Forging the Blades: A Tale of the Zulu Rebellion

“Look out, sir,” warned Dickinson to his officer. “On the right!”

They could hear the bushes parting, the thud of running feet. Then Stride’s horse fell.

“Here, jump up, man!” cried Denham. “Up behind me. My horse is as strong as the devil.”

“Usutu!” broke from the onrushing crowd. “Usutu, ’Sutu!”

The savage forms were almost in among them now – assegais ready.

“Quick, quick, damn it!” shouted Denham. Stride hesitated no longer, and the horse with its double burden started off after the rest.

The roar of the war-shout was right in their ears now. They had just regained their comrades when something seemed to strike Denham with a debilitating numbness, followed by a spasm of the most intense agony. His hold relaxed. He was conscious of a roaring inside his head, and out of it. The whole world seemed to be whirling round with him.

Rescuers and rescued reached the column just in time, just as another fierce attack was delivered. But again that well-directed volley was available, and the assailants dropped back. Moreover, the bush ended here, and in the face of that determined repulse the savages had no stomach for trying their luck in the open. The troop moved on unmolested.

Then was heard a voice, a clear, woman’s voice, audible in the still night to every man in the whole escort.

“Where is Mr Denham?”

A thrill of instinctive consternation ran through all who heard. Denham’s name was called up and down the line of march, but with no result. In the confusion attendant on the last close attack on the rescue party nobody had seen anybody. It had been very much a case of every man for himself. Some one, however, had seen Denham mount Stride behind him on his horse. And then Stride himself came forward.

“You left him,” said Verna, her pale face and gleaming eyes looking dreadful in the brilliant starlight. “He saved you, and you left him. You coward!”

“So help me, God, I didn’t!” objected Stride vehemently. “I don’t really know what happened. I’ll go back this moment and look for him. Any one go with me?” looking around somewhat vacantly. “Then I’ll go alone.” Then he swayed and tottered, pulled himself together, then subsided on the ground, in total unconsciousness.

“He’s hit, himself,” said one of the police who were bending over the wounded man. “Rather. He’s got it bang through the chest.”

Verna looked at the fallen man, and her bitter resentment left her, but not her grief.

“I am going back to look for him,” she said. “Who’ll volunteer?”

“You shan’t go,” said her father decisively; “but I will. How many men can you spare me, Bray?”

Inspector Bray was not pleased. Here he had brought off this expedition with success, even with brilliancy, and now the kudos he would gain would be utterly marred. For to allow any of his men to go on this insane quest would mean to send them to their death. There was not a chance of the missing man being found, except cut into small pieces. Still, if it had been any other than Ben Halse – and, besides, that white face, those eyes, gleaming in the starlight!

“You can have ten,” he said gruffly, “if you can get as many to volunteer.”

Ten? The whole troop wanted to volunteer on the spot. But the ten were chosen.

“I’ll be somethinged if I follow up this investigation any further,” said Sergeant Dickinson, who was one of those chosen, to himself, as they set out. “He may have killed a hundred blanked ‘Sheenies’ for all I care. I’m not going to hunt down a chap like that. I’d rather chuck the Force.”

It may be said that the search party utterly failed in its object. It was met by overwhelming numbers, and there was nothing for it but a precipitate retreat upon the column again.

Then and for all the days to come Verna Halse realised that for her the light of the world had gone out.

Chapter Twenty Eight.

The Naked Impi

The police camp was still and silent in the early dawn, if dawn it could be called, for a damp, dark mist wrapped the earth in thick folds. It had been found necessary to go into camp, if only to rest the horses for the next day’s march, which would bring the escort to Esifeni. It was deemed fairly safe too, in view of the defeat inflicted upon the enemy the evening before. Besides, they had got into open country now, and the close quarter surprise in the bush was no longer possible.

Was it not? Here was a worse enemy than thick bush. In the couple of hours before dawn the mist had stolen down upon them, shrouding the whole camp with a feeling of dazed helplessness. The vedettes thrown out on four sides, three men strong apiece, might as well not have been there now. Mist is a dreadfully formidable auxiliary to a wary, determined foe, stealing in cautiously behind it.

