The Kaffrarian Rangers were ordered home.
To be strictly accurate, that redoubtable corps had applied to be
withdrawn. There was not enough to do to render it worth the while of
the men who composed it--men mostly with a substantial stake in the
country--to remain any longer wasting their time in a series of
fruitless patrols on the off-chance of an occasional very long distance
shot at a stray Gcaleka scout or two; for the enemy no longer attempted
to meet them in battle. He had suffered severely, both in men and
possessions, and there were those who declared that he had had nearly
enough of it. The Frontier Armed and Mounted Police and, if necessary,
the regular troops now stationed along the border, would be sufficient
to cope with any further disturbance; so most of the volunteer forces
applied to be withdrawn.
They had been several weeks in the _veldt_--several weeks absent from
their farms and businesses. They had rendered excellent service; had,
in fact, constituted the very backbone of the offensive operations. It
was only fair, now that there remained no more to be done, to allow them
to return. Brathwaite's Horse had already withdrawn, so had most of the
mounted corps. The Kaffrarian Rangers were nearly the last.
The men were in excellent health and spirits. They had lost one of
their number--the poor young fellow who had met his fate with the patrol
under Shelton, and had been buried near where he fell--a few had
received wounds, none of these being, however, of a very serious nature.
But they had left their mark upon the enemy, and were returning,
withal, in possession of a large number of the latter's cattle. Yet
they had a grievance, or fancied they had.
They had not nearly enough fighting. The combined plan of the campaign
had not been carried out according to their liking. The enemy had been
suffered to escape just at the very moment when it was within their
power to inflict upon him a decisive and crushing blow. There had been
too much of the old womanly element among those intrusted with the
conduct of affairs. In a word, the whole business had been bungled.
And in this thoroughly characteristic and British growl none joined more
heartily than Tom Carhayes.
There was one, however, who in no wise joined in it at all, and that one
was Eustace Milne. He had had enough of campaigning to last him for the
present, and for every reason mightily welcomed the news that they were
ordered home. Of late an intense longing had corrie upon him to return,
but now that that ardently desired consummation had been attained he
realised that it was dashed with the sickening and desolating
consciousness of hopes shattered. The campaign, so far as he was
concerned, had been barren of result.
But for him--but for his intervention--Tom Carhayes would have been a
dead man, and Eanswyth would be free. The Kafir could not have missed
at that distance. But for his interference the bullet of the savage
would have sped true, and happiness for him--for her--would have become
the blissful, golden, reality of a lifetime. Even now he would be
hurrying back to claim her--that is, allowing for a reasonable period
exacted by decorum. But no, the cup was shattered in his grasp, and his
own was the hand that had shattered it. "A man who interferes in what
doesn't concern him deserves all he gets," was the grimly disgusted
reflection which lashed his mind again and again.
Why had he intervened to save his cousin's life? When Fortune was
playing directly into his hands he, yielding to an idiotic scruple, had
deliberately flung back into her face the chance she had held out. She
would not proffer it again. His opportunity had occurred and he had let
it go by.
Yet he could not have acted otherwise. Could he not? he thought
savagely, as at that moment his cousin's voice struck upon his ear. Not
that its utterances contained anything objectionable, but to the
listener's then frame of mind, there was something insufferably
self-assertive in their very tone. Could he not? Let him only get the
chance again. But this he never would. It was thought by many that the
war was practically at an end.
If his cousin had been a different stamp of man and one built of finer
clay, it is more than probable that Eustace would have acted
differently--would have conquered that overmastering and unlawful love
which he had so long and so successfully concealed, or at any rate would
have fled from temptation. But it was far otherwise. The fellow was
such a rough, assertive, thick-headed, inconsiderate boor, utterly
unable to appreciate his own splendid good fortune. He deserved no
mercy. Yet this was the being to whom Eanswyth was bound--whom,
moreover, she had managed to tolerate with every semblance of, at any
rate, contentment, until he himself had laid siege to the castle of her
outwardly calm, but glowingly passionate nature, and had carried it by
storm, by a single _coup de main_.
And now? How could she ever resume that old contented toleration, how
relegate himself to an outside place. Every look--every word of hers--
during that last walk, when he had come upon her so unexpectedly--every
sweet and clinging caress during that last parting, was burnt into his
memory as with red-hot irons. And now it seemed that the curtain must
be rung down on everything. Tom Carhayes was returning in rude health;
louder, more boastful, a more aggressive personality than ever. Let the
very heavens fall!
A change had come over Eustace. He became moody and taciturn, at times
strangely irritable for one of his equable temperament. This was
noticed by many; wondered at by some.
"Why, what's the row with you, old chap!" said Carhayes one day in his
bluff, off-hand manner. "Sick and sorry that we can't scare up another
fight, eh?"
"Milne's conscience is hitting him hard over the number of his `blanket
friends' he has shot already. Ha, ha!" cut in another man, with an
asinine guffaw.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Kaffrarian Rangers were ordered home. The order reached them in
their camp on the Bashi, and forthwith they acted upon it. No
preparations delayed the setting out of such a light-marching-order
corps. Accordingly the breakfasts were cooked and eaten, the camp was
struck, and the whole troop started upon its homeward way.
"I say, Hoste!" said Carhayes, while they were breakfasting on boiled
mealies and ration beef. "What do you say to a shoot before we leave
this? We are bound to get a bushbuck ram or two in some of these
kloofs."
"Haven't you shot away enough cartridges yet, Tom?" laughed Hoste.
"Still I think we might try for a buck if only for a change after the
niggers; besides, we can eat the buck, which is part of the change. I'm
on. What do you say, Payne? Will you cut in?"
"What do I say? I say it's the most damn idiotic idea I ever heard
mooted," answered Payne sententiously. "Still--I'll cut in."
"All right. We'll have some sport then!" said Carhayes. "You'll come,
too, Eustace? That's right," as Eustace nodded assent. "That'll make
four of us--we don't want any more," he went on. "We can just hunt down
the river bank for two or three hours, and catch up the troop in camp
to-night. We are bound to get some sport."
"Likely so are the niggers," murmured the more prudent Payne.
The commander of the troop, when applied to, made no decided objection
to the above scheme. There was, as we have said, no discipline in the
ordinary sense of the word, the offices of command being elective.
Besides, they were under orders to return straight home, which was
practically disbandment. So, while not forbidding the undertaking, he
pointed out to those concerned that it might involve serious risk to
themselves; in a word, was rather a crack-brained idea.
"Just what I said," remarked Payne laconically, lighting his pipe.
"Then why do you go, old chap?" asked one of the bystanders with a
laugh.
"That's just what I don't know myself," was the reply, delivered so
tranquilly and deliberately as to evoke a general roar.
The camp had been pitched upon high ground overlooking the valley of the
Bashi, which ran beneath between rugged bush-clad banks. So the troop
set forth on its homeward way, while our four friends, turning their
horses' heads in the opposite direction, struck downward into the thick
bush along the river bank.