"You dare not."
"That is true," he admitted, and added angrily, "Senecoza will kill you
himself."
And meantime Ellen was riding like mad, gaining on the fetish-man, but
unable to ride toward the ranch, for he had gotten between and was
forcing her steadily out upon the veldt.
The black unfastened my bonds. His line of reasoning was easy to see;
absurdly easy. He could not kill a prisoner of the fetish-man, but he
could kill him to prevent his escape. And he was maddened with the
blood-lust. Stepping back, he half-raised his trade-musket, watching me
as a snake watches a rabbit.
It must have been about that time, as she afterward told me, that
Ellen's horse stumbled and threw her. Before she could rise, the black
had leaped from his horse and seized her in his arms. She screamed
and fought, but he gripped her, held her helpless and laughed at her.
Tearing her jacket to pieces, he bound her arms and legs, remounted and
started back, carrying the half-fainting girl in front of him.
Back in front of the hut I rose slowly. I rubbed my arms where the
ropes had been, moved a little closer to the black, stretched, stooped
and rubbed my legs; then with a catlike bound I was on him, my knife
flashing from my boot. The trade-musket crashed and the charge whizzed
above my head as I knocked up the barrel and closed with him. Hand to
hand, I would have been no match for the black giant; but I had the
knife. Clinched close together we were too close for him to use the
trade-musket for a club. He wasted time trying to do that, and with a
desperate effort I threw him off his balance and drove the dagger to
the hilt in his black chest.
I wrenched it out again; I had no other weapon, for I could find no
more ammunition for the trade-musket.
I had no idea which way Ellen had fled. I assumed she had gone toward
the ranch, and in that direction I took my way. Smith must be warned.
The warriors were far ahead of me. Even then they might be creeping up
about the unsuspecting ranch.
I had not covered a fourth of the distance, when a drumming of hoofs
behind me caused me to turn my head. Ellen's horse was thundering
toward me, riderless. I caught her as she raced past me, and managed to
stop her. The story was plain. The girl had either reached a place of
safety and had turned the horse loose, or what was much more likely,
had been captured, the horse escaping and fleeing toward the ranch, as
a horse will do. I gripped the saddle, torn with indecision. Finally I
leaped on the horse and sent her flying toward Smith's ranch. It was
not many miles; Smith must not be massacred by those black devils, and
I must find a gun if I expected to rescue the girl from Senecoza.
* * * * *
A half-mile from Smith's I overtook the raiders and went through them
like drifting smoke. The workers at Smith's place were startled by a
wild-riding horseman charging headlong into the stockade, shouting,
"Masai! Masai! A raid, you fools!" snatching a gun and flying out again.
So when the savages arrived they found everybody ready for them, and
they got such a warm reception that after one attempt they turned tail
and fled back across the veldt.
And I was riding as I never rode before. The mare was almost exhausted,
but I pushed her mercilessly. On, on!
I aimed for the only place I knew likely. The hut among the trees. I
assumed that the fetish-man would return there.
And long before the hut came into sight, a horseman dashed from the
grass, going at right angles to my course, and our horses, colliding,
sent both tired animals to the ground.
"Steve!" It was a cry of joy mingled with fear. Ellen lay, tied hand
and foot, gazing up at me wildly as I regained my feet.
Senecoza came with a rush, his long knife flashing in the sunlight.
Back and forth we fought--slash, ward and parry, my ferocity and
agility matching his savagery and skill.
A terrific lunge which he aimed at me, I caught on my point, laying
his arm open, and then with a quick engage and wrench, disarmed him.
But before I could use my advantage, he sprang away into the grass and
vanished.
I caught up the girl, slashing her bonds, and she clung to me, poor
child, until I lifted her and carried her toward the horses. But we
were not yet through with Senecoza. He must have had a rifle cached
away somewhere in the bush, for the first I knew of him was when a
bullet spat within a foot above my head.
I caught at the bridles, and then I saw that the mare had done all she
could, temporarily. She was exhausted. I swung Ellen up on the horse.
"Ride for our ranch," I ordered her. "The raiders are out, but you can
get through. Ride low and ride fast!"
"But you, Steve!"
"Go, go!" I ordered, swinging her horse around and starting it. She
dashed away, looking at me wistfully over her shoulder. Then I snatched
the rifle and a handful of cartridges I had gotten at Smith's, and
took to the bush. And through that hot African day, Senecoza and I
played a game of hide-and-seek. Crawling, slipping in and out of the
scanty veldt-bushes, crouching in the tall grass, we traded shots
back and forth. A movement of the grass, a snapping twig, the rasp of
grass-blades, and a bullet came questing, another answering it.
* * * * *
I had but a few cartridges and I fired carefully, but presently I
pushed my one remaining cartridge into the rifle--a big, six-bore,
single-barrel breech-loader, for I had not had time to pick when I
snatched it up.
I crouched in my covert and watched for the black to betray himself
by a careless movement. Not a sound, not a whisper among the grasses.
Away off over the veldt a hyena sounded his fiendish laugh and another
answered, closer at hand. The cold sweat broke out on my brow.
What was that? A drumming of many horses' hoofs! Raiders returning? I
ventured a look and could have shouted for joy. At least twenty men
were sweeping toward me, white men and ranch-boys, and ahead of them
all rode Ellen! They were still some distance away. I darted behind a
tall bush and rose, waving my hand to attract their attention.
They shouted and pointed to something beyond me. I whirled and saw,
some thirty yards away, a huge hyena slinking toward me, rapidly. I
glanced carefully across the veldt. Somewhere out there, hidden by
the billowing grasses, lurked Senecoza. A shot would betray to him my
position--and I had but one cartridge. The rescue party was still out
of range.
I looked again at the hyena. He was still rushing toward me. There was
no doubt as to his intentions. His eyes glittered like a fiend's from
hell, and a scar on his shoulder showed him to be the same beast that
had once before attacked me. Then a kind of horror took hold of me, and
resting the old elephant rifle over my elbow, I sent my last bullet
crashing through the bestial thing. With a scream that seemed to have
a horribly human note in it, the hyena turned and fled back into the
bush, reeling as it ran.
And the rescue party swept up around me.
A fusillade of bullets crashed through the bush from which Senecoza had
sent his last shot. There was no reply.
"Ve hunt ter snake down," quoth Cousin Ludtvik, his Boer accent
increasing with his excitement. And we scattered through the veldt in a
skirmish line, combing every inch of it warily.
Not a trace of the fetish-man did we find. A rifle we found, empty,
with empty shells scattered about, and (which was very strange) _hyena
tracks leading away from the rifle_.
I felt the short hairs of my neck bristle with intangible horror. We
looked at each other, and said not a word, as with a tacit agreement we
took up the trail of the hyena.
We followed it as it wound in and out in the shoulder-high grass,
showing how it had slipped up on me, stalking me as a tiger stalks its
victim. We struck the trail the thing had made, returning to the bush
after I had shot it. Splashes of blood marked the way it had taken. We
followed.
"It leads toward the fetish-hut," muttered an Englishman. "Here, sirs,
is a damnable mystery."
And Cousin Ludtvik ordered Ellen to stay back, leaving two men with her.
We followed the trail over the kopje and into the clump of trees.
Straight to the door of the hut it led. We circled the hut cautiously,
but no tracks led away. It was inside the hut. Rifles ready, we forced
the rude door.
_No tracks led away from the hut and no tracks led to it except the
tracks of the hyena. Yet there was no hyena within that hut; and on
the dirt floor, a bullet through his black breast, lay Senecoza, the
fetish-man._