"Oh, elfunts," said M. "M'ngulu know--not here--come."
And M'ngulu took a turn to the north-east and went away with us after
those elephants, up through the continent of Africa, as though he knew
every clump of trees from sea to sea, and all that dwelt therein.
Wherever the elephant country may have been, we occupied a week in
getting there; a week, however, which was not wasted, but which was full
of adventure and delight; of days spent in stalking or tracking, and of
nights luxuriously passed within the waggon under the comfortable
knowledge that M'ngulu lay asleep without by the fireside with one eye
open, and that if a lion or any other large beast were to move a whisker
within a mile or so, M would know the reason why.
And at length one day, as we passed by a dense copse of trees whose
appearance was unfamiliar to us, M remarked, "This right tree; elfunt
like him not far now!" from which we inferred that we had passed into a
district which produced the food beloved by the big creatures we had
come to find.
Soon after this we made a camp, by M'ngulu's directions, and left the
waggon under the care of the Nig, to whom we presented a rifle for use
in case of accidents, and departed, all three of us, on horseback into
the jungle.
Jack said that it was to be hoped no one would alarm Nig and cause him
to wish to fire that rifle; for that would be a fatal moment for poor
Nig, who knew no more about firearms than he did about the rule of
three. Nig spoke English fairly well, and we asked him at parting what
he would do if attacked by a lion? Whereupon the Kaffir seized his
rifle (which was loaded), and waved it wildly about his head (with
accompaniment of bad language and war dance), in a fashion that caused
us to ride away in great haste over the veldt, and not to draw rein
until we were well out of range of his weapon. It was on the second day
after leaving camp that we saw our first elephant, and made our
acquaintance for the first time with an animal actually and undoubtedly
"possessed," and a pretty lively introduction it was for us!
*CHAPTER XXI*
*THE BAD ELEPHANT*
We were riding slowly, in Indian file, through a rather dense belt of
forest, M leading, when that worthy suddenly drew up and slowly turned
his head round to shoot a warning glance at us. When he did this old M
always looked so exactly like a setter drawing up to a point, that it
was all Jack and I could do to avoid laughing aloud.
At this particular moment, laughter or anything else of a noisy
description would have been a grave mistake, for M was very much in
earnest. He beckoned us up to him, and pointed to a tree which had been
almost stripped of its leaves and smaller twigs, and said, "Elfunt--bad
elfunt!"
"Why _bad_?" whispered Jack to me; "and how does he know whether it is
bad or good?"
To this I could give no reply, for I could not imagine wherein consisted
the goodness or the badness of an elephant. There did not appear to me
to be anything peculiarly wicked in an animal helping itself to its
natural and favourite food without M'ngulu's leave; and I confess that
up to this point my sympathies were in favour of the elephant and
against his traducer, M; but I was to learn presently that this elephant
was a very bad animal indeed--a really wicked creature without one
redeeming feature about his character.
It seems that the acute M'ngulu formed his opinion as to the elephant
upon whose traces he had suddenly chanced by the manner in which he had
eaten his breakfast. He had not only stripped the tree, but had
savagely pulled it about and broken its branches, scattering bits far
and wide, and from this fact M promptly concluded that he was a bad or
"rogue" elephant--namely, one who by reason of his evil temper has found
it impossible to remain with the herd to which he belongs, and has
therefore separated himself or been forcibly separated from his fellows,
and has departed to vent his fury, in future, upon trees, or strangers,
or anything that is encountered.
"You know," said Jack, when we discussed this question together
afterwards, "it's a capital idea! Why don't we fellows of the human
persuasion adopt the plan? Fancy, if one could always banish sulky
chaps, at school or anywhere, and send them away to rage about the place
until they recovered their senses and returned mild and reasonable!"
I said that I scarcely thought the plan would work in polite society,
because, though the community to which he belonged would no doubt be
excellently well rid of the rampageous one, the rest of the world would
probably object to his being at large, and would likely enough return
him to the fold in several pieces.
