GORUBA AT BAY. See page 268
A STORY OF
AFRICAN ADVENTURE
BY
HERBERT STRANG
ILLUSTRATED BY H. EVISON
With a Frontispiece in Colour by A. della Valle
HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON, EDINBURGH, GLASGOW
TORONTO, MELBOURNE, CAPE TOWN, BOMBAY
1919
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY R. CLAY AND SONS, LTD.,
BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E. 1, AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
HERBERT STRANG
COMPLETE LIST OF STORIES
ADVENTURES OF DICK TREVANION, THE
ADVENTURES OF HARRY ROCHESTER, THE
A GENTLEMAN AT ARMS
A HERO OF LIEGE
AIR PATROL, THE
AIR SCOUT, THE
BARCLAY OF THE GUIDES
BOYS OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
BROWN OF MOUKDEN
BURTON OF THE FLYING CORPS
CARRY ON
CRUISE OF THE GYRO-CAR, THE
FIGHTING WITH FRENCH
FLYING BOAT, THE
FRANK FORESTER
HUMPHREY BOLD
JACK HARDY
KING OF THE AIR
KOBO
LORD OF THE SEAS
MOTOR SCOUT, THE
OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, THE
ONE OF CLIVE'S HEROES
PALM TREE ISLAND
ROB THE RANGER
ROUND THE WORLD IN SEVEN DAYS
SAMBA
SETTLERS AND SCOUTS
SULTAN JIM
SWIFT AND SURE
THROUGH THE ENEMY'S LINES
TOM BURNABY
TOM WILLOUGHBY'S SCOUTS
WITH DRAKE ON THE SPANISH MAIN
WITH HAIG ON THE SOMME
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. THE RUINED VILLAGE
II. THE FIGHT AT DAWN
III. THE STORY OF GORUBA
IV. RUSHED BY TUBUS
V. UNDER THE LASH
VI. THE NORTHWARD TRAIL
VII. THE PYTHON
VIII. SETTING A TRAP
IX. THE BROKEN BRIDGE
X. IN HOT PURSUIT
XI. A STRATEGIC RETREAT
XII. A STAMPEDE
XIII. A NARROW SHAVE
XIV. AT BAY
XV. THE PROBLEM
XVI. A NIGHT INTRUDER
XVII. A NIGHT ADVENTURE
XVIII. ATTACKED BY LIONS
XIX. TRAINING AN ARMY
XX. THE MYSTERY DEEPENS
XXI. A BLOW FOR LIBERTY
XXII. THE DISCOVERY OF RABEH'S HOARD
XXIII. GORUBA IS CAUGHT
XXIV. A FIGHT WITH CROCODILES
XXV. CHARGED BY RHINOCEROSES
XXVI. DISASTER
XXVII. AN ATTACK IN FORCE
XXVIII. THE ELEVENTH HOUR
XXIX. TUBUS TO THE RESCUE
XXX. THE FORWARD MARCH
XXXI. THE LAST FIGHT
XXXII. A HOT CHASE
XXXIII. THE END OF GORUBA
XXXIV. THE GREAT REWARD
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
COLOUR PLATE BY A. DELLA VALLE
GORUBA AT BAY (see p. 268) . . . Frontispiece
DRAWINGS BY H. EVISON
The LONG TRAIL
On the afternoon of a certain day in spring a party of eighteen men was marching through the rocky, bush-covered country near the north-western corner of Lake Chad, in Northern Nigeria. It consisted of two white men, in khaki and sun helmets, and sixteen stalwart Hausas, wearing nothing but their loin-cloths, but carrying on their heads boxes and bundles of all shapes and sizes. The white men and nine of the negroes had rifles slung over their backs.
They were marching wearily. Since early morning, almost without stopping, they had been trudging their toilsome way over parched and barren land, only once discovering a water-hole at which they were able to slake their burning thirst.
For the greater part of the day the sun had beat upon them fiercely; but the sky was now overclouded, and a keen north-east wind had sprung up—the harmattan of the desert—blowing full in their faces, stinging their skins and filling mouths and ears and nostrils with the particles of fine grey dust which it swept along in its desolating course.
The jaded carriers, who were wont to enliven the march with song and chatter, were now silent. The two Englishmen in advance, bending forward to keep the grit out of their eyes, tramped along, side by side, with an air of dejection and fatigue.
"We are down on our luck, old man," said Hugh Royce presently, turning his back upon the wind. "The village can't be far away, if Drysdale's map is correct; but we can't go on much farther without a long rest."
"It's rank bad luck, as you say," replied Tom Challis. "It's not as if we had been over-marching; we've really taken it pretty easy; but we didn't reckon with sickness. These Hausas look as strong as horses, but I doubt whether half of them will be able to lift their loads to-morrow."
"When we get to the village, we'll let them slack for a day or two, and dose them well. I'll tell John; it will encourage them to stick it a little longer."
He beckoned up a strapping negro, the head-man of the company, upon whom a former employer had bestowed the name John in place of his own—a succession of clicks and gurgles which white men found unpronounceable. Telling him the decision just come to, the leader of the expedition ordered him to acquaint the men with it, and urge them to persevere a little longer.
The weary, willing carriers perked up a little at the prospect of a holiday, and began to talk to one another of how much they would eat. It did not matter, they agreed, if they made themselves ill, for the little balls out of the white men's bottles would soon set them to rights again.
Hugh Royce was one of those hardy persons whom wealth does not spoil. Inheriting, at the age of twenty-three, a large fortune from an uncle, he resolved to realise his dearest ambition—to travel into some little-known region of the world, not for mere sport, but to study its animals and birds, and add something to the general stock of knowledge.
A chance meeting with a friend of his, named Drysdale, who had just returned from a sporting expedition in Nigeria, led him to choose that country as a promising field of discovery.
Being sociably inclined, he wanted a companion. Drysdale himself could not join him, but he happened to mention that traces of tin had recently been found near one of the tributaries of the River Yo. This led Royce to think of his school-fellow, Tom Challis, a mining engineer who was not getting on so fast as he would have liked. He went to Challis and proposed that they should go together, Challis to prospect for tin, while he himself pursued his studies in natural history.
"If things look well," he said, "we'll start a tin mine, and go half-shares."
"That's hardly fair to you, as you're going to stand all expenses," replied Challis. "I shall be satisfied with a quarter."
"You're too modest, Tom. Well, I want your company, so I'll agree to a third, nothing less. So that's settled."
Royce purchased a quantity of tinned goods; medical stores; prints, mirrors, and beads for trading with the natives; rifles and ammunition; a tent and other necessaries; and they left Southampton one February day for the Gold Coast. Here they engaged a staff of experienced Hausa carriers—called "boys," whatever their age might be—and started for the interior.
That was several weeks ago, and they were now approaching the tin-bearing region marked on the map with which Drysdale had provided his friend.
About an hour after the promise of a rest had stimulated the carriers, they were further encouraged by striking a native track, which indicated the proximity of a village. Tired as they were, they quickened their pace, and another half-hour's march brought them to cultivated fields of millet and ground-nuts.
The white men, walking ahead of the party, looked forward eagerly for the conical roofs of the village huts, which they expected to see rising above the crops in the distance, and were surprised to find that nothing of the sort was in sight.
"It must be a bigger place than I thought," said Royce. "A small village wouldn't have such extensive fields. Drysdale marks the people as friendly; I hope we shall find them so."
The narrow track wound through the fields, high stalks growing on either side. A sudden turn brought them in sight of an object which caused them to halt, and struck them with a foreboding of ill.
Lying in a curiously huddled posture across the track was the body of a black man.
Insensibly lightening their tread, they approached it, and found that the man was dead, and bore marks of slashing and defacement.
"There's been bad work here," said Royce in a whisper.
They looked ahead; no one was in sight. They listened; there was not a sound but the chirping of insects in the crops.
Unslinging their rifles, they went slowly on, oppressed with a sense of tragedy; and a few steps more disclosed a scene for which their discovery of the dead man had partly prepared them. The absence of the well-known conical roofs was explained. The site of what had once been a flourishing village was now desolate, a black waste. Great heaps of ashes marked the spots where the cane huts had stood, and here and there lay bodies stiff in death, from which a number of sated carrion birds rose noisily into the air at the approach of men.
Their hearts sank as they contemplated the pitiful scene. It was a new thing in their experience, though it represented one of the commonest of tragedies in that region. The village had recently been raided by a more powerful neighbour; its men had been killed, its women and children carried off into slavery.
Happily, such raids are becoming less frequent as the Great Powers strengthen their grip on the areas marked on the maps as their spheres of influence. But in the remoter parts of those vast territories, life still proceeds much as it has done for hundreds or thousands of years past.
The horror of the scene, the misery it represented, sank deep into the hearts of the two Englishmen. And mingled with the distress which every humane person must have felt, was their consciousness of the bearing this discovery would have upon their own situation. They had hoped to make this village their resting-place, to give their men time to recover from the sickness which had crept upon them of late, to renew their store of fresh provisions. But it was now late in the afternoon; the next village marked on the map was fifteen or twenty miles away; the fatigue and weakness of the carriers rendered it impossible for the expedition to advance so far.
"We are indeed down on our luck," said Challis gloomily. "This will just about be the finishing stroke for our boys."
"They can't move another step, that's certain," said Royce. "We shall have to camp somewhere about here for the night. Here they are. Look at their faces! I never saw fright so clearly expressed. We must put the best face on it with them."
The carriers had halted at the edge of the village clearing, and stood like images of terror and despair. Royce went up to them.
"This is very bad, John," he said to the head-man. "Keep the boys as cheerful as you can. They had better put down their loads against those palm-trees yonder. Find the village well, and get some water; then the strongest of them must build a zariba for the night. Get up our tent, and then we'll talk things over."
"Boys 'fraid of Tubus, sah."
"Tubus?"
"Yes, sah—Tubus done dat."
"How do you know?"
"Savvy cuts on black fella's face, sah. Tubus' knives done dat."
"Well, they needn't be afraid. The Tubus won't come again; if they did, they wouldn't face our rifles. Fix things up, and then come back. We'll see what can be done."
Royce knew the Tubus by repute as a fierce and bloodthirsty tribe, living in French territory beyond the River Yo, whose raids across the border were notorious. It was certainly to be hoped that the peaceful objects of his expedition would not be hindered by encounters with those turbulent savages.
The first consideration, however, was the welfare of his boys. They depended for their food on the willingness of the natives to sell. Hitherto there had been no difficulty in this respect; but they carried only enough for a few days' supply, and at present their provisions were exhausted. The crops of this village were not yet ripe; the village itself was absolutely bare; it was of the first importance that food should be obtained at once.
As a result of a consultation with Challis and the headman, Royce decided to push on with John to the next village and buy food there.
"What if that has been raided too?" suggested Challis, as they talked it over.
"We must hope for the best," Royce answered.
"And it's pretty risky, you two going alone through a country recently raided."
"How long ago were the Tubus here, do you think?" Royce asked John.
"Two free days, sah."
"Well, then, it's likely that they've gone back to their own ground. For us it's a choice of two evils, and we must chance it. With good luck, we shall get to the next village before dark. I'll engage carriers there, and we ought to be back here with plenty of grub by to-morrow night."
They set off. Both were in good condition, and they made rapid progress. But the country was trackless, and Royce could only direct his course roughly by Drysdale's map.
The short dusk was falling without their having come on any signs of human dwellings. In another half-hour it would be quite dark, and Royce reluctantly but prudently decided that they must take shelter for the night, for fear of becoming hopelessly lost, and go on in the morning.
The country was bare, consisting of rocky ground sparsely covered with scrub. It offered nothing that gave promise of a comfortable defence against the night cold, and Royce had almost reconciled himself to spending the hours in the open when suddenly he caught sight, on the crest of a low hill about a mile to the left, of what appeared to be the ruins of a small building. Such ruins are to be met with here and there in the remotest depths of the great continent, the relics of ancient civilisations long vanished. There were no signs of life about this building, and Royce resolved to take shelter there.
They struck off to the left, climbed the hill, and, after a careful survey of the neighbourhood, approached the ruin. It turned out to be a dismantled stone fort, overgrown in parts with vegetation, but in a fair state of preservation. The outer wall was complete; inside, the principal chamber, which had once, no doubt, been the headquarters of a garrison, was roofless, and such timber-work as there had been was either burnt or had been carried away. Some smaller rooms were still covered from the sky, and it was in one of these that Royce determined to repose during the night.
They had brought with them a few biscuits and a small tin of preserved mutton, and they made a meagre supper. John having noticed, as they approached the fort, the runs of ground game among the bushes, set a few snares, in the hope of providing next day's breakfast. He returned with a huge armful of leaves and grasses to spread on the stone floor of the room chosen for their night's lodging.
"It's the first time I've been littered down like a horse," said Royce to himself, with faint amusement. "There's no telling what one may come to!"
"No berry comfy, sah," said John, when he had laid these rough beds in opposite corners. "All can do."
"It will do very well, John," returned Royce. "I suppose we shan't be disturbed by lions or any other unpleasant visitors?"
"No fink so, sah."
"Should we light a fire, do you think?"
"No, sah; no good. Fire make lions 'fraid; oh yes! but no make bad mans 'fraid."
"I see—it might drive off beasts, but attract men? Very well. I don't suppose I shall sleep much, anyway."
Royce had often admired the negro's ability to sleep anywhere and at any time, and to awake to full alertness and activity in a moment. Like a dog, he seems to have no need of the preliminary yawnings and stretchings to which a civilised man has accustomed himself. John fell asleep as soon as he had curled himself up on his grass bed. His master lay awake for a long time, listening to the rustle of the wind in the foliage that clothed the ruins, fancying that he heard the grunt of a lion and the bark of a jackal far away, thinking of Challis in his camp, and of the terrible scene of desolation in the ruined village.
A more experienced traveller would have taken that matter philosophically; Royce was greatly perturbed. He pictured in his mind the barbarians swooping upon the village, the massacre and pillage, the driving of women and children into slavery; and he shuddered at the misery which had fallen upon simple and inoffensive people.
He felt anxiety, too, about the future of his own little company. The region of which he was in search was apparently situated near the lands of the Tubus, the raiding tribe whose name was dreaded by his boys; and the prospect of coming into conflict with them made him uneasy. Not that he was a coward, or shrank from the possible necessity of fighting; but his object was peaceable, and he wished with all his heart that it might be attained without offence to the native peoples, without the shedding of blood. Yet his indignation burnt so fiercely within him, that he knew he would not be able to refrain from striking a blow for any hapless villagers who might be threatened with disaster at the hands of a savage enemy.
Turning over these things in his mind, and envying John, whose loud breathing proclaimed that no anxieties disturbed his repose, he lay wakeful for several hours, until he, too, fell asleep. He slept very heavily, as might have been expected of a man tired out by exhausting marches under a hot sun. The night was cool, the atmosphere was pure, and the young Englishman's rest was as peaceful as though there were no wild beast or savage man in the world.
When he awoke, the ghostly light of dawn was glimmering in the open doorway of the room. Like his countrymen everywhere, he turned over on his back, stretched himself, rubbed his eyes, and sat up. Where was John? The heap of grass in the opposite corner was vacant.
"He's gone to examine his snares, I suppose," he said to himself. "I wonder if there's a stream where I can take a dip."
He rose, stretched himself again, feeling a little stiff, walked through the doorway, and entered one of the passages that led to the outside. He was just turning a corner when, with a suddenness that took him all aback, he came face to face with a negro, a man of huge stature, topping him by several inches.
The white man and the black were equally surprised. Both came to a halt, and stood eyeing each other for a moment in silence.
The passage was open to the sky, but the light of morning was as yet so faint that neither could see very clearly.
All at once the negro, with a roar like that of a wild beast, whipped a curved sword out of a belt about his waist, and, springing forward, delivered a furious sweeping cut which, if it had taken effect, must have severed Royce's head from his shoulders.
Fortunately for him, however, he was quick of eye and wit, and nimble in his movements. At school he had had no match in boxing and fencing. Being absolutely unarmed, he had no means of parrying the stroke; but he dropped on one knee, and the scimitar whistled within an inch of his crown, striking with a crashing stroke the wall on his right hand.
While the negro was still bent forward with the force of his blow, Royce sprang low at his knees, and, tugging them towards him, brought the man with a thud to the floor. The sword fell from his hand and clashed on the stone flags, and Royce reached down to get hold of it. But the negro sprang to his feet with agility amazing in so huge a man, and hurled himself upon the Englishman.
Royce had just time to straighten himself and prevent himself from being thrown down; the next moment the negro's arms were about him; he felt hot breath upon his face, and saw the gleaming teeth and infuriated eyes of a man from whom he knew he could expect no mercy.
He was well acquainted with the styles of wrestling in vogue in England—the Cumberland, the Devon, the Lancashire; but he was instantly aware that the negro's method was none of these. It was, in fact, a form of wrestling like that which had been practised ages ago in the Olympic games, and had no doubt been introduced into Northern Africa by the Romans in the days of Cæsar and Pompey. It resembled the catch-as-catch-can style of Lancashire more nearly than the lighter styles with which Royce was familiar.
The negro's aim seemed to be to throttle his opponent, or to squeeze the breath out of his body; and Royce, struggle as he might, felt the thick, muscular arms gripping him more and more closely. Slighter in build, he had no chance of employing the feints and tricks which might have compensated for a less powerful physique in dealing with an Englishman. In that straining grasp, there was no hope for the lesser man; in a few seconds the struggle must end.
The encounter, the coming to grips, had happened so swiftly that Royce had had no time to think that there was help at hand in the shape of John. But now, at this critical moment, when he felt that the very life was being crushed out of him, he remembered the staunch companion of his journey, who could not be far away.
Making a desperate effort to fill his lungs, he uttered a shout, or rather a choking gurgle, which no one would have recognised as the voice of an Englishman. The negro laughed, anticipating the moment when the white man would lie limp and lifeless at his feet. Bub John, climbing the hill with a rabbit dangling in his hand, heard the two sounds—the gasping cry, the loud, mocking laugh. Hastening forward at a run, he shouted aloud, giving a long, penetrating note like the yodel of the Swiss mountain shepherd. The sound, growing louder moment by moment, came to the ears of the negro. He realised instantly that, unless he could dispose of the Englishman at once, he would soon have two men to deal with.
The encouraging sound gave Royce new strength. He put forth his last energies to resist the strangling grip.
"Yoi-aloo! Yoi-aloo!"
The newcomer was close at hand. The panting negro lowered his arms, caught Royce about the hips, and tried to lift him, intending to dash him upon the floor. Royce flung his legs about the giant's thighs, stiffened his muscles, and dragged with all his force upon the negro's shoulders.
"Yoi-aloo! Yoi-aloo!"
The game was up! The negro dared not wait longer. Loosening his grip, he wrenched himself out of Royce's entwining arms, thrust him away, and, turning about, rushed through the passage into the open. There he saw John hurrying up within twenty paces of him, and swerving to the left, in five seconds had disappeared among the bushes.
Royce, when the negro left him, was breathless from the struggle. But he had the presence of mind to run back to the room where he had passed the night, pick up his rifle and revolver from the floor, and hurry to the entrance. There John met him. The anxious alarm on the Hausa's face gave way to a broad smile when he saw that his master was safe.
"Where is that ruffian?" asked Royce, looking round for his assailant.
"Him run away quick," replied John, pointing to the bushes. "Berry much 'fraid of me."
"You were just in time, John. He was crushing me to a jelly. It's a lesson to me not to part with my revolver for an instant. You saw no other black men about?"
"No, sah. Him berry big chap, sure 'nuff."
"A giant! I am bruised all over. I met him as I was coming out for a bathe, and he sprang at me at once. Why should he do that?"
"Bad fella, sah."
"I daresay; but it was something more than original sin. He went for me with as much ferocity as an eagle whose nest I disturbed once. Does this place belong to him, I wonder?"
John could only repeat that the man was a "bad fella." But Royce felt a good deal puzzled. The negro's savage onslaught might be explained by his regarding the white man as a robber, but there appeared to be nothing in the place worth stealing. It was strange that he should have so fiercely resented what was, after all, an innocent intrusion.
"We'll have another look round before we start," said Royce. "Or, rather, I will. You keep guard at the doorway, John, and call me if you see anyone moving about outside."
Royce searched the building thoroughly. The result confirmed his overnight impression, that it was in a fair state of preservation. But there was nothing in any of the rooms to indicate present or even remote occupation. Except for fragments of stone and rubble, they were bare. There was nothing to tempt a robber. Royce could only conclude that the man had attacked him from an instinct of self-preservation. What had led him to enter the building was a mystery.
Royce returned to John, who during his absence had kindled a fire, skinned the rabbit, and set it to roast. They made a good breakfast, then started in the direction of the village where Royce hoped to purchase food for his men.
"We must keep a good look-out," he said, "in case that fellow should be one of a band prowling about here. He won't be difficult to recognise. There can't be many men of his height and size. And if there were, I should know him again by some strange marks on his face. Why do these black men gash themselves, John?"
"To make him look pretty, sah."
"Um! They've a queer notion of beauty, then."
Anxious to accomplish his errand and return to Challis, Royce pushed on as rapidly as possible. The country was pathless, for the most part flat, with undulations here and there, covered with thick bush varied by an occasional gum-tree. Drysdale's rough sketch-map gave him little more than a bare direction, and he had to trust a good deal to luck. After three hours' steady marching, which ought to have brought them to the village, if the estimate of its distance were correct, they were still in the same wild, barren country, without a sign of mankind. It seemed probable that they had overshot the mark, so, after taking a short rest, they altered their direction in the hope of discovering a path.
It was late in the afternoon, and they were very tired, when at last they struck into a narrow, beaten track, far to the left of their original course.
"This looks promising," said Royce. "We'll make a spurt, John."
Another half-hour brought them to cultivated fields. Crossing these, they found themselves faced by a mud wall, fourteen or fifteen feet high, pierced by a single gate. This was closed.
"It's a town, after all," said Royce; "not a village. So much the better, if the people are friendly. Give them a call, John."
The Hausa let out his long yodelling cry. A head was seen peering over the top of the wall. John lifted both hands, and spread them, palms open, as a sign of friendliness; then began an address in the native tongue, somewhat as follows:
"Ho, you admirable watchman of a noble chief! Tell your kind and worthy lord that a stranger from the lands of the Great White King seeks to look upon his face, and have a friendly talk with him. My lord and master is a very great man, with horses and cattle in number as the grains in a cornfield, and it is a great honour that he does to your chief. Open, then, your gate, and let this great lord enter; and, as he passes, let your people fall to the ground, and throw earth upon their bodies, as befits folk who are but as worms in his sight."
Unconscious of the extravagant claims made on his behalf, Royce leant on his rifle, waiting. The head disappeared. Some minutes elapsed; then the watchman came back to his perch, and a long conversation ensued between him and the Hausa, who grew more and more excited, and raised his voice until it became almost a yell.
"What is it all about?" asked Royce, beginning to suspect that his man was growing impolite.
"Son of a dog, dat fella!" replied John indignantly. "He want to know too much. Talk 'bout sah's father and mother, how many wives, what he come for, too much!"
"Did you tell him I want to buy food?"
"No, sah; I tell him——"
"Then do so at once," Royce interrupted sternly.
In a more subdued tone of voice, John gave his message. The man again withdrew.
After another interval, the gate was thrown open, and Royce, entering, found himself among a band of stalwart natives, carrying long, broad-bladed spears, and marked on each cheek, near the ear, with five or six narrow cuts, the badge of their tribe. Escorted by them, and watched by a curious crowd of townsfolk, Royce proceeded to the chief's large mud house in the centre of the town.
On entering he was greeted with the words: "Sanu, bature!" (Hail, white man!) from a stout, pleasant-faced, bearded black man, somewhat past middle age, who motioned to him to be seated, and ordered one of his slaves to bring forward a present of a roasted fowl.
The customary salutations passed between host and visitor. Royce had already learnt to endure this lengthy ceremony with patience. It was something like this:
John: "Hail, chief! Is it well with you?"
Chief: "It is well."
John: "Allah be praised! Is it well with your wives?"
Chief: "It is well."
John: "Allah be praised! Is it well with your children?"
Chief: "It is well."
John: "Allah be praised! And your horses?"
Chief: "It is well."
John: "Allah be praised! And your cattle?"
Chief: "They are well."
John: "Allah be praised! Your house and all that is yours?"
Chief: "All is well."
John: "Allah be praised!"
And then they got to business. The chief apologised for the delay in opening the gate. His watchmen had to be careful, because it was reported that Tubus were in the neighbourhood. A few days before a fugitive had come in from the westward, and told how his village had been raided and destroyed. From the chief's description, Royce gathered that this was the village which he had himself seen, and near which Challis was encamped.
Royce then explained the object of his visit, instructing John to translate exactly what he said, without adding or subtracting anything. The chief at once agreed to sell a quantity of millet and manioc for the men, and to present Royce with a few dozen eggs—an offer which Royce gracefully accepted, though he knew that most of the eggs would turn out to be bad. The African native can never understand the white man's squeamishness in the matter of addled eggs.
The next question was about the transportation of the food to the camp, nearly twenty miles distant. At first the chief, for fear of the Tubus, was reluctant to supply carriers. But when Royce explained that there had been no sign of Tubus on the way, and that the area of their depredations appeared to be considerably to the west, he yielded, and gave orders for the food to be loaded into calabashes, and for a dozen slaves to be ready to start with them in the morning.
It was clearly too late for a start to be made that evening, though Royce was very anxious to get back to his friend. He accepted the chief's hospitality for the night, and, though very tired, kept up a tedious conversation with him through John. In the course of this he related the incident of the early morning.
The chief seemed amused at the thought of a wrestling match between an Englishman and a negro, and laughed heartily at the negro running away on hearing John's cry, "Yoi-aloo!" which he made the Hausa repeat again and again. But his amusement soon gave place to alarm, his smiles to a look of thoughtfulness. He had asked Royce to describe the negro. He seemed little impressed by details of the man's height and size, but when Royce mentioned that he had noticed two straight cuts down the middle of each cheek he uttered a sudden, sharp exclamation.
"Goruba!"
"What does he mean by Goruba?" asked Royce of John, after a brief silence.
The chief seemed to deliberate whether he should speak or not. At last he said:
"I will tell the white man—my friend. Years ago I was chief of only a small village, and lord of little wealth. And I sought to increase my wealth by prudent trading, to which end I hunted the elephant, and sold his tusks to merchants from the East. And one time, having got together some few tusks in readiness for the barter, I was beset in my village by a horde of strange warriors, armed with guns, a terror to all my people. And these evil-doers came to me and made me captive, and demanded that I should deliver up to them those few tusks which were the spoil of my hunting. And, when I refused, they treated me shamefully and cruelly, so that I bear the marks on my body to this day. And there was no help for me, no hope of deliverance; and then, for the safety of my life, I was fain to yield, and saw myself robbed of the treasure that had fallen to my spear.
"And the captain of those wretches, he that put me to the torture, was a man of vast stature and the strength of a giant, Goruba by name. He was from the east country, the slave of Rabeh, King of Dar Runga, who laid waste all the lands on this side of the great lake, and whose warriors were as locusts on the face of the earth.
"It was a good day for all this country when Rabeh was slain, and his men were scattered to the winds. I knew not what had become of Goruba, one of his chiefest captains; but in very truth it was he that laid hands on you, for his stature and those marks upon his cheeks betray him. And this news that you give me is heavy upon my heart, for without doubt Goruba is again prowling like a lion about these lands, and many a village will fall a prey to him."
Royce did his best to reassure the chief, pointing out that Goruba had been alone, and there was no evidence that he was the leader of any considerable body of men. This somewhat heartened the old man, who declared, however, that he would henceforth be doubly watchful, and advised the white man to leave the country as soon as possible.
"I shall go at my own time," said Royce quietly. "I thank you for your warning, and will do what I can to repay your kindness."
Next morning he left the village with John and a dozen carriers, well loaded with food-stuffs, and hastened at his best pace to rejoin his friend.
Challis, after Royce had left him, felt somewhat uneasy. Royce had spoken hopefully of getting back on the following day, but Challis, remembering the difficulties of finding the way in a strange country, was pretty sure that Royce had overestimated his powers, and was prepared to be left in sole charge for at least two days, and perhaps three. It was not a pleasant prospect, for the raiders could not be very far away, and the possibility of being attacked was disturbing. He kept a smiling face, however, and said nothing about his anxieties to the boys.
The first thing to do was to form as secure a camp as possible. The camping arrangements had been interrupted by the discussion leading to Royce's departure. As soon as Royce was gone, Challis took the matter in hand.
The spot which Royce had suggested as suitable for the camp was a knoll, on which a few palm-trees grew, at one end of the village, and Challis was rather surprised to find that, during his conversation with Royce, the Hausas had not made a start. Wearing woe-begone expressions on their faces, they were squatting beside their packages.
"Now, Kulana," said Challis to the second in command, "what are you all idling for? Carry the stuff to those palm-trees yonder."
The men got up obediently, but they appeared to have a strange hesitation in lifting their loads.
"Come, come!" said Challis. "I know that you are done up, but you are not so bad as all that. Besides, it's only a few yards away, and the sooner we form camp the sooner you'll get to sleep."
There was a murmuring among them. Still they did not offer to lift the bundles.
Challis curbed his rising anger. The men were usually so willing that he wished not to be hard on them. And both Royce and he had already taken much interest in studying the queer moods and ideas of these Africans.
"What is troubling them, Kulana?" he asked quietly.
The Hausa looked him full in the face, and, seeing no anger there, replied:
"No want camp dar, sah—berry bad place."
"Oh! Why is that?"
And then the man began to pour out an explanation of which at first Challis could make nothing. Kulana's English was not adequate to express his thoughts. He talked of "debbils" and "bad medicine," and went through a pantomime of gestures expressing fear and fright, the other men listening intently, and murmuring approval now and then.
After a time, however, Challis had a glimmering of light.
"You think the spirits of the dead men haunt the village—is that it? And you are afraid they will come and bother you during the night?"
"Sah savvy all 'bout it," said the man, delighted that his meaning was understood.
The others clapped their hands, and looked much more cheerful.
"Well, I don't want you to see black ghosts, I'm sure," Challis went on. "I don't know that I'd like to see them myself. We'll find another place."
The men shouted, and springing to their feet, hoisted their loads with alacrity. Challis reflected that the work of constructing a camp more in the open would be good for them, preventing them from brooding over their troubles, real and imaginary.
After a rapid glance around, he led them to an open spot at some little distance from the village, and ordered them to make a small zariba with branches from the bushes around. It was an excellent situation for a camp. Its openness rendered it possible to detect the approach of an enemy, and a small stream running close by furnished an ample supply of water.
As he had expected, the work of cutting the bushes took the men's minds from their misfortunes. They soon began to chatter with their usual cheerfulness. By nightfall they had constructed a thick fence six feet high and several yards square. The tent was erected in the middle of the enclosure, the baggage was placed against one of the walls, and the men, tired out, but no longer despondent, were ready for their supper.
Challis dealt out pills to the ailing ones, promised them all a long rest on the following day, and spoke confidently of the speedy return of his companion with ample supplies. He arranged for the watching of the camp during the night, and, as an extra precaution, set his alarm clock, when he himself turned in, so that it wakened him in an hour. Then he took a look round, set the clock again for an hour ahead, and so on, through the night. He enjoyed the inestimable power of sleeping at any minute.
The night passed quietly. In the morning, Challis sent two of the men outside the zariba to fetch water and to take a look round.
When they returned they were rather excited. They explained that they had made two discoveries. One was that across the stream lay an extensive swamp, upon which they had seen a large flock of birds pecking for worms. The other was that a little farther off was a banana plantation, which had escaped the ravages of the raiders.
"Good boys!" said Challis. "We will make some use of your news by and by."
The presence of the birds and the bananas afforded a welcome opportunity of replenishing their scanty larder. Challis decided to go out and try his skill as a sportsman. There would be some risk, of course, that the noise of his gun might attract the notice of undesirable visitors; but there was very little food of any kind left, and poultry would be a treat to the men. In view of the possibility of Royce's return being delayed, it seemed too good a chance to be neglected. Besides, he reflected, there was no other village in the neighbourhood, and the raiders, having accomplished their destructive work only too completely, were probably by this time far away. After he had made a bag of birds, he would send out some men to gather bananas, and the party would revel in a regular banquet.
Accordingly, he ordered Kulana to keep a careful watch, and on no account to allow the men to move outside the zariba; then, taking his shot-gun, he set out for the swamp, with the two who had brought the information, to retrieve the game.
The swamp was half-a-mile away, and Challis found it necessary to walk round it for some distance before he could get a fair shot at the birds, which had settled down in a bed of rushes. They appeared to be a variety of pigeon, a delicacy which the men would appreciate after living almost wholly on meal.
When he had located the game, he sent his men forward to start them. The instant they rose in the air he let fly with both barrels in rapid succession, and brought down a bird with each shot. Following up the rest of the covey until they settled again, he killed another brace, and so went on for nearly an hour, until there were as many birds as the men could carry.
His success had quite banished the misgivings with which he had started. Picturing the delight of his boys at getting a whole day's good eating, he had given the order to return, and was half-way back to camp, when he was startled by a great shouting and commotion from its direction.