Of course all had lain down, ready for the smallest call to arms. Most were asleep; young men, fearless, healthily tired, are not likely to be kept awake by such a trifle – all in the day’s work – as a possible attack. Not all so slept, however. Verna, pale, haggard, hollow-eyed with grief, was carefully sponging out her rifle; eager now in her fierce longing for some kind of vengeance, even though vicarious vengeance, for another opportunity of using it to some purpose. No compunction of any sort was in her mind now. The more of his slayers she could send to join him in the other world, the greater would be her joy – the only joy left to her. She had declined Sub-Inspector Dering’s offer to clean the weapon for her on the ground that any sort of occupation was better than none, and sleep was impossible.

By this time the whole Force was aware of the relationship existing between her and the missing man, and all forbore or feared to intrude upon her grief. Stony-eyed, silent, under this second blow, she stared forth upon the enshrouding mist, as though to pierce its dark folds and see – what? Her father was frankly snoring. It was characteristic of that hardened up-country adventurer that nothing short of absolute necessity should be allowed to interfere with the recuperating powers of nature. The two officers in command, likewise the same number of sergeants, were wide awake, and conversing in low tones.

It grew lighter and lighter, the mist notwithstanding. The sun must be up. They thought of giving orders to saddle up. By the time the process was accomplished, and Minton’s miserable harness got into working order by the agency of countless bits of string and reimpje, it would be clear enough to march. But there was a guardian angel over that camp after all.

Suddenly a shot rang out, then another. In an instant the whole camp was astir. But no flurry, no fuss. As we have said, the whole escort had slept under arms, and each trooper awoke in his place and ready. Two more shots followed from the same quarter, but this time much nearer, then a small volley from another vedette posted on the next face of the camp.

A swirl of air cleft the mist. From the sides on which the shots were fired the vedettes were now seen running in.

“Large impi close on us, sir,” reported the first to arrive, breathlessly. “Hardly six hundred yards now.”

Inspector Bray issued but one short order. He had been prepared for such a contingency, and everything had been prearranged on pitching camp. Now, in a second, each man had built up what cover he could with his saddle and blanket, and lay behind it, his rifle forward, alert and ready. He had not long to wait.

Another swirl of air rolled back the mist, leaving a quarter of a mile on that side exposed as by the raising of a curtain. It was as the sentinels had said. In crescent formation the dense black cloud swept on – in dead silence – a phalanx of shields, a perfect bristle of assegais. A black impi – a naked impi – no dirty tattered shirts or ragged store clothes among these. They were as the old-time warriors of the king – with flowing war adornments and crested headgear and great tufted shields. And they were no further off than four hundred yards.

A sharp word of command and the police rifles rang out. The oncoming ranks were shaken, but with the second volley the whole advancing mass had sunk like magic to the earth, and the discharge swept over them harmlessly. At the same time a terrific volley swept over the camp from the rear of the assailants. These, under cover of it, made a nearer rush, and the same tactics were repeated.

“By God!” shouted Bray, taking in this, and excited by a couple of bullets whizzing over, and very near to, his head. “There’s tactics in this. Covering their advance! Who the devil could have taught them that move, eh, Halse?”

The latter said nothing at first, but he thought he knew.

“It’s Sapazani’s prime impi,” he declared. “No clothes, and charging in. We’ve got our job cut out. Not ‘shirt-tail’ warriors these, but quite after the real old style.”

As the “covering tactic” was repeated the impi extended with lightning-like rapidity, following out the old Zulu practice of throwing out surrounding “horns.” They could not have been less than a thousand strong – rather over than under. And now for the first time arose from that number of throats the roar of the war-shout —

“Usutu!”

The police horses were now thrown into confusion – several of them had fallen in that overhead volley, standing high as they did, and were kicking and struggling in all directions; indeed, it was all that those told off to hold them could do to restrain them on the picket lines at all. As yet, however, not a man had been hit.

“The chief!” ejaculated Ben Halse eagerly, touching Bray on the arm. “Sapazani.”

