Harley Greenoak's Charge

The latter, however, a fine old frontiersman born and bred, took a different view. He was a reserved, undemonstrative man, but had taken a liking to this dare-devil youngster by reason of his pluck and adaptability.

“I don’t really see why he shouldn’t go if he’s keen on it, Chambers,” he said. “The experience will do the young dog no harm, and he seems able to take care of himself. Greenoak keeps him too much in leading-strings. Oh, that,” as the Inspector, with a dry laugh, recalled a certain adventure in Vunisa’s location which would have cost our friend his life but for the shrewdness and promptitude of Harley Greenoak. “Well, yes. But, on the whole, Sandgate and Stokes are thoroughly reliable men, and will keep him in order. Of course, I need know nothing about it officially, nor need you; but if he should find his chance of slipping away after them, why, after all, he’s only our guest here, and can come and go as he chooses,” concluded the Commandant, with a twinkle in his eyes.

Harley Greenoak was away upon a critical and delicate mission which he had undertaken as a personal favour to the Commandant. As things were at present, he argued, his charge could come to no harm, at any rate for a day or two, by which time he himself would be back. All of which accounted for the comparative facility wherewith Dick had slipped away – a facility which struck our two express-riders as strange.

Something of a friendship had grown up between Dick Selmes and Corporal Sandgate. They were of the same age, had the same tastes, and, hailing from adjacent neighbourhoods in the Old Country, had acquaintance in common. On such they chatted in subdued tones, as they held on their way rapidly through the calm beauty of the African night. So far the said way was easy, as under the unerring guidance of Trooper Stokes they crossed each rolling upland, mimosa-dotted and grassy. Here and there, far-away, the mysterious dimness was relieved by the red glow of a grass fire, or might it be the weird signal of plotting savages? Soon, however, the ground became more rugged. They forded a small river, rippling deep down in a thickly bushed valley, and the steeds drank gratefully of its cool, if slightly brackish, water. Then on again.

“We must swing back again here,” said Stokes, as they drew rein on top of a ridge to loosen the girths and give the horses a quarter of an hour’s rest and feed. “There are kraals in front of us. I can smell ’em.”

“The deuce you can?” said Dick, vividly interested. “I can’t. You’re not getting at us, old chap, are you?”

To this Stokes vouchsafed no reply. He stroked his thick, wiry beard, looking unutterable contempt.

They resumed their way, sometimes making a considerable détour to avoid suspicious neighbourhood. Once the barking of dogs, alarmingly near, caused a thrill of anxious excitement. Had the tramp of their horse-hoofs been heard? they wondered, as they swerved off as noiselessly as possible. At last, what looked like a building loomed in front of them. Just behind it were three or four native huts.

“I thought so,” exclaimed Stokes. “Blamed if this isn’t old Shelbury’s store. We’ve come a leetle more out of our road than we need have done, Sandgate.”

“We’ll make it up. I say, hadn’t we better off-saddle and have some grub?” suggested Dick Selmes, cheerfully.

Stokes looked at him sourly.

“Grub!” he echoed. “You’ll get none o’ that here. Any fool could see that Shelbury’s cleared. Why, the place is all stove in and the whole show looted.”

Closer investigation proved such to be the case. The door hung on one hinge, and seemed very much battered.

“We’ll push on,” said Sandgate, with an anxious glance at the moon, now getting low. “The further we do that under cover of night the better.”

But Stokes, rapping out something about just taking half a squint inside, and catching them up again in a jiffy, was already off his horse. The other two, resuming their conversation about old times and scenes at home, held on the way he had pointed out to them. So taken up were they that it was quite a little while before it occurred to them that it might be advisable to pull up and wait for Stokes. Nor had they long to wait.

“Just as I thought,” he said, coming up. “The whole shoot has been cleared from top to bottom. You never saw such a mess in your life. But there’s no one dead inside.”

As they rode on, neither Sandgate nor Dick noticed that Stokes kept rather behind. The moon, too, had almost sunk, wherefore, perhaps, they further failed to notice that his tan-cord uniform jacket bulged.

Chapter Eighteen.

The Ordeal

It was just the dark hour before dawn when Sandgate called a halt.

“We might safely do half an hour’s snooze here,” he said. “The gees want that amount of rest. You turn in, Selmes, and I’ll do horse-guard. No – no – don’t wrangle, man; each minute of that means so much less hard-earned snooze; besides, I’m in command here. Stokes, you look done too. Well, off you go, both of you.”

The latter, with a cavernous yawn, was off like a log. Dick, with a sleepy laugh, followed suit. Then Sandgate, loosening the girths, but not off-saddling, allowed the horses to graze, their bridles trailing on the ground, and set to work to watch.

