The Luck of Gerard Ridgeley

Gerard, however, delayed long to follow its example, as we have said. His enemies might have left some of their number at a little distance to watch; or the very birds whose presence now assured him of his safety, might by their calls of alarm, attract the notice of the receding Igazipuza. So for upwards of an hour he waited there, momentarily expecting another attack from an alligator; but whether it was that the struggle and the fate of the one had scared away the others from the spot, he was spared the ordeal of a second conflict. At length, cramped and shivering, every bone and muscle in his body aching, poor Gerard hauled himself cautiously up by the overhanging branches and stood, or rather rolled, upon the bank again.

To a feeling of unspeakable elation and thankfulness succeeded one of depression. He had escaped so far – had escaped a double peril, in a manner that was little short of miraculous. But here he was, alone in a semi-hostile, if not entirely hostile country, which was completely unknown to him, without food, and not daring to fire a shot lest it should bring his enemies down upon him. Moreover, he was numbed and shivering from his long immersion, which might result in fever, ague, and such evils, not unknown in the belts of bush country. Again, he was still on the wrong side of the river, and now, bearing in mind his recent experience of its grisly denizens, the contingency of being obliged to cross it alone, and that by wading or swimming, he contemplated with shrinking and horror. But then again would come the thought of his almost miraculous escape. Surely he had been preserved for some purpose, and what purpose could be more worthy of accomplishment than that which he had in hand. No; this was not the time to despair, not it, indeed.

The day was now well advanced. Gerard, thinking hard, resolved that he had better not begin to move until dusk. It was dangerous now. He might be sighted from afar, or fall in with wandering bands, and not yet did he consider such a meeting a safe one or likely to result in the furtherance of his object. Moreover, he was deadly tired. He had slept but little of late, what with the anxiety of their position and the excitement of anticipating his own attempt – and not at all the previous night. He would find some sequestered hiding-place and take the rest he so greatly needed; would sleep, if possible, until evening. Then he would contrive to cross the river, and travel the night through. Thanks to the repugnance of Zulus to being abroad during the hours of darkness, he stood a pretty good chance of moving unmolested, and by morning he ought to have put a wide enough space between the Igazipuza and himself, to feel comparatively safe.

Acting upon this idea, he started off along the river-bank to find a snug and convenient place of concealment; and when he had gone about a mile, wending carefully and quietly so as to disturb as little as possible the very birds, keeping well under cover of the bush, he found one. It was a small hollow, in the midst of which rose a great boulder. The heat and the exercise had dried his clothes and restored circulation to his veins, and now at the foot of this boulder where the sun struck in dry and warm, Gerard lay down.

The sense of restfulness was indescribably delicious. His mind in its dreamy half-wakeful state went off into retrospect. Could it, indeed, be barely a year since he had received the twofold welcome news that he was to leave school immediately, and proceed – scarcely less immediately – to shift for himself in a far colony; that dream of Utopia to the average English boy, that too frequently rough awakening? He saw himself again on board the Amatikulu, gazing with wonder and a touch of mysterious awe upon the green shores of his “promised land.” Once more he was leading the old disillusioning monotonous and rather sordid life at Anstey’s, and an uneasy longing to take that specious rascal by the throat – for he was quite asleep now – was forgotten in the more pleasant vision of May Kingsland. And then his dreams took no further shape – merging into the complete unconsciousness of the more restful form of sound slumber.

The hours followed each other, and even the live creatures of the wilderness ceased to fear the motionless sleeping form of the young adventurer, but a year ago a hearty unsophisticated English schoolboy, now the bearer of his own life and the lives of others; thrown upon his own resources, alone, in the then scarcely known wilds of northern Zululand. Birds began to flit from spray to spray, balancing themselves on swaying twig, and chirruping and twittering just over the sleeper’s head. Little lizards, creeping along the face of the rocky boulder, dropped upon the sleeping form and ran tentatively over it, and a bush-buck, stepping gingerly through the hollow, turned its full bright eye upon the prostrate figure, and resumed its way as though finding no cause for alarm.

