Harley Greenoak's Charge

“What a rum thing it is to feel one’s self out of leading-strings again,” went on Dick. “But I wonder when old Greenoak will turn up here and give me marching orders, like he did at Haakdoorn. I shan’t obey this time. Though, I was forgetting, I shall have to give them to myself.”

When Harley Greenoak had returned to the Komgha he laughed to himself as he learned what had become of his charge. Twice he had ridden over and spent a day or two with the Waybridges, and from what he had seen there he judged that his responsibility was nearing its end. But the fact of his charge being in such good hands had left him free to follow out the secret investigations and negotiations in which he was then engaged, and the success or failure of which, both chances being about even, would be of momentous import.

Before Hazel could reply there was a rush of dogs, and vast snarling and barking as the brutes leapt at the horses, and one or two, incidentally, at their riders. The latter on topping a rise had come upon a large kraal, whose beehive-shaped huts stood in clusters, adjoining the square, or circular, cattle or goat pens common to each.

In a moment Dick had curled the lash of his raw-hide whip round the long, lithe body of a fine, tawny, black-muzzled greyhound, which was savagely leaping at the hind quarters of the steed ridden by Hazel. With a snarling, agonised yelp the beast dropped back howling, and for a second or two the ardour of the others seemed checked. Then they came on again.

Dick now turned his horse, and charging in among them, cut right and left with his whip. The savage pack, demoralised, retired howling, and by this time the riders were right abreast of the kraal.

The latter seemed now in a ferment. The ochre-smeared figures of women – many of them with a brown human bundle on their backs – stamping mealies in a rough wooden pestle, or smoking and gossiping in groups – now got up, chattering and laughing shrilly; while the male inhabitants of the place – quite a number – came swarming out of the huts, talking volubly in their deep-toned bass, to see what was going on. But no attempt was made to call off the dogs. These, encouraged by the presence of their owners, and an unmistakable sympathy on the part of the latter which their instinct realised, rushed with renewed savagery to the attack.

There were upwards of a score of them; some really fine specimens of the greyhound breed, tawny or white, and large withal; and now it became manifest that the evil, contemptuous barbarians were actually hounding them on. Dick’s whip seemed to have lost its effect among the snapping, frantic pack, and when one brute fastened its teeth in the tendon of the hind leg of Hazel’s steed, Dick Selmes judged it time to draw his revolver.

The effect upon the dark, jeering crowd was electric. A fierce, deep, chest-note, akin to a menacing roar, took the place of the derisive laughter with which the barbarians had been enjoying the fun. Quick as animals most of them had dived into the huts. In a trice they reappeared, and there was the glint and bristle of assegais. Truly it was a formidable-looking mob, that which confronted these two, taking a peaceful afternoon ride.

The worst of it was the latter were unable to talk the Xosa tongue. Hazel, though Colonial-born, had no knowledge of it; first, because in the Cape Colony it is rather the exception than the rule to use anything but the – now world-famed —taal in intercourse with natives; secondly, because in her part of the country there were hardly any Kafirs at all, Dick Selmes because he had never even begun to learn it.

“Try them in Dutch, Hazel,” said the latter, quickly. “Tell them if they don’t call the dogs off sharp. I’ll shoot the best. Then I’ll begin to shoot them. First shot I fire, you start off home at full gallop, and never mind about me.”

She obeyed. At the sound of her voice there was a momentary lull, then the jeers blared out afresh. Dick Selmes felt his blood fairly boil as he realised that they were actually mimicking her. Then as the dogs made another rush, he dropped the muzzle of his revolver and shot the foremost, fair and square through the shoulders. The beast uttered a feeble yap and rolled over kicking. The rest hung back.

But its owner, a hulking, ochre-smeared savage, emitted a howl and rushed forth from the crowd, a long tapering assegai in his hand poised for a throw. Dick’s revolver covered him in a moment. The Kafir, for all his blind rage, realised that it was pointed straight. He had seen what execution its wielder could do, wherefore he pulled up sharp. Kafirs are sworn dog fanciers, and not infrequently have more affection for their dogs than their children; but this particular one had still more affection for his life, wherefore he halted. Then both knew that the situation was saved.

Slowly, warily, they rode on – on, not back; for Dick bore well in mind Harley Greenoak’s precept, never to let savages think you are afraid of them; the Kafirs hurling after them all manner of jeering abuse, which it was quite as well that Hazel, at any rate, did not understand.

