CHAPTER VIII
PURSUIT
After all we did not get away much before noon, because first there wasa great deal to be done. To begin with the loads had to be arranged.These consisted largely of ammunition, everything else being cut down toan irreducible minimum. To carry them we took two donkeys there wereon the place, also half a dozen pack oxen, all of which animals weresupposed to be "salted"--that is, to have suffered and recovered fromevery kind of sickness, including the bite of the deadly tsetse fly.I suspected, it is true, that they would not be proof against furtherattacks, still, I hoped that they would last for some time, as indeedproved to be the case.
In the event of the beasts failing us, we took also ten of the bestof those Strathmuir men who had accompanied us on the sea-cow trip, toserve as bearers when it became necessary. It cannot be said that thesesnuff-and-butter fellows--for most, if not all of them had some dash ofwhite blood in their veins--were exactly willing volunteers. Indeed, ifa choice had been left to them, they would, I think, have declined thisadventure.
But there was no choice. Their master, Robertson, ordered them to comeand after a glance at the Zulus they concluded that the command was onewhich would be enforced and that if they stopped behind, it would notbe as living men. Also some of them had lost wives or children in theslaughter, which, if they were not very brave, filled them with a desirefor revenge. Lastly, they could all shoot after a fashion and had goodrifles; moreover if I may say so, I think that they put confidence in myleadership. So they made the best of a bad business and got themselvesready.
Then arrangements must be made about the carrying on of the farm andstore during our absence. These, together with my waggon and oxen, wereput in the charge of Thomaso, since there was no one else who could betrusted at all--a very battered and crestfallen Thomaso, by the way.When he heard of it he was much relieved, since I think he feared lesthe also should be expected to take part in the hunt of the Amahaggerman-eaters. Also it may have occurred to him that in all probabilitynone of us would ever come back at all, in which case by a process ofnatural devolution, he might find himself the owner of the business andmuch valuable property. However, he swore by sundry saints--for Thomasowas nominally a Catholic--that he would look after everything as thoughit were his own, as no doubt he hoped it might become.
"Hearken, fat pig," said Umslopogaas, Hans obligingly translating sothat there might be no mistake, "if I come back, and come back I shallwho travel with the Great Medicine--and find even one of the cattle ofthe white lord, Macumazahn, Watcher-by-Night, missing, or one articlestolen from his waggon, or the fields of your master not cultivated orhis goods wasted, I swear by the Axe that I will hew you into pieceswith the axe; yes, if to do it I have to hunt you from where the sunrises to where it sets and down the length of the night between. Doyou understand, fat pig, deserter of women and children, who to saveyourself could run faster than a buck?"
Thomaso replied that he understood very clearly indeed, and that, Heavenhelping him, all should be kept safe and sound. Still, I was sure thatin his manly heart he was promising great gifts to the saints if theywould so arrange matters that Umslopogaas and his axe were never seen atStrathmuir again, and reflecting that after all the Amahagger had theiruses. However, as I did not trust him in the least, much against theirwill, I left my driver and _voorlooper_ to guard my belongings.
At last we did get off, pursued by the fervent blessings of Thomaso andthe prayers of the others that we would avenge their murdered relatives.We were a curious and motley procession. First went Hans, because atfollowing a spoor he was, I believe, almost unequalled in Africa, andwith him, Umslopogaas, and three of his Zulus to guard against surprise.These were followed by Captain Robertson, who seemed to prefer to walkalone and whom I thought it best to leave undisturbed. Then I cameand after me straggled the Strathmuir boys with the pack animals, thecavalcade being closed by the remaining Zulus under the command ofGoroko. These walked last in case any of the mixed-bloods should attemptto desert, as we thought it quite probable that they would.
Less than an hour's tramp brought us to the bush-veld where I fearedthat our troubles might begin, since if the Amahagger were cunning,they would take advantage of it to confuse or hide their spoor. As itchanced, however, they had done nothing of the sort and a child couldhave followed their march. Just before nightfall we came to their firsthalting-place where they had made a fire and eaten one of the herd offarm goats which they had driven away with them, although they left thecattle, I suppose, because goats are docile and travel well.
Hans showed us everything that had happened; where the chair in whichInez was carried was set down, where she and Janee had been allowed towalk that she might stretch her stiff limbs, the dregs of some coffeethat evidently Janee had made in a saucepan, and so forth.
