Renshaw Fanning's Quest: A Tale of the High Veldt

But Sellon had sunk to the ground groaning with pain.

“I can’t,” he gasped. “My ankle’s sprained.”

Here was a situation. A dismounted comrade with a sprained ankle, unable to walk even, let alone run; a crowd of bloodthirsty barbarians close behind swarming down the mountain-side in pursuit. Surely one of the two must be sacrificed.

But Renshaw did not hesitate. The other had planned and willingly carried out a diabolical scheme of robbery and murder – even up to the time they were surprised had plainly shown a resolve to rob him of his share of the undertaking. Why should he sacrifice his own life for the benefit of such a worthless ungrateful scoundrel?

Nothing is quicker than thought. In that moment of deadly peril – in the mad heat of a race for life – swifter than the lightning flash there swept through his mind the promise Violet had exacted from him during that last ride together. “Promise that you will stand my friend. Promise that if ever you can help me you will.” And with it there flashed a serious doubt as to whether it would in fact be the act of a friend to be instrumental in placing her at the mercy of such an unprincipled rascal as Maurice Sellon.

But to this succeeded a far graver consideration. The last Mass in the little church at Fort Lamport – doubly solemn because perforce so seldom attended – the white-headed old priest and his simple, straightforward counsels, and above all at that moment the words, intoned in the Sunday’s epistle, “Sed si esurierit inimicus tuus, ciba illum; si sitit, potum da illi.” (“But if thine enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if thirsty, give him to drink.”)

Renshaw’s Christianity was of pure gold. He did not hesitate now.

“Jump up,” he said, dismounting, and helping the other to gain his own saddle, “I’ll run alongside.”

The pursuers had now doubled the spur which had afforded temporary concealment to the fugitives. At sight of one of these on foot, they set up a shrill yell of triumph, and streamed down the declivity.

The latter was fearfully steep. No horse could put his best pace forward without going head over heels, to a dead certainty.

“Turn off to the right, quick!” said Renshaw. At the same moment he was conscious of a slight pricking in the foot. But he heeded it not.

By the above “double” they gained a slight advantage. Unless, however, they could reach ground more level before the pursuers should come within bow-shot, their fate was sealed.

On, on swept the wild man-hunt; nearer, nearer came the shrill yells of the savages. The twang of bow-strings now was heard. The elf-like little demons were already beginning to discharge their deadly, poisoned shafts.

But hope, well-nigh dead in the breasts of the fugitives, arose once more. The scarp of the mountain-side became less steep. In a minute or two they would gain the comparatively level and winding valley by which they had approached. The Korannas seeing this, redoubled their efforts.

But so, too, did the fugitives. The horse-hoofs thundered down the slope, the staunch steed tearing at his bit, and snorting with mingled excitement and apprehension.

The leaping, bounding crowd of hideous barbarians came shambling down like a troop of apes, in hot pursuit, eagerly anticipating the sport of tearing limb from limb the two white invaders. On – on!

At last! The valley was gained. On comparatively level ground the speed of the horse would tell. Yet it would not do to loiter. All manner of short cuts would be known to their enemies; short cute which these human apes in their native wilds could take across the mountains, and arrive at a given point more quickly than a horseman. Our adventurers had good reason to fear such an eventuality. There was no time to be lost.

“Let me hold on to the stirrup leather, Sellon,” said Renshaw. “I can get along at twice the pace then. I’m beginning to feel rather blown now.”

There was that about Sellon’s acquiescence which seemed to show that had the danger been more pressing, it would not have been so readily accorded. Nothing easier than to spur on the horse and dart away. And he still had the great diamond in his possession. But the shouts of the pursuers seemed already growing fainter behind.

The sun was setting. Peak and mountain-wall were gleaming golden in the parting light, but down there in the kloof the darkling grey of evening had already fallen. In half an hour it would be night. Yet they slackened not in their flight. The clinking flash of the horse-hoofs rasped the stony way, but the yelling of the pursuers had died away completely. Still it would not do to slacken their efforts.

Suddenly Renshaw running alongside stumbled, then staggered a few yards and sank to the ground. A curious numbed feeling had come into his legs. They had literally given way beneath him. As he tried to rise, he was conscious of feeling half paralysed.

“Come along, man!” cried the other, impatiently. “Why, what’s the row?”

“This!” he said, slowly, pointing to a small puncture in his boot just on the instep. “I felt the sting when you first came to grief. I’ve been pinked by a poisoned arrow.”

The place was a wild one, shut in between lofty cliffs, gloomy now with the falling shadows of night. Renshaw knew that he would never leave it alive.

“Good-bye, Sellon,” he said, the stupor deepening upon him even as he spoke. “Don’t bother any more about me. You’re on the right track now, and must find your way as best you can. Go on and leave me.”

“Nonsense, old chap – make an effort, and try what you can do.”

But Renshaw shook his head. “No,” he said. “I cannot even get up. You must take care of yourself now. Go on and leave me.”

Sellon looked at him for a moment without a word. Then he – went on.

Chapter Thirty Four.

Left to Die

The glooming shadows of night crept on apace.

