The Golden Rock Part 59

Webster laughed fiercely.

"We've missed port again, but I'm hanged if I weigh anchor now."

"A few minutes ago you were anxious to get away from here."

"Look here, Frank, we are after a treasure. There's no doubt we've been mad to push on; but if there is a treasure here we would be mad to give it up. What do you think yourself?"

"Leave me out of the question; let Laura decide."

Sirayo's deep voice interposed.

"The chief Umkomaas has a plan."

"Wait awhile, Laura. What is this plan?"

"He says it would be no good to leave this place unless you take the backward path up the mountain, for on the plain you would be seen and attacked in the open. This is a strong place, and the only place that a few men can hold. The Zulus will attack in the morning after they have eaten. You will hold them off till the sun is high. To-night one of us will leave, cross the river, and gather the people to fall on the Zulus.

He cannot go, for his hurts are deep; neither a white man, for the people would not follow him; neither the Gaika, for he is not of their race. It is I who will go. Soh! That is the plan, and it is good."

Hume interpreted, and Webster banged his clenched hand into the open palm.

"Splendid!" he cried.

"Now, Laura, the decision remains with you."

"I am tired," she said in low tones. "I could not climb the mountain if we retreated. Let us stay."

Hume sighed, and laid his hand upon hers.

"What we decide to do must be done quickly," said Sirayo.

"If you find your way to the people, Sirayo, will they not turn upon you?"

"The chief has given me the word and a sign. They will follow Sirayo,"

said the chief proudly.

"Then let it be as you wish."

"I will go," said the chief, rising; "I must swim the river, and though the way is not far, it will be longer than if I had both arms. But when the shadow is small at your feet you will hear Sirayo's war-cry."

Without another word he pa.s.sed from the room by the way Klaas had taken.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

SIRAYO'S MISSION.

After climbing through the hole, Sirayo found himself in a pa.s.sage so narrow that his broad shoulders jammed, and he was obliged to edge along sideways, and so dark that he had to feel his way with his toes. It bent sharply to the left, and after he had shuffled on about twenty paces he found an opening above, and mounting on projecting stones, reached the top of the wall, from which he dropped into the open pa.s.sage. This coiled round and round in widening circles until at last he stood on the outermost fringe, from which he saw the light of Zulu fires about two hundred yards distant. Creeping round the wall to the opposite side, he saw, far off, the gleam of camp fires straight ahead in the direction of the Golden Rock, and then to the left, towards the river, the lights of still another encampment.

The stars shone brilliantly out of the black sky, the air was cool and refres.h.i.+ng. He drew a long breath, looked back at the dark pile, so much like a mound of the dead that he almost shuddered, then sprang lightly to the ground, paused awhile, listening, and silently slipped away in the direction of the river, straight towards the Zulu fires.

He heard the distant lowing of cattle complaining at being hurriedly driven in the night, the sharp yelping of dogs, the angry muttering of a war-song chanted by deep throats. They were sounds familiar to his ear.

They told of war and victory, of premeditated riot in the morning, of a frightened people deserting their kraals in the night with such of their goods and their cattle as they could hastily collect, of terrified children and wailing women, of men who had lost heart. He knew them well. Often in his daring youth and stormy manhood he had burst upon some peaceful village slumbering amid waving fields of maize, and seen the scattered survivors flying to the woods or rocky retreats in a neighbouring krantz. Like a hurricane he had swept over the land, leaving desolation in his track; and the wailing of innumerable women widowed by his terrible regiment, the quavering cry of children made fatherless by him, seemed to mingle with that tremulous cry that came on the night air from beyond the river. His iron soul stirred under these blood-stained memories at the thought that now, in his grim age, the last of his band, an outcast, without authority or possessions beyond the a.s.segai in his hand, he was hurrying to the relief of the helpless.

He strode on faster over the level plain, his nostrils expanding, his tireless sinews stiffening until his gait was as clean and springy almost as in his youth, when he led his victorious warriors to the fight.

The reflection before him shone in a ring of fire, then as he rapidly advanced this split up into separate flames, and he slackened his speed to approach stealthily. There were ten fires, and in a circle about each there squatted ten warriors, some of them chattering as they ate, others flinging their war-cry across the river, telling what they would do in the morning. Little did they dream in their confidence of the dreaded enemy whose fierce eyes took note of their numbers, and who, slipping away to the right, turned his steps to the river.

He stood on the high bank, listening to its soft, mysterious murmur, trying to pierce the gloom on the further bank, and unshaken by the eye-like reflections of the brighter stars, through which Icanti, the spirit of the river, looks out upon the venturous mortal, seeking to draw him into the clutch of the waters. At a spot where the bank was low he went down to the water, felt the depth with his a.s.segai, then gently slipping in, so that he made no sound to disturb a lurking crocodile, he waded until the cold waters mounted to his chin, when he fixed his a.s.segai in his waistband, and struck out with his right arm.

A few strokes he made, until with his toe he touched the bottom again, then struggled on to the bank, reached the top, and all wet as he was ran in the direction of a confused noise.

His way was soon barred by the thorn fences to the cultivated lands, in which he could hear some stray cattle munching at the forbidden food, but with unerring instinct he found a footpath, and pa.s.sed through several kraals, deserted by everything save a few curs, which yelped at his heels before returning to forage in the abandoned huts. Then he came up with a string of old people, feebly struggling along, who stood still to look after him with bleared eyes, and next upon a band of women, swinging along under great bundles borne on their heads. At the sight of this glistening figure at their side, that had come without warning, and of his head-ring, sign of the dreaded Zulu, they threw down their bundles and ran shrieking away, while at the noise young children ahead cried out shrilly, communicating the alarm to the men who were in advance driving the cattle.

The men called to each other, and the rush of their feet could be heard.

"What is it?" they shouted.

"We know not," said a boy's clear voice; "but our mothers cried that the Zulus were upon us. Give me an a.s.segai. I will fight, too."

"Run, my child, run!" called out a woman's voice.

"Stand where you are, and I will do you no harm;" and as the deep voice rolled above the noise there was immediate silence. "Soh! Let your chief Induna come forward; I have a message."

"Do not heed him," cried the woman; "he will slay you."

"There is but one," cried another, "kill him; nay, let us tear him to pieces."

"Stop, or by the bones of Chaka I will beat you till you cry for mercy.

Let the boy who spoke advance. Come."

"My son, my son, do not heed."

"Nay, I will go, since I am chief;" and there came to the great Zulu a stripling, with his eyes gleaming, and the hand that held the a.s.segai thrown back. "You speak to us as though we were dogs! Who are you?"

Sirayo's eyes rested on the boy, then glanced around.

"Tell your men to keep back. I hear them stealing through the gra.s.s like snakes."

The boy turned, and called to the men to keep back.

"Good! You will be a chief some day."

"I am a chief now," said the boy proudly, "since my father is killed."

A strange light leapt from Sirayo's eyes. "Take that, O chief, and tell me what it is!" and he held out something, after sticking the point of his a.s.segai in the ground.

The boy looked at the gigantic figure before him, then s.n.a.t.c.hed the thing, and held it close to his eyes.

"It is the war-plume of my father--Umkomaas."