He even told us the exact number of the Amahagger, which he saidtotalled forty-one, including the man whom Inez had wounded. His spoorhe distinguished from that of the others both by an occasional drop ofblood and because he walked lightly on his right foot, doubtless forthe reason that he wished to avoid jarring his wound, which was on thatside.
At this spot we were obliged to stay till daybreak, since it wasimpossible to follow the spoor by night, a circumstance that gave thecannibals a great advantage over us.
The next two days were repetitions of the first, but on the fourth wepassed out of the bush-veld into the swamp country that bordered thegreat river. Here our task was still easy since the Amahagger hadfollowed one of the paths made by the river-dwellers who had theirhabitations on mounds, though whether these were natural or artificial Iam not sure, and sometimes on floating islands.
On our second day in the reeds we came upon a sad sight. To our leftstood one of these mound villages, if a village it could be called,since it consisted only of four or five huts inhabited perhaps by twentypeople. We went up to it to obtain information and stumbled across thebody of an old man lying in the pathway. A few yards further on wefound the ashes of a big fire and by it such remains as we had seen atStrathmuir. Here there had been another cannibal feast. The miserablehuts were empty, but as at Strathmuir, had not been burnt.
We were going away when the acute ears of Hans caught the sound ofgroans. We searched about and in a clump of reeds near the foot of themound, found an old woman with a great spear wound just above herskinny thigh piercing deep into the vitals, but of a nature which isnot immediately mortal. One of Robertson's people who understood thelanguage of these swamp-dwellers well, spoke to her. She told him thatshe wanted water. It was brought and she drank copiously. Then in answerto his questions she began to talk.
She said that the Amahagger had attacked the village and killed all whocould not escape. They had eaten a young woman and three children. Shehad been wounded by a spear and fled away into the place where we foundher, where none of them took the trouble to follow her as she "was notworth eating."
By my direction the man asked her whether she knew anything of theseAmahagger. She replied that her grandfathers had, though she had heardnothing of them since she was a child, which must have been seventyyears before. They were a fierce people who lived far up north acrossthe Great River, the remnants of a race that had once "ruled the world."
Her grandfathers used to say that they were not always cannibals, buthad become so long before because of a lack of food and now had acquiredthe taste. It was for this purpose that they still raided to getother people to eat, since their ruler would not allow them to eat oneanother. The flesh of cattle they did not care for, although they hadplenty of them, but sometimes they ate goats and pigs because they saidthey tasted like man. According to her grandfathers they were a veryevil people and full of magic.
All of this the old woman told us quite briskly after she had drunk thewater, I think because her wound had mortified and she felt no pain. Herinformation, however, as is common with the aged, dealt entirely withthe far past; of the history of the Amahagger since the days of herforebears she knew
nothing, nor had she seen anything of Inez. All shecould tell us was that some of them had attacked her village at dawn andthat when she ran out of the hut she was speared.
While Robertson and I were wondering what we should do with the poor oldcreature whom it seemed cruel to leave here to perish, she cleared upthe question by suddenly expiring before our eyes. Uttering the name ofsomeone with whom, doubtless, she had been familiar in her youth, threeor four times over, she just sank down and seemed to go to sleep and onexamination we found that she was dead. So we left her and went on.
Next day we came to the edge of the Great River, here a sheet of placidrunning water about a mile across, for at this time of the year it waslow. Perceiving quite a big village on our left, we went to it andmade enquiries, to find that it had not been attacked by the cannibals,probably because it was too powerful, but that three nights before someof their canoes had been stolen, in which no doubt these had crossed theriver.
As the people of this village had traded with Robertson at Strathmuir,we had no difficulty in obtaining other canoes from them in which tocross the Zambesi in return for one of our oxen that I could see wasalready sickening from tsetse bite. These canoes were large enough totake the donkeys that were patient creatures and stood still, but thecattle we could not get into them for fear of an upset. So we killedthe two driven beasts that were left to us and took them with us asdead meat for food, while the three remaining pack oxen we tried to swimacross, dragging them after the canoes with hide _reims_ round theirhorns. As a result two were drowned, but one, a bold-hearted andenterprising animal, gained the other bank.
