The Luck of Gerard Ridgeley Part 32

"We want it not," answered Sobuza. "It, too, looks like _tagati_. See!

The life was let out of it and its wearer by the same hole."

"That's a fact," said Dawes. "But, if you're so particular, we are not.

We are going to have this--eh, Ridgeley?" And he plucked the lion's skin from the body of the dead chief.

The Zulus stared, then shrugged their shoulders. A white man might do all kinds of things which were not lawful for themselves, wherefore they did not think so very much of the act.

As they descended from the dreadful hill of slaughter, Dawes narrated all that had befallen him since Gerard had left--his jeopardy in the kraal, and how he had held Ingonyama at the point of his revolver, and that within a few yards of his dancing warriors; then his bold attempt at trekking away, the shooting of the councillor, Sonkwana, the fight, and his own recapture. Nothing on earth had saved him from the frightful fate to which he had been adjudged, but the fact of the lateness of the hour--that and the arrival of the king's _impi_ at dawn.

It was too dark to put him to death that evening, and so he had spent the night a close prisoner, with so many hours of silence and darkness before him wherein to look forward to the terrible torture which awaited him the next day.

Before dawn, however, had come tidings that the king's _impi_ was marching upon the place, and he was dragged forth into the midst of the whole horde of exasperated barbarians, clamouring like wolves for his blood. But it had been decided to send emissaries to the king's _induna_, and meanwhile he was taken to the summit of The Tooth.

"It's a mercy you turned up when you did, Ridgeley," he concluded.

"Five minutes later, and I'd have been kicking on that stake. Faugh!"

Then Gerard, in turn, related his own experiences. Dawes listened attentively--gravely.

"It was a lucky day for both of us when you dragged that same Sobuza out of the water, over the Umgeni Falls, and a lucky day for me when Cetywayo took it into his head that it was time to suppress the Igazipuza," he said seriously. "And it was a lucky day, too, for me the day I ran against you knocking around Maritzburg, down on your luck; for I don't stick at telling you, Ridgeley, that there's not a chap in forty would have carried through that blockade-running business with the pluck and dash and, above all, cool soundness of judgment you showed. And but for that, where should I have been?"

Gerard reddened.

"Have you quite done making a speech, Dawes?" he said, laughing confusedly. "Because, if so, let's talk about other things. What has become of Sintoba, and the rest of them?"

Dawes's countenance fell.

"Hang me if I know," he said. "From the time they strapped me up I saw no more of the people. The Swazis were hung over here, poor devils, as you saw; but I didn't see that. It was done just before they lugged me up. I'm afraid though these brutes have made mincemeat of them."

"What are we going to do, now?" said Gerard. "I suppose we can trek home again."

"Do? Why, just this. We'll go to the king's kraal and claim compensation for the loss of our time and liberty and all the funk we've been put in. And we'll get it, too."

"Hadn't we better let well alone?" suggested Gerard. "We have got our stock back. Would it not be best to inspan quietly, and trek right away out of the country?"

"Perhaps it would be best in this instance," allowed Dawes, after a moment's pause; "though I had not intended to do things by halves. By the way, I did show an error of judgment the last time I decided to trek. I ought to have waited quietly until the upshot of your undertaking came off. Yes, I made a mistake that time. It was a direct challenge to them, so to speak. But I say, Ridgeley, what a yarn we'll have to spin to old Bob Kingsland, when next we see him. Why, he'll vote us a brace of the biggest liars in Natal."

Gerard laughed. Then, at the thoughts suggested by the mention of Mr Kingsland, he subsided into silence. Not long, however, was he suffered to enjoy his own thoughts, for as they reached the foot of the pyramid a considerable hubbub greeted them.

The remainder of the king's _impi_ had come up. In the midst of this, hustled, pushed, occasionally kicked, and threatened at every step by a mult.i.tude of spears, were three unfortunate natives.

"Kill them!" "Cut them to pieces!" "They are Igazipuza!" "We saw them in the fight!" "They have washed off their red wizard's mark!" were some of the tumultuous shouts which went up from the crowd.