M'ngulu followed up that elephant, by some mysterious process of his
own, for two hours, at the end of which period we had drawn so close to
the quarry that we could distinctly hear him somewhere in front of us,
still breakfasting, apparently in his own distinctively "roguish" way,
for there was a sound of continual rending and tearing of branches, and
the ground here and there was littered with wasted food which, Jack
whispered, might have been given to the elephantine poor instead of
being chucked about in this ruthless way!
A minute or two more, and M'ngulu stopped, sitting motionless upon his
horse, finger to lip. Wondering and excited, we followed his example,
sitting like two statues.
Presumably M'ngulu had caught sight of the elephant, but I could see
nothing of the brute; neither could Jack, it appeared, for he craned his
neck to this side and that, and looked excited but vacant. The rending
noise had ceased. Doubtless the "rogue" was becoming suspicious;
perhaps he had heard us, or seen us, or scented us.
"That's the worst of having a Somali hunter," whispered Jack; "one _can_
smell them quite a long way off! Any fool of an elephant ought to"--
But Jack's frivolity was suddenly broken off at this moment by a loud
ejaculation from M'ngulu, who turned swiftly about at the same instant
and whipped up his horse, shouting out something to us in his native
lingo, which we took for instructions to follow his example.
Off we scudded, all three of us, separating as we went; and as we turned
and fled I heard a sound which was somewhat terrifying to the
inexperienced--a shrieking, trumpeting noise, accompanied by the
crashing of trees and shuffling of great limbs; and I knew, without
being told, that the "bad" elephant had taken this hunt into his own
hands.
In spite of all the noise and circumstance affording unmistakable
evidence that our friend the "rogue" was really close at hand, I had not
caught sight of him up to this time, and it was only when M'ngulu had
galloped away in one direction and Jack and I (rather close together) in
another, and when the elephant had very wisely selected M to pursue,
that we two got our first glimpse of him.
He was a huge fellow, and he looked very much in earnest as, with his
big, sail-like ears stretched to their full width on either side of his
head, his trunk uplifted and his tail cocked, he went crashing after our
nimble nigger, trumpeting and squealing like a steam-engine gone mad. I
felt some anxiety on M'ngulu's account as pursuer and pursued
disappeared in the dense depths of the jungle through which we had come.
M was by far the worst mounted of the three of us, and was armed only
with one of our small rifles, a bullet from which might stop an elephant
once in a thousand shots, and, certainly, would do nothing of the sort
the other nine hundred and ninety-nine times. It would appear that the
angry brute had appreciated these facts in choosing M'ngulu to vent his
fury upon instead of one of us, for we were armed with our express
rifles, bought by Jack with a view to this very work, and we were
besides, much better mounted than our good nigger.
But we need not have feared for M'ngulu. That acute person knew very
well indeed what he was about; and as Jack and I still sat wondering
whether we ought to follow in his tracks, or whether M would have the
gumption to bring the elephant round so as to pass within easy shot of
us, we became aware that M'ngulu had proved himself to possess the
required quality, and was, indeed, at this moment approaching with the
elephant at his horse's heels.
The first indication of this was a violent trembling and quaking on the
part of my horse as the crashing and trumpeting began to tend in our
direction instead of away. Jack's horse, on the contrary, showed signs
of a desire to bolt; and it was with difficulty that he restrained it
until, just as the hunt came in sight, the brute gave itself up to
complete terror, and, refusing all persuasion, twisted round and
galloped madly away in the opposite direction.
Mine showed a less frantic disposition. Though it quaked and shook like
a man in an ague fit, it stood its ground and allowed me to bring my
heavy rifle to bear upon the furious brute as it came by.
Away darted M'ngulu's terrified horse, making better pace than ever it
had made before this day, straining every nerve to keep ahead of the mad
brute behind it. Even old M looked a little nervous, I thought,
glancing back over his shoulder at the pursuing "rogue," and shouting
something to me as he flew by. I did not catch what he said. The
elephant was distinctly closer to his horse's heels now, than when, a
few minutes ago, they had disappeared in the jungle, and it certainly
seemed to me that it gained at every stride; no wonder poor M looked
nervous. A considerable responsibility attached to my shot, I felt; for
if I could not stop the brute he would undoubtedly have M or his horse
in another minute unless they contrived to dodge him.
