Allan's Wife Read online

  CHAPTER VI

  STELLA

  I was not slow to take Indaba-zimbi's hint. About a hundred and fiftyyards to the left of the laager was a little dell where I had hiddenmy horse, together with one belonging to the Boers, and my saddle andbridle. Thither we went, I carrying the swooning Tota in my arms. To ourjoy we found the horses safe, for the Zulus had not seen them. Now, ofcourse, they were our only means of locomotion, for the oxen had beensent away, and even had they been there we could not have found time toinspan them. I laid Tota down, caught my horse, undid his knee halter,and saddled up. As I was doing so a thought struck me, and I toldIndaba-zimbi to run to the laager and see if he could find mydouble-barrelled gun and some powder and shot, for I had only myelephant "roer" and a few charges of powder and ball with me.

  He went, and while he was away, poor little Tota came to herself andbegan to cry, till she saw my face.

  "Ah, I have had such a bad dream," she said, in Dutch: "I dreamed thatthe black Kaffirs were going to kill me. Where is my papa?"

  I winced at the question. "Your papa has gone on a journey, dear," Isaid, "and left me to look after you. We shall find him one day. Youdon't mind going with Heer Allan, do you?"

  "No," she said, a little doubtfully, and began to cry again. Presentlyshe remembered that she was thirsty, and asked for water. I led her tothe river and she drank. "Why is my hand red, Heer Allan?" she asked,pointing to the smear of Bombyane's blood-stained fingers.

  At this moment I felt very glad that I had killed Bombyane.

  "It is only paint, dear," I said; "see, we will wash it and your face."

  As I was doing this, Indaba-zimbi returned. The guns were all gone;he said the Zulus had taken them and the powder. But he had found somethings and brought them in a sack. There was a thick blanket, abouttwenty pounds weight of biltong or sun-dried meat, a few double-handfulsof biscuits, two water-bottles, a tin pannikin, some matches andsundries.

  "And now, Macumazahn," he said, "we had best be going, for thoseUmtetwas are coming back. I saw one of them on the brow of the rise."

  That was enough for me. I lifted little Tota on to the bow of my saddle,climbed into it, and rode off, holding her in front of me. Indaba-zimbislipped a reim into the mouth of the best of the Boer horses, threwof the sack of sundries on to its back and mounted also, holding theelephant gun in his hand. We went eight or nine hundred yards in silencetill we were quite out of range of sight from the waggons, which werein a hollow. Then I pulled up, with such a feeling of thankfulness inmy heart as cannot be told in words; for now I knew that, mounted aswe were, those black demons could never catch us. But where were we tosteer for? I put the question to Indaba-zimbi, asking him if he thoughtthat we had better try and follow the oxen which we had sent away withthe Kaffirs and women on the preceding night. He shook his head.

  "The Umtetwas will go after the oxen presently," he answered, "and wehave seen enough of them."

  "Quite enough," I answered, with enthusiasm; "I never want to seeanother; but where are we to go? Here we are alone with one gun and alittle girl in the vast and lonely veldt. Which way shall we turn?"

  "Our faces were towards the north before we met the Zulus," answeredIndaba-zimbi; "let us still keep them to the north. Ride on, Macumazahn;to-night when we off-saddle I will look into the matter."

  So all that long afternoon we rode on, following the course of theriver. From the nature of the ground we could only go slowly, but beforesunset I had the satisfaction of knowing that there must be at leasttwenty-five miles between us and those accursed Zulus. Little Tota sleptmost of the way, the motion of the horse was easy, and she was worn out.

  At last the sunset came, and we off-saddled in a dell by the river.There was not much to eat, but I soaked some biscuit in water for Tota,and Indaba-zimbi and I made a scanty meal of biltong. When we had done Itook off Tota's frock, wrapped her up in a blanket near the fire we hadmade, and lit a pipe. I sat there by the side of the sleeping orphanedchild, and from my heart thanked Providence for saving her life and minefrom the slaughter of that day. What a horrible experience it had been!It seemed like a nightmare to look back upon. And yet it was sober fact,one among those many tragedies which dotted the paths of the emigrantBoers with the bones of men, women, and children. These horrors arealmost forgotten now; people living in Natal now, for instance, canscarcely realize that some forty years ago six hundred white people,many of them women and children, were thus massacred by the Impis ofDingaan. But it was so, and the name of the district, _Weenen_, or thePlace of Weeping, will commemorate them for ever.

  Then I fell to reflecting on the extraordinary adroitness oldIndaba-zimbi had shown in saving my life. It appeared that he himselfhad lived among the Umtetwa Zulus in his earlier manhood, and was anoted rain-doctor and witch-finder. But when T'Chaka, Dingaan's brother,ordered a general massacre of the witch-finders, he alone had saved hislife by his skill in magic, and ultimately fled south for reasons toolong to set out here. When he heard, therefore, that the regiment wasan Umtetwa regiment, which, leaving their wives and children, had brokenaway from Zululand to escape the cruelties of Dingaan; under pretenceof spying on them, he took the bold course of going straight up to thechief, Sususa, and addressing him as his brother, which he was. Thechief knew him at once, and so did the soldiers, for his fame was stillgreat among them. Then he told them his cock and bull story about mybeing a white spirit, whose presence in the laager would render itinvincible, and with the object of saving my life in the slaughter whichhe knew must ensue, agreed to charm me out of the laager and deliver meinto their keeping. How the plan worked has already been told; it was arisky one; still, but for it my troubles would have been done with thesemany days.

