwonted experience of walking all night across wild country in
potential peril at every step: fortunately she was in hard physical
training by now. Once Edala's quick vision had detected a puff adder
lying in the path, but a few stones hurled from a little distance, soon
drove the bloated, hissing reptile to seek safety somewhere else. Now
and again a great owl would drop down right in front of their faces, and
they could see his head turning from side to side as he sailed along on
noiseless pinions, uttering his ghostly hoot: or the `churn' of the
nightjar would echo weirdly from beneath some overhanging rock; or
again, a tiger-wolf howled, and big beetles in blundering flight, boomed
through the air. So the voices of the night were never still.
They had sat down for a brief rest, and some refreshment, then on again.
Suddenly Edala grew uneasy. A white mist was settling down upon the
land. This was serious; for not only might they run plump into those it
was all important to avoid, but there was grave danger of getting
`turned round' and finding themselves back at Sipazi again. The mist
deepened, and so did Edala's growing anxiety. It was one of those thick
white mists which settle down upon the land in the small hours of the
morning, fearfully disconcerting from a wayfarer's point of view, but
which melt away as by magic before the sun is an hour high. But that
was small comfort to these two. They wanted to be at Kwabulazi before
the sun was above the horizon at all. Suddenly Edala started.
"Hark!" she whispered, stopping short.
In front--directly in front--was audible a deep, confused murmur of
sound, rolling, as it seemed, from one point to another, and drawing
nearer and nearer. And with it came another sound. Those who have
heard it can never mistake it, and these two had heard it all too
significantly of late. It was the quivering rattle of assegai hafts.
From the sounds, spread out as they were right across their front, it
was manifest that a large body of natives was moving towards them in
open order. The fact that they were all armed told its own tale. This
was a rebel impi, and but for the friendly mist these two would have run
right into it.
"Quick, Evelyn! This way!" breathed, rather than whispered, Edala.
Holding her companion's hand she drew her after her. The way she was
taking now ascended sharply, but it was the only way. The rime rolled
along, now in gusty puffs. This seemed to tell that they were gaining
some height. Both were panting from their exertion, but there was no
such thing as pausing, for now from the sounds beneath it was evident
that the savages had suddenly altered their line of march, and were
coming on in the same direction as themselves. Had they heard the sound
of their steps, the clinking of a stone--what not? Anyway they could
not go down, these two. That was out of the question.
On and upward. A puff of damp air, now nearly in their teeth, showed
that they had attained the summit of some height. Suddenly Edala seized
her companion's hand in a strong grip and held it--and its owner.
"What is it?" whispered the latter.
"We are on the edge of a big krantz, that's all. Three or four more
steps and we should have been over."
It was even as she had said. The ground ended just in front of them,
and the blast of air coming up denoted a cliff, and one of considerable
height.
But now it was lightening, and they could make out the long smooth edge
of the height stretching away on their left front. And--good Heavens!
Now the voices sounded from that direction--_advancing_ from that
direction as though to meet the owners of those coming up behind. These
two were in a trap, caught between two fires. It was evident that the
savages suspected their presence--the presence of somebody--and were
quartering the ground in order to clear up the mystery. And there was
nowhere to hide. The mountain top was flat and grassy. Suddenly Edala
gave a violent start.
"I know our bearings now," she whispered. "We're on the top of Sipazi.
Now Evelyn, there's one chance for us, and one only--if you've the nerve
to take it."
"And that?"
"My `aerial throne.'"
The other gasped. She remembered how her flesh had crept before, when
Edala had taken her to see the famous tree, how she had turned away
almost faint, as she watched the girl spring out fearlessly on to this
dreadful seat--with a careless laugh as though she had just dropped into
an armchair. And now she too must sit dangling over the awful height.
At that moment she almost preferred to take her chance of the assegais
of the savages. But that chance might possibly mean even a worse one,
and the thought decided her, as Edala whispered impatiently:--
"It's got to be done. It's our only chance. But you can't fall. I'll
take care of that. Come."
The deep voices sounded alarmingly near now. We have said that the brow
of the mountain went down by a grass steep that was almost precipitous,
to the stump of the tree. Edala let herself down this with cat-like
security of footing, keeping ever a firm hold upon her companion--her
gun she wedged into the root of a stunted bush growing out from the
grass.
"Now we're all right," she whispered, as they sat wedged upon the
projecting tree trunk, their feet dangling over space. "You can't
possibly fall, you know, as long as you hang on to that root, and I'm
holding you. It's a triumph of matter over mind instead of t'other way
on, and as long as you forget there's more than six foot of drop between
this and the ground why you're as jolly here as in an armchair on the
stoep."
And the other was somewhat reassured, although the situation to her was
ghastly and horrible in the extreme. But now the voices drew very near
indeed, were right overhead. Fortunately the mist had suddenly
thickened, and the tree, which was some little way down, was quite
blotted out to the vision of those above. To Edala, who understood what
was said, the moment was one of awful tensity. Someone had been upon
the mountain, of that they were convinced. But where could they be?
There was no hiding place. Unless they had fallen over the cliff they
would be here now.
Thus the discussion flowed on. Even the vibration of the tread of feet
above caused the tree trunk to quiver slightly. At any moment the mist
might lift. And it seemed to these two, suspended over awful space, an
eternity. Then with unspeakable relief and thankfulness they heard the
footsteps and voices retreating.
"Not yet," breathed Edala. "Not yet. We must let them get clear away
first. See. It's getting lighter."
It was. The dawn was at hand; in fact had already begun to break. The
outline of the cliff above was visible now, plainly visible, and
devoutly thankful did Edala feel that this lightening had been deferred
as long as it had.
"My `aerial throne' has its uses, Evelyn--eh?" she whispered.
Then something moved her to look up again. Her exaltation was dashed,
shattered to the ground. On the brink, calmly gazing down upon them,
stood the tall figure of a man--a dark man--and the outline of his
figure and head-ring stood out against the sickly murk. She recognised
Manamandhla. The bitterness of death had come.
For a few moments the Zulu thus stood, his eyes meeting hers. Then,
without a word, he turned away and disappeared.