"Well, old man, what do we do next?" The speaker, a fine young fellow
of some five-and-twenty summers, reclining on the rough grass, with
clouds of tobacco-smoke filtering through his lips, looked the picture
of comfort, his appearance belying in every way the discontent expressed
in his tones as he smoked his pipe in the welcome shade of a giant rock,
which protected him and his two companions from the mid-day glare of a
South African sun.
Alfred Leigh, second son of Lord Drelincourt, was certainly a handsome
man: powerfully and somewhat heavily built, his physique looked perfect,
and, as he gradually and lazily raised his huge frame from the rough
grass, he appeared--what he was, in truth--a splendid specimen of
nineteenth-century humanity, upwards of six feet high, and in the
perfection of health and spirits; a fine, clear-cut face, with blue eyes
and a fair, close-cropped beard, completed a _tout ensemble_ which was
English to a degree.
The person addressed was evidently related to the speaker, for, though
darker than his companion, and by no means so striking in face or
figure, he still had fair hair, which curled crisply on a well-shaped
head, and keen blue eyes which seemed incessantly on the watch and were
well matched by a resolute mouth and chin, and a broad-shouldered frame
which promised strength from its perfect lines. Dick Grenville,
_aetat._ thirty, and his cousin, Alf Leigh, were a pair which any three
ordinary mortals might well wish to be excused from taking on.
The third person--singular he certainly looked--was a magnificent
creature, a pure-blooded Zulu chief, descended from a race of warriors,
every line of his countenance grave and stern, with eyes that glistened
like fiery stars under a lowering cloud, the man having withal a general
"straightness" of appearance more easily detected than described. A
"Keshla," or ringed man, some six feet three inches high, of enormously
powerful physique, armed with a murderous-looking club and a brace of
broad-bladed spears, and you have a faithful picture of Myzukulwa, the
Zulu friend of the two cousins.
The scene is magnificently striking, but grand with a loneliness awful
beyond description, for, so far as the eye can reach, the fervid sun
beats upon nothing but towering mountain-peaks, whose grey and rugged
summits pierce the fleecy heat-clouds, and seem to lose themselves in a
hopeless attempt to fathom the unspeakable majesty beyond.
"Do next, old fellow?" The words came in cool, quiet tones. "Well, if
I were you, Alf, I should convey my carcass out of the line of fire from
yonder rifle, which has been pointed at each of our persons in
succession during the last two minutes;" and Grenville, with the stem of
his pipe, indicated a spot some three hundred yards away, where his keen
eye had detected the browned barrel of a rifle projected through a
fissure in the rock; then, in quick, incisive tones, suiting the action
to the word, "Lie down, man!" and not a moment too soon, as an angry
rifle-bullet sang over his head and flattened against the rock. In
another instant all three were ensconced behind a rocky projection, and
endeavouring to ascertain their unknown assailants' force.
Truly, an unpleasant place was this to be beleaguered in--little food,
still less water, and positively no cover to protect them in the event
of a night attack upon the position they occupied. Grenville quietly
picked up the flattened bullet, eyed it curiously, and then handed it to
Myzukulwa with an interrogative look; the other scarcely glanced at the
missile and replied quietly, yet in singularly correct English, "Inkoos
(chief), that lead came from a very old gun, but it is a true one--the
Inkoos, my master, was too near it."
"Yes," responded Grenville, who had now quite taken command of matters,
"but we must find out how many of these rascals are lurking behind
yonder rocks with murder in their hearts." So saying he coolly stepped
out into the open again, ostensibly to pick up his pipe, which lay on
the ground, but kept his eye warily fixed upon the expected point of
offence, and instantly dropped on his hands and knees as another bullet
whizzed over him. Then he quietly rose to his feet, but with a beating
heart, for, if the rifle were a double-barrelled one, or if more than
the one marksman were lying hid, he was in deadly peril. No shot
followed, however, and he calmly picked up his pipe and again sought
shelter with his companions.
"Now, chief," said Grenville, after a brief interval, "wait till I have
drawn the scoundrel's fire again, and then rush him," and, executing a
rapid movement round the rocky boulder which served the party as a
shelter, he once more provoked the fire of the hidden foe, delivered
with greater accuracy than before, the bullet grazing the skin of one
hand as he swung himself into cover, crying, "Now, Myzukulwa!" but the
fleet-footed Zulu was already half-way across the open space, going like
a sprint-runner, having started simultaneously with the flash of the
rifle. In a moment more the cousins were after him, only to find, upon
reaching the rock, that there was no trace of the would-be assassin, and
that the Zulu was hopelessly at fault. A little powder spilled upon a
stone showed where the man had been placed, and that was all.
Just then Grenville's quick eye "spotted" the barrel of a rifle slowly
rising a hundred yards away, out of a hollow in the ground,
imperceptible from where they stood; he instinctively pitched forward
his Winchester, and the two reports blended into one. Leigh's hat flew
off his head, carried away by a bullet, and at the same instant
Myzukulwa again "rushed" the hidden marksman, only to find the work
done; and a gruesome sight it was. There lay a fine-looking man,
stone-dead, with the blood welling out of a ghastly hole in his head,
the heavy shell-bullet doing frightful execution at such short range,
having fairly smashed his skull to pieces.
The Englishmen were very considerably taken aback at finding that their
assailant was as white-skinned as themselves; they had half expected to
find some loafing Hottentot or Kaffir, though the accuracy of the
shooting had already caused Grenville to doubt that the marksman could
be either of these, for, as a general rule, if a Kaffir aims at anything
a hundred yards from him he misses it nine times out of ten. The dead
man was dressed in a deerskin costume, which caused the cousins to
remark that he looked like many a man they had seen when shooting
buffalo on the prairies of the Wild West. His gun proved to be a long
flint-lock rifle of an obsolete type, but extremely well finished, and
it was the flash of the powder in the pan which had enabled Grenville to
anticipate the leaden messenger from this weapon.
Leigh, who was disposed to scoff at their present undertaking, which he
called "a wild-goose chase," gave it as his opinion that the miserable
man was some escaped convict who had gravitated up country, and who, no
doubt, imagined that the white men were in search of him with a native
tracker--anyway, it had been a very near thing with them, and nothing
but Grenville's unceasing watchfulness could have saved his cousin's
life, as it unquestionably had done, twice over.
Grenville listened in silence to Leigh's remarks, and then, turning
their backs on the mortal remains of their foe, they left him to the
eternal solitude of that vast and rocky wilderness.
Several hours of hard toil followed, during which they slowly and warily
ascended the Pass, without, however, seeing any further sign of life.
Stopping once to take a hurried mouthful of dried deer-flesh, the party
was soon again on its way, and reached the top of the Pass just before
sunset. Beyond this point all possibility of advance in any direction
seemed at an end. The mountains shot up towards the sky, based, as it
were, by a precipitous wall of rock, and flanked by mighty spurs, whose
peaks stood out, clear and sharp, some fifteen thousand feet above the
Pass, their barren and rugged sides almost beautified by the glow of the
setting sun.
The sterile appearance of the valley was, however, to some slight extent
relieved by a magnificent waterfall, which appeared to receive its
supply through a fissure in the wall of rock, whence it came sheer over
a beetling crag and fell from a height of at least one hundred feet into
a rocky basin at the very head of the Pass.
Grenville quickly bestowed his party in a small cave for the night, and
by the time they were comfortably domiciled the sun had set. He then
mounted guard whilst the others slept, and three hours later, having
aroused the Zulu, he himself turned in for a much-needed rest.