Sprinting on at full speed, he was just in time to see a number of his boys running across the open space in front of the zariba, closely pursued by a dozen horsemen. The runners, who appeared to be laden with bananas, darted into the enclosure through the gap they had left in the fence; but before they could draw the rough gate across it, the foremost horsemen galloped through at their heels.
Challis guessed in a moment what had happened. The men's appetite had been whetted by the report of the nearness of a banana plantation. They had been too childishly impatient to await his return, and, either with Kulana's consent or in defiance of him, they had gone out to gather the fruit, only to be surprised by some wandering tribe.
He rushed impetuously across the open space to the support of his men, not staying to reflect that he could do nothing really effective. Besides his shot-gun, he carried a revolver. The horsemen had fire-arms, which they had not used as yet, feeling no doubt that their swords were sufficient for the work in hand. Some of the Hausas had rifles, but it was clear that they were too much paralysed by the appearance of a mounted enemy to make use of them. They were yelling with fright.
Before Challis was half-way to the zariba, a second party of horsemen broke from cover in the direction of the village, and rode straight at him. Flinging up his shot-gun, he emptied the barrels almost at random; then drew his revolver. But at that moment a shot from the pistol of one of the galloping horsemen struck him above the wrist, and the revolver fell to the ground. In another second he was spun round by the impact of a horse's shoulder, reeled, and fell. The horsemen galloped over him on their way to the zariba, and before he lost consciousness it seemed to him that he had been kicked and trampled by a hundred hoofs.
Challis opened dazed eyes upon a scene that bewildered him, and for a few moments he could not account for the pains that gripped all his limbs. Remembrance stole back into his reviving consciousness, and gradually he became aware of the meaning of what he saw.
The zariba had been demolished. At one side of what had been his camp a number of horses were tethered. In the centre his Hausa boys were busily packing the baggage, much more rapidly than Challis had ever seen them doing it before. The reason of their haste was easily discovered. Over them stood a circle of negroes, who urged them with fierce cries and drawn swords. The camp had fallen into the hands of an enemy.
And it was not long before Challis guessed who this enemy was. Only one tribe in this part of Africa, so far as he knew, rode horses. These men must be Tubus from across the Yo—the ruthless brigands who were the terror of the country. It could hardly be doubted that these were the men who had raided the village, and left only too clear proofs of their merciless ferocity.
Apparently there had been no fight at the zariba. The Hausas, armed though they were, had succumbed without a struggle. The truth was that, in disobedience to Challis's order, some of the men had left the camp, and been pounced on suddenly by the enemy. As they fled back to the zariba, their comrades dared not fire for fear of hitting them, and the swift onset of the horsemen had made resistance hopeless.
Aching all over, Challis struggled to his feet. Immediately a hand was laid upon him from behind. He noticed that his wrist was bleeding, and taking out his handkerchief, he began to wind it round the wound as his captor pushed him towards the centre of the camp. And then from behind the horses there came forth a huge negro, taller than he by six or seven inches, with massive shoulders and muscular arms.
The giant's face broke into a grin as he approached the Englishman. He uttered some words which Challis did not understand, but which seemed to have in them the ring of triumph.
"I have caught you, white face!" was what he said.
As to the white man all negroes seem at first alike, so to Goruba Challis at this moment appeared to be the man with whom he had wrestled at dawn of day.
He spoke again, addressing Challis; then, recognising that he was not understood, he called for one of the Hausas to come and interpret. Kulana came up, and keeping his eyes averted from Challis, he translated what the big man said.
"What are you doing in this country?"
Challis quickly made up his mind to give no information, trusting that he might at least save Royce from his own fate. He refused to speak. The next question puzzled him, but confirmed him in his resolution.
"What were you doing in my fort?"
Though he made no reply, it was plain that he showed his surprise in the expression of his face, for Goruba looked hard at him, and seemed to be in some puzzlement himself. Then the negro's harsh features darkened with anger. He flourished his sword.
"Dog! This will make you speak!" he shouted.
Challis looked at him, without quailing, and did not flinch when the sword was flashed across his eyes. His courage seemed to impress Goruba, who laughed, spat on the ground, and giving an order to his men to keep guard over the prisoner, walked away with Kulana into the midst of the sweating Hausas.
What he had failed to elicit from the Englishman his threats soon extracted from the carriers. He learnt that there was another white man, who had set out on the previous afternoon for a village to the north, to buy provisions. He chuckled on receiving this information. There was little doubt what village the white man he had met in the fort was bound for. He chuckled again. The white man was no doubt on his way back to the camp. It would not be difficult to waylay him.
The work of packing was completed. Goruba ordered the Hausas to mount their loads. Their rifles, with Challis's, were in the possession of his men. When all was ready, the Tubus leapt to their saddles, and the whole party set off northwards, Challis being tied to the saddle of one of the horses.
Often on that march Challis's blood boiled as he saw how his men were treated, and knew his helplessness to defend them. The Tubus urged them with whips, sometimes with the points of their swords. The wretched Hausas, some of whom were weak with sickness, panted along under their loads, striving to keep pace with the impatient horsemen. They dared not even groan, for a murmur brought the lash on their shoulders. When Challis protested through Kulana, explaining that the men were ill, Goruba only grinned and mocked him.
By-and-by, however, it became apparent to Goruba that the men were incapable of further marching. The slave-driver is usually callous enough as to the fate of his victims; he will watch them with unconcern growing weaker and weaker, see them drop in their tracks, sometimes kill them in sheer rage at their inability to keep up. But Goruba did not wish to lose these men. They were themselves valuable. They bore valuable loads. It would be a mistake to over-drive them. In the afternoon, therefore, some hours earlier than a march is usually ended, he gave the order to halt. The Hausas laid down their burdens, and threw themselves on the ground in utter exhaustion.
Challis himself was in little better case. He had not been given a load to carry, but he had felt himself growing weaker and weaker as the day wore on. Though his wound was not serious, he had lost some blood, and was enfeebled by the shock and the bruises he had suffered in the trampling. When he lagged on the march, the man to whose saddle he was fastened prodded him in the back with the point of his spear. His own sufferings, and the sufferings of his men, made him realise with new force the horrors of slave-driving, which, in spite of all efforts to crush it, still exists in parts of the dark continent.
It was therefore with inexpressible relief that he welcomed the order to halt. The place chosen for camp was the crest of a slight undulation. The soil was sandy, and hot from the beating of the sun upon it all day. There were a few scrubby bushes dotted around, but no grass. Nor was there a stream in which the marchers could bathe their burning feet.
The Tubus fetched water from a small water-hole near by. They made a meal of the provisions carried in their wallets. The Hausas consumed the last of their food.
Challis was forced to ask permission to open one of the tins of preserved meat which formed part of the men's loads. The Tubus gathered round him, and watched with childish curiosity as he cut the tin open. They were mute with astonishment when they saw what it contained. They hardly allowed Challis time to take from it sufficient for his supper, before they began to quarrel about the ownership of the tin.
Goruba, hearing the noise, came and settled the matter by swallowing the rest of the meat in two or three great gulps, and taking the tin as a present for one of his wives.
Challis was too tired and weak to care what was done. There was no bed but the hot dry sand; but after eating a little he stretched himself on the spot assigned to him in the centre of the encampment, and forgot his sufferings for a time in a troubled sleep.
The information which the old chief had given Royce influenced his choice of route when he started on his return journey.
"You see, John," he said to the headman, "we don't want to meet this Goruba again. No doubt he stumbled on us by accident, and we have no reason to suppose that he has any particular spite against white men; certainly I had done nothing to upset him. But as he appears to be a dangerous character, we had better keep out of his way. Don't you think so?"
"Dat all same berry good, sah," said John.
"Then we won't go back by way of the fort," Royce pursued. "I dare say, indeed, these men know a nearer way to the village. Ask them."
The carriers assured John, when he questioned them, that they knew a much nearer way, by which they would leave the fort a long distance on their right. Royce therefore left the leadership to their headman, who carried no load, and went on with him, slightly ahead of the rest, to keep a good look-out in case of possible danger.
It was not until they had been marching for an hour or more that the suspicion flashed upon him that Goruba might have been concerned in the raid on the ruined village. True, John had said that the raiders were Tubus, and Goruba was not a Tubu, but probably, from his appearance, and from what the chief had said, a Nubian. But, remembering that Rabeh, Goruba's former master, had himself been a slave, who had gradually worked his way up to the lordship of a considerable empire, Royce wondered whether Goruba had raised himself to a similar position among the Tubus.
A puzzling fact was that he had appeared at the fort alone. As Rabeh's lieutenant he no doubt had made himself so much hated in this part of the country that he could expect no mercy if he fell into the hands of any of his former victims. It seemed therefore unlikely that he was really quite alone. He must belong to a party, and what could be more probable than that he was a member, if not the leader, of the party who had burnt the village?
The more he thought about it, the more troubled Royce became. If the raiders had not returned to their own country across the Yo, it was at least possible that they might discover Challis's camp. He was uneasy at the idea of Challis, with his few men, of whom half were sick, having to sustain an attack by a large body of the most ferocious warriors known in that part of Africa. Anxious to rejoin his friend, Royce grew impatient at the slow pace at which the carriers walked, heavily burdened as they were, and would have gone on far ahead but that he felt himself responsible to the chief for their safety.
It was fortunate that he had decided to avoid the fort on his return journey. Goruba had dispatched a small band of his best men to lie in wait there, and ambush the white man and his follower. They were lurking in the precincts of the fort at the very moment when Royce and his party were making a bend to the south about a mile distant.
The route followed by the headman of the carriers led through a considerable stretch of wooded country. The headman told John that he would not have chosen that way but for his master's desire to avoid the fort, although it was shorter. When John asked him why, he explained that the woodland was the resort of large herds of elephants, of which the carriers were somewhat afraid. It would have been different had they not been carrying loads. They were bold enough when they accompanied the chief on hunting expeditions, and had spears in their hands. But with heavy loads on their heads they felt helpless if the great beasts should chance to cross their path.
Once or twice, as they pressed on at their best pace, they heard a great crashing among the trees. Their scent, carried on the breeze, had disturbed the elephants browsing in the thickets. The sound alarmed the men, but Royce, when John told him what caused it, explained that the elephants were just as anxious to avoid them as they were to avoid the elephants.
"What the white man says may be true," said the headman. "But sometimes the scent of men makes the elephants angry, and then they seek the men, and do not run away."
They passed through the woodland without encountering elephants, and found themselves on the low shore of an extensive lake, the remoter border of which was overhung by low cliffs. The negroes were careful to keep at a good distance from the brink of the water. Alligators might often be met with on the mud flats, lying so still, and being so much the colour of the ground, that their presence was sometimes only known by the shrieks of some hapless victim whom one had seized.
As they were skirting the lake, John suddenly gave a shout, and pointed to what appeared to be a greyish-black ridge just projecting above the surface of the water. This object seemed to swell, the water was disturbed, and at one end of the ridge emerged the ugly head of a hippopotamus.
"Hippo meat berry fine, sah!" said John longingly.
"I daresay, but I am not going to shoot when I don't know who may be about," Royce returned. "And don't shout again, John, whatever you may see. I am not anxious to meet that giant Goruba again."
They left the lake behind, and by dint of hard marching through rough and scrubby country reached the neighbourhood of the ruined village a little before nightfall. Approaching it on a different side from that by which he had left it, Royce would not have recognised it but for the assurance of his guides.
He hurried along with John at the head of the party through the desolate blackened street until he reached the palm-trees, where he expected to find the camp. To his surprise there was no sign of an encampment having been there, nor, looking round, could he discover Challis or any of the boys.
"What does this mean, John?" he asked, feeling very uneasy.
John looked puzzled for a moment or two; then his face lightened as the explanation struck him.
"Boys 'fraid of debbils, sah," he said. "Massa Chally find 'nother place."
Somewhat relieved, Royce hastened on with the man, hoping to see his friend at no great distance. In a few minutes they caught sight of the scattered material of the zariba. In the enclosure was a round mark upon the ground, indicating where the tent had stood, and blackened spots where the men had kindled their fires. But all the baggage was gone, except one tent-peg. There was nothing else save a number of empty banana skins.
Royce paused in dismay. John looked about with the air of a man in fear. And then there was a sudden cry from one of the carriers, as they came up toiling under their loads. They halted, dropped their burdens, and, collecting in a group, stood staring at the ground.
Royce and John hurried to them, wondering what had attracted their attention. They were looking with terror at some dull reddish splashes on the soil.
Royce's heart sank. It was inconceivable that Challis had moved camp of his own accord. He must have been attacked. The bloodstains seemed to indicate that there had been a fight; yet they were very few, and all at one spot. He looked about, dreading to see dead bodies in the neighbourhood of the enclosure. The relief he felt at finding none was smothered by a great anxiety. It seemed only too certain that, fight or no fight, the camp had been captured, and all within it carried away.
For some little time they all stood silent. Then the headman suddenly started, threw up his arms, and with a howl of fright took to his heels, and ran fleetly back along the way he had come. Instantly his companions followed him; in a few seconds they had disappeared. Royce was left alone with John.
The Hausa had already discovered the cause of their sudden stampede. He had caught sight of a black form skulking among some thin bush at no great distance from the camp.
Just as he pointed him out to his master, looking much inclined to bolt after the carriers, the figure moved towards them, hastening its steps, and revealing itself to be that of one of their own men. The carriers, no doubt, had supposed him to be one of the party who had rushed the camp, and feared that the rest were somewhere near.
John ran to him, asking eagerly what had become of Massa Chally. The man explained that he and another had accompanied Massa Chally when he went shooting birds, and on their return had seen thousands of Tubus swoop down on the camp. Being himself somewhat in the rear of the other two, he had concealed himself, and the birds he carried, in the bush, and remained there until the prisoners had been taken away. So far as he knew, he was the only one who had escaped. Fearing to leave the spot, he had waited there, knowing that Massa Royce would return by-and-by.
"Was there a fight?" asked Royce.
The man replied that Massa Chally had fired his gun, but was himself wounded and ridden down by the horsemen. No one else had fired. Most of the men were laden with bananas, and the horsemen had come upon them so suddenly that there was no time to do anything.
Bad as the news was, Royce recognised a reason for thankfulness in that Challis had not been killed. The carrier was firm on that point. He had seen the white man tied to a saddle, and taken away with the rest.
"Which way did they go?" Royce asked.
The man pointed towards the north.
Royce stood pondering. What was to be done? It was unthinkable that he should leave Challis and the faithful boys to their fate, even though by following them up he should share it. Challis might escape, in which case he would need help, and the nearer Royce was to him the better. But Challis was not the man to desert his negroes, and the chance that all would be able to escape together was slight.
The longer Royce thought over the problem, the less likely did it appear that he could do anything for his friend. Yet he must make an attempt. Were the positions reversed, he knew that Challis would try to do something for him.
"We must go after them, John," he said at last.
"Save Massa Chally, sah—oh yes!" replied John, trying to look cheerful.
The other man was too much terrified of solitude to raise any objection, though he was inwardly trembling at the thought of meeting the Tubus.
"What can we do with these provisions?" said Royce, indicating the calabashes which the frightened carriers had dropped. "We ought not to leave them for the birds; they may come in handy some day."
John suggested that they should be carried into the bush, and covered up as well as possible with the material of the dismantled zariba. This plan seemed to be the only one possible, and the three spent half an hour in stowing the calabashes under a thick layer of thorn branches.
Then, providing themselves with enough food for a couple of days, they set off on the trail of the raiders. There was no difficulty in following it. The soil was sandy, and the horses had left unmistakable traces.
"Keep your eyes open, John," said Royce. "We must see the Tubus before they see us."
"Savvy all same, sah," said John. "Berry good eyes, sah—oh yes!"
Royce and the two negroes marched steadily on, stopping only for brief intervals of rest. The track led northwards towards the River Yo and the Tubus' country beyond.
Late in the afternoon they came to a spot where the trail forked. It was clear that part of the enemy's force had continued on the direct northward course, while another part, apparently the smaller, had diverged to the east. It took John only a few seconds to determine which of the two parties included the prisoners. Besides the hoof marks, there were many prints of bare feet on the soil, and among these John detected the impressions made by Challis's boots. These were in the direct track going northwards. The track diverging to the east was made by hoofs only.
"Dem go to fort, sah—oh yes!" said John.
"Why do you think so?" Royce asked.
John grinned.
"No savvy what for," he said; "savvy all same."
Royce was aware that the fort lay eastward of them, but he had supposed that it was rather to the south than to the north. Like many negroes, John, as was afterwards proved, had almost as keen a sense of locality as a wild animal.
"If you are right," said Royce, "some of the men have probably ridden to the fort to waylay us on our return. That big fellow must be one of the Tubus."
"Him no Tubu, sah," said John decisively. "Big fella too much ugly."
As Royce had never seen a Tubu, this statement conveyed nothing to him. Goruba's countenance was certainly of a Nubian cast. But he felt assured that the man had some position of authority among the raiders, and had either sent or led a party to attempt his capture.
He was much troubled in mind at the thought of leaving some of the enemy in his rear. His only chance—a slight one at the best—of helping Challis would be wholly destroyed if the party from the fort came up behind him, and discovered him before he had time to go into hiding. There was no sign of that party having already returned and rejoined the main body. The one hope he had was that the men in ambush at the fort, after waiting there all day, had now given up the idea of waylaying him, and had struck into the northward route at some point far ahead.
Less than an hour of daylight remained; it would soon be dark, and the Tubus were not more likely than any other native tribe to continue their journey in darkness. So Royce felt that if he escaped notice until sunset he would be pretty safe until next morning dawned.
The sun went down, and the three men halted.
"Where are we to camp, John?" asked Royce.
The Hausa looked around. There was no shelter anywhere on the ground, but at a little distance from the track a solitary large tree reared itself to a height of some fifty feet.
"Dat's him, sah!" cried the man. "Sleep in tree; berry nice."
"It won't be the first time," thought Royce, remembering a certain hot afternoon years before, when he and Challis, happy-go-lucky schoolboys, had dozed the hours away in the fork of an elm overlooking the cricket-field.
They sat down on the ground to eat their frugal supper. John was quite concerned at having nothing better to offer his master than some parched grain and a few nuts, and vigorously rated the carrier for not bringing some of the birds Challis had shot. He wanted to kindle a fire and give the food at least a little flavour by roasting, but Royce would not allow it.
"We don't know how near the Tubus are," he said. "They might see the flame, or smell the smoke. I shall do very well as it is, John."
Then they climbed the tree one after another, Royce envying the agility with which the barefooted negroes mounted, and selected, each for himself, a secure perch among the branches.
The two Hausas fell asleep instantly. Royce, however, found his quarters very unpleasant. They were not in the least like the cool elm he remembered so vividly. Mosquitoes and a thousand other small insects buzzed about him, settling upon face and arms, some to sting, others to bite, until he was in torture. He swung his arms about to ward them off, and covered his face with his handkerchief, tucking it under his helmet and into the collar of his coat. But the terrible pests defied all his efforts to protect himself, and he gave up at last, resigning himself to endure their torments with what patience he was master of.
It was some time, too, before he lost his fear of toppling from his swaying perch and crashing to the ground. The effort to secure himself made his limbs stiff and cramped, and he looked forward to a night of sleeplessness and pain. But sleep crept upon him unawares. He fell into a doze, uneasy indeed, and fitful, but yet giving blessed intervals of oblivion.
From one of these spells of slumber, Royce suddenly started to wakefulness and a strange feeling of terror. He had not been dreaming; by this time he was so much accustomed to the stings of the insects as to be almost unconscious of them. Yet he was bathed in sweat, and felt as though some fearful doom were hanging over him. He lay panting in the crook of the branches.
What was this strange, musty odour of which he was now aware? What was the cause of the dreadful feeling of sickness that chilled his skin? Unable to account for his wretched state, he lay still, hoping that the feeling would pass.
The foliage rustled above and around him; insects hummed; in the distance he heard the wailing call of some strange night bird, the booming note of a giant frog, the bark of a beast of prey. In these there was nothing alarming. But his uneasiness, the sense of impending danger, grew upon him, and at last, unable to endure the mysterious feeling any longer, he was on the point of awakening John, for the mere relief and pleasure of hearing a human voice, when all at once the other man, farther from him, uttered a shriek of mortal terror.
The effect upon Royce was as startling as the shock from an electric current. He started up, almost losing his balance. The cry had this good result, that it enabled him to shake off the numbing horror that had oppressed him. Groping in his pocket, he drew out a small electric torch which he used but sparingly, because of the impossibility of re-charging it. With the other hand he seized his revolver.
A flash of the torch made all terribly clear. The hapless carrier was in the toils of an immense snake. John crouched near him, paralysed with horror. The snake was gradually tightening its hold, and its hideous head was swaying within a few feet of its victim.
Royce snapped his revolver at the reptile's head. The shot went wide. He fired again. This time his aim was true. For a moment the snake convulsively tightened its coils about the inert black body, causing the man to groan under the crushing pressure. Then the coils relaxed, the head drooped, and in a few moments the monster dropped with a thud upon the ground.
There was no more sleep for any of the three that night. Royce's nerves were on edge; the negroes, though they recovered sooner than he from the shock, remained in a high state of excitement. John related a dismal story of the absorption of a cousin of his by a snake, showing such a relish for gruesome details that Royce ordered him to choose another subject.
With the earliest glimmer of dawn they descended from their perches. At the foot of the tree lay an unusually large specimen of the African python, measuring at least eighteen feet. Royce shuddered at the thought of the fate which the Hausa had so narrowly escaped.
They made the best breakfast they could, and as soon as it was light enough to mark the trail, they set off again in the track of the enemy.
Royce knew that, lightly burdened as he and his companions were, their speed was likely to be much greater than that of the raiders, whose pace must be regulated by the men carrying heavy loads. So he was not surprised, after marching only two or three hours, to reach the spot where the party had encamped during the night.
From the aspect of the place, and the still warm embers of fires, John guessed that the camp had been broken up rather later in the morning than usual, and not very long before his arrival. This conclusion led him to press on with redoubled vigour, and at the same time with caution.
Royce asked himself more than once what he would do when he came up with the raiders. Always he had to admit that he did not know. It was hopeless to attempt to form a plan. Indeed, he acknowledged to himself that the whole enterprise was pretty hopeless. The hoof marks and the prints of feet were so numerous that the party must be a large one. The Hausa had spoken of thousands of Tubus. That was no doubt an exaggeration; the negro is always ready to magnify numbers; but it was almost certain that the horsemen mustered a score or two. What was more surprising was the character of the footprints. Royce's full party consisted of only sixteen carriers, of whom two were now with him; but the depth of the impressions on the sandy soil, rather than their number, indicated that there were many more than fourteen prisoners. African natives march nearly always in single file, each man stepping in the tracks of the man in front of him; the footprints now before him were so deeply impressed that they must have been made by a large number of men.
Of the three trackers, John went first, as the most experienced in travelling over this kind of country. Every now and again he would point to the marks of Challis's boots, when they were clearly distinguishable from the other prints. Presently he declared that Massa Chally must be tied to a horse, for his footprints corresponded regularly with the marks of four hoofs.
Towards midday the track struck into a well-beaten native path, on which the foot-prints were less clearly marked. It ran northward over undulating wooded country, broken now and then by open spaces of prairie-like land. John declared that there were signs of their approaching a river.
When they came to the open spaces, he slackened pace, and scouted forward with great caution, to make sure of not stumbling upon the rear of the enemy. It was very unlikely that these had any idea of being pursued, but they were in hostile country, the people in the far-distant villages were their bitter foes, and they would hardly neglect the usual precautions against surprise or sudden attack.
From one of these spaces, to which John had gone on ahead, he ran back by-and-by, his eyes lit with excitement.
"See horses, sah!" he cried.
"Going from us?" asked Royce anxiously.
"Tails dis way, sah."
"Lead on slowly. Be sure to keep out of sight."
Since the horses were moving, clearly the only thing to be done was to keep in touch with them for the present, and seek a favourable opportunity of ascertaining the exact strength of the party and their order of march.
As a precaution against being discovered, Royce suggested that they should leave the path, and pursue their course at some little distance on one side of it or the other. John agreed that this was wise, though it would retard their progress. This, however, mattered little, seeing that they were travelling considerably faster than the raiders were.
A little later, Royce himself, on ascending a slight eminence, caught sight of the horsemen.
The size of the party surprised him. At the rear were about a dozen mounted men, more or less clothed, turbaned and armed; the sunlight flashed on their weapons, though at the distance he could not yet discover what those weapons were. Beyond them, strung out in a long line that wound like a snake over the country, was a body of more than a hundred negroes on foot, with mounted men among them at intervals. At some distance ahead was another party of armed horsemen, larger than the one in the rear.
To determine their numbers exactly was impossible. Royce wished he had thought of taking his field-glasses with him when he left the camp a few nights before; they were now, he feared, among the captured baggage, but at a rough estimate he felt sure that there could not be fewer than forty mounted men, in charge of perhaps a hundred and twenty captives. It was clear that the Tubus had raided several small villages, and that Challis and the Hausas were the latest additions to their haul. No doubt they were now making for their own district across the Yo, in high spirits at the successful results of their expedition.
Only a few minutes after Royce caught sight of them, the straggling column came to a halt. It was the time for their midday meal.
"Eat now, sah?" asked John.
"You can go on a bit longer?" said Royce.
"Can do same as Massa," John replied.
"Very well, then. I suppose they will rest for a couple of hours or more. That gives us a chance of getting ahead of them."
"Oh yes, sah. Get ahead, sure 'nuff."
John regarded the suggestion as one that would merely score a point in the game. Royce, however, had a serious object in view. The size of the party had made clear what he had all along suspected: that direct intervention on his part was impossible. What could a little band of three, of whom only two were armed, do against so formidable a force?
When two combatants are unequally matched, the weaker tries to accomplish by guile what he cannot do by strength. Royce was wondering whether, by slipping past the raiders, and examining the country in front, he could discover a spot where by some trick or ambuscade he might throw them into confusion, and rescue Challis before they had recovered from their surprise. He had no definite plan in mind; everything depended upon the nature of the ground.
Increasing their distance from the path, the three marched rapidly through a belt of thin woodland which screened them sufficiently, and came back to the track, after a long round, at a point which Royce calculated to be a good mile ahead of the raiders.
They pressed on, avoiding the path, on which Royce's boots would have left tell-tale tracks, but keeping as near to it as was safe. John halted every now and then to look back, and to listen for sounds of the enemy's advance. Royce gave his whole attention to the features of the surrounding country.
As they covered mile after mile without finding a spot where anything in the nature of an ambush could be successfully attempted, Royce's hopes sank lower and lower. The country became more and more hilly, and the path followed the undulations in almost a straight line over bare soil. It did not pass through tracts of thick bush or clumps of woodland, which might have afforded opportunities for an ambuscade. Nor were there abrupt corners or overhanging banks that would have lent themselves to the springing of a surprise on the enemy.
The Hausas wondered why their master kept on marching so doggedly, now that they were miles ahead.
"Eat now, sah?" said John at last.
"You can eat as you walk, if you like," replied Royce, "but we won't rest yet."
Some little while later, as they were rounding the shoulder of a low hill, John suddenly cried:
"Ribber, sah! Savvy ribber here all same."
"I can't see it," said Royce.
This answer appeared to tickle John, who laughed heartily.
"See him bimeby," he said. "Hear him now."
And then Royce caught a faint sound like the rustle of leaves in the wind.
A few minutes' walking proved that John was right. The track made a sharp bend. On the left of it the ground fell away steeply to a river valley, down which a stream was tumbling rapidly, no doubt to join the Yo somewhere to the east.
Royce's drooping spirits took a joyous leap, for the path led down to a frail swinging bridge which spanned the stream. It was made of plant rope, and looked too slight to bear the weight of more than a few men at a time. The possibilities of the situation flashed upon his mind.
It was clear that the stream was not fordable at this spot, otherwise there would be no bridge. The African native never puts himself to unnecessary trouble. It was equally clear that the bridge was not strong enough to bear the weight of horses; therefore the mounted men would not cross here, but must go either to the right or to the left to seek a ford. Best of all, on the side of the track remote from the stream, the ground rose so steeply as to form almost a precipice. Here, if anywhere, an attempt to throw the party into confusion might succeed, and the idea of a plan to do even more than that had already suggested itself to Royce.
Would he be able to carry it out? Success depended on many conditions—the arrangements of the raiders, the nerve and quickness of his own men, a hundred and one chances. At any rate, it was worth attempting.
"Gambaru," he said to the second Hausa, "climb up to the top there, and watch for the enemy. Lie down behind a bush, so that they will not see you. When you are sure what they are going to do, slide down and tell me. John, come down to the river with me."
On reaching the bridge, Royce first ran across it to test its strength, then took out his pocket-knife, and cut as many of the plant ropes as he dared without bringing the whole structure down. John looked on in amazement.
The bridge took off from a low cliff on either side of the stream. The banks were overgrown with thick tall bushes and reeds.
"You can hide there?" said Royce, pointing to the vegetation beneath the nearer end of the bridge.
"Hide plenty all same, sah," replied John, looking puzzled and a little uneasy.
"Very well. We'll go back now, and wait for Gambaru's report. Then I'll tell you what to do."
On returning from the bridge, Royce was too impatient to remain at the river level and wait for news from Gambaru, perched on the heights above. He reflected, too, that when so much was at stake, it was better to make his own observations than to rely on an unskilled native.
"Gambaru's eyesight is no doubt better than mine," he thought, "but his judgment is not likely to be. And I've had some training in scouting."
He clambered up the steep acclivity until, somewhat out of breath, he reached Gambaru's side.
"Have you seen anything?" he asked.
"Nuffin, sah," the man replied.
Shading his eyes from the sun, Royce gazed earnestly over the country. He could see the track for nearly a mile, until it disappeared below the shoulder of the hill a few hundred yards from where he stood. There was no human being in sight.
Again and again he looked, becoming more and more restless at the non-appearance of the enemy. He began to fear that they had diverged from the track, and instead of directing their march towards the bridge, had made off in a body towards a ford.
But suddenly Gambaru touched his arm.
"Dat's dem, sah!" he cried, extending his arm. For a few moments Royce's less perfect vision failed to descry anything upon the track except what seemed to be a slight haze. But at length he was able to distinguish figures, and then he felt considerable surprise. The men he saw marching towards him were all on foot. Where were the horsemen whom he had previously seen at the head of the column?
"What uncommon luck!" he said to himself. "They seem to have left the track already, and gone to one side or the other to cross by some ford they know. It makes things easier."
He had expected the mounted men to accompany the column to the bridge, and then part from it to find the ford. That they had not done so proved, first that they were very confident, and secondly that the ford was at some considerable distance from the bridge.
The Tubus clearly expected no molestation by natives of the district, whom they, no doubt, regarded as completely cowed. It was equally clear that they intended, after making their detour by the ford, to meet the rest of the column at some spot beyond the bridge.
Taking care to keep under cover, Royce watched the procession until the last man appeared. All the horsemen had gone. He made out that there was a vanguard of about half a dozen armed men, and another half a dozen brought up the rear. At intervals along the column there were about the same number, acting as escort to the prisoners. The vanguard marched some two hundred yards ahead of the rest, who were strung out over at least half a mile. They marched very slowly.
It was a long time before Royce was able to distinguish the figure of his friend. He almost feared that Challis had been taken to the ford, still tied to the saddle; and it gave him a thrill of joy when at last he observed the white-clad form, about half-way down the column.
Royce had already conceived the general idea of his ambuscade; the absence of the horsemen promised to make its working out in detail much easier than he could have hoped. These details he thought out as he watched the column slowly advancing.
His plan was to let the vanguard pass over the bridge, then to sever them from the rest of the column by cutting the remainder of the ropes, and afterwards to deal with the others as circumstances might dictate. It was this last part which had given him most anxiety. Now, however, he rapidly made up his mind to attempt an operation which had been suggested by the nature of the ground.
The track, it will be remembered, made a sharp bend just where it descended to the river. On one side was the river itself, thickly fringed with rushes; on the other, the steep and almost precipitous slope. It depended on the nerve and the quickness of Gambaru whether he could take advantage of that bend to carry out his scheme.
He rapidly explained to the man what was required of him, and was delighted to find how quickly it was understood, and how eager the Hausa was to assist him. Then they slid down the slope, and while Gambaru hid amid the rushes near the bend, Royce hurried to John, waiting beneath the bridge.
"Six or seven Tubus will come on to the bridge," he said. "When they have just passed the middle, but before any of them have got to the other side, cut all the ropes I have left uncut. You understand?"
"Savvy all same, sah," said John, his eyes gleaming, his lips parted in a wide grin. "Dey go plop!"
"Then run back as fast as you can and join me. There will be other work for you."
He hastened back to the bend, and concealed himself by Gambaru's side among the rushes.
It was perhaps five minutes later that the first man of the advance guard appeared round the bend. He walked straight down to the bridge-head, followed by five others. Royce watched them eagerly, his heart beating fast. Everything depended on what would happen in the next minute.
To his dismay, instead of walking at once on to the bridge, they stood in a group at the end, all talking together. Were they going to wait until the prisoners came down? If they did, it would spoil everything.
