Chapter III: How the Vow Was Kept (1)

A year had gone by since that memorable night, and had brought great events in its train.

The power at which all India had so lately trembled was now broken at once and for ever. At Delhi, at Laswaree, at Assaye, at Argaum, the Mahratta conquerors of Central India, with all odds of numbers and artillery in their favour, had fought gallantly to maintain their well-won renown; but numbers and artillery alike, and the utmost efforts of reckless valour, were all vain against the unconquerable "white faces from the West." From the Indian Ocean to the Bay of Bengal, not one native army was left that could look the soldiers of England in the face; and, both at home and throughout India, all men were full of the marvellous exploits of a promising young British commander, then known only as General Wellesley, but ere long to fill the whole world with the fame of the Duke of Wellington.

The East India Company's army had been increased by the formation of several new regiments; and one of the best of these was now commanded by Colonel Hardman, who had been transferred to a newly-built fort about a day's march from his former post at Huttee-Ghur.

Freddy was by this time quite well and strong again; but his father--from whose mind the haunting terror of that fearful summer was never wholly absent--had fully made up his mind to deprive himself of his son's company altogether, rather than take the risk of keeping him any longer in the fatal climate of India; and it had been settled that as soon as the country was quiet enough to make travelling safe, the boy should be sent down to Calcutta, and put on board of the first ship for England.

* * * * *

Evening was just beginning to darken into night, when a gaunt, haggard, wild-looking man in native dress, with a long gun on his shoulder, dragged his weary limbs heavily out of the matted thickets that fringed both sides of the road leading north-eastward to the border of Oude, and threw himself on the ground with a surly oath, which was hoarsely echoed by two other figures, as ragged and dusty as himself, that came creeping out after him.

Curiously enough, though all three were dressed as Hindus, and were very nearly as dark in complexion, they all spoke in _English_.

"Plenty o' dead wood for a fire, anyhow," growled the first man; "but wot's the use? It's jist like our luck, ain't it, Tom, to have a good fire and nothin' to cook at it!"

"Well, it'll keep the tigers off, if it does nothin' else," said Tom Tuffen; "though, if they _was_ to eat us, Bob," added he, with a meaning glance at his own lean hands, "they'd have pretty nigh as poor a supper as we're a-goin' to have ourselves."

"Why, there's some o' them _chupatties_ (thin flour cakes) left yet, ain't there, Sam?" cried Bob Burton sharply.

"Two apiece, Bob--that's all!" replied Sam Black, producing the scanty provisions as he spoke, while his two comrades hastily scraped together and set on fire a heap of dead twigs and withered leaves, round which the wanderers stretched themselves in moody silence.

The meagre meal was eaten without a word; and, in truth, the three outcasts had but too good reason to be so silent and gloomy.

After the breaking up of the robber band which they had joined, they had taken service with one native prince after another, and had passed through all the vicissitudes of wild Eastern warfare. Now revelling in short-lived luxury--now fighting for their lives against terrible odds--now heading a mutiny for arrears of pay, and sacking the palace of their so-called master--one week filling their pockets with precious stones and gold _mohurs_ (to be instantly flung away in the wildest freaks of excess), and then a week later, struggling half-starved through swamp and jungle, with a swarm of merciless foes in hot pursuit--they had compressed into those few months the perils and adventures of a whole lifetime.

And what had all this profited them? Nothing. All their rich gains, all their daring feats, had left them as poor, and destitute, and hopeless as before.

In fact, their future seemed even darker than their past; for no one knew better than they that the savage despot of Oude--for whose court they were now making, as a last resource--even should he admit them among his soldiers, might any day reward them for their services by torturing them to death, or flinging them to the crocodiles of the Goomtee.[5]

[5] It was not till 1856 (under the rule of Lord Dalhousie) that Oude was annexed to the British dominions; and, up to that time, the misrule of its native princes was the byword of all India. A favourite pastime with one of these model sovereigns was the sudden letting loose of a number of venomous snakes in the midst of a crowd of market-people!

"I'll tell yer wot hurts _me_ most," muttered Bob Burton at last, in the tone of a man thinking aloud, rather than actually addressing his comrades; "to think o' them pals of our'n in the old regiment fightin' like men agin them coffee-coloured' heathens, one agin a dozen--and lickin' 'em too, every time--and every one in the old country's a-praisin' _them_, and calling 'em 'eroes; and we--wot have _we_ been doin' all the while? Why, thievin' and murderin' along with a lot o' sneakin' blackamoors!"

"Aye," cried Tom Tuffen fiercely, "that's jist how _I_ felt that time at Krishnabad, when I axed that old sepoy as comed there with the major, to give me a drink o' water. D'ye remember wot the old chap said? 'Ismail Beg gives his _lotah_ (brass cup) to no man who is not worthy. I am a _nimmuk-wallah_[6]--I have been true to my salt; but what art _thou_?' Now, how do you think a Englishman feels when he finds out that even a common blackamoor's ashamed of him!"

[6] Literally "salt fellow"--a phrase implying that a man has been, as the Hindus say, "true to his salt."

"And d'ye see that 'ere flag yonder?" added Sam Black grimly, as he pointed to the British colours that waved jauntily in the last gleam of sunset, above the low white wall of a fort not more than a mile away. "That's the English flag, that is; and here be three Englishmen as daren't show their faces a-nigh it!"

