Part 20 (1/2)
”Look! He is not a monkey after all, but a ements were soon made Within a quarter of an hour of the departure of thethrice towards the Holy Mountain, rose in his stirrups and shaking a long spear above his head, shouted a single word:
”Charge!”
CHAPTER XI
ALLAN IS CAPTURED
The ride that folloas really quite exhilarating The caht some of the enthusiasm of the war-horse as described in the Book of Job; indeed I had no idea that they could travel at such a rate On ung down the slope, keeping excellent order, the forest of tall spears shi+ning and the little lancer-like pennons fluttering on the breeze in a very gallant way In silence ent save for the thudding of the hoofs of the caer as some rider drove his lance handle into their ribs Not until we actually joined battle did a single man open his lips Then, it is true, there went up one sihty roar of:
”The Child! Death to Jana! The Child! The Child!”
But this happened a few minutes later
As we drew near the enemy I saw that they had ht lines thick There they stood to receive the ie, or rather they did not all stand, for the first two ranks were kneeling with long spears stretched out in front of thereatly resembled that of the Greek phalanx, or that of the Swiss prepared to receive cavalry in the Middle Ages On either side of this formidable body, which by now must have numbered four or five hundred men, and at a distance perhaps of a quarter of a athered the horsemen of the Black Kendah, divided into two bodies of nearly equal strength, say about a hundred horse in each body
As we approached, our triangle curved a little, no doubt under the direction of Hart A ht strike the foot-soldiers not full in front but at an angle It was an adht them swiftly on the flank and cruh those fellows like a knife through butter; they had as ainst the rush of our caainst a typhoon Over they rolled in heaps while the White Kendah spitted the! My money on the Child,” reflected I in irreverent ecstasy But that exultation was premature, for those Black Kendah were by no means all dead Presently I saw that scores of theed in stabbing, or trying to stab, in the stootten the horse to the complication in front, these arrived on our flanks like two thunderbolts We faced about and did our best to ht, of which the net result was that both our left and right lines were pierced through about fifty yards behind the baggage camels Luckily for us the very impetuosity of the Black Kendah rush deprived it ofunable to check their horses, ended by charging into each other and beco ave the order, heeled our ca, stationary mass, with the result that many of them were speared, or overthrown and trampled
”I have said we, but that is not quite correct, at any rate so far as Mart, Hans, I and about fifteen camelmen were concerned How it happened I could not tell in that dust and confusion, but ere cut off fro desperately in a group at which Black Kendah horseain We rees the bewildered camels sank under the repeated spear-thrusts of the eneh that ridden by Hans, which by soe chance was never touched The rest of us were thrown or tuht fro bodies”
That is where I cale shot, partly because I do not likecahtest desire to kill any of these savage ed to do so in self-defence Noever, the thing was different, as I was fighting forits head upon the ground, groaning horribly the while, I ees of the repeater into those Black Kendah, pausing between each shot to take aialloping loose about the veld
The effect was electrical, since our attackers had never seen anything of the kind before For a while they all drew off, which gave ain and I repeated the process For a second time they retreated and after consultation which lasted for a minute or more, made a third attack Once h on this occasion only three men and a horse fell The fifth shot was a clean miss because they came on in such a scattered formation that I had to turn froaes save two in my double-barrelled pistol It ht Too es in one's pocket are apt to chafe on camel-back and so is a belt full of theements were fehich a man fired over fifteen
I had forty or fifty e with his usual politeness had taken and hung upon his saddle without saying a word toof the action I found this out, but could not then get them from him as he was separated from me Hans, always careless in sht to have seen that I had the cartridges, or at any rate to have carried them himself In short, it was one of those accidents that will happen There is nothing er consultation our enemies advanced on us for the fourth ti stock of the position The caht which the dust of conflict had hidden fro on to the north, more or less victorious That is to say, it had cut its way through the Black Kendah and was escaping unpursued, huddled up in a e aniaged in killing our wounded and succouring their own; also in collecting the bodies of the dead In short, quite unintentionally, ere deserted Probably, if anybody thought about us at all in the tur the slain
Mart ca a bloody spear
”Lord Macumazana,” he said, ”the end is at hand The Child has saved the others, or most of them, but us it has abandoned Noill you do?
Kill yourself, or if that does not please you, suffer me to kill you? Or shoot on until youto shoot with any more,” I answered ”But if we surrender, ill happen to us?”
”We shall be taken to Simba's town and there sacrificed to the devil Jana--I have not time to tell you how Therefore I propose to kill myself”
”Then I think you are foolish, Mart, since once we are dead, we are dead; but while we are alive it is always possible that we may escape from Jana If the worst comes to the worst I have a pistol with two bullets in it, one for you and one for me”
”The wisdom of the Child is in you,” he replied ”I shall surrender with you, Macumazana, and take s to his followers, who spoke together for a e and, toKendah were quite close to us, with the exception of three e or for soh to make submission A number of the Black Kendah dismounted and ran up, I suppose to take them prisoners The men waited till these were all round the forward, taking the enereat loss upon them before they fell themselves covered ounds