I could still hear Jack's horse crashing away in the distance, and
Jack's voice remonstrating with it very loudly and heartily; there was
no help to be expected from him in this crisis.
All this takes so long to describe, while the thoughts themselves passed
like lightning through the brain.
I brought my rifle to bear upon the brute as well as I could for the
trembling of my horse, and pulled the trigger just as it passed within
thirty yards of me, aiming for its heart, which I hoped and believed was
to be found just outside the top of the shoulder. I pulled both
triggers at once, feeling that this was a crisis, and that I should not
get another chance of putting two heavy balls in at a favourable
distance and in a vulnerable spot.
The immediate effect of my shot was twofold. In the first place, the
recoil of the rifle from the double discharge was so great and
unexpected as to cause me to lose my balance and fall backwards clean
out of the saddle. That was the effect as it concerned myself. As for
the elephant, it stopped short in its career, falling forward upon its
knees, and smashing both of its fine tusks with the concussion.
For a moment I fancied that I had killed it outright at a shot; but the
next I discovered that this was far from being the case, for in an
instant the great beast struggled to its feet and looked about it with
the nastiest expression in its eyes that ever disfigured the optics of
man or brute. Blood streamed down its side, but not from the shoulder
or near it; I had missed my mark by a good foot, and wounded it in the
ribs--badly no doubt, but not in such a manner as to render it
immediately harmless.
I had fallen off my horse, as I explained, and was at this moment behind
it, with one foot in the stirrup, about to remount, watching the
elephant over the top of the saddle, uncertain whether it would be wiser
to trust to my horse's legs or my own; and whether, indeed, there would
be time to mount and get under way before the brute discovered us and
charged.
The elephant did not allow much opportunity for reflection. He turned
his head in our direction as soon as he was upon his feet, and of course
saw my terrified horse.
Up went his trunk, out went his great ears, forth bellowed his scream of
rage. Silenced as he had been, for a moment or two, by the sudden shock
of his wound and his fall, he was doubly furious and vindictive now by
reason of the pain he had been caused, and in less time than is occupied
by the pious British man who calls at need upon his patron saint, Jack
Robinson, the great animal was in full descent upon my horse.
*CHAPTER XXII*
*I AM MOURNED FOR DEAD*
My steed was doomed; that was clear enough, for it still stood, helpless
and terrified, rooted to the spot and quaking with abject, nerveless
fear. Apparently terror had completely bereft it of the power to move,
for from the moment (only half a minute ago, in spite of all this talk
and telling!) when it caught sight of the "rogue" in full pursuit of
M'ngulu until now, it had stood with forefeet apart, ears cocked
forward, eyes and nostrils dilated, trembling and snorting, and
insensible to direction from the saddle.
As for me, seeing that my horse was doomed, and that if I had still been
mounted I should probably have shared its fate, I thanked Heaven for my
escape and sprang back into the bush without further ado, leaving the
poor brute to its evil destiny. Safe behind a dense, thorny bush I was
free to reload my rifle and watch, if I desired it, the elephant's
behaviour with regard to his victim.
This was not a very pleasant sight, and the idea of what would have
become of me had I remained in the saddle, trying to get the horse to
move, until too late, made me quite faint. It is enough to say that
when the "rogue" had done with the poor beast there was not an unbroken
bone in its body; for he had knelt upon it, danced upon it with his huge
feet, gored it with the stumps of his tusks, thrown it hither and
thither, and torn it to bits with his trunk, and, in a word, vented upon
it an abandonment of fury which was absolutely terrific to behold.
So quickly did he perform his work, in the madness of his rage, that I,
who was obliged to set to work cautiously and with little movement for
fear of attracting his attention, had not finished loading my rifle when
the second act of the tragedy began.
It was M'ngulu who reappeared next upon the boards. He came galloping
up, wailing and weeping at full voice, under the impression, I suppose,
that I had fallen a victim as well as my horse; and as he dashed past
the elephant's nose, he first spat at it and cursed it, and then fired
off his rifle in a very "promiscuous" manner, one handed. This, though
it did not injure the elephant, served to enrage him yet further; and
involved M'ngulu in a second race for life.
