CHAPTER III

HOW THE VOW WAS KEPT

A year had gone by since that memorable night, and had brought great events in its train.

The power at which all India had so lately trembled was now broken at once and for ever. At Delhi, at Laswaree, at Assaye, at Argaum, the Mahratta conquerors of Central India, with all odds of numbers and artillery in their favour, had fought gallantly to maintain their well-won renown; but numbers and artillery alike, and the utmost efforts of reckless valour, were all vain against the unconquerable "white faces from the West." From the Indian Ocean to the Bay of Bengal, not one native army was left that could look the soldiers of England in the face; and, both at home and throughout India, all men were full of the marvellous exploits of a promising young British commander, then known only as General Wellesley, but ere long to fill the whole world with the fame of the Duke of Wellington.

The East India Company's army had been increased by the formation of several new regiments; and one of the best of these was now commanded by Colonel Hardman, who had been transferred to a newly-built fort about a day's march from his former post at Huttee-Ghur.

Freddy was by this time quite well and strong again; but his father--from whose mind the haunting terror of that fearful summer was never wholly absent--had fully made up his mind to deprive himself of his son's company altogether, rather than take the risk of keeping him any longer in the fatal climate of India; and it had been settled that as soon as the country was quiet enough to make travelling safe, the boy should be sent down to Calcutta, and put on board of the first ship for England.

* * * * *

Evening was just beginning to darken into night, when a gaunt, haggard, wild-looking man in native dress, with a long gun on his shoulder, dragged his weary limbs heavily out of the matted thickets that fringed both sides of the road leading north-eastward to the border of Oude, and threw himself on the ground with a surly oath, which was hoarsely echoed by two other figures, as ragged and dusty as himself, that came creeping out after him.

Curiously enough, though all three were dressed as Hindus, and were very nearly as dark in complexion, they all spoke in _English_.

"Plenty o' dead wood for a fire, anyhow," growled the first man; "but wot's the use? It's jist like our luck, ain't it, Tom, to have a good fire and nothin' to cook at it!"

"Well, it'll keep the tigers off, if it does nothin' else," said Tom Tuffen; "though, if they _was_ to eat us, Bob," added he, with a meaning glance at his own lean hands, "they'd have pretty nigh as poor a supper as we're a-goin' to have ourselves."

"Why, there's some o' them _chupatties_ (thin flour cakes) left yet, ain't there, Sam?" cried Bob Burton sharply.

"Two apiece, Bob--that's all!" replied Sam Black, producing the scanty provisions as he spoke, while his two comrades hastily scraped together and set on fire a heap of dead twigs and withered leaves, round which the wanderers stretched themselves in moody silence.

The meagre meal was eaten without a word; and, in truth, the three outcasts had but too good reason to be so silent and gloomy.

After the breaking up of the robber band which they had joined, they had taken service with one native prince after another, and had passed through all the vicissitudes of wild Eastern warfare. Now revelling in short-lived luxury--now fighting for their lives against terrible odds--now heading a mutiny for arrears of pay, and sacking the palace of their so-called master--one week filling their pockets with precious stones and gold _mohurs_ (to be instantly flung away in the wildest freaks of excess), and then a week later, struggling half-starved through swamp and jungle, with a swarm of merciless foes in hot pursuit--they had compressed into those few months the perils and adventures of a whole lifetime.

And what had all this profited them? Nothing. All their rich gains, all their daring feats, had left them as poor, and destitute, and hopeless as before.

In fact, their future seemed even darker than their past; for no one knew better than they that the savage despot of Oude--for whose court they were now making, as a last resource--even should he admit them among his soldiers, might any day reward them for their services by torturing them to death, or flinging them to the crocodiles of the Goomtee.[5]

[5] It was not till 1856 (under the rule of Lord Dalhousie) that Oude was annexed to the British dominions; and, up to that time, the misrule of its native princes was the byword of all India. A favourite pastime with one of these model sovereigns was the sudden letting loose of a number of venomous snakes in the midst of a crowd of market-people!

"I'll tell yer wot hurts _me_ most," muttered Bob Burton at last, in the tone of a man thinking aloud, rather than actually addressing his comrades; "to think o' them pals of our'n in the old regiment fightin' like men agin them coffee-coloured' heathens, one agin a dozen--and lickin' 'em too, every time--and every one in the old country's a-praisin' _them_, and calling 'em 'eroes; and we--wot have _we_ been doin' all the while? Why, thievin' and murderin' along with a lot o' sneakin' blackamoors!"

"Aye," cried Tom Tuffen fiercely, "that's jist how _I_ felt that time at Krishnabad, when I axed that old sepoy as comed there with the major, to give me a drink o' water. D'ye remember wot the old chap said? 'Ismail Beg gives his _lotah_ (brass cup) to no man who is not worthy. I am a _nimmuk-wallah_[6]--I have been true to my salt; but what art _thou_?' Now, how do you think a Englishman feels when he finds out that even a common blackamoor's ashamed of him!"

[6] Literally "salt fellow"--a phrase implying that a man has been, as the Hindus say, "true to his salt."

"And d'ye see that 'ere flag yonder?" added Sam Black grimly, as he pointed to the British colours that waved jauntily in the last gleam of sunset, above the low white wall of a fort not more than a mile away. "That's the English flag, that is; and here be three Englishmen as daren't show their faces a-nigh it!"

Then followed a long and gloomy silence, each of the three unhappy men being wholly absorbed in his own sombre thoughts, as if they had now begun to realise, for the first time, the full depth of their degradation, and felt at last the whole bitterness of the harrowing contrast between what they might have been and what they were.

"It's all _his_ fault!" muttered Bob Burton at length, his voice sounding strange and hollow amid the deepening darkness. "If he hadn't druv us to it, we wouldn't have j'ined Kala Bagh's riff-raff; and if we hadn't took up with them, we shouldn't ha' been where we are now. By Jingo, if I could have a wish granted me just this very minute, I knows wot it 'ud be!"

"To cotch _'im_ somewhere by hisself, and pay him out once for all--eh, Bob?" said Tom Tuffen, in a hoarse whisper.

Burton nodded silently, and Sam Black gave an assenting growl, as deadly in its meaning as the hiss of a rattlesnake.

But that menacing sound died away into a stifled gasp of terror, as there started out all at once from the encircling blackness into the ring of light cast by the fire--plain before the startled eyes of all three--a slender white figure, and a bright, smooth, child-like face, framed in golden hair!

"Is it a h'angel, Bob?" asked Sam Black, in a tremulous whisper.

"A h'angel, you fool!" said Burton, with grim scorn; "what have h'angels got to do with the likes of us? It's the devil as _we_ b'longs to, and he'll have his own some day!"

But, at the sound of Burton's voice, the apparition sprang forward and called out joyfully, in accents that were familiar to them all--

"Is that you, Bob? Oh, I _am_ so glad! Come along with me, quick!"

And the desperate man suddenly felt his hard, bony hand clutched by the small, soft fingers of a child.

"Why, if it ain't the little 'un hisself!" cried Sam Black, in a tone of joyful recognition, as he laid his strong hand caressingly on the boy's shoulder.

"How come _you_ here, laddie, all by yourself?" asked Tom Tuffen, stepping forward on the other side.

"Father--come and help father!" was Freddy's only reply, as he caught hold of Tom's arm with his other hand.

"What, is _he_ with you?" cried Burton, with a sudden and terrible change on his worn face, which was instantly answered by a murderous gleam in the eyes of his two comrades.

"The horse came down with us--it took fright at your fire, I think--and my father fell with his leg under it--and I tried to pull him out, and couldn't; so then I ran to fetch help."

The three castaways exchanged looks of terrible meaning, without uttering a word.

Seldom indeed have such men been tried by such a temptation. Here was the vengeance for which they had just been longing, placed all at once within their very grasp. Here was the man whom they most hated in all the world, lying bruised and helpless, and wholly at their mercy; and even if they did not care to kill him themselves, all that was needed was simply to leave him to his fate. But then the boy--the boy--!

"Make haste--how slow you are!" cried Freddy imperiously. "Come and get him out--quick!"

And, as if his overwhelming excitement had really made him stronger, for the moment, than the two big, hardy men whom he was urging on, both made a step forward as he spoke, with the mechanical, unconscious movement of men walking in their sleep.

But hardly had they turned toward the high-road (close beside which lay the hollow wherein the colonel and his horse had fallen), when the whole forest shook with a terrific roar--the roar of a hungry tiger springing on its prey.[7]

[7] The presence of a tiger so close to a beaten road is (as I can bear witness from my own experience) not at all an unheard-of thing in Northern India even at the present day.--D. K.

"Oh, the tiger--the tiger!" screamed Freddy, "he'll get father!"

And he flew like an arrow in the direction of the sound.

If ever Bob and his comrades had run in their lives, they did so then. But ere they could reach the fatal spot, there came a second roar, louder and fiercer than the last--a wild, despairing cry--and then all was still.

* * * * *

When the tiger made his spring upon the prostrate horse and rider, the cool old soldier, unarmed and helpless as he was, did not give himself up for lost even then, shrewdly guessing that between a large and well-fed horse and a lean dried-up man, the monster's choice would be soon made.

And so it proved. One crunch of the destroyer's mighty jaws broke the poor beast's neck, and in a moment more the tiger was rending the yet quivering carcass with tooth and claw.

And now, could the colonel have lain still where he was, all might yet have gone well. The tiger, when gorged, would probably have gone off without troubling itself about _him_; nay, it might perhaps have dragged away the dead horse to serve it for a second meal, and thus have freed the imprisoned man from the weight that kept him down.

But it was not to be. The pain of that heavy pressure on his hurt limb made him impatient; and his hitherto unyielding nerves were sorely shaken (as, in truth, they might well be) by thus hearing, close to his very face, the tearing of his favourite horse piecemeal by the cruel fangs that might at any moment be buried in his own flesh. Feeling the pressure of the dead beast lightened for an instant as the tiger tugged at it and rocked it to and fro, he imprudently attempted to drag himself out from beneath it.

It was a fatal error. The moment he stirred, the tiger was upon him!

For one instant, while his thick military cloak hampered the monster's teeth, he saw the fierce yellow eyes glare into his, and felt the hot, foul, rank breath steaming on his face. Instinctively he uttered one last cry for help--and then--!

There was a trample of hurrying feet--a hoarse shout--the crackle of three shots fired in quick succession--and the terror of the jungle lay dead over his victim's body, just as a native patrol, alarmed by the noise, came racing up to the spot.

Hardman was promptly freed, and, to his son's vast relief, proved to have escaped with unbroken bones, though sorely bruised and shaken; for the tiger's fangs had not reached him, and the trench into which he had fallen had saved him from the full weight of the horse's body.

The lights carried by the patrol, as well as the cloudless splendour of the rising moon, made the whole scene as clear as day; and Colonel Hardman at once recognised his three rescuers, who, seeing that he knew them, and cut off from escape by the coming-up of the native soldiers, stood waiting in sullen silence to hear what he would say.

"I don't ask who you are, and I don't want to know," said the colonel to them, with a peculiar emphasis which all three fully understood. "I can see that you are Englishmen, and that you have been down on your luck; and, at all events, I owe you a good turn for saving my life. You look like the sort of fellows that I should like to have as recruits for my new regiment--what do you say?"

What they said no one heard save themselves and the colonel. But when, thirty-two years later, Colonel Hardman (General Hardman by that time), was laid at rest beneath the elms of the quiet English churchyard of his native village, foremost among those who bore him to the grave walked, side by side with his famous son, Major Frederick Hardman, a stalwart, grey-haired, soldier-like man named Bob Burton, who had nursed the dying general, night and day, through the last hours of his final illness, and had felt amply repaid for all by the light of grateful affection that shone for a moment in the sunken eyes of his old enemy, just ere they settled into stillness for ever.