  So I lay and thought with a heart full of gratitude, and as I did so sawold Indaba-zimbi sitting by the fire and going through some mysteriousperformances with bones which he produced from his bag, and ashes mixedwith water. I spoke to him and asked what he was about. He replied thathe was tracing out the route that we should follow. I felt inclined toanswer "bosh!" but remembering the very remarkable instances which hehad given of his prowess in occult matters I held my tongue, and takinglittle Tota into my arms, worn out with toil and danger and emotion, Iwent to sleep.

  I awoke just as the dawn was beginning to flame across the sky in sheetsof primrose and of gold, or rather it was little Tota who woke me bykissing me as she lay between sleep and waking, and calling me "papa."It wrung my heart to hear her, poor orphaned child. I got up, washedand dressed her as best I could, and we breakfasted as we had supped,on biltong and biscuit. Tota asked for milk, but I had none to give her.Then we caught the horses, and I saddled mine.

  "Well, Indaba-zimbi," I said, "now what path do your bones point to?"

  "Straight north," he said. "The journey will be hard, but in about fourdays we shall come to the kraal of a white man, an Englishman, nota Boer. His kraal is in a beautiful place, and there is a great peakbehind it where there are many baboons."

  I looked at him. "This is all nonsense, Indaba-zimbi," I said. "Whoeverheard of an Englishman building a house in these wilds, and how do youknow anything about it? I think that we had better strike east towardsPort Natal."

  "As you like, Macumazahn," he answered, "but it will take us threemonths' journey to get to Port Natal, if we ever get there, and thechild will die on the road. Say, Macumazahn, have my words come trueheretofore, or have they not? Did I not tell you not to hunt theelephants on horseback? Did I not tell you to take one waggon with youinstead of two, as it is better to lose one than two?"

  "You told me all these things," I answered.

  "And so I tell you now to ride north, Macumazahn, for there you willfind great happiness--yes, and great sorrow. But no man should run awayfrom happiness because of the sorrow. As you will, as you will!"

  Again I looked at him. In his divinations I did not believe, yet I cameto the conclusion that he was speaking what he knew to be the truth. Itstruck me as possible that he migh
t have heard of some white man livinglike a hermit in the wilds, but preferring to keep up his propheticcharacter would not say so.

  "Very well, Indaba-zimbi," I said, "let us ride north."

  Shortly after we started, the river we had followed hitherto turnedoff in a westerly direction, so we left it. All that day we rode acrossrolling uplands, and about an hour before sunset halted at a littlestream which ran down from a range of hills in front of us. By this timeI was heartily tired of the biltong, so taking my elephant rifle--for Ihad nothing else--I left Tota with Indaba-zimbi, and started to try if Icould shoot something. Oddly enough we had seen no game all the day, nordid we see any on the subsequent days. For some mysterious reason theyhad temporarily left the district. I crossed the little streamlet inorder to enter the belt of thorns which grew upon the hill-side beyond,for there I hoped to find buck. As I did so I was rather disturbed tosee the spoor of two lions in the soft sandy edge of a pool. Breathinga hope that they might not still be in the neighbourhood, I went on intothe belt of scattered thorns. For a long while I hunted about withoutseeing anything, except one duiker buck, which bounded off with a crashfrom the other side of a stone without giving me a chance. At length,just as it grew dusk, I spied a Petie buck, a graceful little creature,scarcely bigger than a large hare, standing on a stone, about fortyyards from me. Under ordinary circumstances I should never have dreamedof firing at such a thing, especially with an elephant gun, but we werehungry. So I sat down with my back against a rock, and aimed steadily atits head. I did this because if I struck it in the body the three-ounceball would have knocked it to bits. At last I pulled the trigger,the gun went off with the report of a small cannon, and the buckdisappeared. I ran to the spot with more anxiety than I should have feltin an ordinary way over a koodoo or an eland. To my delight there thelittle creature lay--the huge bullet had decapitated it. Considering allthe circumstances I do not think I have often made a better shot thanthis, but if any one doubts, let him try his hand at a rabbit's headfifty yards away with an elephant gun and a three-ounce ball.

  I picked up the Petie in triumph, and returned to the camp. There weskinned him and toasted his flesh over the fire. He just made a goodmeal for us, though we kept the hind legs for breakfast.