Of this race and of its upshot I was not a witness, for our good nigger
and the raging "rogue" at his heels passed immediately out of my sight,
and it was only when I heard in the distance first one shot and then two
more that I knew where to look for the hunt. Having now reloaded my
rifle, I felt justified in rejoining the chase on foot; and careered
away at my best pace in the direction of the shooting. I presently
encountered both Jack and the nigger galloping back to meet me so
rapidly that I thought at first they were pursued, and hid myself behind
a tree in order to save my own skin and perhaps get a telling shot as
the brute passed me. But there was no elephant, and M'ngulu was weeping
and wailing, and Jack's face looked white and scared and haggard.
"Jack!" I shouted as the pair rode by. "Hold on a bit! Where's the?"--
Jack pulled up in a instant, so did M, who ceased wailing on the spot,
and, jumping off his horse, commenced dancing around Jack and me in a
manner that made me suspect for a moment that the madness of the
elephant had infected him.
"Good Heavens, man!" cried Jack, "I thought you were done for. This
fool of a nigger has been telling me you were dead--'White man Peter
dead--kill,' he has been saying, and crying and wailing fit to raise the
dead."
"I wish he could raise my dead horse," I said; and I described to Jack
my own escape.
"Great scissors!" cried Jack. And for some little time such foolish and
unmeaning expressions as "Caesar!" "Snakes alive!" "Scissors!" and so on
were the only remarks I could get my friend to make.
"I don't know which was the bigger fool," he said at last, "your horse
that wouldn't go or mine that wouldn't stay. This fool of a beast of
mine took me half a mile away before he would consent to return, and I
only got a look in at the hunt _then_ thanks to old M here, who kindly
brought the elephant to me as I was not allowed to go to the elephant."
"Still," I said, "I think your horse was less of a fool than mine under
the circumstances. It's no fault of my poor brute that I was not made
jam of by that raging beast. By the bye, I suppose you killed it
between you, as you are here and the elephant is not?"
"He's dead," said Jack. "You made two good holes in him, but in the
wrong place. M'ngulu brought him by me, and I put in a lovely
bull's-eye in the forehead. He went down like a sheep, but struggled
upon his knees again. Then I put in a second near the same spot, and M
fired off his piece and nearly knocked my cap off--he never went near
the elephant. He is a free cannonader, is M; I don't think we'll give
him rifles to hold in future, Peter--at least, not loaded ones."
We were now at the scene of the bad elephant's demise, and Jack showed
me where he had stood, and where M'ngulu, and how it had all happened.
M's bullet had really passed very close to Jack's head, it appeared, for
the tree trunk was splintered by it a foot or two above the spot where
Jack had been standing.
There lay the "bad 'un," terrible even in death; a big, vicious, mangy,
bony, ungainly elephant as ever went mad and was expelled by a
respectable herd. His tusks had been good, but they were spoiled by his
first fall, and though we collected the pieces, and M deftly dug out the
roots, they were useless as specimens. We made them over to M, however,
who sold them, I daresay, for a good price.
After this we shot two or three other elephants before returning
southwards; but in each case it being we who hunted them and not they
us, as in the instance of the "bad 'un," the record of our achievements
would be uninteresting in comparison, and I shall leave the tale of them
to the imagination of my readers, who know well enough how the thing is
done, and resume the thread of our history proper, which must be pursued
without further digressions; and those who have skipped the hunting
adventures may now read on in the certainty that the Treasure business
will in future be strictly "attended to," and that they will not be
called upon to skip again, unless, indeed, it be from pure excitement in
the incidents of the legitimate story of the hidden money.
Had we known it, we were on the brink, even now, of a very terrible
incident indeed.
*CHAPTER XXIII*
*A RUDE AWAKENING*
Our hunting trip over, Jack and I left M'ngulu, our Somali hunter, and
the nigger driver in charge of the ox-waggon, which was to follow us at
leisure to Vryburg. On their arrival we purposed to sell oxen and
horses and waggon, pay off our men, and depart by train for Cape Town,
thence to England, and thence again to our new treasure island in the
Gulf of Finland.
