Part 7 (2/2)

The cattle kraal where the Masai were camped lay at the foot of the hill on which the house stood, or, roughly speaking, about eight hundred yards fros The first five hundred yards of this distance we traversed quietly indeed, but at a good pace; after that we crept forward as silently as a leopard on his prey, gliding like ghosts froone a little way I chanced to look behindhite face and tre knees, and his rifle, which was at full cock, pointed directly at the s halted and carefully put the rifle at 'safety', we started again, and all ell till ithin one hundred yards or so of the kraal, when his teeth began to chatter in the ressive way

'If you don't stop that I will kill you,' I whispered savagely; for the idea of having all our lives sacrificed to a tooth-chattering cook was too an to fear that he would betray us, and heartily wished we had left him behind

'But, monsieur, I cannot help it,' he answered, 'it is the cold'

Here was a dilemma, but fortunately I devised a plan In the pocket of the coat I had on was a s that I had used soun with 'Put this in your ; 'and if I hear another sound you are a dead man' I knew that that would stifle the clatter of his teeth I must have looked as if I meant what I said, for he instantly obeyed me, and continued his journey in silence

Then we crept on again

At last ithin fifty yards of the kraal Between us and it was an open space of sloping grass with only one mimosa bush and a couple of tussocks of a sort of thistle for cover We were still hidden in fairly thick bush It was beginning to grow light The stars had paled and a sickly gleam played about the east and was reflected on the earth We could see the outline of the kraal clearly enough, and could alsoembers of the Masai camp-fires We halted and watched, for the sentry we kneas posted at the opening

Presently he appeared, a fine tall felloalking idly up and doithin five paces of the thorn-stopped entrance We had hoped to catch hi, but it was not to be He seemed particularly wide awake If we could not kill that man, and kill him silently, ere lost There we crouched and watched hiaas, as a few paces ahead of o down on his sto an opportunity when the sentry's head was turned, begin to work his way through the grass without a sound

The unconscious sentry coaas crept on He reached the shelter of the mimosa bush unperceived and there waited Still the sentry walked up and down Presently he turned and looked over the wall into the calided on ten yards and got behind one of the tussocks of the thistle-like plant, reaching it as the Elain As he did so his eye fell upon this patch of thistles, and it seeht He advanced a pace towards it--halted, yawned, stooped down, picked up a little pebble and threw it at it It hit Uaas upon the head, luckily not upon the armour shi+rt Had it done so the clink would have betrayed us Luckily, too, the shi+rt was browned and not bright steel, which would certainly have been detected Apparently satisfied that there was nothing wrong, he then gave over his investigations and contented hi idly at the tuft For at least three entle reverie, and there we lay in the last extre every moment that we should be discovered or that some untoward accident would happen I could hear Alphonse's teeth going like anything on the oiled rag, and turning my head round made an awful face at him But I aame as the French fro the wash-leather-lined shi+rt to stick to ether I was in the pitiable state known by schoolboys as a 'blue fright'

At last the ordeal calanced at the east, and appeared to note with satisfaction that his period of duty was co to an end--as indeed it was, once and for all--for he rubbed his hands and began to walk again briskly to war black snake glided on again, and reached the other thistle tuft, which ithin a couple of paces of his return beat

Back caht past the tuft, utterly unconscious of the presence that was crouching behind it Had he looked down he could scarcely have failed to see, but he did not do so

He passed, and then his hidden enemy erected himself, and with outstretched hand followed in his tracks

A reat Zululean hands close round the Masai's throat Then followed a convulsive twining of the two dark bodies, and in another second I saw the Masai's head bent back, and heard a sharp crack, so, and he fell down upon the ground, his liaas had put out all his iron strength and broken the warrior's neck

For ahis throat till he was sure that there was nothing more to fear from him, and then he rose and beckoned to us to advance, which we did on all fours, like a colony of huge apes On reaching the kraalthat the Masai had still further choked this entrance, which was about ten feet wide--no doubt in order to guard against attack--by dragging four or five tops of mimosa trees up to it So much the better for us, I reflected; the more obstruction there was the sloould they be able to coh

Here we separated; Mackenzie and his party creeping up under the shadow of the wall to the left, while Sir Henry and Uaas took their stations one on each side of the thorn fence, the two spear down in front of it I and ht side of the kraal, which was about fifty paces long

