PURSUIT
After all we did not get away much before noon, because first there was
a great deal to be done. To begin with the loads had to be arranged.
These consisted largely of ammunition, everything else being cut down
to an irreducible minimum. To carry them we took two donkeys there were
on the place, also half a dozen pack oxen, all of which animals were
supposed to be “salted”—that is, to have suffered and recovered from
every kind of sickness, including the bite of the deadly tsetse fly. I
suspected, it is true, that they would not be proof against further
attacks, still, I hoped that they would last for some time, as indeed
proved to be the case.
In the event of the beasts failing us, we took also ten of the best of
those Strathmuir men who had accompanied us on the sea-cow trip, to
serve as bearers when it became necessary. It cannot be said that these
snuff-and-butter fellows—for most, if not all of them had some dash of
white blood in their veins—were exactly willing volunteers. Indeed, if
a choice had been left to them, they would, I think, have declined this
adventure.
But there was no choice. Their master, Robertson, ordered them to come
and after a glance at the Zulus they concluded that the command was one
which would be enforced and that if they stopped behind, it would not
be as living men. Also some of them had lost wives or children in the
slaughter, which, if they were not very brave, filled them with a
desire for revenge. Lastly, they could all shoot after a fashion and
had good rifles; moreover if I may say so, I think that they put
confidence in my leadership. So they made the best of a bad business
and got themselves ready.
Then arrangements must be made about the carrying on of the farm and
store during our absence. These, together with my waggon and oxen, were
put in the charge of Thomaso, since there was no one else who could be
trusted at all—a very battered and crestfallen Thomaso, by the way.
When he heard of it he was much relieved, since I think he feared lest
he also should be expected to take part in the hunt of the Amahagger
man-eaters. Also it may have occurred to him that in all probability
none of us would ever come back at all, in which case by a process of
natural devolution, he might find himself the owner of the business and
much valuable property. However, he swore by sundry saints—for Thomaso
was nominally a Catholic—that he would look after everything as though
it were his own, as no doubt he hoped it might become.
“Hearken, fat pig,” said Umslopogaas, Hans obligingly translating so
that there might be no mistake, “if I come back, and come back I shall
who travel with the Great Medicine—and find even one of the cattle of
the white lord, Macumazahn, Watcher-by-Night, missing, or one article
stolen from his waggon, or the fields of your master not cultivated or
his goods wasted, I swear by the Axe that I will hew you into pieces
with the axe; yes, if to do it I have to hunt you from where the sun
rises to where it sets and down the length of the night between. Do you
understand, fat pig, deserter of women and children, who to save
yourself could run faster than a buck?”
Thomaso replied that he understood very clearly indeed, and that,
Heaven helping him, all should be kept safe and sound. Still, I was
sure that in his manly heart he was promising great gifts to the saints
if they would so arrange matters that Umslopogaas and his axe were
never seen at Strathmuir again, and reflecting that after all the
Amahagger had their uses. However, as I did not trust him in the least,
much against their will, I left my driver and _voorlooper_ to guard my
belongings.
At last we did get off, pursued by the fervent blessings of Thomaso and
the prayers of the others that we would avenge their murdered
relatives. We were a curious and motley procession. First went Hans,
because at following a spoor he was, I believe, almost unequalled in
Africa, and with him, Umslopogaas, and three of his Zulus to guard
against surprise. These were followed by Captain Robertson, who seemed
to prefer to walk alone and whom I thought it best to leave
undisturbed. Then I came and after me straggled the Strathmuir boys
with the pack animals, the cavalcade being closed by the remaining
Zulus under the command of Goroko. These walked last in case any of the
mixed-bloods should attempt to desert, as we thought it quite probable
that they would.
Less than an hour’s tramp brought us to the bush-veld where I feared
that our troubles might begin, since if the Amahagger were cunning,
they would take advantage of it to confuse or hide their spoor. As it
chanced, however, they had done nothing of the sort and a child could
have followed their march. Just before nightfall we came to their first
halting-place where they had made a fire and eaten one of the herd of
farm goats which they had driven away with them, although they left the
cattle, I suppose, because goats are docile and travel well.
Hans showed us everything that had happened; where the chair in which
Inez was carried was set down, where she and Janee had been allowed to
walk that she might stretch her stiff limbs, the dregs of some coffee
that evidently Janee had made in a saucepan, and so forth.