In the forefront of the impi, waving his great shield, Sapazani was now conspicuous. His gigantic form, the towering black ostrich plumes stuck within his head-ring would have marked him anywhere. But he seemed to bear a charmed life. A bullet from Ben Halse clipped one of his plumes, but he shook his head and laughed.

“Greeting, U’ Ben! Thy hand and eye are failing,” he roared; bounding, leaping, like a wild beast, in the forefront of his followers, who were now beginning to fall around him in rows. All sides of the camp were busy now, and but for the quick and, literally, massacring fire poured into the rush, would have been overwhelmed.

“The chief! The chief!” shouted the excited men. “Now, then, all at him at once. We’ll down the devil.”

But they did not. Never still, Sapazani dodged the volley and laughed exultantly. But even as he did so he leaped in the air and fell flat. Those in her neighbourhood looked up at Verna Halse, who, pale as death, with a red spot on each cheek and dull eyes, after one quick glance began refilling her magazine.

“By God, Miss Halse, you’ve killed Sapazani!” ejaculated Sergeant Dickinson. “You’ve killed the chief.”

It was indeed so. While others had been concentrating their fire on that whirling, bounding figure without result, Verna, her heart on fire with burning longing for revenge, but her brain dangerously, deadly cool, had been watching her opportunity, watching when a fraction of a moment’s stillness on the part of her quarry should give her the opportunity she sought. It had comet and she had taken it.

A rousing, ringing cheer went up from the men. Already on the other side the combat had become nearly hand to hand. Assegais now were hurled into the camp, and more than one trooper was stricken. Minton, the storekeeper, was raving and cursing with one sticking through his leg, to the accompaniment of the howling of his progeny; but on the side led by Sapazani the onslaught wavered. The dead and wounded lay tremendously thick, and still the police bandoliers were not half empty, and now amid freshly heartened cheers their contents still played upon the roaring masses. Then, as the word mysteriously and quickly went round that the chief was slain, the news instead of inspiring them with the fury of exasperation had the contrary effect, and lo! as quickly as they had come on they were now in full retreat. A rain of bullets followed them, but no pursuit was allowed.

Verna had grounded her rifle, and stood looking after the retreating enemy. Then she walked back to the trap and deposited the weapon, speaking to nobody and ignoring the enthusiastic congratulations showered upon her. The while the vanishing curtain of mist was hanging in diminishing filminess over the hills, and the sun rose bright and glorious into a vault of unclouded blue.

“If you’ll take my advice,” said Ben Halse to the Inspector, “you’ll have Sapazani verified dead without loss of time. They might rally and rescue him. But look out carefully for the wounded. They may send more than one man under before they go under themselves.”

His advice was needed. In more than one instance some desperate savage, mortally and otherwise disabled, gripped his assegai in a feigned death grip to strike a last blow at any who should be unwary enough to approach him. But Sapazani was found not to be dead, though his days were numbered not by hours, but by minutes.

He, as they surrounded him, opened his eyes, but made no act of aggression, although by an effort he might have reached his broad assegai. Verna’s bullet had drilled through his chest, narrowly missing the heart, and, being a Dum-dum, had torn away a gaping and ghastly hole beneath the shoulder where it had come out. As they propped him up against the body of one of his slain followers the rush of blood was enough to have ended the life of any one but a savage then and there.

“Whau!” he ejaculated feebly. “It is U’ Ben. And we were friends.”

“Were, yes,” answered the trader shortly. “No one knows better than Sapazani why we are so no longer.”

This, of course, was “dark” talking to Bray and the police. However, they supposed it referred to some trading transaction between these two. And at the same time a very uncomfortable misgiving came into Ben Halse’s mind. What if the dying chief, out of sheer malignity, were to “give away,” for the benefit of the police, some very awkward, not to say incriminating transactions in which he had been mixed up. But Sapazani’s next words were —

“Where is Izibu? for something tells me I died by her stroke. I would fain see her again to say farewell.”

Ben Halse’s face hardened, knowing what he did and what the others did not. He hesitated, but as he did so a clear, hard voice struck upon his ear – upon the ears of all of them.

“Here is Izibu.” And Verna, who had been approaching unseen, joined the group.

“It is well,” said the dying chief. “I am content. We have been friends.”

