waybridge, having delivered his contract stock, had intended staying the night at fort isiwa, but some news which was brought in at that post decided him to start for home at no longer notice than it took him to saddle up, and to get there as fast as his steed could carry him.
it was rather late when he clattered into komgha, but, late as it was, quite a number of men were astir. there was no help for it. he must perforce off-saddle if only for a quarter of an hour, after the pace at which he had pushed his horse, and that all uphill.
“anything in this news?” he asked eagerly as he gained the stoep at pagets and called for a very long brandy and soda.
“or is it all a yarn?”
“yarn? not much. the gaikas have broken out, and are burning all the farms within reach. yours among ’em, i expect, waybridge.”
“mine among ’em! but, good lord! man, my people are still there.”
the other whistled blankly.
“didn’t they come in?” he said.
“no. we didn’t believe in the scare, you see. devil take that confounded horse of mine! i shall have to give him a few minutes more, and then i’ll push him along if i kill him. won’t any of you fellows come with me? women in danger, you know.”
“rather, i’ll go,” answered the man he had been talking to. others joined, and soon a compact dozen started off to get their horses—if they could find them, and somebody else’s if they couldn’t—and whatever arms they happened to own.
“that you, waybridge? yes, it’s time you started. they are beginning to send up rockets at your place.” and harley greenoak, who had ridden up unperceived in the excitement, dismounted, and walked up the steps.
“i should think so,” said waybridge, impatiently. “by the way, greenoak, i wish you’d sent us some sort of warning. i’d have taken it from you.”
“couldn’t, earlier than this moment.”
the rescue party now assembled. there were fifteen in all. but the presence of harley greenoak had the effect of sending up their confidence in themselves and each other. they felt as if their little force had suddenly been doubled.
“have you been with sandili, greenoak?” said waybridge, as they rode forth.
“no. with that fighting son of his, matanzima. he’s practically baas, and he means mischief. he’d have let me be killed, but i happened to do him an important service some time back, and whatever may be said about there being no gratitude in a kafir, there is. i’ve seen it in too many instances. look. there are no less than six places ablaze.”
they were travelling at a smart canter. glow after glow had arisen, at intervals over the dim moonlight waste. the barbarous orgy was in full swing. but no such glare hovered over the site of waybridge’s homestead. clearly, therefore, the gaikas had not succeeded in capturing the place. the rocket flights had now ceased.
“that young selmes is a plucky chap,” muttered waybridge, more to himself than to the others. “it’s a godsend he should be on the place.”
“he’s all that,” said greenoak. “we shall find your crowd all safe, never fear.”
a little more than an hour’s sharp riding and they topped the last rise. there stood the homestead, white in the moonlight. an exclamation of relief escaped waybridge. but on a nearer approach this feeling was dashed.
“there’s been a fight,” he said quickly. “those are dead kafirs, and, there are no lights showing.”
the dark, motionless forms lying in front of the house, and discernible in the moonlight, told their own tale. what other motionless forms would they find within? instinctively they put their horses at a gallop now.
“easy, easy!” warned greenoak; “that line of quince hedge may cover any number. we don’t need to rush bang headlong into a trap.”
the warning told. wildly excited as the men were now, such was the influence of its utterer that they slackened pace. waybridge thought he had never known what tense, poignant anxiety was until that moment.
“i’ll go forward and make sure,” he said thickly. “if—if—anything has happened in there—it can’t matter what happens to me, and—”
he rammed the spurs into his horse’s flanks. but before he had shot ahead fifty yards, a sight met his eyes—met the eyes of all of them—which caused such a wild burst of relief that it could only find vent in a ringing cheer.
upon the stoep several figures were now standing, and prominent among them the tall form of dick selmes. harley greenoak, whose feeling of relief was certainly not inferior to that of the others, shook a disapproving head.
“we want to bring this off quietly,” he said. “we don’t want to let the whole gaika nation know we’re here, and that’s about what all this hullabaloo is likely to effect.”
“it’s all right, old chap. we’ll give ’em fits if they give us the chance,” said one man, airily. him greenoak at once set down as a fool.
they galloped up to the house, and there was a vast amount of handshaking and congratulation all round. harley greenoak held aloof.
“who’s on guard at the back, dick?” he said drily, when he could get in a word.
“at the back? oh, we don’t want a guard now, old chap,” was the airy response. “we’ve beat ’em off, made ’em run like so many curs. it was the rockets did it, and the rockets were mrs waybridge’s idea. but it was elsie who generalled the whole scrap. my hat, but you should have seen her swinging that axe! she ‘downed’ them one after another as hard as they came in. it was fine strategy, i can tell you.”
“and didn’t a’ tell ye that a’d mak ony sax o’ yon heathen black sauvages wish they’d never been born?” said the scotswoman, complacently. “and a’ just stopped short at one.”
“well, you didn’t give them time to wish they’d never been born, or anything else,” answered dick.
“ay, but they’ll be wishin’ it the noo, a’m thinking,” was the dry rejoinder, which, with its uncompromising calvinism, evoked a great laugh.
