"Now, Marian," whispered Renshaw. "This is going to be a life-and-death
business, remember. It's them or ourselves. You are sure you have no
womanish qualms in favour of `giving them a chance,' or any madness of
that kind?"
"You will see!" was the curt reply, and the tone was sufficient.
"All right. When I say `Now,' you must let into the fellow I'll point
out to you. Use your shot-barrel, remember. I'm going to let them get
quite close, and we'll give them a heavy charge of loepers apiece. Then
if we get a show we'll follow it up with rifle practice."
She whispered assent, and for some moments they strained their eyes upon
the shade of the outbuildings. Suddenly one dark figure flitted
noiselessly out, followed by another and another, till the whole gang
were full in sight, advancing in a diagonal line.
"Keep cool, Marian, keep cool," warned Renshaw. "Wait for the word.
They are not nearly close enough yet."
On came the six cut-throats. Two black men led--then a bestial-looking,
undersized Bushman Hottentot; his hideous yellow face, repulsive in the
moonlight, cruel, ape-like; his eyes rolling in eager, ferocious
expectation of the sanguinary orgy which awaited. The other three were
half-bloods. Five of them carried guns, the sixth a pistol. Again
Renshaw had done the very best thing he could, in shaping the plan we
have heard him lay down.
On they came. Once the leader raised his hand, and all stopped,
listening intently. The wild clamour of the dogs still arose in the
distance. Reassured, the scoundrels advanced, swiftly, noiselessly.
Seventy--sixty--fifty--forty yards.
"Ready, Marian! Take the third fellow. Now!"
Crash! Crash!
The double report bellowed forth into the midnight stillness. Mingling
with it came a horrid scream. Marian's aim had been true and deadly.
The leader of the gang, a stalwart Kafir--had made one leap into the air
and had fallen forward on his face. He lay motionless. Again Renshaw
drew trigger, bringing a third man to the grass, his knee-bone
shattered.
Then the unexpected took place. Instead of seeking safety in headlong
flight, as the defenders had reckoned, the surviving three rushed madly
round to the other side of the house, a bullet from Renshaw's
six-shooter failing to stop them.
"Stay here, Marian," whispered the latter hurriedly. "Draw on the first
fellow who shows himself." And in a trice he was round to meet the new
attack.
What was this? No sign of the enemy. Had they fled?
Suddenly a crash of glass--a scuffle and a torrent of Dutch curses.
Quickly the position stood revealed.
There stood Gomfana, holding on to a human figure which was half in and
half out of the window--head and shoulders through the shattered sash.
He had got the fellow firmly by the neck with one hand, while with the
other he was striving all he knew to drag him in by his clothing. But
the villain--a stalwart half-breed--was almost too much for the sturdy
young Kafir. The latter would have assegaied him in a moment had he
owned three hands. Having but two, however, and these two being
required to hold on to his enemy, it was out of the question--but hold
on he did.
"Stop struggling or I'll shoot you dead!" said Renshaw, in Dutch,
placing the muzzle of his pistol against the man's body. The fellow,
thoroughly cowed, obeyed, and Gomfana, with a final effort, hauled him
bodily into the room amid a terrific shatter of falling glass.
"What on earth's the row, Uncle Renshaw?" said a boy's voice.
"Fred, cut away and find a _reim_" Rope is little used in South Africa,
its place being supplied by raw hide-thongs termed as above. "Sharp's
the word--mind."
In a twinkling the youngster was back with the required article, and
almost as quickly Renshaw's ready hand had strapped up the midnight
robber so that the latter could not move a limb. Now, all this had
happened in far less time than it has taken to narrate.
But there were still two of the scoundrels unaccounted for. That they
had not fled Renshaw was certain. And now the dogs, hearing the firing
and shouting, and judging the bulk of the fun lay in that direction,
abandoned their mysterious quarry and came tearing up open-mouthed.
Then the secret stood explained. The remaining two were crouching
beneath some rockwork at one corner of the verandah, presumably
following the tactics of the large veldt-spider who when suddenly
surprised is apt to run straight in upon the intruder, judging, rightly
in the main, that in this position the latter will not be able to crush
him.