  There was no moon this night, and so it chanced that when I suddenlyremembered about the lion spoor, and suggested that we had better tieup the horses quite close to us, we could not find them, though we knewthey were grazing within fifty yards. This being so we could only makeup the fire and take our chance. Shortly afterwards I went to sleepwith little Tota in my arms. Suddenly I was awakened by hearing thatpeculiarly painful sound, the scream of a horse, quite close to thefire, which was still burning brightly. Next second there came a noiseof galloping hoofs, and before I could even rise my poor horse appearedin the ring of firelight. As in a flash of lightning I saw his staringeyes and wide-stretched nostrils, and the broken reim with which he hadbeen knee-haltered, flying in the air. Also I saw something else, for onhis back was a great dark form with glowing eyes, and from the form camea growling sound. It was a lion.

  The horse dashed on. He galloped right through the fire, for which hehad run in his terror, fortunately, however, without treading on us, andvanished into the night. We heard his hoofs for a hundred yards or more,then there was silence, broken now and again by distant growls. As maybe imagined, we did not sleep any more that night, but waited anxiouslytill the dawn broke, two hours later.

  As soon as there was sufficient light we rose, and, leaving Totastill asleep, crept cautiously in the direction in which the horse hadvanished. When we had gone fifty yards or so, we made out its remainslying on the veldt, and caught sight of two great cat-like formsslinking away in the grey light.

  To go any further was useless; we knew all about it now, so we turnedto look for the other horse. But our cup of misfortune was not yet full;the horse was nowhere to be found. Terrified by the sight and smell ofthe lions, it had with a desperate effort also burst the reim with whichit had been knee-haltered, and galloped far away. I sat down, feelingas though I could cry like a woman. For now we were left alone in thesevast solitudes without a horse to carry us, and with a child who was notold enough to walk for more than a little way at a time.

  Well, it was no use giving in, so with a few words we went back to ourcamp, where I found Tota crying because she had woke to find herselfalone. Then we ate a little food and prepared to start. First we dividedsuch articles as we must take with us into two equal parts, rejectingeverything that we could possibly do without. Then, by an afterthought,we filled our water-bottles, though at the time I was rather againstdoing so, because of the extra weight. But Indaba-zimbi overruled mein the matter, fortunately for all three of us. I settled to look afterTota for the first march, and to give the elephant gun to Indaba-zimbi.At length all was ready, and we set out on foot. By the help ofoccasional lifts over rough places, Tota managed to walk up the slope ofthe hill-side where I had shot the Petie buck. At length we reached it,and, looking at the country beyond, I gave an exclamation of dismay. Tosay that it was desert would be saying too much; it was more like theKarroo in the Cape--a vast sandy waste, studded here and there with lowshrubs and scattered rocks. But it was a great expanse of desolate land,stretching further than the eye could reach, and bordered far away bya line of purple hills, in the centre of which a great solitary peaksoared high into the air.

  "Indaba-zimbi," I said, "we can never cross this if we take six days."

  "As you will, Macumazahn," he answered; "but I tell you that there"--andhe pointed to the peak--"there the white man lives. Turn which way youlike, but if you turn you will perish."

  I reflected for a moment, Our case was, humanly speaking, almosthopeless. It mattered little which way we went. We were alone, almostwithout food, with no means of transport, and a child to carry. As wellperish in the sandy waste as on the rolling veldt or among the treesof the hill-side. Providence alone could save us, and we must trust toProvidence.

  "Come on," I said, lifting Tota on to my back, for she was alreadytired. "All roads lead to rest."

  How am I to describe the misery of the next four days? How am I to tellhow we stumbled on through that awful desert, almost without food, andquite without water, for there were no streams, and we saw no springs?We soon found how the case was, and saved almost all the water in ourbottles for the child. To look back on it is like a nightmare. I canscarcely bear to dwell on it. Day after day, by turns carrying thechild through the heavy sand; night after night lying down in the scrub,chewing the leaves, and licking such dew as there was from the scantygrass! Not a spring, not a pool, not a head of game! It was the thirdnight; we were nearly mad with thirst. Tota was in a comatose condition.Indaba-zimbi still had a little water in his bottle--perhaps awine-glassful. With it we moistened our lips and blackened tongues. Thenwe gave the rest to the child. It revived her. She awoke from her swoonto sink into sleep.

  See, the dawn was breaking. The hills were not more than eight miles orso away now, and they were green. There must be water there.

  "Come," I said.

  Indaba-zimbi lifted Tota into the kind of sling that we had made out ofthe blanket in which to carry her on our backs, and we staggered on foran hour through the sand. She awoke crying for water, and alas! wehad none to give her; our tongues were hanging from our lips, we couldscarcely speak.

  We rested awhile, and Tota mercifully swooned away again. ThenIndaba-zimbi took her. Though he was so thin the old man's strength waswonderful.

  Another hour; the slope of the great peak could not be more than twomiles away now. A couple of hundred yards off grew a large baobabtree. Could we reach its shade? We had done half the distance whenIndaba-zimbi fell from exhaustion. We were now so weak that neither ofus could lift the child on to our backs. He rose again, and we eachtook one of her hands and dragged her along the road. Fifty yards--theyseemed to be fifty miles. Ah, the tree was reached at last; comparedwith the heat outside, the shade of its d
ense foliage seemed like thedusk and cool of a vault. I remember thinking that it was a good placeto die in. Then I remember no more.