Then followed a long and gloomy silence, each of the three unhappy men being wholly absorbed in his own sombre thoughts, as if they had now begun to realise, for the first time, the full depth of their degradation, and felt at last the whole bitterness of the harrowing contrast between what they might have been and what they were.

"It's all _his_ fault!" muttered Bob Burton at length, his voice sounding strange and hollow amid the deepening darkness. "If he hadn't druv us to it, we wouldn't have j'ined Kala Bagh's riff-raff; and if we hadn't took up with them, we shouldn't ha' been where we are now. By Jingo, if I could have a wish granted me just this very minute, I knows wot it 'ud be!"

"To cotch _'im_ somewhere by hisself, and pay him out once for all--eh, Bob?" said Tom Tuffen, in a hoarse whisper.

Burton nodded silently, and Sam Black gave an assenting growl, as deadly in its meaning as the hiss of a rattlesnake.

But that menacing sound died away into a stifled gasp of terror, as there started out all at once from the encircling blackness into the ring of light cast by the fire--plain before the startled eyes of all three--a slender white figure, and a bright, smooth, child-like face, framed in golden hair!

"Is it a h'angel, Bob?" asked Sam Black, in a tremulous whisper.

"A h'angel, you fool!" said Burton, with grim scorn; "what have h'angels got to do with the likes of us? It's the devil as _we_ b'longs to, and he'll have his own some day!"

But, at the sound of Burton's voice, the apparition sprang forward and called out joyfully, in accents that were familiar to them all--

"Is that you, Bob? Oh, I _am_ so glad! Come along with me, quick!"

And the desperate man suddenly felt his hard, bony hand clutched by the small, soft fingers of a child.

"Why, if it ain't the little 'un hisself!" cried Sam Black, in a tone of joyful recognition, as he laid his strong hand caressingly on the boy's shoulder.

"How come _you_ here, laddie, all by yourself?" asked Tom Tuffen, stepping forward on the other side.

"Father--come and help father!" was Freddy's only reply, as he caught hold of Tom's arm with his other hand.

"What, is _he_ with you?" cried Burton, with a sudden and terrible change on his worn face, which was instantly answered by a murderous gleam in the eyes of his two comrades.

"The horse came down with us--it took fright at your fire, I think--and my father fell with his leg under it--and I tried to pull him out, and couldn't; so then I ran to fetch help."

The three castaways exchanged looks of terrible meaning, without uttering a word.

Seldom indeed have such men been tried by such a temptation. Here was the vengeance for which they had just been longing, placed all at once within their very grasp. Here was the man whom they most hated in all the world, lying bruised and helpless, and wholly at their mercy; and even if they did not care to kill him themselves, all that was needed was simply to leave him to his fate. But then the boy--the boy--!

"Make haste--how slow you are!" cried Freddy imperiously. "Come and get him out--quick!"

And, as if his overwhelming excitement had really made him stronger, for the moment, than the two big, hardy men whom he was urging on, both made a step forward as he spoke, with the mechanical, unconscious movement of men walking in their sleep.

But hardly had they turned toward the high-road (close beside which lay the hollow wherein the colonel and his horse had fallen), when the whole forest shook with a terrific roar--the roar of a hungry tiger springing on its prey.[7]

[7] The presence of a tiger so close to a beaten road is (as I can bear witness from my own experience) not at all an unheard-of thing in Northern India even at the present day.--D. K.

"Oh, the tiger--the tiger!" screamed Freddy, "he'll get father!"

And he flew like an arrow in the direction of the sound.

If ever Bob and his comrades had run in their lives, they did so then. But ere they could reach the fatal spot, there came a second roar, louder and fiercer than the last--a wild, despairing cry--and then all was still.

* * * * *

When the tiger made his spring upon the prostrate horse and rider, the cool old soldier, unarmed and helpless as he was, did not give himself up for lost even then, shrewdly guessing that between a large and well-fed horse and a lean dried-up man, the monster's choice would be soon made.

And so it proved. One crunch of the destroyer's mighty jaws broke the poor beast's neck, and in a moment more the tiger was rending the yet quivering carcass with tooth and claw.

And now, could the colonel have lain still where he was, all might yet have gone well. The tiger, when gorged, would probably have gone off without troubling itself about _him_; nay, it might perhaps have dragged away the dead horse to serve it for a second meal, and thus have freed the imprisoned man from the weight that kept him down.

But it was not to be. The pain of that heavy pressure on his hurt limb made him impatient; and his hitherto unyielding nerves were sorely shaken (as, in truth, they might well be) by thus hearing, close to his very face, the tearing of his favourite horse piecemeal by the cruel fangs that might at any moment be buried in his own flesh. Feeling the pressure of the dead beast lightened for an instant as the tiger tugged at it and rocked it to and fro, he imprudently attempted to drag himself out from beneath it.

It was a fatal error. The moment he stirred, the tiger was upon him!

For one instant, while his thick military cloak hampered the monster's teeth, he saw the fierce yellow eyes glare into his, and felt the hot, foul, rank breath steaming on his face. Instinctively he uttered one last cry for help--and then--!

There was a trample of hurrying feet--a hoarse shout--the crackle of three shots fired in quick succession--and the terror of the jungle lay dead over his victim's body, just as a native patrol, alarmed by the noise, came racing up to the spot.