Hour followed hour, and now the sun’s rays began to decline, to slant more and more horizontally upon the green sprays of the foliage. Gerard stirred uneasily in his sleep, for with the approach of the waking hour he was beginning to dream again. Once more he was in the Igazipuza kraal with Dawes, discussing the seriousness of the situation. He had made the attempt to escape, and was being brought back – had been brought back. And then into his dreams there stole a vague sense of danger, strange, indefinable, but none the less present. It was fearful. Some weight was upon him, boding, terrible. He could neither straggle nor call out. Then breaking the spell with a mighty effort, he started up from his sleep – awoke to a reality more fearsome, more formidable than the nightmarish delusion. For, as he started up into a sitting posture, he nearly brought his face into contact with a dark grim visage which was peering into it, and a cry of surprise, dismay, despair escaped him. He was surrounded by a crowd of armed Zulus!

Chapter Twenty.

An Error of Judgment

Never in the whole course of his hard, chequered, adventurous life, could John Dawes recall a day spent in such wearing, intolerable suspense, as that following the night of his young companion’s escape. That it was an escape he now entertained no doubt. The hours wore on, and still no return of a triumphant band bringing with it the recaptured fugitive. This augured well as regarded Gerard.

As regarded himself the trader knew that any hour might be his last. There was an ominous stillness brooding over the Igazipuza kraal following on the night of furious revelry. None of its denizens came near him; but for all that he knew that every one of his movements was intently watched. Try as he would he could not altogether conceal his anxiety from his own people. The Swazis cowered beneath the waggons in terror, and even the sturdier Natal natives, with their strong admixture of Zulu blood, sat together in gloomy silence. Every one of them, however, had a short stabbing assegai concealed beneath his blanket, ready to sell his life as dearly as possible, and these preparations they hardly took the trouble to dissemble from the chief’s councillor, Sonkwana, who still remained at the waggons, squatting on the ground tranquilly taking snuff from time to time, a very model of taciturnity.

Thus the day wore on, and still no sign of the returning pursuit. With great good luck Gerard would have reached the king’s kraal by that time to-morrow. Then from speculating as to how his brave young companion had fared, Dawes’s mind went back to the scene of the previous night. His shaft had told. The threat to appeal to Cetywayo had not been without its effect upon Ingonyama, and that effect a considerable one. Still, with morning no message of emancipation had come from the chief, and Dawes did not think it advisable once more to trust himself within the kraal; and not being the man to ask another to go where he preferred not to venture himself, he refrained from sending one of his servants upon this errand. Still he was very uneasy.

Still more uneasy would he have been, could he have overheard the conference then proceeding in the chief’s hut. Seated around in a half circle, Ingonyama, Vunawayo, and some three or four councillors were engaged in earnest discussion, the subject nothing less than the advisability of putting him and his to the assegai forthwith. The chief could hardly contain his chagrin and impatience.

“If they return and fail to kill or bring back the boy,” he was saying, “six of their leaders shall die. The Tooth shall bite them. They deserve that for allowing him to slip through them.”

“We have kept this white man and his Kafula dogs too long,” said Vunawayo, darkly. “Why not begin with him, now, this very day?”

“Ha! He is no fool, this Jandosi,” said Ingonyama, with a ferocious scowl. “What if his dog already barks in the ear of the king?”

“Even then, is not the bark of one dog, less than that of two – of several?” urged Vunawayo. “The king might not listen to one where he might to many. Besides, he has less and less reason to love the English; who, men whisper, are trying to pick a quarrel with him about one thing after another. Such is not the time for whispering into his ear tales against his own chiefs – against the best of his fighting men. Is the king a fool that he would exchange the hundreds of the Igazipuza spears for the lives of two miserable white dogs? No. Let Jandosi’s ‘tongue’ go prate at Undini – if it can reach there. It is as likely to be cut there as here.”

“What, then, would you counsel, my brethren?” said Ingonyama, looking round.

The indunas shrugged their shoulders, and all glanced tentatively at Vunawayo. He, evidently, was the Mephistopheles of the group.

“We think Vunawayo speaks clearly,” said one of them at length. “This white man and they that are with him should die.”

“I have long thought so,” said the chief, scowling ferociously at the recollection of the indignity he had suffered the previous night, held at the muzzle of the trader’s pistol. “And now – the manner of it. Shall they die by the bite of The Tooth?”