He even told us the exact number of the Amahagger, which he said
totalled forty-one, including the man whom Inez had wounded. His spoor
he distinguished from that of the others both by an occasional drop of
blood and because he walked lightly on his right foot, doubtless for
the reason that he wished to avoid jarring his wound, which was on that
side.
At this spot we were obliged to stay till daybreak, since it was
impossible to follow the spoor by night, a circumstance that gave the
cannibals a great advantage over us.
The next two days were repetitions of the first, but on the fourth we
passed out of the bush-veld into the swamp country that bordered the
great river. Here our task was still easy since the Amahagger had
followed one of the paths made by the river-dwellers who had their
habitations on mounds, though whether these were natural or artificial
I am not sure, and sometimes on floating islands.
On our second day in the reeds we came upon a sad sight. To our left
stood one of these mound villages, if a village it could be called,
since it consisted only of four or five huts inhabited perhaps by
twenty people. We went up to it to obtain information and stumbled
across the body of an old man lying in the pathway. A few yards further
on we found the ashes of a big fire and by it such remains as we had
seen at Strathmuir. Here there had been another cannibal feast. The
miserable huts were empty, but as at Strathmuir, had not been burnt.
We were going away when the acute ears of Hans caught the sound of
groans. We searched about and in a clump of reeds near the foot of the
mound, found an old woman with a great spear wound just above her
skinny thigh piercing deep into the vitals, but of a nature which is
not immediately mortal. One of Robertson’s people who understood the
language of these swamp-dwellers well, spoke to her. She told him that
she wanted water. It was brought and she drank copiously. Then in
answer to his questions she began to talk.
She said that the Amahagger had attacked the village and killed all who
could not escape. They had eaten a young woman and three children. She
had been wounded by a spear and fled away into the place where we found
her, where none of them took the trouble to follow her as she “was not
worth eating.”
By my direction the man asked her whether she knew anything of these
Amahagger. She replied that her grandfathers had, though she had heard
nothing of them since she was a child, which must have been seventy
years before. They were a fierce people who lived far up north across
the Great River, the remnants of a race that had once “ruled the
world.”
Her grandfathers used to say that they were not always cannibals, but
had become so long before because of a lack of food and now had
acquired the taste. It was for this purpose that they still raided to
get other people to eat, since their ruler would not allow them to eat
one another. The flesh of cattle they did not care for, although they
had plenty of them, but sometimes they ate goats and pigs because they
said they tasted like man. According to her grandfathers they were a
very evil people and full of magic.
All of this the old woman told us quite briskly after she had drunk the
water, I think because her wound had mortified and she felt no pain.
Her information, however, as is common with the aged, dealt entirely
with the far past; of the history of the Amahagger since the days of
her forebears she knew nothing, nor had she seen anything of Inez. All
she could tell us was that some of them had attacked her village at
dawn and that when she ran out of the hut she was speared.
While Robertson and I were wondering what we should do with the poor
old creature whom it seemed cruel to leave here to perish, she cleared
up the question by suddenly expiring before our eyes. Uttering the name
of someone with whom, doubtless, she had been familiar in her youth,
three or four times over, she just sank down and seemed to go to sleep
and on examination we found that she was dead. So we left her and went
on.
Next day we came to the edge of the Great River, here a sheet of placid
running water about a mile across, for at this time of the year it was
low. Perceiving quite a big village on our left, we went to it and made
enquiries, to find that it had not been attacked by the cannibals,
probably because it was too powerful, but that three nights before some
of their canoes had been stolen, in which no doubt these had crossed
the river.
As the people of this village had traded with Robertson at Strathmuir,
we had no difficulty in obtaining other canoes from them in which to
cross the Zambesi in return for one of our oxen that I could see was
already sickening from tsetse bite. These canoes were large enough to
take the donkeys that were patient creatures and stood still, but the
cattle we could not get into them for fear of an upset. So we killed
the two driven beasts that were left to us and took them with us as
dead meat for food, while the three remaining pack oxen we tried to
swim across, dragging them after the canoes with hide _reims_ round
their horns. As a result two were drowned, but one, a bold-hearted and
enterprising animal, gained the other bank.
