The Triumph of Hilary Blachland Part 31

With renewed eagerness every gla.s.s was once more brought to bear. There appeared to be four great columns of smoke, and these, as they watched, were merging into one, of vast volume, and now bright jets of flame were discernible, as the fire licked its way along the thatch of the gra.s.s huts. Then something strange befel. They who watched saw a fresh outburst of smoke rise suddenly like an enormous dome from the centre of that already ascending, seeming to bear aloft on its summit the fragments of roofs, fences, _debris_ of every description, and then they were conscious of a mighty roar and a vibrating shock, as the whole ma.s.s subsided, releasing the flames, which shot up anew.

"That's an explosion!" cried some one excitedly. "Old Lo Ben's not only burnt his nest, but blown it up into the bargain."

For some time further they lay there watching the distant work of destruction. Then it was decided that their number should be divided, and while some returned to the column to report the result of their observations, the remainder should push on, and get as near Bulawayo as they possibly could--an undertaking of no slight risk, and calling for the exercise of unflagging caution, for there was no telling what bands of the enemy might be hovering about in quite sufficient strength to prove dangerous to a mere handful, though the opinion was that the bulk of the nation's forces, with the King, had fled northward.

"Well, Percy? Tired of this kind of fun yet?" said Blachland as he and his young kinsman rode side by side, the two or three more also bent on this service advancing a little further on their right flank.

"Rather not. I wish it wasn't going to be over quite so quickly."

The other laughed. "I'm not so sure that it is," he said.

"Eh? But we've got Bulawayo."

"But we haven't got Lo Ben yet. My impression is that the tougher part of this campaign is going to begin now. I may be wrong of course, but that's my impression."

"Oh, then that settles it," answered Percival, not ironically, but in whole-hearted good faith, for his belief in, and admiration for his relative had reached the wildest pitch of enthusiasm. There was no greater authority in the world, in his estimation, on everything to do with the country they were in. He would have accepted Hilary's opinion and acted upon it, even though it went clean contrary to those in command all put together, upon any subject to do with the work in hand, and that with the blindest confidence. And then, had he not himself witnessed Hilary's gallant and daring deed, during the battle fought a couple of days ago?

His presence there with the scouts instead of as an ordinary trooper in the column, he owed to his relative, the latter having specially asked that he should be allowed to accompany him in such capacity. Blachland at that juncture, with his up-to-date knowledge of the country and the natives, was far too useful a man not to stretch a point for, and Percival West, although new to that part, was accustomed to sport and outdoor life at home, and brimful of pluck and energy, and now, in the short time he had been out, had thoroughly adapted himself to the life, and the vicissitudes of the campaign.

To the cause of their being up here together Hilary never alluded, but he noted with quiet satisfaction that the cure in the case of his young cousin seemed complete. Once the latter volunteered a statement to that effect.

"Ah, yes," he had replied. "Nothing like a life of this sort for knocking any nonsense of that kind out of a fellow--" mentally adding, somewhat grimly, "When he's young."

For Hilary Blachland himself did not find the busy and dangerous, and at times exciting, work of the campaign by any means such an unfailing panacea as he preached it to his younger relative. With it all there was plenty of time for thought, for retrospect. What an empty and useless thing he had made of life, and now the best part of it was all behind him--now that it had been brought home to him that there was a best part, now that it was too late. He was familiar with the axiom that those who sell themselves to the devil seldom obtain their price, and had often scoffed at it: for one thing because he did not believe in the devil at all. Yet now, looking back, he had come to recognise that, in substance at least, the axiom was a true one.

Yes, the better part of his life was now behind him, with its ideals, its possibilities, its finer impulses. Carrying his bitter introspect within the physical domain, had he not become rough and weather-beaten and lined and seamed and puckered? It did not strike him as odd that he should be indulging in such a.n.a.lysis at all--yet had he let anybody else, say any of his present comrades, into the fact that he was doing so, they would have deemed him mad, for if there was a man with that expedition who was envied by most of his said comrades as the embodiment of cool, sound daring, combined with astute judgment, of rare physical vigour and striking exterior, a.s.suredly that man was Hilary Blachland.