“We are well out of that,” said Dick, reloading the discharged chamber from some extra cartridges loose in his pocket. “The infernal scoundrels! Hazel, darling, I’m afraid I have let you in for a considerable scare.”

“I wasn’t scared to speak of. Dear, but you did bring it off well. I shall – should – always feel so safe with you.”

“Shall – should?” he repeated, looking at her. “No, there’s no occasion to correct the grammar. Let it stand as at first.”

The girl made no reply, but her face, half turned away from him, was wondrously soft. Yes, indeed – that which she had found wanting in him was abundantly supplied now, she was thinking. She almost felt compunction for the conditions she had imposed upon him that morning – and yet – and yet – was it not sound sense, after all? But what if it should fail – would she still have it in her to stand firm? Well, of that she did not care to think – as yet.

“We are nearly at Sampson’s store now,” said Dick, when they had gone a couple of miles further. “Shall we go on and have a yarn with the old chap, or take a round and get home, for it’s just as well not to pass that hospitable hornets’ nest again?”

“Just as you like,” she answered, then added: “Let’s go right on, and have a chat with old Sampson. It’s early yet. What’s this?”

A body of Kafirs appeared in sight, coming down the road towards them. They seemed about thirty in number, and the glint of assegais was plain, even from these. Now, Kafirs were not wont to patrol the roads in armed bodies. They travelled normally in twos and threes, carrying the usual kerries. Yet these were many and armed.

Dick Selmes was conscious of a tightening of the heart. What did it mean, at that time of day, when the atmosphere was rife with disquieting reports?

“We must go through them,” he said. “There’s no other course short of turning and running away. And that wouldn’t do, you know.”

“Of course not,” said Hazel, who was really feeling very anxious. “I declare by now I hate the sight of these horrible wretches. I never want to set eyes on one again.”

“Well, you won’t in England,” said Dick, slily. “There are none there, you know.”

They were in among the group now, which parted to make way for them. Two or three gave them the good day, but it was in a derisive way, and asked for tobacco. Dick shook his head to signify that he had none, for he did not choose to stop in the middle of that wild-looking crowd, after recent experience. The savages leered at Hazel with bold stare, and muttered to each other. Again it was as well that neither of the two understood a word of what they said.

“What on earth have they got all those ox-tails for, I wonder?” she remarked, when they were through. For each had been the bearer of several severed tails, with the hide on, raw and red.

“Probably to make soup with,” laughed Dick. “Contact with civilisation must have taught them the luxury of the kitchen as well as that of the cellar. There’s the store.”

As they drew near the long, low, brick building, roofed with corrugated iron, the store-keeper came out. He was a tall, elderly man, with a grizzled beard. Dick had met him before.

“Why, it’s Mr Selmes,” he said, putting out a hand. “How’ do. How’ do, Miss.” Then again to Dick, “Where’s Greenoak?”

“Oh, he’s away on some mysterious errand of his own.”

“I’m afraid he’ll go on one o’ them once too often. I’m afraid I’m in a poor way to entertain ladies, but I’ve got the coffee kettle on, but only tinned milk.”

Hazel declared she wanted nothing better, and Sampson, disappearing inside, fished out a ricketty chair.

“You’ll be better here nor in there,” he said. “Kafirs and raw-hides, and so on, don’t make the inside of a shanty pleasant.”

As he went in again Dick followed him.

“What’s your idea as to the state of things, Sampson?” he said.

“My idea? There’ll be hell let loose, d’rectly. Nothing’ll stop it. You’d better warn Waybridge, from me, to trek.”

“No!”

“Yes. See. None of ’em come round trading now; no, not even for drinks. Just now, though, I had a robustious mob of Sandili’s Gaikas round here buying ox-tails. There’s been a trade in them lately.”

“What do they want them for, eh? Ox-tail soup?”

The other looked at him pityingly – then emitted a dry guffaw.

“Soup? War fal-lals, that’s what they’re for. And there are other signs.”

“Now I come to think of it, I’ve seen them before, in the Transkei.”

“Yes. You did service there with the Police, I’m told. Well, we don’t want to scare the young lady, but you tip the office from me to Waybridge to clear. There’ll be hell in a week or two at the outside.”

“I’ll tell him. But are you going to remain on here?”

“I dare say. They won’t hurt me. It wouldn’t pay them for one thing. Have a drop of grog?”

