The Luck of Gerard Ridgeley

Meanwhile Gerard, with a perfect agony of dread and apprehension at his heart, was speeding with his young Zulu allies in the direction of "The Tooth." Though they could hardly...

We referred to a change which had come into Anstey's manner as regarded his intercourse with our young friend. More than once he had returned to the charge and sounded the latte...

The chiefs and Gerard were unanimous in the opinion that it would be too much luck to expect to find the Igazipuza unprepared, and the appearance of Ingonyama's emissaries had s...

After leaving Doorn Draai they trekked on through the Umsinga district, and, turning off the main road at Helpmakaar on the Biggarsberg Heights, descended to Rorke's Drift. And...

The time intervening having been spent in getting together the loads, and otherwise seeing that everything was in order for the road--wheels greased, waggons overhauled, all nec...

The river Umgeni, at Howick, a point about twelve or fourteen miles west of Maritzburg, hurls itself over a sheer cliff, making a truly magnificent waterfall some hundreds of fe...

"It's a pity you turned your explorations in that direction, Ridgeley," was his verdict, "for I'm afraid the result has knocked you out of time some--and it's still more a pity...

At the time when Dawes and Gerard were commencing their return journey from Swaziland--having achieved, as we have said, a fairly successful enterprise--there began to get about...

No time was to be lost in preparing for their start, and also in informing their landlord of their change of plans. This Gerard did with some inward trepidation, knowing that th...

In announcing his hearty desire to bid good-bye to the Igazipuza kraal as soon as possible, John Dawes had stated no more than the barest truth, but its fulfilment seemed destin...

Never in the whole course of his hard, chequered, adventurous life, could John Dawes recall a day spent in such wearing, intolerable suspense, as that following the night of his...

The principal kraal of the Igazipuza lay in a great natural crater, surrounded by cliff-crowned heights. Like all the Zulu kraals it wore an excessively neat and symmetrical app...

Then it was that his quickness of foresight in swimming rather than wading, in swimming beneath the surface rather than in the ordinary way, stood him in good stead, for the fir...

Thus John Dawes, as he and Gerard stood looking dubiously at each other in the faint sickly light of dawn. A thick mist lay heavy on the earth, so thick that, as the former said...

Several months later than the events last recorded, a large _trek_ might have been seen, wending its way southward along the rugged bush _veldt_ lying beneath the Lebombo mounta...

To attempt to describe the fearful despair, the agony of self-reproach, which took possession of poor Gerard's heart as he awoke to find himself once more in the power of the sa...

"Here! Hi! you two Johnny Raws! What the devil are you doing there, tramping down all my green mealies? Get out of that, will you?" And a volley of curses emphasised the injunct...

Thus Anstey, on the following day, after dinner. The two were alone. Harry Maitland had returned to Maritzburg, disgusted with the exceeding roughness of his night's quarters, w...

"Oh, hang it, I don't know," answered Maitland, peevishly, and looking around rather wildly. "Those niggers have cleared out every mortal thing we possess. What they've done wit...

Having parted with his young companion, John Dawes rode on, outwardly cool and unconcerned, though in effect his mind misgave him. For he knew that in all human probability he h...

Maritzburg again. Gerard, strolling through the busy streets, keenly enjoying the bustle and stir of civilised life after his wild experiences in savage lands, now no longer to...

Nothing is so prone to defeat its own end as the fixed, overstrained attentiveness of intense expectation. The eye, riveted on one point, almost ceases to see it; the mind, dwel...

The long sound sleep he had had stood Gerard in good stead as he fell into the march of the _impi_--whose work was indeed cut out for it, for it would take all the hours of dark...

A fresh breeze was ploughing up the blue waves of the Indian Ocean, hurling off their crests in white, foamy masses, casting showers of salt spray upon the wet decks of the vess...

Thus a jolly voice behind them, and a hand fell upon the shoulder of each. They were returning from a couple of hours' row among the bushy islets of the bay, and were strolling...