IN LUCK'S WAY

BY FRED. WHISHAW

Matters were proceeding satisfactorily enough at Gerstonville, a farm lying some thirty miles north-east of Buluwayo, in Rhodesia. Richard Gerston had had the luck to peg out a fairly rich claim when, after the finish of the first Matabele war and the fall of old Lobengula, Buluwayo and the surrounding territories fell into the hands of the Company. Gerston had taken an honourable share in the fighting, and shared also in the privileges held out towards those who had been actively engaged in the war; and though his hopes--or dreams, as perhaps it would be more correct to call them--his dreams of finding gold upon his claim had not been realised, or had remained practically unrealised (for there were signs of gold here and there, though the precious metal had not been found in paying quantities), yet the soil was excellent, and his crops and his live-stock were doing wonders--so well indeed, that after a few months Gerston had felt justified in sending for his wife and two children from the Cape, where, for the present, they had remained waiting in anxious expectancy for the message which would enable them to start northwards in order to begin a new life in a new home in this new country.

For a year or two everything flourished. The farm had become a bit of England, though with African surroundings. Gerston's son Bruce, a lad of fifteen, was as much help to his father in the farm during working hours as his sister Kittie was to her mother in the house; while in the evening English outdoor games were the vogue; squash cricket especially, in which all the family took part, including Mrs. Gerston, who, however, according to the dictum of Bruce, "wasn't much good," and Kittie, who "played a much stronger game." Bruce had even attempted to teach a few Mashona labourers employed on the farm to wield the willow, but the result had been conspicuous failure; for not one of them displayed the smallest capacity for understanding the rules of the game, nor much inclination to run about or exert themselves after the fatigues of the day's work on the farm.

It was a beautiful summer's evening, during one of these games of "squash cricket," which was played on the rough turf outside the house, that a stranger strolled into the enclosure, an Englishman, though a hot and unkempt one, and stood still for a moment or two as his eye fell upon the unusual scene (in this part of the world) being enacted before him.

"Lord!" he muttered, "that's good! It does one good to see it."

Then he came forward, and Gerston, who was batsman on this occasion, catching sight of him, handed his bat to Kittie, and advanced to meet the stranger.

"You're welcome," he said. "Have you come far? We don't often have a visitor here afoot."

The stranger was an elderly man, though evidently wiry and active as a cat. He carried a rifle, and was dressed in "veldt" boots and the usual and appropriate costume of the country, much travel-stained and out of repair; his bearded face was lined and worn; he looked in need of rest, though obviously a hard man.

"I've come a goodish number of miles, mate, one way or another, and on my feet all the way; pretty well all over Rhodesia, you might say, and I've spent two years and more in doing it. Ah, and spent 'em well, too!" he added, with a wink, "and don't you make any mistake about it."

Gerston smiled.

"Prospecting, I daresay," he said.

The stranger nodded. "I don't choose my claim in a hurry," he continued; "I prefer to go the round and look about me. This seems a nice place. Any gold?"

"Not much," laughed Gerston; "just enough to keep us hoping for more; but the land's A1, and I'm not doing so badly."

"Ah!" ejaculated the other. "Good, good; you employ these Mashona rascals, I see. Well, look out if you're wise."

Gerston laughed again.

"Oh yes," he said, "I will look out; my Mashona boys are thoroughly domesticated; besides, they know when they are well off."

"Maybe," said the stranger; "but there is trouble in the air. I have not tramped all Rhodesia for nothing. I have seen what I have seen, and I have heard what I have heard."

Gerston received this Sphinx-like pronouncement with a smile, and the pair having by this time reached the house, the stranger was shown to his room, as naturally as though he had been an invited and expected guest.

There was no question of his begging a bed, or of any expression by Gerston of apologetical regret that the house was full; his welcome was a matter of course, for in the veldt open house is kept after the old-established Dutch fashion, and no one possessing a white skin and a smattering of European civilisation need sleep out in the air for want of a bed and a meal inside of four walls, if there be a settler's dwelling within ken.

The stranger gave his name as "Uncle Ben," and stayed for several days. He paid, as he expressed it, for his keep by giving Gerston the benefit of his experience as a prospector for gold, tramping the claim from end to end, accompanied by the boy Bruce, to whom he seemed to take a great fancy; but though this odd pair visited together every corner of the estate, and examined carefully every little kopje and gully in the place, Uncle Ben's verdict was quite unfavourable. There wasn't gold enough in the claim, he said, so far as he could judge, to coin a five-dollar piece, and the whole claim, from the point of view of the gold-seeker, was "not worth a tinker's curse."

As he delivered himself of this doleful dictum, the stranger suddenly produced a tobacco pouch, which he opened forthwith and held out to his host.

"See here," he said, "_that's_ gold now--the real article, and I know--well, I know what I know."

"Which means, I suppose, that you could tell me where to find more of it," laughed Gerston. "Well, you're a lucky chap, and I wish you all success. When you want a partner to work the place you can come along to me."

"Ah!" said Uncle Ben sagely, "who knows?"

And Gerston, talking over this conversation afterwards with his wife, laughingly declared that he believed if the old fellow's pockets were overhauled, certain mysterious hieroglyphics intended to form a rough map would be found, and that this map would be the clue to some valuable gold shaft of which he had discovered, or imagined that he had discovered, the existence.

"There are plenty in Mashonaland," Gerston ended, "if only one could hit upon them."

Uncle Ben, as he insisted upon being called, proved a grand acquisition in the evenings, for he possessed a wonderful fund of stories, experiences of his own mostly; and these he was never tired of airing for the benefit of his listeners, of whom he had four in this house, all of the kind most charming to the narrator, because they were frankly and obviously interested and amused.

If his tales were to be believed--and the old man was accustomed to vow most solemnly that the experiences narrated were absolutely authentic--he had certainly been through every kind of adventure that the ingenuity of a humorous destiny could have invented at his expense: adventures with lions, with elephants, with Matabele warriors; perils by water and by land; in a word, every kind of experience likely to interest and enthral a listener had been his; and though, perhaps, listeners of the age of Bruce were the most delighted by his tales, they pleased almost equally listeners of any age, for they bore the stamp of truth.

It was natural, therefore, that young Bruce soon began to look upon the sturdy old stranger as a hero of the first water, a king among men, a person to be admired and loved and imitated, if the opportunity should ever arise; a mental condition on the part of Bruce which was confirmed by each new story of triumph over lions or other beasts, or of barely escaped capture by Matabeles or other bad characters.

It was while in the midst of an exciting tale of a night spent in the bare veldt within a hundred or two paces of an entire Matabele _impi_, during the whole of which time he dared not sleep, and scarcely allowed himself to breathe lest they should hear him; and of how at a critical moment he had sneezed--it was, in fact, exactly as Uncle Ben had reached this most critical point in his story that the sound of galloping hoofs suddenly became distinctly audible in the breathless silence into which the old man had been pouring out his yarns.

"Stop one minute, mate," said Gerston, rising; "let us see who this is. The letter-carrier, I daresay, though he doesn't generally ride that pace."

Gerston rose and went to the door. A moment later the panting horse of the new arrival pulled up at the garden gate, and the rider threw the reins over his animal's neck.

"Give me a drink, mate," he said, "I'm dead parched. Anything will do--water, or milk, or cold tea. I've brought awful news, but I can't speak till I've drunk."

"Brandy and water?" suggested Gerston; and the stranger nodding acquiescence, he was soon in possession of the "long" drink he craved.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, setting down the empty glass, "that's better. Well, the natives are up; they have risen, and are murdering the English wherever they can find them. Are you well armed here? Can you hold the house against a siege? You may have a visit from the blackguards before the night's out."

The communication, absolutely unexpected by most of those present, fell like a bomb into the midst of the company. Gerston drew in his breath with a gasp, glancing at his wife and young Kittie, both of whom looked white and scared, though Mrs. Gerston showed her spirit by answering in a moment and with brave words her husband's eloquent glance--

"We've plenty of weapons and ammunition, and both Kittie and I can shoot a bit, if required," she said. "We shall know how to give you a helping hand, Dick; and we are not afraid, are we, Kittie?"

"Oh no, father," said Kittie, whose trembling lips proved, however, that she had not quite recovered the shock of the news.

"Well, ladies, you're a pair of the right sort, if I may say so," continued the new-comer, "and let me tell you, you'll want all your pluck and all your powder, for they can't relieve you from Buluwayo for several days; and you'll have to remember these blackguards don't spare women and children. I found poor Smithson and his wife both murdered and their house burned this very morning, before I got to their place to warn them. I'm on my rounds warning the farmers about; but God knows whether I can go any farther, for--see here--I've lost some blood; and to tell the truth, what with that and fatigue, I don't rightly know whether I'm standing on my heels or my head."

The stranger turned as he spoke, revealing a stained bandage beneath his Norfolk-coat at the neck.

"A spent assegai," he explained; "it caught me just in the fleshy bit between shoulder and neck; it was shied from an ambush as I galloped by; a few more inches one way and I should have been done for. That's the party which is heading in this direction."

"How far off was that?" asked Gerston, while his wife ran for warm water and a clean bandage.

"Ten miles," said the other, "more or less. You'd better begin fixing up your zareba at once. What's the nearest farm to yours, going east?"

"There isn't one nearer than Thomson's at the Black Kopje, twenty-five miles away; several places are bought up in between, but the owners haven't settled in yet."

"So much the better for them. Twenty-five miles? Lord! I don't know how I'm going to do it. You'd swop a horse for mine, no doubt; but in plain truth I'm fagged out, and this wound is burning like fire and fury just now!"

"Let me go instead of him, father!" suddenly exclaimed young Bruce. "I know the way, every inch of it; I could ride Donald over in an hour and a half."

Gerston looked pleased, but shook his head--

"No, no, my boy," he said, "that wouldn't do; you're not man enough yet, though I'm glad to see you've the spirit to offer. I shall ride across myself, for it's clear our poor friend here can go no farther to-day. Be getting Donald ready for me, Bruce lad, while I start with the defences."

But neither his wife nor Kittie would hear of allowing Gerston to leave them and go out upon this dangerous enterprise. He must stay, whoever else went, and look after his property and the lives of those who were dear to him.

"Let Bruce go rather than you," the mother ended, her eyes full of tears and a choke in her voice.

"Yes, do, father; let me go!" said Bruce.

"With apologies for interrupting family arrangements," began the old stranger, who chose to be called Uncle Ben, "I am the one that's got to go, and as soon as some of you have explained the road and lent me a nag, I'm off. You may be proud of this youngster of yours, boss; he's a lad of spirit, and he'll do well. Now which way do I go--north, south, east, or west?"

"I really don't know that we ought to allow you to risk your life," Gerston began hesitatingly. "The road's difficult to find if you don't know it, and it wouldn't do to get one's self lost in the veldt with those confounded chaps about, looking for white bodies to chuck their assegais at. You'd better let me go, mother; I can take pretty good care of myself; I shall be back by morning."

"Excuse me, mate," said Uncle Ben, "but I ain't one to be put off from his purpose by the danger of meeting a few Mashona fellows with assegais; I've something here that shoots straighter and harder and farther, in case it's wanted. Come, how does one steer, and what about a horse?"

It was obviously useless to waste argument upon the old fellow. His mind was made up, and it was quickly decided to let him have his way; the more so since, as a matter of fact, it was convenient enough that he should go, rather than Gerston, whose place was undoubtedly at the side of his wife and daughter, and at the head of those who would assist him to defend their lives and his property.

So Uncle Ben was duly instructed as to the road to Thomson's farm; and now it became evident that descriptions intended to direct a ride of twenty-five miles over the veldt are apt to bewilder as much as to enlighten, and that the old fellow's mind had been considerably mixed by his instructions as to the way he should go on reaching this belt of jungle or that kopje.

"You'd better let me go with him, father!" said persistent Bruce; "the cleverest veldt-traveller might lose his way between here and Thomson's. I shall surely be all right with Uncle Ben. You can give me a revolver in case of accidents."

"You can bet your last sovereign nothing'll happen to him while old Ben Caldecott's breath is in his body!" added the old fellow. "If he's going to be hurt, then I'm dead first, mind you; but the Mashona beggars won't catch me napping, you may bet. Besides, the lad would run quite as much risk at home to-day as riding over the veldt, seeing as how you ain't going to be let alone to sleep comfortably in your beds."