Here again we struck a sea of reeds in which, after casting about, Hans
once more found the spoor of the Amahagger. That it was theirs beyond
doubt was proved by the circumstance that on a thorny kind of weed we
found a fragment of a cotton dress which, because of the pattern
stamped on it, we all recognised as one that Inez had been wearing. At
first I thought that this had been torn off by the thorns, but on
examination we became certain that it had been placed there purposely,
probably by Janee, to give us a clue. This conclusion was confirmed
when at subsequent periods of the hunt we found other fragments of the
same garment.
Now it would be useless for me to set out the details of this prolonged
and arduous chase which in all endured for something over three weeks.
Again and again we lost the trail and were only able to recover it by
long and elaborate search, which occupied much time. Then, after we
escaped from the reeds and swamps, we found ourselves upon stony
uplands where the spoor was almost impossible to follow, indeed, we
only rediscovered it by stumbling across the dead body of that cannibal
whom Inez had wounded. Evidently he had perished from his hurt, which I
could see had mortified. From the state of his remains we gathered that
the raiders must be about two days’ march ahead of us.
Striking their spoor again on softer ground where the impress of their
feet remained—at any rate to the cunning sight of Hans—we followed them
down across great valleys wherein trees grew sparsely, which valleys
were separated from each other by ridges of high and barren land. On
these belts of rocky soil our difficulties were great, but here twice
we were put on the right track by more fragments torn from the dress of
Inez.
At length we lost the spoor altogether; not a sign of it was to be
found. We had no idea which way to go. All about us appeared these
valleys covered with scattered bush running this way and that, so that
we could not tell which of them to follow or to cross. The thing seemed
hopeless, for how could we expect to find a little body of men in that
immensity? Hans shook his head and even the fierce and steadfast
Robertson was discouraged.
“I fear my poor lassie is gone,” he said, and relapsed into brooding as
had become his wont.
“Never say die! It’s dogged as does it!” I replied cheerfully in the
words of Nelson, who also had learned what it meant to hunt an enemy
over trackless wastes, although his were of water.
I walked to the top of the rise where we were encamped, and sat down
alone to think matters over. Our condition was somewhat parlous; all
our beasts were now dead, even the second donkey, which was the last of
them, having perished that morning, and been eaten, for food was scanty
since of late we had met with little game. The Strathmuir men, who now
must carry the loads, were almost worn out and doubtless would have
deserted, except for the fact that there was no place to which they
could go. Even the Zulus were discouraged, and said they had come away
from home across the Great River to fight, not to run about in
wildernesses and starve, though Umslopogaas made no complaint, being
buoyed up by the promise of his soothsayer, Goroko, that battle was
ahead of him in which he would win great glory.
Hans, however, remained cheerful, for the reason, as he remarked
vacuously, that the Great Medicine was with us and that therefore,
however bad things seemed to be, all in fact was well; an argument that
carried no conviction to my soul.
It was on a certain evening towards sunset that I went away thus alone.
I looked about me, east and west and north. Everywhere appeared the
same bush-clad valleys and barren rises, miles upon miles of them. I
bethought me of the map that old Zikali had drawn in the ashes, and
remembered that it showed these valleys and rises and that beyond them
there should be a great swamp, and beyond the swamp a mountain. So it
seemed that we were on the right road to the home of his white Queen,
if such a person existed, or at any rate we were passing over country
similar to that which he had pictured or imagined.
But at this time I was not troubling my head about white queens. I was
thinking of poor Inez. That she was alive a few days before we knew
from the fragments of her dress. But where was she now? The spoor was
utterly lost on that stony ground, or if any traces of it remained a
heavy deluge of rain had washed them away. Even Hans had confessed
himself beaten.
I stared about me helplessly, and as I did so a flying ray of light
from the setting sun reflected downwards from a storm-cloud, fell upon
a white patch on the crest of one of the distant land-waves. It struck
me that probably limestone outcropped at this spot, as indeed proved to
be the case; also that such a patch of white would be a convenient
guide for any who were travelling across that sea of bush. Further,
some instinct within seemed to impel me to steer for it, although I had
all but made up my mind to go in a totally different direction many
more points to the east. It was almost as though a voice were calling
to me to take this path and no other. Doubtless this was an effect
produced by weariness and mental overstrain. Still, there it was, very
real and tangible, one that I did not attempt to combat.
So next morning at the dawn I headed north by west, laying my course
for that white patch and for the first time breaking the straight line
of our advance. Captain Robertson, whose temper had not been bettered
by prolonged and frightful anxiety, or I may add, by his unaccustomed
abstinence, asked me rather roughly why I was altering the course.
