Part 2 (2/2)
”Look out, then. There's a pointed stake in the ground here which I only escaped by a hair's breadth. Jump to the left. It's uncommon good of you.”
John leapt down, and making a pick-a-back, got the stranger to mount and then to stand erect on one foot. His head was now just below the level of the pit.
”I'm afraid we're not much for'arder,” he said, with a smile.
”Can't you get your elbows on the edge and hoist yourself up?” suggested John.
”Can't reach. You'd better let me down.”
”I'll tell you what,” said John: ”cut a notch in the wall for your foot.
Then you can hoist yourself up by the rifle until you are high enough to get your elbows on; then it'll be easy. The earth is pretty soft.”
Sitting with his legs over John's shoulders, the stranger soon cut a notch with his knife; and in a few minutes he was hauled to the surface.
”I'm much obliged to you. I might have stayed there till I starved for all my men would have troubled.”
”How did you manage to fall in?” asked Mr. Halliday.
”A rhinoceros charged us as we were crossing the foot of the kopje yonder. He sprang out from behind a small mountain of an ant-hill. My men instantly flung down their loads and bolted--idiots! and as we're rather short of meat I thought I'd try to get within shot of the beast.
I was following him up when the earth gave way under me, and I found myself in this old game-pit, and don't know how I managed to escape the skewer sticking up at the bottom, as long as my arm. I say, you haven't happened to see anything of my brother, I suppose?”
”We met n.o.body but your men,” said Mr. Halliday. ”Has your brother lost himself?”
”Old Joe lost! Not a bit of it,” cried the young man. ”He'll turn up all right. He left me a couple of hours ago to shoot something for to-night's pot, and I thought you might have come across him. I'm rather a nuisance, I'm afraid; I can't put my left foot to the ground, and our last donkey died four days ago, so that I can't ride. We've had uncommon bad luck with our donkeys. As a rule they're hardy in this climate, we were told; but every one of the six we started with has died. Really, I am a nuisance, keeping you here.”
”Nonsense,” said Mr. Halliday. ”Coja, shout for some of our men.”
”No come, master,” said Coja. ”Berry much 'fraid.”
”If he goes and calls our headman a coward I think it will answer,” said the stranger. ”Headmen are very jealous of each other.”
Coja entered into the spirit of the suggestion, and ran back over the tracks. In a few minutes the sounds of angry altercation came through the bush, and Coja reappeared, in company with a white-clad Somali, each man abusing the other at the top of his voice. Mr. Halliday silenced them sternly, and ordered them to construct a litter, promising a few cents to the man who did the larger share of the work. They set to work at once, weaving strands of creeping plants and stalks of gra.s.s with amazing rapidity. In less than twenty minutes a sheet of matting was finished and firmly bound to two rifles, and on this extemporized litter the stranger was carried between the headmen back to the open ground.
On the way he explained that his name was Oliver Browne, ”commonly called Poll,” and that he came from Cape Colony. With his elder brother he had been shooting and prospecting in North Kenya and Gallaland, and they had thoughts of settling in British East Africa, which seemed to offer better prospects than they could see in South Africa.
”I suppose you're on the same job,” he concluded.
”Well, we're going to have a look round,” replied Mr. Halliday cautiously. ”We're on a flying visit, you see.”
”And I'm a nuisance, hindering you like this. Here are my wretched men; I shall be all right now; and I can't thank you enough. We may meet again, if we decide to come north. Good-bye. And I say, if you meet that brother of mine, please tell him to hurry up, for if another rhinoceros takes a fancy to charge us, and I can't bring him down, I shall be a mangled corpse in no time.”
”Hadn't we better stay with you till your brother turns up?” said John.
”Not at all. The plain is pretty open here, and a rhinoceros could not take us unawares. I shall go on slowly, and camp when I come to a suitable place, and my men will rig up a boma in no time. Good-bye again.”
The matting had been transferred to two of the Brownes' rifles, and the men of each party having collected and shouldered their loads, they set off in opposite directions, the two headmen hurling abuse at each other as long as they remained in sight. Coja was particularly indignant because his rival had received the reward for completing the greater portion of the litter; but after a little Mr. Halliday consoled him by saying, casually, that his portion had been the more closely knit, so that he should receive a reward also.
”Dat oder fella no good, what I say,” remarked Coja.
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