Here again we struck a sea of reeds in which, after casting about, Hansonce more found the spoor of the Amahagger. That it was theirs beyonddoubt was proved by the circumstance that on a thorny kind of weed wefound a fragment of a cotton dress which, because of the pattern stampedon it, we all recognised as one that Inez had been wearing. At first Ithought that this had been torn off by the thorns, but on examinationwe became certain that it had been placed there purposely, probablyby Janee, to give us a clue. This conclusion was confirmed when atsubsequent periods of the hunt we found other fragments of the samegarment.
Now it would be useless for me to set out the details of this prolongedand arduous chase which in all endured for something over three weeks.Again and again we lost the trail and were only able to recover it bylong and elaborate search, which occupied much time. Then, after weescaped from the reeds and swamps, we found ourselves upon stonyuplands where the spoor was almost impossible to follow, indeed, we onlyrediscovered it by stumbling across the dead body of that cannibal whomInez had wounded. Evidently he had perished from his hurt, which I couldsee had mortified. From the state of his remains we gathered that theraiders must be about two days' march ahead of us.
Striking their spoor again on softer ground where the impress of theirfeet remained--at any rate to the cunning sight of Hans--we followedthem down across great valleys wherein trees grew sparsely, whichvalleys were separated from each other by ridges of high and barrenland. On these belts of rocky soil our difficulties were great, but heretwice we were put on the right track by more fragments torn from thedress of Inez.
At length we lost the spoor altogether; not a sign of it was to befound. We had no idea which way to go. All about us appeared thesevalleys covered with scattered bush running this way and that, so thatwe could not tell which of them to follow or to cross. The thing seemedhopeless, for how could we expect to find a little body of men inthat immensity? Hans shook his head and even the fierce and steadfastRobertson was discouraged.
"I fear my poor lassie is gone," he said, and relapsed into brooding ashad become his wont.
"Never say die! It's dogged as does it!" I replied cheerfully in thewords of Nelson, who also had learned what it meant to hunt an enemyover trackless wastes, although his were of water.
I walked to the top of the rise where we were encamped, and sat downalone to think matters over. Our condition was somewhat parlous; allour beasts were now dead, even the second donkey, which was the last ofthem, having perished that morning, and been eaten, for food was scantysince of late we had met with little game. The Strathmuir men, who nowmust carry the loads, were almost worn out and doubtless would havedeserted, except for the fact that there was no place to which theycould go. Even the Zulus were discouraged, and said they had comeaway from home across the Great River to fight, not to run about inwildernesses and starve, though Umslopogaas made no complaint, beingbuoyed up by the promise of his soothsayer, Goroko, that battle wasahead of him in which he would win great glory.
Hans, however, remained cheerful, for the reason, as he remarkedvacuously, that the Great Medicine was with us and that therefore,however bad things seemed to be, all in fact was well; an argument thatcarried no conviction to my soul.
It was on a certain evening towards sunset that I went away thus alone.I looked about me, east and west and north. Everywhere appeared thesame bush-clad valleys and barren rises, miles upon miles of them. Ibethought me of the map that old Zikali had drawn in the ashes, andremembered that it showed these valleys and rises and that beyond themthere should be a great swamp, and beyond the swamp a mountain. So itseemed that we were on the right road to the home of his white Queen,if such a person existed, or at any rate we were passing over countrysimilar to that which he had pictured or imagined.
But at this time I was not troubling my head about white queens. I wasthinking of poor Inez. That she was alive a few days before we knew fromthe fragments of her dress. But where was she now? The spoor was utterlylost on that stony ground, or if any traces of it remained a heavydeluge of rain had washed them away. Even Hans had confessed himselfbeaten.
I stared about me helplessly, and as I did so a flying ray of lightfrom the setting sun reflected downwards from a storm-cloud, fell upon awhite patch on the crest of one of the distant land-waves. It struck methat probably limestone outcropped at this spot, as indeed proved to bethe case; also that such a patch of white would be a convenient guidefor any who were travelling across that sea of bush. Further, someinstinct within seemed to impel me to steer for it, although I had allbut made up my mind to go in a totally different direction many morepoints to the east. It was almost as though a voice were calling to meto take this path and no other. Doubtless this was an effect producedby weariness and mental overstrain. Still, there it was, very real andtangible, one that I did not attempt to combat.