“Thanks.”

The store-keeper fished out a bottle of Boer brandy – of antipodal quality, of course, to that which he retailed in the native trade – and then they went outside and rejoined Hazel. She, drinking her coffee, narrated their experience at the wayside kraal.

“That’s Ngombayi’s crowd,” pronounced Sampson, “and they’re a bad lot. They’re a bit disturbed now, but they’ll quiet down in a week or two.”

Dick Selmes, contrasting this cool utterance with the prediction he had just heard, felt amused, but did not show it. Then, after a little more chat, they took their leave, returning by a devious route, so as to avoid the objectionable kraal.

Chapter Thirty Three.

The Generalship of Elsie McGunn

It was evening, but Waybridge had not returned. He had started early that morning for Fort Isiwa, to deliver a lot of slaughter oxen for commissariat purposes, for which he had received a very good price indeed. He had been selling off as much of his stock as he could, for although he did not believe the scare would come to anything, still it was as well to be prepared for the worst, and money in the bank was better than stock herded from a laager, with all the contingent risks. So he had set forth in high spirits.

His wife was in no way anxious. There was nothing of the “unprotected female” about her. If put to it she could level a barrel and reload as quickly and as calmly as one of the opposite sex; besides, there was Dick Selmes, who had already proved his grit. He, when he had suggested moving on, had met with such a whole-souled negative, as to set at rest any doubts that might have been lingering in his mind as to outstaying his welcome.

“Why, Mr Selmes, you’d never desert us unprotected females,” she had said. “John has to be away a bit, on and off, just now. And now you want to run away and leave us all alone.”

“Eh, that I’m sure he wadna be doing,” had struck in Elsie McGunn – who was clearing the table – with her usual lack of ceremony.

Dick roared. He wanted some outlet for the intense relief that this cordial welcome conveyed. It was like a reprieve. He would not have to leave Hazel yet. She was his, and now he could stay and take care of her.

“Why, Elsie, you’re a host in yourself,” he said. “A mere man, more or less, doesn’t count when you’re on hand.”

The Scotswoman, who was brawny and muscular, accepted the compliment; moreover, she and Dick were great friends. He delighted to chaff her, but by no means always got the best of the encounter.

“Ay. A’d tak ony sax o’ yon heathen sauvages and mak ’em wish they’d never been born,” she returned complacently. “Still, it’s weel to have a mon on the place, speeshully sic a mon as yeerself, Mr Selmes.”

“Thanks, Elsie,” said Dick, with another laugh, appreciating the sly chaff. “It’s a comfort to know that my trumpeter isn’t dead, anyhow.”

It was evening, and the usual rush of myriad stars flashed and twinkled in the warm velvety sky. The moon had not yet risen. Dick Selmes and Hazel were strolling about round the house. It was much better in the open air, they mutually agreed, and they were alone together. Their hostess was engaged in the putting to bed of her nursery of two.

“What nights these are,” Dick was saying, the glow of his pipe making a red spot in the darkness. “Now, at good old Hesketh’s it was always jolly shivery after dark. But here – ah, it’s like a dream.”

“I don’t know. I feel unaccountably depressed to-night,” replied the girl, with a little shiver. Dick noticed it.

“Darling, let me go in and get you a wrap,” he said eagerly. “You’re chilly.”

“No. I don’t want a wrap. I don’t know what it is, but I feel a sort of presentiment, as if something was going to happen. I’ve been feeling it all the afternoon, but I wouldn’t say anything about it for fear of communicating it to Mrs Waybridge and making you laugh at me.”

“As if I should ever do that. Now chuck off this presentiment, my Hazel. Why, yesterday afternoon you were saying you would always feel so safe with me – with me,” he added tenderly. “That was one of the sweetest things I’ve ever heard you say.”

“Was it? Well, then, Dick, it’s true. Oh, there are those horrid cattle groaning again. Will they never leave off?”

“But they often do it. If I were to drive them away they’d be back again in a minute or two. What does it matter? It pleases them and doesn’t hurt us.”

“It’s eerie, all the same,” she said, with another shiver.

The point of which remark was that the cattle, turned out at night to graze around the homestead, had collected at a place down by the kraals, where sheep were slaughtered, and with their noses to the ground, were emitting a series of groaning noises, culminating in a sort of shrill bellow. Then they would scurry away for a few yards, and returning to the blood-saturated spot, would repeat the performance again and again. After all, it was not an unusual one. On moonlight nights, especially, would it be enacted. To-night, however, in the darkness, the effect was particularly weird and dismal.