As on our ride from Vryburg, we now took nothing with us excepting our
light rifles and ammunition, our one remaining revolver, brandy,
blankets, a small supply of tinned food, and two small kegs of water (of
which we had learned the necessity by the bitter experience of our two
days' waterless wanderings in the jungle near Ngami).
It was but a hundred or so of miles to Vryburg, but we were determined
to enjoy the return ride thoroughly, and to keep ourselves in food by
the way through the medium of our rifles, though we did not look to have
anything in the way of adventures, since our friends James Strong and
Clutterbuck were no longer by to afford us the excitement of a race to
the treasure ground, with its added interest of possible shots from
behind or from an ambush.
I cannot say that I was sorry to feel that Strong was well out of the
way, and probably half-way to England by now. I do not like the
feeling, when travelling, that every tree may have an enemy behind it,
only waiting for an opportunity to put a bullet into you as you come
along. I am a plain man, and like a quiet manner of travelling
best--the civilised kind, without the excitement of ambushes and
cock-shots, and so on.
We did not go far each day, for there was no hurry. M'ngulu and the
nigger were going to spend a few days at Ngami, to rest the oxen, before
starting after us; but we ourselves would rather pass our time in the
veldt than at Vryburg. So we hunted antelopes, and shot all manner of
birds that looked queer but tasted excellent, and we camped out at
night, and enjoyed life amazingly, as any two young Britons would under
similar circumstances; for we had had a successful and delightful
hunting expedition, and we were on our way home to England with the
secret of the treasure safely buttoned up in our breast pockets; the
object of our journey had been attained; the present moment was full of
delight--what could any man desire more than this?
We were no longer afraid of lions at night. As a matter of fact, they
were rare enough so far south, and in all probability the one we had
shot at Ngami, before the waggon reached us, was the same animal which
had captured and devoured poor Strong, junior, that terrible night at
the treasure field. There were plenty farther north, as we well knew.
But now we were thirty or forty miles south of Ngami, and on the
highroad to Vryburg, and there was not much danger of a night surprise
from any of our old friends.
Hence we were somewhat careless when on the watch over the camp fire.
Nominally we still took our sleep in turn and watched during the
interval; but as a matter of fact, the function of watching was honoured
by us in the breach more than in the observance, and it often happened
that we both slept soundly for hours together. Thus when, on the fourth
night, a most unexpected and alarming surprise broke over us, like a
thunderclap from a clear sky, we found that we had been living in a
fool's paradise.
For once, old Jack--generally so much more to be depended upon than I,
being a more gifted person all round, and infinitely smarter and more
wide awake than your humble servant, the present scribe--old Jack, the
acute, was caught napping. It was his watch, and he ought, undoubtedly,
to have been awake--wide awake. Instead of that he was asleep--fast
asleep--when, as he described the event afterwards, he was awakened by
being stirred in the ribs by someone's foot.
Assuming that it was I who took this liberty with him, Jack lashed out
with his own foot, and hacked someone violently upon the shin, eliciting
an oath which, I am glad to say, Jack instantly realised could not have
proceeded from lips so refined as mine.
"Come, sit up!" said a strange and yet familiar voice, with added
expletives which I omit. It may be taken as understood that in the
subsequent conversation there was an oath to every three words of one of
the speakers, for this was a person who, I may tell you, was quite
unable to speak the Queen's English without a large admixture of strong
language: there are such people--more than are needed.
Jack opened his eyes with a start, and recognised James Strong. Then he
twisted round and felt for his rifle, which lay at his side ready for
emergency; but he could not find it.
Strong, who held a revolver in his left hand, laughed aloud.
"No, no," he said; "I've seen to it; you taught me that trick, you know.
See there!"
Jack followed Strong's eyes to the fire, and there he beheld the butts
of our two rifles blazing merrily among the twigs and logs.