“take care that hazel doesn’t go in there, elsie,” dick managed to whisper, referring to the kitchen, which had been the opening scene of the drama, and where lay the four bodies of those first slain by that intrepid amazon.
the said bodies, however, were promptly dragged outside, and the sight of these, together with those lying around the house, rendered it unmistakably clear that a most gallant defence had been made. the while the feminine side of the garrison was busy getting out liquid and other refreshment for the relief party, though its consumption must of necessity be hurried, for greenoak had advised immediate removal to the settlement, and waybridge was already inspanning the cape cart. fortunately the kafirs had not been able to get at the horses, the stable door being commanded by the firing-line. and the urgency of such advice was to receive prompt confirmation.
an exploration of the garden had been judged advisable, and this, accompanied by several others, was undertaken by greenoak. here they found one more body—and a badly wounded kafir. he was shot through both legs, but had managed to drag himself into cover.
“it is kulondeka,” he said, recognising his questioner. “then i will speak. there are several more wounded lying about—yes. the people have gone, but they will come again, with many others, before sunrise. take the white women and go, kulondeka—now, at once. i know you. you and the other saved me, yonder, the day we fought ndimba’s people with sticks. go. lose no time.”
greenoak rejoined the others, feeling pretty anxious. they were by no means out of the wood yet. a large marauding band might appear at any moment, and, after all, their number was a mere handful. so it was with a modicum of relief that he saw the cart inspanned, and its inmates duly installed. but having seen them once started, with their escort, greenoak slipped back to the garden with the remains of a bottle of brandy in his hand, and administered an invigorating drink to the badly wounded savage.
“your people will find you here,” he said, “and the others. now, you have felt how hard the white man’s blow can fall. tell them.”
after the peril and relief a reaction ensued.
“i suppose those horrible wretches will burn down the house,” mrs waybridge remarked, as they sped along. “or, at any rate, plunder it of everything.”
hazel, for her part, thought the enemy would do both, when he saw the extent of his losses during the defence, for, of course, under the circumstances, the dead had been left just as they fell. but, not aspiring to the part of job’s comforter, she refrained from recording an opinion.
those forming the relief party laughed good-naturedly among themselves as they noted how uncommonly close to the cape cart dick selmes would persist in riding, some of the younger ones with a tinge of envy. he, for his part, was keeping up a string of lively talk and banter with its occupants, and he was doing it with an object. hazel had shown wonderful pluck during the stirring events of the night, but the ghastly sights she had witnessed, and the terror she had undergone, would be likely to come back to her now in the reaction of feeling safe, and he wanted her to forget them. so he rattled on, keeping their attention turned in a more salutary direction; whereby shows out another side of that missing link which the girl had decided had been supplied. he had learnt to think.
the following day, and for days after, all manner of scare rumours kept coming in, of homesteads burnt, of such inmates as were unable to escape in time surprised and massacred, of stock swept away, and crops destroyed. and then the savages began to watch the main road, to cut off express-riders, or small parties; indeed, it was not long before they waxed bolder, and news came of a fierce attack upon several companies of a regiment of foot, on its march to the komgha. to make things worse, the so-called “conquered” paramount tribe swarmed back into gcalekaland again, joining hands with the now revolted gaika clans within the colonial border. thus the war, officially declared to be over, had, in actual fact, only just begun.
a few nights after its plucky defence, waybridge’s homestead went the way of the rest, but not before he had managed, with the aid of a few daring spirits, to make a dash out there and bring away some of the more portable effects, and to bury, or otherwise hide, others. but he did not complain. the marvellous escape of his household, where others had died cruel deaths, alone precluded that. in other ways, too, he had been lucky, in that for some time past he had gradually been selling off most of his stock, so that his loss was comparatively small.
as the days went by dick selmes began to look with wistful eyes at this or that commando passing through, or at this or that patrol starting to reconnoitre the countryside or keep the road open. hazel, reading what was in his mind, was furtively watching him. one day, when they were alone together, she said—
“dick, my darling. you are eating your heart out because you want to go off again to this wretched war, and perhaps get killed. you are not content to stay and take care of poor little me.”
she had grown wondrously tender towards him since the night of peril they had shared, in pursuance whereof she had laid an embargo upon any more needless adventures on his part.
“it isn’t that, sweetheart,” he answered. “i’m only too happy here—with you. but i seem to be hanging back—sort of skulking—while every other fellow who can shoot straight, or not, is in the field.”
she laughed softly.
“skulking! you? why, you’ve done the share of any ten men since the beginning of the war. no—no—dick. if that’s all that’s troubling you, why it needn’t. and now, look here, you are to go on escort duty. you are to escort me—home.”
dick’s face brightened.
“but, dearest, you are forgetting,” he said, with a puzzled look. “the road isn’t safe yet—not by a long chalk—for you to travel under such a small escort as myself and greenoak.”
“it’ll be a bigger one. the commandant is sending a lot of police to king williamstown in a day or two, and he says i may travel under their escort. will you make one of it?”
“won’t i!” he answered delightedly.