Hardman was promptly freed, and, to his son's vast relief, proved to have escaped with unbroken bones, though sorely bruised and shaken; for the tiger's fangs had not reached him, and the trench into which he had fallen had saved him from the full weight of the horse's body.

The lights carried by the patrol, as well as the cloudless splendour of the rising moon, made the whole scene as clear as day; and Colonel Hardman at once recognised his three rescuers, who, seeing that he knew them, and cut off from escape by the coming-up of the native soldiers, stood waiting in sullen silence to hear what he would say.

"I don't ask who you are, and I don't want to know," said the colonel to them, with a peculiar emphasis which all three fully understood. "I can see that you are Englishmen, and that you have been down on your luck; and, at all events, I owe you a good turn for saving my life. You look like the sort of fellows that I should like to have as recruits for my new regiment--what do you say?"

What they said no one heard save themselves and the colonel. But when, thirty-two years later, Colonel Hardman (General Hardman by that time), was laid at rest beneath the elms of the quiet English churchyard of his native village, foremost among those who bore him to the grave walked, side by side with his famous son, Major Frederick Hardman, a stalwart, grey-haired, soldier-like man named Bob Burton, who had nursed the dying general, night and day, through the last hours of his final illness, and had felt amply repaid for all by the light of grateful affection that shone for a moment in the sunken eyes of his old enemy, just ere they settled into stillness for ever.

IN LUCK'S WAY

BY FRED. WHISHAW

Matters were proceeding satisfactorily enough at Gerstonville, a farm lying some thirty miles north-east of Buluwayo, in Rhodesia. Richard Gerston had had the luck to peg out a fairly rich claim when, after the finish of the first Matabele war and the fall of old Lobengula, Buluwayo and the surrounding territories fell into the hands of the Company. Gerston had taken an honourable share in the fighting, and shared also in the privileges held out towards those who had been actively engaged in the war; and though his hopes--or dreams, as perhaps it would be more correct to call them--his dreams of finding gold upon his claim had not been realised, or had remained practically unrealised (for there were signs of gold here and there, though the precious metal had not been found in paying quantities), yet the soil was excellent, and his crops and his live-stock were doing wonders--so well indeed, that after a few months Gerston had felt justified in sending for his wife and two children from the Cape, where, for the present, they had remained waiting in anxious expectancy for the message which would enable them to start northwards in order to begin a new life in a new home in this new country.

For a year or two everything flourished. The farm had become a bit of England, though with African surroundings. Gerston's son Bruce, a lad of fifteen, was as much help to his father in the farm during working hours as his sister Kittie was to her mother in the house; while in the evening English outdoor games were the vogue; squash cricket especially, in which all the family took part, including Mrs. Gerston, who, however, according to the dictum of Bruce, "wasn't much good," and Kittie, who "played a much stronger game." Bruce had even attempted to teach a few Mashona labourers employed on the farm to wield the willow, but the result had been conspicuous failure; for not one of them displayed the smallest capacity for understanding the rules of the game, nor much inclination to run about or exert themselves after the fatigues of the day's work on the farm.

It was a beautiful summer's evening, during one of these games of "squash cricket," which was played on the rough turf outside the house, that a stranger strolled into the enclosure, an Englishman, though a hot and unkempt one, and stood still for a moment or two as his eye fell upon the unusual scene (in this part of the world) being enacted before him.

"Lord!" he muttered, "that's good! It does one good to see it."

Then he came forward, and Gerston, who was batsman on this occasion, catching sight of him, handed his bat to Kittie, and advanced to meet the stranger.

"You're welcome," he said. "Have you come far? We don't often have a visitor here afoot."

The stranger was an elderly man, though evidently wiry and active as a cat. He carried a rifle, and was dressed in "veldt" boots and the usual and appropriate costume of the country, much travel-stained and out of repair; his bearded face was lined and worn; he looked in need of rest, though obviously a hard man.

"I've come a goodish number of miles, mate, one way or another, and on my feet all the way; pretty well all over Rhodesia, you might say, and I've spent two years and more in doing it. Ah, and spent 'em well, too!" he added, with a wink, "and don't you make any mistake about it."

Gerston smiled.

"Prospecting, I daresay," he said.

The stranger nodded. "I don't choose my claim in a hurry," he continued; "I prefer to go the round and look about me. This seems a nice place. Any gold?"

"Not much," laughed Gerston; "just enough to keep us hoping for more; but the land's A1, and I'm not doing so badly."

"Ah!" ejaculated the other. "Good, good; you employ these Mashona rascals, I see. Well, look out if you're wise."

Gerston laughed again.

"Oh yes," he said, "I will look out; my Mashona boys are thoroughly domesticated; besides, they know when they are well off."

"Maybe," said the stranger; "but there is trouble in the air. I have not tramped all Rhodesia for nothing. I have seen what I have seen, and I have heard what I have heard."

Gerston received this Sphinx-like pronouncement with a smile, and the pair having by this time reached the house, the stranger was shown to his room, as naturally as though he had been an invited and expected guest.

There was no question of his begging a bed, or of any expression by Gerston of apologetical regret that the house was full; his welcome was a matter of course, for in the veldt open house is kept after the old-established Dutch fashion, and no one possessing a white skin and a smattering of European civilisation need sleep out in the air for want of a bed and a meal inside of four walls, if there be a settler's dwelling within ken.