"Throw down your arms or you are dead men!" cried Renshaw, covering the
pair with his barrels.
The fellows, who had just emptied their guns--with small effect,
however--among the snarling, leaping, savage pack which had at once
assailed them, did not hesitate a moment. They were the least desperate
of the gang, and the fearful execution done among their comrades had
struck wholesome terror into themselves. Begging piteously for mercy,
they shambled forth and submitted to being duly secured.
No sooner was this effected than a sharp report rang out in the room
where Marian had been posted. Promptly gaining the spot, Renshaw found
that the shot had not been fired by her, but by small Basil Selwood.
"Why, what are you blazing at, Basil? Those chaps are safely winged, if
they're not dead."
"Are they? That black chap was trying to cut away on two hands and a
leg," answered the youngster. "I thought I'd stop that. But I didn't
hit him," he added candidly.
"I must go and see to them. You and Fred must mount guard over the
prisoners, and send Gomfana to me."
Accompanied by the young Kafir, Renshaw sallied forth. The dogs had
already pounced upon the wounded Bushman, and in another minute would
have worried him to death. Game to the last, however, the ferocious
ruffian had fired among them, killing one, and but for the fact that his
gun was empty would have fired upon his human rescuers. Investigation
showed that he was badly wounded in both legs, notwithstanding which,
well knowing the desperate hardihood of the race, Renshaw deemed it
necessary to bind his hands. The other wounded man, a Kafir, had also a
broken leg. He, however, realising how thoroughly the odds were against
him, submitted sullenly to the inevitable. The sixth and last, he who
had led the gang, was stone dead, shot through the heart. Renshaw
turned the body over. The empty eye-socket and the brutal pock-marked
features seemed distorted in a fiend-like leer beneath the moonlight.
Renshaw had no difficulty in recognising the description of the Kafir,
Muntiwa.
Meanwhile, how had the non-combatants been faring? Mrs Selwood, having
armed herself with a double gun, had retired to her children's room,
resolved that her post was there. She had taken Violet with her, and
the latter had fallen into a fit of terror that was simply
uncontrollable. The crash of the firearms, the dread lull intervening,
the subdued anxious voices of the defenders, the terrible suspense, had
all been too much for her; nor could the reassurances of her hostess, or
even the example of pluck shown by the child Effie, avail to allay her
fears. Finally, she went off into a dead swoon.
As for the two youngsters, Fred and Basil, the prevailing idea in their
minds was one of unqualified disgust at not having been allowed to take
part in the fight from the very beginning.
"Why didn't you call us, Uncle Renshaw?" was their continual cry. "We'd
have knocked fits out of those _schelms_. Wouldn't we just!"
"You bloodthirsty young ruffians! You have plenty of time before you
for that sort of thing, and you'll have plenty of opportunities for
getting and giving hard knocks by the time you get to my age," he would
reply good-humouredly. But the youngsters only shook their heads with
expressions of the most intense disappointment and disgust.
Not much sleep for the household during the remainder of that night.
Renshaw found his time and his vigilance fully occupied in attending to
the security of his prisoners, and doing what he could for the wounded.
The fellows, for their part, were disposed to accept the inevitable, and
make the best of the situation. They were bound to be hanged anyhow,
though in his secret heart each man hoped that his life might be spared.
Meanwhile, it was better to enjoy good rations than bad ones, and to
that end it was as well to conciliate the _Baas_; and Renshaw had no
difficulty, accordingly, in getting at the story of the attack.
Of course, each swore he was not the instigator; of course, each laid
the blame on the dead man, Muntiwa. He was the prime mover in the
enterprise. He had a grudge against the _Baas_ who lived there, and as
they all stood and fell together they had been obliged to help him in
his scheme of plunder. Of course, too, each and all were ready to swear
that plunder was their only object. They would not have harmed anybody,
not they; no, not for all the world. Thus the three half-breeds. But
Booi, the Kafir, volunteered no statement whatever, and Klaas Baartman,
the Bushman Hottentot, savagely declared that he had intended to cut the
throat of every woman and child on the place. The seventh of the gang,
who was still at large, having no firearm, had been posted under the
willows to draw off the dogs--even as Renshaw had conjectured.
