"Sergeant Blunt, you will take a detachment of fourteen men, ride down to Port Elizabeth, and escort some waggons back here. There will be a party of native levies to come back with you, so that they, with your party, will make a pretty strong force. The dangerous point is, of course, the Addoo Bush. It is, I hear, full of these Kaffir villains. Going down you will pass through it by daylight; and, travelling fast, there is no fear of their interfering with a party like yours. Coming back the Fingoes will let you know of any danger, and I should hardly think that the natives will venture to attack so strong a party; still, as the waggons will be laden with ammunition, and these fellows always seem in some way or other to know exactly what is going on, you cannot be too careful."
"Very well, sir. I will do my best in the matter."
An hour later Ronald started with the detachment. They travelled rapidly, and reached Port Elizabeth on the third day after starting, without any adventure whatever. The waggons were not ready to start, for a heavy sea was setting in, and the boats could not continue the work of unloading the ship that had arrived with the ammunition two days before. Ronald, after seeing that the horses were well cared for, the rations served out, and the cooking commenced, strolled down to the beach to watch the heavy surf breaking on the shore.
The encampment of the native levies was on the shore, and a white officer was inspecting their arms when Ronald arrived. He stood for some time watching the motley group of Fingoes; some of them were in blankets, others in karosses of cow skin, many with feathers stuck in their hair, all grinning and highly amused at the efforts of their officer to get them to stand in regular line, and to hold their muskets at an even slope on their shoulders. Some of their wives were looking on and laughing; others were squatting about by the shelters they had erected, cooking mealies for dinner. The officer, who was quite a young man, seeing Ronald looking on, said, ruefully:
"I don't think there is any making soldiers out of these fellows, sergeant."
"I don't think they would be any the better for it if you could, sir," Ronald said. "The fellows will fight after their own fashion, and I do not think any amount of drill would improve them in the slightest; in fact, it would only puzzle and confuse them to try to teach them our discipline. They must skirmish with the Kaffirs in Kaffir fashion. When it comes to regular fighting, it must be done by the troops. All you can expect of the native levies is that they shall act as our scouts, find out where the enemy are hiding, prevent surprises, and pursue them when we have defeated them."
"Do they not try to drill them up at the front?"
"Not at all, sir. It would be quite useless to attempt it. So that they attend on parade in the right number—and their own head man looks after that—nothing more is expected of them. They march in a straggling body anyhow, and when it comes to fighting, they fight in their own way, and a very useful way it is."
"Well, I am very glad to hear you say so, sergeant. I have been doing the best I can to give them some idea of drill; but I have, as you see, failed altogether. I had no orders except to take command of these fellows, but I supposed I was expected to drill them to some extent; still, if you say they have given it up as hopeless in the front, I need not bother myself about it."
"I don't think you need, sir. I can assure you that no attempt is made to drill them in that way at the front."
The young officer, with an air of relief, at once dismissed the natives from parade.
"I am in charge of the party of Rifles going up with you to-morrow, sir, or at least as soon as the waggons are ready for you."
"Oh, is it you, sergeant? I heard that a detachment of your corps were to accompany us. I suppose you have just arrived from King Williamstown?"
"I came in about an hour ago, sir, and have just been seeing that the men were comfortable."
"Did you meet with any Kaffirs on the way down?"
"We saw no sign of them. We came through the Addoo Bush, which is the most dangerous point, at a trot. Not that there was much chance of their attacking us. The natives seldom attack unless there is something to be got by it; but we shall have to be careful as we go back. We shall be a fairly strong party, but others as strong have been attacked; and the fact of our having ammunition—the thing of all others they want—is, of course, against us."
"But how will they know that we are carrying ammunition?"
"From the Hottentots, who keep them informed of everything," Ronald said. "At least, we have no doubt whatever that it is the Hottentots. Of course, the General doesn't think so. If he did, I suppose he would keep them out of camp; but there is only one opinion in the ranks about it."
The conversation was interrupted by yells and screams from the natives, and a general rush down to the beach.
"There is something the matter," the young officer exclaimed; and he and Ronald ran down to the edge of the water.
