Forging the Blades: A Tale of the Zulu Rebellion Page 8

  CHAPTER EIGHT.

  THE PROSPECTORS.

  "I've got some news for you, Stride."

  He addressed was just dismounting. Obviously he had returned from ajourney. His steed was flecked with sweat and had rather a limpappearance, as though ridden through the heat of a long day, and,withal, a hot one. A tent and a makeshift native shelter, together witha roughly run-up stable constituted the prospectors' camp on theMihlungwana River.

  "Well, spit it out, then, if it's worth having," returned the other,with a light laugh. He was a tall, well-built young fellow, bronzedwith the healthy, open-air life.

  "Man, but there's no that hurry," said the first speaker, with a twinklein his eyes. "First of all, what's the news Grey Town way?"

  "There you are, with your North Country tricks, Robson, answering onequestion with another. Well, both our news'll keep till scoff-time. Isuppose it's nearly ready, anyway I hope so, for I want it badly, I cantell you."

  The other smiled to himself. He thought his partner would not be quiteso placid if he really knew what there was to impart. There was apleasant odour of frying on the evening air. The sun had just gonedown, and the fading beams still lingered on the green, rounded tops ofthe Mihlungwana hills. The native boys, a little distance off, werekeeping up a low hum of conversation round their fire, one beingoccupied in frying steaks upon that of their masters'. The new arrivalwas splashing his head and face in a camp basin.

  "Well, what _is_ the news?" he said, coming forward, vigorously rubbinghis head with a towel.

  "Ay; you said yourself it'd keep till scoff-time, and I'm going to takeyou at your word, lad. But, buck up. It's nearly ready."

  Soon the two were discussing supper with the appetite engendered by ahealthy, open-air life. Then Robson remarked--

  "What would you say to Ben Halse and his girl being at Ezulwini?"

  "No, by Jove! Are they really, though?"

  "Well, the night before last they slept at Malimati, so they'll be atEzulwini now, won't they?" And the speaker laughed to himself, as henoticed the start and eagerness of tone on the part of his youngercompanion. The latter relapsed into unwonted silence.

  "Ay, he's a good chap, Ben. You'll like to be seeing him again, I'mthinking."

  "Yes--yes, of course. A thundering good chap, as you say. I'd ratherlike to see him again."

  "_Him_?" drily.

  "Of course. Didn't he get me out of a jolly big mess, when I'd alreadycaptured a bang on the head from an infernal nigger's kerrie, and herdme back to life?"

  "Ay; but now I think of it, I believe the boy said it was only him whowas going to Ezulwini. Ay, I'm sure I must have made a mistake when Isaid it was both of them."

  There was a moment of chapfallen silence on the part of Harry Stride.Then he said--

  "Robson, you villainous old humbug. Is the whole thing a yarn, or anypart of it, or what?"

  "Well, Sipuleni told me. He had it from some other nigger. You knowhow these fellows gossip together, and how news spreads. Ho, Sipuleni!"he called.

  "_Nkose_!"

  The boy came. Him Harry Stride began volubly questioning, or rathertrying to, for Harry Stride's Zulu was defective. Sipuleni turned,puzzled and inquiring, to his other master.

  "Oh, damn it! these silly devils don't understand their own language.You go ahead, Robson."

  Robson did, and soon elicited that Ben Halse and his daughter had sleptat Malimati _en route_ for Ezulwini, just as he had told the other. Hewas enjoying the latter's eagerness and uncertainty.

  "Yes, I'd like to see old Halse again," repeated Stride, when the boyhad been dismissed. "He's a thundering good old chap. I say, Robson,we don't seem to be doing over-much here at present. Let's take a rideover to Ezulwini for a day or two. What do you say?"

  Robson was a big, burly north-countryman, and the very essence ofgood-nature. He shook his head and winked.

  "Ye'd better go alone, lad, if your horse'll carry you. And he won't,I'm thinking, if you try to make him do it in a day and a half."

  "He'll jolly well have to. I think I'll start to-morrow. Sure youwon't come?"

  Robson shook his head slowly.

  "Dead cert.," he answered. "I'd like to have a crack with Ben Halse;but Ezulwini's rather too far to go to see--_him_. Fine girl that ofhis, ain't she?"

  "Rather. I can't make out how she gets through life stuck up there inthat out-of-the-way place."

  "Well, she does, and that's all in her favour; women being for the mostpart discontented, contrarious things--especially discontented. You'dbetter sail in quick, lad, if you mean biz. There's bound to be a runon her when she gets in among other folks."

  "Hang it, don't I know that," was the answer, given with someimpatience. "The fact is, Robson, she was too awfully good to me when Iwas hung up at Ben's place after that crack on the nut. I haven't beenable to get her out of my system ever since. Look here. Shall I tellyou something I never let out before? She--refused me."

  The other nodded.

  "Ay! She wouldn't jump at anybody. But why not try your luck again?Go in and win, lad, go in and win."

