Chapter VII: 'oh, for a Horse with Wings!'

Jerry lay long when we left him last in a state of semi-unconsciousness, thoughts of his past life rather than of his present most perilous and deplorable predicament hovering in his mind. He sometimes imagined himself at the mess, and heard the voices and saw the faces of Goring, Dalton, Frank Fleming, and others; anon he was in the Long Valley at Aldershot skirmishing with his company, or riding a hurdle-race by Twesildown Hill. Then came dreams of the ball at Wilmothurst and of Bella Chevenix in all her beauty, and his cold, pale, passionless mother. Again he was in the playing-fields at Eton--again chosen stroke of the Oxford boat. All these floated before him with an overwhelming sense of pain in his head, as once again he struggled back to the world and a full sense of the awful horror of his situation came upon him. Thankful we may be that, as Pope has it,

'Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate,
All but the page prescribed, their present state.'

The prospect of Jerry's future made his heart seem to die within him.

The sun was shining brightly now, and save the loud hum of insect life no sound was in the air or around him. A heavy odour of burnt wood and of moist thatch came upon the passing wind from where the fires of the past night were still smouldering in Coomassie, and once more staggering up Jerry looked around him.

He was alone--left in the bush to perish; and his comrades, where were they?

Miles on the happy homeward march to the coast, with the swollen rivers all unbridged and impassable in their rear!

He saw it all--he felt it all, and knew that he was a lost man. Feeble, defenceless, and single-handed he would fall a victim to the first savage and infuriated Ashantee he met, and his skull would soon be laid as an ornament--a royal trophy--at the foot of the king.

A heavy moan escaped poor Jerry; but the love of life, the instinct of self-preservation is strong in human nature, and his first thought was to endeavour to follow the army.

At a pool he bathed his head and face, washed away the plastered blood that encrusted all the vicinity of the wound on his head, and bound the latter up with his handkerchief. He luckily found his light helmet in the hollow where he had lain unseen by his comrades, and, after giving a glance to the chambers of his loaded revolver, endeavoured to follow as closely as he could the track that led he knew towards the army--the track the latter must have trodden.

But he frequently lost it, vast swamps and sheets of water were formed now where none had been before, and he had to make harassing detours; his powers and his steps were feeble, thus his progress was slow and often doubtful, and ever and anon he had to pause and look around him, fearing that in the dingles of the woody wilderness he might see the dark and agile figure of a hostile savage.

Mid-day came when he was certain that he could have made but a very few miles of progress, and gasping with heat, giddy and weary, he crept under the shadow of a dense leafy bush to rest and conceal himself.

Could he have been certain of the route, he knew that it would have been safer to travel by night, but in the night he must fail to see the traces of it, and now, with weariness and pain, a great horror of the whole situation came upon him, and he could but mutter again and again,

'Alone--alone in the bush--to die! God help me!'

Poor Jerry was a popular, light-hearted, prosperous, and happy young fellow, whom every one liked and to whom pleasant things happened every day. He was wont to own that he found every one kind and every one nice, and in society, of course, he met many people. Wherever Jerry had gone, at school, at college, or with the Rifles, he converted strangers into acquaintances, and acquaintances soon became his friends. Wherever he went invitations to dinners, balls, drums, lawn-tennis, and other parties flowed upon him, for he was decidedly a popular young fellow, with the girls especially.

All that seemed ended!

To Jerry, accustomed as he had been to the sunny side of life, and to float without a thought upon its rippling and glittering current, there was something worse than death in his present predicament. He could understand being shot in action, and then being buried in a hole or left unburied to the fowls of the air, but this struggle against destruction--this living death--was utterly beyond all his calculations!

He partook sparingly of the contents of his haversack, reflecting the while on what must inevitably ensue when the last of that support for exhausted nature was expended, for he could not escape a death by starvation even if he escaped death by other means.

Without food, without comrades, without help or means to cross the swollen rivers! The perspiration burst in beads upon his temples; his pulsation caused the aching of his contused wound to become agony; his muscles grew rigid, he set his teeth, and began to surmise how long he would last--how long he could endure all that must be before him now, while muttering again,

'Alone in the bush to die--God help me!'

He had in his haversack rations for three days; even if he could make them last for seven, his resource would end then; and, even while sheltered by the giant leaves which abounded there, the baleful night dews might induce fever and ague, while the waters that barred his progress were more likely to rise than to fall, as the rainy season, which had made Sir Garnet Wolseley begin his sudden retreat, had now commenced.

Tidings that he had perished would soon be telegraphed to England; many there, he knew, would regret him; with something of a bitter smile he remembered the farewell parting with his cold, aristocratic mother, and then the thought of Bella perhaps becoming--for she was known to be rich--the bride of the horsey Lord Twesildown.

The thought of that nerved him to exertion; the sun was verging westward now, and once more, with feeble steps and slow he took to the track again, half blinded at times by the crimson glare of light that poured between the stems of the trees, for the track he had to pursue was then straight in the wake of the setting sun.

He could form no idea of the distance he had gone, but the odour of burned wood which reached him from time to time warned him that he was still unpleasantly near Coomassie, and more than once sounds that came upon the wind like a savage shout and the distant beating of a war-drum, made him creep into the jungle for concealment, and thus lose time, when, if he would hope to overtake the army, now many miles on their homeward way, every moment was most precious.