“Talking of old Hesketh,” went on Dick, bent on taking her mind off dismal fancyings, “I wonder how the fine old chap will cotton to me as a nephew, eh?”

“Now, Dick, you’re getting ‘too previous,’” she answered, with a laugh. “Why, what can that be?”

A glow was suffusing the far sky, growing brighter and brighter. It seemed to be in the direction of their ride of the day before, “Moon rising, I suppose,” said Dick, re-lighting his pipe.

“No. It’s not quite in the right place for that. Look. There’s another.”

At an interval of space to the left, another similar glow appeared. A very ugly and uncomfortable inspiration now took hold of Dick Selmes’ mind, but he was not going to share it with his companion.

“Grass fires,” he said. “That’s what it will be. And now, Hazel dear, although it’s a vast bit of self-denial to me, I believe we’d better go in. I’ve a very strong suspicion you’ve caught cold. What’ll Elsie say? That it was my fault, of course. She herds you, if anything, rather closer than Greenoak tries to herd me.”

“Yes. We are both in leading-strings,” laughed Hazel. “But it’s a good thing I brought her up here, and made her stay, or they’d have been all sixes and sevens. She’s as good as any half-dozen of these lazy, dirty Kafir or Fugo girls, and now they can’t even get them.”

Mrs Waybridge had returned to the sitting-room and was awaiting them.

“Why, Hazel dear, you look quite white and shivery,” she said. “You’ve been catching cold; yet, it’s a warm evening.”

“I believe she has, Mrs Waybridge,” said Dick. “I should give her something hot, and turn her straight in.”

Hazel smiled to herself at the airs of proprietorship he was beginning to assume. But it was with a very affectionate pressure of the hand that she bade him good-night.

Dick Selmes, left to himself, wandered out on to the stoep again, and then, as if this did not leave him enough room to stretch his legs, wandered out on to the grass below. He lit another pipe, and, his heart all warm with thoughts of love and youth, proceeded to pace up and down. His own company was congenial to him then. There was so much to let his mind dwell upon, to go back to – and, better still, to look forward to. So that it was not surprising that a full hour should have gone by like a mere flash. Awaking from his reverie, he looked up and around. The double glow which he and Hazel had noticed in the distance had died down. But further round, and nearer now, two more of a similar appearance were reddening the sky. What did it mean? His first uncomfortable suspicions had been lulled, then forgotten. But now? Grass fires were not wont to spring up from all points of the compass. Dick Selmes stood still, staring at the distant redness. The sky was becoming lighter now, but in a more gradual, more golden hue, precursor of the rising moon.

Then he became aware of a movement of the front door, which he had left, half open. Some one was standing there, clad in light garments, and beckoning to him. He recognised the stalwart figure of Elsie McGunn.

“Ye’ll be better inside, laddie,” she whispered, flinging ceremony to the winds in the importance of the moment. “A’m thinking there’s that going forward we’ll be nae best pleased to see.”

Dick sprang up the steps in a second.

“What’s the row, Elsie?” he said.

“Hoot, mon, dinna speak that loud. A’ hadn’t done washing up in the kitchen, and when A’ turrned there was a black heathen sauvage a-speerin’ in at the window under the blind.”

“We’ll soon settle him,” said Dick, making a move to start upon that errand. But a strong – a very strong – detaining hand was upon his arm.

“Ye’ll not leave the inside o’ this hoose. Come in, laddie, and look for yeerself. It’s from inside ye’re going to tak care o’ Miss Hazel, not from without, all stickit with the murdering spears of black sauvages.”

She drew him inside by main force, and noiselessly closed the door, turning the key in the lock.

“Get ye the guns now,” she said. “It’s at the back they’ll be wanted.”

In this brief but very stirring experience, Dick Selmes had learned the value of promptitude. In a minute he had joined Elsie in the kitchen. He was loaded with a double shot-gun, and combined rifle and smooth-bore, and a revolver. Going into an adjacent room where there was no light, he lifted a corner of the blind and peered forth.

The moon had not quite risen, but it was light enough to see that in the open space between the house and the quince hedge which railed off the garden, several dark forms were standing. They were some fifty yards off, and seemed to be making signs to others behind, probably hidden in the deep shade of the hedge. It was also light enough to make out that, tied round leg and arm, they wore tufts of cow-hair, and once the peculiar rattle of assegai hafts, hardly audible, vibrated to the horrified gazer’s listening ear.