"_Amakafula? Hau_! Only listen to that! No. They are Igazipuza, cowardly dogs, not like the rest, who were brave!" roared the savages, who, having tasted what should have been enough blood, clamoured for more. The lives of the wretched men seemed not worth a moment's purchase. An exclamation escaped both Dawes and Gerard simultaneously.

They elbowed their way right into the excited crowd.

"They speak truth, _amadoda_!" cried Dawes. "They are not Igazipuza.

They are my servants."

The Zulus stared, then fell back. The delight wherewith the Natal natives hailed their master, who had come to their aid in what they imagined a most critical time, beggars description.

"How did you escape, Sintoba, and where have you been hiding?" said Dawes, wonderingly.

Then Sintoba proceeded to explain how he and Fulani and the boy had been put into a hut together, but, unlike their master, had been left unbound, and fairly well treated in general. But something they had overheard led them to attempt their escape, and in the confusion which had followed daring the mastering of the warriors to resist the invasion of the king's troops, and the despatching of the women and cattle to a place of safety, they had succeeded in slipping away and hiding among the rocks on the opposite side of the hollow to that whereon the battle had taken place. Here they had been discovered by the victorious _impi_, and being taken for Igazipuza, would have been ma.s.sacred on the spot but for the intervention of the sub-chief, Matela, who suggested that they should be led before Sobuza, who, with his advance guard, was then in pursuit of Vunawayo and a few surviving fugitives.

"_Whau_, Jandosi! Your _Amakafula_ have had a narrow escape from the spears of our people," said Sobuza, quizzically. "Almost as narrow a one as you yourself had from the bite of The Tooth of the Igazipuza.

And now let us stand beneath the rock of death and see if these wizards have been able to take to themselves wings and fly down unhurt."

All misgivings on that score, however, was soon set at rest. At the foot of the cliff, shattered, s.h.i.+vered into a horrible mangled ma.s.s, lay the body of Vunawayo--a great gash over the heart, showing where it had received the stab which had, as by a hair's breadth, saved Gerard from being dragged over by the fierce and desperate savage. At this ghastly evidence of the terrible fate from which he had so narrowly escaped, Gerard shuddered.

"_Ha_! Jeriji!" said Sobuza, with a grim smile. "My broad _umkonto_ [the short-handled stabbing spear] has done its work well, as well as your fists did among those Amakafula dogs near the Umgeni. That was a great day; but this has been a greater one."

"It has indeed, Sobuza," answered Gerard. "And so yours was the stroke that saved my life? Well, we are very much more than quits now, at any rate."

Close beside the shattered remains of Vunawayo, lay those of the warrior who had leaped of his own accord from the summit, choosing rather to die by his own act than that his enemies should have the satisfaction of boasting that they had slain him.

"The wizards have died hard, and we have had a right merry fight," said Sobuza, turning away. "With more men we could have crushed them quicker, but then we should not have had so grand a fight. I think, Jeriji, that the Great Great One knew this when he sent but a thousand men, for in such blood-letting do we keep our spears sharp in these peaceable times."

As they rejoined the _impi_, it became evident that an altercation of some kind was going forward; the parties thereto being a young unringed man and an Udhloko warrior.

"It is mine, I say!" vociferated the former, who was being backed up by more and more of his friends. "It is mine! I won it!"

"You won it!" was the contemptuous reply of the _kehla_. "_Ha_!

_umfane_ ['Boy,' i.e. an unringed man]. I have it. I took it. Come now, you, and take it!"

"I will," shouted the other in answer to this direct challenge. And supported by a gathering number of his friends he rushed upon the ringed man. The latter, however, seemed equally well supported. Spears waved threateningly as the parties confronted each other. It seemed as if civil strife was going to follow upon the extermination of the legitimate enemy.

"Peace!" cried Sobuza, sternly. "What it this, that the king's hunting-dogs snarl against each other?"