The stranger gave his name as "Uncle Ben," and stayed for several days. He paid, as he expressed it, for his keep by giving Gerston the benefit of his experience as a prospector for gold, tramping the claim from end to end, accompanied by the boy Bruce, to whom he seemed to take a great fancy; but though this odd pair visited together every corner of the estate, and examined carefully every little kopje and gully in the place, Uncle Ben's verdict was quite unfavourable. There wasn't gold enough in the claim, he said, so far as he could judge, to coin a five-dollar piece, and the whole claim, from the point of view of the gold-seeker, was "not worth a tinker's curse."

As he delivered himself of this doleful dictum, the stranger suddenly produced a tobacco pouch, which he opened forthwith and held out to his host.

"See here," he said, "_that's_ gold now--the real article, and I know--well, I know what I know."

"Which means, I suppose, that you could tell me where to find more of it," laughed Gerston. "Well, you're a lucky chap, and I wish you all success. When you want a partner to work the place you can come along to me."

"Ah!" said Uncle Ben sagely, "who knows?"

And Gerston, talking over this conversation afterwards with his wife, laughingly declared that he believed if the old fellow's pockets were overhauled, certain mysterious hieroglyphics intended to form a rough map would be found, and that this map would be the clue to some valuable gold shaft of which he had discovered, or imagined that he had discovered, the existence.

"There are plenty in Mashonaland," Gerston ended, "if only one could hit upon them."

Uncle Ben, as he insisted upon being called, proved a grand acquisition in the evenings, for he possessed a wonderful fund of stories, experiences of his own mostly; and these he was never tired of airing for the benefit of his listeners, of whom he had four in this house, all of the kind most charming to the narrator, because they were frankly and obviously interested and amused.

If his tales were to be believed--and the old man was accustomed to vow most solemnly that the experiences narrated were absolutely authentic--he had certainly been through every kind of adventure that the ingenuity of a humorous destiny could have invented at his expense: adventures with lions, with elephants, with Matabele warriors; perils by water and by land; in a word, every kind of experience likely to interest and enthral a listener had been his; and though, perhaps, listeners of the age of Bruce were the most delighted by his tales, they pleased almost equally listeners of any age, for they bore the stamp of truth.

It was natural, therefore, that young Bruce soon began to look upon the sturdy old stranger as a hero of the first water, a king among men, a person to be admired and loved and imitated, if the opportunity should ever arise; a mental condition on the part of Bruce which was confirmed by each new story of triumph over lions or other beasts, or of barely escaped capture by Matabeles or other bad characters.

It was while in the midst of an exciting tale of a night spent in the bare veldt within a hundred or two paces of an entire Matabele _impi_, during the whole of which time he dared not sleep, and scarcely allowed himself to breathe lest they should hear him; and of how at a critical moment he had sneezed--it was, in fact, exactly as Uncle Ben had reached this most critical point in his story that the sound of galloping hoofs suddenly became distinctly audible in the breathless silence into which the old man had been pouring out his yarns.

"Stop one minute, mate," said Gerston, rising; "let us see who this is. The letter-carrier, I daresay, though he doesn't generally ride that pace."

Gerston rose and went to the door. A moment later the panting horse of the new arrival pulled up at the garden gate, and the rider threw the reins over his animal's neck.

"Give me a drink, mate," he said, "I'm dead parched. Anything will do--water, or milk, or cold tea. I've brought awful news, but I can't speak till I've drunk."

"Brandy and water?" suggested Gerston; and the stranger nodding acquiescence, he was soon in possession of the "long" drink he craved.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, setting down the empty glass, "that's better. Well, the natives are up; they have risen, and are murdering the English wherever they can find them. Are you well armed here? Can you hold the house against a siege? You may have a visit from the blackguards before the night's out."

The communication, absolutely unexpected by most of those present, fell like a bomb into the midst of the company. Gerston drew in his breath with a gasp, glancing at his wife and young Kittie, both of whom looked white and scared, though Mrs. Gerston showed her spirit by answering in a moment and with brave words her husband's eloquent glance--

"We've plenty of weapons and ammunition, and both Kittie and I can shoot a bit, if required," she said. "We shall know how to give you a helping hand, Dick; and we are not afraid, are we, Kittie?"

"Oh no, father," said Kittie, whose trembling lips proved, however, that she had not quite recovered the shock of the news.

"Well, ladies, you're a pair of the right sort, if I may say so," continued the new-comer, "and let me tell you, you'll want all your pluck and all your powder, for they can't relieve you from Buluwayo for several days; and you'll have to remember these blackguards don't spare women and children. I found poor Smithson and his wife both murdered and their house burned this very morning, before I got to their place to warn them. I'm on my rounds warning the farmers about; but God knows whether I can go any farther, for--see here--I've lost some blood; and to tell the truth, what with that and fatigue, I don't rightly know whether I'm standing on my heels or my head."

The stranger turned as he spoke, revealing a stained bandage beneath his Norfolk-coat at the neck.

"A spent assegai," he explained; "it caught me just in the fleshy bit between shoulder and neck; it was shied from an ambush as I galloped by; a few more inches one way and I should have been done for. That's the party which is heading in this direction."