There was a world of pathetic dignity about the man as he sat there, his large, powerful frame thrilling in every nerve with bodily anguish, his fine face wet with the dews of death, as he turned his lustrous but fading eyes upon one or the other of the group.

“Friends!” echoed Verna in biting scorn. “Friends? Where, then, is he who was left behind yesterday, he who was our friend and therefore yours?”

Sapazani looked puzzled, then a light seemed to dawn upon him.

“Is it the man who collects snakes and – other things, Izibu?”

She nodded.

“Then of him I know nothing. Nor did I know even that he had been left behind, impela.”

“You swear it?”

“U’ Dingiswayo!” said the chief earnestly, invoking the name of the ancestral head of his tribe. And then for the first time a ray of hope came back into Verna’s life.

Then the dying man’s tone grew drowsy, and his head drooped forward. He was muttering words of counsel, of quick command, as though to his followers. Then he subsided to the ground. A sign or two and a groan. Sapazani was dead.

“Poor devil!” said Inspector Bray. “He’s a fine fellow when all’s said and done, and a plucky one.”

“Whatever else he may be, Sapazani’s a gentleman,” said Ben Halse, fully appreciative of the fact that the dead chief had observed the strictest secrecy with regard to such former transactions as have been alluded to.

But Verna said nothing. She fed and fostered that ray of hope.

Chapter Twenty Nine.

Left Behind

Even though the rescue party failed in its object in so far that no rescue was effected, still, it is more than probable that it was the saving of Denham’s life – for the present; for it had drawn off the savages and had given the wounded man time, when he recovered consciousness, to crawl into the most secure hiding-place he could find. This was in the thick of a clump of bushes, whose overhanging boughs formed a sort of natural pavilion.

In the darkness and general mêlée his fall had been unperceived, or he would have been cut to pieces then and there. He had lost his rifle, but still had his revolver and cartridges. That was something. Yet, when all was said and done, here was he alone, in the heart of a now hostile country, every hand against him did he but show himself anywhere, without food or means of procuring any, for even did he meet with game he dared not fire a shot for fear of attracting the attention of his enemies.

It was with vast relief that he discovered that his injury, though painful, was not serious. He could only conjecture that he had received a numbing blow just behind the left shoulder from a heavy knobkerrie hurled with tremendous force, and such indeed was the case. At first it seemed as though his shoulder was broken. It had swelled as though it would burst his coat, but it was only a contusion, though a severe and painful one.

Lying low in the welcome darkness of his hiding-place he could hear deep-toned voices all round him, some quite near. The impi had returned from its pursuit of the rescue party, and was searching for its dead and wounded. Here was a fresh element of danger. What if they should light upon him? Then the only course left open would be to sell his life as dearly as possible.

He could hear voices now quite close to his hiding-place. They were coming straight for him. Crouching there in the gloom, hardly daring to breathe, he unbuttoned his holster. It was empty! In the excruciating pain of his injury he had not noticed its unusual lightness. The pistol was gone. He had dropped it when falling from the horse. He was totally unarmed, and to that extent utterly helpless.

Not ten yards from his hiding-place the voices stopped. He could hear some swift ejaculations, then a groan, then another and deeper one. He had not made sufficient progress, under Verna’s tuition, to be able to make out what was being said, but he gathered that they had found a wounded comrade. Heavens! but what if the latter had seen or heard him, and should put them on his track, perhaps under the impression that he was one of themselves and needed succour?

Then something dug him as with a sharp sting, then another, then another. It was as though burning needles were being thrust into him, but he dared not move. Then another. It was literally maddening. He conjectured he had got into the vicinity of a nest of black ants, but he could not lie still thus to be devoured alive. They had managed somehow to get inside his clothing, nor dared he move either to crush or dislodge them; and the incident brought back stories he had heard from Ben Halse and others of the old-time way of torturing those accused of witchcraft: spreadeagling them over an ants’ nest to be eaten alive. The thought was not a pleasant one, bearing in mind his own helplessness, and now, did he fall into the hands of those without, such might conceivably be his own fate.