At last, when night, with tropical swiftness, had descended he found his progress hopelessly barred by that great sheet of water which we have already referred to--a reach of five hundred yards in breadth that rolled now at a place through which in advancing the army had passed dry-shod.

'Out of the running!' exclaimed poor Jerry, using his home phraseology; 'oh, heavens! how to bridge this sea that lies between me and the troops? Oh, for a horse with wings!' he added, unconsciously quoting the exclamation of Cymbeline.

When night fell no resource was left him but to remain there and gaze with haggard eyes and a desponding heart at the cruel sheet of water that lay between him and probable safety.

Brightly, as on the New Year's night that saw the troops landing on that fatal shore, the moon was shining now--brighter even; never had Jerry seen such brilliancy. In all the vast expanse of the firmament overhead there was not a vestige of cloud. Millions of stars were there, but their splendour was dimmed or obscured by the splendid effulgence of the moon. The vast leaves of plants, whose names were all unknown to the lost Jerry, were shining in dew as if diamonds had rained from heaven; every giant cotton-tree and palm, every rock and fissure were illuminated, and the birds flew to and fro as if a new day had dawned, but a day of silver, icy-like splendour, and clear as in a mirror were the shadows of the trees and graceful palms reflected downward in the sheet of water that glittered in the sheen.

But that he was so weary and faint Jerry would have availed himself of this wonderful moonlight and endeavoured to get round the flank of the vast sheet of water that barred his progress, and which reflected the radiance like a mighty sheet of crystal; but he was compelled to wait till morning, and again sought shelter under some jungly bushes.

Near the place he saw several broken meat tins and empty bottles scattered about, indicating where some of our troops had halted before the final march was made into Coomassie; and he regarded with interest and anxiety these vestiges which proved that he was in the right track could he but cross the intervening flood.

With his very existence trembling in the balance with fate, what a small matter now seemed the mortgages over Wilmothurst and every consideration save the love of Bella Chevenix; and while he strove to court sleep--oblivion in that savage wilderness, where no sound met the ear save the plash of falling dew as some overcharged leaf bent downward; his whole soul was full of her image--the image of her he too probably should never, never see again.

With earliest dawn he was again afoot and seeking to get round the reach of water, but it trended away through hollows far to the north and south, yet with an aching heart he struggled manfully at his task. On every hand towered up to the height of two hundred and fifty feet or more, straight as stone columns, the cotton-trees, like the giants of primeval vegetation, and round their bases flourished the wondrous undergrowth of jungle, under which again grew white lilies, pink flowers, and dog-roses; amid which could be heard sharp trumpetings of enormous mosquitoes, with the monotonous too-too of the wild doves, which alone broke the silence of the bush.

'This silence,' wrote one who served in the campaign, 'this apparently never-ending forest, this monotony of rank vegetation, this absence of a breath of wind to rustle a leaf, becomes oppressive, and the feeling is not lessened by the dampness and heaviness of the air, and by the malarious exhalation and odour of decaying vegetation which rise from the swamps.'

The report of a musket at no great distance, followed by the noise made by some wounded animal crashing through the forest. compelled Jerry, with a heart that beat wildly with agitation and alarm, to conceal himself instantly; and he had hardly done so, when four armed Ashantees, with muscular mahogany-coloured forms, gleaming eyes, and shining teeth, passed near him and continued to hover about, as if scouting or in pursuit of game.

This compelled him to lie for hours _en perdu_, and evening began to close again without his having got round the reach of water that lay between him and the way to Prah, and even if he ever did reach the banks of that stream how was he to cross it? for he was not a swimmer.

On this night there was no moon, for the clouds were densely massed in the heavens; the rain fell in torrents, and though sheltered therefrom in the hollow of a rock Jerry listened to the crashing sound of the vast drops falling in a ceaseless shower, with a species of dull despair, for higher than ever would the waters rise now; his food was failing him, and he gave himself up for utterly lost.

With dawn the rain departed, and the sun exhaled a dense steamy mist from the drenched forest; but Jerry dared not leave his lair, for more than once in the distance he heard distinctly cries, strange sounds, and the explosion of firearms, showing evidently that scouting parties of Ashantees were hovering about, if it were not their whole army following up ours, which must be, he knew, at a vast distance then.

He had now come to his last biscuit, and finding all still when night fell he again addressed himself to the task of attempting to ford the water at a place where it seemed shallow. The sky was again cloudy, veiling most of the stars, and the moon had not yet risen.

At that point the forest was open for a great space, and luxuriant grass and reed-like rushes covered all the soil. Weak and weary, stiff and sore, though he had lurked in concealment all day, he staggered like a drunken man as he approached the water, but ere he could enter it some uncertain sounds made him look behind. He saw the gleam of arms, the flash of steel in the starlight; and then, coming upon him at a rush, apparently were some twenty men, emerging swiftly from the forest he had left; and though he drew his sword and grasped his revolver, resolved to sell his life bitterly and dearly, so enfeebled was his frame, and so great was the shock--the horror--he experienced at the prospect of the terrible death which so surely awaited him, after all he had endured and undergone, that he fell prone on his face and scarcely remembered more, as they closed in wild tumult around him.