For half a minute Royce waited in a fever of suspense. Then, to his great joy, the men formed single file again and began to cross the bridge.
Now he had a new anxiety—the fear that John would not act quickly enough. But the first of the Tubus was still some yards from the farther bank when there was a slight swishing sound, a tremendous splash, and a babel of yells from the men whom the cutting of the ropes had plunged into the river.
Then John, drenched with water, but beaming with delight, came rushing up to join his master, who, with Gambaru, had left his hiding-place and stationed himself at the near side of the bend.
As Royce had expected, the shouts of the men had the effect of bringing up the nearest man of the escort at the double, leaving the group of prisoners, of which he was in charge, to follow. The moment he showed himself round the corner Royce dealt him a blow that stretched him on the ground. Gambaru, acting on Royce's instructions, instantly pounced on the man, tore the turban from his head, and calling to John to assist him, stuffed into his mouth a gag made of the linen, and pinioned his arms with strips shred from his loincloth.
Royce, meanwhile, stood waiting for the next man, at the same time watching with some anxiety the operations of his Hausas. All, perhaps, depended on their quickness. His anxiety was needless. With ready wit John perceived the nature of his master's design, and within twenty seconds the fallen Tubu was helpless and harmless.
A few moments later a second Tubu dashed round the bend. Like the first, he had left his gang of prisoners, and run ahead to discover the cause of the outcry, which had now ceased, for the men of the advance guard had been carried far down the rapid stream.
The second man was served as the first had been. A third and a fourth appeared, only to meet the same fate. Then there was a pause. Either the remaining members of the escort had not heard their comrades' yells, or the ensuing silence had reassured them.
Three-parts of the column of captives had meanwhile been left unguarded. But the wretched creatures marched slowly on. Roped together, men and women, with their captors before and behind, they did not dream of attempting to escape. They were too weary and listless to feel any curiosity about the brief noise ahead of them. There was nothing to flash a gleam of hope into their dejected minds.
The first gang of them, a full score in number, dragged their tired feet round the bend. Their heads were downcast, but a sudden exclamation from John caused some of them to look up in startled surprise. Among them were Kulana and three others of Royce's carriers.
John instantly slit the rope that fastened the first couple by the neck, and, passing along the line, set the prisoners free one after another. Dejection gave way to joy, silence to shouts and laughter.
"Take those rifles and spears," said Royce to his men, pointing to the weapons of the Tubus who had been laid low. "Kulana, tell these prisoners to stand aside by the river bank and keep quiet."
All this had been done out of sight of the rest of the column. In a few minutes the second gang came up. These were liberated like the first; there were three more of Royce's Hausas among them.
Again there was an interval; then the third gang appeared, and Royce thrilled with delight when he saw Challis among them.
"Here I am, old man," he called.
Challis smiled feebly, and Royce was shocked to see the change in his friend. His cheeks were pale and haggard, his eyes sunken and unnaturally bright; his figure shrunken and bent.
"I'm nearly done for," he murmured, as Royce released him.
"Poor old chap! But we'll soon have you right again. Just rest here until we have finished our job. John, get some water for Massa Chally."
He supported Challis to the foot of the grassy slope, and settled him comfortably there. Then he returned to the bend.
In due order the rest of the prisoners came along, with the last two members of the escort. When these had been dealt with, only the six men of the rearguard remained to be disposed of.
Wishing to avoid a fight, Royce considered how to complete his work. There would not be time to disarm each of the men in turn as they came round the bend. An idea occurred to him. He ordered the whole party of released prisoners to dispose themselves amid the tall rushes along the river bank, and the Hausas to carry down the fallen Tubus. He himself assisted Challis to reach a place of concealment. Thus, when the rearguard rounded the bend, there was no one in sight along the open path.
The Tubus halted in amazement when their eyes fell on the broken bridge. They looked this way and that in search of the prisoners, and Royce, watching them through the rushes, feared that they might turn tail and retreat. But after a few minutes they hastened forward, scanning the farther bank to see if by some unknown means the prisoners had been able to cross the river.
When they had almost reached the bridge-head, Royce stepped quickly from his hiding-place with the armed Hausas, and ordered John to call to the Tubus. At the shout they swung round, and saw facing them a white man and seven Hausas covering them with rifles.
John called to them to surrender and throw down their arms. For a moment they hesitated; then, recognising that between the rifles and the river there was no escape, they cast their own weapons on the ground and made signs of submission.
At Royce's instruction John ordered them to move away along the bank of the river. Then six of the Hausas advanced, took their rifles, and returned. And then the whole band of liberated prisoners sprang up from among the rushes, and the place rang with their shouts of delight.
"Now for the next move," said Royce to Challis. "Feel better, old man?"
"Much! It's so good to see you again. But I'm fairly crocked."
"Never mind that. You'll be all right after a rest. We mustn't lose any time, though. Can you tell me how far back the horsemen left you?"
"Two or three miles, I think. They went off to the left; of course I didn't know why, though I see now."
"Well, there are about thirty of them, aren't there? They have probably crossed the river by this time, higher up, and are waiting somewhere ahead. We can't tell how long they will wait before they become uneasy, but no doubt when they do they will ride to the bridge. Finding it broken down, they will probably think that the whole party is making for the ford, and will very likely ride back and round to meet them. That ought to give us several hours."
"Little enough if they discover what has really happened."
"Yes; they've a great advantage of us in their horses. There's only one thing to be done. With only fourteen rifles we can't fight them. We must get back as quickly as we can. What luck to recover all our baggage!"
"There's food, too; not very much, certainly, which shows that the Tubus aren't far from their own grounds."
"True, and their tribe may number hundreds for all we know. It's a ticklish position for us. But we concealed near your camp the food we brought with us. We must all get back as quickly as possible and secure that. I only hope that we shan't be pursued, for we should stand no chance at all against mounted men."
Royce wasted no time. First of all he had the six men of the rearguard tied up like their comrades and laid at the edge of the rushes, where they would be discovered by their friends when they returned to the bridge.
Then he selected four of the Hausas to carry Challis on a litter made of their rifles. Soon the whole party was marching back along the track, John leading with six of the men armed with rifles, Royce bringing up the rear with the remainder.
There was a remarkable change in the demeanour of the negroes. Whereas before they had marched slowly, listlessly, they now stepped out with buoyant vigour. Freedom gave them new strength. The loads had been distributed among them, so that each man's burden was light; and they pressed on untiringly, only eager to get back to their homes.
Again and again Royce looked back anxiously along the track. There was no sign of pursuit. Without halting a moment the party marched on until nightfall, and then encamped, worn out, but happy, for they were pretty sure that no attack would be made on them during the dark hours. Nevertheless, Royce arranged for the guarding of the camp through the night by the Hausas in turn.
He exchanged notes with Challis about all that had happened since they parted.
"I've one hope," he said. "It is that the Tubus, knowing they have white men to deal with, will not molest us further. They have experience of what white men can do, because their lands are on French territory."
"But the French have little control over them, judging by their raids," replied Challis. "I fear we can't reckon on being left alone. They will be enraged at the loss of a fine haul of slaves, and the men we left tied up will tell them that there are only two of us. Besides, that man you call Goruba has a score against you. It is clear to me now that at first he mistook me for you."
"The whole thing is sickening," said Royce. "It looks as though our prospecting for tin is at an end. We can't proceed with hostile savages hovering about us. But we've much to be thankful for."
As soon as it was light they broke up camp and resumed the march. The long rest had greatly benefited Challis, whom, however, Royce would not allow to walk.
The condition of some of his men made Royce anxious; but the negro has great endurance, and the hope of reaching safety helped the men to keep up.
There was still no sign of pursuit, and Royce grew more and more cheerful as time went on. In the afternoon the party arrived at Challis's dismantled camp. In order to prevent a raid upon the provisions, Royce had ordered John and Gambaru not to mention where they were hidden. On reaching the spot, he led the main body of the prisoners some little distance beyond, and commanded them to rest on the ground until food was brought to them.
The calabashes were found just as John had left them. Food was served out to the whole party—sparingly, for it was impossible to tell when another supply could be obtained.
During the meal, Royce discussed the position with Challis. They decided to give the prisoners the opportunity of returning to their homes. When it was put to the poor negroes, most of them, including all the women, set off at once in different directions. But a group of the men hung back.
"Dey want to stay with Massa," John explained.
"But I don't want them. We shall have to go back to the coast."
"Dat make um berry jolly, sah," said John. "Houses burnt; no place can go; dey like berry much go with Massa."
"What do you say to that, Tom?" Royce asked of Challis.
"They had much better stay in their own country. But I suppose we can hardly turn the poor fellows away. Let them come; I daresay they'll be tired of it long before we reach Akassa."
"We'll start in about an hour, then—unless——"
"Unless what?"
"Well, the idea of chucking things up when we've come so many hundreds of miles makes me sick. I was wondering whether after all we couldn't make our way into French territory, and persuade the authorities to back us up."
Before Challis could reply, there came a shout from Gambaru, who had been stationed to keep watch.
"What does he say, John?" asked Royce.
"Him see horses, sah."
Royce sprang up, and ran to a stretch of rising ground from which the country northward was visible for some miles. One glance was enough. The negro horsemen were in pursuit.
Stooping so as to be as little visible as possible, Royce doubled back. It was clear that to march southward with a mounted enemy on their heels would be to court destruction. To take refuge in the bush or the woodland would merely postpone the disaster for a short time. What could be done?
An idea flashed into his mind. Was there time to reach the fort in which John and he had spent that unforgettable night? All depended on the number of the horsemen he had just seen. If they were the men who had forded the river, unreinforced, there was a bare chance.
By the time he regained the camp Royce had made up his mind.
"John, tell these men to carry the food and baggage into the forest yonder," he said. "You must lead them. We will make for the fort. Give Mr. Challis your rifle."
It was some minutes before the released prisoners, laden with their bundles, had got under way. Meanwhile, Royce drew up the Hausas in line, and, facing towards the oncoming horsemen, moved backward slowly towards the forest.
The carriers had not yet gained the shelter of the trees when the Tubus, some thirty in number, broke from cover and charged down upon the little party. Royce was at one end of the line, Challis at the other.
"Don't fire until I give the word," said Royce.
The horsemen rode on with shrill yells, firing as they came. But their aim was wild, and no one was hit. Slowly withdrawing, Royce kept his eye fixed on them, whispering:
"Steady! Steady! Wait for the word."
The Hausas were panting with excitement, but not a man of them lifted his rifle. At last, when the horsemen were little more than two hundred yards away, Royce dropped on his knee.
"Now, boys!" he said.
Following his example, the Hausas fired. It was a somewhat ragged volley, but at the short range almost every shot told. Many saddles were emptied; some of the enemy drew rein; others galloped on, to be met by a second volley, which completely broke the charge. The survivors wheeled their horses and dashed madly back towards the bushes from behind which they had emerged.
"Now, boys, with me!" cried Royce.
He led them at the double across the open space into the belt of woodland which John with his party had already entered. His stand had given them a respite, but there could be little doubt that this troop of the enemy was merely an advance guard, for Goruba was not among them. Everything now depended on whether the fort could be reached before Goruba came up with a much larger force.
"Step out as quickly as possible, boys," said Royce. "Their horses won't be much good to them if we get into the fort. You have done well."
John, the headman, was very intelligent. His sense of locality and direction appeared to be good. But Royce felt a little anxious about his ability to act as guide in their march towards the fort. The man had only visited it once. Hurrying to the head of the column, he said:
"You are quite sure you can find the way?"
"Nebber lose it, sah!" replied John, with a gurgling laugh at his own simple joke. "Savvy way all same quite correct."
"Very well. Remember that we all depend on you. You will save time by getting some of these new men to take turns with our boys in carrying the stuff. I leave you to arrange that."
The party now consisted of more than forty men. John went ahead with two or three of his original gang and the released prisoners, who numbered over a score. Some distance in the rear came Royce and Challis with the rest of their boys, armed.
"I'm a little doubtful whether we are doing the right thing," Royce remarked to his companion.
"Why?" asked Challis.
"Because I'm out of my element. I don't know in the least how these Tubus are likely to act. If they were a civilised enemy, I should be sure that the check we have just inflicted would not choke off the pursuit. In that case we should be doing the right thing—the only thing, in fact, to avoid extermination."
"You mean that if we have choked them off, we ought to be hurrying away to the south?"
"That's it. My experience in field days with the Scouts and the O.T.C. doesn't help much now."
"I'm not so sure of that," said Challis. "I think you have done jolly well so far."
"Well, looking at matters from the worst point of view, and assuming that the Tubus will still come after us, I don't see that we could do better than we are doing. The difficulty is this: if we get into the fort, we escape immediate destruction, but we are in no position to stand a siege. Our ammunition will hold out a good while, but our food won't."
"Still, we shall gain a little time. Perhaps they won't pursue us farther. If they do, they may sheer off when they find us behind defences. Let us hope for the best."
They were marching through thin forest on more or less undulating ground. In some places, while the trees and bush offered few obstacles to men marching on foot, they would considerably impede horsemen. In others, the country was so open that mounted men would gain on them.
Whenever they passed over stretches of open ground, they would halt for a few minutes, and scan the country behind for signs of the enemy. It was on such clear spaces that most was to be feared.
In the forest land the party had a certain advantage over mounted pursuers. They could avail themselves of cover far more effectually than was possible for horsemen. They could move nearly as fast, and more safely and secretly. A tree or a bush that would conceal a man on foot might give little cover to a horse and its rider.
They had marched for two or three hours, and had just halted on the brink of a stream for rest and refreshment, when Royce, mounting to the crest of a low hillock, caught sight of three or four horsemen amid the scrub far in their rear, on the other side of the stream.
He watched them anxiously, hoping that they were not the forerunners of a more numerous body. In a few minutes his worst anticipations were confirmed. At a little distance behind the small group of horsemen stretched a long column, vastly more numerous than the band whom he had checked and put to flight. There could be no doubt that a large force of Tubus was in hot pursuit.
With a quick eye Royce examined the ground, calculating the chances of making a stand. The hillock was covered with brushwood that gave excellent cover; the enemy, on the other hand, before they could reach the stream, must pass over a wide space of almost open land.
They had evidently descried the fugitives. Royce felt very uneasy as he caught fleeting glimpses of horsemen moving among the tall grass for some distance up and down stream. It was clear that they were taking advantage of their superior numbers to try to outflank him. There was no time to be lost if a successful resistance were to be made.
He shouted to Challis to bring all the men from the low ground up the hillock.
"We must try to make a stand here," he said. "If we go on we are bound to be ridden down."
He placed the unarmed men well to the rear, and posted the others in a crescent line behind the scrub on the crest of the hillock, facing the enemy.
"Lie flat on your faces," he said, "and fire when I give the word."
The Tubus had been advancing in column at a trot, but within a few hundred yards of the hillock they opened out into line, and came on at a gallop with fierce cries. In the centre was a gigantic negro whom Royce recognised as Goruba.
The Hausas kept absolute silence, awaiting their leader's command. It came when the Tubus were no more than two hundred yards distant. The rifles flashed; several of the horsemen fell; some halted behind the largest bushes near to them; others turned and galloped to the shelter of a clump of trees.
Royce rose on his knees, and peering over the brushwood, anxiously scanned the farther bank up and down stream. In both directions the flanking movement was continuing, and what was more serious, in response to a mighty shout from Goruba, whose tall form could be seen threading its way between the bushes in the distance, the Tubus dismounted, and tethering their horses, began to work their way forward on foot.
Royce tried to pick off the leader, who was clearly something of a strategist. But the negro took such skilful advantage of the bushes that Royce was never able to get a clear shot at him.
His intention was obvious. It was to hold the party in front, while his men crept round on each flank, and enveloped them.
"We run the risk of being surrounded," Royce called to Challis at the other end of the line; "there's nothing for it but to retreat."
To retreat, even with a disciplined force, is, as Royce knew, one of the most hazardous operations of warfare. The risks were tenfold with his Hausas, none of whom had served in the West African Rifles, who have become such excellent soldiers under the training of their British officers. But they were a compact little band, all devoted to him, and he decided to take the risk.
First sending word to the unarmed men to make all speed to the rear with their loads, he divided his little force into two parties.
"You see that ridge yonder?" he said to Challis, pointing to a bush-covered position some distance away. "Fall back to that slowly with your lot. I'll join you as soon as I can."
Challis set off. Meanwhile Royce retained his position, and kept up a steady fire on the enemy as they advanced, creeping on yard by yard under cover of the bushes.
"Whenever you see a man, shoot!" said Royce to the Hausas. "Don't shoot without marking your man."
The Tubus made no use of their firearms. Royce and his men were hidden from them by the brushwood, and they did not waste their shots on an enemy whom they could not see. No doubt, Royce reflected, this was a mode of warfare to which they were unaccustomed. They were used to carry all before them in a dashing charge, and he wondered at their persistence under the new conditions.
Presently a shrill whistle from the rear announced that Challis had taken up his position on the ridge. The space between was a long undulation, only a few yards of which, at the rearward end, were in view of the enemy.
"Now, boys, run!" said Royce.
Heading his men, he sprinted down the incline, rushed up the farther acclivity, and dashed past Challis and his party, calling to Challis to hold the Tubus until he had gained a new position still farther to the rear.
He noticed a clump of trees a little to the right, nearer the bank of the river, and made straight for that. As he ran towards it, he came within view of the horsemen working round on the left flank. They immediately wheeled round, and galloped hard in pursuit.
But their course brought them below the ridge on which, all unknown to them, Challis and his band lay concealed. As they rode past, within range of about a hundred yards, a sudden volley on their right flank sent some of them reeling to the ground. The rest, taken all aback, swerved to the left, and dashed frantically away towards their main body, who had now become aware that the hillock was deserted, and were surging up it.
"Well done, Tom!"
The ringing words came faintly from the rear. Challis brushed his sleeve across his sweating brow, and ordered his men to run with him.
It was something to have gained half-an-hour without the loss of a man.
Taking advantage of the flight of the flanking party, Royce pushed on as soon as he was rejoined by Challis, in order to gain a denser portion of the forest, where the pursuers would be much more impeded than his own men.
He had two other reasons. The carriers had gone on by themselves, without guidance, and it was probable that they would take a wrong direction. Further, there was a possibility that in the absence of the white men they would be seized with panic, and stampede, leaving their loads. The Hausas could not at once carry and fight, and all the fighting strength would be needed if the enemy still came on.
It seemed that the double check which the Tubus had suffered had daunted them, at any rate for the time being; for Royce, looking back, saw no sign of their having crossed the ridge.
About ten minutes later he came up with the carriers, who, on reaching the edge of the thicker woodland, had prudently halted from fear of losing the way. John again went ahead with them as guide, Challis following at a short interval with his section, and Royce with the remainder acting as rearguard.
The march through the forest entailed a disadvantage which almost outweighed its advantages from the point of view of security. It was impossible to see what the enemy were doing. They might have given up the chase; they might be pressing on in the rear; they might still be working round on the flanks, avoiding the woodland area, and outspeeding the fugitives on more open ground.
For this reason Royce forced the pace as much as possible. From his rather hazy recollection the fort was still five or six miles away, a distance which he could scarcely hope to cover under three hours.
By degrees the forest thinned, and after about two hours' marching it opened upon the lake which Royce had skirted on his return from the village. By this time everybody was tired and hungry.
"We must take a spell of rest," he said to Challis. "I think it's scarcely likely the Tubus have come through the forest after us."
"I'm glad enough," replied Challis. "A little more of this, and I shall crock up again."
"Poor old chap! We must avoid that. It's certainly hard on you after what you've gone through. Down loads, John. Serve out a meal. The boys can drink from the lake; but let them beware of crocodiles."
"A thing has occurred to me," said Challis, as he sat with Royce waiting until John had roasted some nuts for them. "Will Goruba suspect that we are making for the fort, and get there first?"
"I don't think so. He is more likely to suppose that we are returning to the village where we got our supplies. This is the direct route towards it; the fort lies more to the left."
"That relieves my mind. But it's a pity we can't tell what the enemy are doing."
"I'll go reconnoitring presently. The fort can't be more than a mile or two away, and as it stands on an eminence it ought to be visible from the cliff over there."
He pointed to the high ground which bordered one side of the lake.
"I'm inclined to think they have given it up," he continued. "Negroes aren't very persevering as a rule, and they've had enough to damp their spirits. It would be absurd to look for the same persistence in them that you would expect in a civilised and disciplined enemy.... Well, John," he added, as the Hausa came up with some roasted nuts spread on broad leaves, "is this the best you can do for us?"
"Not good dinner all same, sah," said John, with a rueful look. "Get rabbit some day."
"Yes, there's plenty of game about the fort, isn't there? Which is lucky for us, considering that we have so many more mouths to feed."
Poor as the fare was, they ate it with a good appetite. Then Royce rose.
"I'll come with you," said Challis. "I'm curious to take a look at this fort of yours."
"Come along, then. It's only about two hundred yards to the top of the cliff. John will give us warning if anything happens."
Taking their rifles they set off, walking round the margin of the lake. On their left stretched an open grassy space, beyond which was the forest from which they had lately emerged.
The ground rose gradually. They were halfway up the ascent to the cliff when Royce stopped suddenly.
"What on earth's that?" he said.
They halted, puzzled to account for a strange noise which seemed to proceed from the forest on their left. At first a dull rumble, it grew in a few seconds to a succession of heavy thuds, becoming louder moment by moment, and mingled with sharp cracks like pistol shots.
"It can't be the Tubus charging through the trees," said Challis.
A shout from behind caused them to turn their heads. The men had leapt to their feet, and were standing in a huddled group, with every sign of fear. One, a young negro from among the released prisoners, was sprinting towards them at full speed.
"We had better go back," said Royce, "or they'll get into a panic. The row is terrific. A thousand cavalry couldn't make such an uproar.... Great Scott!"
Through the leafy screen of the forest a hundred yards away there had emerged a large elephant, plunging forward at a lumbering gallop with trunk uplifted. In another fraction of a second the whole of the light timber and brushwood at the edge of the forest appeared to dissolve, and a wild mob of scores of elephants burst like an enormous breaker upon the open space.
Petrified for a moment with amazement, the two Englishmen became suddenly alive to their peril. Whether they went on in the direction intended, or returned to their men, they would equally cut across the front of this stampeding herd and must be overwhelmed.
"Straight for the edge of the cliff!" cried Royce.
They dropped their rifles and dashed to the right. It was forty or fifty yards to the edge of the cliff; the elephants were already only about half that distance behind them, gaining moment by moment. The ground shook under the tremendous charge of the maddened beasts. To the fleeing men it seemed that the breath from the gaping mouths scorched them.
A small spur of the cliff jutted to the left. The runners swung round on to this and without a moments' pause took a header into the lake twenty feet below.
When they came up to the surface they had to fight for breath in a cauldron of broken water. They were both good swimmers, or they would never have survived the sort of Niagara swirl in which they were now hurled about and buffeted.
Only their instinctive leap to the left before they made the dive had saved them from destruction. It had prevented the elephants from falling on top of them, for some of the great beasts, charging straight ahead in a blind fury, had plunged headlong over the brink into the lake.
The turmoil of the water soon subsided, and the swimmers, on regaining the use of their faculties, found themselves in the company of the scattered herd, all swimming in search of a landing-place.
In a few moments Royce caught at a branch of an overhanging tree, and both he and Challis drew themselves up among the foliage, and watched the ungainly animals swim by.
"Hope it's cooled their rage," said Royce in gasps. "We've had a narrow squeak."
"Yes, indeed! Under several tons of elephant flesh we should have been pretty well flattened out. What made them stampede, I wonder?"
"Our scent, perhaps. I hope they weren't started by the Tubus."
"We had better get back. It will be rather a feat to climb the cliff, by the look of it."
They crept along the tree to the place where it sprang from the cliff, then clambered up the steep face with the aid of straggling plants and knobby projections.
When their heads appeared over the edge, there were loud shouts of joy, and John came rushing up at the head of the whole party of negroes.
"Fink you gone dead, sah," he said, his broad face beaming. "All alive and safe and sound, and always merry and bright. Yoi-aloo! Hurray!"
"Yes, we're all right," said Royce. "Is that my rifle?"
"All gone smash, sah," returned John, lifting the rifle which he had picked up from the ground. "Massa Chally's all right, sah."
The lock and barrel of Royce's rifle had been smashed beyond repair by the ponderous hoofs. Challis's was unbroken.
"Tibu, sah—where he go?" asked John, as they marched down to their camping place.
"Who's Tibu?"
John explained that when the startling sounds came from the forest, Tibu, one of the released negroes, had recognised them at once as made by stampeding elephants, and had run up the cliff to warn the Englishmen.
"Of course; I saw him just before we ran," said Challis. "Let us turn back and look for him."
But though they spent some time in searching the cliff above and below, they found no trace of Tibu. He was never seen again. It could only be surmised that, like the Englishmen, he had fled towards the edge of the cliff, but, less lucky than they, had fallen into the water directly beneath the elephants, and been crushed to death.
Only a few of the elephants had plunged into the lake. The majority had skirted it and disappeared into the woodland beyond.
"John, send a man to fetch Kulana," said Royce. "It is time we were off."
Before the Hausa dispatched by John had gone out of sight, he met Kulana hurrying back from the northward post to which he had been sent to watch the progress of the enemy.
Kulana reported that a small party of Tubus had caught sight of him as they emerged from a clump of trees some distance away. They had pursued him and almost run him down when the rush of stampeding elephants caused them to wheel their horses and flee for their lives. He himself only escaped being trampled to death by taking shelter behind a large tree, where he had remained until the storm swept by.
Learning from John that the course taken by the elephants was almost the direction of the fort, Royce had an idea.
"Why not follow in the track of the elephants?" he said to Challis. "They will clear the Tubus off our line of march, at least for a time, and if we march rapidly we may get through before they have rallied."
"We can try, but I doubt it," replied Challis. "The elephants are going at such a thundering speed that they are miles away by this time, and the Tubus won't have any reason to be afraid of them. Still, there's nothing else to be done, and we had better start at once."
In a few minutes the baggage was loaded on to the released prisoners, and the party set off, John leading the way with Royce and half the Hausas, the carriers following, and Challis with the rest of the armed men bringing up the rear.
There was no difficulty in following the track of the elephants. It was as though a tornado had swept over the country. A path several yards wide had been cut through the scrub and the thin forest. Tall grass and shrubs had been crushed flat, saplings broken off like matchwood. Only large trees had survived the rush, and the ground was strewn with the lower branches of these.
Royce went a good distance ahead of the carriers. They marched as quickly as possible, but, laden as they were, their pace did not exceed the rate of two and a half miles an hour. If the fort, as Royce believed, were still about five miles away, he could not but confess to himself that Challis's doubt was justified. He repressed his anxiety and impatience, keeping as careful a lookout as the nature of the country permitted.
When they had followed the track for a little more than a mile, John caught sight of an object in the distance that caused him to halt. At first he was unable to determine what the object was, but when Royce persuaded him to advance a few paces he declared excitedly that it was a fallen horse.
Royce ordered his men to extend and scout carefully forward. Coming presently to the horse he saw that it was dead, and beyond it, hitherto hidden from sight, lay a dead negro, his body terribly crushed.
What had happened was clear. The hapless rider had been caught by the elephants, and overthrown before he could extricate himself from the undergrowth. With a shudder Royce passed on.
Some little distance farther on John halted again.
"What is it now?" asked Royce, whom the slow progress was making more and more uneasy.
"No go fort way, sah," replied the man. "Fort dat way, elephants go dis."
He pointed first straight ahead through the forest, then to the right, the direction in which the elephants had rushed. It was clear from the marks of devastation that the beasts had not yet checked their furious pace. Royce wondered what had caused a panic which was so persistent.
"We had better go after the elephants," he said after a few moments' consideration. "It is out of our way, you say, but it will be at any rate clear of Tubus."
Accordingly they struck off to the right. The forest here was somewhat denser, and though the small trees and undergrowth had been pretty well levelled by the elephants' ponderous bodies, the tangle made marching very difficult. Royce halted several times in order that he might not altogether lose touch with the carriers behind.
After another half-hour's tramp the course of the elephants took another turn to the right.
"We simply daren't follow it any longer," said Royce, mopping his wet brow. "It will take us much too far out of our way. In fact, I daresay you have lost your way already."
John did not repeat his little joke. His downcast expression indicated plainly enough that he was now at fault. He glanced up at the sun through the over-arching trees, and at last hesitatingly suggested a direction in which they might proceed.
"Unless you have been quite wrong all along, we can't be very far from the fort now," said Royce. "But as we couldn't see it for the trees we might go right past it without knowing. Perhaps the country opens out, however, so let us try it."
Leaving the track they plunged through the forest, dodging the thorns and forcing their way through the entanglements of undergrowth and creepers. It was very hot work, and Royce felt as tired as if he had marched twenty miles on end.
After a quarter of an hours' toilsome progress they came suddenly to the edge of the forest; and there, almost straight ahead, less than a mile away, they saw the fort, a brown, sunlit patch on the hillock.
"Savvy all same, sah," cried John in delight.
"Yes, you are either very clever or very lucky," said Royce. "I hope our troubles are now over for a time. We must wait here, just within the forest line, until the others come up."
He leant against a tree, looking out over the space of rolling country between him and his goal. It was open save for scrub; there was no sign of man or beast.
But he had waited only a few minutes when two negro horsemen came out from behind a distant clump of trees, crossed the open space, and disappeared to the westward.
Royce's anxiety returned with doubled force. It was almost certain that these Tubus had been lurking on the watch in the neighbourhood of the fort. They might indeed have been sent ahead by Goruba to ascertain whether the fort was yet occupied. In all probability a larger party of their people was not far away.
It seemed hours before the carriers came up. Challis was close behind them with his party.
"Thank goodness!" exclaimed Royce. "There's the fort, as you see. But we must let the men rest awhile, and then make a dash for it."
"Why not go straight on?"
"I saw two Tubus cross yonder. If we're to get there safely we must put on our best speed; we can't go at this terrible dawdle—less than two miles an hour lately."
"I am sure we had better go on. If the men drop their loads they will become noisy, and the Tubus may hear them. Let's take the bull by the horns, old man."
"Very well, then. We must keep close together; it would be fatal to get scattered. But we'll go in the same order. John, tell the carriers they must move quickly and silently. Now, are you ready?"
He led the way from the forest into the scrub, the rest of the party forming a compact column behind him. Keeping an eye fixed on the clump behind which the Tubus had disappeared, he made straight for the fort.
As yard after yard of the ground was covered, he became more and more hopeful of gaining the shelter of the walls unmolested. But when the party was within less than half a mile of their goal there were shouts in the distance. Immediately afterwards, from the forest on the left, a cloud of horsemen dashed out and galloped straight towards them. At the same time a smaller party, farther ahead, rode diagonally across the open ground to cut them off.
It was a critical moment. There was just time, Royce thought, to reach the small belt of woodland below the hillock. Calling on the carriers to hurry, he placed the Hausas to guard their flank.
"Tell the men to go straight up to the fort," he said to John, adding to Challis: "We must try to keep the enemy off until the men are safe."
Spurred on by fear, the carriers quickened their pace. The Tubus, uttering fierce yells, dashed on, firing their guns aimlessly. Tense with anxiety, Royce measured with his eye the distances between his party, the woodland, and the horsemen, and it was with a gasp of relief that he gained the trees while the Tubus were still a hundred yards away.
The two bands of horsemen closed in, and rode towards the woodland. At the edge of the belt Royce had drawn up his little party of riflemen. They fired two volleys in quick succession at the charging crowd. Remembering what they had suffered in the previous attacks, the Tubus, seeing several of their numbers fall, checked their horses and withdrew a short distance.
"Goruba isn't with them," said Royce.
But at that moment the tall negro came galloping from the rear, and, brandishing a huge scimitar, began to harangue his hesitating men.
"Come!" said Royce quietly.
Without waiting to see the inevitable result of Goruba's furious words, he withdrew his men quickly through the wood, splashed through the little stream that bathed the foot of the hillock, and climbed up to the fort. The carriers had already disappeared within the walls.
"Only by the skin of our teeth!" panted Challis, as he stumbled into the entrance.
"And this is only the beginning of things!" returned Royce. "What is to follow?"
Tired out by their long march on insufficient food, the men were in no condition to withstand a determined attack; and Royce felt that all was lost if Goruba pushed on at once at the head of his men.
But apparently Goruba had no such intention. He led his men, indeed, almost to the base of the hillock; but then, discovering that the retiring party had entered the fort, he swung round to the left, rode along the bank of the stream, and disappeared among the trees a quarter of a mile away.
"That gives us a breathing space," said Royce. "It won't last long. If Goruba was savage at finding me alone here, he will be still more enraged now. Besides, he can't afford to own himself beaten. If the natives in the district were to learn that the dreaded Tubus are not invincible, his prestige would be gone. You may be sure that he is determined to destroy us."
"This place is half in ruins," said Challis, who had thrown himself down, and looked pale and worn. "If he came on in earnest, we should be wiped out. He must have three or four hundred men with him."
"It's clear that he has learnt respect for our rifles. And he needn't hurry. All he has to do is to invest us, and in a short time he can starve us out. Our food won't last more than about ten or twelve days, however economical we are. I see John is getting a meal ready. When the men have had a feed and a rest, we had better set some of them to strengthen our defences."