The place in which they had halted was among some broken rocks, a small hollow, in feet, and admirably adapted for a hiding-place. 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.”

But although this was done, and that literally, for all the effect it produced Stokes might as well have been dead, or a bit of timber. And then, as an acrid fume rose poisonous upon the cold morning air, Sandgate stood aghast with wrath and horror. His colleague and subordinate was drunk – dead drunk.

Yet how? In a moment something of the truth flashed across his brain. That wretched trader’s store they had passed! Stokes must have found grog in there, which had been overlooked by the plunderers. His cursed instinct had moved him to go inside and explore. There was no sign of any bottle about Stokes, certainly, but this he would have been slim enough to drop unseen and unheard. Now the mystery of his lagging behind stood explained.

“Great Scott! And the despatches!” exclaimed Sandgate, horrified.

“Take ’em on, and leave him here to get sober,” suggested Dick. “He deserves it.”

But Sandgate objected to deserting a comrade in dangerous country. He himself would be reduced to the ranks, of course, kicked out of the Force most likely, but he could not abandon a comrade. To this Dick suggested that he should remain with Stokes while Sandgate rode on.

“That won’t do either, Selmes,” said the latter, gloomily. “You’re new to this country, and in my charge. No – that won’t do.”

“But think of the vital importance of the despatches,” urged Dick. “This fellow has brought it all upon himself. Besides, he’s supposed to know his way about better than both of us put together. So I say, let him take his chance.”

“We’ll have one more try,” said Sandgate.

They had, and it was an exhaustive one. They shook and hustled the stupefied man, and threw in his face what little water remained in their bottles. In vain. Stokes merely gave an inarticulate grunt, and subsided into deep slumber again. Then they tried another plan – that of placing him on his feet by main force. Still in vain. The drunken man slid to the ground again, and in their efforts to keep him up both Sandgate and Dick lost their balance, stumbled, and fell with him.

Before they could rise several pairs of muscular hands had gripped each of them, and bulky forms pressed them down. So effectually were they pinioned that they could not even reach their revolvers, which were promptly reft from them. The little hollow which was their resting-place was swarming with Kafirs, who had stolen upon them like snakes what time their attention was taken up endeavouring to restore consciousness to Stokes; even the warning which should have been conveyed by the alarmed snorting and restiveness of the horses had escaped them. They were absolutely in the power of these savages, who had surprised and captured them without giving them an opportunity of striking a blow in defence of their lives, and, to one of them, of his trust.

The first thing their captors did was to bind them securely with the reims cut from their horses’ headstalls. Then a hurried consultation began among them. A man who seemed in authority – a tall, evil-looking ruffian – issued an order. The unconscious Stokes was seized and roughly turned over, face uppermost. A moment’s examination sufficing to satisfy them that he was hopelessly drunk, half a dozen assegais were driven through his body, as coolly as though his murderers were merely slaughtering a sheep; while his comrades lay sick with honour at the sight, and justifiably apprehensive as to what their own fate was destined to be.

They had not long to wait. Under the hurried directions of another man, a short, thick-set Kafir – not the one in seeming authority – they were subjected to a quick but exhaustive search, when, of course, the despatch to the officer commanding at Fort Isiwa came to light.

“This – what it say?” said the short Kafir, in very fair English, tapping the document, which he held open by one corner.

“Oh, it’s merely a letter asking for a few more horses to be sent on to Kangala,” answered Sandgate, with as much coolness as he could assume.

“That a lie!” was the prompt response. Then, threateningly, “Read that – out, so I hear it.”

“If you can talk English, surely you can read it,” answered Sandgate.

“Read it! Read!” – thrusting the paper before his face. “Read – or – ”

“Or what?”

“That,” said the Kafir, pointing to the body of their murdered comrade, which the savages had already stripped, and which lay, a hideous and gory sight enough to strike terror into the survivors. But these were of the flower and pick of their nationality, and to neither of them did it for one instant occur to purchase his life by a revelation which might result in calamitous, even appalling, consequences. To both the moment was one which had reached a point of critical sublimity, as they took in the barbarous forms, the ring of cruel countenances, the dark, grisly hands grasping the ready and murderous assegai. Both were staring Death in the face very closely.

“Well, I shan’t read it,” said Sandgate, decisively.

“Nor I,” echoed Dick Selmes.

At a word from the English-speaking Kafir, a powerful, ochre-smeared ruffian seized Sandgate by the chin, and, jerking back his head, laid the sharp edge of an assegai blade against his distended throat.

“Now – will you read?” came the question again.

The natural fear of death, and that in a horrible form, brought the dews of perspiration to the unfortunate man’s brow, as the evil savage, whose hand quivered with eagerness to inflict the final slash, actually divided the skin. Yet, looking his tormentors steadily in the face, he answered —

“No!”