And presently, after some little opposition from his weeping mother, hotly combated by Bruce himself, and almost as hotly by Kittie, who was all for giving Bruce a chance of showing his spirit and distinguishing himself, the lad was allowed to get himself ready for departure. Preparations were in full swing for the defence of the house as the adventurous pair rode out upon their dangerous enterprise. Every scrap of cover within one hundred and fifty yards of the house was being cut down and removed, in order that the niggers, when they came, must advance over an open area well watched and easily swept by the bullets of the defenders.

Besides this, barbed wire was stretched here and there across the open space and tightly fastened to pegs about one foot in height, in order to trip up the enemy in case of a rush, when, in the confusion of their overthrow, the defenders would have the opportunity to fire several times into "the brown," as Gerston expressed it, before they should have recovered themselves.

Within the house everything was made as secure as possible against assault and battery, and every rifle and shot-gun (including two magazine rifles) was loaded and placed in the position laid down for it, only three windows being left unshuttered, for the use of sharpshooters. It had been intended to run up some kind of earthworks, surmounted by barbed wire, one hundred yards from the house, as a first line of defence; but when the native labourers were summoned to help in the work, not one of them was to be found, a significant fact which caused Gerston to look very grave.

"The rascals have had news of the rising, then," he said; "their messenger must have arrived almost as soon as ours--eh, Botley?"

Botley was the last arrival, he who had brought the disconcerting news of danger threatening.

"Before, probably," he replied. "I shouldn't wonder if it was one of your beauties that treated me to this little hole in the shoulder, on his way to join some murderous band which he and his fellows will presently bring down here to knock your head off, in gratitude for benefits conferred--the set of scurvy, thankless, godless black devils that they are!"

Without the native labourers it was quite impossible to undertake anything requiring so much expenditure in time and hard labour as earth defences, and the scheme had therefore to be abandoned.

Meanwhile we may leave Gerston and his little group of brave English hearts to defend their home and their lives as best they can against any overwhelming force that might be brought against them. Their good British spirit will not quail, we may assure ourselves, though they must fight against odds which might well appal hearts less easily daunted than theirs.

We therefore leave them with confidence to their enterprise, while we follow the steps of the oddly assorted pair to whose share has fallen the duty of riding out into unknown dangers, maybe to unavoidable disaster and death, in order to carry the message of coming peril to their unsuspecting compatriots twenty-five miles away, rather than allow a neighbour to be surprised, and perhaps fallen upon and ruthlessly murdered, he and his, for want of a word of warning.

It was late in the afternoon when the two set out upon their journey, well armed with rifle and revolver, and mounted upon the two fastest horses that Gerston's stables could supply. Young Bruce was wild with delight, scarcely, perhaps, realising the full peril of the enterprise in which he had been so eager to take a part. They spoke but little during the first half-hour's ride, being anxious to push on as fast as possible during the waning daylight. Bruce led the way, and rode so rapidly that after a while his companion bade him pull up a bit.

"It's bad policy, youngster," he whispered, "to box all your strength away in the first round. Look at my beast, he's badly blown."

This was the case. The horses were not accustomed to the present headlong method of travelling. They were used to quiet jogging about the farm-lands, or carrying their master from settlement to settlement at a respectable rate of progression; they were not in training for this kind of emergency riding.

"We'd better climb down and let them breathe a minute or two," said Uncle Ben gravely. "See here." He had loosened the bridle, and his horse instantly lowered its neck until its distended nostrils almost reached the ground, panting and wheezing in a state of breathlessness bordering upon actual distress.

"That's Donald," said Bruce; "he's a good goer, too, but he isn't used to this pace."

"Well, he shall have three minutes' law," said Uncle Ben, "or more if he needs it. Sit down a bit and we'll talk, but don't speak up at full voice. How d'you like this yer adventure, sonnie?"

"I love it," said Bruce; "it's exactly the kind of thing I _do_ like."

"Ah--ever been in a fight, or had to struggle for your life?"

"Oh no, not yet," said Bruce. "I'm a bit young; but I hope to."

"Nor seen blood, and so on?" continued the old fellow.

"Oh, accidents and that kind of thing. I don't mind the look of blood, if that's what you mean."

"Well, I tell you, this is no child's play we're at, sonnie; recollect that. We may be caught in an ambush and assegaied before we rightly know we've been done."

"I shan't mind so much if only I can get the revolver off at them first!" said truculent Bruce.

"We may be chased and surrounded."

"Not on horseback. They don't ride, these Mashona fellows; they've no horses. We can always ride them down and be off, even if we're surrounded."

"Ain't you afraid?" persisted Uncle Ben. "Mind you, it isn't too late to go home even now. I could find the way from here."

"What are you playing at? Why d'you want me to go back?" said Bruce indignantly. "There isn't anything to be afraid of yet."

"Ah, but there may be!" said the other.

"Well, wait till there is, and then see if I funk, before you insult me!" replied Bruce; and in his indignation he spoke no more for the next five minutes, though Uncle Ben said he was a likely lad, and attempted to conciliate him with other similar compliments.

He descended, however, from the lofty pedestal of offended dignity when Uncle Ben suddenly stopped in the middle of a sentence and stood silent, listening.

"What is it? What d'you hear?" asked Bruce, forgetting dignity and everything else in the excitement of the moment.

Uncle Ben remained silent for a full minute.

"Don't you hear it?" he said. "Listen carefully. There; d'you catch it?"

Bruce listened with all his ears; but those organs, not having been tutored, as were his companion's, to catch every little sound of veldt life, could detect nothing as yet.

"You'll hear in a minute, for they're coming this way!" said Uncle Ben. "But they're a mile off or more."

"Who, who?" muttered Bruce, his throat quite dry with excitement. "The Mashona fellows?"

Uncle Ben nodded.

"Now listen again!" he said.

Bruce did so, and this time he distinctly heard the rhythmical tread of a body of men apparently moving at a quick march.

"Trotting and coming straight for us along this path," whispered the older man. "You hear them now, I see. Well, there's no cover for the horses hereabouts; what's to be done with them?"

"Why can't we charge right through the niggers?" asked Bruce, partly in ignorance, but partly in bravado, for he desired to prove to his elder that he felt no fear.

"Nonsense. Not unless you're tired of life! At any rate I ain't, though I've had more of it than you. There may be a couple of hundred men here. What's to be done about the horses, that's the point? We can hide our selves and let the rascals pass, but you can't hide the horses. Will you ride yours back, and then mine 'ud follow? You'd be able to warn them, too, up at your dad's place."

"They don't need warning; they're expecting an attack," said Bruce hotly. "I'm not going back, I tell you. The horses will go by themselves if we can't keep them. They are often sent home that way when we are out a long distance from the house and don't want them hanging about all day. Let them loose and you'll see."

"Very well--stop--for the last time, now's your chance to go back; you'll be doing a service in warning the folks at home, and no one'll suspect your pluck."

Uncle Ben did not finish his sentence; for before he had delivered himself of it, Bruce had knotted the bridle over his horse's neck, turned the animal's head homewards, given it a sounding smack on the quarter, and the intelligent creature was in full trot for its stable, tossing its head and grunting with pleasure.

"Well," muttered the older man, "I've said all I can; it won't be my fault if you run your head into mischief after this!" And having thus absolved his conscience of all responsibility for his young companion's rashness, he followed the example of that determined young person, and sent his own horse careering after its companion upon the road for home.

"Now, sonnie, come off the path," he said, "and get behind the scrub with me. We'll see the rascals pass in five minutes, and when they're gone we'll push forward more safely."

"Aren't we going to have a shot at them as they pass?" asked Bruce.

The old man looked at his companion in surprise, not unmingled with admiration.

"Well," he said, "of all the gamecocks ever I met, you're the pluckiest. Give me your hand, sonnie. I'm sorry I spoke to offend you; it wasn't meant. No, we ain't going to shoot them as they pass, for we ain't anxious, either of us, for Kingdom Come. We might kill half-a-dozen maybe if we were lucky, but you may take your last oath that they'd kill _two_. Now, see here, I'm to be boss of this campaign, and you're to obey orders; don't you shoot, now or ever, until you're told. You're a fine lad for courage, but there ain't enough solid wisdom and experience in you to stop a bad tooth. Now, down with you behind this rock; they'll be out of that scrub and in sight in a minute."

Uncle Ben and his young companion ducked behind their cover none too soon, for hardly had they done so when, scarcely a couple of hundred yards away, there came a line of dusky forms, four or five abreast, that broke out of the scrub cover into the open, followed at a few paces by other lines, in what appeared to Bruce to be interminable numbers. Uncle Ben, watching the lad's face, saw it flush and pale and then flush again; his hand went to the revolver at his belt, but there the old man's nervous grip arrested it.

"No, no," he whispered, "no fooling; not if you value your life."

Bruce tried to whisper back that he only meant to prepare in case of emergency, but he found himself tongue-tied, not precisely by fear, but by a numbing sensation which was the result of the sudden realisation of actual danger for the first time in his life. The feeling passed off in a few seconds, and Bruce became master once more of his nerves. And now he was able to enjoy a very unique and peculiar spectacle, the passing of a body of Mashona or Matabele warriors on the warpath. Puffing, groaning, moaning, and wheezing they went, running at a jog-trot; and almost every man of the hundred or so of them relieved his exhausted energies by uttering sounds of one description or another, from a low grunt to a loud wailing cry, all of which seemed very weird and alarming to Bruce's wondering intelligence.

"Off to your dad's!" whispered Uncle Ben, as the strange body of black fellows disappeared in the gathering dusk. "Come, we will waste no more time!"

Then the pair moved quickly forward; there were still fifteen miles to go, and every step of it must be done on foot, and quickly.

"Are you man enough to jog-trot a bit now and then," asked the older man, and Bruce, for reply, struck into a run, and led the way so quickly that his companion was glad enough when he stopped again for breath and walked. Darkness came on, and Bruce became uncertain of the way, though he knew it well by daylight.

"There's a ford, five miles from Thomson's place," he said; "if we could only hit upon that I should find the road from there on much easier."

"Take the direction as near as you can get it," said Uncle Ben, "and maybe we shall strike the river above or below the ford."

So on they trudged, now jogging at a trot, now slowing into a walk, but covering the ground quickly; for they remembered that upon their speed might hang for all they knew the lives of men and women.

A lion roared in the veldt, within a mile of the scudding humans. Bruce shuddered but went on, resolved that his companion should not see that he was frightened.

Presently the brute roared a second time, almost paralysing poor Bruce's limbs with terror; for undoubtedly the animal was much nearer at this second time of roaring. With difficulty dragging his limbs, but resolved to go through with the matter, Bruce jogged on.

He heard his companion click his rifle behind him. Suddenly there came a rush and a scurry of many swift feet, some hundred yards in front of them. The scudding throng of animals passed across the path and away, and Bruce heard a third and a fourth roar, and knew that the old lion had made his spring and had failed, and was angry over his discomfiture.

He stopped and sat down suddenly, too frightened to move forward.

"Ah," said Uncle Ben kindly, "you're pumped out, lad; we'll have a bit of a rest."

"No, it's the lion," said Bruce truthfully; "I never heard one so close before; it is awful--will he attack us?"

"Not he; he won't be such a fool; if he did, we could smash him in a minute, never fear. Why, lad, if you ain't afraid of the Matabeles, you needn't mind him! There he goes again, farther away, you see; he's thinking of his antelopes, not of us."

So up jumped Bruce and away he sped again, guessing the road as best he could by the direction, and presently the pair reached the bank of a precipitous nullah, and Bruce nearly "took a header" over the rocky edge.

"Ah!" said Uncle Ben, "good; follow the line of the nullah, it will be sure to lead us to the river."

This proved to be the case, and a mile or two farther on the river itself was reached, but at a point either above or below the ford, Bruce could not tell which.

"Why, Lord, what does it matter, we'll soon find the ford," said Uncle Ben; "you're a clever lad to have struck the river; I'm darned if I ever met a lad I liked better; work up to the left a mile or two, and if that's wrong we'll come back and try the other way, it's only a matter of a few minutes."

Bruce was getting very tired, and sighed to think that he might have to travel several unnecessary miles up and down the river; but he pulled himself together and trudged on, looking out keenly for the ford, which he should recognise if he saw it.