Asked whether they knew the _Baas_ of the place was absent, they replied
that one of them had been watching and had seen unmistakable signs that
this was the case. The rest of the gang had watched the main road, and
when Renshaw had passed they had intended to let him go by unmolested,
so as to render more complete their projected surprise, and would have,
but for the indiscretion of one of their number--of course the man who
had not been captured.
In the morning, opportunely enough, a posse of Mounted Police arrived--a
sergeant and three troopers. They had been patrolling the mountains on
the lookout for this very gang, and had fallen in with some natives who
declared they had heard distant firing in the direction of Sunningdale.
Thither therefore they had ridden with all possible speed.
"Well, Mr Fanning--I wish I had had your luck--that's all," said the
sergeant--while doing soldier's justice to the succulent breakfast set
before them. "You've captured the whole gang, single-handed, all but
one, that is, and we are sure to have him soon."
"I wish you had, sergeant, if it would hurry on your sub-inspectorship,"
said Renshaw, heartily--"But I must take exception to your word
`single-handed,' I don't know what I should have done without Miss
Selwood."
Whereat the sergeant, who, like many another man serving in the Mounted
Police in those days, was a gentleman by birth, and who moreover had
been casting many an admiring glance at Marian, turned to the latter
with the most gracefully worded compliment he could muster. But, Marian
herself was somewhat unresponsive. She could shoot people, if put to
it, but her preferences were all the other way. As it was she was
heartily thankful she had not killed the man, and that his wounds were
not mortal.
"I'm afraid he'll only recover for Jack Ketch, then, Miss Selwood,"
rejoined the sergeant. "They're all booked for the `drop,' to a dead
certainty, for that other affair. What? Hadn't you heard of it?"
And then came out the story of the wholesale butchery in which these
miscreants had been concerned. There was no difficulty whatever as to
providing their identity. The Government rifles, stolen from the
convict guards when these were overpowered, spoke for themselves. And
with the horror of the recital vanished the reactionary glow of pity
which had begun to agitate the feminine breast on behalf of the
prisoners. Hanging was too good for such a set of fiends.
Breakfast over, the police troopers set out with their prisoners,
handcuffed, and extra well secured with reims; for the bush bordering
the road was thick, as we have seen, and the men in desperate case. The
two wounded ruffians were left behind until such time as they should be
in a condition to travel--to recover, as the police sergeant had truly
put it, for Jack Ketch; and the dead body of Muntiwa was taken to a
distance, and built up in a kind of impromptu morgue of stones to
protect it against wild animals and carrion birds. For the district
surgeon would have to make a post-mortem, and a report, as by law
required; a duty which that functionary might, or might not, hurry
himself to fulfil.
We may as well anticipate a few months, and finally dismiss the
surviving scoundrels from our narrative. The wounded ones being
sufficiently convalescent, the whole lot--for the man who escaped at
Sunningdale was eventually taken--were put upon their trial for the
murder of the Hottentot family. Two were accepted as Queen's evidence,
and their testimony, as confirmed by the murdered man's dying
deposition, established that Muntiwa and Klaas Baartman, the Bushman
Hottentot, were the principal actors in the diabolical business--though
there was not much difference in degree between the guilt of any of
them, except that Booi, the other Kafir, had endeavoured strenuously to
dissuade his fellow-scoundrels from the murder of the woman and
children. Accordingly, the two men who had saved their lives by turning
Queen's evidence, were put back to take their trial for escaping from
durance, and further acts of robbery committed or attempted, including
their attack upon Sunningdale; while the remaining four were sentenced
to death. Which sentence was carried out in the town of the district
wherein the murder had taken place, and the cutthroats were duly
hanged--all except the Kafir, Booi, that is, who being recommended to
mercy on the consideration above given, his capital sentence was
commuted to one of hard labour for life.