Yet as it was, he regarded himself with entire dissatisfaction and disgust, and the medium through which he so regarded himself was named Lyn Bayfield.

Her memory was ever before him; more, her presence. Asleep or awake, in the thick of the hardest toil and privation of the campaign, even in the midst of the discharge of his most important and responsible duties yet never to their detriment, the sweet, pure, lovely fairness of her face was there. He had come to wors.h.i.+p it with a kind of superst.i.tious adoration as though in truth the presence of it const.i.tuted a kind of guardian angel.

Was he, after all, in love with Lyn? He supposed that not a man or woman alive, knowing the symptoms, but would p.r.o.nounce such to be the case, even as one woman had done. But he knew better, knew himself better. The a.s.sociation of anything so gross, so earthly, here, he recoiled from as from an outrage. It was the unalloyed adoration of a strange, a holy and a purifying influence.

In love with her? He, Hilary Blachland, at his time of life, and with his experience of life, in love! Why, the idea was preposterous, grotesque. He recalled the time he had spent beneath the same roof with her, and the daily a.s.sociation. It would be treasured, revered to the utmost limit of his life, as a sacred and an elevating period, but--as an influence, not a pa.s.sion.

He had exchanged correspondence with Bayfield more than once since leaving, and had received two or three letters from Lyn--expressing-- well, simply Lyn. He had answered them, and treasured them secretly as the most priceless of his possessions. From Bayfield he had learned that the disturbing element had refrained from further molestation, and had moreover, taken her own departure from the neighbourhood almost immediately, a piece of intelligence which afforded him indeed the liveliest gratification.

As they drew near to their objective, other kraals near and around Bulawayo itself, were seen to be on fire. But no sign of their recent occupants. For all trace remaining of the latter, the whole Matabele nation might have vanished into thin air.

"That's extraordinary," remarked Blachland, taking a long steady look through his gla.s.ses. "That's Sybrandt's house down there and they haven't burnt it," pointing out a collection of buildings about a mile from the site of the great kraal.

"So it is. Wonder if it means a trap though," said another of the scouts. "By Jingo! There's some one signalling up there. I'll bet my bottom dollar it's a white man by the look of him. And--there are two of 'em."

Such was in fact the case--and the biggest surprise of all came off when a couple of white traders, well known to most of them, came forward to welcome them to the conquered and now razed capital. There these two had dwelt throughout the campaign, often in peril, but protected by the word of the King. Lo Bengula had burnt his capital and fled, taking with him the bulk of the nation. He, the dreaded and haughty potentate of the North, whose rule had been synonymous with a terror and a scourge, had gone down before a mere handful of whites, he, the dusky barbarian, the cruel despot, according to popular report revelling in bloodshed and suffering, had taken his revenge. He had protected these two white men alone in his power--had left them, safe and sound in person, unharmed even in their possessions, to welcome the invading conquerors, their countrymen, to the blazing ruins of his once proud home. Such the revenge of this savage.

The Southern Column did not arrive till some days after the first occupation of Bulawayo, and some little time elapsed, resting and waiting for necessary supplies, before the new expedition should start northward, to effect if possible, the capture of the fugitive King.

Several up-country going men were here foregathered.

"I say, Blachland," said old Pemberton, with a jerk of the thumb to the southward, "We didn't reckon to meet again like this last time when we broke camp yonder on the Matya'mhlope, and old Lo Ben fired you out of the country? Eh?"

"Not much, did we? You going on this new trot, Sybrandt?"

"I believe so. What do you think about this part of the world, West?"

"Here, let's have another tot all round," interrupted Pemberton who, by the way, had had just as many as were good for him. "You ain't going to n.o.bble Lo Ben, Sybrandt, so don't you think it."

"Who says so, Pemberton?"

"I say so. Didn't I say Blachland 'ud never get to Umzilikazi's grave?

Didn't I? Well, he never did."

