Bertram Mitford

“ The back was overhung by boulders, and in front, beyond a lip of the same, the ground fell away in a rugged slope to the bottom of a deep bushy kloof. To Sandgate, left to his lonely vigil, that brief half-hour seemed long enough. To the other two, heavy in slumber, it was as a flash.
“Now then, Selmes. Time,” he whispered, with a hand on the other’s shoulder. In a trice Dick was up, but yawning pathetically. He shivered too, for a thin damp mist was stealing athwart the rocks and bush sprays.
“All serene,” he said, ready and alert. “Kick up the other fellow.” ”

“ There was a fine roll on, and every now and then the nose of the liner dipped deep into the green water, throwing up a seething splash of milky spume.
“Because,” answered Sir Anson, “I know something of men, although my experience has been gained in a side of life totally different from your own. Apart from that, does it occur to you that you may not be entirely unknown to some of the passengers, and even, by repute, to the ship’s officers? What if I may have heard it said, more than once, that Harley Greenoak’s name is better than most men’s witnessed signature?” ”

“ Dick’s whip seemed to have lost its effect among the snapping, frantic pack, and when one brute fastened its teeth in the tendon of the hind leg of Hazel’s steed, Dick Selmes judged it time to draw his revolver.
The effect upon the dark, jeering crowd was electric. A fierce, deep, chest-note, akin to a menacing roar, took the place of the derisive laughter with which the barbarians had been enjoying the fun. Quick as animals most of them had dived into the huts. In a trice they reappeared, and there was the glint and bristle of assegais. ”

“ Quick as thought Dick slipped out to the front, and applied a light to the upright rockets, one after another. Band after band of snake-red flame leapt up into the heavens, bursting with shell-like boom into beautiful blue and red and golden stars.
“There!” he said, coming back, and choking with laughter, in sheer reaction, “I believe Jack Kafir thinks the end of the world has come, or the Police artillery—doesn’t matter which. Your idea has been the saving of this camp, Mrs Waybridge, if he doesn’t get over his scare and come back.” ”

“ Sometimes two or three headmen from the surrounding kraals would come into the camp and have a talk with the Police officers; and although Vunisa did not make one of them, his people, too, seemed less restless, and no more was the stillness of night broken by the stamp and roar of war-dancing in his location. The green, rolling plains slept peaceful in the radiant sunlight of each unclouded day, and at night a beacon-like flare upon a far-away height might be a grass fire or a less harmless signal. ”

“ The chief turned to his followers. What was this about a young white man? Did anybody know? The while, Greenoak, who had dismounted, was watching him keenly. No. Nobody knew.
“Then Vunisa will be arrested,” he said.
The chief started, ever so slightly. An ominous hubbub arose among his followers, the bulk of whom dived quickly into the huts again. They had gone to arm.
In a moment they emerged, and the glint of assegai blades and the wave of hard sticks was everywhere, as the kraal became alive with swarming savages, the mutter of deep-toned voices eloquent with suppressed hate and menace. ”

“ He was no end of a jolly old chap, and he, Dick, wouldn’t offend him for the world. And then Haakdoornfontein was no end of a jolly place, with a different shoot, by Jingo, for every day in the year. And Greenoak had laughed drily, as he reflected that his charge’s enthusiasm for that form of sport had flagged perceptibly of late. But like a wise man and a tactful one he had known better than to push the suggestion further. Things must just take their course, he decided. A matter of this kind was a delicate one, and one in which the man most concerned must judge for himself. ”

“ Did he not value it that he was going to place himself alone in the power of these sullen plotting savages? Well, this was not the first situation of the kind in which he had played the leading and only part. It was by just such cool and calculated intrepidity, by just such well-nigh superhuman confidence in his own personality and resource, that Harley Greenoak had come forth, not merely with his life, but triumphant and successful where ninety-nine men out of a hundred would never have come forth at all. ”

“ The nerve and courage of Harley Greenoak were entirely beyond question, but that did not dull his imagination or render him dead to the fact that in this cool and peaceful forest retreat he walked in very great peril indeed, that if he would escape this hidden death which had overtaken others, awful in its mysterious suddenness, he would have to muster every faculty of quick observation, lightning-like decision of action, and untiring alertness which he possessed. ”

“ Before Hazel could reply there was a rush of dogs, and vast snarling and barking as the brutes leapt at the horses, and one or two, incidentally, at their riders. The latter on topping a rise had come upon a large kraal, whose beehive-shaped huts stood in clusters, adjoining the square, or circular, cattle or goat pens common to each.
In a moment Dick had curled the lash of his raw-hide whip round the long, lithe body of a fine, tawny, black-muzzled greyhound, which was savagely leaping at the hind quarters of the steed ridden by Hazel. ”

“ The shade was almost too cool, for there was a forecasting touch of crisp winter in the clear atmosphere and vivid blue of the cloudless sky. He could see the long, gaunt figure of his host, pottering about down at the lands, and every now and then from the kitchen at the back of the house, there came to his ears the clear tones of Hazel’s voice endeavouring to convey instruction into the opaque mind of the yellow-skinned cook. The sounds in no wise interrupted his train of thought; rather they fitted in with it, for in it the utterer of them bore her share. ”

“ Tall and bearded, his stature and smart uniform and shining sword impressing the savages no less than his calm imperturbability of demeanour, the Commandant stood, among three or four Inspectors. Two others made up the group, and these, old friends of ours—Harley Greenoak and his charge, Dick Selmes. A little way from these squatted a knot of chiefs and councillors, eagerly discussing, in a low hum, the effect of every shot. They were all old or elderly men, differing outwardly in no way from the commonest of their people. They wore the same red blanket, and some the massive ivory armlet. ”