  "By Jove! I've a devilish good mind to--to try my luck again, I mean."

  Robson nodded again, this time approvingly.

  "That's the way. Ye'll be no worse off than before. But I'm thinkingthere was the news from down yonder getting cold."

  "Oh, of course. I was forgetting. Well, they seem in a bit of a stewover the river there. A sweep named Babatyana is beginning to givetrouble. Some think the Ethiopian movement is behind it, and othersdon't. But there's certainly something simmering."

  "He has been troublesome before. They ought to get hold of him and makean example of him, same as they did with those fellows at Richmond."

  "Wonder if we shall have a war," went on Stride.

  "I shouldn't be surprised. I've been in these parts a good many years,and I was up in Matabeleland in '96, when they started there, as youknow. We were in a prospecting camp just like this, and I shan't forgetthe nine days three of us had dodging the rebels. Others weren't solucky. Well, it'd be pretty much the same here, only we couldn't dodgethese because there's no cover. It'd simply mean mincemeat."

  "Gaudy look out. In truth, Robson, a prospector's life is not a happyone."

  "No fear, it isn't. Here I've been at it on and off over sixteen yearsin all parts of this country pretty well. I struck something once, butit petered out, and still I've kept on. Once a prospector, always aprospector. Learn from me, Harry Stride, and chuck it. You're not tooold now, but you soon will be."

  "Oh, I don't know. There's a sort of glorious uncertainty about it--never knowing what may turn up."

  "Except when there's the glorious certainty of knowing that nothing isgoing to turn up, as in the present case. Yet, I own, there's somethingabout it that gets into the blood, and stays there."

  "Well, what d'you think, Robson? We don't seem to be doing much goodhere. How would it be to change quarters?"

  "If there's any stuff in the country at all it's here. I've located itpretty accurately. The stuff is here, there's no doubt about that,but--is there enough of it? We'll try a little longer."

  "All right, old chap. I'm on. I say, I'll tell you a rum find I madeon the way up yesterday afternoon. I'd just got through the Bobidrift--beastly place, you know--swarming with crocs. I lashed a coupleof shots into the river to scare any that might be about. Well, on thisside, just above water level, and stuck in the brushwood, I found--whatd'you think?"

  "Haven't an idea. A dead nigger, maybe."

  "No fear. It was a saddle. What d'you think of that?"

  "A saddle?"

  "Yes, or what remained of one. The offside flap had been torn off, sohad both stirrup-irons, the stirrup leather remained. Now comes thecurious part of it. While I was looking at the thing and wondering howthe devil it got there, I suddenly spotted a round hole in the flap thatremained. It looked devilish
like a bullet hole, and I'm dead cert, itwas."

  "That's rum," said Robson, now vividly interested.

  "Isn't it? It took me rather aback. What's more, the saddle looked asif it hadn't been so very long in the water. What do you make of it?"

  "What did you do with it?"

  "Do with it? I loaded it up and left it with Dickinson at Makanya.He's the sergeant of police there, and has a name for being rathersmart."

  "Well, and what was his notion?"

  "We talked it over together and agreed the affair looked uncommonlyfishy. It had evidently been a good saddle too, not one that a niggerwould ride on. But how had it got there, that's the point?"

  "Ay, that's the point."

  "You see there's no drift for miles and miles above the Bobi drift.It's all that beastly fever-stricken Makanya forest, and there's nothingon earth to induce a white man to go in there. And, as I said, there'sno doubt but that the saddle had belonged to a white man. BothDickinson and I agreed as to that."

  Robson sat puffing at his pipe for a few minutes in silence. He wasthinking.

  "I wonder if it spells foul play," he said eventually. "Quite sure itwas a bullet hole, Harry?"

  "Well, I put it to Dickinson without mentioning my own suspicions, andhe pronounced it one right away."

  "I wonder if some poor devil got lost travelling alone, and got in amonga disaffected lot who made an end of him. They may have shot his horseto destroy all trace, or in trying to bring him up to a round stop.Anyway, why the deuce should they have chucked the saddle into theriver? It isn't like a nigger to destroy assetable property either.No. As you say, Harry, the thing looks devilish fishy."

  "What about the stirrup-irons being gone, Robson?"

  "That makes more for my theory. Metal of any kind is valuable to them.They can forge it into assegais. Besides, anything hard and shiningappeals to them."

  Stride started upright.

  "By Jove!" he cried suddenly. "There's one point I forgot. The girthswere intact. That horse had never been off-saddled."

  Again the other thought a moment.

  "Now we are getting onto fresh ground. The poor devil must have missedhis way and got into the river. The crocs, did the rest. They tookcare of him and his gee, depend upon it."

  "But the bullet hole?"

  "Dash it! I forgot that. Well, here's a mystery, and no mistake.We'll think it out further. But Dickinson has it in hand, and he knowsniggers down to the ground--was raised here, you know. Harry, if you'regoing to start for Ezulwini first thing to-morrow you'd better turn in."