They soon saw what was the occasion of the alarm among the natives. Some of the women and boys had been down at the edge of the surf, collecting bits of wood, as they were thrown up, for their fires. A boy of some fourteen years of age had seen a larger piece than usual approaching the shore, and just as a wave had borne it in, he made a dash into the water, eager to be the first to capture the prize. Ignorant, however, of the force of the water, he had been instantly swept off his feet by the back rush of the wave. The next roller had carried him some little distance up, and then borne him out again, and he was now in the midst of the surf. He could swim a little, but was helpless in the midst of such a sea as this. The natives on the beach were in a state of the wildest excitement; the women filled the air with their shrill screams, the men shouted and gesticulated.
"Nothing can save him," the officer said, shaking his head. Ronald looked round; there was no rope lying anywhere on the shore.
"There's just a chance, I think," he said, throwing off his belt, tunic, and boots. "Make these fellows join hand in hand, sir; I will swim out to him—he's nearly gone now—and bring him in. We shall be rolled over and over, but if the line of men can grab us and prevent the under-current from carrying us out again, it will be all right."
The officer was about to remonstrate, but Ronald, seizing the moment when a wave had just swept back, rushed in, sprang head foremost into the great wall of approaching water, and in half a minute later appeared some distance out. A few vigorous strokes took him to the side of the drowning boy, whom he seized by his shoulders; then he looked towards the shore. The young officer, unable to obtain a hearing from the excited Fingoes, was using his cane vigorously on their shoulders, and presently succeeded in getting them to form a line, holding each other by the hands. He took his place at their head, and then waved his hand to Ronald as a sign that he was ready.
Good swimmer as he was, the latter could not have kept much longer afloat in such a sea; and was obliged to continue to swim from shore to prevent himself from being cast up by each wave which swept under him like a racehorse, covering him and his now insensible burden. The moment he saw that the line was formed he pulled the boy to him and grasped him tightly; then he laid himself broadside to the sea, and the next roller swept him along with resistless force on to the beach. He was rolled over and over like a straw, and just as he felt that the impetus had abated, and he was again beginning to move seaward, an arm seized him.
For a few seconds the strain was tremendous, and he thought he would be torn from the friendly grasp; then the pressure of the water diminished and he felt himself dragged along, and a few seconds later was beyond the reach of the water. He was soon up on his feet, feeling bruised, shaken, and giddy; the natives, who had yelled with joy as they dragged him from the water, now burst into wailings as they saw that the boy was, as they thought, dead.
"Carry him straight up to the fires," Ronald said as soon as he recovered his shaken faculties.
The order was at once obeyed. As soon as he was laid down, Ronald seized the blanket from one of the men's shoulders, and set the natives to rub the boy's limbs and body vigorously; then he rolled him in two or three other blankets, and telling the men to keep on rubbing the feet, began to carry out the established method for restoring respiration, by drawing the boy's arms above his head, and then bringing them down and pressing them against his ribs. In a few minutes there was a faint sigh, a little later on an attempt to cough, and then the boy got rid of a quantity of sea water.
"He will do now," Ronald said. "Keep on rubbing him, and he will be all right in a quarter of an hour." As Ronald rose to his feet a woman threw herself down on her knees beside him, and seizing his hand pressed it to her forehead, pouring out a torrent of words wholly beyond his comprehension, for although he had by this time acquired some slight acquaintance with the language, he was unable to follow it when spoken so volubly. He had no doubt whatever that the woman was the boy's mother, and that she was thanking him for having preserved his life. Not less excited was a native who stood beside him.
"This is their head man," the officer interpreted; "he is the boy's father, and says that his life is now yours, and that he is ready to give it at any time. This is a very gallant business, sergeant, and I wish I had the pluck to have done it myself. I shall, of course, send in a report about your conduct. Now come to my tent. I can let you have a shirt and pair of trousers while yours are being dried."
"Thank you, sir; they will dry of themselves in a very few minutes. I feel cooler and more comfortable than I have done for a long time; ten minutes under this blazing sun will dry them thoroughly."
It was another two days before the sea subsided sufficiently for the surf-boats to bring the ammunition to shore, and during that time the chief's wife came several times up to the barracks, each time bringing a fowl as a present to Ronald.
"What does that woman mean, sergeant?" one of the men asked on the occasion of her second visit. "Has she fallen in love with you? She takes a practical way of showing her affection. I shouldn't mind if two or three of them were to fall in love with me on the same terms."
Ronald laughed.
"No, her son got into the water yesterday, and I picked him out, and this is her way of showing her gratitude."
"I wonder where she got the fowls from," the trooper said. "I haven't seen one for sale in the town anywhere."