“Look here, Captain,” I answered, “if we were at sea and you did
something of the sort, I should not put such a question to you, and if
by any chance I did, I should not expect you to answer. Well, by your
own wish I am in command here and I think that the same argument
holds.”
“Yes,” he replied. “I suppose you have studied your chart, if there is
any of this God-forsaken country, and at any rate discipline is
discipline. So steam ahead and don’t mind me.”
The others accepted my decision without comment; most of them were so
miserable that they did not care which way we went, also they were good
enough to repose confidence in my judgment.
“Doubtless the Baas has reasons,” said Hans dubiously, “although the
spoor, when last we saw it, headed towards the rising sun and as the
country is all the same, I do not see why those man-eaters should have
returned.”
“Yes,” I said, “I have reasons,” although in fact I had none at all.
Hans surveyed me with a watery eye as though waiting for me to explain
them, but I looked haughty and declined to oblige.
“The Baas has reasons,” continued Hans, “for taking us on what I think
to be the wrong side of that great ridge, there to hunt for the spoor
of the men-eaters, and they are so deep down in his mind that he cannot
dig them up for poor old Hans to look at. Well, the Baas wears the
Great Medicine and perhaps it is there that the reasons sit. Those
Strathmuir fellows say that they can go no further and wish to die.
Umslopogaas has just gone to them with his axe to tell them that he is
ready to help them to their wish. Look, he has got there, for they are
coming quickly, who after all prefer to live.”
Well, we started for my white patch of stones which no one else had
noticed and of which I said nothing to anyone, and reached it by the
following evening, to find, as I expected, that it was a lime outcrop.
By now we were in a poor way, for we had practically nothing left to
eat, which did not tend to raise the spirits of the party. Also that
lime outcrop proved to be an uninteresting spot overlooking a wide
valley which seemed to suggest that there were other valleys of a
similar sort beyond it, and nothing more.
Captain Robertson sat stern-faced and despondent at a distance
muttering into his beard, as had become a habit with him. Umslopogaas
leaned upon his axe and contemplated the heavens, also occasionally the
Strathmuir men who cowered beneath his eye. The Zulus squatted about
sharing such snuff as remained to them in economic pinches. Goroko, the
witch-doctor, engaged himself in consulting his “Spirit,” by means of
bone-throwing, upon the humble subject of whether or no we should
succeed in killing any game for food to-morrow, a point on which I
gathered that his “Spirit” was quite uncertain. In short, the gloom was
deep and universal and the sky looked as though it were going to rain.
Hans became sarcastic. Sneaking up to me in his most aggravating way,
like a dog that means to steal something and cover up the theft with
simulated affection, he pointed out one by one all the disadvantages of
our present position. He indicated _per contra_, that if _his_ advice
had been followed, his conviction was that even if we had not found the
man-eaters and rescued the lady called Sad-Eyes, our state would have
been quite different. He was sure, he added, that the valley which he
had suggested we should follow, was one full of game, inasmuch as he
had seen their spoor at its entrance.
“Then why did you not say so?” I asked.
Hans sucked at his empty corn-cob pipe, which was his way of indicating
that he would like me to give him some tobacco, much as a dog groans
heavily under the table when he wants a bit to eat, and answered that
it was not for him to point out things to one who knew everything, like
the great Macumazahn, Watcher-by-Night, his honoured master. Still, the
luck did seem to have gone a bit wrong. The privations could have been
put up with (here he sucked very loudly at the empty pipe and looked at
mine, which was alight), everything could have been put up with, if
only there had been a chance of coming even with those men-eaters and
rescuing the Lady Sad-Eyes, whose face haunted his sleep. As it was,
however, he was convinced that by following the course I had mapped out
we had lost their spoor finally and that probably they were now three
days’ march away in another direction. Still, the Baas had said that he
had his reasons, and that of course was enough for him, Hans, only if
the Baas would condescend to tell him, he would as a matter of
curiosity like to know what the reasons were.
At that moment I confess that, much as I was attached to him, I should
have liked to murder Hans, who, I felt, believing that he had me “on
toast,” to use a vulgar phrase, was taking advantage of my position to
make a mock of me in his sly, Hottentot way.