"It's very lucky that we have got our camp equipment."
"Yes; I only wish we had a few more spades. We must build up an earthwork where the walls are broken down, and with only three spades it will take a long time."
"And the Tubus can snipe the men as they work."
"I don't think they will do much damage. Their weapons appear to be poor, and they are certainly not good shots.... I'm sorry I led you into this mess, Tom."
"Tosh! I'm glad. I've had a very easy, comfortable life up to the present, and I'm inclined to think too much comfort is bad for one. Hardship and danger test a man, and it's up to us to show that we've something of the old British spirit left."
Here John came up with some tinned meat on an enamelled plate and a few biscuits.
"Boys want water, sah," he said. "Very dry."
"Perhaps there is a well in the place," Challis suggested.
"I'll go and see," said Royce. "Stay where you are—you need rest more than I do."
In a courtyard in the centre of the fort he discovered a well, but it was filled up with rubbish.
"There's nothing for it but to go down to the stream," he said, returning to Challis.
"A risky job, in full view of the Tubus," his friend answered.
"We must chance that. Without water we can't hold out a day. If only two or three creep down on the north side they may escape notice. All the Tubus appear to be on the south."
"We two had better do it, with John."
"Not a bit of it! John shall go, and Gambaru; but only one of us. It won't do for both to risk being potted."
"Well, I'll go," said Challis. "You are the boss; besides, you're a better shot than I."
"But, hang it, man! you've already been wounded, and I'm without a scratch. Your job is to get perfectly fit again in the shortest possible time. John, go and collect all the things that will hold water. There's our collapsible pail; you can take a meat tin or two. Hunt about the place on the chance of finding something else."
"Look here, Hugh," said Challis, rising, "I insist on taking a hand."
"Rot, I tell you! If I'm boss, you'll have to obey orders."
"I won't!"
"Mutiny, by Jove! This won't do, Tom. To settle matters without squabbling, we'll toss for it. Heads, I go; tails, you."
He spun a coin.
"Tails!" cried Challis.
"Done you! It's heads," said Royce lifting his hand.
"I might have known it—you always win the toss," Challis grumbled.
"Yes, I was born lucky," said Royce equably. "But you shan't be unemployed. Keep an eye lifting; if you see any attempt to interfere with us, you know what you must do."
John meanwhile had collected all the vessels of any size that would hold water. In addition to the collapsible pail, he had two empty meat tins which he had connected by a cord. In one of the rooms of the fort he had found a few earthenware pots, some broken and useless, one perfect, two or three with the handles chipped off.
"A rather miscellaneous lot," said Royce, viewing the collection. "But they'll do. Just sling a cord round the necks of those that have lost their handles, John. We'll take two apiece. They'll hold enough for the present."
Their preparations were soon completed. Royce carried the pail and the two meat tins; each of the Hausas had two earthen vessels hanging by a cord over his shoulders.
Royce led the way through the building to the dilapidated wall on the north side.
"Take a good look round," he said to John. "Do you see any of the Tubus?"
John scanned the prospect from left to right. Far to the left was a patch of woodland; then a stretch of open country dotted with bushes, extending to another clump of trees almost in their front. To the right of this the ground was again open, up to the forest from which they had recently emerged.
"No Tubus, sah," said John. "Dey all plenty afraid."
"I hope they are. Now then, down to the stream with me. It will only take ten minutes there and back."
They climbed over the broken wall, and ran down the hill, making use of the sparse bushes for cover. Meanwhile Challis, unknown to Royce, had brought all the rest of the Hausas except one to the north side, and posted them there with their rifles. The last man he had left at the south side to keep a watch on the clump of trees behind which the Tubus had withdrawn.
Royce had gone three parts of the way down the hill when there was a shout in the distance, followed by a shot. He glanced ahead quickly, but none of the enemy was to be seen. A little patch of smoke hung over the trees about a quarter of a mile beyond the stream.
"They mean to surround us, then," he thought.
He quickened his pace, dodging from bush to bush, and calling to the Hausas to hurry, taking all possible cover. Since the enemy had not yet come out into the open, there might be time to fill the vessels and return before there was any serious danger.
The three men dashed down to the stream, dipped their vessels, and in less than half a minute turned back to ascend the hill. Another shot rang out, and from the wall above a volley flashed.
"Good man!" thought Royce.
Then he became aware that one of the meat tins was leaking badly. By the time he reached the fort all the water it contained would have run away.
"Botheration!" he said to himself, quite forgetting his danger in the annoyance caused by this discovery.
But a moment later he knew that the danger was even greater than he had supposed. From his left came a din of lusty shouting. He heard a single rifle-shot, farther away than the volley which had just been fired. The meaning of it flashed upon him. The main body of the Tubus, warned by the shout and the shots, had left the position to which they had retired, and were dashing across the open to attack the fort on the south side.
Behind him, too, the enemy was coming on. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that a small band of horsemen has issued from the wood and were galloping towards him.
"Quick, boys!" he cried.
But the weight of the vessels and the awkwardness of carrying them caused them to make slow progress up the hill. Shots began to fly around them. There were answering volleys from the wall of the fort, but Royce knew by the sound that some of the men who had fired before had been recalled to defend the south side.
With the Hausas he staggered on, panting for breath. It seemed a miracle that he had not yet been hit. If the Tubus had dismounted and taken aim, not one of the three would have been left alive. But, true to their fighting method, they fired recklessly as they rode, no doubt hoping to ride the fugitives down.
At his right hand Royce heard a crash. A bullet had struck one of the earthen vessels carried by John. It was shattered. The loss of weight released the pot at the other end of the cord, and this, too, fell to the ground and was shivered to fragments.
Next moment Gambaru, who was a few paces ahead of Royce, staggered and fell. A yell of triumph rang out behind, and the Tubus rode through the stream and dashed up the hill in pursuit undaunted by the shots of the diminished band at the wall.
Gambaru did not rise. John, after his vessels had been broken, had run on, and was now almost at the wall. Royce did not hesitate. Water was precious, but more precious was the life of a man. Setting down the pail and the tins, he ran to Gambaru, stooped over him, and, discovering that he was wounded in one of his legs, helped him to rise, and assisted him to limp up the hill.
During these few moments the enemy, though the pace of their horses was checked by the incline, had rapidly diminished the gap between them and their expected victims. They had ceased to fire. It was only a question of seconds and the white man would be a prisoner in their hands.
But Royce was warned by their exultant shouts Glancing for a moment behind, he saw a dozen ferocious negroes within twenty yards of him.
"Crawl up!" he said to Gambaru.
Then, drawing his revolver, he turned to face the enemy.
When Royce turned to face the enemy, the foremost of them was only twenty yards away, urging his horse up the slope. Behind him two score of his comrades were riding up, in no sort of order.
Royce was conscious of hearing shots from behind, and of seeing two or three of the negroes reel from their saddles. Then the firing ceased, and at the same time all the Tubus leapt from their horses, and, while some held the animals, the others rushed onward on foot. They had perceived that on horseback they presented larger targets to the riflemen behind the wall. These latter could no longer fire, because Royce was now directly in line between them and the enemy.
Steadily awaiting their onset, Royce refrained from firing until the first man was no more than a dozen yards distant. Then he fired three shots in rapid succession, bringing down a man with each. But the rest did not quail. With strident yells they pressed about him, trusting in their numbers.
It was a desperate situation. Royce had only three more shots in his revolver, and he hesitated to expend his last available resources. The Tubus had few firearms, but their spears were even more formidable weapons, and against these he had no defence. He fired for the fourth time, and a fourth victim fell. Then a spear pierced his left shoulder, and he only escaped the point of another by pistolling the negro as he was in the act of thrusting.
He was about to fire his last shot, feeling that in another moment the end would come, when he heard, half unconsciously, a fierce shout behind him, and became the centre of a wild scrimmage. John, who had almost reached the wall of the fort, had turned, and, seeing his master's plight, had charged down the hill, knife in hand, into the thick of the crowd. He was a big man, and the impact of his weight overthrew two of the enemy, who staggered against their comrades, and relieved the pressure on Royce.
Seizing that brief moment, Royce snatched a spear from the hand of one of the stumbling negroes, and stood beside the faithful Hausa. But the odds were overwhelmingly against them. John's sudden onset had created only a momentary diversion. The whole crowd of Tubus were flinging themselves upon the two men, when there was a second and a louder shout. A dozen stalwarts, headed by Challis hurled themselves into the mêlée and laid about them lustily with clubbed rifles.
For a few instants the Tubus strove with fierce courage to stem this tempestuous assault. Then they gave way, turned about, and rushed down the hill towards their horses, grouped at the base. Challis and his men took a heavy toll as they swept along. The men holding the horses were seized with fright, and soon there was a wild stampede back to the shelter of the wood.
Challis was careful not to press the pursuit too far. Before the enemy had time to rally, he led his men up the hill and assisted Royce to gain the wall. John carried the pail of water, which was the only one of their vessels they brought safely home.
"Thanks, old man," said Royce, when Challis returned to him. "It was a very near thing."
"It's better to be born lucky than rich, they say," said Challis; "and certainly it was a great piece of luck that I was able to intervene at the critical moment. I had taken half the men to the other side, to repel what seemed to be an attack there; but the Tubus evidently assumed that their friends had a good thing on this side, for they swerved to the right. Look, they have just joined the others in the wood."
"They have more bravery than generalship, that's clear," said Royce.
"Yes, there are enough of them to crush us to nothing, if they were properly led."
"There are more of them than ever. Other parties must have joined them. The odds are desperate. We are only two score, all told, and less than half have rifles."
"We have the walls, at any rate. The most necessary thing is to strengthen those as well as we can."
"I must attend to your arm first," said Challis. "You can't any longer say that you haven't a scratch."
"It's not much more," said Royce, looking at his sleeve as Challis gently drew his coat off.
"More than you think. It's a nasty gash. Thank goodness we've got our medical stores safe."
He dressed the wound, and bound it up with lint; gave the same attention to Gambaru; then, placing a man on guard at each end of the fort, they sat down to discuss their position more fully.
It seemed likely that by diligent work they could strengthen their defences considerably. But for the difficulty as to water, provisions, and ammunition, they might hope to tire the enemy out, if he remained persistent. The difficulty was a very grave one. The water in the pail gave them only about a cupful each, and a second attempt to fetch more from the stream might be disastrous. Their provisions, on half rations, might last a fortnight; and, with the enemy so near, there was little chance of replenishing the larder. The ammunition amounted to about three hundred rounds per rifle—scarcely more than enough for one day's hard fighting.
"I wonder whether they will stick to it," said Challis. "What can their object be?"
"Hardly booty," replied Royce. "They know very well what our possessions are—certainly not worth heavy losses in acquiring them. It must be a question of prestige; they're afraid all their victims will rise against them if they fail here. What do you say, John? Why don't these Tubus let us alone?"
John scratched his close-clipped woolly poll and looked worried. Then he suddenly brightened.
"Dey bad plenty wicked fellas, all same," he said, with the air of one who has solved a knotty problem.
"Oh, well, that would account for anything," said Royce with a smile. "At any rate, I can think of no other explanation than the one I have suggested."
"You may be right," said Challis; "but I can't help thinking there is some other reason which we know nothing about. Time will show, perhaps."
As after events proved, Challis's guess was nearer the truth than his friend's.
During the remainder of the day there was no further attack, and Royce took advantage of the enemy's inactivity to carry out his idea of strengthening the defences. He set all the men except those on sentry duty to fill up the gaps in the broken walls, partly with earth, partly with fragments of brick and stone from the interior of the building. Fortunately, the bastions at the four corners of the fort were in good preservation, being constructed of stone. These would prove useful for enfilading fire, if the enemy should make a really determined assault.
At nightfall it occurred to Challis that they might make another attempt to get water.
"We could steal down in the dark without being seen," he said. "Besides, I've read somewhere that the negro races don't care about fighting by night. They're as much afraid of the dark as any little nervous kid—as I used to be myself ages ago."
"You don't mean it!" said Royce chaffingly.
"It's true, though. I used to lie awake for hours, fancying all sorts of hideous creatures were floating about the room, and cowering under the bedclothes in sheer terror. So much so that they gave me a light at last—and then it was worse!"
"How was that?"
"Why, they gave me one of those wretched little paraffin lamps with a very small round wick, and it used to smoke horribly and fill the room, and the smell and stuffiness caused the most dreadful nightmares—at least, that's what my mother said."
"More likely they were due to heavy suppers."
"We are safe here on that score, at any rate! ... Well, the negroes, being afraid to move in the dark, are not likely to molest us; so I vote we try for water to-night."
"John must collect some more pots, then, if he can. We'll have a shot at it."
Challis's confidence was borne out by the event. In company with John and Kulana, he stole down to the stream twice in succession, and they brought back enough water to last three or four days. Royce kept watch at the wall, and the water-carriers moved so quietly that, the night being pitch dark, he was unable either to see or to hear them beyond twenty paces.
The night was quite undisturbed, and every member of the party except the Englishmen had several hours of continuous sleep. Royce and Challis had agreed to take each two spells of sleep and two of watching, alternately; but Royce was kept wakeful by the pain of his wound, though he never let Challis know it.
When morning dawned, they looked out eagerly over the country, in hope that the enemy had gone away. For some little time it appeared that this was the case. Not a glimpse of the turbaned warriors was caught. But presently John's lynx eyes detected a movement among the distant trees which he declared was too violent to be caused by small animals, and too gentle to be caused by elephants; and a few minutes later the whinny of a horse proved his sagacity. The enemy had not retired.
But it became apparent that, whatever their motive might be, they were determined to press the siege. Taught by experience to respect the rifles of the garrison and the fearlessness of the white men, they did not venture on to the more or less open sides of the hill. But they could be seen working round the fort under cover of the woodland and the Englishmen came to the conclusion that they had formed three camps, each about six hundred yards from the walls and about twice that distance from each other.
That a watch was continually kept on the fort from these camps was clear from an occasional shot fired as a party of the enemy passed over the intervening spaces.
"It pleases them, I suppose, and doesn't hurt us," said Royce. "A negro with a gun in his hand must let it off, usefully or not."
"But they mean a serious investment," said Challis gravely. "They intend to reduce us by hunger and thirst."
"We must tackle the problem in bits," said Royce. "Take the ammunition question first; I'll give orders that the men are never to fire except at the word of command—yours or mine."
"The water supply is really the most urgent matter," returned Challis. "The Tubus are sure to discover our night sallies by and by, and then they'll no longer be safe. What about clearing out the well?"
"A good idea. We'll set about that as soon as possible. Then the food; that's only next in importance. It depends on the enemy's patience. If they are in no hurry, they can starve us out without incurring any loss by direct assault."
"And I see no chance of foraging, still less of getting any help. It's not a cheerful prospect."
"Well, we must put the best face on it. Our Hausas are jolly good, and they trust us completely. We must keep up their pecker at all costs."
With considerable labour they managed to clear the rubbish with which the well was choked. The soil beneath it was dry, but on digging farther they struck the underground spring which had originally supplied the well.
"That's first-rate!" cried Royce. "There's one part of our problem solved. We'll make an embankment, to keep the water within bounds, and have no further anxiety on that score."
Their next step was to partition the building among the various sections of the company. Royce and Challis took up their quarters in the room in which the former had slept on the occasion of his first visit. The Hausas were given a larger chamber near the south wall, and the rest of the party a half-roofed enclosure at the other end. The rainy season not having commenced, the natives would not be likely to suffer from their partial exposure.
The fort, small as it was, was too large to be defended by forty men against serious attack. To make the most of his garrison, Royce arranged that each man should have about three yards of wall to defend. If the enemy should pluck up resolution to make a simultaneous assault on all sides, they were numerous enough to throw eight or ten men against every one of the garrison, and the odds were more than sufficient for success.
The only weapons available for B Company, as Challis called the released prisoners, were the tools included in their camp equipment—mallets, hatchets, hammers, a saw, and a few tent pegs.
Though so ill provided, Royce thought that in day time the defence would have a sporting chance. The rifles could take toll of the enemy while they were advancing over the three or four hundred yards of fairly open ground beneath the fort; and even if the attack were pushed home to the walls, it would be possible to reinforce the men in the quarter where the assault was hottest.
A night attack would be much more difficult to meet. Covered by the darkness, the enemy might approach to within a few yards of the walls without being detected, if they moved quietly; without suffering much loss, if they were heard. At the walls their numbers would tell far more effectually than in daylight. With such odds in their favour, it would seem impossible to keep them out. And if once they got in, the garrison must inevitably be overwhelmed.
But the Englishmen had little fear of a night attack. It was more likely that the Tubus would move in the twilight of early morning. This would be little less formidable. They might creep a long way up the hill before they were seen, and the chance of checking their rush would be small.
From the defensive point of view the weakest spot in the surroundings of the fort was a patch of rocky scrub-covered ground about a hundred and fifty yards away on the north-east side. It provided good cover for an advance up the hill, and left only a short distance for the final charge. From the attackers' point of view the disadvantage of this spot was that it was small in extent, and would give cover to only a limited number of men.
The day having passed undisturbed, Royce could not help feeling a little anxious about the night. What if the Tubus should attack, after all? He decided to keep half the garrison on guard while the rest slept, and to send three or four of the most trustworthy Hausas some way down the hill to act as scouts and give warning of any movement of the enemy.
Both he and Challis, during their spells of watching, went round and round the walls with the regularity of soldiers doing sentry-go. Eyes and ears were tensely on the alert; not a sound escaped them. The little various noises made by birds, insects, and small animals darting through the scrub were sometimes smothered by sounds from the distant camp. At one time the din was so loud that Challis, who was on duty at the moment, was almost on the point of awakening Royce. But he reflected that warriors intending a night attack, even though savages, would have the common-sense to move quietly, and he took himself to task for what he considered a tendency to panic.
"I mustn't get jumpy," he said to himself; "but this is a great change from camping on Salisbury Plain."
In the morning, as soon as the sky began to lighten, Royce set the men to work again on repairing the walls. Presently he caught sight of some of the enemy in the distance. They were evidently watching the fort. A little later one of them fired, and at odd times during the morning there was fitful sniping whenever the workers allowed themselves to be seen above the walls. But no one was hit, and the Hausas' contempt for the Tubus' marksmanship was voiced by John.
"Dey good for nuffin, sah," he said. "You hold a bottle, me hit him; dem fellas no can hit a house."
Working in squads, the men had by midday completely blocked up the gateway, and repaired all the breaches that were dangerous.
"I feel better now," said Royce, as he sat with Challis, eating the scanty meal which had to serve them for dinner. "Of course, they could still take the place by a determined rush; but, if they attempt it, they'll suffer more heavily than if they had had the sense or the pluck to come on before we had finished."
"They'll play a waiting game," said Challis. "How long will the grub last, do you think?"
"We can eke it out for ten days or so, by going short. I wonder if one of us could run the gauntlet and make for the nearest British post?"
"It would take more than ten days to get there. Everybody would starve before help came. Besides, there are only about a dozen men in charge, and they wouldn't be strong enough to undertake an expedition such a long distance, and fight their way through some hundreds of horsemen."
"How many do you think they really muster?"
"I've never had a good enough view of them in mass; but, at a guess, I should say six hundred or so."
"They'll take some feeding."
"Yes, but they have the whole country to forage in, and I daresay there are foraging parties out in all directions. They may bring their total number up to a thousand."
"Well, old sport, if we can manage to stick it with our forty, we shall deserve at least a line or two in history."
"Skittles! I'd give a good deal not to be mentioned in your history!"
"'One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name.'"
"D'you call this glorious?"
"Don't you? I don't mean that it's glorious to lick a crowd of heathens, but I do think it's a fine thing to have been able to win the confidence of our forty men."
"So it is, and it will be a finer thing to show that we deserve it."
The day passed; dusk fell. The arrangements for the night were as before. Royce took the first watch, with half the garrison.
Challis, leaving him at his post on the north-east bastion, made his way along the passages that separated the several chambers of the building, towards his quarters, picking his way carefully in order not to trip over the fallen brick and other debris that strewed the floor.
Turning a corner, he saw in the half-light, a little way ahead, the figure of a negro cross his path from left to right. At first he thought it was John or Kulana, the only men who might have any reason to be in the neighbourhood of the white men's quarters. John looked after the food, which had been placed in an adjacent chamber for security; Kulana acted as body servant.
But it immediately occurred to Challis that neither of the men had any business there at this hour. Then he remembered that John was actually on duty with Royce. Was it possible that some other member of the party was making a private raid on the stores?
He hurried on after the man, who had passed the room in which the stores were kept and was going in the direction of the well-yard. His back was towards Challis—a broad back, belonging to a man of huge stature.
"Great snakes!" Challis inwardly ejaculated.
He quickened his pace. The man heard his steps, and glanced round; then dashed through a ruined doorway leading to the well-yard.
Challis gave a shout and rushed after him. It was now dark inside the building, and he groped about without finding the negro. His shout had brought Royce up at a run.
"What is it?" he cried anxiously.
"A strange nigger—a big fellow—Goruba?" said Challis.
"Surely not!" said Royce, flashing his electric torch. "There's no one here.'"
"He's got away. We must search the place."
Together they scoured the whole building; no trace of the man could be found. None of the garrison had left his post; every man declared solemnly that no one had entered from outside, nor gone out from within.
"If I didn't know you, old man," said Royce, "I should say you had a fit of the jumps. You think it was Goruba?"
"It looked very much like that big fellow who collared me. But how could he have got in or out?"
"It's decidedly rummy. You remember Goruba came on me suddenly, and John hadn't seen him. Strange that you should have had almost the same experience!"
"What did he come for, if it was Goruba? To spy out the position?"
"Not easy in the dark. I confess it beats me. How did the fellow get in? It was hardly dark outside, and our men must have seen him, one would think. Yet I believe them."
"We had better search for a secret passage to-morrow, though I can't think we should have missed it if there is one. One thing is certain—Goruba has some interest in this fort which we don't know. That explains the persistence of the Tubus."
"I wonder! Well, we can't do anything to-night. I only hope it hasn't made our men jumpy. It's an uncanny thing to find an enemy in your midst unawares."
"I am a silly ass," said Challis, as the two returned to the bastion.
"Why, what's the matter?" asked Royce, smiling at his companion's disgusted tone.
"Why did I shout? If I had held my tongue, we might have kept this matter from the men. As it is, they are sure to have an attack of nerves."
"Oh, well! don't worry about it. We can't always do absolutely the best thing. It's a mystery how the fellow got in, and what he was up to. We must watch him if he tries it again."
As Challis feared, the men were restless. Nobody had much sleep that night, and the Englishmen were unfeignedly glad when day dawned.
The day passed wearisomely. The enemy were seen moving about among the trees, but there was no attack.
"You see that spur of forest yonder?" said Royce in the afternoon, pointing to a clump on the north-east side of the fort. "It's only about two hundred yards away, and would be a capital vantage point for an attack. Yet it's the only bit of woodland which the enemy don't appear to occupy. I wonder why?"
"Perhaps they think it's a little too near us," suggested Challis. "It's within practically point-blank range of our rifles."
"But there are so many of them that they could afford to try a rush from that point. It's very strange. Barring an occasional sniping shot towards evening, nothing has happened from that quarter, and the sniper has never done any damage."
"The Tubus' main camp is only a little to the north of it. They may not think it worth while to occupy the second and smaller clump.... Tom, I've been thinking."
"The same old problem?"
"Yes, the part we are no nearer to solving—the food supply. It is clear we are in for a siege. The men will soon get weary, as our stores diminish. We shall be starved out inside a fortnight, even if the men don't lose heart and begin to clamour."
"You are thinking of making a sally?"
"Not exactly. Look at the position. If we stay, we starve; if we break out in a body, we shall be pursued and surrounded. But why shouldn't some of us slip out and try to get help?"
"I thought we had settled that. The nearest British station is too far away; to get to the nearest French one we should have to cross the Tubus' country."
"But what about the natives of the neighbourhood?"
"All who are not massacred are in a stew of fright, I expect. They wouldn't lift a hand against the Tubus."
"Not if one of us, either you or I, applied to them? The white man has a certain prestige, you know. Anyhow, I think it ought to be tried; in fact, it must be. I might revisit that old chap who sold us provisions."
"Or I might. It's my turn."
"Hang turns! I know the old chap."
"Why shouldn't I have the pleasure of his acquaintance? But, to avoid the eternal dispute, let's toss again."
"Right-o! I always win the toss. Heads!"
"Tails it is! Your luck is out. Fate has more respect for turns than you. I'll go this very night."
"You will want John as interpreter."
"It's a pity to reduce the garrison by two rifles, but I'm afraid it can't be helped."
"And you had better take one of B Company as guide. They are no good with the rifle. I'll get John to choose a man."
"There's one advantage to you—you'll have three fewer mouths to feed. We'll only take a little with us, and trust to chance to pick up more on the way, if we need it."
"You must wait till the moon sets. That will be rather late to-night."
"Yes. You'll let us down over the wall on the north-east, towards that clump of trees you mentioned. There's apparently no danger there, and we'll soon be under cover."
"The idea is to bring back reinforcements, of course. They must carry their own supplies. I don't think much of your chances, but I'm sure it's worth trying."
"Whether we succeed or fail, we'll come back by night. We must arrange a signal, so that you don't pot us by mistake."
"John imitates the jackal's cry to the life. If I hear three barks in quick succession, I shall know it's you."
John was quite ready to accompany "Massa Chally." Without imputing cowardice to the head-man, it is certain that he thought the plight of the garrison desperate, and was not sorry to take his chance outside rather than within the works. He selected as guide a strapping young Kanura named Mogra, who was well acquainted with the country.
They had to wait until long past midnight for the setting of the moon. Challis did not regret the delay. By the time they could start the Tubus would probably be well asleep. Every night the glow of their camp-fires could be seen at different spots round the fort, and sounds were heard far into the night from each of the camps.
On this occasion it seemed that the enemy turned in even later than usual. It was at least an hour after the moon's disappearance that silence fell upon the country. Then the little band were let down by a rope gently over the wall, on the side farthest from the gateway.
Dark though it was, Challis thought it well to crawl down the hillock until level ground was reached. Then the three stole along under cover of the bushes towards the patch of woodland.
Half-way across, Challis inadvertently kicked a loose stone, and paused, listening anxiously. There was no sound of alarm. They reached the clump, and crept through it, leaving the enemy's camp on the left, and meeting no obstacle except the undergrowth, in which they were all experienced travellers.
"I don't see why we shouldn't all have got out," said Challis to himself, feeling half-inclined to run back and persuade Royce to join him.
But the hopelessness of such an attempt was borne in upon him at once by a sound on his left. The enemy's horses were snuffling and pawing the ground, apparently between him and the campfire. Even if the garrison could leave the fort quietly enough to escape instant detection, they must move slowly, burdened with packs as they would be. Their tracks would be discovered in the morning, and the mounted Tubus could overtake them in a few hours.
Challis had just dismissed the idea of a general exodus as impracticable, when the slight sounds made by the horses swelled to a considerable noise. The snuffling became snorting and whinnying, and there mingled with it one or two human calls. Could the flight have been discovered?
Mogra was leading, with John close behind, Challis third of the line. At the commotion the guide was seized with panic, and was bolting blindly forward, when John dashed up behind him, caught him by the neck, and bade him, in language which he understood, not to be a fool.
They went on, carefully picking their way through the scrub. The noise on their left rear increased. They heard numbers of horses galloping away to the north and north-east, and many men shouting. Challis wondered whether the Tubus had been drawn away by sudden news from their own country, or by some false alarm. Then a gust of wind striking him from the right suggested a more likely explanation. The wind was carrying his scent to the camp. Unused to the scent of a white man, the horses had taken fright and stampeded, followed hot-foot by their owners.
In order to get well out of the current of possible pursuit, Challis ordered Mogra to bear more to the east. They pushed on steadily for two hours. By this time dawn was approaching.
In the half-light they suddenly caught sight of four or five big shapes moving slowly through the morning mist across their path some little distance ahead. At the spot where they had arrived there were no bushes to give cover, and Challis ordered the men in a whisper to fling themselves flat on the ground.
There was no cause for alarm, but rather for self-congratulation. In less than a minute they recognised the misty shapes as riderless horses.
"What luck!" thought Challis. "Provided their riders are not anywhere near, John," he said, "you and Mogra must catch three of those horses. If I try, they will scent me and bolt. I'll keep guard."
The two negroes set off. Challis watched their tactics admiringly. They crept on all fours round to leeward of the horses, which were grazing on low-growing plants, and drew near to them by almost imperceptible degrees. Suddenly they sprang up, dashed forward, and had two halters in their hands.
Mogra led the two captured horses to Challis, while John went ahead after the others, which had galloped away. In ten minutes he returned, all smiles and triumph.
"Berry fine horse for massa," he cried. "Me tink dis one no good, dat one no good; massa must have bestest; here him are, sah, sure and sartin."
It was a fine grey mare, thin fetlocked, slender in the flanks, with a noble head. Challis tried to mount, but the mare bucked and curvetted, with evident dislike of handling by a white man. Challis's difficulties with it amused John, whose horse was perfectly docile. A little patient coaxing and the gift, happily inspired, of a roasted nut from Challis's wallet, reconciled the animal to her new master; and Challis found himself mounted on the best bit of horseflesh he had ever had the luck to bestride.
"Now, then, Mogra!" he called.
Mogra was bashful. The third horse stood quite still, as if inviting the man to mount; but he had never been on horseback, and stood holding the halter with an air of weighing the chances of getting safely into the saddle.
John rocked with laughter, when Mogra, at last plucking up courage, fumbled for the stirrup and almost fell under the horse's belly, still clinging to the halter.
"Get down and help him," said Challis, anxious to be off.
John dismounted and hoisted Mogra into the saddle by main force.
"Him silly chap, sah," he said grinning. "Tumble off, sure 'nuff."
But Mogra did not tumble off. Now that he was on, he determined to stick fast. Gripping the animal with his bare knees, wearing an expression compounded of grim determination and the fear of sudden death, he no doubt owed his stability to the placid temperament of his steed. Challis set a slow pace, so that the man might grow accustomed to his unfamiliar position, and the three rode on together.
Challis had already decided not to make for the village at which Royce had obtained supplies. It lay far on the other side of the fort, and Mogra did not know it. Mogra had suggested that they should go to his own village, which was only a day's march eastward of the fort, and to this Challis had agreed.
On horseback they made better progress than on foot, and soon after midday came in sight of the village. At the first glimpse of it Mogra uttered a wail—there were signs that here, too, the Tubus had been at their desolating work. And in truth, when the horsemen rode into the wide street, their passage was through ruins. Not a house was standing; neither human being nor brute beast was to be seen.
"What has become of all the people?" said Challis. "Surely they can't all have been carried away as slaves?"
"No, sah—old men no good, old women no good," said John. "All gone dead."
"But there are no dead bodies—no remains of any kind," said Challis with a shudder.
John confessed that he, too, was puzzled at this remarkable fact. Turning to Mogra, he demanded, with a sort of remonstrant anger, where all the young man's people were. And then Mogra told a little story.
"In the days of our fathers," he said, "long, long ago, the bad men came to this village even as they have done these few days past, and it is told that my people learnt beforehand of their coming, and went a day's journey to the east, and there took refuge in a cave. I have never been there, nor my father, nor any of the people of his age; but the cave is known to certain of the old men of the village, and it may be that they have led our people there."
John translated this in his own queer way.
"It sounds very romantic," remarked Challis musingly.
"Berry big lie, sah!" said John decisively.
"Come, now, you mustn't call Mogra a liar! Ask him if he can lead us there."
"Him say savvy way little bit, den him go lost," said John, after questioning the man.
"Well, let him try the little bit; there's no harm in that. If he comes to a check, we must trust to luck."
Mogra showed no hesitation at the start; but, after riding for a couple of hours, he declared that he could guide them no farther.
"Does he know what sort of country is round about the cave?" asked Challis.
It was bare and rocky, said Mogra, with hardly any vegetation; but he remembered having heard that one particularly large tree stood in front of the cave.
"We will cast about for that, then," said Challis. "Let us take different directions."
"No, no, no!" said John energetically. "Go all same one way."
"Very well, if you are afraid of our losing one another, we will all go together."
They rode on, searching the country over a wide area; but the afternoon was wearing to evening, and they had still lighted on no trace of the cave. Challis began to think they had better give it up and make for another village before night enveloped them.
The horses were growing tired, and showed signs of uneasiness which Challis was puzzled to account for. The explanation came with startling suddenness. On rounding a rocky eminence they saw, only a hundred yards away, two lions lying side by side.
The trembling horses reared, backed, then turned tail and fled in terror. Mogra was thrown almost at once, and neither Challis nor John could check their horses for a considerable distance. When at last they regained control over them, they returned, afraid that Mogra might have been pursued by the beasts and by this time be torn in pieces.
They were relieved in a few minutes to see him running towards them at the speed of a hunted deer. There was no sign of the lions; Challis conjectured that they were digesting a heavy meal. Mogra was shaking with fright, but unhurt except for a bruise or two. His horse had disappeared.