Possibly because the old trader was too far on in his cups the quizzical glance which pa.s.sed between Blachland and Sybrandt--who was in the know--at this allusion, went unnoticed. Pemberton continued, albeit rather thickly:

"Didn't I say he'd never get there? Didn't I? Well, I say the same now. You'll never get there. You'll never n.o.bble Lo Ben. See if I ain't right."

CHAPTER FOUR.

THE RETREAT OF THE PATROL.

The patrol held on its retreat.

Wearily on, from day to day, nearly a hundred and a half of hungry, ragged, footsore men--their clothing well-nigh in tatters, their feet bursting out of their boots, in several instances strips of clothing wound round their feet, as a sort of tinkered subst.i.tute for what had once been boots, as sole protection against thorns and stony ground, and the blades of the long tambuti gra.s.s, which cut like knives--depression at their hearts because of the score and a half of brave staunch comrades whom they had but the faintest hope of ever beholding again-- depression too, in their faces, gaunt, haggard and unkempt, yet with it a set fierce look of determination, a dogged, never-say-die expression, still they held on. And ever upon their flanks hovered the savage enemy, wiser now in his generation, wasting his strength no more in fierce rushes, to be mown helplessly down with superior weapons. Under cover of his native bush he could harry the retreating whites from day to day. And he did.

Very different the appearance of this group of weary, half-starved men, fighting its way with indomitable courage and resource, through the thick bush and over donga-seamed ground, and among rough granite hillocks, to that of the smart, light-hearted fellows, repelling each fierce rush of the Matabele impis, in the skilfully constructed waggon laagers. Every rise surmounted revealed but the same heart-breaking stretch of bush and rocks, and dongas through which the precious Maxims had to be hauled at any expenditure of labour and time--to be borne rather, for the carriages of the said guns had been abandoned as superfluous lumber--and all through the steamy heat of the day the roar of the swollen river on the one hand never far from their ears--and, overhead, that of the thunder-burst, which should condemn them to pa.s.s a drenched and s.h.i.+vering night. For this expedition, with the great over-weening British self-confidence which has set this restless little island in the forefront of the nations--has started to effect with so many--or rather so few--men, what might or might not have been effected with just four times the number--in a word has started to do the impossible and--has not done it.

"Well, Percy, do you still wish this fun wasn't going to be over quite so quickly?"

"No. Yet I don't know. I suppose it's only right to see some of the rougher side, as well as the smooth," answered the young fellow pluckily--though truth to tell his weariness and exhaustion were as great as that of anybody else. There was the same hollow, wistful look in his face, the same hardened and brick-dust bronze too, and his hands were not guiltless of veldt-sores, for he had borne his full share both of the hards.h.i.+ps and the fighting and was as thoroughly seasoned by now as any of them.

"I was something of a prophet when I told you the toughest part of the campaign was to come, eh?" said Blachland, filling up his pipe with nearly the last shreds of dust remaining in his pouch.

"Rather. I seem to forget what it feels like not to be shot at every day of my life," was the answer. "And this beastly horsefles.h.!.+ Faugh!"

"Man! That's nothing," said Sybrandt, his mouth full of the delicacy alluded to, while he replaced a large slice of the same upon the embers to cook a little more. "What price having to eat snake?"

"No. I'd draw the line at that," answered Percival quickly.

"Would you? Wait until you're stuck on a little island for three days with your boat drifted away, and a river swarming with crocodiles all round you. You'd scoff snake fast enough, and be glad to get him."

"Tell us the yarn," said Percival wearily.

But before the other could comply, a message from the officer in command arrived desiring his presence, and Sybrandt, s.n.a.t.c.hing another great mouthful of his broiling horseflesh, got up and went.

"Another wet night, I'm afraid?" said Blachland philosophically, reaching for a red-hot stick to light his pipe, which the rain dripping from his weather-beaten hat-brim was doing its best to put out. "Here, have a smoke, Spence," becoming alive to the wistful glance wherewith he whom he had named was regarding the puffs he was emitting.