"How far off was that?" asked Gerston, while his wife ran for warm water and a clean bandage.

"Ten miles," said the other, "more or less. You'd better begin fixing up your zareba at once. What's the nearest farm to yours, going east?"

"There isn't one nearer than Thomson's at the Black Kopje, twenty-five miles away; several places are bought up in between, but the owners haven't settled in yet."

"So much the better for them. Twenty-five miles? Lord! I don't know how I'm going to do it. You'd swop a horse for mine, no doubt; but in plain truth I'm fagged out, and this wound is burning like fire and fury just now!"

"Let me go instead of him, father!" suddenly exclaimed young Bruce. "I know the way, every inch of it; I could ride Donald over in an hour and a half."

Gerston looked pleased, but shook his head--

"No, no, my boy," he said, "that wouldn't do; you're not man enough yet, though I'm glad to see you've the spirit to offer. I shall ride across myself, for it's clear our poor friend here can go no farther to-day. Be getting Donald ready for me, Bruce lad, while I start with the defences."

But neither his wife nor Kittie would hear of allowing Gerston to leave them and go out upon this dangerous enterprise. He must stay, whoever else went, and look after his property and the lives of those who were dear to him.

"Let Bruce go rather than you," the mother ended, her eyes full of tears and a choke in her voice.

"Yes, do, father; let me go!" said Bruce.

"With apologies for interrupting family arrangements," began the old stranger, who chose to be called Uncle Ben, "I am the one that's got to go, and as soon as some of you have explained the road and lent me a nag, I'm off. You may be proud of this youngster of yours, boss; he's a lad of spirit, and he'll do well. Now which way do I go--north, south, east, or west?"

"I really don't know that we ought to allow you to risk your life," Gerston began hesitatingly. "The road's difficult to find if you don't know it, and it wouldn't do to get one's self lost in the veldt with those confounded chaps about, looking for white bodies to chuck their assegais at. You'd better let me go, mother; I can take pretty good care of myself; I shall be back by morning."

"Excuse me, mate," said Uncle Ben, "but I ain't one to be put off from his purpose by the danger of meeting a few Mashona fellows with assegais; I've something here that shoots straighter and harder and farther, in case it's wanted. Come, how does one steer, and what about a horse?"

It was obviously useless to waste argument upon the old fellow. His mind was made up, and it was quickly decided to let him have his way; the more so since, as a matter of fact, it was convenient enough that he should go, rather than Gerston, whose place was undoubtedly at the side of his wife and daughter, and at the head of those who would assist him to defend their lives and his property.

So Uncle Ben was duly instructed as to the road to Thomson's farm; and now it became evident that descriptions intended to direct a ride of twenty-five miles over the veldt are apt to bewilder as much as to enlighten, and that the old fellow's mind had been considerably mixed by his instructions as to the way he should go on reaching this belt of jungle or that kopje.

"You'd better let me go with him, father!" said persistent Bruce; "the cleverest veldt-traveller might lose his way between here and Thomson's. I shall surely be all right with Uncle Ben. You can give me a revolver in case of accidents."

"You can bet your last sovereign nothing'll happen to him while old Ben Caldecott's breath is in his body!" added the old fellow. "If he's going to be hurt, then I'm dead first, mind you; but the Mashona beggars won't catch me napping, you may bet. Besides, the lad would run quite as much risk at home to-day as riding over the veldt, seeing as how you ain't going to be let alone to sleep comfortably in your beds."

And presently, after some little opposition from his weeping mother, hotly combated by Bruce himself, and almost as hotly by Kittie, who was all for giving Bruce a chance of showing his spirit and distinguishing himself, the lad was allowed to get himself ready for departure. Preparations were in full swing for the defence of the house as the adventurous pair rode out upon their dangerous enterprise. Every scrap of cover within one hundred and fifty yards of the house was being cut down and removed, in order that the niggers, when they came, must advance over an open area well watched and easily swept by the bullets of the defenders.

Besides this, barbed wire was stretched here and there across the open space and tightly fastened to pegs about one foot in height, in order to trip up the enemy in case of a rush, when, in the confusion of their overthrow, the defenders would have the opportunity to fire several times into "the brown," as Gerston expressed it, before they should have recovered themselves.

Within the house everything was made as secure as possible against assault and battery, and every rifle and shot-gun (including two magazine rifles) was loaded and placed in the position laid down for it, only three windows being left unshuttered, for the use of sharpshooters. It had been intended to run up some kind of earthworks, surmounted by barbed wire, one hundred yards from the house, as a first line of defence; but when the native labourers were summoned to help in the work, not one of them was to be found, a significant fact which caused Gerston to look very grave.

"The rascals have had news of the rising, then," he said; "their messenger must have arrived almost as soon as ours--eh, Botley?"

Botley was the last arrival, he who had brought the disconcerting news of danger threatening.

"Before, probably," he replied. "I shouldn't wonder if it was one of your beauties that treated me to this little hole in the shoulder, on his way to join some murderous band which he and his fellows will presently bring down here to knock your head off, in gratitude for benefits conferred--the set of scurvy, thankless, godless black devils that they are!"

Without the native labourers it was quite impossible to undertake anything requiring so much expenditure in time and hard labour as earth defences, and the scheme had therefore to be abandoned.