So next morning at the dawn I headed north by west, laying my course forthat white patch and for the first time breaking the straight line ofour advance. Captain Robertson, whose temper had not been betteredby prolonged and frightful anxiety, or I may add, by his unaccustomedabstinence, asked me rather roughly why I was altering the course.
"Look here, Captain," I answered, "if we were at sea and you didsomething of the sort, I should not put such a question to you, and ifby any chance I did, I should not expect you to answer. Well, by yourown wish I am in command here and I think that the same argument holds."
"Yes," he replied. "I suppose you have studied your chart, if thereis any of this God-forsaken country, and at any rate discipline isdiscipline. So steam ahead and don't mind me."
The others accepted my decision without comment; most of them were somiserable that they did not care which way we went, also they were goodenough to repose confidence in my judgment.
"Doubtless the Baas has reasons," said Hans dubiously, "although thespoor, when last we saw it, headed towards the rising sun and as thecountry is all the same, I do not see why those man-eaters should havereturned."
"Yes," I said, "I have reasons," although in fact I had none at all.
Hans surveyed me with a watery eye as though waiting for me to explainthem, but I looked haughty and declined to oblige.
"The Baas has reasons," continued Hans, "for taking us on what I thinkto be the wrong side of that great ridge, there to hunt for the spoor ofthe men-eaters, and they are so deep down in his mind th
at he cannotdig them up for poor old Hans to look at. Well, the Baas wears the GreatMedicine and perhaps it is there that the reasons sit. Those Strathmuirfellows say that they can go no further and wish to die. Umslopogaashas just gone to them with his axe to tell them that he is ready to helpthem to their wish. Look, he has got there, for they are coming quickly,who after all prefer to live."
Well, we started for my white patch of stones which no one else hadnoticed and of which I said nothing to anyone, and reached it by thefollowing evening, to find, as I expected, that it was a lime outcrop.
By now we were in a poor way, for we had practically nothing left toeat, which did not tend to raise the spirits of the party. Also thatlime outcrop proved to be an uninteresting spot overlooking a widevalley which seemed to suggest that there were other valleys of asimilar sort beyond it, and nothing more.
Captain Robertson sat stern-faced and despondent at a distance mutteringinto his beard, as had become a habit with him. Umslopogaas leaned uponhis axe and contemplated the heavens, also occasionally the Strathmuirmen who cowered beneath his eye. The Zulus squatted about sharing suchsnuff as remained to them in economic pinches. Goroko, the witch-doctor,engaged himself in consulting his "Spirit," by means of bone-throwing,upon the humble subject of whether or no we should succeed in killingany game for food to-morrow, a point on which I gathered that his"Spirit" was quite uncertain. In short, the gloom was deep and universaland the sky looked as though it were going to rain.
Hans became sarcastic. Sneaking up to me in his most aggravating way,like a dog that means to steal something and cover up the theft withsimulated affection, he pointed out one by one all the disadvantages ofour present position. He indicated _per contra_, that if _his_ advicehad been followed, his conviction was that even if we had not found theman-eaters and rescued the lady called Sad-Eyes, our state would havebeen quite different. He was sure, he added, that the valley which hehad suggested we should follow, was one full of game, inasmuch as he hadseen their spoor at its entrance.
"Then why did you not say so?" I asked.
Hans sucked at his empty corn-cob pipe, which was his way of indicatingthat he would like me to give him some tobacco, much as a dog groansheavily under the table when he wants a bit to eat, and answered that itwas not for him to point out things to one who knew everything, like thegreat Macumazahn, Watcher-by-Night, his honoured master. Still, the luckdid seem to have gone a bit wrong. The privations could have been put upwith (here he sucked very loudly at the empty pipe and looked at mine,which was alight), everything could have been put up with, if only therehad been a chance of coming even with those men-eaters and rescuing theLady Sad-Eyes, whose face haunted his sleep. As it was, however, hewas convinced that by following the course I had mapped out we had losttheir spoor finally and that probably they were now three days' marchaway in another direction. Still, the Baas had said that he had hisreasons, and that of course was enough for him, Hans, only if the Baaswould condescend to tell him, he would as a matter of curiosity like toknow what the reasons were.
At that moment I confess that, much as I was attached to him, I shouldhave liked to murder Hans, who, I felt, believing that he had me "ontoast," to use a vulgar phrase, was taking advantage of my position tomake a mock of me in his sly, Hottentot way.