“That must depend,” replied Vunawayo. “This white dog has teeth of his own, and he will show them. They, too, can bite. He will die; but it will be biting hard. He will not leave his waggons, and he is well armed and brave. Now my counsel is this. He cannot always live without sleep, no man can. Wherefore towards dawn, when sleep is heaviest, let a company be told off to rush in upon and surprise him. They will be on him before he can wake, and thus will take him alive.”

“I doubt them finding any such easy capture,” muttered the chief, with a dissentient head-shake. “Is there no better plan?”

“Only this, father,” said Vunawayo, with a grin of ferocious exultation. “Have you not said that they who let the boy slip through them and escape should supply meat for The Tooth? Now, therefore, let us spare them their lives on condition that they find such meat for The Tooth instead of themselves. Thus will they dare and do all to secure Jandosi alive.”

“So be it, then,” said Ingonyama, after a moment’s reflection. “This night shall he be taken.”

Meanwhile the object of these amiable intentions was meditating a bold stroke. Seated at his waggons, carefully thinking out the situation, he decided that once more a bold line might better serve his purpose; in pursuance of which plan he hailed a boy who was passing.

The latter stopped, stared, hesitated; then reassured by a signal from the induna Sonkwana, he drew near wonderingly.

“I have a fancy to see my oxen here,” said John Dawes. “What is your name, boy?”

“Sicalu,” was the rather sullen reply.

“Well, Sicalu, you shall go with my driver, Fulani, and help to bring them in. When you return this little looking-glass shall be yours. But you will carry the ‘word’ of your father, Sonkwana, the induna of the chief, that those who guard the oxen may know I require them.”

The lad stared, as well he might. So, too, did Sonkwana. Indeed, it was hard to say which was the more amazed of the two. As for the trader’s own people, such thorough confidence had they in him, that they were astonished at nothing, in which spirit Fulani no sooner heard the above order than he stood prepared to carry it out.

“Will you not ride out yourself and look at your cattle Jandosi, as you have ever done before?” said the councillor.

“Not so, Sonkwana. This time they shall be brought to me. Give the boy the ‘word,’ induna of the chief.”

Sonkwana cast a sidelong glance toward the kraal, then looked slyly at the speaker. What did it matter! Let him be humoured this once.

“Go,” he said to the boy.

The hours of the afternoon crept on, and still Dawes sat there, outwardly calm, inwardly in a state of indescribable suspense. By this time, he was sure Gerard had got through, otherwise he would have been brought back. Sonkwana, too, sat wondering. He would fain have departed, but that his involuntary “host” never left him out of his sight, and to undertake to cross several hundred yards of open ground contrary to the wishes of a man who could hit a small pebble at almost any distance with the rifle ever ready in his hand, was not in Zulu human nature, at any rate, in cold blood. So in outward tranquillity Sonkwana vied with his “host” aforesaid, and sat and took a great deal of snuff.

More surprise, however, was awaiting both him and his clansmen. Towards sundown, the trader’s outspan became alive with the lowing of cattle and the shout and whistle of those in charge. Then in the most matter-of-fact way, John Dawes gave orders to inspan.

Prompt, intelligent, and as we have said, having every confidence in their employer, the two drivers, Sintoba and Fulani, and their well-trained subordinates, were quick to act. In an incredibly short space of time, the waggons were ready for the road. But during the process, Dawes had never left the side of the hostage.

The latter, for his part, looked with a kind of contemptuous amusement upon the whole affair. Did this fool think he was going to walk off in any such free and easy sort of fashion without the “word” of the chief. He glanced towards the kraal.

So too, we may be sure, did Dawes, with well-concealed, but infinitely greater anxiety. Heads could be seen clustering at the palisades, but still no armed force issued from the gates. What could it mean?

“Trek!” he cried, when the inspanning was completed.

“Trek – trek!” echoed the drivers, and the whips cracked to the accompaniment of a running gamut of the names of the horned members of the span. The oxen plunged forward to the yokes, and the great vehicles rolled heavily from their standing place of many weeks.

“Whau, Jandosi!” said Sonkwana. “If you are leaving us, had I not better carry your word of farewell to the chief?”

