Part 8 (1/2)
”Near the drift we parted, and I returned to our provisional camp and wrote a beautiful report of all that I had learned, of which report, I htest notice
”I think it was the ed to meet Gita and the little boy at the drift that just about daent down to the river for a wash Having taken my dip, I climbed on to a flat rock to dress myself, and looked at the billows of beautiful, pearly mist which hid the face of the water, and considered--I alreat silence, for as yet no live thing was stirring
”Ah! if I had known of the hideous sights and sounds that were destined to be heard ere long in this same haunt of perfect peace! Indeed, at that moment there came a kind of hint or preh the utter quiet broke the blood-curdling wail of a woman It was followed by other wails and shouts, distant and yet distinct Then the silence fell again
”Now, I thought to epa's kraal; luckily, however, sounds are deceptive in mist
”Well, the end of it was that I waited there till the sun rose The first thing on which its bright bea to heaven froons very sad--so sad that I could scarcely eat ht had glinted upon the tip of a buck's horn in that patch of green bush with the sweet-so Or had it perchance fallen upon the point of the assegai of so my movements! In that event yonder column of smoke and the horrible cries that preceded it were easy to explain For had not Magepa and I talked secrets together, and in Zulu?
”On the followingat dawn I attended at the drift in the faint hope that Gita and her boy ed But nobody ca that Gita lay dead, stabbed through and through, as I saw afterwards, (she one to wherever go the souls of the brave-hearted, be they white or black Only on the farther bank of the river I saw some Zulu scouts who seely where was the pretty woman I had come to meet?
”After that I tried to put the h of other things, since now definite orders had arrived as to the advance, and with these many troops and officers
”It was just then that the Zulus began to fire across the river at such of our people as they saw upon the bank At these they took aim, and, as a result, hit nobody A raw Kaffir with a rifle, in , for then the bullet looks after itself and iment of the friendly natives--there may have been several hundred of them--was directed to cross the river and clear the kloofs and rocks of the Zulu skiro off in fine style, and in the course of the afternoon heard a good deal of shouting and banging of guns on the farther side of the river
”Towards evening sorandiloquently, was returning victorious Having at theelse to do, I walked down to the river at a point where the water was deep and the banks were high Here I clilasses I could sweep a great extent of plain which stretched away on the Zululand side till at length it ed into hills and bush
”Presently I saw soanised fashi+on, but evidently very proud of the scraps of war-songs A few ht of a lasses I noted three things: First, that he was tall; secondly, that he ran with extraordinary swiftness; and, thirdly, that he had so tied upon his back It was evident, further, that he had good reason to run, since he was being hunted by a number of our Kaffirs, of whom more and more continually joined the chase Fro to cut hiot nearer I could see the assegais which they threw at hiht
”Very soon I understood that thewith a definite object and to a definite point; he was trying to reach the river I thought the sight very pitiful, this one poor creature being hunted to death by so many Also I wondered why he did not free himself from the bundle on his back, and came to the conclusion that he must be a witch-doctor, and that the bundle contained his precious char way off, but when he came nearer, within three or four hundred yards, of a sudden I caught the outline of his face against a good background, and knew it for that of Magepa
”'My God!' I said to epa the Buck, and the bundle in the randson, Sinala!'
”Yes, even then I felt certain that he was carrying the child upon his back
”What was I to do? It was i before I could get round by the ford all would be finished I stood up on my rock and shouted to those brutes of Kaffirs to let the man alone They were so excited that they did not hear ht I was encouraging theepa heard ht of athered hi speed Now the river was not more than three hundred yards away from him, and for the first two hundred of these he quite outdistanced his pursuers, although they werean to fail
”Watching through the glasses, I could see that his mouth ide open, and that there was red foa hih to loose it; then with a wild gesture let theain
”Two of the pursuers who had outpaced the others crept up to hie They had stabbing spears in their hands, such as are used at close quarters, and these of course they did not throw One of theepa was not more than fifty yards from the bank, with the first hunter about ten paces behind hilanced over his shoulder and saw, then put out his last strength For forty yards he went like an arrow, running straight away from his pursuers, until he ithin a few feet of the bank, when he stumbled and fell
”'He's done,' I said, and, upon my word, if I had had a rifle in my hand I think I would have stopped one or both of those bloodhounds and taken the consequences