The Curse of Carne's Hold: A Tale of Adventure

As they approached within a hundred yards of the edge of the clearing round the village, a sharp hiss was heard among the bushes. Kreta at once left the path, the others following him. They were at once joined by the other scouts.

"What is the news?"

"The white woman is still in the woman's hut next to that of Macomo."

"Are there any guards at the door?" Ronald asked. The chief put the question.

"No, no guards have been placed there. There are many women in the hut. There was no fear of her escape. Besides, if she got out, where could she go to?"

"Well, now, incos, what are we to do?" the chief asked. "We have brought you here, and now we are ready to die if you tell us. What you think we do next?"

"Wait a bit, Kreta, I must think it over."

Indeed, Ronald had been thinking all day. He had considered it probable that Mary Armstrong would be placed in the hut of one of the chief's wives. The first question was how to communicate with her. It was almost certain that either some of the women would sit up all night, or that sentries would be placed at the door. Probably the former. The Kaffirs had made a long journey, and had now doubtless been gorging themselves with meat. They would be disinclined to watch, and would consider their responsibility at an end when they had handed her over to the women. It was almost certain that Mary herself would be asleep after her fatigue of the last three days; even the prospect of the terrible fate before her would scarce suffice to keep her awake.

"Do you think two women will sit up with her all night?"

"Two or three of them, sure," Kreta replied.

"My plan is this, Kreta; it may not succeed, but I can think of no other. In the first place, I will go into the kraal. I will wait until there is no one near the door, then I will stoop and say in a loud voice, so that she may hear, that she is to keep awake at night. Macomo's women are none of them likely to understand English, and before they run out to see what it is, I shall be gone. If they tell the men they have heard a strange voice speaking unknown words, they will be laughed at, or at most a search will be made through the kraal, and of course nothing will be found. Then, to-night, chief, when everything is still, I propose that three of you shall crawl with me into the kraal. When we get to the door of the hut, you will draw aside the hide that will be hanging over it and peep in. If only two women are sitting by the fire in the centre, two of you will crawl in as noiselessly as possible. I know that you can crawl so that the sharpest ear cannot hear you. Of course, if there are three, three of you will go in; if two, two only. You will crawl up behind the women, suddenly seize them by the throat and gag and bind them. Then you will beckon to the young lady to follow you. She will know from my warning that you are friends. If she has a light dress on, throw a dark blanket round her, for many of the Kaffirs will go on feasting all night, and might see her in the light of the fire. Then I will hurry her away, and your men follow us so as to stop the Kaffirs a moment and give us time to get into the bushes if we are seen."

"Kreta will go himself," the chief said, "with two of his young men. Do you not think, incos, that there is danger in your calling out?"

"Not much danger, I think, Kreta. They will not dream of a white man being here, in the heart of the Amatolas. I think there is less danger in it than that the girl might cry out if she was roused from her sleep by men whom she did not know. She might think that it was Macomo come home."

Kreta agreed in this opinion.

"I will go down at once," Ronald said; "they're making such a noise that it is unlikely any one outside the hut would hear me, however loud I spoke, while if I waited until it got quieter, I might be heard. Take my rifle, Kreta, and one of the pistols; I want to carry nothing extra with me, in case I have to make a sudden bolt for it."

Mary Armstrong was lying apparently unnoticed by the wall of the hut, while a dozen women were chattering round the fire in the centre. Suddenly she started; for from the door, which was but three feet high, there came a loud, clear voice, "Mary Armstrong, do not sleep to-night. Rescue is at hand."

The women started to their feet with a cry of alarm at these mysterious sounds, and stood gazing at the entrance; then there was a clamour of tongues, and presently one of them, older than the rest, walked to the entrance and looked out.

"There is no one here," she said, looking round, and the greater part of the women at once rushed out. Their conduct convinced Mary Armstrong that she was not in a dream, as she at first thought, but had really heard the words. Who could have spoken them, or what rescue could reach her? This she could not imagine; but she had sufficient self-possession to resume her reclining position, from which she had half risen, and to close her eyes as if sound asleep. A minute later, one of the women appeared with a blazing brand, and held it close to her eyes.

"The girl is asleep," she said in Kaffir, which Mary understood perfectly; "what can have been the words we heard?"

"It must have been an evil spirit," another woman said; "who else can have spoken in an unknown tongue to us?"

There was a good deal of hubbub in the kraal when the women told their story; some of the men took up their weapons and searched the village and the surrounding bushes, but the greater portion altogether disbelieved the story. Whoever heard of a spirit talking in an unknown tongue to a lot of women? If he had wanted to say anything to them, he would have spoken so that they could understand. It must have been some man who had drunk too much, and who bellowed in at the door to startle them; and so gradually the din subsided, the men returned to the dance, and the women to their huts.

Had Mary Armstrong been in spirits to enjoy it, she would have been amused at the various propositions started by the women to account for the voice they had heard; not one of them approached the truth, for it did not occur to them as even possible that a white man should have penetrated the Amatolas to Macomo's kraal.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE RESCUE

Ronald, with Kreta and two of his men, now crept down to the very edge of the bushes at a spot where they could command a view of the entrance to the hut. For a long time female figures came in and out, and it was not until long past midnight that they saw the last female figure disappear inside and the skin drawn across the entrance.

