Three days after, they were at the rice mill, and a July day was
breaking. Isaka lay and listened to the lapping of the lake water
lapping of the water in the greatest of African lakes. He was
lying beside a creek that was papyrus-fringed with curtains of
feathery green. A cloud of lake flies hung dark in the distance.
The soft lake haze redeemed landscape and waterscape now from
overclarity of outline the besetting blemish, as some might
think, of its mid-day. Isaka was really ill that morning. He
could hardly stir hand or foot. An askari came and looked at him,
and said something to his German officer. The latter came and
laid his hand not unkindly on his brow, found what the heat of
his body was, and gave him some drug out of their scanty store.
The great war with their fellow Christians was pinching them
sorely in the matter of medicines these sturdy patriots of
Central Europe. They were keeping their flag flying in a feverish
land where febrifuges meant much indeed. Isaka was let lie, and
he brooded over his dream the old dream that had come back so
intrusively last night into such alien surroundings. For he in
the province of the red-mounted rider had dreamed that He on the
White Horse came as an invader, the light of daybreak in His
looks, the faith of conquest in His eyes.
Now, a friend happened upon Isaka that morning, one who had been
reared upon the self-same mission-crowned hill whither Isaka's
homesick mood harked back. How they spoke of old days together,
and warmed their chilled hearts again! Surely Isaka's dream had
heralded a measure of restored joy for him that morning, if
nothing better and more lasting. He spoke of his dream, and of
how it came first as the prelude of that Banquet, and of how his
heart had danced on that Banquet morning, and the sun had danced
in his sight at the sunrise. His friend was allowed to stay by
him, for the transport officer was kindly, and they talked on and
on. Isaka knew now that they thought his sickness a great one.
Suddenly came a wild stir among porters and native soldiers. One
of the English lake ships had shown round the point to northward,
and was heading fast for the bay. The one German hurried down
among the transport crowd, bidding them make haste and take
cover. His friend left Isaka. He was one of the few soldiers who
were to line the trench in a banana grove ready to dispute a
landing. But Isaka was bestowed in some long grass; there was
little time to carry him far. The ship rang and slowed down, then
she crept like a lean black panther into the place that suited
her spring. Soon she rang again, and stopped dead. There was a
ghastly pause of stillness. Crash! Her twelve-pounder spoke.
Crash! and crash! again, five times over. The rice mill showed a
gaping wound by now. Then two boats were lowered, the Indian
Ship's Guard and the British officers crowded into them, and the
African sailors pulled for the shore. Isaka crawled to a hummock,
and peered out to see what was happening. The shell fire had made
him pant and shake, his lips were full of prayers remembered and
half-remembered. The boats came nearer, they were almost up to
the log-built pier now. Had they been left alone till they had
come further, there might have been hope for the ambush of a
great bag, while the Indians were bunched together on the landing
place. But those in the banana grove trench were eager, they
would not hold their fire. The rifles cracked, the bullets
thrashed up the water, men crouched down in the drifting boats
with oars and rifles waving rather helplessly. It looked as
though they were likely to pay toll, wide though the shots had
gone as yet. Then the oarsmen pulled themselves together, and
rowed back for the ship's protection. There was not even an oar
or a boat hit after all.
Isaka stared eagerly at the fight. He showed himself. A minute
after the ship's shrapnel burst near him, putting death's fear
upon his weakness. Someone had said that the ambush was in the
grass rather than in the banana grove, the ambush that was
screened so well. Was there just will and time left to invoke the
Rider on the White Horse of that unforgotten and abiding vision?
I think there was. Then the shrapnel burst over Isaka. He was
blotted, as his fellow Christians of the ship and her guns might
have expressed it. The twelve-pounder (or was it the four-inch?)
crashed again and again. The Maxim coughed and spat in a
paroxysm. The Rider on the Red Horse rode on relentlessly.