Once a company of antelopes--maybe they were his old friends--gave him a great scare. They had come down to drink, and the startled creatures nearly knocked him down as they rushed madly, stampeding and mobbing, from the waterside when surprised by the wanderers.

A mile was covered and part of another, and Bruce thought he began to recognise the look of the river.

"I think we are getting near the ford," he said over his shoulder.

"Good; good, lad!" replied his companion laconically, saving his breath.

But now suddenly confronted them the most crucial moment of the enterprise.

"Stop, lad!" hissed Uncle Ben from behind; "stop a moment, I hear something."

Bruce drew up instantly, crouching down as he saw his companion do.

"Listen," whispered Uncle Ben; "I think it's the Mashona fellows again; they are fording the river; we must be close to the ford; or it may be a hippopotamus or a crocodile."

Bruce listened, his heart thumping loudly at his breast. He heard splashing and grunting; a moment later came the sound of measured running.

"It is the niggers," whispered Uncle Ben hurriedly; "we cannot go back, and I see no cover inland; we must take to the water; quickly, lad, follow me into the reeds; never mind the cold, go right up to your neck if need be!"

Very quickly Uncle Ben waded into the water; it was not very cold, but the bank shelved rapidly, and a few yards out the pair were up to their chests.

The reeds were thick, and formed a good cover.

"Bend, and let the water cover you to the mouth," whispered the old man; "go right under if they seem to hear or see us, and stay under as long as your breath lasts."

Bruce nodded, shivering.

The pair of submerged Britons were not much too soon in assuming their uncomfortable position, for in a moment the Matabele fellows were practically upon them, passing abreast of them at full run, groaning and grunting after their fashion, travelling in irregular lines of three, four, or six.

Unfortunately the body of "niggers" had but half passed by when some creature of the water took occasion to splash loudly several times in close proximity to our submerged friends, but whether a crocodile, or a fish, or some animal which had waded in to drink, Bruce never knew.

"Down under water, quick!" muttered Uncle Ben; and Bruce, taking in a great gulp of breath, obeyed instantly.

As he did so he became aware of a sudden stinging sensation in the upper part of his arm. Putting his hand to the place, under water, he felt that his coat was torn.

"I must have rubbed it against a stake as I ducked," thought Bruce, and dismissing the subject, he devoted all his energy to economising the stock of breath he had laid in.

When that was exhausted, at the end of thirty or forty seconds, which seemed an eternity to him, Bruce cautiously raised the upper part of his head in order to take in a new supply. As he did so he observed the last row or two of Matabele fellows halted upon the bank, and one or two of them in the act of throwing their assegais at some object beyond him on the left. Down went Bruce again very quickly, and it was nearly a minute later that his yellow head made its reappearance above the surface. This time he saw no Matabeles, they had gone on; but the old man, Uncle Ben, had seized his arm somewhat violently, and was muttering.

Bruce shook the water out of his ears to listen.

"Come ashore quickly," said Uncle Ben. "Are you wounded, lad?"

"Wounded? Not I," said Bruce. "Why? Are you? Did they shy those assegais at _us_? Why, then, it may have been one that touched my arm."

"Ah, you have a scratch I see!" said the older man; but he spoke in so strange a voice, that Bruce looked up from his own torn coat and slightly bleeding arm to see what ailed his companion.

"What's up, Uncle Ben?" he said. "Are you feeling bad? Why, you're never hit, are you?"

"Just a bit," gasped the old fellow--"here in the side. The blade of the thing's in me now. O Lord, the pain of it. I'll lie down awhile, that may make me better."

"O Uncle Ben, I'm so sorry. What can I do? Is it very bad?" cried poor Bruce weakly. He felt utterly helpless and frightened.

"I may be all right presently," said Uncle Ben. "Just give me a hand while I lie down. Oh! so, that's it; now I shall soon be better." And as though to prove how much better he felt for the change of position, the wounded man then and there fainted away.

Then Bruce, in his utter helplessness and misery, began to think how vain a thing is self-confidence and the pride of mere animal courage in an inexperienced lad of fifteen years. He had been ready and anxious to undertake the dangerous enterprise all by himself. What if he had been allowed to do so?

Well, he would probably have fallen into the hands of the enemy within half-an-hour of the start; if he had escaped the first danger, he would, maybe, have died of terror when within a stone's throw of the roaring lion. Again, he might have lost his way when, in the darkness, he missed the track; and now again, but for Uncle Ben's experience and alertness, he would assuredly have been caught and murdered by the Matabeles.

Sitting, helpless and miserable, over his unconscious companion, Bruce quickly realised all this, and with the realisation came a flood of tears, the first he had shed for many a day, and wrung from him now, not by fear, but by the sense of helplessness in this crisis.

What ought he to do--what _could_ he do? Leave this poor wounded old man to recover consciousness or to die, or to fall, maybe, into the hands of a third band of rebel niggers, to be mutilated in their barbarous fashion before the breath was out of his body; to leave him lying here, and hasten up to Thomson's farm in order to warn the family? He could find the way from here easily enough. Or should he let the farm people take care of themselves, and attend to the duty which lay to his hand; namely, to keep faithful watch and ward over his wounded companion until day at any rate, when he might settle him comfortably somewhere under cover, and proceed upon his journey?

Bruce was no fool, and it occurred to him at this point of the reflections which passed in a kind of dazed procession through his brain that the last band of Matabeles had probably come from Thomson's. They had crossed the ford as though travelling from his farm; the chance was that Thomson was either already aware of the rebellion and in full defence of his property, or murdered, he and all his folk.

"No," thought Bruce, "I shall stay by Uncle Ben until he dies or recovers, and then go on by myself."

Bruce's fit of crying did him good. He put up a prayer for help in his terrible position, and that did him good also; and when at length old Ben sighed and opened his eyes, poor Bruce was feeling brave and confident once more, and ready to face destiny, whatever it might have in store for him. But he soon saw that there was little in the old man's condition to encourage him. Uncle Ben lay on his back quite still, gazing up at the stars, and Bruce sat still also, unwilling to disturb or perhaps startle him.

"Are you there, lad?" muttered the old man presently. "I don't feel as if I could move to look about me."

"I'm here, Uncle Ben," said Bruce. "Are you lying comfortable? Do you feel bad?"

"I'm going to die, lad, and that's the truth. Give me a drop of water--in your cap. Ah! now you listen to what I have to say, my boy. You be off at once to the farm and warn them. If they like to send down to fetch me when convenient, why, they may; if not, I'd as soon die here."

"I think these last Matabeles have been up there already," said Bruce, "else what were they doing at this ford? It isn't any use going there; I'd rather stay with you here, and see to you."

"Well, God bless you for the wish anyhow, lad; it's kind in you, and you may be right about the Matabeles. Stay on a bit if you like. I don't think I shall keep you long. Give me another drink. Lord! I'm hot, burning hot. Is the sun out?" The old man began to ramble in his talk, and Bruce, in his despair and inexperience, allowed him to wander on, saying nothing, but only dabbing a little water occasionally upon the old fellow's brow.

Suddenly Uncle Ben's manner changed. He spoke quietly and rationally once more.

"Are you still there, lad Bruce?" he asked. Bruce laid a cool, wet hand upon his forehead by way of reply.

"You're a darned good lad," continued the old man, "one of the best. I wish I had a son like you, you've stood by me till I died. Now, see here, sonnie; in my inner pocket is my baccy pouch; take it before you go away and leave me; it's full of gold dust; but that's of little account; what's more important is a paper with a map scrawled upon it. I did it before we started, case of accidents. The name of the village marked with a cross is Umdhana, thirteen miles north of Salisbury. The map'll tell you the rest. Lord, I can't talk any more. It's all yours when I'm gone, for you're a good lad, one of the best!"

"Maybe you won't die, Uncle Ben!" said Bruce weakly; he knew there was not much doubt of it, but could think of nothing wiser to say.

Uncle Ben did not reply, but lay with closed eyes. After a while Bruce saw his lips move, and heard him muttering, but concluded that he was praying, and did not interrupt him. When he looked again the old man was still, nor--though Bruce watched him carefully for nearly half-an-hour--could he detect the slightest movement of breathing.

Then a great horror came over the boy, for he looked upon death for the first time; his heart failed him, and he trembled, and went away where he could not see the body; and here he sat awhile in nerveless terror, unable to collect his thoughts or to decide what was best to be done.

He sat, helpless and dazed, for an hour, by which time dawn was beginning to make faint promises of a day to come with its joy and brightness in its own good time.

"I will wait," thought Bruce, "until it is broad daylight, and then I will go to Thomson's farm."

Then he lay down and tried to fall asleep, but superstitious fears kept him mostly awake, though he dozed at intervals. Once or twice he heard stealthy noises, as though the beasts of the forest came timidly to the water to drink; but he was startled by no roarings of the greater animals, and there was nothing to alarm him save the presence, near by, of grim death. Nevertheless, when light came Bruce felt impelled to approach and look upon Uncle Ben's body once more before leaving it, and he was surprised to find that this time, and in God's fair light of day, he minded much less. He even bent and laid his hand in farewell upon the old fellow's cold forehead, and as he did so he remembered Uncle Ben's request that he would secure his "baccy pouch" and its contents. Bruce easily found this pouch, and he pocketed it without much thought of its value, if any; and having thus secured his legacy, according to the testator's wish, he certainly thought no more about it.

Then the lad made for the ford, which was but a hundred yards or so away; and here an immense surprise was in store for him; for in the very act of crossing the ford there came towards him a figure which at first sight he took for that of a native, a Matabele warrior, though clothed, it appeared, in the tattered relics of an English suit--a flannel shirt and Norfolk coat and trousers, and carrying over his shoulder a rifle, and at his belt a long and a short assegai.

For an instant Bruce's heart failed him. He stopped dead and crouched, intending to drop upon his stomach and crawl into cover.

But the stranger, it seemed, was quick-eyed, and had already seen him.

"Aha!" he called out, "young boy Englishman! do not hide; I am not one to hurt those that have white skins!"

Bruce was soon upon his feet again at the sound of his own language, though it was spoken in an odd, guttural way, and with a peculiar accent. He stared at the stranger coming splashing through the shallow water.

"Who are you?" he blurted; "and why do you speak so curiously?"

"I am Umkopo, the white witch of the Matabele. English born, Matabele bred. What are you doing here? It is a wonder that you are alive. Death is abroad, death to the English. What do you want here, I say?"

Bruce had heard of this man Umkopo, "The White Witch" as he was called. No one as yet, however, knew much about the mysterious individual, who was seen from time to time indeed, and had often befriended Englishmen in moments of danger and distress, but as to whose identity the vaguest and most varied opinions prevailed. Since the day on which Bruce met him in the manner described his history has become well known both in Rhodesia and in England; but this is not the place to recapitulate his romantic story, which, if he desires to know it, the reader may find elsewhere.

"I am on my way to Thomson's farm to warn them that the natives are up," said Bruce; "perhaps you have been upon the same errand?"

"Thomson is dead--murdered; so is his partner and the wife of his partner. Yesterday they were surprised and murdered. Bah! good English blood spilt by dogs of Matabele. Bah! I have done with them; I go with them no more; from this day I am an Englishman."

"Thomson murdered, and Hewetson and Mrs. Hewetson also!" ejaculated Bruce. "Then I am too late! Oh, how glad I am that father was warned in time!"

"Who is your father?" asked Umkopo.

"His name is Gerston. We farm the claim called Gerstonville----"

"I know," interrupted Umkopo; "and he sent you on here _alone_ to warn Thomson. Does he hate you?"

"Rot!" said Bruce; "of course not. I was not alone; my companion is dead."

"Dead? What, killed by these dogs, like Thomson and the others? For each one I will kill ten Matabele, I swear it; and how have you escaped?"

"We hid in the water. Something splashed as they passed, and they threw an assegai and killed poor Uncle Ben; he lies just here, quite close."

"Ah, ah! show me! show me!" said Umkopo.

Bruce led his new friend to the place where lay the dead man, looking as though he slept quietly by the riverside, weary with travelling.

"Oh," cried Umkopo, with something very like a sob in his voice, "I knew him well; I have hunted with him. He was a good man--a brave man. I have learned from him many things."