As they stood discussing what to do next, John caught sight of a number of men in the distance. Two or three at the head of the party appeared to be carrying something among them.
"Him say belong him," said John, after a word from Mogra.
"Tell him to call them," Challis commanded. The men turned at Mogra's shout; but they evidently did not recognise him in the distance, and no doubt supposed the horsemen to be Tubus, for they hurried on with every sign of distress.
"Yoi-aloo! Yoi-aloo!" bawled John. "White man! White man! ... Berry silly chaps, sah!"
"Let us ride towards them," said Challis. "Stay! Let Mogra run ahead."
They remained stationary, while Mogra hastened to his friends, who soon came to a halt. Mogra ran back. He explained that they were carrying to the cave the son of their chief, who had been mauled by one of the lions. One of their fellows had already been eaten. They were willing that the white man should accompany them to the cave.
The party reached it just before dark. Challis was surprised to find that its entrance was fully exposed—a large hole in the side of a rocky hill. He concluded that its security lay in its being situated in a desolate region that was unlikely to tempt any raiding party.
An attempt had been made to render it more defensible by blocking up the entrance with trees felled on the hillside. The large tree of which Mogra had spoken, the configuration of the ground, and a few scattered cactus plants screened it from view from a distance.
The entrance was dark, but the interior of the cave was faintly illuminated by torches. When the party entered, the horses being tethered to the tree, the strangers were at first ignored in the general excitement and lamentation over the injuries of the chief's son.
His was the third case in two days. Examining his wounds, the chief, a bearded man of about sixty years, wrung his hands with grief, and the women howled in concert.
It was some time before Challis got an opportunity of explaining through John the object of his visit, of which Mogra had already given his version. On hearing his story, the chief refused to assist him.
"What the white man asks is too hard a thing," he said. "How can I, with only eighty men of fighting age, expect to accomplish anything against a multitude of Tubus? They have guns, we have none; they have horses, we have none. It is too hard a thing."
John expostulated, pleaded, at last threatened; and Challis, perceiving that his well-meant efforts only annoyed the old man and made him more obdurate, decided not to press the matter for the moment. It was something gained that the chief consented to shelter the strangers for the night. For safety's sake they brought the horses in.
During the hours of darkness the lions could be heard roaring in the neighbourhood of the cave. At moments they seemed to be almost at the entrance, and the negroes shivered with terror lest the beasts should break in. They could not light a fire—usually, though not always, effectual in scaring away lions—for fear the glare should betray the position of the cave to the Tubus. It seemed that they had escaped human foes only to fall a prey to foes still more formidable.
Challis passed a very uncomfortable night. The atmosphere of the cave was nauseating. The villagers, more than two hundred in number, had brought many of their cattle with them, and the place, large as it was, was overcrowded.
The foul air, the roaring of the lions outside, the lowing of the cattle within, and his own worried thoughts, combined to banish sleep; and at the first sign of dawn Challis was glad to escape into the fresh air. He took his rifle, and left the cave, to think matters over in the cool freshness of the morning.
It was a pity that, having found Mogra's tribe, he could not avail himself of the eighty fighting men of whom the chief had spoken. Yet he could not think of any argument, any inducement, that was likely to prevail over the old man's reluctance. Apparently, he must travel further in search of help.
Walking along, lost in thought, he came upon a watercourse worn by a small stream in the rocky surface of the hillside. He was on the point of turning back, for walking was aimless except as an aid to thought. But suddenly his eye was caught by a slight movement behind a rock on the far side of the nullah, at this point about eight yards broad and six feet deep.
The object which had attracted his notice was a moving patch of dusky brown. It had disappeared, but a moment later again rose into view. And then Challis was galvanised from meditation into a state of mind keenly practical, for the brownish patch resolved itself into the shaggy head of a lion.
In another moment he perceived a lioness, standing behind and slightly lower than her mate. Both were watching him.
For perhaps five seconds surprise held him spellbound. He stood with fascinated eyes fixed on the lions; they, at first somewhat sleepy looking, were becoming more and more alert, growling with a deep rumble. Then, following the instinct of a sportsman, he raised his rifle, and, aiming at the forehead of the animal he had seen first, he fired.
There was an angry roar; the lion sprang over the low rock, and dashed straight at Challis across the nullah.
Tingling with high-strung excitement, Challis fired again, apparently without effect, and felt that his last moment was come.
But the lion's spring was a few inches short. Just as Challis was nervously fitting a new cartridge, the beast struck the bank of the nullah within two feet of where he was standing, and fell back into the stream.
Challis seized the opportunity which he could hardly have hoped for. Aiming behind the lion's shoulder, he fired again, and the beast rolled over, clawing the air.
The lioness, meanwhile, sullenly growling, had risen from behind the boulder and was slowly retreating. Challis was almost too flurried to take good aim; but he chanced a shot, again directing it behind the shoulder. He could hardly believe his eyes when the animal dropped without a sound.
"That's something in return for a poor night's lodging," he said to himself as he walked back to the cave.
The first shot had drawn his own men and a number of the villagers to the entrance, and they had witnessed the fall of the dread beasts. Loud shouts acclaimed the white man's prowess. It seemed that the people could not do enough to show their gratitude.
And the chief had now completely changed his mind. Impressed by the slaying of the lions, he was willing to give the help he had formerly refused.
"It is wonderful," he said, spreading his hands. "The white man has slain with his marvellous gun the beasts that slew my people and wounded my son. Shall I not do something in return? Never have I seen such a marvellous deed!"
Challis thanked him. Later on, when he went back and examined the dead lions, he did not think it necessary to inform the chief that the lioness had been killed by what was really a miss. He had aimed behind the shoulder, but he found that the shot had entered at the ear and pierced the brain.
After Challis's adventure with the lions, the villagers, as the way of negroes is, were just as eager to help the white man as they had formerly been reluctant.
A man who, unaided, could kill two lions was surely a very wonderful person. Not even the dreaded Tubus could stand against him. It would be a blessing to the whole countryside if the power of the Tubus were broken. The white man asked their help—he should have it.
The chief ordered all the males of the community to assemble in front of the cave. His eighty fighting-men, splendid specimens of muscular humanity, gathered in a disorderly crowd on one side. Some were almost naked, others wore a sort of shawl folded about them as a Scots shepherd folds his plaid; it left one shoulder bare, and descended to the knee. All carried spears about four feet long.
The other group comprised the boys, the elderly men, and the few weaklings of the tribe.
"I will make Boy Scouts of some of them," said Challis to himself as he viewed them.
The chief led him in and out among the crowd of warriors, pointing to one man as a famous hunter, to another as a mighty thrower of the spear, to a third whose body was scarred with wounds received in fight. He was evidently proud of his men.
"Let the white man take them at once," he said, John interpreting. "They are well fed; they have eaten the flesh of oxen; they are ready even now to follow the killer of lions."
He was as much astonished as disappointed when Challis explained, as tactfully as he could, that he did not yet consider them ready to accompany him back to the fort.
"What more does the white man need?" he asked, somewhat huffily.
Challis reflected for a few moments before replying. He did not quite know how to deal with these ignorant natives, so prompt to take offence and sulk like children. But he was clear in his own mind.
To render effective service against experienced warriors like the Tubus, dashing horsemen armed with guns, accustomed to carry all before them in a wild charge, something more than muscle and goodwill was required.
It was plain that these natives were wholly undisciplined. Challis felt sure that in battle every man acted for himself, without any relation to his comrades, and he had already resolved that they must undergo some sort of elementary training before they could be of any real use.
The matter that worried him was the shortness of time. Royce's provisions might be eked out over a fortnight—what could be done in a fortnight towards training these wild, untutored children of nature?
"You know the Tubus, chief," he said, making up his mind to be frank. "Your people have suffered at their hands—even now you have fled from them. They have horses and guns—you know how helpless your best warriors have been before them. We must change all that. Your men must learn how to fight in such a way that the Tubus' advantages over them are lessened."
This was the gist of his speech, which was very much longer, and expressed in simple words that John could translate. The chief, in spite of the fact that his men had recently run away from the Tubus, seemed annoyed that any doubt was cast on their capacity. But, after a while, he asked sullenly what the white man wished to do.
"First of all, I want you to send messengers to all the friendly villages round about, asking the chiefs to send their best fighting men to join us. Tell them that we are going to fight the Tubus, and put a stop to their evil deeds."
"That shall be done, O white man!"
"Then I want to see what your own men can do with the spear, how they march, and how they attack."
"That shall be done, O white man!"
He gave an order. The warriors formed up, as Challis expected, in single file, and marched thus, lithely as wild animals, before him. At another order they started to run, uttering fierce yells, crowding into an unwieldy mob, and flinging their spears high into the air. The chief watched them proudly, and glanced at Challis as if to say: "Can you wish for anything better than that?"
"It is very good," said Challis, to the chief's great contentment. "Now bring them back; I want to find out which are the best spearmen."
The men, gathering their spears, came running back in a scattered crowd, and collected again in their former shapeless array.
Asking permission from the chief, Challis ordered John to form the men up in line. It was a long and difficult business. No sooner were a few of the negroes placed shoulder to shoulder than one man would step out to see what a particular friend of his was doing some distance away, and showed a good deal of resentment when John hauled him back and explained vigorously that he must not move without leave.
Then another man would find that he had something urgent to say to his mother, among the crowd of women watching the scene curiously, and he would sprint across the ground, engage in animated dialogue with the old woman, and return at his leisure.
John was reduced to despair.
"Silly fellas, sure 'nuff, sah!" he said in dudgeon. "Dey no good—too much fools, all same!"
An idea occurred to Challis. Knowing from his past experience with the Hausas how keenly negroes enter into competition one with another, he ordered John to explain that, if the men kept the line, he would give prizes to the best spearmen as soon as they reached the fort, and make them his own bodyguard.
After the men had gathered into a crowd and squabbled noisily for several minutes, this offer had the desired effect. They allowed themselves to be formed into a line, which, however, all John's efforts could not prevent from gradually assuming a crescent shape. Then, one by one, after several failures to make them act in turn, they threw their spears at the word of command. In this way, Challis selected the twenty men whose cast was the longest and straightest, and they immediately rushed across to the spectators to proclaim their merits.
By this time Challis was very tired.
"Drilling my platoon in the O.T.C. was nothing to this," he said to himself. "How in the world can I make anything of them in a fortnight?"
But after rest and food, he was ready to tackle the work again, and he took heart when he found that the negroes were much more amenable.
The spirit of emulation he had excited among them lightened the task. Every man seemed anxious to win praise from the white man. The idea had got abroad among them that the exercises to which he put them were so much "white man's medicine," something that would have a mystic efficacy when they came in contact with the enemy. As this idea implied unquestioning faith, it was all that Challis required.
He was careful not to keep them too long at one thing. When they had at last seized the idea of a straight line, though still far from successful in achieving it, he set the twenty selected spearmen to compete among themselves, and devoted his attention to the sixty less proficient.
These he determined to turn into pikemen. He got them to cut longer shafts for their spear heads and to sharpen the lower end, so that by the close of the day they were provided with serviceable pikes eight feet long.
The end of the day brought its disappointment. The messengers dispatched by the chief to neighbouring villages returned and reported the complete failure of their mission. Such was the universal dread of the Tubus that no chief was willing to send his men to encounter them. Not even the messengers' report of the lion-killing sufficed to overcome their fears.
"They will sit on the fence," thought Challis. "If we have any success, they'll come tumbling over each other to help. Well, we haven't done so badly for the first day. I must make plans for to-morrow."
He spent that night, not in the fœtid cave, but in the open, protected from wild beasts by a ring of bonfires. After all, he thought, they were too far from the Tubus' camps to attract attention.
Next morning, after repeating the lessons of the previous day, and finding that the men gave much less trouble, he taught them how to extend, moving them up and down with fair success. With John's assistance, he got them to turn right or left at the word of command.
At first they laughed so heartily at the sight of one another moving like teetotums that discipline was in danger of breaking down. Challis himself was amused, thinking how wrathful the loud-voiced drill-instructor at his old school would have been if the boys had taken their drill as lightheartedly as these negroes. But after a time they settled down to learn their new prescription in "white man's medicine," and made the proper movements with creditable smartness.
The next operation was to form three sides of a square—their numbers did not suffice for a full square of any considerable size. This was difficult.
"Do their minds work in curves?" thought Challis despairingly, as the men tended persistently to round the angles and join the ends of the lines.
But even this difficulty was surmounted with patience, and the close of the second day saw him one step nearer the accomplishment of his aim—to train the negroes to sustain the assaults of a mounted enemy.
It was the next stage that he found most difficult of all. A good shot himself, he sighed for rifles, that he might teach the men to shoot. With such obsolete weapons as spears and pikes he felt himself at a loss.
But common sense and recollections of what he had read about Cromwell's army came to his aid. He taught the men forming the three-sided square to stand fast with their pikes planted obliquely in the ground, supported with the left hand, while they held in the right their short stabbing spears.
Meanwhile he practised the twenty selected men in pushing out in advance, casting their spears, and then running back for refuge into the square. The whole force learnt to lie down at the word of command, to rise, to advance, to retire.
In order to accustom them as much as possible to the conditions they would have to meet, he got the chief to send into the neighbourhood to hunt up or purchase horses. Such of the men as could ride he mounted, and he organised sham charges, so that the men on foot grew used to the approach of horses at the gallop.
By the end of the fifth day the negroes had entered into all these exercises with spirit and enjoyment. Nothing pleased them better than the charges of the few horsemen. The spearmen would advance some twenty paces in front of the pikemen, pretend to discharge their spears when the horsemen came within range, then turn and run back between the open ranks of the pikemen, whose weapons were planted at an angle calculated to transfix the oncoming horses and men.
When the spearmen had run behind the pikemen, they would wheel round and discharge another flight of spears. The horsemen carried their sham charge to within a few yards of the spears before they reined up. In their ardour, indeed, they sometimes failed to obey promptly the order to halt, and one or two of them received ugly wounds. But they took these in good part, and, when the day's work was done, were to be seen proudly displaying their injuries to their relatives.
"I only hope they will be as cheerful in the real thing," thought Challis.
When Challis and John crept down the hill that dark night, Royce remained for some time at the wall, listening anxiously for sounds which would indicate whether the Tubus had discovered them.
For a time all was silent; there was not even a rustle; he hoped all was well. But presently the thud of galloping horses and the shouts of men sent a shiver down his spine. Was his friend being pursued?
A moment's thought relieved his fears. If Challis had been caught, the negroes would not have needed to ride after him. If he had once got past them, they would hardly be aware of it. He concluded that something had caused the animals to stampede. Challis might be trusted to avoid being ridden down.
Reassured though he was, Royce spent an uneasy night. After setting a double watch at each corner of the fort, he turned in, but set his alarm clock to wake him in an hour. He then made a round of the fort, to assure himself that the sentries were not asleep.
It was not easy, as he knew, to keep negroes awake on guard. The necessity of waking so frequently, after short naps, was very wearing.
"By the time Tom gets back," he thought, "I shall be half dead with fatigue."
About dawn he had reason to be glad that he had not spared himself. He found the men on duty at the south-west corner fast asleep. Rousing them, not too gently, he looked out over the wall to see for himself whether there was any sign of the enemy.
His first impression was one of relief. There was no indication of anything unusual, so far as he could see in the grey dawn.
A second glance, however, raised a doubt. There seemed to be more bushes on the slope than he remembered on this side of the fort. Here and there, projecting slightly above the general contour, there were dark, shapeless masses.
He called up Kulana, who acted as interpreter in John's absence.
"You see those?" he said quietly. "What are they?"
The objects were very dim and indistinct. The man peered at them, and in a moment said, in the same hushed tone as Royce had used:
"Dem bushes, sah."
Kulana, however, was hardly awake yet. One of the negro guards, who had had time to collect himself, noticed Kulana and his master staring at something on the hillside. He, too, peered into the semi-darkness.
"Men!" he exclaimed excitedly.
"No, bushes!" rejoined Kulana.
They were raising their voices in dispute, each sticking to his opinion, and Royce bade them be silent. Unable to decide the matter himself, he felt that he dared take no risks. Quietly summoning the garrison, he sent them to their allotted posts behind the wall, ordering them to be careful not to show their heads above it.
Then he resolved to put the matter to the test. Taking his rifle, he fired just above the nearest of the suspicious objects, not directly aiming at it, hoping that fright would effect his purpose.
The result was immediate, and though not wholly unexpected, was none the less surprising. The harmless discharge of his rifle was followed by a movement recalling the effect of a gunshot on a covey of hidden birds. The hillside seemed to start into life and motion. A number of low, dark forms sprang up in the half-light, swiftly descended the hill, and disappeared in the mist on the level ground beyond.
"A surprise for them instead of the one they intended for me," thought Royce. "I hope they won't try it again; it is hateful to shoot the poor wretches, but there's nothing else for it if they attack."
Only the knowledge of the miseries these pests of the country had inflicted on scores of peaceable villages reconciled Royce to the part he felt himself called upon to play.
He seized the occasion to impress upon his men the necessity for watchfulness while on duty.
"Your falling asleep," he said to the two repentant sentries, "might have led to the capture of the fort, and the death or enslavement of all of us. Take care in future."
During the day it occurred to him that the men would be all the better for active employment. At the same time, in view of the attempted surprise, it was advisable still further to strengthen their defences.
Accordingly, he set them to dig a ditch a few feet inside the wall. The proper place for it was outside, of course; but to dig it there would expose them to danger. Moreover, the Tubus might fill it up or bridge it. If it were inside, on the other hand, it would form an unexpected obstacle should they scale the wall.
There was not enough water to make a moat of it; but, dug to a depth of several feet, it would seriously embarrass the attackers, even though dry.
The men at the north-east corner, when they had dug about six feet below the surface, came suddenly upon something hard, upon which the sharpened stones they used as spades made no impression. They reported the discovery to Royce, who went to the spot and jumped down so that he might examine the obstruction.
It proved to be a course of brickwork. Taking the spade, Royce dug the earth away from its edge for several feet, wondering what purpose the bricks served.
Perhaps, he thought, they were part of some building still more ancient than the fort itself. It would be interesting to excavate more thoroughly, and find out whether anything of value, in the shape of old weapons, coins, or pottery, lay beneath the foundations.
But that must be a task for the future. At present the business in hand was the completion of the ditch. The bricks being almost level with the bottom of the part which had already been dug out, he decided that it was unnecessary to remove them, and he ordered the men to go on with their work in another direction.
By dusk that evening the ditch was half finished. Royce, after eating his scanty supper, was sitting alone, tired out, wondering what had happened to Challis, whether he would succeed in getting help, how long it would be before he came back.
All at once he heard a shout of alarm, followed by a cry of pain. Springing up, he rushed in the direction of the sounds. The whole garrison was in a ferment, and two of the men had reached the scene before him.
"What is it?" he cried, thinking that perhaps some of the men had been quarrelling.
But on his arrival he found one of the Hausas groaning with pain, supported by his two comrades. They pointed to a gash in the man's thigh.
"Bring him along," said Royce to Kulana, deferring questions until he had rendered first-aid.
They carried the man to Royce's room. Royce took some lint from his medical stores, soaked it in water, and tied it tightly over the wound. He saw at once that the injury was not serious, and the cut, being clean, would heal in a few days.
"Now, how did it happen?" he asked.
The negro told Kulana that he had suddenly seen beside him a stranger, a man of immense size, very fierce-looking, with two long scars on each cheek. He had given a shout of alarm and rushed at the man, who was moving stealthily towards the well-yard. At the shout the stranger turned, dug his knife savagely into the Hausa's side, and rushed away.
Royce wished that he had questioned the man before. It would be hopeless to search for the intruder now. From the description, he had no doubt that it was Goruba, who had entered the fort for the second time in some mysterious way.
Royce was staggered. How had the man contrived again to get in unperceived? What sentries could cope with him? What could be his object in coming alone into the fort? Why was he running such risks in venturing unsupported among a garrison whom he knew to be well-armed and watchful?
"I must solve this mystery," Royce said to himself. "The men are scared out of their wits, and if this sort of thing is to happen their courage will melt away. There must be a secret entrance somewhere. To-morrow I'll search the place thoroughly again, though, upon my word, we have been through it so often that I can't for the life of me conceive where the rat's hole can be."
He gave the wounded man a sleeping-draught, did his best to calm the fears of the rest, and remained on guard all night, in case another alarm should create a panic.
Challis grudged every day spent in training, lest the fort should be stormed by the Tubus before he had come to the relief. But he saw clearly that only by training his little army would he have the slightest chance of effecting a diversion in favour of the beleaguered garrison.
The odds, in any case, were enormously against him. But at the end of the fifth day he had unexpected encouragement. About nightfall, just as John was lighting the bonfires, he caught sight of a crowd of armed negroes rounding a hillock some distance away.
"Bad fellas coming, sah!" he shouted excitedly.
Challis blew a whistle he had shaped out of a piece of wood, and his eighty men came pouring out of the cave, and formed up in something resembling the line which he had been at such pains to teach.
They howled with disappointment at not receiving the order to attack at once. Challis got the chief to send one of his men forward to hail the strangers and ask the meaning of their coming.
It turned out that they were the fighting men of a village about ten miles off, nearly a hundred strong. The story of the killing of the lions had reached them, with the addition of all sorts of wonderful details gathered in its course through the countryside. They had heard rumours also of the marvellous medicine which the white man was preparing for the Tubus, and they desired to see these marvels for themselves.
Their chief and the elders of the village had desired to take the cautious part and remain aloof; but their counsels had been overborne by the younger men, who had insisted on marching out to see the white lion-killer and medicine man.
It was an opportunity too good to let slip. In the ruddy light of the bonfires, Challis put his men through their evolutions.
Spurred by the desire to impress the strangers, the men excelled themselves. The result was that the newcomers clamoured to be allowed to join the forces of the great medicine man, and Challis found himself stronger by nearly a hundred vigorous, able-bodied young men.
The only drawback to this accession of strength was the necessity of devoting more days to training. Challis was so anxious about the welfare of Royce and his little party that he sent a scout next day to approach the neighbourhood of the fort and discover whether the Tubus were still in position there.
He set to work at once with the new men, selecting forty to join his spearmen and making pikemen of the rest. These latter he posted as a rear rank three feet behind the front rank, giving them spears three feet longer.
The new men picked up the simple drill quickly, having models in the original company. But before Challis had time to perfect them, his work was put to a sudden test.
In the intervals of training his men, he had made a point of studying the surrounding country with an eye to its suitability for attacking or defensive operations.
The cave was situated in a hilly, rocky district, difficult for horsemen, but well adapted for defence against a mounted force. The side from which it could be most easily rushed was from the direction of the nullah which had been the scene of his adventure with the lions.
A little below the spot at which this incident had taken place the nullah disappeared. The stream which flowed through it in the rainy season ran in a broad shallow channel, easily fordable, with a rocky hill on one side and a practicable path along the dry margin of the bed of the stream.
About two miles from the cave the rocky ground on the right of the stream ended in a swamp, formed by overflowings of a little river which Challis had satisfied himself was identical with the stream that flowed past the base of the hillock on which the fort stood. Into this river the shallow stream emptied itself.
On the right, at the angle formed by the junction of the two streams, there was a low-lying patch of dry land, triangular in shape—an island inclosed by streams and the swamp. While this island was at the present time dry, Challis had no doubt that it was submerged when the streams were flooded by the rains.
Challis had considered the possibility of being attacked before he was ready to move out towards the fort with his little army. He decided that such an attack, if it occurred, would most likely be made from this direction, the ground being more level and open than on any other side. It was clear that the best point at which to meet the attack would be where the swamp approached most closely to the steep hill on the left.
Including the shallow bed of the stream, about fifty feet wide, there were altogether about a hundred and fifty feet of firm dry land between the swamp and the hillside, except for the stream, now little more than a yard across. Here his men could best make their stand.
Since his arrival at the cave, Challis had insisted on an elementary precaution which it is the habit of negroes to neglect. Every morning at dawn he had sent out scouts in a southward direction, to give notice if the enemy approached. These men took sufficient food for the day, and returned at nightfall.
He arranged that the line of scouts should extend for several miles towards the enemy's country, each man posting himself within hailing distance of the next. By this means he ensured that he should receive warning within a few seconds of the sighting of the enemy by the remotest man.
On the sixth day after his arrival he had reason to be glad of his forethought. About noon the nearest scout ran in with the news that a force of Tubus was approaching from the direction of the river.
A fact that somewhat surprised him was that their line of march would bring them direct to the cave, not to the village whence the people had migrated. It seemed as if they had information of what was going on. Was it possible that there was a traitor in the camp?
With a little more experience of negro life he would have divined the true explanation. The story of his doings had spread for many miles around, gaining in magnitude with every repetition. Certain of the neighbouring tribes purchased immunity from attack by spying for the Tubus, and there was no doubt that some of these people had carried to Goruba the report that a white man was making big medicine at the cave.
But it was not at all likely that Goruba had any idea who the white man was, unless he had already stormed the fort and discovered that it contained one white man instead of two. The probability was that he was coming or had sent to test the truth of the story he had heard. The white man might be a missionary, unlikely to trouble him.
Challis, it must be confessed, felt very nervous. His men were as yet only partially trained; how would they behave if it came to a fight? Would they forget all that he had tried to teach them, and either run away from their dreaded enemy, or rush forward in their old disorderly manner, and fall an easy prey? He looked forward to the test with doubt and misgiving.
But he let no sign of his thoughts escape him. Within three minutes of the scout's arrival he had all his warriors ranged in double line.
"John," he said, "you will bring them along and down the hill after me. Be sure you do not let them break the line."
Then, jumping on his horse, he cantered along the bed of the nullah to the point where he had already determined to make his stand. One of the scouts ran beside him. On reaching the spot, he left his horse with the scout and climbed the hill on the left to get a view of the enemy.
It was some time before he was able to distinguish them. When he first caught sight of them they were picking their way very slowly and cautiously along the bank of the river. They numbered, as nearly as he could guess, about three hundred men—a force which, mounted, armed with rifles, and used to warfare, represented terrible odds against fewer than two hundred raw levies, on foot, and without firearms.
Small though their numbers were, however, and in spite of their imperfect training, Challis had no reason to be dissatisfied with the spirit of his men. Before he regained the bottom of the hill the whole of his force were already on the spot, so closely and eagerly had they followed in his footsteps. Their ranks were in better order than he had expected, and he praised them warmly, hoping fervently that their morale would stand the shock of the imminent conflict.
Losing no time, he drew them up in order of battle. With the swamp on his right and the hill on his left, there was no necessity to protect his flanks. Across the space between hill and swamp he placed a hundred of his pikemen in two ranks of fifty each. He had still twenty pikemen—these he posted in reserve ten yards behind the rear rank, to deal with any horsemen who might break through. Of these John was placed in charge.
Of the sixty spearmen, who had six spears apiece, he arranged that thirty should advance in front of the line of pikes, cast their spears, and run back within the lines for shelter. The other thirty he posted in the bushes fringing the hillside, with orders to remain hidden until the leading ranks of the enemy had passed, and then to assail the rear ranks with a fierce shower of spears.
And then, having placed his horse behind a tall bush, he stood, rifle in hand, tense with anxiety, in the centre of the front rank of his expectant men.
If at that moment he could have been spirited away to England, he would have been glad. He had no liking for the soldier's trade, but here he was, here he must stand; if there was to be a fight, it was for liberty and peace.
The enemy advanced slowly down the bed of the stream. Not until their front ranks turned the corner of the hill did they become aware that opposition awaited them. They then saw a line of men drawn across the bed of the nullah on their right, with a white man in the centre.
They drew rein for a moment to take stock of the little force opposed to them. Realising how small it was, they burst into mocking shouts and charged. Challis had hoped for nothing better, knowing that spears were no match for firearms.
He blew his whistle. Fifty more pikemen trooped out from the bushes on the right, and formed a second line behind the first; twenty ranged themselves in a third line. Then, before the jeering horsemen had covered half the distance between the two forces, they saw themselves confronted by a triple line of bristling pikes, a kind of obstacle to which they were unaccustomed.
But they did not check their charge. Galloping on with furious shouts, they were within a hundred yards of the pikemen when a flight of spears from their left hurtled among their ranks. Carried on by their impetus, the horsemen dashed upon the pikes outstretched across their front. In some cases the riders, in others the unfortunate horses, were the victims.
Some penetrated the first line and the second, only to find still a third awaiting them. Meanwhile their comrades in the rear had been assailed by another shower of spears, and, led by Challis, the pikemen whose weapons had not been broken by the charge pressed forward on the now wavering ranks.
Then the thirty spearmen on the hill came into action, darting out upon the rear of the Tubus, hurling their spears, and following up with a charge. Assailed in front, flank, and rear, the Tubus lost heart, pulled their horses round, and galloped away in the only open direction, towards the stream.
Crowding one upon another in their haste, many of them urged their horses on to the swamp, unaware of its treacherous surface until the animals began to sink. Then the men sprang from the saddles in fright, abandoned horses, arms, food, and rushed headlong away, to escape the spears of their pursuers.
It was just at the moment when the flight began that the victors temporarily lost their leader. As one of the Tubus was wheeling his horse, he dealt a sweeping cut with his scimitar at the pikeman standing next to Challis in the line. Challis threw up his rifle and intercepted the blow, which drove a deep dent into the barrel. The force of the impact caused him to stagger against the horse's flank; he was thrown to the ground, and the horse, galloping off, dealt him a kick with one of its hind hoofs. His pith helmet was flattened on his head. It saved his life, but he lay stunned where he fell.
When he came to himself, he found John bending over him, with a score of the negroes in a silent, anxious group behind.
"Where are they?" were his first words.
The negroes shouted with joy when they saw that the man who had taught them "medicine" was still alive. John pointed to the swamp.
"Ober dere, sah," he said. "Bad fellas all gone smash."
Challis raised himself on his elbow. He saw struggling horses, dismounted Tubus, some fleeing over strips of firm ground, others plunging deeper into the morass, with the victorious negroes swarming around them.
"Enough!" cried Challis, anxious to avoid slaughter now that his object was achieved.
He blew a shrill blast on his whistle. Most of the men turned and came hastening towards him.
"Bring off the rest, John," he said. "They are not to fight any more. Get ropes and save the wretches who are sinking in the bog."
The fighting ceased. Some of the negroes took ropes, hurled them towards the struggling Tubus, and hauled them to dry land. The prisoners expected to be butchered, the rescuers to be ordered to slay them. Both were equally surprised when John, at Challis's command, shouted that the Tubus were to be spared. The negroes could not understand why mercy should be shown to a merciless enemy, but Challis saw gladly that they obeyed him.
"Take them near the cave, and set a guard over them," he said. "We will teach them another sort of medicine."
Rising painfully, he surveyed the field. Some sixty Tubus would hunt no more slaves, burn no more villages. Many horses had been captured, together with swords, firearms of various kinds, and ammunition. The victory had been won at small cost.
Challis ordered that the wounded Tubus should be treated exactly like those of his own force. Then, feeling sick and dizzy, but proud of his men, and rejoicing in the success of his first blow for liberty, he went back to the cave, amid lusty shouts from the warriors and shrill cries from the women and children.
Royce spent several hours of the night of his discovery of Goruba's second entry in cudgelling his brains over his new problem.
Twice had Goruba made his way into the fort; twice had he escaped. Yet on neither occasion had anyone seen him on the ramparts, nor had anyone seen him in the interior except Challis and the man who had now been wounded.
What puzzled Royce almost as much as the secret of Goruba's means of entry and of exit was the fact that he seemed to make no use of it. Being able to get in and out without being observed, why did he not make use of his power, and lead his followers into the fort?
"I wish Tom were here!" thought Royce. "I feel like Robinson Crusoe before he had Friday to talk to. John is the only Hausa at all equal to Friday. I almost wish they had not gone."
Next morning he set the men again to work on the ditch, and went through the fort from corner to corner, searching for some secret passage. The gaps in the walls had all been filled up. The stone slabs of the floor all seemed to be solid; none of them gave forth a hollow sound when he stamped on them. At the bottom of the well the spring bubbled constantly, the overflow passing away through a narrow slit through which a rabbit could hardly have crawled.
"It beats me altogether," he said to himself after his thorough survey.
He walked round inside the wall to see how the men were getting on with the ditch, and came to the foot or two of brickwork which had been uncovered.
"I wonder!" he exclaimed, as a sudden thought struck him. "Gambaru, fetch me the spade."
When the man returned, Royce began to dig away the earth on each side of the brickwork, which was itself too hard and to firmly imbedded to be cut into or prised up by the only tools he possessed.
He found, after some little time, that the brick-work was about four feet wide and very deep, and that it extended inwards. Dropping the spade, he walked into the fort in the same straight line as the brickwork.
"This may be the clue," he thought with some excitement. "At any rate, I must see."
The direction of his walk led him straight to the well.
"A false scent," he said to himself, more puzzled than ever.
He went back to the ditch, to make sure that he had not been mistaken in his course. No; there was no doubt, about it; he felt sure that if he uncovered the brickwork completely it would end at or near the wall of the well.
Just as he was beginning to dig again, another idea occurred to him.
"It would take me a couple of hours to clear all the earth away," he thought. "Perhaps it would be waste labour. I'll have another look at the well."