Renshaw, lying there in the wild rocky defile, felt the poison stealing insidiously through his veins in a kind of slow drowsy stupor. He knew that he was doomed; he realised that even if the wild Korannas did not speedily come up and put an end to his sufferings yet his hour had come. The poison was too deadly for antidote, and he had no antidote.

In his stupor he hardly heard the receding hoof-strokes of his companion – his companion for whose life he had given his own, and who now rode away leaving him alone in that remote and savage solitude to die.

He lay there as he had sunk down. The night grew pitchy black between those grim, frowning walls of cliff. The faint stir of a cool breeze played in fitful puffs about his pallid brow already cold and moist with the dews of approaching death. The stars flashed from the vault above in a narrow riband of gold between the loom of the great cliffs against the sky. The melancholy howl of some prowling beast rose now and again upon the night.

There was a patter, patter of stealthy feet among the stones – a gleam of scintillating green from ravening eyes. Nearer, nearer came the pit-pat of those soft footfalls. The wild creatures of the waste had scented their prey.

Man – the lord of the beasts of creation. Man – before whose erect form the four-footed carnivora of the desert fled in terror – what was he now – how was he represented here? A mere thing of flesh and blood, an abject thing – prostrate, helpless, dying. An easy prey. The positions were reversed.

The gleam of those hungry eyes – the baring of gaunt jaws, the lolling tongues – were as things unknown to the stricken adventurer. The shrill yelp, echoing from the great krantzes, calling upon more to come to the feast – the snapping snarl, as hungry rivals drew too near each other – all passed unnoticed. Nearer, nearer they came, a ravening circle. For they knew that the prey was sure.

What a contrast! This man, with the cool, dauntless brain – the hardened frame so splendidly proportioned, lay there in the pitchy blackness at the mercy of the skulking, cowardly scavengers of those grim mountain solitudes. And what had wrought this strange, this startling contrast? Only a mere tiny puncture, scarcely bigger than a pin prick.

A cold nose touched his cheek. The contact acted like a charm. He sat bolt upright and struck out violently. A soft furry coat gave way before his fist – there was a yelp, a snarl of terror, and a sound of pattering feet scurrying away into deeper darkness, but – only to return again.

As though the shock had revived him, Renshaw’s brain began to recover its dormant faculties. It awoke to the horror, the peril of the position. And with that awakening came back something of the old adventurous, dauntless resolution. He remembered that violent exercise – to keep the patient walking – was among the specifics in cases of venomous snake-bite, which in conjunction with other antidotes he had more than once seen employed with signal success. But in his own case the other antidotes were wanting.

Still the old dogged determination – the strength of a trained will – prevailed. He would make the effort, even if it were to gain some inaccessible ledge or crevice where he might die in peace. Even in the midst of his numbed and torpid stupor the loathing horror wherewith he had encountered the touch of the wild creature’s muzzle acted like a whip. To be devoured by those brutes like a diseased sheep – faugh!

Gaining his feet with an effort, he unscrewed the stopper of his flask and drank off the contents. With the poison working in his system the fiery spirit was as water to him. But its effect was invigorating, and setting his face toward the cliffs he staggered forth into the darkness.

Before the once more erect figure of their dread enemy, Man, the skulking jackals and hyenas slunk back in dismay. But only into the background. Stealthily, warily they watched his progress, following afar softly and noiselessly upon his footsteps. For their keen instinct satisfied them that this stricken representative of the dominant species would never leave their grisly rock-girt haunt alive. It was only a question of patience.

The instinct, too, of the latter led him on. His stupefied brain still realised two things. Under the shelter of the crags he would be in safer hiding from human enemies, and that haply a ledge among the same would afford him a secure refuge from the loathsome beasts now shadowing him, and ready to pounce upon him when he should be too weak to offer any resistance.

On – on, he pressed – ever upward. Steeper and steeper became the way. Suddenly he stopped short. Before him was a wall of rock.

He peered searchingly upward in the darkness. A cleft slanted obliquely up the cliffs face. His knowledge of the mountains and their formation told him that here might be the very thing he sought. His instinct still guiding him, he began to scale the cleft. He found it an easy matter. There were plenty of rough projections, affording hand and foot hold. The ghoul-like scavengers of the desert could not follow him here.

Under ordinary circumstances the climb would have been a difficult one, especially at night. But now, as in the case of the somnambulist, matter triumphed over mind. The mind being dormant and the centre of gravity undisturbed by mental misgivings, however unconscious, he ascended safely.

The climb came to an end. Here was the very thing. A ledge, at first barely four feet broad, and then widening out as it ran round the face of the cliff – and sloping – not outward as ordinarily, but inward. What he did not see in his now returning torpor, was a black, narrow cave running upward in continuation of the cleft by which he had ascended.

He crawled along the ledge. Here at any rate nothing could disturb his last hours. The cool night wind fanned his brow – the single strip of radiant stars seemed to dance in one dazzling ocean of light. His stupefaction reasserted itself. He sank down in dead unconsciousness. Was it slumber or death?

It was not death. Renshaw awoke at last; awoke to consciousness in a strange half-light. Above was a roof of overhanging rock – underneath him, too, was the same hard rock. A strip of sky, now a pale blue, was all he could see.