Part 30 (2/2)

The other needed no second bidding. As the horse with its double burden--either of these, singly, would have been a sufficient one for the poor brute, blown as he was--started once more, the foremost line of the savages was barely two hundred yards distant. Leaping, bounding, uttering their blood-curdling war-hiss, they reckoned their prey secure.

The horse, weighted like that could never distance them. They would overtake it long before camp should be reached. Already they gripped their a.s.segais.

”Sit tight, Spence, or you'll pull us both to the ground,” said Hilary, with a sardonic suspicion that if the other saw a chance of throwing him off without risking a similar fate himself, he was quite mean enough to seize it. ”Sit light too, if you can, and spare the horse as much as possible.”

Down into a hollow, and here, in the bed of a dry watercourse, the game steed stumbled heavily, but just saved his footing, and thereby the lives of his two riders. Bullets flew humming past now, but it seemed that the din of their pursuers was further behind, and indeed such was the case, for they arrived at the laager at the same time as the rescued troop horses.

”Good G.o.d! Blachland! You are a splendid fellow, and I owe you my life,” gasped the rescued man. ”But what must you think of me?” he added shamefacedly.

”No more no less than I did before,” was the curt reply. ”Get off now.

You're quite safe.”

”You ought to get the V.C. for this,” went on Spence.

But the other replied by coupling that ardently coveted decoration with a word of a condemnatory character. ”I believe I've nearly killed my horse,” he added crustily.

There were those in the laager who witnessed this, and to whom the circ.u.mstances of the former acquaintances.h.i.+p between the two men were known--but they tactfully refrained from making any comment. Percival West, however, was not so reticent.

”Why, Hilary, you splendid old chap, what have you done?” he cried, fairly dancing with delight. ”Why didn't you take me with you though--”

”Oh go away, Percy. You are such a silly young a.s.s,” was the very ill-humoured reception wherewith his transports were greeted by his kinsman.

The fight was over now and the enemy in retreat. Yet not routed, for he still hung about at a safe distance, in sufficient force to make things warm for any pursuing troop who should venture after him into the thicker bush, until a few deftly planted sh.e.l.ls taught him that he had not yet achieved a safe distance. Then he drew off altogether.

CHAPTER THREE.

A FLAMING THRONE.

”Too late, boys, I guess the Southern Column got there first.” And the utterer of this remark lowered his field gla.s.ses and turned to the remainder of the little band of scouts with an air of profound conviction.

Away in the distance dense columns of smoke were rising heavenward. For some time this group of men had been eagerly intent upon watching the phenomenon through their gla.s.ses, and there was reason for their eagerness, for they were looking upon the goal of the expedition, and what should practically represent the close of the campaign--Bulawayo to wit, but--Bulawayo in flames. Who had fired it?

Considerable disappointment was felt and expressed. Their prompt march, their hard and victorious fighting had not brought them first to the goal. The Southern Column had distanced them and was there already.

Such was the conclusion arrived at on all sides.

One man, however, had let go no opinion. Lying full length, his field gla.s.s adjusted upon a convenient rock, he had been steadily scanning the burning kraal in the distance during all the foregoing discussion, ignoring the latter as though he were alone on the ground. Now he spoke.

”There's no Southern Column thereat all. No sign or trace of a camp.”

This dictum was received with dissent, even with a little derision.

”Who's set it on fire then, Blachland?” said one of the exponents of the latter phase, with a wink at the others. ”You're not going to tell us that Lo Bengula's set his own shop alight?”

”That's about what's occurred,” was the tranquil reply. ”At least I think so.”

”It's more'n likely Blachland's right, boys,” said one of the scouts, speaking with a p.r.o.nounced American accent. ”He's been there anyway.”

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