He returned, Gambaru following, much puzzled at his master's strange proceedings.
Standing on the brink, he peered down into the well, which was wide and fairly light. He had seen nothing extraordinary about it when he supervised the clearing out of the rubbish; there was nothing extraordinary about it now.
In the walls there were rusty iron staples, intended as footholds, and so used by the men. He descended, examining the walls and the staples; there was nothing strange about them.
"The brickwork is just about six feet below the surface," he thought. "I'll measure the same distance here."
At a little more than his own height below the ground he scrutinised the masonry carefully. There were slight clefts where the separate stones met, but nothing unusual in their appearance. He pushed and strained at the stonework, without effect.
Then he noticed, just within arm's reach to his right, a staple quite out of line with the rest. It seemed to have been fixed in the wall without purpose. Leaning over, he pulled at it, at first cautiously, then more and more vigorously.
Suddenly he felt a shock of surprise. Was the staple moving, or was he himself? He planted his foot firmly on the staple on which he was standing, and still pulled. There was no doubt about it; he was slowly swinging round. The huge slab of stone against which he was supporting himself had moved inwards on his right, outwards on his left, and he was turning with it.
Now thoroughly excited, he tugged steadily, and in a few moments found himself looking into a dark aperture in the wall.
"Eureka!" he exclaimed joyfully, and Gambaru, leaning over the brink of the well above, gasped with terrified amazement as he saw his master disappearing.
"A candle!" shouted Royce.
The Hausa sprinted away, and returned with the whole garrison at his heels.
"Back to your places, you idiots!" cried Royce. "Kulana, keep them at their posts. Give me the candle, Gambaru."
Holding the lighted candle, he stepped from the staple into a low dark passage, and groped his way stoopingly along it. For some forty or fifty yards it was narrow; then all at once it opened into a huge natural cavern, warm and stuffy, with an earthy smell.
Royce looked about him and gasped with astonishment. The candlelight fell on an enormous store of elephants' tusks, huge and massive objects ranged in close-packed rows, and filling nearly three parts of the cavern.
"My word! What a find!" Royce exclaimed.
He began to count the tusks, came to a hundred, and gave it up.
"Five hundred, at a guess," he thought. "They must be worth a fortune. No wonder Mr. Goruba wanted to strangle me! ... What's that yonder?"
He went farther into the cavern. Beyond the tusks lay an assortment of many things—ivory cups, vessels of gold, an old French musket, swords, scimitars, a kepi or two, a French officer's sash, some cartridge cases, several native spades and pickaxes—and, at the far end, objects which caused him to recoil. They were human skeletons.
At this gruesome sight Royce felt that he had had enough for the moment. The air was stifling, rendered still worse by the smoky candle. He retraced his steps, stood firmly on the staple in the slab, and this time pushing at the other staple, caused the stone to revolve on its pivot and set flush with the wall.
"What does it all mean?" he thought, as he sat in his room above, eating the frugal dinner which Kulana brought him.
He remembered what the old chief had told him about Goruba—that he had been lieutenant of Rabeh, the extraordinary negro who had risen from the position of a slave to the lordship of a great territory in the Sahara, tyrannised over the natives, and long defied the efforts of the French to put him down.
Was this secret hoard of wealth Rabeh's? Had he stored it in this cavern in the side of the hill, hoping some day, when he had defeated the French, to dispose of it?
"That must be the explanation," Royce concluded. "I don't know anything about the ivory trade, but those tusks must be of immense value, and must have represented a vast fortune even to a potentate like Rabeh. I suppose he let Goruba into the secret. When he was killed and his empire broken up, Goruba was for years a fugitive, the old man said. But he was ambitious, like his master. He always meant to get hold of this treasure. What Rabeh had done, he thought he could do. No doubt he joined the Tubus because their country is near this fort, and has gradually made himself a power with them. That's why he comes on his lonely visits—to see that Rabeh's hoard is safe. I don't suppose the Tubus know anything about it. It wouldn't suit his plans to inform them until he has made himself their absolute master."
Then his thoughts turned in another direction.
"How many villages were sacked, how many thousands of poor wretches were killed or enslaved in the gathering of this hoard? And Goruba is like his master in that, too—he is the same blood-thirsty tyrant and oppressor. But, please God, Tom will give him a shake.
"Ah! those skeletons—how did they come there?"
He pondered for a time without arriving at a conclusion.
"I see!" he said to himself at last. "They are the skeletons of the poor slaves who dug the passage Rabeh killed them to preserve his secret. Horrible! ... But I haven't discovered everything yet. Where is the entrance at the other end, by which Goruba reaches the cavern? I must go again—but not to-day. I can't face those skeletons again to-day; to-morrow, perhaps."
On the morning after his discovery of Rabeh's hoard, Royce made a second visit to the cave to search for the exit which he felt sure must lead to the outer air.
Carrying a lighted candle, he walked slowly round the walls, examining them carefully. They appeared to be in their natural state—rough, irregular, knobby, but with no hole or gap large enough to admit a man.
Then he tried the floor. It consisted of slabs of stone. He tapped them here and there, but they gave no hollow ring; apparently they were solid. The ivory tusks were ranged in such orderly rows that it seemed hardly likely the entrance was beneath them.
Puzzling over what to do next, he suddenly thought of testing the place with the candle flame. If there were an opening, there must be a current of air. He returned to the slab in the wall of the well and closed it as tightly as was possible from the inside; then placed the candle at several spots on the floor of the cave, one after another, and, retiring to a distance, watched the flame for signs of flickering.
But he had no success; the flame only flickered in the current caused by his own movements.
"Where can the entrance be?" he said to himself. "The air is stuffy, but not foul. I'll try the passage."
He tapped the wall on each side; no sound rewarded him. Then he placed the candle on the floor near the threshold of the cave, and ejaculated "Got it!" when he saw the flame flicker gently. Hastening to the spot, he knelt down and passed his hand slowly over the slabs, and felt a distinct though slight draught at the seam between two of them.
He pushed at each of the slabs. They did not move. He got up, and jumped on them as forcibly as the low roof allowed, still without effect. Then, lifting the candle, he examined the walls.
At his left hand, near the roof, was a single staple, like those in the wall of the well. It could not be intended for climbing—what, then, was the use of it? Standing under it, he grasped it and pulled. It did not yield. Then he pushed, more and more forcibly. The staple did not move, but he fancied that the slab on which he was standing sank a little.
Looking down, he saw, just below the floor, a narrow jutting ledge of rock. With his left foot on this, he pushed at the slab with his right, still shoving at the staple with his hand. The stone began to revolve, slowly, with a slight grinding sound. Presently it stood upright in the middle of the passage, and moved no more.
Royce now saw beneath him half a dozen steep steps leading down into gloom. He descended carefully, lighting his way with the candle, and found himself in a passage, narrower than the upper one, but much cooler and less stuffy. From the direction of the cave there was a steady draught.
Moving against it, Royce, after about fifty paces, caught sight of a glint of light ahead. He pressed on eagerly, and discovered that the passage ended in an opening roughly circular in shape, about a yard in diameter. Passing on, he came out into a tangle of brushwood through which he saw trees. He forced his way forward, and stood in a clump of woodland. There was nobody to be seen, no sound. He stole cautiously among the trees until he came to the edge of the clump. It looked over open country. Glancing round, taking care to keep hidden from observation, he saw at last the fort, on the hill about two hundred yards away.
"This must be the clump we noticed," he thought. "Now I understand why Goruba has not used it for cover in attacking us. He doesn't want any of his men to discover the secret entrance to his hoard. Of course, with the slab down they couldn't find the hoard itself, but evidently he doesn't mean to be bothered with inconvenient questions. Well, Mr. Goruba, I have caught you out. I only wish I could catch you."
Royce made his way back quickly, feeling that he was perhaps risking a good deal in leaving the men so long. He carefully replaced the two slabs, ascended the wall of the well, much to Kulana's relief, and, having assured himself that the garrison were at their posts and that the enemy had made no move, he sat down to devise a trap for Goruba.
"I suppose the fellow will come again," he thought. "Why does he come at all? A visit to the cave and no farther would prove that his treasure is safe. I suppose his idea in penetrating right into the fort is to spy, perhaps to frighten the men into deserting me. I mean to stop your little game, my man."
His first notion was to place a couple of sentries in the cave, to catch Goruba on his next appearance. In the darkness the giant would not see them. But he soon gave that up. It would probably be better not to let the men know anything about the cave for the present. Besides, he could not tell when Goruba would pay his next visit, and the superstitious negroes would never endure a long wait in the dark.
After long puzzling, Royce hit on a plan that seemed likely to be successful. He attached a thin cord to the slab in the well, at a point where it would not be seen in the semi-darkness by any one entering from the passage.
Carrying the cord round the well, he passed it through hooks of his own devising—nails driven into the brickwork and bent almost double. At the top he fastened similar hooks to the wall of the well-yard, near the floor, drew the cord through them, and finally tied it to the topmost of a short column of empty meat tins in his own room.
When this was done, he went down to the well again, turned the slab gently on its axis, and in a moment or two heard a slight clatter as the tins were overturned.
"I call that a stroke of genius," he said to himself. "The question is, will the sound scare Goruba away? He is bound to hear it, though it is not so loud as I expected. But, after all, there is nothing to make him connect the sound with his own movements, so I fancy there will be a little surprise in store for him."
At dusk that evening he sat in his room, watching the pile of tins, and waiting eagerly for the alarm signal. But it did not come. All night he remained awake, unable to sleep from excitement. Not a sound broke the stillness.
Next evening he took up his post at the same time. Tired and sleepy, he was just falling into a doze when the tins fell with a crash that made him jump.
Pulling off his boots, he slipped very quietly into the well-yard and stooped below the top of the wall. He knew that he was in plenty of time, for the intruder was sure to move slowly and with caution.
With his electric torch in his left hand and his revolver in his right, he passed round to the side of the well opposite to where the staples were placed. In a few seconds he heard a slight rustle; the man was climbing over the coping of the well. He saw his form, a huge black shape against the dark blue sky.
The man stood listening for a moment, then crept towards the doorway leading to Royce's quarters. Royce stole on tiptoe after him, and just as he reached the opening pressed the button of the torch. The negro turned instantly, and the bright ray from the torch flashed upon the startled eyes of Goruba.
Royce had expected astonishment, even dismay. He was not prepared for the extraordinary readiness, decision, presence of mind with which the negro would act. Without an instant's hesitation, Goruba sprang at him with uplifted knife. Royce fired, but either he missed or there was no stopping power in the bullet, for in another fraction of a second he was hurled back towards the well, narrowly escaping toppling over the coping into its depths.
But if Royce missed, so did Goruba, dazzled, perhaps, by the light of his torch. His knife crashed on the coping, and was shivered to pieces. Next moment Royce found himself for the second time locked in the giant's embrace.
Exerting all his strength, he strove to prevent the negro from hurling him into the well. He shouted. Answering shouts came from the men. And then he discovered, to his surprise, that Goruba was not so formidable an antagonist as when they had first met. His grip was not so firm; all the pressure came from his left arm.
Encouraged by this, Royce grappled him closely, tried a back-throw he had learnt in jiu-jitsu, and had Goruba on his back as the Hausas, headed by Kulana, came shouting into the yard.
Royce was only just in time to prevent them from plunging their knives into the struggling negro. At his order, they tied him up with cords, so tightly that he howled with pain.
"Loosen them!" cried Royce. "Don't hurt him."
Kulana stared.
"Him hurt massa," he protested. "Him fit for kill all same."
"No; that's not our way," said Royce firmly. "We've got him, and we'll keep him safe. I hope this is the end of our troubles."
The Hausas, grumbling sullenly, carried Goruba into the passage next to Royce's room, and laid him against the wall. It was then found that his right wrist was sprained.
"He must have struck it against the wall when he missed me and smashed his knife," thought Royce. "That accounts for his feebler grip."
To the further disgust of his men, he bound a wet rag tightly round Goruba's wrist.
"Now for a good night's rest for once," he thought. "We shall not be attacked to-night, at any rate."
In the afternoon after the fight with the Tubus, Challis was reclining on a moss-covered rock near the cave—he could not endure the atmosphere of that close-packed habitation.
He was thinking things over, wondering whether, after his first victory, he dared lead his men towards the fort to encounter the main body of the enemy under their redoubtable leader Goruba.
Suddenly he was aware of some excitement among the crowd of natives just beyond the mouth of the cave. Could the Tubus be returning to the attack?
He sprang up, intending to reassure himself on this point. But at this moment John came running towards him, his broad face contorted by a grin.
"What is it, John?" Challis asked.
To his surprise John burst into loud laughter, slapping his thighs, bending his body, now and then pointing towards the swamp and doubling with laughter again.
"Come, come, what is the joke?" asked Challis.
"Oh, my! Oh, dear! Oh my lawks!" spluttered the Hausa. "Ober dar, sah, ober dar."
"Well? Stop laughing, and tell me about it."
John controlled himself with difficulty.
"Ober dar, sah, two bad fellas!" A guffaw. "Tubus, sah. Up a tree, sah."
"There's nothing very funny about that."
"No funny? Oh my lawks! Up a tree, sah—no come down. Boys frow spears, sah. Berry funny, all same."
"This won't do," thought Challis. "I suppose the Tubus got away, and the men are trying to spear them instead of taking them prisoners. But it's strange. There was plenty of time for them to escape altogether when I called the men off. Why didn't they run away?" he asked.
"No can do, sah," replied John, laughing again. "Crocodiles wait for dinner."
"Goodness!" Challis ejaculated. "Are there crocodiles in the swamp?"
"Oh yes, sah! fousand hundred," answered John. "Sah come and see. Him laugh all same."
He preceded Challis towards the swamp, to which the whole population of the cave were now flocking like children running to see a Punch and Judy show.
Challis hurried on. Arriving at the edge of the swamp he saw, about two hundred yards away, two Tubus crouched in the branches of a low bushy tree, not five feet above the surface.
A number of the spearmen had gone forward as far as they dared on the spongy ground, and were gleefully hurling their spears at the negroes. The range was too long, however; the weapons fell short, and splashed into the water.
And then Challis saw that for some distance around the tree the swamp was almost like a lake. The water was evidently several feet deep. And the terrified Tubus, clinging to the branches of the tree, were gazing with horror at the snouts of half a dozen crocodiles which formed a half circle projecting a few inches above the surface.
Challis was almost as much horrified as the Tubus themselves. He knew the cunning and treacherous nature of the hideous beasts. He knew that usually they came upon their prey by stealth. It was a surprise to him to find that they were bold enough to attack men openly.
It was clear that the hapless negroes were hopelessly imprisoned. In the tree they were safe, but they could not descend and attempt to swim away without the certainty of falling victims. And the cave dwellers crowding at the edge of the swamp laughed with delight at their enemies' plight and, yelled with disappointment when the weapons of the spearmen fell short.
"Stop that!" cried Challis to John. "Tell them I am very angry with them for wasting their spears."
John shouted to the men, who shamefacedly drew back. They felt no shame at trying to kill a helpless enemy, but dreaded the wrath of the white medicine man.
"I must save the wretches," thought Challis. He meant to break the power of the Tubus if he could, for the sake of all the natives of the district; but he could not stand by and see two helpless men swallowed by these slimy monsters.
It was clear that they could not save themselves. The hungry crocodile is pertinacious; he will not leave his expected prey. Some time or other the men would fall off the tree from sheer terror or weakness into the very jaws of the reptiles.
Challis gazed across the swamp. The people, seeing that he did not share their merriment, fell silent, and watched him curiously.
The swamp was covered in patches with aquaceous plants; there was no other tree except that in which the negroes had taken refuge. It would be useless to fire at the reptiles. Only the tips of their snouts were visible; Challis could not be sure of hitting a vulnerable part. He tried a shot, but, as he expected, it had no other effect than to startle the crocodiles for a moment; the next, when the sound had died away, their snouts bobbed up again.
On the hillside behind the cave there grew a few small trees.
"John," said Challis suddenly, "take some men up the hill, cut down a dozen strong young trees, strip off the leaves, and bring the trunks here as quickly as you can, with plenty of creepers."
John started off with a band of men. The rest, excited at the prospect of seeing more big medicine, chattered noisily.
When the men returned, Challis set them to lash the saplings together with the creepers to form a raft. In half an hour it was completed. At his order they carried it to the verge of the yielding ground. The crowd, having an inkling of his purpose, shouted with delight. The white man, they thought, was going to bring back the Tubus to be slaughtered.
It was difficult to launch the raft from the soft boggy ground. The men shrank from entering the water. John explained that crocodiles had been known to snap up a man from the midst of a large party. To reassure them, Challis ordered some of the spearmen to stand by, and watch for the beasts while their comrades hauled the raft into the water.
When it was at last afloat, he wanted four men to paddle it. But when John selected four strong fellows and told them what they were to do, they yelled with fright, and fled back among the crowd.
"Well, we must do it ourselves," said Challis.
"All same, sah," said John.
But Challis noticed that he looked very uneasy. Only the desire to "show off" before the people prevailed over his fear.
The two got upon the raft, and standing well in the centre, poled out with saplings across the thick weedy water. Challis felt somewhat anxious himself when he realised how frail and crazy was this rapidly made raft. And they had only gone about fifty yards from the shore when he got some notion of the nature of the adventure on which he had embarked.
Almost without a ripple on the surface a snout emerged from the water a few yards ahead of them. In another moment a second and yet a third appeared. Then more came on each side and behind. The swamp seemed to be swarming with the reptiles.
Challis tried another shot. The snouts instantly disappeared, emerging again, however, after a few seconds, at a little greater distance. Whether Challis had killed one he did not know.
He was taking aim for a third shot when the raft, neglected by John, intent on watching his master, lurched against a half submerged bank of weed. Challis staggered, and in catching at John to steady himself, dropped his rifle, which struck the side of the raft and fell into the water with a big splash.
"Never mind," said Challis, trying cheerfully to hide his annoyance. "They can't get to us on the raft."
Coming into deeper water, they used the saplings as paddles. The crocodiles kept at a greater distance, but they followed the raft, swimming slowly and quite noiselessly after it as it crept towards the tree.
Challis felt the presence of this escort not a little disconcerting. He was not scared, but uncomfortable. He thought of driving off the reptiles by shouting; it was quite an effort to find his voice. When he shouted and splashed with his paddle there was a momentary scattering and disappearance of the snouts; but as soon as he left off, they came up behind and around the raft again.
He was heartily glad when at last they reached the tree.
"Tell the Tubus to come down," he said to John.
The Hausa jabbered to the men in the tree; they neither moved nor answered. He shouted to them again, still without effect.
"Plenty silly chaps," he said scornfully.
"Perhaps they think we shall kill them," said Challis. "Tell them we have come to save them."
It required a great deal of eloquence on John's part before the negroes were convinced that the white man wished to save, not to take their lives. Even then they hesitated from fear of the crocodiles. To encourage them John beat the water noisily with his paddle, all the time abusing them as "silly chaps."
At last they lowered themselves cautiously from the branches and stood clinging to each other in the centre of the raft. The crocodiles hovering round seemed to be conscious that their prey was escaping them, or, as Challis thought, felt that their dinner was assured, for they made a sudden dash at the raft. Some of them got their snouts over the edge, and while Challis and John belaboured them with their paddles, the Tubus fell on their knees and crouched howling.
The crocodiles sank into the water, and Challis and his man began to paddle shoreward with all their energy. But soon the reptiles, finding that they were none the worse for their battering, the blows of the paddles being but flicks on their tough hides, returned to the attack.
This time the danger was more serious. The slight raft rocked about and dipped at the rear as Challis and John smote desperately with their poles at the crocodiles, some of which had pushed their snouts and forelegs over the edge. The Tubus, who might have maintained the balance by going to the other end, cowered and howled in the middle.
Challis and his man had to withdraw from the edge in order to avoid being capsized, and the reptiles scrambled farther on. John's pole snapped on the back of the foremost, but he thrust the splintered end into the monster's eye. At the same moment Challis plunged his pole down the throat of another. The two strokes were almost too effective. The crocodiles slid back into the water, and Challis had only just time to spring forward and prevent the raft from overturning.
There was a brief breathing space. The monsters had disappeared. But the raft was stationary, and the poles were gone. It was impossible to propel it farther except by paddling with their hands. They were beginning to do this, Challis on one side, John on the other, when both started back simultaneously as the hideous snouts once more rose above the surface.
The scene had been watched with growing excitement by the crowd on shore. Realising the peril of the situation, some of the men began to hurl spears at the reptiles, which were again closing in behind the raft. This was more dangerous to the men than to the crocodiles. One of the spears fell on the raft. Challis snatched it up, telling John to order the men to cease throwing.
Three more of the monsters were now scrambling up, and under their pressure the raft moved towards the shore. Challis jabbed his spear at their eyes and gaping mouths. He disposed of them one after another. But his victory brought catastrophe. The third flopped off so suddenly that before Challis could step forward the raft tipped up, and all four men were thrown into the water.
The Tubus yelled, John shouted, the people on shore shrieked. Challis felt that all was over. Against these reptiles in their own element he could do nothing. He could only swim for it.
"Splash with your legs!" he cried to John, who, like the Tubus, was already striking out vigorously for land, now only fifty yards away.
The spearmen, aghast at the plight of their white chief, forgot their fears and dashed into the shallower water to save him, the crowd behind them yelling frantically. The tremendous splash, the din and clamour scared even the monsters. They sheered off and sank beneath the surface.
In a few moments Challis, slimy with weeds and green with ooze, was dragged up by his jubilant followers. John and the Tubus scrambled on shore unassisted. The crowd made a dash for the latter, but Challis sternly called them off, ordering John to look after them as prisoners of war. And then they all marched back to the cave, the people shouting and laughing with joy, though Challis felt by no means like a conqueror.
On the day after the fight by the swamp, while Challis was exercising his men, some of the boys whom he had turned into scouts ran in with the news that a band of fifty or more armed negroes was approaching from the south-west.
Challis hoped that he would not have to engage a new enemy. Giving John orders to watch the newcomers, he went on with his work. By and by, out of the tail of his eye, he saw John talking to a group of strangers, who looked on at the drilling with the interest and curiosity of children.
It was plain that the newcomers were friends, and that John, with much self-importance, was eloquently expounding the virtues of white man's medicine.
When the drilling was over, John announced that the strangers had heard in their village, several miles away, of the defeat of the Tubus, and had come to see the white man who had punished them. He further explained that the negroes wished to join the forces, and learn how to march, advance, spin round, and use pikes like them.
While John was speaking, the scouts signalled the approach of a smaller band. Shortly afterwards, to Challis's amazement, a third party was announced.
It was a striking proof of the extraordinary rapidity with which news spreads in the wilds of Africa. Before the day closed, two or three hundred men had arrived from widely scattered villages, all eager to see the white man, and to learn something of his magic.
They were armed for the most part with spears. Challis saw in them the making of a very respectable army; but it was clear that, if Royce were to be relieved, there would not be time to give them even the very slight training of the earlier recruits. He did not, however, reject them. They would help to make a good show, and might come in useful, if not to achieve a victory, possibly to follow it up.
Before the night was over he had reason to doubt the wisdom of his decision. The new men belonged to different tribes, and were inclined to quarrel among themselves. Challis ordered John to quarter the various parties separately in the neighbourhood of the cave, hoping that by keeping them apart he would prevent disturbance.
But a new trouble arose. One of the bands got up a war dance around their camp fire, and worked themselves up to a fury of excitement. Then, having learnt the whereabouts of the Tubu prisoners, they made a rush towards them, and Challis was only just in time to prevent a wholesale massacre.
The ringleader, who had fairly lost his head, threw a spear at the Tubus in spite of Challis's stern command. It was clear that a lesson was needed. Challis doubled his fists, and with two well-planted blows, left and right, sent the man spinning.
"Tie him up," he said to John, "and keep a guard over him for the rest of the night. To-morrow I shall send him back to his village. These people must understand that they must do as they are told."
The fall of their leader sobered the rest of the band. They felt a great respect for the white man's fists, and remained peaceful until morning broke. Challis was sitting alone, waiting for John to bring his breakfast. When the Hausa came up, he was followed by a group of the negroes, looking anxious and sheepish.
"Silly fellas, sah," said John with a grin. "Dey say Umgabaloo berry fine fella, sah. No want him to go back."
"Oh! He's sorry for himself, perhaps; wants me to forgive him."
"Dat's him, sah. Just a silly chap. No savvy good things like me; no savvy sah knock him down."
Challis could not help smiling at John's notion of "good things." He reflected. It was said that negroes respected nothing but force; that they took forgiveness as a sign of weakness. Would it be wise to pardon this Umgabaloo, who seemed popular with his friends?
"I'll risk it," he thought. "Bring Umgabaloo to me," he said.
John fetched the negro, marched him up, and stood him before Challis, keeping his hand on the man's neck. Umgabaloo looked very crestfallen.
"Tell him that he's no good to me unless he can do what he is told," said Challis.
John translated this with forcible additions.
"Tell him I'll let him off this time if he'll promise to obey," Challis went on.
When John made this announcement, Umgabaloo's friends shouted, and the man himself tried to move forward, but was brought up by John's determined grip.
"Does he promise?" asked Challis.
"Him say, Sah him father and mother," said John, "do eberyfing what Sah say."
"Very well; let him go."
Umgabaloo, released, threw himself at Challis's feet and poured out a torrent of thanks and protestations.
"I wonder if I've done right," thought Challis, as he dismissed the man.
He had decided to make a start for the fort that day, while the impression made on the enemy was fresh. At his orders, every man loaded himself with four days' provisions from the ample stores in the cave. Then he drew up in column the men whom he had already led to victory, and the newcomers tried to arrange themselves in similar formation behind, but were too much excited to be very successful.
Challis had now between three and four hundred men at his command. They were still largely outnumbered by the Tubus; and what was of still more consequence, they were not so well armed. In the recent encounter he had been able to choose a good tactical position; such a chance was not likely to occur again. No doubt, moreover, the Tubus, warned by their defeat, would move more cautiously, and, being mounted, they would take advantage of their mobility to fight on ground of their own choice.
These considerations, and the desire to avoid bloodshed, influenced Challis's plan. His object was to reach the neighbourhood of the fort unobserved, to communicate with Royce, and if possible to secure a peaceful withdrawal. He therefore decided not to follow either the route by which he had come, or that taken by the Tubus when they made their ill-fated attack.
As his orderly, John had distributed among the best of the men the rifles and ammunition captured from the Tubus. But Challis commanded them on no account to use these weapons without orders. No warning must be given to any Tubus who might be scouting along the route.
All being ready, he went to the head of the column with a man who knew the country well and would act as guide. Then the whole party set off in a north-westerly direction, to skirt the swamp and cross the river some distance to the west.
The first stage of the march was very difficult. The negro knew paths across the swamp which a stranger could hardly have discovered, but even so progress was slow and laborious. The men had to go in single file, sometimes over boggy land close to the water's edge, keeping a wary eye for crocodiles; sometimes through rushes as tall as their heads, from the midst of which they disturbed game of all kinds, birds and beasts.
They had been some two or three hours on the march, and had got round to the far side of the swamp, where the ground was drier and firmer, when Challis saw the guide, some few yards ahead, suddenly halt and make signs to him to be cautious.
Wondering if the Tubus were in sight, Challis halted the column, ordering the men to be silent, and walked warily forward. When he came up with the guide, the latter pointed to the path about a hundred yards in front. And there Challis saw, not Tubus, but two enormous square-mouthed rhinoceroses, lying in the mud right across the path.
At the moment he caught sight of them the great beasts scrambled to their feet, turned their heads in his direction, and snorted. They had evidently scented him.
Knowing that the rhinoceros is usually a timid and inoffensive creature, living on herbs, and not a flesh-eater like the lion, Challis expected the beasts to sheer off. But these animals, like other denizens of the wilds, are sometimes driven into hostility and aggression by alarm.
There was a moment of suspense. Then the rhinoceroses raised their blunt-horned heads, snorted again, and came at a lumbering charge straight for the head of the column. The guide shouted and threw his spear, which glanced off the tough hide of the first, then he uttered a yell and bolted.
Challis had only an instant for making up his mind what to do. On one side of the path was yielding bog, on the other was drier ground, dotted with bushes. The path itself was blocked by the halted column. He dared not use his rifle, for fear of giving warning to the enemy. The leading rhinoceros was charging straight towards him. The only chance of safety was to run.
He turned and sprinted across the open ground. The rhinoceros, infuriated by the guide's spear, swerved off the path and followed him. Its companion headed straight along the path.
In a few seconds Challis found that the beast, in spite of its size and unwieldiness, was gaining upon him. He darted aside when it was close behind him, expecting that it would continue in its half-blind charge. To his alarm it struck off almost immediately in his direction.
There was no friendly tree in sight. The rhinoceros broke through the bushes as if they were cobwebs. Challis dodged, first on one side, then on the other, but the beast showed an alarming nimbleness. More than once Challis escaped its formidable horn only by inches.
Running on in desperation he stumbled, and had given himself up for lost when he was conscious of a diversion. A dark form, running with extraordinary speed, dashed obliquely towards him, and buried a spear deep in the animals' side. It turned savagely to deal with this new assailant, who had darted off at an angle. For a few yards the rhinoceros followed him, then it staggered, made a vain effort to recover itself, and fell a huge heap upon the ground.
The negro rushed back, plucked out his spear, and driving it again into the quivering beast dealt it a death-blow. Challis went up to him. Umgabaloo fell on his knees.
"I was right," thought Challis, glowing with pleasure. "Any one who says that the negro knows no gratitude lies."
Meanwhile the column had scattered far and wide to escape the second rhinoceros, which had apparently taken fright at the number of men, and had now disappeared. It was an hour before the negroes were collected and the march resumed.
The capture of Goruba cheered the whole garrison of the fort. Curiously enough, it was rather as the evening visitor who disturbed them than as the leader of the besiegers that the negroes regarded him. No longer would they be worried by the mysterious intruder.
Kulana had, of course, told them about the hole in the wall of the well. They were eager to see for themselves the passage through which the giant had come, but Royce had forbidden that for the present.
Royce on his part, while glad enough to have Goruba in his hands, was in some doubt as to how he could turn that fact to account. Should he inform the Tubus or not? He tried to think the matter out thoroughly.
The Tubus would miss their leader as soon as morning broke. What would they do? No doubt they would at first simply wonder where he had gone, and why; but they would expect him to return and would feel no alarm.
As time passed, however, his continued absence would perplex them. It was pretty clear that they knew nothing of the secret passage. They might begin to search for him, perhaps supposing that he had met with an accident. Not finding him, they would grow more and more anxious; the mystery would paralyse them; they might give up the siege.
What would they do if they learnt that he was a prisoner? The fact might equally discourage them; or it might enrage them and spur them on to a desperate attempt to rescue him. On the whole, it seemed better to keep them in ignorance, so Royce decided to lie low and say nothing.
It was important at any rate that the prisoner should be securely guarded. Accordingly, when morning dawned, Royce had him carried to a little cell adjoining the room where Kulana did the cooking. There was a low doorway between the two rooms, and through this Kulana could keep his eye on Goruba.
Royce had the prisoner tied hand and foot, and instructed Kulana to give him food and water at intervals. Then, to prevent a rescue, he took some men down the well, through the passage and cave, and into the tunnel, which he ordered them to block up at the farther end with stones and earth. Thus, if the Tubus in their search for Goruba should light upon the secret entrance among the trees, they would see only a mass of rubbish and probably not pry further.
Two days passed. Goruba was sullen. He took his meals in silence under the eyes of three of the Hausas, who released his hands for a few minutes, and bound them again when he had finished. Gambaru bathed his injured wrist, but he expressed no gratitude.
On the third day, however, he broke his silence, telling Kulana that he wished to speak to the white man. Kulana left him for a few moments and fetched Royce, who was very curious as to what the big negro would say.
He was surprised and amused as Kulana translated. Goruba, a prisoner, tried to make terms as though he were a free man, and Royce a captive in his place! He said that if he were liberated, he would allow the white man to leave the country unmolested.
"Cheek!" thought Royce, though he could not help admiring the negro's spirit. "Tell him," he said, "that things are the other way round. If his men will give up their arms I will let them all return across the Yo, but they must promise not to come raiding any more."
Goruba's only answer was a scowl. He fell back into his former sullen silence.
"I really can't blame him," thought Royce. "If he went back to the Tubus' country with a broken force, his chief would probably cut off his head at once. Even if he were spared, he would know that he had lost all chance of securing his treasure, for which he has no doubt been scheming for years. But if he holds on, there's always a possibility of being rescued by his party. Goruba is no fool."
Another day passed. Parties of the enemy had been seen wandering in different directions around the fort, but they had not broken up their camps. It seemed indeed to Royce that their numbers had increased, and he guessed that a messenger had been sent back across the Yo to report Goruba's disappearance, and had brought other Tubus with him on his return.
Meanwhile Royce was growing more and more anxious about Challis and about the garrison. What chance had Challis, he thought, of raising the district, devastated as it was, against raiders so strong in numbers and so terrible in reputation? The prospects of relief from the outside were desperately slight.