I tried to continue to look grand, but felt that the attitude didnot impress. Then I stared about me as though taking counsel with theHeavens, devoutly hoping that the Heavens would respond to my muteappeal. As a matter of fact they did.
"There is my reason, Hans," I said in my most icy voice, and I pointedto a faint line of smoke rising against the twilight sky on the furtherside of the intervening valley.
"You will perceive, Hans," I added, "that those Amahagger cannibals haveforgotten their caution and lit a fire yonder, which they have not donefor a long time. Perhaps you would like to know why this has happened.If so I will tell you. It is because for some days past I have purposelylost their spoor, which they knew we were following, and lit fires topuzzle them. Now, thinking that they have done with us, they have becomeincautious and shown us where they are. That is my reason, Hans."
He heard and, although of course he did not believe that I had lost thespoor on purpose, stared at me till I thought his little eyes were goingto drop out of his head. But even in his admiration he contrived toconvey an insult as only a native can.
"How wonderful is the Great Medicine of the Opener-of-Roads, that itshould have been able thus to instruct the Baas," he said. "Withoutdoubt the Great Medicine is right and yonder those men-eaters areencamped, who might just as well as have been anywhere else within ahundred miles."
"Drat the Great Medicine," I replied, but beneath my breath, then addedaloud,
"Be so good, Hans, as to go to Umslopogaas and to tell him thatMacumazahn, or the Great Medicine, proposes to march at once to attackthe camp of the Amahagger, and--here is some tobacco."
"Yes, Baas," answered Hans humbly, as he snatched the tobacco andwriggled away like a worm.
Then I went to talk with Robertson.
The end of it was that within an hour we were creeping across thatvalley towards the spot where I had seen the line of smoke risingagainst the twilight sky.
Somewhere about midnight we reached the neighbourhood of this place. Hownear or how far we were from it, we could not tell since the moon wasinvisible, as of course the smoke was in the dark. Now the question was,what should we do?
Obviously there would be enormous advantages in a night attack, or atleast in locating the enemy, so that it might be carried out at dawnbefore he marched. Especially was this so, since we were scarcely in acondition even if we could come face to face with them, to fight thesesavages when they were prepared and in the light of day. Only we twowhite men, with Hans, Umslopogaas and his Zulus, could be relied uponin such a case, since the Strathmuir mixed-bloods had become entirelydemoralised and were not to be trusted at a pinch. Indeed, tired andhalf starving as we were, none of us was at his best. Therefore asurprise seemed our only chance. But first we must find those whom wewished to surprise.
Ultimately, after a hurried consultation, it was agreed that Hans andI should go forward and see if we could locate the Amahagger. Robertsonwished to come too, but I pointed out that he must remain to look afterhis people, who, if he left them, might take the opportunity to meltaway in the darkness, especially as they knew that heavy fighting wasat hand. Also if anything happened to me it was desirable that one whiteman should remain to lead the party. Umslopogaas, too, volunteered, butknowing his character, I declined his help. To tell the truth, I wasalmost certain that if we came upon the men-eaters, he would charge thewhole lot of them and accomplish a fine but futile end after hackingdown a number of cannibal barbarians, whose extinction or escaperemained absolutely immaterial to our purpose, namely, the rescue ofInez.
So it came about that Hans and I started alone, I not at all enjoyingthe job. I suppose that there lurks in my nature some of that primevalterror of the dark, which must continually have haunted our remoteforefathers of a hundred or a thousand generations gone and stilllingers in the blood of most of us. At any rate even if I am named theWatcher-by-Night, greatly do I prefer to fight or to face peril in thesunlight, though it is true that I would rather avoid both at any time.
In fact, I wished heartily that the Amahagger were at the other sideof Africa, or in heaven, and that I, completely ignorant of the personcalled Inez Robertson, were seated smoking the pipe of peace on my ownstoep in Durban. I think that Hans guessed my state of mind, sincehe suggested that he should go alone, adding with his usual unveiledrudeness, that he was quite certain that he would do much better withoutme, since white men always made a noise.
"Yes," I replied, determined to give him a Roland for his Oliver, "Ihave no doubt you would--under the first bush you came across, where youwould sleep till dawn, and then return and say that you could not findthe Amahagger."
Hans chuckled, quite appreciating the joke, and having th
us mutuallyaffronted each other, we started on our quest.
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