"Burn nicely, don't they?" said Strong. "Now chuck that revolver of
yours in. No, no! none of that, my lad; if you turn the muzzle anything
like in my direction I shoot. I can get mine off long before yours is
pointed my way. Drop it out of the pouch, anyhow it comes. You needn't
touch it. Open the pouch and shake it out--so!"
Jack was obliged to obey, for Strong's revolver covered him all the
time, and Strong was a man to shoot in a moment if it suited him.
Jack's revolver fell at his feet.
"Kick it towards me!" said Strong, and Jack was obliged to do so.
Strong kicked it into the fire.
"Now then," he said, "that little matter being settled, hand me up the
letter you took from Clutterbuck's tin box."
"I haven't it," said Jack; "Godfrey has it."
"Turn out your pockets," said Strong. "You took a copy; I saw you do
it. Now, please, no shilly shally--out with everything."
Strong turned over with his foot the few articles which Jack produced
from the pocket of his Norfolk jacket. The copy of our precious
document was not there.
"Take off that waistcoat," said Strong; "Or, stay, what do I care where
you have hidden the blessed thing? Look here, I give you one minute to
produce it."
There was nothing to be done. Poor Jack was obliged to reveal the
secret places of his waistcoat lining, and to bring out the required
document. What else could he do? The man with the revolver is bound to
have the last word. If I had been awake, instead of sleeping like a pig
by the fire, we might have had him; as it was, Jack was at his mercy.
"Now," said Strong, "go away into the bush; step out one hundred yards,
and stay there while I negotiate this snoring tomfool here!"
Jack, feeling, as he said afterwards, that a worm would have appeared a
dignified creature in comparison with himself, stepped out his hundred
yards, or pretended to; as a matter of fact he remained behind a thorn
bush about seventy paces away, determined to rush in at any risk if the
fellow threatened me any harm.
Then Strong woke me as he had awakened Jack, by stirring me with his
foot, and I am thankful to think that I too "landed him one" for his
trouble; for I lashed out just as Jack did, and my foot certainly
encountered some portion of his frame, and as certainly elicited flowers
of speech which I omit.
"Come, get up!" he said sulkily; "the game's played out."
I started to my feet, feeling for my rifle; it was gone, as the reader
knows. Only half awake, I stared at Strong; then I looked round for
Jack, who had disappeared.
Strong's revolver covered me all the while, just as he had held Jack in
peril of instant death.
"Jack!" I screamed. I do not know what I thought. I believe I had an
awful fear that Strong had murdered and buried him. "Jack, where are
you?" To my intense relief Jack shouted back--
"All right, Peter; do as he tells you, just now!"
Strong laughed loudly, and swore atrociously.
"D'you hear that?" he said. "You are to do just as I tell you; the
captain says so. If you don't, your brains will fly in about two
seconds. Your rifles are burnt, so is your revolver; your smart friend
wasn't quite acute enough to-night, and he's a prisoner. Hand up the
letter, or cheque, or bank order, or whatever it may be that you took
out of Clutterbuck's tin box that night. You thought I was asleep,
curse you, but that's where you spoiled yourselves."
I handed Strong the document he asked for. "There goes," I thought, "my
chance of the treasure!"
Strong glanced at it and pocketed the paper.
"Any bank-notes in that pocket-book?" he said; "if so, hand them over."
I had thirty pounds in cash, which he took. I had subscribed the rest
to make up Clutterbuck's two hundred pounds.
"Now," resumed Strong, "if you move a finger while I'm in sight I shoot.
Come, hands up! Stand!"
He left me standing like a confounded statue, with my hands over my
head. Then he laughed, swore a disgusting oath at me, loosened the
bridle of his horse, which was tied to a tree quite close at hand, and
started to ride away.
*CHAPTER XXIV*
*STRONG SPRINTS AND GAINS A LAP*
Jack was at my side in a moment.
"Quick," he whispered "let's mount and be after him; I shall never be
happy again until I have kicked that fellow within an inch of his
grave!"
We dashed into the wood for our horses--they were not where we had left
them. Of course they were not; the man would have been a fool to leave
us our horses--we might have raced into Vryburg before him, and got him
arrested! Strong was about as perfect an example of a scoundrel as you
would find in Africa or any other continent, but no fool!
