Part 8 (2/2)

”Umslopogaas expects battle,” remarked Hans to me with a grin, ”otherwise with all this nice plain round us he would not have chosen to camp in a place which a few men could hold against many. Yes, Baas, he thinks that those cannibals are going to attack us.”

”Stranger things have happened,” I answered indifferently, and having seen to the rifles, went to lie down, observing as I did so that the tired Zulus seemed already to be asleep. Only Umslopogaas did not sleep. On the contrary, he stood leaning on his axe staring at the dim outlines of the opposing precipice.

”A strange mountain, Mac.u.mazahn,” he said, ”compared to it that of the Witch, beneath which my kraal lies, is but a little baby. I wonder what we shall find within it. I have always loved mountains, Mac.u.mazahn, ever since a dead brother of mine and I lived with the wolves in the Witch's lap, for on them I have had the best of my fighting.”

”Perhaps it is not done with yet,” I answered wearily.

”I hope not, Mac.u.mazahn, since some is due for us, after all these days of mud and stench. Sleep a while now, Mac.u.mazahn, for that head of yours which you use so much, must need rest. Fear not, I and the little yellow man who do not think as much as you do, will keep watch and wake you if there is need, as mayhap there will be before the dawn. Here none can come at us except in front, and the place is narrow.”

So I lay down and slept as soundly as ever I had done in my life, for a s.p.a.ce of four or five hours I suppose. Then, by some instinct perhaps, I awoke suddenly, feeling much refreshed in that sweet mountain air, a new man indeed, and in the moonlight saw Umslopogaas striding towards me.

”Arise, Mac.u.mazahn,” he said, ”I hear men stirring below us.”

At this moment Hans slipped past him, whispering, ”The cannibals are coming, Baas, a good number of them. I think they mean to attack before dawn.”

Then he pa.s.sed behind me to warn the Zulus. As he went by, I said to him, ”If so, Hans, now is the time for your Great Medicine to show what it can do.”

”The Great Medicine will look after you and me all right, Baas,” he replied, pausing and speaking in Dutch, which Umslopogaas did not understand, ”but I expect there will be fewer of those Zulus to cook for before the sun grows hot. Their spirits will be turned into snakes and go back into the reeds from which they say they were 'torn out,'” he added over his shoulder.

I should explain that Hans acted as cook to our party and it was a grievance with him that the Zulus ate so much of the meat which he was called upon to prepare. Indeed, there is never much sympathy between Hottentots and Zulus.

”What is the little yellow man saying about us?” asked Umslopogaas suspiciously.

”He is saying that if it comes to battle, you and your men will make a great fight,” I replied diplomatically.

”Yes, we will do that, Mac.u.mazahn, but I thought he said that we should be killed and that this pleased him.”

”Oh dear no!” I answered hastily. ”How could he be pleased if that happened, since then he would be left defenceless, if he were not killed too. Now, Umslopogaas, let us make a plan for this fight.”

So, together with Robertson, rapidly we discussed the thing. As a result, with the help of the Zulus, we dragged together some loose stones and the tops of three small thorn trees which we had cut down, and with them made a low breastwork, sufficient to give us some protection if we lay down to shoot. It was the work of a few minutes since we had prepared the material when we camped in case an emergency should arise.

Behind this breastwork we gathered and waited, Robertson and I being careful to get a little to the rear of the Zulus, who it will be remembered had the rifles which the Strathmuir b.a.s.t.a.r.ds had left behind them when they bolted, in addition to their axes and throwing a.s.segais. The question was how these cannibals would fight. I knew that they were armed with long spears and knives but I did not know if they used those spears for thrusting or for throwing. In the former case it would be difficult to get at them with the axes because they must have the longer reach. Fortunately as it turned out, they did both.

At length all was ready and there came that long and trying wait, the most disagreeable part of a fight in which one grows nervous and begins to reflect earnestly upon one's sins. Clearly the Amahagger, if they really intended business, did not mean to attack till just before dawn, after the common native fas.h.i.+on, thinking to rush us in the low and puzzling light. What perplexed me was that they should wish to attack us at all after having let so many opportunities of doing so go by. Apparently these men were now in sight of their own home, where no doubt they had many friends, and by pus.h.i.+ng on could reach its shelter before us, especially as they knew the roads and we did not.

They had come out for a secret purpose that seemed to have to do with the abduction of a certain young white woman for reasons connected with their tribal statecraft or ritual, which is the kind of thing that happens not infrequently among obscure and ancient African tribes. Well, they had abducted their young woman and were in sight of safety and success in their objects, whatever these might be. For what possible reason, then, could they desire to risk a fight with the outraged friends and relatives of that young woman?

It was true that they outnumbered us and therefore had a good chance of victory, but on the other hand, they must know that it would be very dearly won, and if it were not won, that we should retake their captive, so that all their trouble would have been for nothing. Further they must be as exhausted and travel-worn as we were ourselves and in no condition to face a desperate battle.

The problem was beyond me and I gave it up with the reflection that either this threatened attack was a mere feint to delay us, or that behind it was something mysterious, such as a determination to prevent us at all hazards from discovering the secrets of that mountain stronghold.

When I put the riddle to Hans, who was lying next to me, he was ready with another solution.

”They are men-eaters, Baas,” he said, ”and being hungry, wish to eat us before they get to their own land where doubtless they are not allowed to eat each other.”

”Do you think so,” I answered, ”when we are so thin?” and I surveyed Hans' scraggy form in the moonlight.

