Settlers and Scouts Part 18

They hastened up the path, Ferrier and John the last two of the line.

When they reached the top, where their men were awaiting them, they halted to look back over the plain.

"My word! you've done jolly well," cried John, as he saw the dusky throng halted below. "I had no idea there were so many of them. What happened, Charley?"

"Yesterday afternoon, just after I had brought in those fellows we left at our little camp, the beggars made a sudden rush on us, springing up from nowhere, as it appeared. It was the same lot that we stampeded, but largely reinforced, and from what my men said, there's no doubt the newcomers belong to the same tribe I had trouble with when you rescued me. It was lucky we weren't completely taken by surprise. I had a sort of notion they might try on something of the sort. I don't believe they knew at first that you had gone, and their idea was to have their revenge for the slap we gave them. Juma was among them, Coja told me."

"The blackguard!"

"I had got the boma repaired where we burnt it, so that they couldn't get in, but they came all round us, keeping under cover, and thinking, I suppose, that they would starve us out. I felt I was in a bit of a fix.

We might hold our own in the camp for three or four days; but I was afraid they'd stay there until you came back, and there was such a crowd of them, as you see, that I didn't see how you could possibly get through them. It struck me that the best thing I could do was to come after you and join forces while there was time; so I left the fires burning and slipped away in the middle of the night, making a detour round their camp, which they had pitched about a quarter of a mile up-stream. We couldn't march very fast with our loads, but the men were very plucky, and it wasn't till this afternoon that the beggars caught us. We had been fighting for about an hour when you came up, and I was jolly glad to see you, I can tell you, for they were beginning to press us very closely, and we couldn't have kept it up much longer. What luck have you had?"

"I've got the fort: I'll tell you all about it when we get there. By Jove! there is a lot of them. What are they up to?"

The enemy, numbering, as nearly as John could estimate, more than four hundred, had given up direct pursuit, evidently recognizing that to scale the bluff under the rifles of its defenders would be a hopeless task. They were marching rapidly to the right. In addition to the fighting men, there was also a large number of men and women carrying loads, no doubt provisions: these had only just come up with the main body.

"Is there any other way up the escarpment?" asked Ferrier, anxiously.

"Not that I know of. It looks as if they're going to make a round to the fort. We had better hurry on."

They turned about and marched rapidly after the men, who were already some distance away.

"I had begun to demolish the fort," said John, "which is a pity if they're going to besiege us. Perhaps they've had enough of it, though."

"Can't we repair it?"

"Unluckily we've pitched the stones of the wall into the pool surrounding it, and I'm afraid we can't fish them up again. It's a good job we hadn't done much. We were in the middle of the work when Bill heard your shots. He spotted your rifle; his hearing is amazingly acute."

"Well, it seems to me that we are in for a nice little campaign. It is to be hoped your friend Gillespie has started for the farm. I don't like to think of it being left."

"Let's see. He must just about have got my letter, I should think. I don't feel very anxious. We had no troubles except from lions and Juma, and the chief will lend a hand if any wandering tribe turns up, which isn't likely. No, Charley; the difficulty's here: and upon my word it looks as if we've got a campaign on our hands, as you say. However, here we are! There's the fort, and we've got to hold it, my boy."

"Right ho! I only hope it won't be another Ladysmith."

"Can't possibly. Our food won't last a week."

"Oh!" said Ferrier.

CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH--John's Letter

In the comfortable dining-room of Mr. Gillespie's bungalow a merry party was a.s.sembled. At the right hand of Mr. Gillespie sat a handsome, well-preserved lady, who was fifty and looked forty-five. At the other end of the table, beside the hostess, was our friend Mr. Halliday, fresh and florid, evidently in the best of health. His neighbour on the right was a slim young girl in black; hers was a tall, well-set-up young man of twenty-five. Opposite these two, in due sequence, were a girl who might have been seventeen, and a youth a year or two older, so much like her that no one could have doubted they were brother and sister.

