Part 8 (1/2)
”In a few hours we shall have but one horse,” exclai as Katie is, her sister is weak, and they can never walk to our people If the Matabili follow us, we must die Can you see a remedy, men?”
”We can sell our lives dearly,” exclaimed Bernhard; ”that we can at least do I have thirty bullets at least in es of powder We e party of the enemy”
”The Matabili are not easily beaten off,” reh you may kill some, the others are upon you before you can have tiuns that I have heard of which fire off several ti but kill more before ere killed; but with our roers only, we can do but little”
Whilst the ht, Katie and her sister, fully awake, joined the this last reirl at once suspected that the horses were unfit to continue their journey
”We can walk, Hans,” said Katrine, as she touched his shoulder, ”we can walk, though, perhaps, not so fast as you can; but we can walk ever so far”
”If it alking only, Katie, it would not be reater speed than a Matabili could follow; that is why I fear”
”Well, leave us here, and you go on, and bring us back help The '_Mensch_' will soon come to us, and we could stop here till they arrive”
”We live or die together, Katie; I will never leave you here,” exclaih Victor and Bernhard, let me tell you my plan”
The two men turned from the horses, whose pitiable condition they had been conte, to Hans, and waited for his words After a ht, Hans exclaimed, ”It is our best chance, and it will succeed
This is the plan:--The black horse is as yet well You Bernhard, or you Victor, as you er As soon as you reach it, tell Maritz, or any one who is our friend, of our being left in the desert I have horses a the people, and there are those ill help us Coain a our people”
”And where will you be, Hans?” was Victor's inquiry
”I,” said Hans, ”will e of hills; there are kloofs and rocks there amidst which I can easily find a place of security for Katie and her sister; for the rest trust a hunter They shall neither starve nor be o? it is the post of danger to go as htest ht thus to ride fastest In six days you should be back, and by that tih life”
”If Victor agrees to this, I will go,” said Bernhard; ”and the sooner I go the better: first, though, shall we shoot the lion that killed the Kaffir? otherwise he hbour to you, as he has tasted human flesh”
”We had better let hiht be heard on this still day twenty miles We need not tell every pair of ears within twenty ht have curious eyes coain”
”How?” exclai another Matabili?”
”No,” said Hans; ”but the sooner our horses are eaten the better The vultures will be strea as a scrap of flesh is on the bones of the ani around this spot A Matabili would naturally coht find our spoor; so, instead of one, I wish there were twenty lions ready to feast on our horses I have no fear of lions when I get to those hills, for I will soon make a place there suitable for our safety So we had better save our powder and bullets for even more cruel enemies than a lion”
”That is true,” exclaimed Hans' two companions: ”so ill not seek to kill him Let us look at the spot where he struck down the Matabili”
The three hunters walked cautiously in the direction in which the lion rass around them The footprints of the Matabili could be easily traced by these expert spoorers, and they soon found the spot on which the man had been killed The lion had apparently followed the man from the direction of the hunters, and had struck hi found in a cluster, as though dropped from the helpless hand of the stricken ed away about forty yards to sorass, where the lion had commenced his feast, which had been finished by hyenas and jackalls; so that except a few bones, nothing re had been, sacrificed to the fury of a wild beast ”This ht have been the fate of one of us,” said Hans, as he pointed to the few remains before him
”It is the will of God to have spared us, and to have destroyed our enemy We will trust that our fate may not be like his We had better return now and ements at once We will conceal the saddles and bridles, and then theyspare horses So now for work, men, and you, Bernhard, had better ride on
You will not mistake your ill you?”
”No I shall find the line easy, andyou help, and that very shortly, or my life will be lost in the attempt--trust me, Hans;” and with a hearty farewell to the party, Bernhard rode off, on an expedition fraught with no little danger, for he had pathless plains to traverse, rivers to cross, h, and all this with the constant possibility of enemies around hi hie
CHAPTER TWELVE
PREPARATIONS FOR A SIEGE--THE ROCK AND CAVES--WILD BEES AND ROCK RABBITS--THE BABOONS--THE NIGHT WATCH
When Bernhard's course had been watched for some time, Hans decided at once to make his preparations for a week's residence in the wilderness