CHAPTER SIX.
HIS TRIUMPH.
In uttering that sublime lie, Hilary Blachland had set the seal to histriumph.
But for it his comrade would have refused to leave him, on that point hewas sure, whereas to throw away his life for one who was dead already,would be an act of sheer lunacy on Skelsey's part. One must die orboth, and he had elected to be that one. Yet the actual horror andsting of the death which now stared him in the face was indescribablyterrible.
Instinctively he took cover behind a stone--for the ground here was openand broken. The Matabele, reckoning him a sure prey sooner or later,had stayed their forward rush, and, halting within the bush line, beganto parley, and not altogether without reason, for there was somethingrather formidable in the aspect of this well-armed man, who although butone against their swarming numbers, was manifestly determined to sellhis life very dearly indeed. They had some experience as to what thatmeant--and recently.
"Ho, Isipau!" called out a great voice. "Come now and talk with some ofyour old friends."
"I think not, Ziboza," came the answer. "For the looks of most of youare not friendly."
"Are you come to capture the Great Great One, Isipau?" jeered anothervoice, and a shout of derision backed up the words.
"No. I came to find a comrade who was left behind sick. I have foundhim--and now, _amadoda_, when I return I can speak more than one goodword on behalf of the Great Great One, and of those who suffered me toreturn when they might have given me some trouble."
"When thou returnest, Isipau!" roared several of the young warriors witha burst of mocking laughter. "When thou returnest! _Au_! But thatwill be never."
"Nobody knows. I do not--you do not. But it will be better for allhere if I do return."
For a while there was no response, save another burst of laughter. ThenZiboza spoke:
"Come now over to us, Isipau. We will take thee to the Black Elephant."
Blachland pondered. Could he trust them? If they actually meant totake him to the King, then indeed he stood a good chance, for he did notbelieve that Lo Bengula would allow him to be harmed, and he did believethat once face to face with him he could persuade the fugitive King tosurrender. But could he trust them, that was the crux?
Rapidly he ran over the situation within his mind. This Ziboza he knewfairly well as an inveterate hater of the whites, one of those moreoverwho had perpetually urged upon Lo Bengula the necessity of murdering allwhite men in his country. He thought too, of the moment, when disarmedand helpless, he should stand at their mercy, and what that "mercy"would mean why more than one act of hideous barbarity which he himselfhad witnessed, was sufficient to remind him. Moreover, even while thusbalancing probabilities, certain scraps of smothered conversationreached his ears. That decided him. He would not place himself withintheir power. It only remained to sell his life dearly.
If only it were near the close of the day, he could hold them off for awhile, and perhaps, under cover of darkness, escape. But it was hardlyyet full noon. They could get round him and rake him with a cross fire.Bad marksmen as they were, they could hardly go on missing him all day.
"Come then, Isipau!" called out Ziboza. "Lay down thy weapons andcome."
"No. Go ye now away and leave me. Peace is not far distant and manygood words will I speak for you because of this day."
A jeering roar, now of rage, now of disappointment, greeted his words.At the same time Blachland sighted one of them kneeling down with hispiece levelled, and taking deliberate aim at him. An instinct moved himto drop down behind the stone, and the instinct was a true one, for ashe did so a bullet sang through the spot where his head and shouldershad been but a fraction of a second before. Two others hummed over him,but high.
He put his hat up above the stone, holding it by the brim. "Whigge!"--another bullet hummed by, almost grazing it.
"Some devil there can shoot, anyway," he growled to himself. "If only Icould get a glint of him. Ah!"
A stratagem had occurred to him. He managed to fix the hat just so thatthe top of it should project, then creeping to the edge of the boulder,he peered round, his piece sighted and ready. Just as he thought. Thehead and shoulders of a savage, taking aim at the hat--and then with thecrash of his own rifle that savage was spinning round and turning aconvulsive somersault, shot fair and square through the head. Hisslayer set his teeth, with a growl that was half exulting, half a curse.His foes were going to find that they had cornered a lion indeed--somuch he could promise them.
The mutterings of wrath and dismay which arose among them over this neatshot, were drowned in a furious volley. Every man who possessed afirearm seemed animated with a kind of frenzied desire to discharge itas quickly and as often as possible at and around the rock behind whichhe lay. For a few moments the position was very sultry indeed. Itmight have been worse but that the moral of that deadly shot renderedhis assailants exceedingly unwilling to leave their cover or exposethemselves in any way.
On his right the river bank was but a couple of hundred yards, andrunning up from this was a bush-fringed donga, which might be any or nodepth, but which ended at about half that distance. Upon this Blachlandhad got his eye and was puzzling out as to how he might turn it toaccount. Now he discovered that the same idea was occurring to hisassailants, for although the intervening space was almost devoid ofbush, the grass was long and tangled from the bush line to the chasm,and it was shaking and quivering in a very suspicious manner.
"Great minds jump together," he muttered grimly, all his attentioncentred on this point, and entirely disregarding a terrific fire whichwas suddenly opened upon him, with the object, he suspected, ofdiverting it. "Just as I thought."
One glimpse only, of the naked, crawling savage, flattened to the earth,but even that was sufficient. The thud of the bullet ploughing throughribs and vitals, was music to his ears as that savage flattened out morecompletely, beating the earth in his death throes; and a very shout ofexultant snarling laughter escaped him--mingling with the roar of ragethat went up from his enemies. He was growing terrible now--ferocious,bloodthirsty, as his ruthless foes, yet cool and firm as the rock behindwhich he lay.
"Two shots, two birds!" he exclaimed. "If I can keep on at this rateit's good enough."
