Part 36 (1/2)

”You've saved us, Grunberger,” cried Lamont. ”By G.o.d! you've saved us, man.”

”_Ach, so_! Well, I think I made de tam n.i.g.g.e.rs feel sick.”

What is this? There is a rumbling noise, then the sharp cracking of shots away there in the mist. It becomes a regular roll--and with it the sound of yells and the scurry of flying feet. The frenzied bellowing and moaning of the cattle in the kraal, rus.h.i.+ng hither and thither, and struck down by the a.s.segais of the savages, blends, too, with the roar and din and confusion. Yet--what is this? Nearer and nearer comes that volleying roll, nearer and nearer the rumble of unmistakable horse-hoofs, and, as with incredible swiftness the last remaining savages flit away into the mist, such a ringing cheer goes up from all within the stockade that hardly the h.e.l.l of the recent battle rout can have surpa.s.sed it for volume.

It is answered, and now out of the smother, other forms appear--the forms of armed hors.e.m.e.n; and still the darkling mist is rent ever and anon by a spurt of flame, as these descry a belated body of fleeing warriors not sufficiently quick to take themselves out of sight and range.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

”WHERE IS HE?”

Clare Vidal's beautiful eyes are strained upon the farthest limits of vision in a certain direction, and, not for the first time, the thought rather than the utterance, expressed by these three words, pa.s.ses through her mind--

”Where is he?”

The day is one of cloudless beauty. With the arrival--the timely arrival--of the relieving force an hour or so ago, the mist had suddenly rolled back; retreating as though still to curtain their flight, simultaneously with the demoralised Matabele. The said relieving force--which was made up of a company of Green's Scouts, and a number of mounted men who had volunteered to patrol the Buluwayo road, and warn and a.s.sist all who should be in danger--had forthwith started in hot pursuit. They were going to keep that impi on the run, they declared, even if it had to run to--well, a certain place that shall be nameless, but which is popularly understood to lie within the torrid zone. With them had gone Lamont. Clare was a little sore at heart, a little reproachful, as she stood there outside the stockade, gazing wistfully out over the roll of the veldt. Why had he left her just then? There was no necessity for it. Had he not borne himself as a very hero in that awful fight which seemed to have lasted a year, though in point of actual time it lasted considerably less than an hour; what necessity then could there be for him to give further evidence of his prowess?

They two had but been s.n.a.t.c.hed back from the portal of Death, had even felt his cold blast together--why then, could he not have remained by her at such a moment? For the life of her she could not but feel conscious of a certain soreness.

Since the relief Clare had been by no means idle; for, conquering her natural repulsion towards wounds and death, she had been rendering the surgeon very practical a.s.sistance, and incidentally, but all unconsciously, had gone far towards implanting in poor Strange's system a wound which only time might avail to heal. Her quick apt.i.tude, however, atoned for her lack of experience, to a quite astonis.h.i.+ng degree, and Strange expressed considerable scepticism as to her never having undergone any training. Lucy Fullerton, utterly worn out with the exhaustion of terror, had fallen sound asleep through the sheer reaction of relief; which was as well, for it may be imagined that the relics of such a struggle as this had been consisted largely of ghastly and horrifying sights meeting the eye at every turn. These, however, had been minimised, and the enemy's dead had been dragged off to a sufficient distance as to be invisible.

Their own dead had been cared for, and the wounded made as comfortable as the circ.u.mstances of the place would admit; this it turned out was beyond what might have been expected, for the Kezane Store was exceedingly well supplied with most necessaries; and fortunate indeed that it was so, for there had been grave danger of ammunition giving out during the battle. It must not be supposed, either, that the place was left to take its chance, practically undefended, for over and above its original defenders quite a number of the relieving force, whose horses were not up to further calls upon speed and endurance, had remained behind.

”You must have had the very devil of a sc.r.a.p, Peters,” one of these was saying. ”We could hear you banging away from the time you began, and pushed our gees for all they'd carry; for we reckoned all that shooting meant a big thing and no bally skirmish. The cream of the fun was when we got in among the n.i.g.g.e.rs in the mist. They didn't know we were there till we got cracking away right in their faces, or mostly backs.

_Magtig_! didn't they skip. But--I say though--what old powder magazine was it that you blew up just before we got here? Man! it nearly knocked us all down.”

The explanation of Grunberger's ingenious device raised a great laugh, and many were the felicitations showered upon that estimable Teuton.

”I say, Wyndham,” another was saying. ”What on earth could have possessed you and Fullerton to start tooling your team off into the very teeth of h.e.l.l let loose, in the confiding, childlike way you seem to have done?”

”We didn't know h.e.l.l _was_ let loose, that's the explanation. But Lamont went for us on exactly the same terms.”

”Lamont? Is he with you then?”

”I should say so. Why, he's been bossing up the whole show. If it hadn't been for him we'd have gone under long before we got here.”

”So? Then you've got a right good man, that's all. I was out with him in '93. He's a tiger in a fight.”

”Seems to be,” said Wyndham drily. ”You'd think he'd had enough of that sort of thing day before yesterday, and this morning, to last him at any rate for a day or two, and now instead of having a quiet smoke and a cool drink, like a rational Christian, he must race off along with your crowd to contract for some more knocks. Silly a.s.s!”

”There's something in it when you put things that way. But--I say.

Who's the lady?”

”Where?” following his glance. ”Oh, that's Miss Vidal, Fullerton's sister-in-law.”

”So! By Jove! what a fine-looking girl. Oh! oh!--Wyndham, you deep-down dog! So that's where the little venture in charioteering came in, eh? I see.”

”Shut up, Selby, and don't be a silly a.s.s,” answered Wyndham shortly.

”I hate that sort of chaff, you know.”