”Oh! yes, Baas, we should be quite good boiled-like old hens, Baas. Also it is the nature of cannibals to prefer thin man to fat beef. The devil that is in them gives them that taste, Baas, just as he makes me like gin, or you turn your head to look at pretty women, as those Zulus say you always did in their country, especially at a certain witch who was named Mameena and whom you kissed before everybody--”

Here I turned my head to look at Hans, proposing to smite him with words, or physically, since to have this Mameena myth, of which I have detailed the origin in the book called Child of Storm, re-arise out of his hideous little mouth was too much. But before I could get out a syllable he held up his finger and whispered, ”Hus.h.!.+ the dawn breaks and they come. I hear them.”

I listened intently but could distinguish nothing. Only straining my eyes, presently I thought that about a hundred yards down the slope beneath us in the dim light I caught sight of ghostlike figures flitting from tree to tree; also that these figures were drawing nearer.

”Look out!” I said to Robertson on my right, ”I believe they are coming.”

”Man,” he answered sternly, ”I hope so, for whom else have I wanted to meet all these days?”

Now the figures vanished into a little fold of the ground. A minute or so later they re-appeared upon its. .h.i.ther side where such light as there was from the fading stars and the gathering dawn fell full upon them, for here were no trees. I looked and a thrill of horror went through me, for with one glance I recognised that these were not the men whom we had been following. To begin with, there were many more of them, quite a hundred, I should think, also they had painted s.h.i.+elds, wore feathers in their hair, and generally so far as I could judge, seemed to be fat and fresh.

”We have been led into an ambush,” I said first in Zulu to Umslopogaas immediately in front, and then in English to Robertson.

”If so, man, we must just do the best we can,” answered the latter, ”but G.o.d help my poor daughter, for those other devils will have taken her away, leaving their brethren to make an end of us.”

”It is so, Mac.u.mazahn,” broke in Umslopogaas. ”Well, whatever the end of it, we shall have a better fight. Now do you give the word and we will obey.”

The savages, for so I call them, although I admit that cannibals or not, they looked more like high-cla.s.s Arabs than savages, came on in perfect silence, hoping, I suppose, to catch us asleep. When they were about fifty yards away, running in a treble line with spears advanced, I called out ”Fire!” in Zulu, and set the example by loosing off both barrels of my express rifle at men whom I had picked out as leaders, with results that must have been more satisfactory to me than to the two Amahagger whose troubles in this world came to an end.

There followed a tremendous fusillade, the Zulus banging off their guns wildly, but even at that distance managing for the most part to shoot over the enemy's heads. Captain Robertson and Hans, however, did better and the general result was that the Amahagger, who appeared to be unaccustomed to firearms, retreated in a hurry to a fold of the ground whence they had emerged. Before the last of them got there I loaded again, so that two more stopped behind. Altogether we had put nine or ten of them out of action.

Now I hoped that they would give the business up. But this was not so, for being brave fellows, after a pause of perhaps five minutes, once more they charged in a body, hoping to overwhelm us. Again we greeted them with bullets and knocked out several, whereon the rest threw a volley of their long spears at us. I was glad to see them do this although one of the Zulus got his death from it, while two more were wounded. I myself had a very narrow escape, for a spear pa.s.sed between my neck and shoulder. Each of them carried but one of these weapons and I knew that if they used them up in throwing, only their big knives would remain to them with which to attack us.

After this discharge of spears which was kept up for some time, they rushed at us and there followed a great fight. The Zulus, throwing down their guns, rose to their feet and holding their little fighting s.h.i.+elds which had been carried in their mats, in the left hand, wielded their axes with the right. Umslopogaas, who stood in the centre of them, however, had no s.h.i.+eld and swung his great axe with both arms. This was the first time that I had seen him fight and the spectacle was in a way magnificent. Again and again the axe crashed down and every time it fell it left one dead beneath the stroke, till at length those Amahagger shrank back out of his reach.

Meanwhile Robertson, Hans and I, standing on some stones at the back, kept up a continual fire upon them, shooting over the heads of the Zulus, who were playing their part like men. Yes, they shrank back, leaving many dead behind them. Then a captain tried to gather them for another rush, and once more they moved forward. I killed that captain with a revolver shot, for my rifle had become too hot to hold, and at the sight of his fall, they broke and ran back into the little hollow where our bullets could not reach them.

So far we had held our own, but at a price, for three of the Zulus were now dead and three more wounded, one of them severely, the other two but enough to cripple them. In fact, now there were left of them but three untouched men, and Umslopogaas, so that in all for fighting purposes we were but seven. What availed it that we had killed a great number of these Amahagger, when we were but seven? How could seven men withstand such another onslaught?

There in the pale light of the dawn we looked at each other dismayed.

”Now,” said Umslopogaas, leaning on his red axe, ”there remains but one thing to do, make a good end, though I would that it were in a greater cause. At least we must either fight or fly,” and he looked down at the wounded.

”Think not of us, Father,” murmured one of them, the man who had a mortal hurt. ”If it is best, kill us and begone that you may live to bear the Axe in years to come.”

”Well spoken!” said Umslopogaas, and again stood still a while, then added, ”The word is with you, Mac.u.mazahn, who are our captain.”

I set out the situation to Robertson and Hans as briefly as I could, showing that there was a chance of life if we ran, but so far as I could see, none if we stayed.

”Go if you like, Quatermain,” answered the Captain, ”but I shall stop and die here, for since my girl is gone I think I'm better dead.”

I motioned to Hans to speak.

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