The assailants were now mad with rage. They howled out taunts andjeers, and blood-curdling promises of the vengeance they would wreakupon him when they got him into their power. At this he laughed--laughed long and loud.
"That will be never!" he cried. "Ho, Ziboza, thou valiant fightinginduna. How many of the King's hunting dogs does it take to pull downone lion? Are the Ingubu all killed or have they driven thee from theirmidst to follow a new leader? But I tell thee, Ziboza, thou art a deadman this day. I may be, but thou art surely."
"Ah--ah--'Sipau!" snarled the chief. "It is easy to boast, but thou artcornered. We have thee now."
"Not yet. And a cornered animal is a dangerous one. Come and take me."
To this interchange of amenities succeeded a lull. Clearly they wereplanning some fresh surprise. And then Blachland started, with a pangof sharp pain. His left hand was streaming blood. Then his spiritsrose again. It was only a cut. A splinter of stone, chipped by one oftheir bullets, had struck him, but the wound was a trivial one. Withthe discovery, however, came another, and one which was by no meanstrivial. The bullet had been fired at a different angle from thosehitherto. The ground on the left front rose slightly. His enemies weregetting round him on that side. Soon he would be exposed to a completeflanking fire.
The worst of it was that in that direction he could see nobody. Thecover was too good. He wondered they had not occupied this before,unless it were that they deemed it of the highest importance to cut offall chance of his escape by the river. Yet what chance had he there? Amere choice of deaths, for it was rolling down in flood, and betweenthis and their fire from the bank, why, there was none at all.
And now the sun,
which had been shining warm and glowing above thisscene of stern and deadly strife, upon the beleaguered man, desperate,fighting to the last, beset by a swarm of persistent and ruthless foes--suddenly grew dark. A shadow had curtained its face, black andlowering. Blachland sent a hasty glance upward. One of those storms,almost of daily occurrence now in the rainy season, would shortly breakover them. Would it bring him any advantage, however trifling--was hiseager thought? At any rate it could not alter his position for theworse. And the hoarse and sullen boom of thunder mingled with thevengeful spit of the rifles of his enemies, now more frequent and moredeadly because taking him from a new and almost unprotected quarter.
Ha! What was this? Under cover of this last diversion his enemies hadbeen stealing up. They were coming on in dozens, in scores, from thefirst point of attack. Selecting two of the foremost, one behind theother, he fired--and his aim was true, but at the same time his riflefell from his grasp, and his arm and shoulder felt as though crushedbeneath a waggon wheel. With fiendish yells, drowning the gasping cryof the stricken warriors, the whole body of them poured forward. At thesame time, those on the rise behind, left their cover, and charged downupon him, rending the air with their ear-splitting whistles.
He saw what had happened. The rifle had been struck by a bullet, andthe concussion had for the moment paralysed him. Only for the momentthough. Quick as the vivid flash which flamed down upon him from thenow darkened heavens, his mind was made up. With a suddenness and afleetness which took even his enemies by surprise, he had broken fromhis cover, and was racing headlong for the point of the donga which leddown to the river.
In a second he will gain it. They cannot fire, every nerve is strainedto overtake him, to head him off. He sees their foremost line. Now itis in front of him. No, not quite! His revolver is out, and the heavybullet crashes almost point blank through the foremost. Another springsup in front of him, a gigantic warrior, his broad spear upraised.Before it can descend the fugitive is upon him, and the momentum is toogreat. Grappled together they topple over the edge, and go crashingdown, the white man and the savage, into unknown depths.
The bushes close over their heads and they are in almost total darkness.There is a mighty splash of water and both are engulfed--yet, stillgrappled, they rise to the surface again, and the blue glare of thelightning, darting down, reveals the slanting earth walls of the chasm,reveals to each the face of the other as they rise above the turgidwater, gasping and sputtering. The savage has lost his assegai in thefall, and the white man is groping hungrily, eagerly, for his sheathknife.
"Ah, ah! Ziboza! Did I not tell thee thou wert dead?"
"Not yet, dog Makiwa!" growls the other, in the ferocity of desperationstriving to bury his great teeth in his adversary's face. But Blachlandis in condition as hard as steel, and far more at home in the water thanthe Matabele chief, so while gripping the latter by the wrists, he duckshis head beneath the surface, endeavouring to drown him if possible. Hedare not let go his hold lest he should be the one grasped, and thoseabove dare not fire down for fear of shooting their chief--even if theycould see the contending parties--which they cannot. But the awfulreverberations of the thunder-peal boom and shiver within that pit as ofhell, and the lightnings gleam upon the brown turgid surface, and thestraining faces of the combatants are even as those of striving fiends.
They touch ground now, then lose it again, for the bottom is but afoothold of slippery mud. Nearer, nearer to the main stream theirstruggles have carried them, until the sombre roar of the flood soundsdeafening in their ears, and still the awful strife goes on.
"Ah--ah, Ziboza. I told thee thou shouldst meet death this day. _Ha!Nantzia_! [that is it] _Ha_!"
And with each throaty, bloodthirsty gasp he plunges the knife, which hehas at last managed to free, into the body of the nearly exhaustedchief, drawing it down finally in a terrible ripping stroke. A singlegasping groan, and Ziboza sinks, as his adversary throws him from him.And then the said adversary knows no more. The swirl of the floodsweeping into the chasm, seems to rope him out, and the body of HilaryBlachland, together with that of his savage antagonist, is borne downwithin the raging rush of waters, rolling over and over on its way tothe Zambesi and the sea.