We stood and stamped and murdered our native language, diving to the
lowest depths of our vocabularies for expressions of hatred and rage and
of abuse, and the promise of future dire vengeance. We still stood and
raged, when suddenly Strong came riding back.
"You have disobeyed orders," he said; "don't blame me for enforcing
discipline. Go back to your place, you--Henderson, or whatever your
name is!--hands up, you other!"
"I shall have it out of you, one day, for this, you infernal scoundrel,"
said Jack, whose temper was now beyond his control. "Get down and fight
me on the ground--you may have your revolver, I'll use my fists."
"You fool!" rejoined Strong with an oath; "a man does not ask a leopard
to spit out his teeth before attacking him. Go back to your place, I
tell you, or I fire!"
Jack did not move.
"You are a murderer already," he said, "and you know it. What have you
done with Clutterbuck and his money, you scoundrel? That's his pistol
you hold; do you think I don't know it? Never fear, you shall hang one
day, my friend!"
For answer James Strong fired his revolver straight at Jack's head. I
do not think he had intended from the beginning to murder us. Either he
had calculated that his plans would work out without the need of killing
us; or he had reflected that his own skin would be the safer, when in
England, if he spared ours; for inquiries would certainly be set on foot
if Henderson disappeared though few would know or care whether poor I
disappeared or not.
But when Jack accused him of murdering Clutterbuck, his comrade--a crime
which in all probability he had actually committed, though Jack only
drew his bow at a venture--Strong changed his mind and suddenly
determined that it would be the safer plan to shoot us both down.
Accordingly, he first fired at Jack and missed him clean. Then he fired
another shot and missed again, and swore, and turned his pistol on me
and fired three shots at me; at the third I fell, feeling a sharp pain
in my shin-bone--my leg would not support me.
Jack had drawn a log from the fire and was about to hurl it at Strong
when he fired his last shot, at Jack this time, and rode away into the
grey of the early morning, before the last named could launch his clumsy
missile at him. The shooting of the six shots did not occupy altogether
more than ten seconds.
Jack sprang to my side, white and terrified.
"For Heaven's sake, Peter, where are you hurt?" he gasped. "Can you
speak? Are you dying? Where is the pain?"
"My leg," I said, writhing, for the pain was very severe. "It's only a
broken leg--but it'll lose us the race!"
As a matter of fact, my leg was not broken, as the term is generally
understood--there was no bone setting required; but the bullet had
carried away a splinter of my shin-bone, having all but missed me, but
taking, as it were, a little bite out of me as it passed.
Nevertheless, trivial as the wound was, this misfortune delayed us three
weeks at Vryburg; for though Jack doctored me with all the devotion and
skill that he could command, the weather was hot, and I suppose there
were some wretched little bacilli about of the kind "to play old
gooseberry with open wounds," as Jack learnedly expressed it; for my
shin became very painful and inflamed before we reached Vryburg, and I
was obliged to take to my bed at the hotel there and remain in it for a
tantalising spell of three weeks.
As for our journey to Vryburg, I performed it in the waggon. Jack
carried me, or half carried me, back to a village on the highroad which
we had passed through on the previous evening without stopping, and
there we awaited the arrival of the waggon, sleeping in a native hut and
collecting, I suppose, the bacilli that were destined to play the part
with my wound which Jack described as "old gooseberry." Had we stayed
in that village on the previous evening we should have learned that a
white man had been living in the place for a month, waiting for friends
to come down from Bulawayo, and that he was living there still. This
was, of course, our friend Strong, who had deliberately waited a month
for us, in ambush, and had sallied after us when we passed through, and
caught us napping, as described, over our camp fire.
But we learned another significant fact bearing upon this matter. When
the white man originally came to the village a month ago, he was, we
were told, accompanied by a friend who lived with him in a hut which the
white men made for themselves. But after about a week the little white
man disappeared, and the big white man explained that he had gone on to
Cape Town, being tired of waiting.