“Not so, Sonkwana. The road is not very familiar to me; besides, it is fitting that a councillor of the chief should start me in safety on my journey. There is safety on the road, but off it there is death,” he added darkly.

No shade of his meaning was lost upon his hearer, who made a virtue of necessity, and accepted the position in such wise as though it had been himself who had suggested it. Besides, the guard on the ridge was strong. That had yet to be passed.

On moved the waggons; on moved the whole trek; deliberately making for the exit of the hollow, the leader and driver of each in their places, the three Swazis driving the cattle, for the sheep and goats had been bartered away for cows and oxen; John Dawes walking beside the first waggon, with Sonkwana. On – past the kraal with its great circle of domed huts, but still no opposition. What did it mean? This silence, this passiveness on the part of their hitherto aggressive and turbulent gaolers was portentous.

It was a critical time for Dawes. Each moment he expected the air to be rent with the ferocious war-cry, to hear the ground rumble beneath the advance of running feet. How came it that he was allowed to march out thus with colours flying and drums beating, to march out with all the honours of war? The chief’s councillor was in his power.

No sooner had he arrived at this conclusion than his sense of security was rudely interrupted. They had gained the ridge, and now, with loud and threatening shouts, the guards rushed down upon them.

“Order them back, Sonkwana. Order them back,” said Dawes, in a quick low tone. “To hesitate is death,” he added.

The induna glanced at Dawes. The latter’s attitude, though apparently careless, he well knew was not really so. He himself would receive a bullet in the brain without being able to lift a finger, and save for a short stick he was unarmed. Reluctantly, therefore, he obeyed.

But even his authority hardly seemed to avail here. The guards, some two score of stalwart and boisterous savages, continued to advance, but with less demonstration of hostility, with less fell intent of purpose. Finally, in compliance with the energetic signalling of the councillor, they halted and began to parley.

The while the trek had not halted, and the two waggons already over the ridge were proceeding down the rugged hillside with the utmost care and deliberation. Suddenly Dawes beheld a quick, cunning expression of triumph flit across the face of the hostage, and following the glance of the latter, the curtain of despair descended in black folds once more upon his heart.

For the veldt was alive with warriors, swarming down from the ridge, charging forward in silence, swift in deadly fixity of purpose. They had already passed the cattle herds, and were making straight for himself.

“Order them back, Sonkwana! Order them back!” cried Dawes again, this time drawing his revolver and pointing it straight at the head of the hostage.

But the latter saw his chance, or thought he did. Ducking his head suddenly, he made a rapid plunge to the side, intending, so near were his tribesmen, to fling himself into their ranks. The trader in his flurry and dismay would be certain to miss his aim, he reckoned.

He reckoned without his host, however. Instead of the ball whistling through empty air where his head had been but a moment before, Dawes’s eye, keen as a razor, quick as lightning, had marked the move. By a sort of backward throw of the hand he covered the fleeing form of the foolhardy Sonkwana, and pressed the trigger. The chief’s councillor toppled heavily forward on his face, and lay with outstretched arms. He was stone dead.

What followed was appalling. The report of the pistol was completely drowned in the wild roar of rage that went up. The first life had been taken, and that life a valuable one.

“Stand back!” cried Dawes, his eyes flashing fire.

He might as well have tried to make his voice heard amid the thunder of an Atlantic gale beating among the rocks of the Lizard, or have tried to force back the power of its gigantic surges. His double gun levelled low, he poured the contents of the smooth barrel, loaded heavily with loepers– a large variety of buck shot – into the dense crowd. The result was terrible.

It was all he had time to do, though. The wild, shrill yells of pain were drowned in the thunderous din, as the resistless volume of the charge poured over him. He had a vague recollection of once again raking the closely packed assailants with his other barrel ere he was swept from his feet, and hurled half-stunned to the earth, and of a fierce, grim feeling of satisfaction that he had sold his life pretty dearly. Then the gleaming blades of spears flashed before, his eyes, and he knew his last hour had come.

Still their points did not pierce him. Half-stunned, half-dazed, he became aware that some one was standing over him, averting the threatened blows. Collecting his scattered senses, he stared and stared again at this unexpected preserver. He recognised Vunawayo.

