Part 44 (2/2)

I had fully made up my mind to fire on the first black who showed himself, but I did not get the opportunity. In about two hours I heard a noise of men shouting and whips cracking, and the Doctor and James rode up with a fresh lot of cattle.

I told them what had happened, and we agreed to wait and watch till news should come from the station, and then to start. There was, as we thought, but little danger while there were four or five together; but the worst of it was, that we were but poorly armed. However, at nightfall, Owen and one of his men came down, reporting that d.i.c.k, who had been speared, was getting all right, and bringing also three swords, and a brace of pistols.

James and I took a couple of swords, and began fencing, in play.

”I see,” said the Doctor, ”that you know the use of a sword, you two.”

”Lord bless you!” I said, ”we were in the Yeomanry (Landwehr you call it); weren't we, Jim? I was a corporal.”

”I wish,” said Owen, ”that, now we are together, five of us, you would come and give these fellows a lesson; they want it badly.”

”Indeed,” I said, ”I think they have had lesson enough for the present.

d.i.c.k has put down two of them. Beside, we could not leave the cattle.”

”I am sorry,” said James, ”that any of our party has had this collision with them. I cannot bear shooting the poor brutes. Let us move out of this, homeward, to-morrow morning.”

Just before dark, who should come riding down from the station but d.i.c.k!--evidently in pain, but making believe that he was quite comfortable.

”Why, d.i.c.k, my boy,” I said, ”I thought you were in bed; you ought to be, at any rate.”

”Oh, there's nothing much the matter with me, Mr. Hamlyn,” he said.

”You will have some trouble with these fellows, unless I am mistaken. I was told to look after you once, and I mean to do it.”

(He referred to the letter that Lee had sent him years before.)

That night Owen stayed with us at the camp. We set a watch, and he took the morning spell. Everything pa.s.sed off quietly; but when we came to examine our cattle in the morning, the lot that James had brought in the night before were gone.

The river, flooded when we first came, had now lowered considerably, so that the cattle could cross if they really tried. These last, being wild and restless, had gone over, and we soon found the marks of them across the river.

The Doctor, James, d.i.c.k, and I started off after them, having armed ourselves for security. We took a sword a-piece, and each had a pistol.

The ground was moist, and the beasts easily tracked; so we thought an easy job was before us, but we soon changed our minds.

Following on the trail of the cattle, we very soon came on the footsteps of a black fellow, evidently more recent than the hoof-marks; then another footstep joined in, and another, and at last we made out that above a dozen blacks were tracking our cattle, and were between us and them.

Still we followed the trail as fast as we could. I was uneasy, for we were insufficiently armed, but I found time to point out to the Doctor, what he had never remarked before, the wonderful difference between the naked foot-print of a white man and a savage. The white man leaves the impression of his whole sole, every toe being distinctly marked, while your black fellow leaves scarce any toe-marks, but seems merely to spurn the ground with the ball of his foot.

I felt very ill at ease. The morning was raw, and a dense fog was over everything. One always feels wretched on such a morning, but on that one I felt miserable. There was an indefinable horror over me, and I talked more than any one, glad to hear the sound of my own voice.

Once, the Doctor turned round and looked at me fixedly from under his dark eyebrows. ”Hamlyn,” he said, ”I don't think you are well; you talk fast, and are evidently nervous. We are in no danger, I think, but you seem as if you were frightened.”

”So I am, Doctor, but I don't know what at.”

Jim was riding first, and he turned and said, ”I have lost the black fellows' track entirely: here are the hoof-marks, safe enough, but no foot-prints, and the ground seems to be rising.”

The fog was very thick, so that we could see nothing above a hundred yards from us. We had come through forest all the way, and were wet with pus.h.i.+ng through low shrubs. As we paused came a puff of air, and in five minutes the fog had rolled away, and a clear blue sky and a bright sun were overhead.

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