To Bruce's immense surprise Umkopo threw himself upon the ground, and lay rolling and groaning a while, evidently overcome with grief.

Suddenly he rose.

"Come," he said, "we will make a hole, and put him in it. If they find him here they will cut and tear his body, because he was better than they, and braver and wiser. They shall not have him."

So with a little help from Bruce poor old Uncle Ben received burial at the hands of Umkopo, and right glad was Bruce that it was not destined that his friend should be left to be mutilated by savage enemies, or to be eaten by savage beasts or vultures.

"Now," said Umkopo, when this good work was finished, "we go together to Gerstonville. If they were warned in time, they will not yet be overcome; and if they still hold out, you shall see what will happen when the Mashona dogs see that Umkopo has come."

Bruce did not quite like the stranger. His manner of speaking was so strange, and his appearance so weird and even alarming; but he was evidently friendly disposed, and it was certainly comforting to have an escort or a companion--Bruce preferred the word companion--as far as Gerstonville.

But his half-fear of the man and every feeling of dislike soon passed away in wonder and curiosity as, on the way homewards, Umkopo waxed garrulous, and spoke of his own career--of his deeds among the great beasts of the veldt; of his bearding, on a certain occasion, of the terrible old King Lobengula, whom all the world feared, excepting, apparently, this wonderful fellow; and of many adventures and struggles with the Matabele people, who would not, for many years, acknowledge him as their principal "Witch" or magician.

"It was this that persuaded them in the end," said Umkopo, concluding his story, and patting lovingly the butt of his rifle: "this is the real witch, not I."

So interesting and absorbing was the conversation of his new friend that Bruce scarcely had time to realise that he was terribly tired, as indeed he had every right to be; and the pair had come within a mile or so of home, when Umkopo suddenly stopped and assumed an attitude of listening. When he did so Bruce listened also, and distinctly heard the sound of shooting, continuous shooting.

"Ah!" said Umkopo, "good! the dogs have not got into your father's kennel; now you shall see how Umkopo will sweep them away like the leaves that fly in wind-time! Come."

Umkopo seized the boy's hand, and set off at so rapid a run that even Bruce--as active a lad as you would find in all Rhodesia--could scarcely keep up with him, and was obliged indeed to pant to him presently to stop.

"No, no, not stop," said Umkopo, "not far now--run; Umkopo has learned from the springbok!"

Bruce pulled himself together, took deep breaths, and struggled gamely on. Once they stopped for a moment or two, Umkopo having glanced in the lad's face, and seeing that he was really distressed for breath. During those moments Bruce caught sight of Umkopo's expression, and was astonished and almost supernaturally alarmed at it. Umkopo's eyes were wild and blazing with a weird lustre; he held his chin high and his shoulders back, and muttered words, as he gazed straight in front of him, which Bruce did not understand, and which he concluded were in the Matabele lingo. He looked, Bruce thought, like an inspired prophet, the White Witch all over, excepting that his skin was scarcely to be described as "white," being, as a matter of fact, about half-way between that pale tint and the hue of the Mashona native.

Then on they scudded once more, and in a minute or two they had reached a spot within a furlong of the farmhouse, from which they saw plainly all that was being enacted at or about the building.

There were three separate groups of attacking natives, each hidden from the house by protecting cover of scrub or rock. Now and again a dark form or two rushed headlong towards the building, when a shot from an upper window would send the rash fellow either hurrying back into the cover or head first into the earth, where he would writhe and kick for a moment, and then lie still. Numbers of still, dark forms dotted the ground at all distances from the house, while a grim heap of the slain within forty yards of it, proved that some charge of the enemy _en masse_ had with difficulty been stopped in time.

"Come," said Umkopo, suddenly and unexpectedly, "now you shall see!"

He started to walk rapidly towards the nearest body of natives. Bruce hesitated to follow, not quite comprehending his intentions, and more than half-mistrusting the wisdom of the proceeding.

"Come, I say!" repeated Umkopo, looking back over his shoulder; "fear nothing; I am Umkopo, the great White Witch!" And Bruce, rather than appear to be afraid, gripped his rifle and followed.

The Matabeles apparently recognised Umkopo at the instant of his appearance, for they sent up a babel of noise, every tongue of the two hundred there assembled seeming to contribute to the din of welcome, or the reverse--of delight or of rage, Bruce could not tell which, for the noise was deafening, and individual voices quite undistinguishable.

"They are angry," said Umkopo, "for they know that they act against my commands. What matter!"

A few individuals rushed forward, as though to fall upon Umkopo as he came; two threw assegais.

Without seeming to take aim Umkopo instantly shot both men; they fell dead almost at the same moment.

Then Umkopo said a few words in the native tongue, words which immediately raised a babel of din even louder than the first. Again Umkopo held up his hand and spoke, spoke fiercely and solemnly, as it seemed to Bruce, who could not, however, understand a word. One or two assegais were thrown, and again the aggressors were shot dead, almost before their weapons had left the hands that hurled them.

Then suddenly the whole body of men, with howls and yells and angry grimaces, turned and moved away, Umkopo standing, like implacable Fate, watching their departure. In five minutes they were a quarter of a mile away; in ten, they had disappeared out of sight.

"Go into the house, you," said Umkopo; "you have seen what you have seen. Tell them Umkopo will drive away the other dogs as he has driven these."

Full of wonder and admiration, Bruce did as Umkopo suggested. Yet, anxious as he was to see his parents and tell his story, he could not forbear to wait and watch Umkopo's dealings with the next batch of niggers before finally turning his back and hastening towards the house.

Here, it may be believed, a rapturous greeting awaited him; for, the horses having returned riderless, it had been a matter of miserable doubt to his parents whether Bruce was alive or dead.

Bruce enjoyed greatly the praise which was certainly his deserved portion, and he was still in the midst of the tale of his experiences when Umkopo suddenly reappeared. The White Witch made no greeting to any one present. He merely inquired "where the cartridges were kept--Winchester," and being shown the place, helped himself liberally and departed almost without a word. He did, however, honour Bruce with a whack on the shoulder.

"Aha!" he said, "we shall meet one day; you shall be a fine Englishman when you are grown full-size--like Umkopo!"

There was no more trouble at Gerstonville that day from the rebel natives; but the family did not, on that account, relax in the slightest degree their watchfulness; for though Umkopo had apparently frightened these bands away, there was no certainty that they, or others, would not return.

But on the following afternoon a body of Englishmen, many of them known to Gerston, rode in from Buluwayo, and these were greatly relieved to find that Gerston and his family were safe; they had not expected it, they said.

"You are luckier than many," said the leader, "and that's the sad truth; this rising's a very serious business. Get your light valuables together and come along, all; Buluwayo itself's in danger, but you'll be safer there than here."

"What, leave my house, and farm, and all I have to the mercy of any rascally niggers that come along to loot and burn!" exclaimed Gerston; "not I!"

"It's unpleasant, I own; but you'll have to do it, mate. Better that than certain outrage and murder."

"We could hold out for a week!" persisted Gerston, unwilling to surrender his house and his goods.

"Very likely. But after that week, what then? This rising won't be quelled for many a week, my friend, take my word for it. You'll have to come. I tell you we expect to be attacked in Buluwayo itself."

"Then maybe we are as safe here as there," said poor Gerston, feeling that his argument was untenable, and that he must indeed, as Bromley said, leave all and retire with these good fellows to the capital. His house and farm, his furniture and goods, valued English things, which had come so far and cost so much, and which represented, in fact, his all--it was hard indeed to surrender them; but the lives of his wife and children were dearer still, and must be saved at all costs, and he knew it, though in argument he fought awhile against the inevitable.

So poor Gerston collected his money and his papers, set his live-stock free to roam where they would, until the "Matabele thieves" should find and appropriate them, and set out for Buluwayo, in which growing city he was obliged perforce to remain until the native disturbance, which developed practically into a small war, was quelled.

Afterwards, as soon as he could do so safely, he lost no time in riding over with Bruce to the place where, until those evil days, had stood the homestead, with its farm-buildings and comfortable, though simply built, house and adequate cowsheds and stables. But alas! he found no trace of the home in which he had taken so great a pride and delight, excepting, indeed, sundry heaps of ashes and bits of blackened wood and twisted iron. Gerston stood and surveyed the scene of ruin and desolation. His heart felt very heavy, though he had scarcely expected to find any more favourable a state of affairs than this.

"I thought so, Bruce," he muttered; "we are ruined, my lad, through no fault of ours. We shall have to begin life over again. It is hard, but we will do it; the land is ours, but our capital has gone."

"We can have a try for Uncle Ben's gold, father," said Bruce unexpectedly. "Let you and I ride up north to the place shown in his map; mother and Kittie are all safe in Buluwayo. It's worth trying. He seemed very serious about his gold."

Gerston reflected. "I don't much believe in Rhodesian gold," he said; "but if your heart is set upon it, we may as well go. Meanwhile the authorities can be deciding what compensation is to be given to poor chaps who are ruined by their mismanagement of the natives."

So up northward went father and son, the latter full of sanguine hope, the former depressed and gloomy, having little belief in his lucky star, which seemed to have set so completely that it would never rise again. To the village called Umdhana they went, and there, using the old man's map, they searched far and wide for the old deserted gold shaft which, according to his scribbled directions, existed in this place, four miles from the village, at a spot designated in his rough plan. It was a wild-looking spot. Rank vegetation grew high and dense on every side, rendering the search for any object, especially when its location, within a few hundred yards, was uncertain, very difficult and discouraging.

For two days Bruce and his father wandered dejectedly about the veldt, hoping against hope that in the end they would stumble upon the old native crushing stones and the remains of the furnace which Uncle Ben's notes declared to be still in existence, and marking the very spot where, at a distant date, some enterprising Matabele fellow had endeavoured to exploit a vein of the precious metal, leaving it scarcely touched.

After two days of failure Gerston was tired of the search. He disbelieved in this gold mine. It existed, he said, only in the brain of a half-crazy old man, who imagined he had found what never actually existed. "We shall employ our time better, sonnie, felling trees at home, and building a new house where our poor old shanty stood."

"Perhaps, father!" Bruce sadly assented. He would much rather have stayed another day or two, being young and sanguine. "But I don't think Uncle Ben was even a bit crazy. We can't go on looking for ever, though." Bruce was angry and depressed. A vulture sat blinking upon a rock close by, and the lad picked up a stone to throw at the evil-looking creature, by way of working off his disappointment and chagrin.

He picked up his stone to throw it, but the vulture noticed his movement and heavily took wing. Bruce remained with the stone in his hand; it was a curious-looking stone, and he first glanced and then gazed carefully at it.

"Father," he said presently, "look at this; is it anything particular--I mean, is it, could it possibly be--" Bruce's face had gone red with a certain wild idea that suddenly entered his brain; his voice sounded dry and curious.

Gerston took the stone and looked carefully at it. "By all that's happy and wonderful, Bruce," he exclaimed, "I do believe it's a nugget."

* * * * *

A nugget it was; and though the old disused gold mine, which they presently found close to this very spot, proved, like most of the Rhodesian gold veins, somewhat disappointing, yet it yielded, together with Bruce's nugget, more than sufficient to enable Gerston to rebuild his house and farm buildings, and to stock and furnish both in a manner quite superior to their former style.

And when the Company "came down handsome" with a good sum for compensation, Gerston felt that things were rosy indeed, and that when young Bruce made friends one memorable afternoon with poor old Uncle Ben he had indeed been, little as he expected it, "in luck's way."

As for Uncle Ben's baccy pouch and the untidy hieroglyphic which did duty for a map or a plan, they are Bruce's very most treasured possessions. He would not part with them for the wealth of the Transvaal!

"SAMANA KAY"

BY HARRY COLLINGWOOD

I was within a few days of reaching my twenty-third birthday when it was my fortune to secure a berth as only mate aboard a very smart and handsome little brig of two hundred and sixty-five tons, named the _Lancashire Witch_, hailing out of Liverpool, and bound from that port to Kingston, Jamaica, with a cargo of sugar-mill machinery and Manchester goods.