Laughter rang round the table; everybody seemed at the top of cheerfulness, except the girl in black. Even she smiled at a remark addressed to her by Mr. Halliday. There was a pause in the conversation as they devoted themselves to the sweets, which included a wonderful confection of native pine-apples. Then the lady next to Mr. Gillespie, in slow level tones, and with the clear enunciation and scarcely perceptible burr of an educated Scotswoman, said--

"He's a dear boy, I'm sure. We could read so well between the lines of his letters that he thought me a very designing woman----"

"A Delilah, Cousin Sylvia," said Mr. Halliday.

"You'd be the better for having your hair cut, Cousin David. I shouldn't allude to such a personal matter if I didn't hope that Mrs.

Gillespie would back me up. _I've_ done my best to improve you, and failed; perhaps public opinion will do some good."

"Don't worry, Mrs. Burtenshaw," said Mr. Gillespie. "He'll get a thorough crop before he goes up country, where barbers are unknown."

"But it won't matter then, where there's no one to see him.... It was plain John thought his father would marry me----"

"The other way about, cousin," Mr. Halliday interposed. "He wouldn't suspect me of all men of fortune hunting."

"Listen to him!" exclaimed Mrs. Burtenshaw, drawing herself up with an affectation of injured dignity. "If any man wanted to marry me it could only be for my money, you see. As I was saying, John quite expects to be presented with a step-mother, and resents it, like all young things.

Joe there wouldn't speak to me for a week when I married poor Burtenshaw. It's a nice kind of jealousy, don't you think so, Mrs.

Gillespie?"

"Just like a dog's," said Mrs. Gillespie, in a tone that made every one laugh. "When we first came out we had a collie that couldn't see my husband put his arm round me without whining to be petted."

"John will be flabbergasted when he sees us," said the older of the two young men, referred to by his mother as Joe.

"Yes, wasn't it funny that he should come across them in the wilds of Africa, and rescue Poll from a game-pit without either of them knowing they were cousins?" said Helen, his sister. "It's quite a romance."

"Doesn't he know the relations.h.i.+p now?" asked Mrs. Gillespie.

"No," said Mr. Halliday, with a chuckle. "I asked him in one of my letters whether he had seen anything of the Brownes. You see, they talked of settling here, before they came into this fortune."

"That's all over now, of course," said Mr. Gillespie.

"I'm not so sure," said Joe Browne. "The people at home were very nice, and all that, but they're too stiff and starched after what we've been used to; wear high collars and kid gloves. I don't fancy Poll and I could settle down to that sort of thing."

"And I don't want you to," said Mrs. Burtenshaw. "I don't believe in healthy young men loafing about, and I tell my boys they'll have to work for their living just as if I were a poor woman."

"Capital!" said Mr. Gillespie. "And when they see what John has been doing I warrant they'll settle down as neighbours. There'll be quite a little colony of Scotsmen about Alloway soon, for I've no doubt you've Scotch blood in you, Miss Ferrier?"

"Diluted, Mr. Gillespie," said the girl in black. "My grandfather was a Scotsman, but he married a Frenchwoman--Canadian French, of course. Do you really think my brother will settle here?"

"Well, I can't exactly say," was Mr. Gillespie's cautious reply. "It seems very probable from what John says in his letters. Don't you like the prospect?"

"Oh, I shall live with Charley, of course; and if it's really as nice as he says--there isn't any real danger, is there?"

"A lion among the ladies!" cried Mr. Halliday, and they all laughed, Said Mohammed's quotation being common property among them. "I think you'll find it all right, my dear," he added in his fatherly way. "I dare say John and your brother between them have exterminated the lions in our neighbourhood by this time."

"I think Hilda was very plucky to come all this way alone," said Helen.

"_I_ shouldn't have had the courage."

"But I wasn't really alone," said Hilda Ferrier. "The people on the _Mauretania_ were very kind, and I met you on the _Palawan_, you see. I was thinking more of the natives than of lions: of course, you can shoot lions."

"And you can shoot men, my dear," said Mr. Halliday.

"There, now you've frightened her," said Mrs. Burtenshaw, as a startled look crossed the girl's face. "What an absurd man you are, David!