"Farm attacked by Matabele, and blown up. Peters, Ancram, and self
escaped--have just come in. Went to warn Tewson, found whole family
massacred. Saw impi this morning, heading as though towards Kezane
Store. Warn Isard, and take precautions.
"Lamont."
This he folded and addressed to the Resident Magistrate, and the boy was
started off at once.
"I've a bit of good news for you, Mr Lamont," said Foster, as the
latter returned--tubbed, and to that extent refreshed--to begin upon the
much needed food. "That _rooi-schimmel_ horse you left with Greene the
day you were in for the race meeting--well, he's all right again now.
Greene brought him in couple of days back, and there isn't an atom of
lameness about him."
"That's good news indeed, for it strikes me there's plenty of work
sticking out for him."
They had just finished breakfast, and were enjoying the luxury of an
excellent cigar when Orwell arrived. He was in a great state of
excitement, and glanced meaningly in the direction of Foster, but this
the hotel-keeper pretended not to see. He was all on thorns to hear the
news himself, for that news there was--great and grave--he felt sure.
"Is this a fact, Lamont?" began Orwell, producing the slip of paper.
"Good Lord, man, but the whole country must be in a blaze!"
"So it must. By the way, Orwell, of course you've got that laager all
fixed up by this time."
"Er, well--no--the fact is we have been planning it out, and--er--"
"You haven't got it up yet? Well, if you'll take my advice you'll set
about it at once. It isn't a case of `another of Lamont's scares' this
time," he added, with somewhat excusable bitterness. "By the way,
Foster, you might bring us another bottle of the same. Oh, and you'll
join us again."
"Thanks. But, Mr Lamont, for God's sake, say what _has_ happened. We
are a trifle interested too, as well as our officials, and I, for one,
have got a wife and family into the bargain."
The hotel-keeper was a very good fellow, and he and Lamont liked each
other. Said the latter--
"Quite right, Foster. Fetch the liquid first and then you shall hear
all about it. It's time everyone knew, but I don't want to create a
panic. One of `Lamont's scares.'"
Orwell looked rather foolish.
"Oh, don't keep harping on that, old chap," he said. "We are all liable
to make mistakes, and I, for one, am the first to own it. And now the
first thing to do is to organise a defence committee, and set to work
with a will."
Then, as the hotel-keeper returned, Lamont started to narrate all that
had befallen, the attack on Peters, then on the homestead, and how they
had stood off the savages until night.
"They must have found dynamite while looting," he said, "for soon after
we'd left we heard the devil of an explosion."
He continued his narrative shortly and succinctly. When he got to the
massacre of the Tewsons, his listeners grew white with horror.
"Yes. We saw what we don't want to see again, and would like to forget
we ever had seen. And now we'd better get hold of the best men here,
Orwell, and fix up a plan. Jennings and Fullerton, and some of the
others."
"Fullerton's not here," said Orwell. "He started for Buluwayo only this
morning with his wife and sister. Wyndham's driving them--"
"WHAT?"
It was Lamont who had spoken--shouted, rather. And in truth the
interruption was startling. He who made it was leaning forward over the
table, his dark face without a vestige of colour, his eyes staring as
though already they beheld a reproduction of the grim horror upon which
they had so recently gazed, only, in this case--
"Yes. But they had an escort," explained Orwell wonderingly. "Isard
sent some police with them."
"Some police! How many?" in a dry staccato tone.
"Oh, a dozen, he told me. Some of his best men--"
"Come on, Peters," shouted Lamont, springing to his feet and not waiting
to hear any more. "We've got our work cut out for us, and we'll get at
it at once. An escort--a dozen police--and the whole country up in a
blaze! Foster, let me have the best horse you've got in your stables
for Peters--you shall name your own price. Now then, who'll volunteer?"
going out into the bar, where several men had already collected. It had
got about somehow that something was in the wind, and more and more were
rolling up at Foster's to see what they could find out. "Who'll
volunteer? Fullerton's been idiot enough to start his womenkind off for
Buluwayo this morning. They'll be at the Kezane Store by the time we
catch them up, and we saw with our own eyes an impi, a couple of hundred
strong, heading straight for that very point this morning. The whole
country's in a blaze. My farm's been blown up, and Tewson and his
family are all murdered."
"That's quite true," said Peters.
"Well, Peters and I, and as many of you as will volunteer, are going to
start off down the road now at once to the rescue of Fullerton's
outfit--if no one'll join, the two of us will go alone. You see we've
just seen white women and children who'd been cut up into pieces.
Fullerton has women with him. Who'll volunteer?"
Several men stepped forward without hesitation. Others would have, but
one had no horse, another no rifle, and so forth. All these objections
were met by Lamont without a moment's hesitation.
"Get them then," he said, "and that at once. I'll be responsible for
those who are too out of luck to get them for themselves. Get them, and
roll up here as soon as ever you can. Not a minute to lose."
To describe the state of excitement that prevailed is rather beyond our
strength. Most of the men were wiry, hard-bitten prospectors, some of
them, as the speaker had put it, `out of luck,' a euphemism for out of
funds, others were doing a spell of taking it easy, but all were
enthusiastic to join. But all stared at Lamont with wonder. He whom
they had never known other than the soul of coolness, and reticence, and
caution, was now on fire. His eyes seemed to blaze from his colourless
face, his voice trembled with its earnestness as he drove home his
appeal to them by drawing a picture of these two helpless women, refined
and daintily raised, at the mercy of--in the power of--these black
fiends; of whose `mercy' in such cases, he and those with him had, with
their own eyes, just beheld a sample.
"I say, Lamont," began Orwell, most of the men having gone away to
effect their preparations, "don't you think you're rather
over-estimating the risk. You know you're tired and excited, and all
that."
"No, I don't. I know what I'm about, and I know what I've seen. I tell
you, Orwell, if you'd listened to me a fortnight ago instead of loftily
pooh-poohing everything I told you, it might have made a lot of
difference."
"What's all this scare-mongering about," began another man who had just
entered. "Here they are telling me, Lamont, that you're organising an
expedition to go to the relief of the Fullertons. Why, man, they've got
a dozen of our police with them."
The speaker was Isard's subaltern. Isard himself was out on a patrol
just then.
"All serene, Blackmore. If they had a hundred of your police they might
not have one too many. At any rate I've served against the wily
Matabele. I don't know whether you have."
"Er--perhaps not. Still you can't want so many men. We've none too
many left for the defence of the town."
"Oh, damn the defence of the town! These two helpless women are in the
heart of the country. They ought never to have been allowed to move
from here. Fullerton's a bigger fool than even I took him for."
"How about Ancram?" struck in Peters, anxious to avert a breeze. "Shall
we take him?"
Ancram the while had dropped on a couch the moment he had done
breakfast, and had gone fast asleep, thoroughly worn out with
exhaustion. He was there still.
"No. He's no use. Leave him to help in `the defence of the town,'"
sneered Lamont. "Hallo, Jim Steele. We haven't had that scrap yet, but
it'll keep a little longer. I want you now to come and help fight
someone else. The whole country's in a blaze! Fullerton's outfit's
along the Buluwayo road, and Peters and I saw a big impi making straight
in that direction this morning."
"I'll go, Lamont," said the big fellow, who had just come in to see what
all the row was about. "Oh, this is nuts! We'll make those black swine
spit. How many cartridges shall I take?"
"Just as many as ever you can carry. The same applies to all hands."
There was a trampling of horses outside. Already the men were beginning
to roll up, and soon Lamont found himself at the head of some two dozen,
well-armed and fairly well mounted, all alert and willing, and
chock-full of eagerness for a fight.