I tried to continue to look grand, but felt that the attitude did not
impress. Then I stared about me as though taking counsel with the
Heavens, devoutly hoping that the Heavens would respond to my mute
appeal. As a matter of fact they did.
“There is my reason, Hans,” I said in my most icy voice, and I pointed
to a faint line of smoke rising against the twilight sky on the further
side of the intervening valley.
“You will perceive, Hans,” I added, “that those Amahagger cannibals
have forgotten their caution and lit a fire yonder, which they have not
done for a long time. Perhaps you would like to know why this has
happened. If so I will tell you. It is because for some days past I
have purposely lost their spoor, which they knew we were following, and
lit fires to puzzle them. Now, thinking that they have done with us,
they have become incautious and shown us where they are. That is my
reason, Hans.”
He heard and, although of course he did not believe that I had lost the
spoor on purpose, stared at me till I thought his little eyes were
going to drop out of his head. But even in his admiration he contrived
to convey an insult as only a native can.
“How wonderful is the Great Medicine of the Opener-of-Roads, that it
should have been able thus to instruct the Baas,” he said. “Without
doubt the Great Medicine is right and yonder those men-eaters are
encamped, who might just as well as have been anywhere else within a
hundred miles.”
“Drat the Great Medicine,” I replied, but beneath my breath, then added
aloud,
“Be so good, Hans, as to go to Umslopogaas and to tell him that
Macumazahn, or the Great Medicine, proposes to march at once to attack
the camp of the Amahagger, and—here is some tobacco.”
“Yes, Baas,” answered Hans humbly, as he snatched the tobacco and
wriggled away like a worm.
Then I went to talk with Robertson.
The end of it was that within an hour we were creeping across that
valley towards the spot where I had seen the line of smoke rising
against the twilight sky.
Somewhere about midnight we reached the neighbourhood of this place.
How near or how far we were from it, we could not tell since the moon
was invisible, as of course the smoke was in the dark. Now the question
was, what should we do?
Obviously there would be enormous advantages in a night attack, or at
least in locating the enemy, so that it might be carried out at dawn
before he marched. Especially was this so, since we were scarcely in a
condition even if we could come face to face with them, to fight these
savages when they were prepared and in the light of day. Only we two
white men, with Hans, Umslopogaas and his Zulus, could be relied upon
in such a case, since the Strathmuir mixed-bloods had become entirely
demoralised and were not to be trusted at a pinch. Indeed, tired and
half starving as we were, none of us was at his best. Therefore a
surprise seemed our only chance. But first we must find those whom we
wished to surprise.
Ultimately, after a hurried consultation, it was agreed that Hans and I
should go forward and see if we could locate the Amahagger. Robertson
wished to come too, but I pointed out that he must remain to look after
his people, who, if he left them, might take the opportunity to melt
away in the darkness, especially as they knew that heavy fighting was
at hand. Also if anything happened to me it was desirable that one
white man should remain to lead the party. Umslopogaas, too,
volunteered, but knowing his character, I declined his help. To tell
the truth, I was almost certain that if we came upon the men-eaters, he
would charge the whole lot of them and accomplish a fine but futile end
after hacking down a number of cannibal barbarians, whose extinction or
escape remained absolutely immaterial to our purpose, namely, the
rescue of Inez.
So it came about that Hans and I started alone, I not at all enjoying
the job. I suppose that there lurks in my nature some of that primeval
terror of the dark, which must continually have haunted our remote
forefathers of a hundred or a thousand generations gone and still
lingers in the blood of most of us. At any rate even if I am named the
Watcher-by-Night, greatly do I prefer to fight or to face peril in the
sunlight, though it is true that I would rather avoid both at any time.
In fact, I wished heartily that the Amahagger were at the other side of
Africa, or in heaven, and that I, completely ignorant of the person
called Inez Robertson, were seated smoking the pipe of peace on my own
stoep in Durban. I think that Hans guessed my state of mind, since he
suggested that he should go alone, adding with his usual unveiled
rudeness, that he was quite certain that he would do much better
without me, since white men always made a noise.
“Yes,” I replied, determined to give him a Roland for his Oliver, “I
have no doubt you would—under the first bush you came across, where you
would sleep till dawn, and then return and say that you could not find
the Amahagger.”
Hans chuckled, quite appreciating the joke, and having thus mutually
affronted each other, we started on our quest.