"She stole them, of course," another trooper put in, "or at least if she didn't steal them herself she got some of the others to do it for her. The natives are all thieves, man, woman, and child; they are regularly trained to it. Sometimes fathers will lay wagers with each other as to the cleverness of their children; each one backs his boy to steal something out of the other's hut first, and in spite of the sharp watch you may be sure they keep up, it is very seldom the youngsters fail in carrying off something unobserved. It's a disgrace in a native's eyes to be caught thieving; but there's no disgrace whatever, rather the contrary, in the act itself. There's only one thing that they are as clever at as thieving, and that is lying. The calmness with which a native will tell a good circumstantial lie is enough to take one's breath away."
Ronald knew enough of the natives to feel that it was probable enough that the fowls were stolen; but his sense of morality was not sufficiently keen for him to hurt the woman's feelings by rejecting her offerings.
"The Kaffirs have proved themselves such an ungrateful set of scoundrels," he argued to himself, "that it is refreshing to see an exception for once."
As soon as the ammunition was on shore it was loaded into three waggons, and on the following morning the party started. It was slow work, after the rapid pace at which Ronald and his men had come down from King Williamstown, and the halting-places were the same as those at which the troop had encamped on its march up the country five months before.
The greatest caution was observed in their passage through the great Addoo Bush, for although this was so far from the main stronghold of the natives, it was known that there were numbers of Kaffirs hiding there, and several mail carriers had been murdered and waggons attacked. The party, however, were too strong to be molested, and passed through without adventure. The same vigilance was observed when crossing over the sandy flats, and when they passed through Assegai Bush. Once through this, the road was clear to Grahamstown. Here they halted for a day, and then started on the road leading through Peddie to King Williamstown. After a march of fifteen miles they halted at the edge of a wide-spreading bush. They had heard at Grahamstown that a large body of Kaffirs were reported to be lying there, and as it was late in the afternoon when they approached it, Ronald advised the young officer in command of the Fingoes to camp outside and pass through it by daylight.
"The greatest caution was observed in their passage through the great Addoo Bush."
"There is no making a rush," he said; "we must move slowly on account of the waggons, and there will be no evading the Kaffirs. I do not think there is much chance of their attacking such a strong party as we are; but if we are attacked, we can beat them off a great deal better in the daylight than at night; in the darkness we lose all the advantage of our better weapons. Besides, these fellows can see a great deal better than we can in the dark."
They started as soon as it was light. The Fingoes, who were a hundred strong, were to skirmish along the road ahead and in the wood on each flank of the waggons, round which the detachment of Rifles were to keep in a close body, the Fingo women and children walking just ahead of the bullocks. Scarcely a word was spoken after they entered the forest. The waggons creaked and groaned, and the sound of the sharp cracks of the drivers' whips alone broke the silence. The Rifles rode with their arms in readiness for instant use, while the Fingoes flitted in and out among the trees like dark shadows. Their blankets and karosses had been handed to the women to carry, and they had oiled their bodies until they shone again, a step always taken by the natives when engaged in expeditions in the bush, with the view of giving more suppleness to the limbs, and also of enabling them to glide through the thorny thickets without being severely scratched.
They had got about half-way through the bush without anything being seen of the lurking enemy, when a sudden outburst of firing, mingled with yells and shouts, was heard about a quarter of a mile ahead.
"The scoundrels are attacking a convoy coming down," Ronald exclaimed.
"Shall we push on to their aid, sergeant?" the young officer, who was riding next to Ronald, asked.
"I cannot leave the waggons," Ronald said; "but if you would take your men on, sir, we will be up as soon as we can."
The officer shouted to his Fingoes, and at a run the natives dashed forward to the scene of the conflict, while Ronald urged the drivers, and his men pricked the bullocks with their swords until they broke into a lumbering trot.
In a few minutes they arrived on the scene of action. A number of waggons were standing in the road, and round them a fight was going on between the Fingoes and greatly superior numbers of Kaffirs. Ronald gave the word, and his men charged down into the middle of the fight. The Kaffirs did not await their onslaught, but glided away among the trees, the Fingoes following in hot pursuit until recalled by their officer, who feared that their foes might turn upon them when beyond the reach of the rifles of the troopers.
Ronald saw at once as he rode up that although the Fingoes had arrived in time to save the waggons, they had come too late to be of service to the majority of the defenders. Some half-dozen men, gathered in a body, were still on their feet, but a score of others lay dead or desperately wounded by the side of the waggons. As soon............