The voices had ceased. He heard a peculiar sound, then a rumbling noise as of a heavy body struggling upon the earth in the agonies of death. Then the voices were raised again, but now receding. Soon they were silent altogether.

Given a little exertion, and South Africa, by reason of the dryness of its atmosphere, is one of the most thirsty climates in the world, wherefore, now a burning thirst which had been growing upon Denham reached maddening point. At all costs he must slake it, but how – where? He knew that the Gilwana River made a bend which would bring it up to about a mile from the scene of the fight. Was it safe to venture forth? Well, he must risk it.

All seemed quiet now. The moon was rising, and he remembered how at that time barely twenty-four hours ago he and Ben Halse had given the alarm which ushered in the fight at Minton’s store. Since then another stubborn fight, and now here was he, a helpless fugitive, who more likely than not would be a dead one at any moment.

A few yards and he nearly stumbled over something lying there. It was a dead body. Stooping over it in the gathering moonlight, Denham made out that it was that of a Zulu of good proportions. It was horribly mangled about both legs, the result of a Dum-dum bullet, but there was a stab in the chest from which blood was still oozing. Now he knew the meaning of the mysterious sounds he had heard. The man had been killed by his comrades, probably at his own request, because he was too badly injured to make it worthwhile carrying him off the field.

He turned away from the corpse in repulsion and horror, and as he did so the whites of the sightless eyeballs seemed to roll round as if to follow him. He felt faint and weak. There was a little whisky in his flask, and this, although of no use at all for thirst-quenching purposes, was good as a “pick-me-up.” At last the purling ripple of the river sounded through the still dawn in front. Another effort and the bank is gained.

The bank, yes. But the stream flowing down yonder between this and the other clay bank cannot be reached from here, short of diving into it, but the lay and nature of the soil points to dangerous quicksands underlying that smoothly flowing reach. With a curse of bitter disappointment, his strength weakening with every step, he turns away, to spend another half-hour in scrambling through dongas and thorns and long grass till an accessible point may be found, and all to the accompaniment of the musical water rippling merrily in his ears.

At last! Shelving down to the water’s edge, a beautiful smooth grassy sward, overhung by forest trees. The fugitive throws himself on the brink and takes a long, long, cool drink, and it is cool at the hour before sunrise. Then, infinitely refreshed, he sits up.

What is there in this flow of river, in the silence of the forest, that brings back another memory, the memory of a repulsive, agonised face; of the last shriek as the wretch is dragged under? He himself is now in well-nigh as hopeless a case. Again between himself and Verna has come Fate. Can it be that this tribute is to be exacted from him for that other’s blood? Exhausted, despairing, he sits there on the river bank. Well may he despair. Unarmed and foodless, how shall he ever succeed in finding his way back to safety?

What is that? The sound of voices coming along the river bank, and with it the unmistakable rattle of assegai-hafts. Wildly he looks around. There is nowhere to hide. In a minute they will be upon him. Ha! the river!

Just below, the current swirled between high banks, which in one place overhung. By gaining this point – and he was a powerful swimmer – he might lie perdu, half in, half out of the water. They would not think of looking for him there. Famished, weakened, aching from the dull pain in his shoulder, he let himself into the water, and swimming noiselessly downstream gained the desired haven just as some fifty Zulus, in full war-trappings, came out on the spot where but now he had been sitting. He could hear the sound of their deep voices, but they did not seem raised in any unusual tone of curiosity or excitement.

He was half in, half out of the water, clinging to a pile of brushwood that had been wedged in there. A ripple out on the smooth surface of the stream evoked another thought. Crocodiles! Heavens! had that same horrible fate been reserved for himself?

Minutes seemed hours. The water was cold in the early morning, and he was half numbed. Then he saw the Zulus cross the drift, holding their shields and assegais high above the water. One tall, finely built man led. Him he thought he recognised. Surely it was Sapazani.

Sapazani! The chief was on the friendliest terms with Ben Halse. Everything moved him to come forth and claim his protection, and then a more subtle instinct warned him not to. He remembered how he himself had been held in durance at the instance of that very chief, and the air of mystery that seemed to have hung over that extraordinary proceeding. They were not at war then, and he had been released. Now they were at war. No, he would not venture.