We sailed on the twenty-eighth of January 18--, with a piping north-easter blowing over our taffrail that swept us right away from the Bar Lightship into the north-east trades without obliging us to start tack or sheet, brace or halliard, from the moment when our "old man" took his departure from the Saltees light. The trade-winds were blowing fresh too, so that we made a phenomenally quick but otherwise uneventful run across the Atlantic until we arrived within some three hundred miles of the Turks Islands, where the wind suddenly failed us, and we fell in with light, hazy, rainy weather, with occasional short spells of flat calm, and variable shifting airs that obliged us to take in all our studding-sails and jockey the little hooker along as best we could under all plain sail. It was tedious, irritating work, for there was so much box-hauling of the yards that the watch could find time for nothing but tending the braces, and all hands of us, fore and aft, were driven nearly frantic.

At length, on the fourth day of this kind of work, the sky gradually thickened up in the southern board, the sun became a pallid, shapeless blotch of watery light in the heavens, and there were other signs that a change of weather was brewing. Yet there was nothing to indicate that the change was imminent; we therefore contented ourselves with the maintenance of a watchful eye upon the signs of the times, and left all our flying kites abroad, in order that we might derive the utmost possible advantage from the languid and scarcely perceptible breathings of the atmosphere that reached us we scarcely knew from where, so light and evanescent were they.

Thus matters went with us throughout the day, the aspect of the sky altering so subtly and gradually, that it was only at the change of the watches, after a four hours' spell below, that one was able to detect any very marked difference. When, however, I was called at eight bells of the afternoon watch I at once noted so pronounced an increase in the threatening aspect of the sky that I felt assured of the near approach of the impending change; and as the skipper did not seem disposed to take the initiative, I suggested that all hands should go to work at once to snug down the ship and prepare her for the coming conflict. Unfortunately, however, the "old man" did not take the same view of the matter that I did; he had been on deck the whole afternoon, and the menacing appearance that had at once impressed me had been occurring so gradually and subtly that he had scarcely noticed it; moreover, there was now a small, hot breeze coming up from the southward that was fanning the nimble little brig along at a speed of nearly four knots, and he was evidently disinclined to forego so great an advantage.

"Yes," he said, when I expressed the opinion that we should have an outburst before long, "it is coming, slowly but surely; but I don't think we shall have it for another hour or two. I don't notice much difference from what it was at noon, except that the sun has vanished, and there is perhaps a little more movement in the muck overhead. I believe we may venture to hang on for another half-hour or so; we shall still have plenty of time to snug down before dark."

I felt rather doubtful of this; but the skipper was a dreadfully opinionated, obstinate man, and I knew that argument, or anything approaching it, would be worse than useless with him. I therefore made no reply, but walked to the skylight, and took a peep at the barometer that hung there. The mercury had fallen more than half an inch since I had last glanced at it just before going to my cabin after dinner.

"Well," inquired the skipper, as I turned away, "what does it say?"

"Twenty-eight, thirty-five," I replied.

"Ay," he remarked, "it is going down steadily; it will be a regular teaser when it comes."

Yet he did not--as I hoped he would--give the order to shorten sail, although the wind was now steadily freshening in puffs, while the sky to windward was darkening and growing ever more threatening of aspect even as one watched it. Meanwhile all hands were on deck, evidently standing by for a call, and casting increasingly anxious glances alternately aft and to windward.

At length one bell struck; and while the sound was still vibrating in the air, the skipper--his obstinate spirit perhaps satisfied now that he had held on for the half-hour he had mentioned--gave the order for all hands to shorten sail.

"Clew up and furl everything except the main-topsail, which you may close-reef, Mr. Burt," he said to me, "and let the hands look smart about it."

"Ay, ay, sir," I answered. Then to the men: "Let go the royal, top-gallant, and fore-topsail sheets and halliards; also your jib, staysail, and main-topsail halliards; man your clew-lines, bunt-lines, and down-hauls, and get the canvas off her as quickly as you can. A couple of hands aloft each to the fore and main royals and roll them up, stowing the top-gallant sails and the main-royal and top-gallant staysails on your way down; and, hark ye, lads, see that you make a snug stow of it, so that nothing blows adrift by-and-by in the darkness, to give us trouble. Now bowse out the reef tackles of your main-topsail; and after you have done that, man your fore and main clew-garnets, and get the courses snugged well up to the yards. Hurrah, bullies, be as lively as you like; let us get the barkie snug while we have light enough to see what we are about!"

The men, who had evidently been impatiently awaiting these orders, sprang about the decks like wild-cats, letting go, clewing up, and hauling down fore and aft with frantic energy, yet working with the method of men who not only knew thoroughly what they were about, but were also perfectly aware of the vital importance of getting through their work in the shortest possible amount of time. In a few minutes, therefore, every sail was off the ship, except the main-topsail, and the hands were on the yards, rolling up the canvas as though for dear life, while the skipper held the wheel, and I dashed hither and thither, letting go this rope and dragging upon that, as called upon by the men aloft. Meanwhile, to facilitate the operation of reefing and furling, the brig was kept broad away, or very nearly dead before the wind.

Suddenly there arose a wild yell aloft of "Man overboard!" and glancing up from what I was about at the moment, I was just in time to catch a glimpse of the body of a man flashing downward--apparently from the larboard mainyard-arm--ere it vanished, with scarce a splash, into the leaden-hued water alongside.

Quick as thought the skipper whipped out his knife, and cut adrift a life-buoy that hung over the port quarter, letting it drop into the water within a fathom or two of where a small blot of foam marked the spot of the man's disappearance; while I, forgetful of everything else, sprang to the port-quarter boat, and slashed away with my knife at the gripes that held her. In another moment I was joined by two men from aloft who had come down by way of the backstays; and while the skipper jammed the wheel hard down and brought the brig to the wind, with the canvas that remained unfurled, slatting and thrashing as though it would jerk the sticks out of her, the three of us lowered the boat somehow, and tumbled over the side into her, unhooking the tackles, and getting handsomely away from the ship without a mishap, although it was by this time breezing up fresh, and the brig must have been going through it at a speed of fully six knots.

The two men who were with me threw out their oars and got the boat's head round, while I, grasping the yoke-lines, stood up in the stern-sheets watching for the man. Presently I caught sight of him; but heavens! what a long distance he was away from us, half a mile at least, and dead to windward, with the breeze freshening every moment, and a nasty, short, choppy sea getting up that seemed to stop the boat dead every time that a wave struck her.

"Pull, men!" I exclaimed anxiously; "bend your backs to it and put her along, or we shall lose the poor fellow after all. By the way, who is he?"

"Sam Pilcher, sir," answered the fellow who was pulling stroke. "He was at the yard-arm, and we was rollin' up the mainsail. The sail was thrashin' about a goodish bit, and it must ha' jerked him off."

"Perhaps so," I agreed. But I did not pursue the conversation, for I was getting terribly anxious; I had lost sight of the man of whom we were in search, and feared that he had gone down; the sky was momentarily growing blacker and assuming a more threatening appearance to windward; the wind and the sea were rising like magic; and the brig was driving away to leeward like smoke from a galley funnel. The men, too, were glancing anxiously over their shoulders and dragging away at the heavy oars like demons; it was evident that they fully shared the uneasiness that had taken possession of me, and were longing to complete their task and get the boat's nose round pointing toward the brig.

"See anything of him, sir?" at length demanded the man who had previously spoken.

"Not just at this moment," answered I, "but I expect we shall find him hanging on to the life-buoy. Ay, there is the buoy," I continued, as the small white circle swung up on the breast of a sea, "and--yes--yes--there is the man clinging to it. Give way, bullies; another five minutes and we shall have him!"

The two men toiled at their oars with superhuman energy, their laboured breathing and the sweat that literally poured off them bearing eloquent witness to their exertions, while the boat "squashed" viciously into every sea that met her, flinging the spray right aft and drenching us to the skin; yet despite it all we seemed to make little or no headway, and when a full five minutes had sped we were still quite fifty fathoms away from the man. Then I suddenly lost sight of the poor fellow. He was clinging to the buoy when it sank behind the crest of an on-coming sea; but when the buoy swept into view again on the next slope it was empty.

At this trying moment the sky suddenly darkened into a deeper and more menacing gloom, and the next moment I saw a dense rain-squall sweeping along toward us. The men noticed it too, and one of them anxiously inquired--

"How fur is he off now, Mr. Burt? Is there any chance of our gettin' hold of him afore that squall strikes us?"

"If we don't I doubt it's all up with un, for I can't keep on at this here game much longer," muttered the other.

"Try another spurt, lads!" I exclaimed; "another dozen strokes will do it!"

My little crew responded gallantly to my adjuration; but in another moment the squall was upon us, the rain descending like a cataract, and in an instant everything beyond the length of the boat was hidden by the dense curtain of falling water.

The rain lasted for nearly ten minutes, beating the sea down until its surface was like oil, and the men availed themselves of the opportunity to get a little more way upon the boat; but presently I bade them cease pulling, feeling convinced that we must be quite close to the buoy, although I could see nothing of it. Then the rain suddenly ceased, and the wind with it, revealing the buoy right under the boat's bows; but, alas, the man was gone! We recovered the buoy, and then all stood up to see if we could discover our missing shipmate, and presently we saw his cap floating some ten fathoms away; but the owner had vanished. We shouted several times, thinking that possibly the poor fellow might have been washed off the buoy, yet be still afloat somewhere not far distant, although undistinguishable in the rapidly deepening gloom; but no answer came. Then I suddenly bethought me that night and storm were together closing down upon us, and I turned to look for the brig. There she was, just distinguishable in the thickness to leeward, with far too much of her canvas still blowing loose from her yards and stays, and I turned suddenly sick with anxiety for our own fate as I noticed that she was nearly three miles away.

Meanwhile the two men who constituted my boat's crew had risen to their feet and were, like myself, peering anxiously hither and thither in the hope of discovering the missing man. Failing to find him, however, we again shouted, and then paused, fruitlessly listening for a reply.

It was while we were thus breathlessly listening that a faint, low, moaning wail gradually made itself audible, strengthening and deepening in tone even as we listened, until within the space of a few seconds the sound had resolved itself into the unmistakable piping of rapidly rising wind. Instinctively our glances went, with one accord, into the fast-deepening blackness that loured in the southern quarter, and as we looked I saw a long line of pallid white stretching along the horizon and sweeping toward us at terrific speed. At the same instant one of the men with me yelled--

"O my God! look to wind'ard, Mr. Burt! See that white squall comin' down upon us, sir! What had we better do? It's no good tryin' to fetch the brig; she's a good three mile away, and the wind'll be on us in another two minutes!"

"No, no," I answered; "we must weather it out as best we can. Lay the two oars together and bend the end of the painter round the pair of them in the middle, then veer them away as a floating anchor to keep her head to wind. It is our only chance."

No sooner said than done; but not a moment too soon; we had barely time to complete even these brief and simple preparations when the gale swept down upon us with a screaming yell that was absolutely terrifying, and in an instant we were enveloped in a gloom that was not night, but that yet resembled it in so far that we could scarcely see each other, while the white water boiled in over both gunwales, and the air was thick with scud-water that lashed our faces and hands so cruelly that we could not face it, but were fain to crouch in the bottom of the boat and allow our arched shoulders to take the full brunt of the pelting. As to attempting to do anything for the preservation of the boat and our own lives, it was out of the question; the wind smote us with such merciless fury that it was positively difficult for us to breathe, and had we been foolish enough to endeavour to use an oar it would have been torn from our grasp in an instant. Fortunately for us no such effort was needed, our impromptu sea-anchor kept the boat's head to the wind, and although the foam and scud-water were gradually filling our little craft, the process was so slow that I was not very seriously alarmed at it, believing that the squall would be over before our danger from that source became imminent.

