Part 7 (2/2)
”Hans,” I cried, ”take the ht and try to lead those slaves round behind us Quick! Quick now before we are stamped flat”
Hans darted away, and presently I saw hi crowd, Hans waving a shi+rt or some other white object to attract their attention At the ti, ”Mercy, English!+ Save us, English!+” having caught sight of the uns
This was a fortunate occurrence indeed, for otherwise Hans and his co I saas the white shi+rt bearing away to the left on a line which led past the fence of our borass behind the caled and scrambled the crowd of slaves like a flock of sheep after the bell-wether To them Hans's shi+rt was a kind of ”white heler passed by Some of the slaves had been struck by the Arab bullets or trodden down in the rush or collapsed from weakness, and at those of the One woreat slave-stick which was fastened about her throat, was crawling forward on her hands and knees An Arab fired at her and the bullet struck the ground under her stoled forward ain, and watched Presently, for by now the light was good, I saw him, a tall fellow in a white robe, step from behind the shelter of a banana-tree about a hundred and fifty yards away, and take a careful aim at the woman But I too took ai when I try That Arab's gun never went off Only he went up two feet or h the head which was the part of his person that I had covered
The hunters uttered a lo!” of approval, while Stephen, in a sort of ecstasy, exclaimed: ”Oh! what a heavenly shot!”
”Not bad, but I shouldn't have fired it,” I answered, ”for they haven't attacked us yet It is a kind of declaration of war, and,” I added, as Stephen's sun-helmet leapt from his head, ”there's the answer Down, all of you, and fire through the loopholes”
Then the fight began Except for its grand finale it wasn't really ht when compared with one or te had afterwards on this expedition But, on the other hand, its character was extre, shouting on Allah as they cah they were plucky villains they did not repeat that experiement Stephen knocked over two of thee-bore breech-loader-the first I ever owned-a them, not without results, while the hunters etting behind trees and, as I had feared, hiding in the reeds on the banks of the streast them were some very decent shots Indeed, had we not taken the precaution of lining the thorn fence with a thick bank of earth and sods, we should have fared badly As it was, one of the hunters was killed, the bullet passing through the loophole and striking him in the throat as he was about to fire, while the unfortunate bearers ere on rather higher ground, suffered a good deal, two of theht and four wounded After this I ainst the fence, in such a fashi+on that we could fire over their bodies
Soon it became evident that there were ht, for quite fifty of therees they were advancing with the evident object of outflanking us and gaining the high ground behind Some of them, of course, we stopped as they rushed fro was as difficult as that at bolting rabbits across a woodland ride, and to be honest, I a practice told
Within an hour the position had grown very serious indeed, so much so that we found it necessary to consider what should be done I pointed out that with our sainst the scattered rifle us, would be worse than useless, while it was alhtfall Once the Arabs got behind us, they could rake us froround Indeed, for the last half-hour we had directed all our efforts to preventing the this boma, which, fortunately, the stream on the one side and a stretch of quite open land on the other made it very difficult for them to do without more loss than they cared to face
”I fear there is only one thing for it,” I said at length, during a pause in the attack while the Arabs were either taking counsel or waiting forand bolt up the hill As those fellows ood runners, we may save our lives in that way”
”How about the wounded,” asked Stephen, ”and the slave-wo down
Of course I did know very well, but here, in an acute form, arose the ancient question: Were we to perish for the sake of certain individuals in e had no great interest and e could not save by re with them? If we stayed where ere our end seeood chance of escape But this involved the desertion of several injured bearers and a wo, all of ould certainly be massacred, save perhaps the woh my brain I remembered that a drunken Frenchman named Leblanc, whom I had known in my youth and who had been a friend of Napoleon, or so he said, toldAcre in the Holy Land, was forced to retreat Being unable to carry off his wounded men, he left them in a monastery on Mount Carmel, each with a dose of poison by his side Apparently they did not take the poison, for according to Leblanc, who said he was present there (not as a wounded man), the Turks came and butchered them So Napoleon chose to save his own life and that of his army at the expense of his wounded But, after all, I reflected, he was no shi+ning example to Christian men and I hadn't time to find any poison In a feords I explained the situation to Mavovo, leaving out the story of Napoleon, and asked his advice
”We , life is more than stores, and he who lives may one day pay his debts”
”But the wounded, Mavovo; we cannot carry them”
”I will see to them, Macumazana; it is the fortune of war Or if they prefer it, we can leave them-to be nursed by the Arabs,” which of course was just Napoleon and his poison over again
I confess that I was about to assent, not wishi+ng that I and Stephen, especially Stephen, should be potted in an obscure engage happened
It will be re a shi+rt for a flag, had led the fugitive slaves past the camp up to the hill behind There he and they had vanished, and fro of hi the shi+rt After hireatslave-sticks, stones and the boughs of trees When they had almost reached the boma whence atched the to our left, apparently under the command of the Mazitu who had accoht following the old Hottentot himself I stared at Mavovo, for I was too thunderstruck to speak
”Ah!” said Mavovo, ”that Spotted Snake of yours” (he referred to Hans), ”is great in his oay, for he has even been able to put courage into the hearts of slaves Do you not understand, my father, that they are about to attack those Arabs, yes, and to pull thes do a buffalo calf?”