Meanwhile we may leave Gerston and his little group of brave English hearts to defend their home and their lives as best they can against any overwhelming force that might be brought against them. Their good British spirit will not quail, we may assure ourselves, though they must fight against odds which might well appal hearts less easily daunted than theirs.

We therefore leave them with confidence to their enterprise, while we follow the steps of the oddly assorted pair to whose share has fallen the duty of riding out into unknown dangers, maybe to unavoidable disaster and death, in order to carry the message of coming peril to their unsuspecting compatriots twenty-five miles away, rather than allow a neighbour to be surprised, and perhaps fallen upon and ruthlessly murdered, he and his, for want of a word of warning.

It was late in the afternoon when the two set out upon their journey, well armed with rifle and revolver, and mounted upon the two fastest horses that Gerston's stables could supply. Young Bruce was wild with delight, scarcely, perhaps, realising the full peril of the enterprise in which he had been so eager to take a part. They spoke but little during the first half-hour's ride, being anxious to push on as fast as possible during the waning daylight. Bruce led the way, and rode so rapidly that after a while his companion bade him pull up a bit.

"It's bad policy, youngster," he whispered, "to box all your strength away in the first round. Look at my beast, he's badly blown."

This was the case. The horses were not accustomed to the present headlong method of travelling. They were used to quiet jogging about the farm-lands, or carrying their master from settlement to settlement at a respectable rate of progression; they were not in training for this kind of emergency riding.

"We'd better climb down and let them breathe a minute or two," said Uncle Ben gravely. "See here." He had loosened the bridle, and his horse instantly lowered its neck until its distended nostrils almost reached the ground, panting and wheezing in a state of breathlessness bordering upon actual distress.

"That's Donald," said Bruce; "he's a good goer, too, but he isn't used to this pace."

"Well, he shall have three minutes' law," said Uncle Ben, "or more if he needs it. Sit down a bit and we'll talk, but don't speak up at full voice. How d'you like this yer adventure, sonnie?"

"I love it," said Bruce; "it's exactly the kind of thing I _do_ like."

"Ah--ever been in a fight, or had to struggle for your life?"

"Oh no, not yet," said Bruce. "I'm a bit young; but I hope to."

"Nor seen blood, and so on?" continued the old fellow.

"Oh, accidents and that kind of thing. I don't mind the look of blood, if that's what you mean."

"Well, I tell you, this is no child's play we're at, sonnie; recollect that. We may be caught in an ambush and assegaied before we rightly know we've been done."

"I shan't mind so much if only I can get the revolver off at them first!" said truculent Bruce.

"We may be chased and surrounded."

"Not on horseback. They don't ride, these Mashona fellows; they've no horses. We can always ride them down and be off, even if we're surrounded."

"Ain't you afraid?" persisted Uncle Ben. "Mind you, it isn't too late to go home even now. I could find the way from here."

"What are you playing at? Why d'you want me to go back?" said Bruce indignantly. "There isn't anything to be afraid of yet."

"Ah, but there may be!" said the other.

"Well, wait till there is, and then see if I funk, before you insult me!" replied Bruce; and in his indignation he spoke no more for the next five minutes, though Uncle Ben said he was a likely lad, and attempted to conciliate him with other similar compliments.

He descended, however, from the lofty pedestal of offended dignity when Uncle Ben suddenly stopped in the middle of a sentence and stood silent, listening.

"What is it? What d'you hear?" asked Bruce, forgetting dignity and everything else in the excitement of the moment.

Uncle Ben remained silent for a full minute.

"Don't you hear it?" he said. "Listen carefully. There; d'you catch it?"

Bruce listened with all his ears; but those organs, not having been tutored, as were his companion's, to catch every little sound of veldt life, could detect nothing as yet.

"You'll hear in a minute, for they're coming this way!" said Uncle Ben. "But they're a mile off or more."

"Who, who?" muttered Bruce, his throat quite dry with excitement. "The Mashona fellows?"

Uncle Ben nodded.

"Now listen again!" he said.

Bruce did so, and this time he distinctly heard the rhythmical tread of a body of men apparently moving at a quick march.

"Trotting and coming straight for us along this path," whispered the older man. "You hear them now, I see. Well, there's no cover for the horses hereabouts; what's to be done with them?"

"Why can't we charge right through the niggers?" asked Bruce, partly in ignorance, but partly in bravado, for he desired to prove to his elder that he felt no fear.

"Nonsense. Not unless you're tired of life! At any rate I ain't, though I've had more of it than you. There may be a couple of hundred men here. What's to be done about the horses, that's the point? We can hide our selves and let the rascals pass, but you can't hide the horses. Will you ride yours back, and then mine 'ud follow? You'd be able to warn them, too, up at your dad's place."

"They don't need warning; they're expecting an attack," said Bruce hotly. "I'm not going back, I tell you. The horses will go by themselves if we can't keep them. They are often sent home that way when we are out a long distance from the house and don't want them hanging about all day. Let them loose and you'll see."

"Very well--stop--for the last time, now's your chance to go back; you'll be doing a service in warning the folks at home, and no one'll suspect your pluck."

Uncle Ben did not finish his sentence; for before he had delivered himself of it, Bruce had knotted the bridle over his horse's neck, turned the animal's head homewards, given it a sounding smack on the quarter, and the intelligent creature was in full trot for its stable, tossing its head and grunting with pleasure.