When I o-thirds up I halted, and placedAlphonse close to me, however Then I peeped for the first tiht now, and the first thing I saas the white donkey, exactly opposite to me, and close by it I couldas the lad had described, some ten paces fro At distances all over the surface of the kraal were the remains of fires, round each of which slept soed with food Now and then a man would raise hi priot up I deterht to increase, so that we could ive Good and his party--of e could see or hear nothing--every opportunity to an to throw her ever-widening hty Kenia, wrapped in the silence of eternal snows, looked out across the earth--till presently a bea crest and purpled it with blood; the sky above grew blue, and tender as a , and a little breeze passing through the bush shook down the dewdrops inworld Everywhere was peace and the happiness of arising strength, everywhere save in the heart of cruel nal, having already selectedon the ground within three feet of little Flossie--Alphonse's teeth began to chatter again like the hoofs of a galloping giraffe,had dropped out in the agitation of his mind Instantly a Masai within three paces of us woke, and, sitting up, gazed about hi for the cause of the sound Moved beyond ht the butt-end of my rifle down on to the pit of the French; but, as he doubled up, he un in such a manner that the bullet passed within an inch of nal now Fro line of fire, in which Iwith a snap shot to knock overup

Then fro an awful yell, in which I rejoiced to recognize Good's piercing notes rising clear and shrill above the din, and in another second followed such a scene as I have never seen before nor shall again With an universal howl of terror and fury the brawny crowd of savages within the kraal sprang to their feet, ain beneath our well-directed hail of lead before they had moved a yard For athe cries and curses that rose unceasingly from the top end of the kraal, and bewildered by the storm of bullets, they as by one impulse rushed doards the thorn-stopped entrance As they e kept pouring our fire with terrible effect into the thickening mob as fast as we could load I had emptied inning to slip in so up, I saw that the white donkey was lying kicking, having been knocked over either by one of our bullets or a Masai spear-thrust There were no living Masai near, but the black nurse was on her feet and with a spear cutting the rope that bound Flossie's feet Next second she ran to the wall of the kraal and began to cliirl followed But Flossie was evidently very stiff and crao slowly, and as she went two Masai flying down the kraal caught sight of her and rushed towards her to kill her The first fellow cairl, after a desperate effort to clireat spear, and as it did so a bullet from my rifle found its home in the holder's ribs, and over he went like a shot rabbit But behind hie in thethe secondwith raised spear I turned my head aside and felt sick as death I could not bear to see hiain, to round, while theabout with both hands to his head Suddenly I saw a puff of s apparently fro Then I reer pistol she carried, and saw that she had fired both barrels of it at hi her life In another instant she hadon the top, had scrambled over the wall, and I knew that she was, co, safe

All this takes time to tell, but I do not suppose that it took azine of the repeater filled again with cartridges, and once athering at the end of the kraal, but on fugitives who bethought the doards the end of the kraal as I did so, and arriving at the corner, or rather the bend of the oval, in tihty struggle that took place there

By this ti that we had up to the present accounted for fifty--had gathered together in front of the thorn-stopped entrance, driven thither by the spears of Good's e force instead of being but ten strong For some reason it never occurred to them to try and rush the wall, which they could have scrambled over with comparative ease; they all ly interwoven fortification With a bound the first warrior went at it, and even before he touched the ground on the other side I saw Sir Henry's great axe swing up and fall with awful force upon his feather head-piece, and he sank into the an to break through as theyand Inkosi-kaas flashed and they fell dead one by one, each ainst his fellows Those who escaped the axes of the pair fell at the hands of the Askari and the two Mission Kaffirs, and those who passed scatheless froht low by rew the fighting Single Masai would spring upon the dead bodies of their co spears; but, thanks chiefly to the mail shi+rts, the result was always the sa of the axe, a crashi+ng sound, and another dead Masai That is, if the aas that he fought with the result indeed would be the same, but it would be differently attained

It was but rarely that the Zulu used the crashi+ng double-handed stroke; on the contrary, he did littleat it with the pole-axe end of the axe as a woodpecker {Endnote 7} pecks at rotten wood Presently a peck would go home, and his enemy would drop doith a neat little circular hole in his forehead or skull, exactly similar to that which a cheese-scoop makes in a cheese He never used the broad blade of the axe except when hard pressed, or when striking at a shi+eld He told me afterwards that he did not consider it sportsmanlike

Good and his men were quite close by now, and our people had to cease firing into thesome of them (as it was, one of them was slain in this way) Mad and desperate with fear, the Masai by a frantic effort burst through the thorn fence and piled-up dead, and, sweeping Curtis, Uaas, and the other three before thean to lose men fast Doent our poor Askari as ar out a foot behind his back; and before long the two spears like tigers; and others of our party shared their fate For a ht was lost--certainly it trembled in the balance I shouted to my men to cast down their rifles, and to take spears and throw the now thoroughly up, and Mr Mackenzie's people followed their exaood result, but still the fight hung in the balance

Our people foughtthe, slaying, and being slain And ever above the din rose Good's awful yell of encourageht was thickest; and ever, with an alularity, the two axes rose and fell, carrying death and disableinning to tell upon Sir Henry, as bleeding froasps, and the veins stood out on his forehead like blue and knotted cords Even Uaas, man of iron that he as hard pressed I noticed that he had given up 'woodpecking', and was now using the broad blade of Inkosi-kaas, 'browning' his ene scientific holes in his head I o into the melee, but hovered outside like the swift 'back' in a football scriot a chance I was , and I did not miss many shots