“ I’m only a plain man, Miss Brandon. I don’t know that I ever had much education, but I’ve always held a theory of my own that every one is put into the world to be of some use, and I’ve always tried to act up to it.”
“Haven’t you just, and succeeded too? I suppose all South Africa knows that.”
The soft-voiced flattery, the glance that accompanied it, were calculated to stir the pulses of even so strong a man as Harley Greenoak, and this he himself realised while striving to neutralise their effect. ”

“ The firelight, throwing out a dull glow, reached the hill-slopes—what if the white of his face should show up to the keen-eyed savages? And then, as he reached a point whence the whole scene lay revealed before him, Dick Selmes felt that the risk he had undertaken was amply repaid.
Beneath, in an immense open space, several huge fires were burning—their light showing up clusters of round, conical-roofed huts studded all along the valley. But the broad level was covered with human beings, if so weird and satanic-looking a crew could be defined as human. ”

“ Mrs Waybridge has an Idea.
Dick Selmes, who had intuitively grasped the simplicity of the tactics to be observed, was at the back of the room; not quite opposite the doorway, lest the light from without should fall upon him. The minutes of waiting were tense beyond the critical moment of any adventure which had come his way yet. And it was a time of waiting. The savages would allow time, after the removal of the light, for the occupants to retire. It would be so much easier to wreak their deed of red murder upon the slumbering and unsuspecting, and this he realised. ”

“ To-night, however, in the darkness, the effect was particularly weird and dismal.
“Talking of old Hesketh,” went on Dick, bent on taking her mind off dismal fancyings, “I wonder how the fine old chap will cotton to me as a nephew, eh?”
“Now, Dick, you’re getting ‘too previous,’” she answered, with a laugh. “Why, what can that be?”
A glow was suffusing the far sky, growing brighter and brighter. It seemed to be in the direction of their ride of the day before, “Moon rising, I suppose,” said Dick, re-lighting his pipe.
“No. It’s not quite in the right place for that. Look. There’s another.” ”

“ As a matter of fact, she had summoned up rare courage in deciding to remain quietly where she was instead of rushing out, and so, seriously to hamper and embarrass the defenders, as her natural impulse would have been. What Dick now saw was a big Kafir worming himself through the window, half in, half out. But, quick as thought, somebody pushed past him, and in the now flooding moonlight he saw the lift of the Scotswoman’s brawny arms, and, with a crunching thud, down came the axe-head on the skull of the venturesome savage, with the same result as before. ”

“ Harley Greenoak for once in his life had committed an error of judgment. He had quite reckoned on the possibility of being followed, even as he knew that every step of his way had been dogged from the moment he had left the settlement. But the possibility of a formidable and cleverly devised ambush being prepared for him in front, he had somehow or other quite overlooked. So when he turned over his horse to Mantisa with instructions to take it to a point agreed upon and await him there, he was, of course, in complete ignorance of the trap into which his auxiliary was about to fall. ”

“ Something of a murmur stirred the group of men who had stopped to look.
“By Jove, old chap, you must be a bit off colour to-day,” cried Dick Selmes. Harley Greenoak to miss—to miss anything—however small and at whatever distance, why, that was an eye-opener to him, and, incidentally, to more than one other. Harley Greenoak—to have “his eye wiped,” and by a young Police sub-inspector! Why, it was marvellous.
“A bad workman finds fault with his tools,” said Greenoak, musingly, as he eyed the weapon, and balanced it critically. “Well, I may be a bad workman, but this is a tool I’m not used to. ”

“ Suddenly every muscle in the beast’s body was seen to stiffen. With an appalling yell it flung itself forward. Dick Selmes was hurled to the ground, half stunned; his confused senses feebly conscious of the crash of a report, leading him to suppose he had been shot by accident.
“Well of all the complete young idiots I ever saw, you are the champion one,” cried old Hesketh, with excusable heat, having ascertained that his guest was uninjured. The latter laughed, rather feebly, for he felt sore all over. ”

“ But many a dark hole and crack on the face of this showed that the towering rampart was honeycombed by caves and labyrinthine galleries.
“How are you going to get him out of these?” went on old Hesketh. “Why, all the dogs in the world wouldn’t get him out. He’d only have to skip from one hole to another. Eh, Greenoak?” The latter nodded.
“Well, it’s abominably cruel all the same,” repeated Hazel as she turned away. “Aren’t I right, Mr Selmes?”
“A trap that doesn’t kill outright always is cruel,” answered the diplomatic Dick, whose last wish in the world was to disagree with her. ”

“ Then, enter a bright, pretty, taking girl, who makes the rough places, as by magic, smooth, imports the refinement to which his charge has been accustomed, with one sweep of the wand, and whose personality is in itself a supplement to the sunshine. No contrast could be more strongly marked. Assuredly if Hesketh had of his own intuition brought off such a dramatic stroke, why, Hesketh was more of a genius than the acquaintance of that rugged old recluse would have given him credit for being. But this reflection did not tend to lighten Harley Greenoak’s private disquietude. ”

“ I would like to see a real war-dance,” struck in Dick Selmes. “I say, Inspector, couldn’t some of us go over some night and have a look in? Why not to-night?”
“Tired of life yet, Selmes?” answered Chambers, good-naturedly. “Because if a few of us went to have a look in at it none of us would come back—in their present state of mind. If a lot—why, there’d be no war-dance.”
“Bother!” said Dick.
The conversation rolled on; then came dusk—then dinner. Life in the open makes men drowsy. It was not long before the camp of A. Troop—bar the sentries—was fast asleep. ”