"Well," muttered the older man, "I've said all I can; it won't be my fault if you run your head into mischief after this!" And having thus absolved his conscience of all responsibility for his young companion's rashness, he followed the example of that determined young person, and sent his own horse careering after its companion upon the road for home.

"Now, sonnie, come off the path," he said, "and get behind the scrub with me. We'll see the rascals pass in five minutes, and when they're gone we'll push forward more safely."

"Aren't we going to have a shot at them as they pass?" asked Bruce.

The old man looked at his companion in surprise, not unmingled with admiration.

"Well," he said, "of all the gamecocks ever I met, you're the pluckiest. Give me your hand, sonnie. I'm sorry I spoke to offend you; it wasn't meant. No, we ain't going to shoot them as they pass, for we ain't anxious, either of us, for Kingdom Come. We might kill half-a-dozen maybe if we were lucky, but you may take your last oath that they'd kill _two_. Now, see here, I'm to be boss of this campaign, and you're to obey orders; don't you shoot, now or ever, until you're told. You're a fine lad for courage, but there ain't enough solid wisdom and experience in you to stop a bad tooth. Now, down with you behind this rock; they'll be out of that scrub and in sight in a minute."

Uncle Ben and his young companion ducked behind their cover none too soon, for hardly had they done so when, scarcely a couple of hundred yards away, there came a line of dusky forms, four or five abreast, that broke out of the scrub cover into the open, followed at a few paces by other lines, in what appeared to Bruce to be interminable numbers. Uncle Ben, watching the lad's face, saw it flush and pale and then flush again; his hand went to the revolver at his belt, but there the old man's nervous grip arrested it.

"No, no," he whispered, "no fooling; not if you value your life."

Bruce tried to whisper back that he only meant to prepare in case of emergency, but he found himself tongue-tied, not precisely by fear, but by a numbing sensation which was the result of the sudden realisation of actual danger for the first time in his life. The feeling passed off in a few seconds, and Bruce became master once more of his nerves. And now he was able to enjoy a very unique and peculiar spectacle, the passing of a body of Mashona or Matabele warriors on the warpath. Puffing, groaning, moaning, and wheezing they went, running at a jog-trot; and almost every man of the hundred or so of them relieved his exhausted energies by uttering sounds of one description or another, from a low grunt to a loud wailing cry, all of which seemed very weird and alarming to Bruce's wondering intelligence.

"Off to your dad's!" whispered Uncle Ben, as the strange body of black fellows disappeared in the gathering dusk. "Come, we will waste no more time!"

Then the pair moved quickly forward; there were still fifteen miles to go, and every step of it must be done on foot, and quickly.

"Are you man enough to jog-trot a bit now and then," asked the older man, and Bruce, for reply, struck into a run, and led the way so quickly that his companion was glad enough when he stopped again for breath and walked. Darkness came on, and Bruce became uncertain of the way, though he knew it well by daylight.

"There's a ford, five miles from Thomson's place," he said; "if we could only hit upon that I should find the road from there on much easier."

"Take the direction as near as you can get it," said Uncle Ben, "and maybe we shall strike the river above or below the ford."

So on they trudged, now jogging at a trot, now slowing into a walk, but covering the ground quickly; for they remembered that upon their speed might hang for all they knew the lives of men and women.

A lion roared in the veldt, within a mile of the scudding humans. Bruce shuddered but went on, resolved that his companion should not see that he was frightened.

Presently the brute roared a second time, almost paralysing poor Bruce's limbs with terror; for undoubtedly the animal was much nearer at this second time of roaring. With difficulty dragging his limbs, but resolved to go through with the matter, Bruce jogged on.

He heard his companion click his rifle behind him. Suddenly there came a rush and a scurry of many swift feet, some hundred yards in front of them. The scudding throng of animals passed across the path and away, and Bruce heard a third and a fourth roar, and knew that the old lion had made his spring and had failed, and was angry over his discomfiture.

He stopped and sat down suddenly, too frightened to move forward.

"Ah," said Uncle Ben kindly, "you're pumped out, lad; we'll have a bit of a rest."

"No, it's the lion," said Bruce truthfully; "I never heard one so close before; it is awful--will he attack us?"

"Not he; he won't be such a fool; if he did, we could smash him in a minute, never fear. Why, lad, if you ain't afraid of the Matabeles, you needn't mind him! There he goes again, farther away, you see; he's thinking of his antelopes, not of us."

So up jumped Bruce and away he sped again, guessing the road as best he could by the direction, and presently the pair reached the bank of a precipitous nullah, and Bruce nearly "took a header" over the rocky edge.

"Ah!" said Uncle Ben, "good; follow the line of the nullah, it will be sure to lead us to the river."

This proved to be the case, and a mile or two farther on the river itself was reached, but at a point either above or below the ford, Bruce could not tell which.

"Why, Lord, what does it matter, we'll soon find the ford," said Uncle Ben; "you're a clever lad to have struck the river; I'm darned if I ever met a lad I liked better; work up to the left a mile or two, and if that's wrong we'll come back and try the other way, it's only a matter of a few minutes."

Bruce was getting very tired, and sighed to think that he might have to travel several unnecessary miles up and down the river; but he pulled himself together and trudged on, looking out keenly for the ford, which he should recognise if he saw it.