He was seized and held fast, and amid many a brutal kick and blow, his hands and feet were securely bound, and he was flung into the waggon like a log of wood. Then with wild yells and shouting, the Igazipuza forced round the oxen, and compelling the terrified servants to obey their behests, and lead and drive the spans, they started upon their triumphant return amid an indescribable scene of tumultuous rejoicing.

At the first onset Sintoba had drawn the assegai which he carried concealed about his person, and had leaped to the assistance of his master. Had tried to, that is, for he, too, had been overwhelmed and borne down by the impetuous fury of the rush. The same fate had overtaken those in charge of the hindmost waggon, except one of the young leaders whom the savages had slaughtered in the first fierce caprice of their blood-lust, and whose corpse, ripped up and otherwise hideously hacked, lay by the wayside as they returned. The other servants, as we have said, they compelled to engineer the waggons.

Battered, bruised, his bones nearly broken, his joints racked well-nigh to dislocation point by the terrific jolting, poor Dawes lay where they had thrown him, grinding his teeth in his impotent rage and pain. Better to have been killed outright, he thought. He was only spared for some lingering torture – the hideous stake of impalement, most likely. Many had fallen at his hand in that brief moment – their spirits would be satisfied by no less a sacrifice.

The savages, running beside the waggons, jeered at his sufferings.

“Does it hurt – does it hurt, Jandosi?” they cried, as an extra big jolt would nearly brain the unfortunate man. “Ah! ah! there are some things that hurt far more – far more!”

Thus in wild and riotous shouting the whole crowd arrived once more at the gate of the Igazipuza kraal – and here the terrible confusion of the tumult beggars description – the shrill nasal singing of the women who turned out to meet them, the yelping clamour of dogs, the howling of those whose relatives were slain, and the sonorous rhythm of the war-song, all mingled together in the most ear-splitting, brain-stunning din.

Sintoba and his fellows, having outspanned in compliance with the peremptory orders of their captors, were seized and unceremoniously bound. Then poor Dawes was hauled out of the waggon and brutally dragged through the kraal, amid kicks and cuffs, to where the chief was sitting. Then he was flung roughly and anyhow upon the ground.

For some moments did Ingonyama contemplate the helpless form of his captive in silence, and in his massive countenance was a gleam of ruthless, vengeful ferocity. He had sat in fear, here on this very spot, the last time this white man occupied it with him – in fear of his life, be, Ingonyama, the chief of the redoubted Igazipuza. Now the tables were turned. This miserable captive, bruised, helpless, lying there half-stunned, should taste what it meant to tread on the paw of the lion.

“Well, Jandosi?” he began sneeringly. “You are a bird whose song is over loud; yet now surely are your wings cut.”

If John Dawes’s bodily attitude was abject, it was only through force of circumstances. His mental one was very far from having attained that state. With a painful effort he succeeded, amid the jeering laughter of the spectators, in raising himself to an upright sitting posture.

“You are right, Ingonyama,” he replied. “My song is over loud – for you. It is even how being sung at Undini, in ears in which it is bad for you that it shall be poured. Did I not tell you my ‘tongue’ was a long one and spoke far? Even now it speaks.”

“Hi! And did I not tell you that we have a Tooth here which can bite it short? You and your ‘tongue’ shall be bitten on The Tooth, Jandosi!”

“Ehé! E-hé!” roared the listeners. “To The Tooth, to The Tooth with him!”

It was the hour of sunset, and the sweet golden glow fell upon a wild sea of ferocious figures, of hideous mouthing faces and gleaming spear-blades. The whole population had mustered within the kraal, and were crowding up, striving to obtain a view of the chief and his councillors and the white prisoner; and again and again from the savage roaring throats went up the fiendish shout.

“To The Tooth! to The Tooth!”

“Even now I do not fear you, Ingonyama,” went on the trader, intrepidly. “For my death will surely be avenged – ay, as surely as yonder sun will rise to-morrow. It may be that the might of the king will rise up and stamp flat this tribe of abatagati (those who practise arts of wizardry); it may be that my own countrymen will. But it shall surely be done, ye who call yourselves Igazipuza, and my death shall be avenged.”