It was true: this was the Hottentot's superb design Moreover, it succeeded Up on the hillside he had watched the progress of the fight and seen how it h the interpreter ith hi out to them that we, their white friends, were about to be overwhelmed, and that they must either strike for the them were soh these he stirred the others They seized the slave-sticks fro that ca only the wo the so-places At these the slaves rushed They hurled themselves upon the Arabs; they tore them, they dashed out their brains in such fashi+on that within another five minutes quite two-thirds of them were dead; and the rest, of e took some toll with our rifles as they bolted froeance Never did I witness atheir wrongs upon their tormentors I remember that when most of the Arabs had been killed and a feere escaped, the slaves found one, I think it was the captain of the gang, who had hidden himself in a little patch of dead reeds washed up by the streaed to fire these; I expect that Hans, who had rean, eave them a match In due course out ca the ants do upon a caterpillar, and despite his cries forwhat they were, it was hard to blame them If we had seen our parents shot, our infants pitilessly butchered, our homes destroyed and our women and children e, should we not have done the saes
Thus our lives were saved by those e had tried to save, and for once justice was done even in those dark parts of Africa, for in that time they were dark indeed Had it not been for Hans and the courage which he ed to inspire into the hearts of these crushed blacks, I have little doubt but that before nightfall we should have been dead, for I do not think that any attempt at retreat would have proved successful And if it had, ould have happened to us in that wild country surrounded by enemies and with only the few rounds of aht?
”Ah! Baas,” said the Hottentot a little while later, squinting at me with his bead-like eyes, ”after all you did well to listen tome with you Old Hans is a drunkard, yes, or at least he used to be, and old Hans gao to hell But ht one day before the attack on Maraisfontein, as he thought one day on the Hill of Slaughter by Dingaan's kraal, and as he thought thisthe bushes Oh! he kne itdown a tree to h ground at the back of you, whence they would have shot you all in five minutes And now, Baas, my stomach feels very queer There was no breakfast on the hillside and the sun was very hot I think that just one tot of brandy-oh! I know, I proive it ave hih it was against my principles, and locked up the bottle afterwards Also I shook the old fellow's hand and thanked him, which see to the effect that it was nothing, since if I had died he would have died too, and therefore he was thinking of hi tears trickled down his snub nose, but these may have been produced by the brandy
Well, ere the victors and elated as ined, for we knew that the few slavers who had escaped would not attack us again Our first thought was for food, for it was now pastBut dinner presupposed a cook, which reminded us of Sammy Stephen, as in such a state of jubilation that he danced rather than walked, the helh it stuck ludicrously upon the back of his head, started to look for him, and presently called to me in an alar into a hole like a srave, that had been hollowed behind a solitary thorn tree, at the bottom of which lay a huddled heap, I found hiot hold of hi in his hand a large, thick Bible, bound in boards Moreover, in the exact centre of this Bible was a bullet-hole, or rather a bullet which had passed through the stout cover and buried itself in the paper behind I remember that the point of it reached to the First Book of Samuel
As for Sammy himself, he seemed to be quite uninjured, and indeed after we had poured some water on hih Then we found out what had happened
”Gentle as I have told you a ion”-he was very pious in ti slackened, and I ventured to peep out, thinking that perhaps the foe had fled, holding the Book in front of my face in case of accidents After that I remember no more”
”No,” said Stephen, ”for the bullet hit the Bible and the Bible hit your head and knocked you silly”
”Ah!” said Saht that the Book shall be a shi+eld of defence to the righteous Now I understand why I was ed to iven to h which the ball of the enemy would have passed”
Then he went off to cook the dinner
Certainly it was a wonderful escape, though whether this was a direct reward of his piety, as he thought, is another matter
As soon as we had eaten, we set to work to consider our position, of which the crux hat to do with the slaves There they sat in groups outside the fence,traces of the recent conflict, and stared at us stupidly Then of a sudden, as though with one voice, they began to clamour for food
”How are we to feed several hundred people?” asked Stephen
”The slavers o and search their cary clients, and, in addition to reat store of rice, round into ether with salt, and soon the cooking pots were full of porridge My word! how those poor creatures did eat, nor, although it was necessary to be careful, could we find it in our hearts to stint them of the first full meal that had passed their lips after weeks of starvation When at length they were satisfied we addressed the the what they meant to do
Upon this point they seemed to have but one idea They said that they would coreat indaba, or consultation, which really I have not tireed that so many of them as wished should accompany us till they reached country that they knehen they would be at liberty to depart to their own homes Meanwhile we divided up the blankets and other stores of the Arabs, such as trade goods and beads, a theuard over the foodstuffs Forwe should find theone
After this we returned to our boma just in time to assist at a sad cereh the head His co a deep hole outside the fence and within a few yards of where he fell In this they placed hi position with his face turned towards Zululand, setting by his side two gourds that belonged to hiave hi the blanket and breaking the handles of the spears, to ”kill” theh they threw in the earth about hie stones to prevent the hyenas fro hirave, eachto bid him farewell by na the deceased to nahosts, as, he added, no doubt he would do who had died as a man should He requested hiood and not ill-fortune on us, since otherhen he, Mavovo, became a spirit in his turn, he would have words to say to him on the matter In conclusion, he remarked that as his, Mavovo's Snake, had foretold this event at Durban, a fact hich the deceased would now be acquainted he, the said deceased, could never co he had paid as a divining fee
”Yes,” exclaimed one of the hunters with a note of anxiety in his voice, ”but your Snake mentioned six of us to you, O doctor!”
”It did,” replied Mavovo, drawing a pinch of snuff up his uninjured nostril, ”and our brother there was the first of the six Be not afraid, the other five will certainly join him in due course, for my Snake must speak the truth Still, if anyone is in a hurry,” and he glared round the little circle, ”let hie that his turn--” here he stopped, for they were all gone
”Glad I didn't pay a shi+lling to have my fortune told by Mavovo,” said Stephen, ere back in the boma, ”but why did they bury his pots and spears with him?”
”To be used by the spirit on its journey,” I answered ”Although they do not quite know it, these Zulus believe, like all the rest of the world, that man lives on elsewhere”