Once a company of antelopes--maybe they were his old friends--gave him a great scare. They had come down to drink, and the startled creatures nearly knocked him down as they rushed madly, stampeding and mobbing, from the waterside when surprised by the wanderers.

A mile was covered and part of another, and Bruce thought he began to recognise the look of the river.

"I think we are getting near the ford," he said over his shoulder.

"Good; good, lad!" replied his companion laconically, saving his breath.

But now suddenly confronted them the most crucial moment of the enterprise.

"Stop, lad!" hissed Uncle Ben from behind; "stop a moment, I hear something."

Bruce drew up instantly, crouching down as he saw his companion do.

"Listen," whispered Uncle Ben; "I think it's the Mashona fellows again; they are fording the river; we must be close to the ford; or it may be a hippopotamus or a crocodile."

Bruce listened, his heart thumping loudly at his breast. He heard splashing and grunting; a moment later came the sound of measured running.

"It is the niggers," whispered Uncle Ben hurriedly; "we cannot go back, and I see no cover inland; we must take to the water; quickly, lad, follow me into the reeds; never mind the cold, go right up to your neck if need be!"

Very quickly Uncle Ben waded into the water; it was not very cold, but the bank shelved rapidly, and a few yards out the pair were up to their chests.

The reeds were thick, and formed a good cover.

"Bend, and let the water cover you to the mouth," whispered the old man; "go right under if they seem to hear or see us, and stay under as long as your breath lasts."

Bruce nodded, shivering.

The pair of submerged Britons were not much too soon in assuming their uncomfortable position, for in a moment the Matabele fellows were practically upon them, passing abreast of them at full run, groaning and grunting after their fashion, travelling in irregular lines of three, four, or six.

Unfortunately the body of "niggers" had but half passed by when some creature of the water took occasion to splash loudly several times in close proximity to our submerged friends, but whether a crocodile, or a fish, or some animal which had waded in to drink, Bruce never knew.

"Down under water, quick!" muttered Uncle Ben; and Bruce, taking in a great gulp of breath, obeyed instantly.

As he did so he became aware of a sudden stinging sensation in the upper part of his arm. Putting his hand to the place, under water, he felt that his coat was torn.

"I must have rubbed it against a stake as I ducked," thought Bruce, and dismissing the subject, he devoted all his energy to economising the stock of breath he had laid in.

When that was exhausted, at the end of thirty or forty seconds, which seemed an eternity to him, Bruce cautiously raised the upper part of his head in order to take in a new supply. As he did so he observed the last row or two of Matabele fellows halted upon the bank, and one or two of them in the act of throwing their assegais at some object beyond him on the left. Down went Bruce again very quickly, and it was nearly a minute later that his yellow head made its reappearance above the surface. This time he saw no Matabeles, they had gone on; but the old man, Uncle Ben, had seized his arm somewhat violently, and was muttering.

Bruce shook the water out of his ears to listen.

"Come ashore quickly," said Uncle Ben. "Are you wounded, lad?"

"Wounded? Not I," said Bruce. "Why? Are you? Did they shy those assegais at _us_? Why, then, it may have been one that touched my arm."

"Ah, you have a scratch I see!" said the older man; but he spoke in so strange a voice, that Bruce looked up from his own torn coat and slightly bleeding arm to see what ailed his companion.

"What's up, Uncle Ben?" he said. "Are you feeling bad? Why, you're never hit, are you?"

"Just a bit," gasped the old fellow--"here in the side. The blade of the thing's in me now. O Lord, the pain of it. I'll lie down awhile, that may make me better."

"O Uncle Ben, I'm so sorry. What can I do? Is it very bad?" cried poor Bruce weakly. He felt utterly helpless and frightened.

"I may be all right presently," said Uncle Ben. "Just give me a hand while I lie down. Oh! so, that's it; now I shall soon be better." And as though to prove how much better he felt for the change of position, the wounded man then and there fainted away.

Then Bruce, in his utter helplessness and misery, began to think how vain a thing is self-confidence and the pride of mere animal courage in an inexperienced lad of fifteen years. He had been ready and anxious to undertake the dangerous enterprise all by himself. What if he had been allowed to do so?

Well, he would probably have fallen into the hands of the enemy within half-an-hour of the start; if he had escaped the first danger, he would, maybe, have died of terror when within a stone's throw of the roaring lion. Again, he might have lost his way when, in the darkness, he missed the track; and now again, but for Uncle Ben's experience and alertness, he would assuredly have been caught and murdered by the Matabeles.

Sitting, helpless and miserable, over his unconscious companion, Bruce quickly realised all this, and with the realisation came a flood of tears, the first he had shed for many a day, and wrung from him now, not by fear, but by the sense of helplessness in this crisis.

What ought he to do--what _could_ he do? Leave this poor wounded old man to recover consciousness or to die, or to fall, maybe, into the hands of a third band of rebel niggers, to be mutilated in their barbarous fashion before the breath was out of his body; to leave him lying here, and hasten up to Thomson's farm in order to warn the family? He could find the way from here easily enough. Or should he let the farm people take care of themselves, and attend to the duty which lay to his hand; namely, to keep faithful watch and ward over his wounded companion until day at any rate, when he might settle him comfortably somewhere under cover, and proceed upon his journey?