The first spite of the squall lasted about ten minutes, after which it moderated to the strength of a strong gale, when the sea at once began to rise, and very soon it was breaking over the boat so vindictively that it kept the three of us busy baling all the time, and even then it was with the utmost difficulty that we were able to keep her free. Meanwhile the night had fallen upon us, dark as the inside of a cavern, and as for the brig, we had seen nothing of her since the first outburst of the squall. We were drenched to the skin, and were both hungry and thirsty, with not a drop of fresh water or the smallest fragment of anything eatable in the boat, and no prospect of obtaining either until we should be picked up. Our plight was therefore by no means an enviable one. The two men who constituted my crew presently began to discuss the probability of the brig returning in search of us; but I must say that, for my own part, I had very little hope of any such thing, and still less that, in the event of the skipper undertaking such a search, he would be successful. But I did not think he would make any such attempt; he would probably believe that the boat had been swamped and all hands of us drowned at the outburst of the squall, and being now short-handed, he would consequently deem it his duty to waste no time upon what he would regard as an utterly useless search, but to make the best of his way to his port of destination. The two others thought differently, and were so completely overwhelmed with consternation at the mere suggestion that their view might be a wrong one, that I did not further attempt to rob them of the small fragment of hope to which they so desperately clung. Besides, there was the possibility--just the bare possibility--that the dawn might prove their surmise to be correct.

In about two hours' time from the outburst of the squall the gale broke, and by midnight--as nearly as it was possible for us to guess at the time--the wind had dwindled away to a fresh breeze, while the sea had so far gone down that it no longer broke into the boat, which we were consequently now enabled to bale dry.

With all the skipper's faults he had his good points, and one of them--much more common nowadays than it was at the period of my adventure--was to keep every item of a boat's equipment in her; and the great importance and advantage of this was now very strongly brought home to us. For not only had we with us the full complement of oars, rowlocks, and other ordinary fittings, but there was also the boat's mast and sails--a sprit mainsail and foresail--snugly enwrapped in a painted canvas case and securely lashed to the thwarts. The moment, therefore, that it was safe to do so, we had the means to make sail.

It would probably be about two bells in the morning watch when, having stepped the mast, we bore up under a double-reefed mainsail, and ran away to the northward in search of the brig, which we hoped to find some ten miles to leeward of us. An hour later a brightening of the sky along the eastern horizon heralded the dawn, and shortly afterward the sun rose brilliantly, flushing the sky around him with a thousand delicate, evanescent tints of pink and gold, the presage of a fine day.

We at once inaugurated a keen look-out for the brig, or some other craft--I was in no wise particular, so long as we were picked up; but when we had run an estimated distance of ten miles to leeward the horizon was still bare. Then came the question of what was the next thing to be done--whether we should continue to run to leeward in further search of the brig; whether we should remain where we were, in the hope that she would shortly heave into view in search of us; or whether we should haul up on a westerly course and endeavour to intercept her. The latter was my suggestion, founded upon the opinion I had formed that the skipper had probably given us up as lost; but the idea conveyed was so unwelcome to my companions that eventually we determined to heave to and remain where we were, that the brig might have every chance to find us if the skipper should undertake the search. Accordingly we hauled the foresheet over to windward, lashed the helm hard down, and stripped for a wash-down in sea-water while our clothes were drying in the sun. One of the seamen was for going overboard for a swim, but I dissuaded him; and it was probably fortunate for him that he listened to me, for while we were still engaged upon our ablutions two big sharks made their appearance close alongside the boat, and began to circle round her with a persistency and deliberation that unpleasantly suggested the impression that they had come to stay.

Meanwhile, with the appearance of the sun the wind dropped fast, until by about eight o'clock it had died away to a flat calm, leaving the water oil-smooth everywhere, save where the fins of the persistent sharks cleft the surface into two thin, wedge-like ripples as they lazily cruised to and fro, never widening the space between them and the boat by more than half-a-dozen fathoms.

Eight o'clock! breakfast time! and here were we three unfortunate men, keenly hungry, and our throats parched with a rapidly increasing thirst that threatened to quickly become a torment, without the smallest morsel of bread or the merest sip of water to divide between us, and with no hope of getting any either so long as the calm lasted--unless, indeed, we could find a ship by searching for her. Obviously this was the only thing to be done; so, not without a muttered curse or two at the cruelty of fortune, we rolled up the sails, unstepped the mast, threw out the oars, and headed the boat to the northward, in which direction we thought the brig might possibly be found. And, as we pulled, the two sharks doggedly followed us, swimming side by side, with their snouts about a fathom astern of the aftermost edge of the rudder, which distance they maintained as truly as though they had been in tow.

Noon arrived and passed, finding us still with nothing in sight, ravenously hungry, and with our mouths slimy with a thirst so imperious that the man who was pulling the bow oar suddenly stooped over the side, scooped up a little salt water in his palm, and quickly drank it, exclaiming in answer to my warning cry--

"I was _bound_ to do it, Mr. Burt, even if I has to suffer for it a'terwards. This here thirst is just maddenin'!"

"Ay, Joey, it _is_ that," agreed the other man. "Have your sup o' salt water done yer any good, mate?"

"No, I don't know as it have, Ned; I didn't take enough of it for that," was the reply.

No more was said; but about half-an-hour afterwards "Joey" snatched another sip, despite everything I could say to dissuade him; and a little later his mate followed his example.

"It's no good talkin', Mr. Burt," he replied to my expostulations; "drinkin' salt water _may_ perhaps make a man mad, but I shall pretty soon go mad if I _don't_ drink something, so what's the odds? And where's the brig; what's the 'old man' up to with her? why ain't he lookin' for us? He _ain't_ lookin' for us, that's sartin, or we should have hove the old hooker into view long afore this. Dash me if I don't begin to think as you're right, Mr. Burt, about his havin' give us up for lost, or else where is he? He ain't hereabouts nowheres, and so he _must_ be headin' for his port, leavin' us here to die o' hunger and thirst! It's murder, that's what it is; downright murder, and nothin' else! What right have he to go and suppose that this here boat foundered in the squall and drownded us? And what are we to do now, 'bandoned out here in the Hatlantic with never a bite nor a sup to keep the life in us?"

"There is no doubt in my mind," I answered, "that our best plan will be to head to the south'ard and west'ard for the Caycos Passage, and so give ourselves a chance to be picked up by either an outward or a homeward bound ship, for we shall be running right into the track of both. It is, of course, most unfortunate that it has fallen calm with us, but I do not believe it will last long; and when once a breeze springs up a sail may heave into view at any moment and pick us up."

It was difficult to fully persuade these two untutored men of the uselessness of searching further for the brig; but eventually I won them round to my view, and we at once hauled up on a south-west course--as nearly as we could hit it off by the sun--pulling hard until sunset, in the hope that the brig might be found in this new direction, for we were convinced that she must be at no great distance from us. But at sunset the horizon was still bare, and the disappointment was so bitter that we were unable to resist any longer the exhaustion that had been steadily growing upon us all day, so the oars were laid in, and with one consent the three of us flung ourselves down in the bottom of the boat, with the result that I instantly fell into a deep slumber.

I slept all through the night, but was awakened next morning, just as the day was dawning, by the man Ned, who, I found, was shaking me furiously by the shoulder as he shouted, in terrified accents--

"Mr. Burt, Mr. Burt, wake up, sir! Where's Joey, where's Joey? He ain't in the boat! Lord ha' mussy upon us! have he gone overboard, d'ye think, sir?"

I started to my feet, vaguely comprehending that something was wrong, but scarcely realising what it was. I found that there was a pleasant little breeze blowing from the north-east--that could only have sprung up very recently, from the look of the water, which was merely rippled, without any sea--and that poor Ned, gaunt and cadaverous of feature, with his deeply-sunken eyes glowing with the scorching fever of long-continued thirst, was glaring at me with an expression of terror that was near akin to madness.

"What is the matter, Ned? Why are you glaring at me like that, man? and what is it you are saying about Joey?" I stammered, in the confusion of a sudden and violent awakening out of a profound sleep.

"What am I sayin' about Joey?" reiterated the fellow. "Why, I am sayin', Mr. Burt, that he ain't in the boat, and where is he? what's happened to 'im?"

Then I fully realised, for the first time, that there were but two of us in the boat, and that the man known as Joey had vanished as completely as though he had never been, leaving no sign or indication of what had become of him. One thing was certain, he was not in the boat, and that fact meant that he had gone overboard. Involuntarily I glanced astern, as though expecting to see him swimming near us; but there was no sign of him. There was a horribly significant fact, however, that instantly caught my attention, and that was, that whereas yesterday there had been _two_ sharks following us, there was now but one!

"Ned," said I, "what is the use of asking _me_ what has become of Joey; how do _I_ know? I have been asleep the whole night until now; and when we all stretched out together you know as well as I do that Joey was with us. How long have _you_ been awake?"

"Not five minutes, Mr. Burt, sir," answered Ned. "I just woke up, looked round, saw that Joey wasn't in the boat, and then I called you, sir, right off the reel."

"Well," said I, "there can be no doubt whatever as to poor Joey's fate, although neither of us happened to witness it; he has gone overboard, most probably during a fit of madness induced by drinking salt water. Let his fate be a lesson to you not to indulge that fatal practice, however greatly you may be tempted. And now, since poor Joe is gone, and we can do nothing to help him, let us get the canvas on the boat and make the best of this fine fair wind."

Sail was made upon the boat, and we soon had the satisfaction of finding ourselves sliding along before the wind at a speed of between four and five knots. I took the yoke-lines, believing that I could steer a truer course than Ned, while he maintained a sharp look-out for a sail. Hour after hour dragged wearily by however, and still the ocean remained deserted, save for our own tiny sail; and meanwhile our hunger and thirst grew apace, until there were times when my torment was so exquisitely keen that I felt sorely tempted to follow Joey's example, and end it all.

As for Ned, although the springing up of the fair wind seemed to hearten him up a bit at first, I noticed that, as the day wore on without result, despair was taking an ever stronger clutch upon him; and several times he cried out that it was all over with us, and we might as well give up, finishing off with a whole string of bitter curses upon the skipper and his shipmates for deserting him. It was curious to note the intense selfishness that misfortune had so quickly developed in the man; he spoke of the misfortune as _his_, not _ours_; and he execrated the captain and crew for deserting _him_, not _us_.

And so the day dragged wearily on, and night--cool, placid, and brilliant with the countless millions of stars that jewelled the sky--fell upon us, finding us still alone and unrescued. Ned, with the new-born selfishness bred in him by his sufferings, coiled himself away in the bows of the boat and fell asleep--or seemed to do so--as soon as it fell dark, without excuse, apology, or offer to relieve me at the yoke-lines, although I had been steering all day. He remained thus for about an hour and a half, betraying great restlessness, and then, rising to his feet, half stumbled, half crawled aft into the stern-sheets.

"I can't sleep, so I might as well give up trying," he muttered. "You give me the lines, and lie down yourself, Mr. Burt; maybe you'll be luckier than me, and get a bit of a nap."

"Thanks, Ned, I will," answered I; and without further ado I stretched myself at his feet in the bottom of the boat, and straightway fell asleep.

I do not think I could have slept, however, more than ten minutes when I suddenly found myself broad awake again, with every nerve a-tingle and every muscle braced, as though I had suddenly and without warning been brought face to face with some awful, deadly peril. I opened my eyes, and the first object that met my sight was the star-glint upon the long blade of a sheath-knife which my companion was poising above my breast. Another second, and the blade flashed downward, my hand instinctively dashing upward to meet and ward off the blow, and the next instant Ned and I were fighting together for life, my antagonist being uppermost, while my right hand gripped his right wrist so powerfully that presently he dropped his knife with a cry, and flinging himself upon me, strove to seize my throat with his disengaged hand. In the struggle that ensued I somehow managed to scramble to my feet, despite the efforts of my antagonist to keep me down, and my next endeavour was to force Ned forward into the eyes of the boat, so that I might securely lash him with the painter until the frenzy that seemed to have suddenly seized him should have passed off. Then--God knows how it happened, I swear it was not intentional on my part--all in a moment Ned seemed to stumble or throw himself backwards over the gunwale of the boat, and before I could do anything to save him he was gone. Instantly there was a savage rush and a furious swirl in the water alongside, the boat was struck a violent blow beneath her water-line, and in the icy starlight I distinctly saw the white gleam of a shark's belly as he turned on his side to seize my unfortunate shipmate. Then came another momentary swirl of water, in the midst of which the monster--without doubt the same shark that had been following us so persistently--disappeared, dragging the unfortunate seaman with him; and there was I, sick and faint with horror, left alone in the wide waste of waters.