Inside, food was running short. Royce realised with dismay that he had over-estimated the stock. He doled it out sparingly to Kulana, whose work became lighter every day. Several of the men were showing signs of weakness, some were scarcely fit for duty. Royce was touched by the courage with which they endured their privations. Even the weak did not murmur or complain. All looked to him with trust and confidence that he and Massa Chally would save them.
On this day, as Royce made the miserable dole for the evening meal, he had hard work to appear hopeful and cheerful. But he knew that he, at any rate, must not appear despondent.
"We are getting thin, Kulana," he said, with a smile, "but that gives all the more room for fattening up by and by, when Massa Chally comes back."
"Oh yes, sah—when Massa Chally comes back," Kulana repeated.
"It will be only a day or two now," Royce went on, fervently hoping that the future would not belie him.
"Only a day or two, sah," said Kulana. "Den we eat lots and lots, get all jolly fat."
Royce went to the wall, as he did many times a day, and scanned the country through his field-glasses. But beyond the Tubus' camps there was nothing to be seen but the vast stretch of open country, dotted with bush and woodland. There were no signs of Challis.
Suddenly he was startled by cries of alarm within the fort. Hurrying in the direction of the sounds, he was amazed to see a cloud of smoke arising from the roofless room used by Kulana. The cook was at the door, groaning and wringing his hands. Others were trying to get through the smoke into the room.
No sooner had Royce reached the spot than he heard new cries and rifle shots from the wall. Thinking that the Tubus were attacking at last, he rushed back to deal with the more pressing danger, leaving the men on the spot to fight the fire.
The Hausas at the north-east corner were blazing away in the direction of the tongue of woodland in which lay the entrance to Goruba's tunnel. But there were no Tubus in sight except a small group on foot far to the left, who were not attacking, but had apparently been drawn from their camp by the sound of firing from the fort.
Yes, there was one other. Looking into the distance he had at first failed to see a dark figure nearer at hand, zigzagging down the lower slopes of the hill. When at last Royce caught sight of it, it was disappearing into the wood.
"Stop firing!" he cried, recognising that it was only a waste of ammunition. "Keep a good look out."
Then he hurried back to deal with the fire, wondering whether the negro he had seen was a scout sent up to reconnoitre the fort.
The fire, meanwhile, seemed to have burnt itself out. The room was still full of smoke, smelling of roasting nuts and grain. Royce was seized with misgiving. He plunged through the smoke, coughing and rubbing his eyes. What he saw filled him with dismay. The whole remaining stock of provisions, except a few tins of beef he kept in his own room, was blackened and burnt.
Running back out of the smoke, he ordered some of the men to save what was still savable, then turned angrily to question Kulana, to whose carelessness he thought the fire was due. But his anger was immediately disarmed, Kulana explained that he had been absent a few minutes, fetching water from the well for the evening meal. The fire was quite safe when he left it, but when he returned the place was in flames.
A new suspicion flashed into Royce's mind. Darting again across the smoke-filled room, he bent down to look through the opening leading to the prisoner's cell. Goruba was gone!
Two pieces of broken cord lay on the floor; two other pieces, charred at one end, were in the cookhouse.
Royce could only guess at the manner of escape. During these past days Goruba must have been patiently working his feet loose. Having freed them, he had seized the opportunity of Kulana's absence to crawl into the cook-house, burn the cord about his wrists at the fire, set fire to the food, and make his escape in the subsequent confusion.
Three or four men at the wall said that a man had suddenly and without a sound rushed from behind them, jumped on to the wall, sprung down the twelve feet to the ground outside, and dashed down the hill. They fired as soon as they recovered from their surprise. One of them was sure that he had hit the man.
"But he got away," said Royce gloomily. "And nearly all the food is destroyed." Inwardly he added: "What is to become of us all?"
Kulana was doing his best to provide a meal—the last!—for the garrison, when Royce's thoughts were diverted from their gloomy situation by a sudden call for action.
His look-out men shouted, and rushing to the wall he saw that the great attack, which he had so long expected, was being made at last. The Tubus, dismounted, were rushing up the hill from three sides. Goruba was conspicuous at the head of the party from the north-east.
It was plain that the attack had been arranged. Probably only Goruba's absence had delayed it. The three columns were advancing in such a way that they would reach the fort at about the same moment, and a fact that for an instant struck Royce with the chill of dread was that some men in each party carried short ladders, which during these days of apparent inaction they had evidently been constructing in the woods.
The situation was one which might well cause the bravest heart to quail. The Tubus were two or three hundred in number; the garrison numbered only sixty, all suffering from the lack of sufficient food. Only fifteen had rifles; most of the Tubus carried firearms of a sort. The garrison's greatest defence was their walls, and these the enemy were coming prepared to scale.
"But we'll put up a fight," said Royce to himself.
He divided his riflemen into three sections, and posted one at each of the walls so soon to be assailed. Behind them he placed the rest of the garrison, of whom a few had spears, the remainder being armed only with stones. He himself took up a position on the bastion at the north-east corner.
The Tubus came leaping with immense strides up the hill. Royce waited until they were about two hundred yards away, then gave the order to fire. Three volleys flashed forth; some of the enemy dropped, but their leaders shouted words of encouragement, and the masses continued to sweep onward, as a stormy sea surges around an isolated rock.
The Hausas fired steadily at the word of command, but seemed to make little impression on the ranks of the Tubus. If a ladder-bearer fell, the man nearest to him snatched up the fallen burden and ran on. They did not even fire as they advanced—partly because the garrison were covered by the walls; chiefly, no doubt, because they hoped to overcome the defence by sheer weight of numbers.
Royce felt that the brunt of the attack would fall on that part of the fort against which Goruba was advancing in person. The gigantic negro seemed to bear a charmed life. Although he was bounding up the hill several paces ahead of his followers, and consequently drew the fire of two or three of the Hausas, he was untouched, though some of his men fell at every few yards.
With fierce yells the Tubus pressed on. Hitherto Royce had taken no active part in the fight, standing on the bastion and directing the men on each front. But now, thinking that if Goruba fell his followers might lose heart, he drew his revolver and flashed it at the giant. He was a good shot in general, but for some reason or other he missed, and before he could fire again Goruba was beneath the wall, hidden from him.
In a moment a score of ladders were placed against the wall on either side of the bastion. Royce had no doubt that an equal number was being employed behind him. The Tubus began to swarm up.
Royce saw that his men had done all that was possible with rifle fire; they could now only try to repulse the stormers hand to hand. He ordered his men to club their rifles and strike at every head they saw appear above the walls.
For some minutes there was desperate work, the Tubus striving to make a lodgment on the walls, the garrison to hurl them back. At first the struggle was not unequal. The enemy could only mount one by one; while mounting they could not use their weapons, and the defenders had the advantage of them in position.
Royce waited for Goruba to appear. When he saw the massive head rise above the wall he pulled the trigger of his revolver. There was no response; something had gone wrong.
Dropping the weapon, he snatched the rifle from the nearest Hausa and brought the butt down on Goruba's head with all his force. The man fell back among his followers, and Royce hoped that he had seen the last of him.
But he had underestimated the thickness of the African skull. For a time he was busy with the Tubus who had mounted on each side of their fallen leader, and had just succeeded in clearing the wall in his neighbourhood when he heard loud shouts from the wall behind.
Turning round, he saw that Goruba had mounted there and was laying about him with his clubbed rifle with undiminished vigour. Royce called to Gambaru and another man to follow him, sprang down to the inside of the ditch, and rushed across the fort.
They were just in time to fell two or three Tubus who had already dropped down from the wall, tumbled into the ditch, and were struggling to clamber up. The other Hausas were gallantly trying to beat the assailants from their ladders. The air rang with shouts, mingled with the dull thuds of the rifles as they fell on heads and shoulders. Goruba had managed to plant his feet on the wall, and was about to spring down when Royce thrust his rifle between the negro's legs and, with a sudden wrench, caused him to lose his balance. With a savage yell he fell backwards, and once more lay prostrate on the ground outside.
Reinforced by Royce and his two followers, the Hausas on their side fought with redoubled fury, and after a minute's hard fighting cleared the wall. But the weakening of the defence at his former post had enabled the enemy to press the attack there.
Leaving some of his men to re-open fire on the Tubus, if they returned to the assault, Royce hurried back. He found that during his absence the garrison had been driven from the ramparts. The enemy had drawn up their ladders, and, jumping down on the inner side, had begun to throw them as bridges across the ditch, in spite of the shower of stones which the men there were hurling at them.
Royce called up some men from the western side, where the attack had failed, and led them with a ringing cheer upon the flank of the invaders. Attacked thus from two sides, they gave way and were driven in a confused mass between the wall and the ramparts towards the bastion on which Royce had recently posted his riflemen.
Seized with panic and deprived of their leader, the Tubus tried to clamber up the wall. Some few succeeded, the greater number were knocked down with rifles or pulled back by the defenders, and fell cowering to the ground.
Again Royce had to turn back to deal with another crowd who had taken advantage of his absence to swarm up on the eastern rampart, from which they had driven the panting Hausas. But the men behind the ditch, seeing that they could now cast their stones without hitting their friends, flung the jagged missiles at the enemy just as they were raising their guns to fire.
"Well done!" cried Royce, rushing to their support.
This was enough for the Tubus. Only one of them managed to fire; then a stone struck him, and with his companions he leapt from the wall among the baffled men beneath.
Beaten on all sides, the Tubus took to their heels and fled as fast as they could down the hill which they had ascended with such confidence a quarter of an hour before.
Challis, having re-formed his column, disorganised by the rhinoceroses, led it forward at a brisk pace to make up for lost time. Two men who knew the country went in advance as scouts.
The march continued for the rest of the day without mishap. At night they encamped on open ground, lighting no fires, and with sunrise next morning they were again on foot.
Soon after midday John announced that the fort was about three miles away. Challis ordered the men to halt. Now that they were nearing the enemy it was necessary to move with great caution. Calling the leaders of the various tribes together, he explained to them, through John, that he would leave them for a few hours and go forward alone to reconnoitre the position. They were not to move until his return.
"Sah not go by himself," said John. "Me show way; me savvy all 'bout it."
"I think you are right," said Challis. "I shall go faster with you as guide. Come along, then; let us start at once."
They set off across the open country in the direction of the fort, John's sense of locality making him a capable guide.
Presently they entered an extensive stretch of woodland, through which progress was slow. Just as they reached the farther end of it John started back suddenly.
"Tubus, sah!" he whispered.
Two Tubus, armed with spears, had just dismounted, tethered their horses, and entered the wood.
"This is awkward," thought Challis. "If they are scouts, they may go far enough to see our men, or they may see us. What can we do, John?" he asked.
"Shoot, sah," replied John at once.
"That would never do. The shots would alarm the enemy. Besides, I don't care about shooting. Do you think we could capture them?"
John grinned. The idea pleased him.
"If we can manage it," Challis went on, "you must take them back to our men. I can find my way alone now."
"Berry fine, all same, sah," said John. "Me show sah."
He turned back into the wood, moving swiftly but silently through the undergrowth. Challis followed him, noticing that he was taking a direction away from that followed by the Tubus. In a few moments he guessed the reason of this. John's intention was to get to leeward of the enemy, as if he were stalking animals.
It was nearly half-an-hour before the Hausa stopped, laid his finger to his lips, and pointed through the trees. Challis caught sight of the two men walking slowly towards them, a few yards apart, apparently examining the ground.
John by signs made his leader understand what his plan was. They were to separate and crouch among the undergrowth, one on each side, until the men passed; then to spring on them from behind.
Bending low, they selected two large bushes and lay in wait there. The Tubus came on unsuspiciously, but looking keenly around them.
Challis was tingling with excitement. Would the men see him? Would they hear the rustle of his movements? Would they escape? If they did, it seemed that all chance of a secret approach to the fort would be lost.
His man was drawing nearer. He passed within five or six yards of the bush. Then Challis rose to his feet, gathered himself together, and made a spring towards the negro. The man heard him, turned with a start, and was raising his spear, when Challis, stooping suddenly, threw his arms round the Tubu's knees and brought him to the ground.
Almost at the same moment, twenty yards away, John, as noiselessly as a panther, had leapt upon the back of the second Tubu and fallen on top of him. Depriving the man of his spear, he was now forcing him to crawl on all fours towards his prostrate companion, threatening to prick him with the spear if he made a noise or did not move fast enough.
While Challis kept guard over the men, John cut from the undergrowth a number of pliant tendrils. With these he tied the Tubus' wrists, and fastened them also neck to neck, telling them, in their own language, that they were silly fellows.
One of them spoke to him sullenly.
"Yoi-aloo!" cried John, laughing. "Dey say Goruba gone lost, sah!"
"Lost, is he?" said Challis. "They were searching for him, then. How was he lost?"
"Went away, sah," returned John, after questioning the man. "No savvy what for. 'Fraid him gobbled up."
"That's good news. What will they do if they don't find him?"
"Very sad all same, sah. Dey go back over Yo; had 'nuff; plenty sick, sah."
It was good news indeed that the Tubus had lost their leader; still better that they were disheartened and thinking of returning to their own country.
"Well, John," said Challis, "take these fellows back to our men; then come after me as fast as you can. I will go on and see what is happening."
John went off, driving the negroes in front of him. Challis waited until they were out of sight; then, going to the edge of the wood, he looked all around to make sure that no more Tubus were in sight, and continued his journey, taking cover from bush to bush.
In a few minutes he saw the fort on the hilltop some distance away. Making a round, he approached it from the north-west side, stopping every now and then to listen. Apparently there were no Tubus between him and the fort, but he dared not go too close to it while daylight lasted, for he would certainly be seen as he mounted the hill.
Accordingly he halted in a wooded hollow to wait for darkness. He wondered how the little garrison was faring, whether the Tubus had attacked, whether they were really on the point of giving up the siege. The time passed too slowly for his impatience, and he longed for the sun to go down.
Suddenly, about an hour before sunset, he heard shouts. They ceased immediately. What was happening? He stole up the slope of the hollow, intending to lie flat just below the top and peep over. But before he had reached it there were loud shouts, followed by rapid rifle fire. It was clear that the garrison was defending itself against a fierce assault.
When he gained the top of the slope and looked over, he found that he was still too far away to see anything clearly. The attack was not being made on the side towards which he was gazing. He was on the point of rushing forward, when he saw several dark forms running round the base of the wall. Though he longed to assist his friend, it was clear that he could not run the gauntlet through these armed negroes, and he sank back, filled with great anxiety.
The firing ceased, but the shouts continued for a time. Then again there was silence, and he saw with unspeakable thankfulness that the Tubus had disappeared.
"Well done!" he thought. "It will soon be dark, and then——"
John slipped up quietly behind him.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Royce and his men were resting after their victory. Never had a fight been won at so small a cost. Many of the men had been injured by the Tubus' clubbed rifles, some had spear wounds; but none had been killed, and with care all the wounded would recover.
Royce praised the men for their sturdy defence, and told them he hoped the enemy would trouble them no more. But in his heart he was far from confident. An ordinary raiding party of negroes would long since have abandoned the struggle, but in Goruba these men had no ordinary leader. He had shown himself possessed of exceptional courage and resource, and—what is still rarer in the negro—resolution. While he was with them they would not give up, Royce felt sure.
He wished that he could have disposed of Goruba; but when, after the fight, he mounted the wall at the point where the giant had fallen and looked for him, rifle in hand, he was not to be seen.
Kulana managed to provide a meal from the remains of the burnt provisions, but it was the last. The men knew it, and though Royce spoke cheerily, he could see that they were depressed, in spite of their victory. Unless relief came, they would be face to face with starvation if the siege were maintained, and of relief there was no sign.
When darkness fell Royce posted the sentries as usual, and looked anxiously down the hill to see whether the enemy were still encamped below. His hope that they had withdrawn was dashed by the appearance of their fires in the usual quarters; they still formed almost a complete ring round the hill.
Reckoning up the chances for the hundredth time, Royce realised that, although a sally from the fort might break through the ring, the enemy would follow them up on their horses and, in the open country, overwhelm them.
"It's no go," he thought with gloomy foreboding. "Poor old Tom! What has become of him?"
As he sat resting his chin on his hand, Gambaru came up with two or three of the Hausas.
"Well, what is it?" asked Royce.
"Massa Chally nebber come, sah," said Gambaru in a mournful tone.
"Well? You have something else to say?"
Gambaru hesitated for a moment.
"Food all gone, sah," he began. "What can do? Must eat. Nuffin to eat. Boys all die. All berry hungry, sah."
"I know. We have had little enough all along. We have now nothing at all. I am very sorry for you. But I want you to wait just one more day."
The men talked among themselves. Then Gambaru said:
"Boys no want to wait, sah. Tubus light fires; no go away. No more food; how can fight? Boys say all go out, run fast."
"They would catch us on their horses."
"Die all same, sah," said Gambaru. "No food, all die; Tubus catch um, all die same. One way die slow, other way die quick—boys say die quick best."
Royce was wandering how he could persuade the men to wait, even one day longer, when the bark of a jackal startled them all.
"Thank God!" said Royce, rising in excitement. "It is Massa Chally at last. That was John's cry."
Some of the men shook their heads and declared that it was the cry of a real jackal, but Gambaru and Kulana assured them positively that it was John's imitation. They listened silently for a repetition of the cry. It had come from a distance; there was no other sound in the silence of the night.
The whole garrison flocked to the walls and, holding their breath, peered out into the darkness. They could see nothing, hear nothing.
Minutes passed; hope gave way to disappointment and despair. Even Royce himself felt that he had been mistaken, and the men began to murmur against Gambaru and Kulana.
But suddenly they were startled to silence again by the cry, repeated softly close under the wall on the north-west side. Every one ran to the spot, even the sentries, and Royce did not send them back to their posts. For now, down the slope, they had caught sight of a dim, dark shape moving by almost imperceptible degrees towards the fort.
"Let down a ladder, Kulana," said Royce, whispering through parched lips.
The Hausa took up one of the scaling-ladders left behind by the Tubus and lowered it over the wall. In breathless silence the watchers saw the form crawl up to it, set his foot on it, and begin to climb.
Murmurs of excitement burst from the eager crowd.
"Hush!" said Royce. Leaning over the wall he whispered: "Tom?"
"Right-o, old boy. Back at last!" said Challis's cheery voice.
"Massy Chally back! Massa Chally back!" cried the negroes, irrepressibly laughing and shouting with joy. Royce bade them be silent in vain. His heart was too full to reprove them.
"Thank God, you're back!" he said, giving his hand to Challis as he reached the top of the wall. "I had given you up."
"Glad I'm in time," said Challis, pressing his friend's hand warmly.
"But where is John?" asked Royce. "It was his cry we heard?"
"Of course. I couldn't have done that. John has gone back to my army."
Together in the inner room of the fort, the two friends talked long and earnestly. Royce related all that had happened during Challis's absence; the discovery of Rabeh's hoard, the capture and escape of Goruba, the attack which had just been beaten off. He made light of the garrison's straits for food, and it was some time before Challis learnt that Goruba's cunning had destroyed the little that remained.
"Poor old chap!" he said. "Well, we've brought a little with us, and when we've driven the Tubus away we shall have the whole country to forage in."
"You spoke of your army," said Royce, "You're not pulling my leg?"
"Not a bit of it. I've got a couple of hundred fine fellows three or four miles away. I never thought I should live to be a drill sergeant!"
He explained how he had recruited and trained his army, and Royce chuckled as he saw in his mind's eye the first efforts of the negroes to obey the word of command.
Then they talked over their plans,
"What I propose is this," said Challis. "I'll slip out again presently, get back to my army, and lead an attack on the Tubus' camp to the north-west about dawn. When you hear the rumpus, make a sortie with your men, and fall on the enemy in the rear."
"But what about the other camps?" asked Royce.
"We must tackle them when we have joined forces," Challis replied. "I fancy the Tubus are so unaccustomed to meet organised attack that they won't put up much of a fight. At any rate, I hope they won't, for everybody's sake, though we shan't have done our work properly unless we teach them a lesson."
"Well, old man, we shall owe a lot to you. I've wondered and wondered what you were doing, wished you hadn't gone, feared I should never see you again; in short——"
"In short, you're an old ass, so shut up. You've had much the harder task in keeping your end up here. Now, don't argue, or we shall have to toss for it, and I won last time."
A little later Challis left the fort by the ladder as he had entered it, and crawled down the hill, pausing every now and again to listen for signs of the enemy. Several times he was deceived by the movement of bushes stirred by a light breeze. Once or twice rabbits or other small animals scurried away almost from beneath him, giving him a momentary start until he realised the nature of these harmless disturbances.
He reached the foot of the hill, and directed his course under cover of occasional bushes in a line between south-west and south.
A strange feeling of uneasiness held him, in spite of his efforts to shake it off. Though he moved with the utmost caution, his progress was not so silent as he could have wished. Once he stepped on a dry twig, which snapped with a report that, in his nervousness, he felt sure must be heard by the enemy.
Not until he had reached the shelter of the woodland did he breathe more freely.
There was now little chance, he thought, of his being intercepted by the Tubus, whose camp fires he had left behind him and on either hand. But there was always the risk of coming upon some wild animal, or perhaps a serpent like that which had disturbed Royce's night's rest in the tree, and in his watchfulness he strained eyes and ears painfully.
He passed safely through the thin belt of woodland, and hurried across open ground towards a thicker belt which he saw looming up before him, dark in the starlight. Just as he had come within about fifty yards of it, there was a slight sound immediately in his front. Halting, he heard the patter of bare feet on both sides, and a number of figures darted dimly into view from left and right.
And now Challis's training as three-quarter in his school fifteen stood him in good stead.
As the men approached, he sprang forward, just eluding their attack, swerved to avoid a man right ahead, and dropped, in time to bring down another rushing in from his left. He heard the negroes colliding and jostling one another in the darkness as he sprinted towards the trees.
They were after him instantly, but he had a few yards in hand when he plunged into the undergrowth, heedless of the thorns that tore his hands and clothes. The almost naked negroes were punished much more severely as they rushed in after him.
It was pitch dark in the wood. Challis ran on blindly, tearing a way by main strength, or by doubling and twisting when the obstacles were too firm to be broken through. He soon shook off his pursuers, but it was not long before he recognised that he was lost in the wood, and his nervousness returned with double force.
Should he go on, or stand still? If he went on, he might go farther and farther from his true course. If he stood still, he might be stalked by some wild beast which would probably avoid him if he were moving.
After a little anxious hesitation, he decided to climb a tree and try to get a rough bearing from the stars. When he descended, he pushed on again. He knew that the wood was not very wide. Beyond it was more or less open country, over which he thought he could easily find his way to the spot where his men were awaiting him.
Presently he came to a glade, and went more rapidly, paying less attention to his footsteps, and peering around for some opening through the rest of the wood.
Suddenly the ground seemed to give way beneath him. He fell, accompanied by a landslide of loose earth, and when at last his fall was checked, he lay for some minutes half-stunned upon the ground.
When he regained his wits, he anxiously felt his arms and legs.
"No bones broken," he thought. "But I'm sure I'm black and blue. And where am I?"
Feeling battered and bruised, he got up, shaking off the mass of earth, leaves, and twigs that had fallen with him, and began to grope about in the darkness. In a moment or two he stumbled over something hard, which rattled as he kicked it. He stooped down, and felt with his hand, which touched a heap of bones.
A shudder ran through him, and he recoiled. "Don't be a silly ass," he said to himself, and stooped again, taking up one bone after another. He could not help heaving a sigh of relief. Such large bones could never have been the framework of a human body. "I'm jiggered," he thought. "Of course, I've tumbled into an elephant pit. And how in the world am I to get out?"
He knew that elephants were sometimes trapped in deep pits by the natives, and he had vague recollections of stories of men who had fallen into such pits and never got out again.
Looking upward, he saw signs of dawn through the narrow opening. But within the pit it was still too dark for him to see the nature of the place into which he had fallen. He could only examine it by the sense of touch.
The result of his examination was alarming. He walked round the pit, testing the walls with his hand in the hope of finding a place where the earth had broken away, so that he could climb up. But he found that the walls sloped inward, like an inverted cup. They were quite unscalable.
At this discovery he was aghast. What could he do? He was twelve or fifteen feet below the ground, and though he groped around for objects with which to make a sort of pedestal, he found nothing but the elephant's bones.
"It's no good getting into a stew," he thought. "I had better wait until it is light. Perhaps I'll see a way out then."
He sat down, reflecting that, if there were no other way, he would have to dig up earth with his pocket-knife, and make a pillar high enough, if he stood on it, to enable him to reach the sides of the hole. The thought that, even if he succeeded in this, the earth above might break away in his hands, made him shiver.
In course of time the sky changed from dark blue to grey, and from grey to light blue. But the bottom of the pit was only dimly illuminated, because the hole was so small. He saw now, however, that the bones formed a complete skeleton, and that a pair of enormous tusks lay imbedded in moss, leaves, and earth.
Clearly the pit had long been disused. Those who had dug it had either forgotten it, or more probably had been killed in Tubu raids. The elephant must have met its fate many years before, for nothing but the skeleton remained.
The brushwood originally piled over the opening was only partially displaced when the elephant tumbled in, and creepers had grown over what was left, again concealing the trap.
As he became fully aware of the nature of his position, Challis grew more and more alarmed. He pictured himself sharing the fate of the elephant, starving by inches, and at last his bones lying with the skeleton on the floor of the pit.
His thoughts returned to Royce, waiting in the fort for the help that never came, and to his army, a few miles away, becoming more and more uneasy at the absence of their leader, perhaps quarrelling among themselves, breaking up and leaving the white man to his fate.
These terrible possibilities spurred him to action. Seizing one of the bones, he set to work to scrape at one side of the pit, with the idea of making a pathway.
The earth crumbled away, but was so friable that his work was like digging in sand; the space he hollowed out filled as fast as he scraped the earth away. Then he thought of driving the bones into the side to form steps, but the ground gave no hold sufficient to bear his weight.
These failures drove him to despair. Only one resource was left—to shout for help. His own men were too far away to hear him; the only persons within call were probably the Tubus from whom he had escaped. But he might as well be killed by Tubus as die of hunger and thirst in the pit. Already his mouth was parched through his exertions and his distress of mind.
He shouted again and again, until he was hoarse. There was no answer. Waiting awhile, he made his hands into a trumpet, and shouted still more loudly up through the opening. In the hollow pit the sound was tremendous. Still no one replied.
Feeling desperate, he seized his bone spade again and hacked feverishly at the floor.
"I must do something," he thought, "or I shall go mad."
With the earth he dug up he began to construct a pillar. But he soon realised that it would take many hours, perhaps days, to raise it to a sufficient height.
Hot, weary, and despairing, he was resting for a moment when he heard a low hail from above. He looked up; at one side of the hole he saw a dark face peering down. He could not distinguish the features.
Without stopping to consider whether the man were an enemy or a friend, he called to him, and he trembled with joy when he heard, in startled tones, the words:
"Massa Chally!"
"John!" he cried. "I can't get out, John."
He laughed afterwards when he remembered this very obvious statement.
"Take care," he added. "We shall both be lost if you fall in, too."
"Oh my lawks!" John ejaculated. "What for you go tumble in dat way, sah? Berry funny all same."
"Not so funny as you think," said Challis. "You must get me out. I've had enough of it."
"Oh yes, sah, me savvy. Half mo, sah."
His broad face disappeared. After some minutes he returned with an armful of creepers, which he stripped of their leaves and deftly wound into a rope. This he let down into the pit. Challis tied it under his arms, and called to John to pull. But John, strong as he was, could not haul up a man of Challis's weight without leverage, as he found in a very few moments. There was no convenient tree within easy reach. What was to be done?
"Wind it round you, and I will climb up," said Challis.
But he had risen only a few feet above the floor of the pit when John staggered, and Challis let go and dropped for fear of pulling the Hausa down. The mishap seemed to tickle John, who laughed heartily, though Challis found it no laughing matter, and was all the time uneasy lest the Tubus should appear on the scene.
"Don't stand there grinning like an ape," he said somewhat tartly.
John sobered at once.
"Me savvy, sah," he said, and for the second time he went away.
When he came back he was accompanied, to Challis's astonishment, by the two Tubus whom they had captured on the previous day. Lengthening the rope a little, he wound it tightly round the two men, who were still tied together, then called to Challis to climb.
In half a minute Challis's head was level with the brink of the pit. Then John, telling the Tubus to move away, grasped his master's hands, and by dint of the efforts of the three men Challis was hauled out of his prison.
"How did you happen to be here with the Tubus?" asked Challis, when he stood beside John.
"Nebber let go, sah," said John.
"But I told you to take them back to the men."
"All same, sah," was John's reply.
He seemed unwilling to say more, fearing, perhaps, a reproof for disobedience. But Challis managed to get out of him the explanation that he had been too anxious about his master's safety to go far away. He had left the Tubus tied up to a tree while he went on to the fort to give his jackal cry, and on returning to them he had decided to wait in the forest to make sure that Challis would come back safely. At dawn he was stealing in the direction of the fort when he heard Challis's cry.
"Well, it's very lucky that you did disobey," said Challis, "and I owe you my life, John. Be sure I shan't forget it."
"Like to please Massa Chally," John grinned happily.
Anxious to make up for lost time, Challis hurried back with John and the Tubus to the spot where he had left his men. As he expected, they were becoming restless. But they gave a great shout of joy when they saw him in the distance, and Challis sent John forward to order them to be silent; for all he knew, Tubu scouts might be in the neighbourhood.
His intention, as he had arranged with Royce, was to reach the Tubus' camp north-west of the fort about sunrise, and he felt that there was grave risk in leading an attack in broad daylight. But the thought of Royce's disappointment, of his wonder and dismay when the arrangement was not carried out, nerved him to the task.
Impressing on the men that they must march in perfect silence, he drew them up in an orderly column, inspected their arms, and moved off at their head. Some of the best scouts were thrown out ahead and on the flanks to guard against surprise with orders to report at once if they caught sight of the enemy.
Challis felt very nervous. Numbers and arms were on the side of the Tubus. He had hoped to counterbalance this disadvantage by the effect of a sudden swoop in the early morning twilight, but that was now impossible.
The steadiness of his men, however, at the fight by the swamp, was of good augury, and their belief in white man's magic and trust in their leader were strong. They were full of courage and enthusiasm, and seemed confident that the coming struggle would rid them for ever of the murderous tyranny of their oppressors.
They followed a roundabout course, in order to take advantage of all the cover afforded by the numerous clumps of woodland on the western side of the fort.
As they passed through the undergrowth and trees, they started many flights of birds, which Challis feared would give warning to the Tubus, from whom he had so narrowly escaped in the night. He was surprised that there was no sign of them. Why had they not followed him up, or at least fetched a body of their comrades to hunt for him?
The explanation, which he only guessed at later, was that the Tubus had supposed that the white fugitive was Royce. They reported this to Goruba, who jumped to the conclusion that Royce had left his men in the lurch. The result of this mistaken belief will be seen presently.
The column thus advanced unmolested and unseen. After an hour and a half's march, John, who had gone ahead with the scouts, came back to announce that they were now in a line with the fort, which was something less than a mile away.
Challis called a halt at the western side, farthest from the fort, of a patch of scrub. Once more he impressed on his men the necessity of silence. He told them also that if they succeeded in putting the Tubus of the north-west camp to flight, they must not carry the pursuit too far, for they would then become dispersed and be unable to deal with the men from the other camps.
Wondering doubtfully whether John had made his meaning clear, he was about to lead his men on, when a sound suddenly struck his ear. For the moment he did not recognise it, but hearing it again he knew it to be the sound of horses neighing. The animals were apparently between him and the camp.
An idea flashed into his mind.
"John," he said, "go out ahead and see where those horses are, how many there are, and what the Tubus are doing."
It was twenty minutes before John returned. His report was interesting, and would have been alarming, but for the idea which had occurred to Challis.
About fifty of the Tubus, said John, were about to ride off in a northerly direction. Each man had four or five horses in his charge, so that they were probably going to a grazing ground somewhere near.
The rest of the men in the north-west camp were hard at work making ladders. It was clear that another attack was to be made on the fort. The ladders previously used had been left behind under the walls.
It was clear, too, that the enemy had no suspicion of any attempt from the outside to raise the siege. Confident in their numbers, they had taken no steps to guard against an attack from the rear.
"With luck we have them!" said Challis to himself, and turned to give final orders to his expectant men.
Challis wished to get as near as possible to the Tubus who were collecting the horses without being discovered. Accordingly he drew out his men in line over a long front, and passed the word along that they must keep a strict silence.
Then he signed to them to advance, and they moved forward swiftly, with the lightness of foot which is the negroes' birthright.
For some distance they were covered by the undergrowth. In spite of all their care, it was inevitable that the passage of so large a number of men should cause a slight rustling, and they were still nearly three hundred yards from the horses when the sound was heard.
The Tubus turned round, caught sight of them, and raised a shout of alarm. Concealment was no longer possible. Challis blew his whistle for the charge. His men answered with a fierce yell, and the whole line swept forward.
Challis had scarcely anticipated the effect of the shrill cries from hundreds of throats. The Tubus' horses were seized with panic and plunged wildly. Their riders, unable to control them, were themselves terror-stricken at the sight of the long line of warriors rushing towards them. Dropping the horses' bridles, they led the stampede.