"This, father," appealed the young warrior. "That gun is mine. I won it fairly. Jeriji promised it. He said, 'If you get near Jandosi when we attack, if you are the first to reach his side, that double gun shall be yours. I promise it.' That was the 'word' of Jeriji. And was I not the first to reach his side, I and my kinsmen? _Whau_! There is Jeriji. Ask him, my father. Ask him if such was not his word?"

"Nk.u.mbi-ka-zulu speaks every word of the truth, _induna_ of the king,"

said Gerard. "I did promise him the gun on those terms, and he has won it fairly."

Thus called upon to adjudicate, Sobuza heard what the other side had to say, and the fact that the warrior in whose possession it now was had only picked up the gun instead of having taken it from an enemy in battle went far towards simplifying matters. It had been thrown away early in the conflict by Vunawayo, who, not understanding firearms, had been so violently kicked at the first discharge that he had elected, and wisely, to fight with such weapons as he did understand. So the chief decreed that Nk.u.mbi-ka-zulu had fairly earned the weapon, and it was handed over to him forthwith, to the huge delight of the young warrior and his friends, and as Gerard promised to make some sort of present to the man who had been dispossessed, the dispute was settled to the satisfaction of all parties.

"Pooh! Don't mention it!" declared Dawes, in reply to Gerard's apologetic explanation of how he had come to pledge away what was not his property. "You could not more completely have hit upon the right thing to do. If you had been as near that beastly stake as I was, Ridgeley, you'd think you had got off dirt cheap at the price of a gun, I can tell you. Besides, are we not in the swim together and jointly?

That young scamp, Nk.u.mbi! Well, he has earned it fairly this time, more so than by jockeying us over it as he tried to do before. Eh, Nk.u.mbi?"

And Dawes translated his last remark for the benefit of the young warrior, who, with his confederates, received it with shouts of laughter and great good humour.

The open plain in front of the kraal was one great sea of stirring life as the _impi_ came up. Thither were gathered all the cattle of the Igazipuza, upwards of a thousand of them, and numbers of sheep and goats. Among these squatted or moved dispirited groups of women, sad-faced and resigned; even the children seemed to have lost their lightheartedness, and cowered, round-eyed with awe and apprehension.

All had been collected and a.s.sembled there by a portion of the king's force told off for the purpose, and were to be taken as captives and spoils to the king's kraal; and these were started off thither there and then.

But before this was done an earnest conference had been held between the two white men and the Zulu leaders. After all that had taken place, said John Dawes, he and his comrade were extremely anxious to trek away home. It would be highly inconvenient to travel all round by Ulundi, though on another occasion they hoped to pay a special visit to the king. Meanwhile they had now recovered their cattle and trek-oxen, and they would like to leave the Zulu country for the present. But in consideration of the valuable aid rendered, at any rate, by Gerard, to the king's troops, and further as some compensation for the detention and peril they had undergone, at the hands of those who were, after all, the king's subjects, he proposed that Sobuza should award them a share in the cattle seized from the Igazipuza.

The chief took snuff and began to deliberate. He was not sure whether he could do this upon his own responsibility, he said. Recovering their own property was one thing, claiming an award out of the "eaten-up"

cattle seemed very much another. How many did Jandosi think would meet his requirements?

Dawes replied that seventy-five head about represented a moderate compensation. Sobuza, however, did not receive the proposal with enthusiasm. Finally it was agreed that sixty head should be allowed, on the express stipulation that no further claim should be made upon the king or the Zulu nation either by the two white men or any of their native followers. As for driving them, he, Sobuza, could not a.s.sist them. He was responsible to the king for every man in the _impi_, and could not upon his own responsibility send any of the king's subjects out of the Zulu country. The difficulty, however, might be met by pressing into the service two or three of the Igazipuza boys who were young enough to have escaped the ma.s.sacre of the fighting men and old enough to understand cattle-driving. So, having obtained their share of the spoil, Dawes and Gerard bade a cordial farewell to Sobuza and the Zulu _impi_, and inspanned, and once more the crack, crack of the whips and the shouts of the drivers, Sintoba and Fulani, resounded cheerily as they started for home.