What happened to me immediately upon the occurrence of this dreadful tragedy I do not know; but when I came to myself I found that I had somehow made my way back into the stern-sheets of the boat, and that I was grasping the yoke-lines and the mainsheet, while--quite unconsciously, and by instinct--I was keeping the little craft dead before the wind.

I have only a very confused impression of how I spent the remainder of that terrible night; I think that horror and privation combined must have made me delirious, for I have a vague recollection of having caught myself alternately crying, laughing, cursing, and singing; with the one fixed idea that the boat _must_ be kept dead before the wind predominating over everything else. I remember also complaining bitterly, aloud, at the inordinate length of the night, and then being dully surprised at the reappearance of the sun.

With the return of daylight, however, I seemed to get better again, in so far as that my senses fully returned to me; but the anguish I endured from hunger and thirst is not to be described in words. And still, look where I would, the horizon remained bare; it really seemed as though I had unaccountably drifted into some spot of ocean unknown to navigation, yet I knew that I was actually in a well-frequented highway.

Suddenly, when the sun was about two hours high, I caught sight of a small floating object almost directly ahead and at no great distance from the boat, and, curiosity prompting me, I shifted my helm for it. At first I could not guess what it was, but when within half-a-dozen fathoms of it I saw that it was a small turtle, asleep. With infinite caution I steered the boat so as to pass it within arm's reach, and as I ranged up alongside I was fortunate enough to seize it by a fin, whereby I was enabled to lift it into the boat. The creature probably weighed about six pounds, but in my exhausted condition it taxed my strength to the utmost to secure it. No sooner was it in the boat, however, than I cut off its head with Ned's knife, and drank the blood, which restored me in a truly marvellous manner; then, with a lavish expenditure of time and trouble, I at length contrived to get the shells apart and to make a sparing meal of the raw flesh. Doubtless it was a sufficiently disgusting repast, but in my famished condition it seemed that I had never in all my life tasted anything half so delicious. Toward evening I devoured the remainder of the flesh, despite the fact that it had already grown perceptibly putrid; and then I must have fallen asleep, and slept soundly throughout the night, for when consciousness returned I was astonished to find that the day was breaking.

My good fortune of the previous day led me now to maintain a bright look-out for turtles as well as ships; but the day proved a blank in regard to both, as did the next day also, by the evening of which I seemed to be in as pitiable a condition as though I had never caught a turtle at all. Then ensued a period of steadily increasing torment, that at length so far robbed me of reason that I lost all count of time, day and night becoming simply alternate eternities of indescribable anguish. Whether I instinctively retained control of the boat, or whether I allowed her to drift along at her own sweet will, I shall never know; but my next recollection is of awaking out of a kind of stupor to see--in a hazy, uncertain, dreamlike manner--a blotch of greyish-green upon the horizon ahead, to which I at first attached no significance, but which as the boat gradually neared it, impressed itself at length upon my semi-paralysed consciousness as land. Yet even when I comprehended thus much I still failed to realise the tremendous importance of my discovery, and I can only attribute it to instinct rather than reason that I took the boat round to the lee side of the island before beaching her. But when, as I rounded the low point and hauled up to the wind, I caught my first whiff of the land and what was growing upon it, my senses seemed to revive, and I looked about me, with a glimmer of returning intelligence, for a suitable spot at which to land.

And, as I looked, the gleam and sparkle of water trickling down the beach caught my eye; and instantly I seemed to go quite mad with joy, springing to my feet and laughing, shouting, singing, crying, dancing, and, in short, behaving like the demented being that I was. I headed the boat straight for that particular spot, and as she grounded I fell headlong overboard and crawled upon hands and knees through the shallow water and up the beach until I reached the tiny rivulet, into which I at once plunged my face.

Oh, the exquisite, indescribable delight and enjoyment of that first drink! I shall never forget it! Since then I have tasted the choicest vintages, and have partaken of beverages cunningly compounded to afford the utmost gratification to the palate, but never have I tasted anything half so inexpressibly delicious as that draught of pure spring water! I fortunately had sense enough to drink very slowly and sparingly, and thus escaped the ill effects that would undoubtedly have otherwise ensued; and my next business was to look for something to eat. This presented itself in the form of a quantity of shell-fish, which I gathered without difficulty along the water's edge, and roasted in a fire kindled with the assistance of my flint and steel.

The absolute ease with which I had thus at once obtained food and water assured me that I need have no apprehension upon that score; and, with my mind thus relieved, I flung myself down upon the hot, dry sand, under the protecting shadow of an overhanging bush, and at once fell into a profound sleep.

It was within about an hour of sunset when I awoke, greatly refreshed, but with a ravenous appetite; and I had just time to procure, prepare, and consume another meal of roast shell-fish, and to take a long, satisfying draught of water, when night fell, and I again flung myself upon the sand, where I had previously rested, to sleep soundly until morning.

My first care when I awoke next morning was to find a spot where I might bathe without fear of sharks; and this was discovered at no great distance, in a large rock pool, deep enough to allow of my swimming in it. Greatly refreshed by my dip, I next set about providing breakfast; and when I had at length satisfied my appetite, I deemed it advisable to effect a thorough exploration of my island kingdom. My territory was of so limited an extent that this exploration was effectually accomplished by noon; the islet being of the kind known in the West Indies as a "Kay," with nothing very remarkable about it, except that in one part it rose to a height of about one hundred feet, and was covered with vegetation right down to high-water mark. These islets are frequently low; and I considered myself fortunate in having come ashore upon one of some height, as I should thus be afforded an exceptional opportunity to survey the ocean and maintain a look-out for passing vessels.

I thought I could not better employ the afternoon than in ascending to the summit of this hill; and accordingly, as soon as I had provided and partaken of another meal, I started out from my "camp" with this intention. The ground was so densely overgrown everywhere that there appeared to be but scant choice as to route; I therefore plunged straight into the bush and began to force my way upward as well as I could, and a very hot and fatiguing task I found it. I made fairly good progress, however, for about half-an-hour; and then suddenly, and without any warning, I found myself sinking downward through a dense carpet of creepers, and before I could do anything to save myself, down I went, a distance of perhaps twenty feet, falling so heavily that I was stunned for several minutes, and when I revived I found that my head was cut and bleeding.

I was in profound darkness; but after sitting quietly for a time to recover my scattered senses I became conscious of a very faint and feeble glimmer of light, following which I eventually came to a mass of broken and fallen rock, through which the light filtered, and by working at this diligently for something like two hours I at length succeeded in removing enough to enable me to creep into the open air once more, when I found myself upon the weather side of the island, at the base of a low, crumbling, rocky cliff. I carefully noted the spot, determining to return on the morrow with torches to explore the cavern thus strangely discovered, and then made the best of my way back to my camp.

On the following morning I carried out my resolution, finding--as my experiences of the previous day had led me to suppose--that the cavern was of considerable extent; but I met with nothing remarkable until I reached its farther extremity--close to the spot where I had fallen through--when I suddenly came upon several skeletons, clad in the ragged remains of what had once been clothing, and girt with leather belts, to which were buckled old-fashioned, rusty hangers, and into which, in most cases, were thrust one or a pair of rusty flintlock pistols. Moreover, several of these grisly relics of humanity grasped long, dagger-shaped knives or pistols in their bony hands; and after surveying their attitude and general grouping for some time, it gradually dawned upon me that I was gazing upon the result of a savage and protracted fight! Indeed, it looked as though a fierce and deadly quarrel had arisen over a gambling transaction of some sort, for a closer scrutiny revealed the fact that the sandy floor was strewn with gold and silver coins, which I subsequently discovered were Spanish.

My first impulse was to beat a precipitate retreat; my second to still further investigate. The second impulse prevailed; and richly was I rewarded, for right at the far extremity of the cavern I came upon a number of massive chests, which, upon breaking them open, I found to contain gold in coin, bars, and cups, vases, candlesticks, crosses, and other products of the goldsmith's art, all the articles being of most beautiful and elaborate workmanship, while many of them were thickly encrusted with gems that, to my inexperienced eye, seemed to be of almost fabulous value! There was no doubt about it, I had literally fallen upon one of those pirate hoards that one so often reads about but so very seldom discovers. Having completed my survey, I filled my pockets with gold coin, and returned to my camp to think matters over, taking care to block and conceal the entrance to the cave behind me.

My discovery had not robbed me of all appetite, and as I returned I industriously gathered shell-fish for my dinner. It was while thus employed that, happening to instinctively glance at the horizon, as I repeatedly did, my gaze met the white upper canvas of a ship just showing above the ocean's edge. For a full quarter of an hour I watched her, at the end of which time it became evident that she would pass my island at a distance of some ten or twelve miles. In an instant my resolution was taken; and forgetting all about dinner, I dashed at full speed for my boat, flung myself into her, and pushed off to intercept the stranger. The course that she was steering favoured me; and at eight bells that afternoon I was standing on the deck of the barque _British Queen_, telling my story--except that part relating to the treasure, which I kept most religiously to myself. The _British Queen_ happened to be bound to Kingston, and four days later I landed upon the wharf there, having meanwhile ascertained that my island was that known as Samana Kay. The _Lancashire Witch_ had not arrived, nor was she ever afterwards heard of, the inference being that she had foundered in the squall which was the beginning of my adventure.

My first anxiety now was to convert my Spanish coin into British currency; and this, by the exercise of considerable patience and caution, I contrived to accomplish in about a week, without arousing any suspicion, so far as I was aware; the result being that I found myself the possessor of one hundred and twenty pounds sterling, which I have since had reason to believe was rather less than half what I ought to have received. With this sum, however, I had no difficulty in chartering and fitting out a stout little falucha of some forty tons, manned by four negroes--one of whom was her owner--in which, about a fortnight after my arrival in Kingston, I sailed for Samana Kay.

It took us eight days to reach the Kay, under the lee of which the falucha came to an anchor; and I lost no time in making my way to the cavern. I was terribly afraid that--although it had evidently remained undiscovered for so many years--somebody might have found it and carried off the treasure during my absence; but no, everything was still there, just as I had left it; and little by little I conveyed the whole aboard the falucha and stowed it away in the stout cases I had provided, the negro crew taking no notice of me; indeed, when they were informed that I did not require their assistance, they needed no further encouragement to sleep all day. The labour of transferring the whole of the treasure to the falucha kept me busy for a trifle over three weeks; but I did not grudge it, for when at length we weighed for Kingston, with the whole of it in the falucha's hold, I considered that I was not far short of being a millionaire!

That same night--or, rather, during the small hours of the following morning--while I was vainly striving to sleep in the small, hot, cockroach-haunted cabin of the falucha, a terrific hubbub and shouting suddenly arose on deck, and as I leapt out of my bunk to ascertain the cause of the outcry, the little hooker staggered and reeled almost to her beam-ends under a violent blow, accompanied by the sounds of crashing and rending timber, and the loud inrush of a large volume of water. There was no need, now, for investigation; we had been run down; and, feeling that the falucha was rapidly sinking beneath my feet, I made a spring for the companion-ladder, and somehow contrived to claw my way on deck. While I was doing this the shouting on deck suddenly ceased, and as I emerged from the companion-way I was just in time to see the dark bulk of a large ship sliding rapidly away on a taut bowline. I shouted loudly for help, but the craft was already some fifty fathoms to windward, and my shouting evoked no reply. And while I had my hands to my mouth, and was taking breath for another hail, the falucha quietly cocked up her stern and plunged to the bottom, bows foremost, taking all my treasure with her, and dragging me down for a considerable distance after her. At length, however, all but suffocated, I rose to the surface again, and found floating quite close to me the falucha's mast, with the yard and sail attached, and to this I held on until close upon noon next day, when the British ship _Duchess of Devonshire_, homeward bound, picked me up. Six weeks later I stepped ashore on the wharf of London Dock, with two pounds in my pockets, the joint contribution of the skipper and mates of the _Duchess of Devonshire_, and with the clothes I stood up in.

"HARI RĀM, THE DACOIT"

BY E. F. POLLARD

_Author of "Roger the Ranger," "A New England Raid," &c. &c._