The mob of men and horses surged towards the camp, where some of the Tubus were engaged in making new ladders, the rest cooking or idling. They dashed through and over them, scattering them right and left. Panic spread through the camp, and before the attackers were within striking distance, the whole force of the enemy was in headlong flight.
The horses in their blind charge dashed into the slight grass huts which the Tubus had built and razed them to the ground. Challis saw Goruba spring up from the ruins of one of them, catch at the bridle of a horse that was running by, and leap with extraordinary agility upon its back.
On went the torrent. The Tubus who had arms in their hands at the moment of alarm flung them away to speed their flight. Behind them panted Challis's men, shouting more and more loudly as they saw the dreaded enemy fleeing before them, and Challis rejoiced in the prospect of a bloodless victory.
For a little the course was uphill, towards the fort; but the slope gradually affected the direction, and the fugitives bore more and more to the right. At last they disappeared among the brushwood and woodland to the north of the fort, Goruba, conspicuous on his horse, striving vainly to check the flight.
When all the horses and men had vanished from sight, Goruba reappeared after a moment or two and galloped round the hill to the west, the direction of the second Tubu camp.
Challis had hard work, even with John's assistance, to keep his men in hand. Their instinct was to rush into the wood after the fleeing enemy, and they could not understand why the white man's whistle kept on calling them to halt.
Their line was quite broken, and it was some minutes before Challis could reform it. Even then it was incomplete, for many of the men, carried away by their ardour, had dashed among the trees.
But the line was reformed only just in time. Round the base of the hill galloped a force of Tubus from the second camp, led by Goruba. It was clear from the disorder of their ranks that they had mounted and rushed off without any attempt to form up.
Challis felt a good deal of anxiety about the result of the approaching collision until he saw that the Tubus were much fewer in number than his own men. Their lack of order also gave him a great advantage.
Shouting to his men to plant their pikes and stand firm, he awaited the onset. Goruba and the foremost of the Tubus charged straight upon the bristling barrier. Down they went, though the impact felled many of the pikemen. But their fall caused their comrades behind to hesitate. Challis was quick to seize the moment. With a shrill blast of his whistle he ordered his men to charge, and the willing negroes, always more ready to advance than to hold their ground, rushed forward with an impetuosity that carried all before it.
Some of the Tubus turned at once and galloped away. A few stood for several moments, as if weighing the chances of a countercharge; then they too, wheeled their horses about and urged them to a frantic gallop. Within a few minutes from the first dash, the hillside in this quarter was clear.
Challis again called off his men, and hastened to search for Goruba, whom he expected to find dead or at least seriously wounded on the ground. But among the fallen enemy there was no trace of the giant. He had disappeared.
Meanwhile, Royce, according to his arrangement with Challis, had dealt with the enemy in the third camp. He had almost given up hope when he heard the first sounds of the fray.
The third party of Tubus, when the alarm was raised, took a course which would have brought them on the rear of Challis's men. This had been foreseen by Royce. After Challis's departure in the night, he had had the gateway cleared, except for a light, movable barrier, in readiness for a sortie. He had seen from the walls the flight of the first party of the enemy, and the other two parties rushing to the rescue, one on Challis's front, the other on his rear. Leaving Challis to deal with the frontal attack, he led his men out through the gateway to head off the other party.
Unlike Challis, he had fewer men than the enemy, and less than a third of them were armed. But one rifle was of more value than many spears. The men lined up on the slope of the hill, where the advancing enemy must come within close range. At the word of command they fired.
The Tubus checked instantly. They appeared to hesitate whether to run the gauntlet of the attack and push on to the support of their comrades or to remain and fight it out with the garrison of the fort. It was evident that they had no leader of authority, and Royce, like Challis, was quick to profit by their hesitation.
"After me, boys!" he cried, and led the Hausas in a headlong charge down the hill.
Behind them, in a wild, tumultuous mob, swarmed the other men, some armed with stones, some with spears, some even with the Tubus' scaling ladders.
The very boldness of the movement decided the issue. If the Tubus stopped to think, they must have supposed that so small a body, in measuring themselves against overwhelming numbers, was covered by support from some other quarter. They fired one scattered volley. Royce did not halt his men to reply to it, but bounded on at their head whooping like a schoolboy, while the Tubus kicked their horses' flanks and bolted for cover to the nearest wood.
The fight was won.
Royce and Challis met at the foot of the hill.
"Splendid, old man!" said the former, gripping his friend by the hand. "I had almost given you up, and my men were in a frightful state of depression."
"Not more depressed than I was," rejoined Challis with a smile. "I was depressed sixteen feet below ground! But I'll tell you all about that presently. Give your men a good feed out of the reserve provisions we have brought. I'll send my lot out to prevent the Tubus from reuniting; then we'll talk things over."
Challis sent three-fourths of his force into the forest and the surrounding country, with orders to check any attempt of the scattered Tubus to combine. Meanwhile Royce's men revelled in what was, after their privations, a sumptuous feast.
While they were eating Royce and Challis attended to the few wounded.
"It's extraordinary, that so few have been lost on either side," said Challis. "It's almost a bloodless victory. The Tubus have been vastly over-rated. They seem more ready to bunk than to fight."
"The explanation is simple enough," said Royce. "They have never met with organised opposition before. They have had it all their own way, and kept the negroes down by the sheer terror of their name. Their power is gone for good now."
"I'm not sure of that," returned Challis. "Goruba is still at large. He was bowled over when he charged my pikemen, but he couldn't have been much hurt, for he got clean away."
"That's a pity. If we had collared him our victory would have been complete. None of your men saw which way he went?"
"They didn't say so."
"If we could only find out, we might pursue him. So long as he is at large, he is a danger; he may rally the fugitives, and when they have got over their fright they will be a far more formidable enemy to tackle."
"Well, let us round up some horses, in case we get word of him. We'll probably find a good many in the woods."
"A good idea. Some of the Hausas can ride—I will send them."
He selected half-a-dozen of the Hausas, including Gambaru and Kulana, and sent them under John's command to bring in any horses they might find within a short distance of the fort. While they were gone, Challis related the incident of his fall into the pit.
"But for John's disobedience I should never have got out," he concluded. "We owe a good deal to the devotion of our men, Hugh."
"We do, indeed, and it shan't go unrewarded. The way they have stuck to us is magnificent."
After about an hour, John and his party returned, riding on captured horses and leading others. They also brought several Tubu prisoners, tied to their saddles. John was evidently much excited.
"Goruba, sah!" he cried, springing from his horse. "Him run away."
"We know that," said Royce. "Which way did he go? Did you see him?"
"No see him, sah. Hah! Him berry clebber chap, sah, Gamba feel very bad, sure 'nuff."
"Who is Gamba? What do you mean?" Royce asked.
John drew forward one of the prisoners, a tall young negro slightly wounded in the thigh.
"Dis Gamba, sah," John went on. "Him say Goruba pull him off horse, knock him boko, sah. Goruba get a horse, run away all same. Gamba berry mad; what for Goruba run away, not him? Him Tubu, Goruba no Tubu; make him berry mad, sah."
John did not explain himself very clearly; but, after questioning him patiently, Royce made out that when Gamba was about to ride away Goruba pulled him from the saddle, struck him on the head, and galloped away on his horse.
Gamba resented this. He had always disliked Goruba as a stranger who had wormed his way into the confidence of the Tubu chief, and whose rise to power had awakened the jealousy of many of the tribe. He blamed Goruba, too, for the misfortunes which had lately befallen the community, and had a personal grudge against him for appropriating his horse and preventing him from fleeing to safety.
"Which way did Goruba ride?" asked Royce.
Gamba explained that Goruba had ridden northwards towards the Yo, probably to fetch reinforcements large enough to crush the Englishmen's party.
"He has got a good start," said Royce to Challis. "but there's just a chance we may catch him if we go at once."
"Especially if this fellow will guide us," said Challis.
In spite of his wound, Gamba was eager to lead the chase of the man he hated. Accordingly, Royce and Challis mounted and, accompanied by the Tubu and their six Hausas, cantered away towards the north. John, much to his disappointment, was left behind in command of the men.
As they rode on, the Englishmen got more information from Gamba, Kalana interpreting. It turned out that he was a nephew of the childless chief of the Tubus, and had expected some day to succeed him, until Goruba appeared on the scene.
Moreover, he had a special affection for the horse of which he had been deprived. It was the fastest horse owned by the tribe, and Goruba had long coveted it. He said that if Goruba rode straight for the Yo and crossed it they would never catch him. Their only chance of doing so was that he might be delayed, or halt for some reason or other.
On learning this Royce quickened the pace. Gamba led the party almost due north, through a country which had probably never before been visited by a white man. It was broken, hilly country, for the Yo was still far from the mud flats that mark its entrance into Lake Chad.
They soon had visible proof, in hoof marks, that more than one horseman had recently ridden in front of them. Clearly Goruba was not alone. Gamba dismounted and examined the tracks. He gave a grunt of satisfaction when he discovered the track of his own horse.
When they rode on he seemed to forget that he was following up an important member of his own tribe. All his attention was fixed on recovering his horse and squaring accounts with a personal enemy.
Keenly scanning the trail as he rode, he pointed out every now and then spots where stragglers had joined Goruba, until it was clear that the party with him numbered eight or nine men.
"We needn't bother about them," said Royce. "You boys, go for Goruba. You can't mistake him; he is bigger than the rest. Don't kill him if you can help it; he will be more useful to us alive than dead."
The track was easy to follow, and there was no doubt that Goruba was making straight for the Yo. It was not likely that he had given up the contest, for his treasure was still safe in the underground cave.
Royce hoped that the giant would not meet a raiding party of Tubus before he reached the headquarters of the tribe, for with his few Hausas, armed with rifles though they were, he would be no match for a large band of the negro warriors.
The sun was hot, and the stiff pace at which they rode fatigued the whole party. But Royce pressed on, hoping to make up for the start of more than an hour which Goruba had had.
At last, early in the afternoon, he caught sight of the quarry about two miles ahead, disappearing over the crest of a gentle slope.
The pursuers, who were riding down hill, urged their horses to a gallop. Easing them up the slope, they found when they had reached the top that they had gained nearly half-a-mile on the fugitives, who were apparently unaware of being followed.
From this point onwards the country was a succession of ups and downs like a switchback. The Tubus had disappeared; when next they were sighted, they had almost gained the top of another slope. Royce allowed them to pass from sight over the skyline, then galloped on to gain on them once more.
Hitherto the ground had been fairly open, but it became more wooded as they proceeded. The Tubus were hidden when the pursuers got to the crest of the hill. They gave their horses a breather, and then pushed on at full speed over a rough forest track. Royce was leading with Gamba, Challis and the rest following in single file.
It was impossible to see more than about a hundred yards in front, owing to the winding of the path among the trees. Suddenly the rearmost of the Tubus came into sight about eighty yards ahead. At the same moment he heard the thuds of the pursuers' horses, turned in his saddle, and, shouting with alarm, urged his horse forward.
"After them!" cried Royce, digging his heels into his horse's flanks.
A turn of the path brought the whole nine of the fugitives into view. The path narrowed, so that there was only room for one horseman to ride at a time. The better mounted of the Tubus tried to pass the slower, with the result that some were edged off into the wood on either side, and tried to force their way through the entangling vegetation.
"Never mind about them," cried Royce, who had seen Goruba's huge form galloping ahead of two others.
It was a wild ride. In some places the branches of trees hung down over the path, and the pursuers had to dodge them by bending low on their horses' necks. At other places the path itself was obstructed by fallen boughs and by masses of creepers, so that both pursuers and pursued had the utmost difficulty in avoiding a fall.
Royce, with his eyes fixed on Goruba, narrowly escaped coming a cropper, and was only saved by the sure-footedness of his horse, accustomed to running in this wild forest country. Gambaru was struck from his saddle by an overhanging branch, and Challis, close behind him, pulled up just in time to avoid riding over him.
One of the Tubus riding behind Goruba edged his companion off into the thicket. Royce, close on his heels, shot out his left arm as he passed and threw the man from his seat.
Then, just as his horse was steadily overhauling the man in front, there was a sudden dramatic development.
Goruba glanced round, took the measure of the situation, and drawing a pistol, while still riding at full speed, deliberately shot the horse of his follower. The beast fell with its rider. Royce was unable to check his horse in time; it turned a somersault over the fallen animal, and Royce was shot over its head into a thorn bush several yards away.
The Hausas yelled with alarm and reined up. Challis, forgetting Goruba in his anxiety for his friend, sprang from his horse and ran to assist him as he rose, torn and bleeding, from the merciless thorns.
For a few seconds Royce was too dazed with pain and shock to think or speak. Then, collecting his wits, he said:
"Don't bother about me! After Goruba—don't let him escape."
But Goruba had reckoned on the confusion and delay which his shooting the horse would occasion. By the time that Challis had remounted and dashed on in pursuit, the bold negro was out of sight.
While Royce was recovering from the shock of his fall, Challis and some of the men, including Gamba, the young Tubu, galloped on in the hope of overtaking Goruba. But when they had ridden for a mile or two without catching sight of him, Challis pulled up, unwilling to leave Royce with only two or three men to support him in case the scattered Tubus attacked.
Riding back, he had not gone far, however, when he met Royce and the rest of the party.
"There are no bones broken; I'm all right now," cried Royce. "I suppose Goruba has got away?"
"Yes, confound him! He's as difficult to catch as a weasel. Is it any good going on?"
"We won't give it up yet," replied Royce. "He may delay to collect his scattered band, and if we can catch him before he gets to the ford over the Yo it will be a great score for us. He would be invaluable as a hostage, to say the least of it."
Gamba, smarting at the loss of his horse, was eager to push on, though he admitted that it would be difficult to overtake the best horse of the tribe. Only by accident could the pursuit succeed.
The party rode on at their best pace. The country soon became more rocky, and on the harder soil they lost the tracks of Goruba's horse. But this was of no importance. Gamba was sure that the man would make for the Yo, and the nearest ford was about two hours' ride from the spot where Royce had come to grief. Towards that ford he led the way, often outstripping the rest of the party in his eagerness.
But there was never a sign of Goruba. They scanned the crest of every rise in the ground, hoping to see the big form on the sky-line. Neither horse nor man came within their view.
At last they arrived at the river, and Gamba galloped at headlong pace down to the ford. There he sprang from his horse and feverishly examined the tracks on the softer soil. To his surprise and dismay, there were none very recent, and those there were all pointed in the opposite direction. It was clear that no horseman had crossed to the northern bank for some weeks past.
Baffled, he rode up and down stream to see if Goruba had avoided the ford, and perhaps swum his horse across the river at some other point. While he was doing this Royce crossed at the ford, and examined the ground on the opposite bank, and Challis sent some of the men to scour the neighbourhood.
After a long search they had to confess utter failure. In no direction was there any trace of Goruba's horse. Goruba had given them the slip.
Gamba wept with disappointment.
"It's enough to make any one snivel," said Challis. "What can have become of the fellow?"
"Whatever it is, we are done brown," said Royce. "It's no good riding any farther; we might tumble among a whole swarm of Tubus. And as it's getting late, we had better camp for the night, and then go back and digest our disappointment as well as we can."
At this moment Gamba gave a succession of peculiar shrill whistles.
"What's that mean?" asked Royce.
Gambaru explained that the man was whistling for his horse, thinking that Goruba had possibly left it some distance from the river and swum across, so that hoof marks might not betray him. But the signals were ineffective, and Gamba wept again.
Retreating from the bank, they formed a camp on a sheltered hillside, ate some of the food they had brought with them, and settled down for the night, arranging for the men to keep watch in turn. Nothing disturbed them, and early in the morning they started back for the fort.
On the way they caught sight of many stray Tubus making their way towards the river. These always slunk away when they saw the Englishmen, who did not think it worth while to pursue them. They already had enough prisoners, and shrank from further bloodshed.
They reached the fort just before noon. The fort itself had not been occupied during the night. John reported that the men had conceived such a horror of it that they preferred to remain in the open. The Tubus had wholly disappeared. Their failure and the flight of their leader had broken their spirit.
Some of the victorious natives had already gone back to their homes to relate how the dreaded Tubus had been defeated.
"We couldn't hope for anything better," said Royce. "The whole countryside will hear of it in a day or two; the prestige of the Tubus will be utterly shattered, and the people won't be afraid of them any longer. I rather fancy they will keep to their own side of the Yo in the future."
"If they do, we'll have done some good in the world," said Challis. "But now, old man, I want to see Rabeh's hoard. What's going to happen to that?"
"Well, I suppose it is fair spoil of war, but I haven't given a thought to the question as to what we shall do with it. We'll have to get it up and that will take some time; there's such a lot of it. I'll take you down the well for a private view. Then we'll have the barrier removed from the entrance in the wood and get the men to bring the stuff into the open."
They walked up the hill and climbed into the fort, where Challis was interested to see the changes made during his absence.
"You ought to have been an officer in the Royal Engineers, Hugh," he said.
Royce grinned.
"Don't be an ass!" was all he said.
They reached the well-room.
"Just wait up here until I get the door open," said Royce, as he stepped over the coping and began to descend by the iron staples.
Challis leant over the edge, watching him. Below, the depths of the well were dark, and he could hear the slight gurgle of the spring at the bottom.
"I say," came Royce's voice, "the door's open! I left it shut. One of the men must have been prying, in spite of what John said about their horror."
"You'll have to make an example of him! Shall I come down?"
"Wait a bit. My electric torch has given out. Have you got a match?"
"Not one. There's a box among our stores, though. I'll get it and bring it down to you."
He went to the room where the stores were kept. Meanwhile Royce, always impatient, passed through the opening in the wall and began to creep slowly along the tunnel.
Challis, having found a box of matches, was returning to the well when he was amazed to see a black, fuzzy head appear over the coping. For a moment he imagined that it belonged to one of Royce's own men whom he had routed out of the tunnel, but at a second glance he realised his mistake. The man's black cheeks bore Rabeh's telltale scars. It was Goruba.
With a shout, Challis dashed forward. Goruba's shoulders were now above the coping. In his right hand he bore a knife, and his eyes gleamed with rage. Challis was unarmed. His only chance was to deal with the negro before he had fully emerged from the well.
Shooting out his right arm, he brought his fist with sledge-hammer force upon Goruba's brow, between the eyes, just as the man was about to launch himself over the coping. The negro staggered back, lost his balance, and fell head over heels into the well. There was a thud, then a splash—and then Royce's voice from the opening:
"What's the row, Tom? When are you coming down with those matches?"
Challis shuddered with horror as he realised how narrow Royce's escape had been. A moment later, and Royce must have been dashed from his footing on the staple by the massive form of Goruba, and have fallen, like him, to the bottom of the well.
"Hurry up, Tom! What are you so long about, man?" Royce asked.
Challis leant over the coping.
"All right," he said, conscious that his voice was shaking. "Just a minute."
Pulling himself together, he set his foot on the first staple and began to descend very slowly, not daring to look down into the black depths. He reached the hole in the wall, struck a match, lit a candle end he had in his pocket, and followed Royce into the tunnel.
"What's up?" asked Royce. "You're as white as a sheet. Surely that little bit of a climb didn't make you dizzy?"
"No, I'm all right. Goruba's gone!"
"Gone? What do you mean? Of course he's gone."
"Down the well," said Challis, almost in a whisper. "He was climbing up with a knife. I went for him, and he fell."
For a moment Royce was speechless with astonishment. Then he said:
"But I don't understand. Where did he come from? He didn't pass me. Are you sure it was Goruba?"
"Certain. It was horrible."
"Poor old chap! Look here, you're shaken. Rest a bit while I go down. Perhaps the fellow isn't much hurt."
He took the candle from Challis's hand and went carefully down by the staples to the bottom of the well. There, huddled in a pool of water, lay all that was left of the gigantic negro. He was quite dead. It was clear that in his descent he had struck the stone slab projecting into the well. His neck was broken.
Awed by this strange tragedy, puzzled at the presence of Goruba here, Royce climbed up again and rejoined his friend.
"The poor wretch is dead," he said. "What an extraordinary fatality! He must have been in the darkness below. But what could he have been doing there?"
Together they sat on the stone floor with the candle between them. For some time neither spoke.
"I see part of the explanation," said Challis at last. "When he escaped from us he must have guessed that we should continue the pursuit, and slipped back at full speed to secure his treasure, or some of it, in our absence."
"The ruling passion!" said Royce. "Yes, that's it. But still I don't understand why he was down the well. If I had met him in the tunnel, now, there would have been no mystery about it."
"Perhaps he was in the room above, saw us coming, and came down to be out of our way."
"Ah! and to follow us through the tunnel and stab us in the back. That's it, to a certainty. Your going back for the matches saved our lives, Tom."
"We've a lot to be thankful for," said Challis.
"We have indeed! ... Now for Rabeh's hoard, old man."
They went along the tunnel, found the slab in the floor, lifted it, and made their way into the cave. Challis gasped when he saw the immense array of tusks.
"They are worth a fortune," he said. "No wonder Goruba wanted to drive us out."
"He has been moving things!" exclaimed Royce. "That row at the end there isn't as I left it. At least a dozen tusks are gone. I wonder what he has done with them. Let us go on to the farther entrance."
But halfway through the narrow tunnel beyond they found the path blocked. From floor to roof the tunnel was choked with a mass of earth, plants, and trees.
"The roof has fallen in," said Royce, scanning the obstruction by the light of the candle. "Things are becoming clearer. Look! Here's a tusk. Goruba must have been carrying it, or lugging it, for it's tremendously heavy, when the ground above sank. That accounts for his being at the other end. We shall have to go back, enter from the wood, and get our men to clear the rubbish away."
They retraced their steps, and rejoining their men, led a party of them into the wood.
"Here's a horse tethered!" cried Challis. "I wonder if it is Gamba's."
He sent Gambaru back to fetch the man, who the moment he caught sight of the horse yelled with delight, threw his arms round the animal's neck, and allowed it to rub its nose over his back. Then he sprang into the saddle.
"Not so fast," cried Royce, catching at the bridle. "Tell him I can't let him go yet, Gambaru. We must have a talk first. Keep him safe until I have time to attend to him."
He took the men on to the concealed entrance. Goruba had patiently removed the material with which it had been blocked up. Leading the men to the spot where the subsidence had occurred, Royce ordered them to clear away the rubbish and then report to him.
"Now we must find the tusks he removed," he said to Challis. "I daresay they are hidden somewhere in the undergrowth."
But though a hundred men spent hours in searching the wood, no trace of the tusks was discovered. It was not until later in the day that the mystery was solved. Some of the negroes, who had gone down to the stream to fetch water for their evening meal, came running back in great excitement. They had seen two long, yellow tusks gleaming through the water. Royce at once went to the stream with a number of Hausas, who hauled out the tusks, and after searching for some time found ten others concealed under the bank.
Meanwhile the tunnel had been cleared, and Challis superintended the men as they brought the whole treasure out into the open air. Some of them knew that the ivory was very valuable, others were more interested in the useless objects, like the kepi, a rusty sword or two, and particularly a gilt mirror, in which they examined their smiling features with great delight.
When the cave was cleared, Royce put John in charge of the treasure and sent for Gamba.
"I am going to let you return to your chief," he said. "You will take him a message from me. Goruba is dead. He lies at the bottom of the well in the fort. Your people may fetch him, if they will. He coveted this treasure, which was stolen, I have no doubt, by his master Rabeh. It is now mine.
"You will tell your chief all that has happened, how we have beaten his men in fair fight, how their man Goruba has met his death through greed. You will tell him that we will fight his men again if they come to this side of the Yo. These people are no longer afraid of the Tubus. They mean to be left in peace. Tell your chief that.
"We have taken some forty Tubus prisoners. We shall keep them until your chief sends word that he will do as I say, and keep his men from raiding on this side of the river. The country here belongs to the Great White King, and if your people do wrong again, the Great White King will send men with big medicine to punish you. Now you may go, and remember my words."
Gambaru translated this solemnly, sentence by sentence, and Gamba listened gravely. When he had permission to go, he leapt upon his horse, gave a shrill whistle, and galloped away to the north.
"I hope the Tubus have learnt their lesson," said Royce to Challis. "Now what are we to do with this ivory? I suppose it is booty, fairly won in war, but we ought to go shares with the crowd."
"You mean turn it into money?"
"Yes, though money will be no good to the negroes. The first thing, at any rate, is to carry it to the coast. I think our Tubu prisoners might do that for us. We'll sell it, and consult somebody, a missionary perhaps, as to what we can best do for the people."
"What about the tin mine?"
"Well, we shall simply have to come back again. It's a terrible loss of time, but, after all, we're in no hurry to be rich, and if we have managed to secure the peace of this country we shan't regret our trouble. Don't you agree with me?"
"With all my heart. It's a sort of lesson to us, Hugh. We came out thinking only of ourselves, and in this strange way we have been led to think of others. It's a fine thing to have been able to do some good in the world."
Next day the whole company set off for the south, the Tubus being laden with the ivory. It was a sort of triumphal progress for the Englishmen. The tale of their doings had already been carried through the country, and at every village through which they passed the people could not do enough to show their gratitude.
The party grew smaller every day as men broke away to rejoin their own people. When the coast was reached, after weeks of toilsome marching, the Englishmen had with them only their Hausa boys, the Tubu prisoners, and a few men from various tribes who clung to them because they wished to see the strange and wonderful things about which the Hausas had told them.
The ivory fetched £3000, a sum much in excess of what the Englishmen had expected. Royce, who had plenty of money, refused to accept any part of the proceeds for himself. Challis, after some consideration, decided that £1000 would come in very useful in buying machinery for his tin mine.
They happened to meet a medical missionary and his wife who had just arrived from England. To them they handed over £2000 on condition that they would use it for the good of the natives south of the Yo. And when, after a month's rest, they returned to the scene of their adventures, they were accompanied by the missionaries and a new band of Hausa boys, with John again as headman. The old band felt so rich on the generous pay they had received that they meant to retire from business, at least for a time.
John treated them with contempt.
"Plenty silly chaps," he said. "Dey hab got lots of cash; me savvy all same. What dey do? Spend, spend, spend all time. Bimeby all gone. What do den, sah? Dey want 'nother massa; no can find one. Dey go sick. Wah! Me hab got good massa; me savvy all dat, sure 'nuff."
When Royce and Challis were last heard of they were working a rich tin mine, with two hundred contented negro labourers in their employment. A little settlement had sprung up in the midst of the great plain, with two large bungalows, one for Royce and Challis, the other for the missionary and his wife, and a number of neat grass huts for the labourers and their families.
The country in their immediate neighbourhood was troubled no more by the Tubus. A brisk trade grew up between their settlement and the surrounding villages, and once a year the people for miles around go in procession to visit the white men, carrying presents for the strangers who saved them from the raiders and brought peace and prosperity to the countryside.
THE END
HERBERT STRANG'S STORIES
SOME OPINIONS
"I envy the boy or girl who is given a Herbert Strang book.... Mr. Strang's powers of invention are great. One is hurried along breathlessly from one adventure to another, till we are left gasping at the end of the jolly narrative.... Mr. Strang's books are full of the qualities to which boys—and girls—should aspire. Reading him, an older, less adventurous person 'lives by admiration.'"—KATHARINE TYNAN.
"The intellectual level of boys' stories has been materially raised by Mr. Strang, and at the same time he has infused into them a stronger human interest than the old writers did. The gain is an all-round one.... Mr. Strang has brought the boys' story up to the same level of artistic effort and realisation as the high-class novel."—JAMES BURNLEY.
"We rejoice to find that among the crowd of money-makers who produce as if by machinery the standard book for boys, there are still some who realise that because only a boy is to read a book it need not therefore be careless, and because the boy will be without experience the book need not therefore be impossible."—THE OUTLOOK.
"Mr. Strang's books suggest a standard by which very few writers of boys' books will bear being judged. The majority of them are content to provide their young friends with mere reading—Herbert Strang offers them literature."—THE GLASGOW HERALD.
A FEW STIRRING ROMANCES
BY HERBERT STRANG
The Air Patrol
A Story of the North-West Frontier.
Illustrated in colour by CYRUS CUNEO.
In this book Mr. Strang looks ahead—and other books have already proved him a prophet of surprising skill—to a time when there is a great Mongolian Empire whose army sweeps down on the North-West Frontier of India. His two heroes luckily have an aeroplane, and with the help of a few Pathan miners they hold a pass in the Hindu Kush against a swarm of Mongols, long enough to prevent the cutting of the communications of the Indian army operating in Afghanistan. The qualities which marked Mr. Strang's story, "The Air Scout," and won extraordinarily high commendation from Lord Roberts, Lord Curzon, and others, as well as from the Spectator and other great journals, are again strikingly displayed; and the combination of thrilling adventure with an Imperial problem and excellent writing, adds one more to this author's long list of successes.
"An exceptionally good book, written moreover in excellent style."—Times.
"'The Air Patrol' is really a masterpiece."—Morning Post.
The Air Scout
A Story of National Defence.
Illustrated in Colour by W. R. S. STOTT.
The problems of National Defence are being discussed with more and more care and attention, not only in Great Britain, but also in all parts of the Empire. In this story Mr. Strang imagines a Chinese descent upon Australia, and carries his hero through a series of exciting adventures, in which the value of national spirit, organisation, and discipline is exemplified. The important part which the aeroplane will play in warfare is recognised, and the thousands of readers who have delighted in the author's previous stories of aviation will find this new book after their own heart.
LORD ROBERTS wrote:—"It is capital reading, and should interest more than boys. Your forecast is so good that I can only hope the future may not bring to Australia such a struggle as the one you so graphically describe."
LORD CURZON writes:—"I have read with great pleasure your book, 'The Air Scout.' It seems to me to be a capital story, full of life and movement: and further, it preaches the best of all secular gospels, patriotism and co-operation."
"We congratulate Mr. Strang on this fine book—one of the best fighting stories we have read."—Morning Post.
The Adventures of Dick Trevanion
A story of 1804.
Illustrated in Colour by W. RAINEY, R.I.
The Trevanions are a Cornish family whose fortunes have fallen very low through the working-out of their tin mines and the scheming of a relative who bears a grudge against the head of the house. In this story, dated in the early years of the 19th century, the author weaves together various strands: the war with Napoleon, the operations of smugglers, the machinations of the schemer, and the change in the fortunes of the family which ensued upon various alarums and excursions.
"This is a story after a boy's heart, treating of smugglers and family feuds and French privateers."—Spectator.
Humphrey Bold:
His Chances and Mischances by Land and Sea.
Illustrated In Colour by W. H. MARGETSON.
In this story are recounted the many adventures that befell Humphrey Bold of Shrewsbury, from the time when, a puny slip of a boy, he was befriended by Joe Punchard, the cooper's apprentice (who nearly shook the life out of his tormentor, Cyrus Vetch, by rolling him down the Wyle Cop in a barrel), to the day when, grown into a sturdy young giant, he sailed into Plymouth Sound as first lieutenant of the Bristol frigate. The intervening chapters teem with exciting incidents, telling of sea-fights with that redoubtable privateer Duguay Trouin; of Humphrey's escape from a French prison; of his voyage to the West Indies and all the perils he encountered there.
"Mr. Strang is undoubtedly the best writer of this class of story that we have to-day. He has never done anything better than 'Humphrey Bold.'"—Newcastle Chronicle.
"Undoubtedly one of the strongest historical stories we ever remember to have read."—Schoolmaster.
Palm Tree Island.
Illustrated in Colour by ARCHIBALD WEBB.
In this story two boys are left on a volcanic island in the South Seas, destitute of everything but their clothes. The story relates how they provided themselves with food and shelter, with tools and weapons; how they fought with wild dogs and sea monsters; and how, when they have settled down to a comfortable life under the shadow of the volcano, their peace is disturbed by the advent of savages and a crew of mutinous Englishmen. The savages are driven away; the mutineers are subdued through the boys' ingenuity; and they ultimately sail away in a vessel of their own construction. In no other book has the author more admirably blended amusement with instruction.
"Written so well that there is not a dull page in the book."—The World.
Rob the Ranger:
A Story of the Fight for Canada.
With Illustrations in Colour and Maps.
Rob Somers, son of an English settler in New York State, sets out with Lone Pete, a trapper, in pursuit of an Indian raiding party which has destroyed his home and carried off his younger brother. He is captured and taken to Quebec, where he finds his brother in strange circumstances, and escapes with him in the dead of the winter, in company with a little band of stout-hearted New Englanders.
General Baden-Powell, in recommending books to the Boy Scouts, places "Rob the Ranger" first among the great scouting stories.
One of Clive's Heroes
A Story of the Fight for India
With Illustrations in Colour and Maps.
Desmond Burke goes out to India to seek his fortune, and is sold by a false friend of his, one Marmaduke Diggle, to the famous Pirate of Gheria. But he escapes, runs away with one of the Pirate's own vessels, and meets Colonel Clive, whom he assists to capture the Pirate's stronghold. His subsequent adventures on the other side of India—how he saves a valuable cargo for his friend Mr. Merriman, and assists Clive in his fights against Sirajuddaula—are told with great spirit and humour.
"An absorbing story.... The narrative not only thrills, but also weaves skilfully out of fact and fiction a clear impression of our fierce struggle for India."—Athenæum.