But after another week--that is, a fortnight ago--Umgubi, who was a kind
of village herdsman, and looked after the cattle belonging to the chief
men of the place, came upon the body of the little white man in a nullah
with steep banks two miles or so off the road. Then the big white man
said that the little one must have gone astray and fallen down into the
nullah, or else an eland or some other big animal had attacked him and
pushed him down; and all the natives of the village said that he must
have terribly offended his gods for so great a misfortune to have
happened to him, and that doubtless an eland had pushed him over into
the nullah, or else he had fallen over by himself without the eland.
Only, if that was the case, said our informant innocently, why was there
a bullet-hole in the back of his head!
It was when M'ngulu and the nigger had arrived with our waggon and
translated the tale for us that we heard the details of this story of
Strong's villainy; and I may honestly say that, though shocked to hear
of poor Clutterbuck's end, I was not altogether surprised. It was a
comfort to think that we had done our best for him by furnishing him
with a pistol, while Strong was left quite unarmed. If Clutterbuck,
with so great an advantage, was unable to retain the upper hand, there
could be, after all, no one to blame but himself.
How Strong dispossessed him of the revolver; by what stratagem or
plausible arguments or threats he succeeded in persuading Clutterbuck to
part with all that stood between himself and his murderous companion;
and how, when he had obtained the weapon, he used it for his fell
purpose, will, I suppose, never be known. Perhaps the dark tale of
deceit and murder will be revealed at the last tribunal of all; but it
is certain that the tragedy must remain one of the mysteries in this
life.
Meanwhile, where was the murderer? Half-way towards Hogland and my
hundred thousand pounds?
As for ourselves, we determined to collect what evidence we could in
order to bring the miscreant before the judges at Cape Town, if we could
catch him there; but events proved that the fox was not to be so easily
run to earth as we had hoped.
To this end we telegraphed from Vryburg, just a week after our own
interview with James Strong, explaining that we had evidence of his
connection with a murder, and giving his name and appearance.
But when, three weeks later, we reached Cape Town, we found to our
disappointment that the police had utterly failed to find Strong. No
person of that name, or answering to the description, had either been
seen or had taken passage by any of the late steamers bound for home.
The nearest approach to our description of the man "wanted" was of one
Julius Stavenhagen, who had sailed in the _Conway Castle_ before our
telegram was delivered.
Jack and I looked at one another on receiving this information. If this
were Strong himself--and we had a firm conviction that such was the
case--then he had not only escaped just chastisement for his crime, but
he had also obtained a three weeks' start of us in the race for
Clutterbuck's Treasure.
*CHAPTER XXV*
*LAPPED, BUT STILL IN THE RACE*
It may strike some of those who read this narrative that, considering
the fact that we had (in a cowardly manner, as they may deem it, and
with far too much regard for the safety of our skins) surrendered to
James Strong not only our invaluable map of the spot to which we were
directed by old Clutterbuck's "message from the tomb," but also the copy
of that document which we had been prudent enough to make in case of
emergency--that, considering these facts, it did not really matter very
much whether Strong sailed for England with one day's start of us or one
year's; for he now possessed every available clue to the discovery of
the treasure, while we had none whatever.
Our game was played out and lost. Strong had won. We might sail for
England to-morrow or this day five years, but James Strong would now
both possess himself of and retain the hundred thousand pounds for which
we had toiled and travelled and suffered, simply because we were
ignorant where to look for either the treasure or for him.
Yet this was not the case, for we--Jack and I--had been in this matter
craftier than the fox and wiser than the eagle; and each independently
of the other, too.
We discovered this on the morning after Strong's checkmate of us, as I
lay by our camp fire, when, intending to spring a mine of surprise and
delight upon Jack, I started bewailing the shipwreck of our hopes to
find the treasure. Strong had stolen from us, with fiendish cunning,
both the plan and the copy. I dwelt upon this disastrous fact because I
intended presently to send Jack into ecstasies of admiration for my
sagacity by informing him that it did not really matter a bit, seeing
that I had committed the whole letter to memory, and knew by heart every
jot and tittle of plan and instructions.