All the blood seemed to curdle back to Dick Selmes’ heart. The warning words of the store-keeper seemed to burn in letters of fire into his brain. “There’ll be hell let loose directly,” Sampson had said. And now Hazel was at the mercy – or would be – of these savage fiends, for what could be done for long against the weight of numbers? He was back in the kitchen. One solitary candle was burning dimly.

“Can you shoot, Elsie?” he whispered hurriedly, making as if to hand her the shot-gun, which was loaded with Treble A. buckshot cartridges.

“Na, lad. A’ can do better nor that. Do you do the shutin’.”

She was rolling up her sleeves to the shoulders, displaying a pair of arms that would have been useful to a navvy or a drayman. At her feet lay a long-handled axe, rusty and blunt. This she now picked up, swinging it a couple of times aloft, but with the thick side of the head, not the edge, turned outwards.

“Yon’ll nae be movin’ as long as there’s a light,” she said. “They’ll be waiting until we’re in bed, as they’ll think, puir feckless loons. We’ll put it out the noo.”

Dick was moved to intense admiration for the cool intrepidity of the woman; at the art of generalship she displayed. Here, surely, was the true fighting blood of some old Highland or Border clan. Even he seemed to be taking a back seat. She put out the candle.

“Dinna shute till A’ give ye the wurrd,” she whispered.

The back door was in two parts. The upper one of these Elsie now noiselessly set a little open, so as to convey the idea that in a happy-go-lucky, careless, all-secure feeling, it had not been thought necessary to shut it. Then she stood back from the doorway, of course in black darkness, the axe, poised on high, held ready; its weight no more tax on her brawny arms than if it had been a quince switch.

Chapter Thirty Four.

Mrs Waybridge has an Idea

Dick Selmes, who had intuitively grasped the simplicity of the tactics to be observed, was at the back of the room; not quite opposite the doorway, lest the light from without should fall upon him. The minutes of waiting were tense beyond the critical moment of any adventure which had come his way yet. And it was a time of waiting. The savages would allow time, after the removal of the light, for the occupants to retire. It would be so much easier to wreak their deed of red murder upon the slumbering and unsuspecting, and this he realised. But his pulses were throbbing, and it seemed that his own heart-beats must be audible to those outside. Then he pulled himself together. A grim, satirical impulse to laughter was upon him as he thought what a deadly surprise was in store for them, and cautiously he fingered the ammunition in his pockets so as to guard against the possibility of losing precious time in trying to jam the wrong cartridges into the wrong gun. Ha! Now for it!

For the upper half of the door was slowly opening. A dark head and shoulders were framed within the square of comparative light from outside, then the watcher could make out that their owner was bending over to try and undo the inner fastenings of the lower half of the door. The head was well within the room; why didn’t the axe descend upon it? But Elsie McGunn had laid her plans deeper than that.

The Kafir turned, and seemed to be signalling back to his fellows; then giving his attention to his own work, he straddled the lower half of the door and was within the room. But before he had time even to stand upright he fell like a log. For the axe-head had descended, catching him with a horrid crunch just where the skull joined on to the back of the neck. Not a groan, not a struggle. The chief, Sandili, had lost one fighting man, and that at the hand of a woman.

Silence again. Now another dark form filled the square, and the same inward move began, only the new-comer did not imitate his predecessor in striving to undo any fastenings. He was a gigantic, grease-smeared beast, and Dick Selmes could make out a glint of moonlight upon white eyeball, and a glisten on assegai blades, held in the dark cruel hand, as he made the effort of clambering over. Then the downward sweep, and crunch of the weighty iron, and this one sank as silently as the first. The chief, Sandili, had lost two fighting men, and that at the hand of a woman.

Heavens! could this go on for ever? thought the entranced spectator, standing back in the black gloom, awaiting his turn. Surely those outside would become suspicious – in popular parlance, would “smell a rat.” But he forgot that the essence of their plan was to effect an entrance one by one and in silence, and to that end they would wait until each was safely inside, and, so as not to press or hurry the foregoing one, would not wait immediately against the door. So, in a trice, a third appeared, and met with exactly the same fate. Sandili, the chief, had lost three fighting men, and still at the hand of a woman.