"How long shall we give them, Kreta?"

"In an hour Kreta will go see," the chief said; "but better give two hours for all to be fast asleep."

In about an hour Ronald, who had been half lying on the ground with his head on his hands, looked round and found that the chief had stolen away. He sat up and watched the hut intently. The fires were burning low now, although many of the Kaffirs were sitting round them; but there was still light enough for him, looking intently, to see a figure moving along. Once or twice he fancied he saw a dark shadow on the ground close to the hut, but he was not sure, and was still gazing intently when there was a touch on his shoulder, and, looking round, he saw the chief beside him.

"Two women watch," he said, "others all quiet. Give a little time longer, to make sure that all are asleep, then we go on."

It seemed to Ronald fully two hours, although it was less than one, before Kreta again touched him.

"Time to go, incos," he said. "You go down with me to the hut, but not quite close. Kreta bring girl to you. You better not go. Kreta walk more quietly than white man. Noise spoil everything, get all of us killed."

Ronald gave his consent, though reluctantly, but he felt it was right that the Fingo, who was risking his life for his sake, should carry out his plans in his own way. Kreta ordered one of his men to rejoin his companions, and with the other advanced towards the village.

When within forty yards of the hut, he touched Ronald and whispered to him to remain there. Then he and his companion lay down on the ground, and, without the slightest sound that Ronald could detect, disappeared in the darkness, while Ronald stood with his revolver in his hand, ready at any moment to spring forward and throw himself upon the Kaffirs.

Mary Armstrong lay awake, with every faculty upon the stretch. Where the succour was to come from, or how, she could not imagine; but it was evident, at least, that some white man was here, and was working for her. She listened intently to every sound, with her eyes wide open, staring at the two women, who were cooking mealies in the fire, and keeping up a low, murmured talk. She had not even a hope that they would sleep. She knew that the natives constantly sit up talking and feasting until daylight is close at hand; and as they had extra motives for vigilance, she was sure that they would keep awake.

Suddenly, so suddenly that she scarcely knew what had happened, the two women disappeared from her sight. A hand had grasped each tightly by the throat, another hand seized the hair, and, with a sharp jerk, pulled the head on one side, breaking the neck in a moment – a common mode among the Kaffirs of putting any one to death. The whole thing did not occupy a moment, and as the women disappeared from her sight, two natives rose to their feet and looked round. Convinced that this was the succour promised her, she sat up. One of the natives put his finger upon his lips to indicate the necessity of silence, and beckoned for her to rise and come to him. When she did so he wrapped her in a dark blanket and led her to the door. He pushed aside the hanging and went out.

Mary followed close behind him. He now put the blanket over her head and lifted her in his arms. A momentary dread seized her lest this might be an emissary of some other chief, who had sent him to carry off Macomo's new captive, but the thought of the English words reassured her; and, at any rate, even if it were so, her position could not possibly be worse than on the return of Macomo the next morning. She was carried a short distance, then she heard her bearer say in English: "Come along; I take her a bit further. Too close to Kaffir still." She was carried on for some distance. Then there was a stop, and she was placed on her feet; the blanket was removed from her head, and a moment later a dark figure seized her hand.

"Thank God, we have got you out, Miss Armstrong."

The revulsion of feeling at hearing her own tongue was so great that she was not capable of speaking, and she would have fallen had she not been clasped in the arms of the person who addressed her. Her surprise at feeling that the arms that encircled her were bare, roused her.

"Who are you, sir?" she asked, trembling.

"I am Sergeant Blunt, Miss Armstrong. No wonder you did not know me. I am got up in native fashion. You can trust yourself with me, you know."

"Oh, yes, yes," the girl sobbed. "I know I can, you saved my life once before. How did you come here? And, oh, can you tell me any news about my father?"

"He is hurt, Miss Armstrong, but I have every hope that he will recover. Now you must be strong, for we must be miles from here before morning. Can you walk?"

"Oh yes, I can walk any distance," the girl said. "Yesterday it seemed to me that I could not walk an inch further were it to save my life, and they had to carry me the last mile or two, but now I feel strong enough to walk miles."

"She can walk at present, chief," Ronald said, "let us go forward at once."

They were now on the pathway leading down to the kraal. The chief took the lead, telling Mary Armstrong to take hold of his blanket and follow close behind him, while Ronald followed on her heels, the other Fingoes keeping in the rear. The darkness beneath the trees was dense, and it was some time before Ronald could make out even the outline of the figures before him. Before approaching a kraal a halt was always made, and one of the Fingoes went on ahead to see if the fires were out and all natives inside their huts. Several times, although all the human beings were asleep, the scout returned, saying that they could not pass through the kraal, for the dogs had scented him and growled fiercely, and would set up such a barking when the party passed as to bring all the village out to see what was the matter.

Then long detours, that would have been difficult through the thick bush in daylight, but at night were almost impossible, had to be made. Each time that this had to be done, Kreta lifted Mary Armstrong and carried her, and she had now become so exhausted that she was unable even to protest. Ronald would have carried her himself, but he felt that it would be worse than useless to attempt to do so. Though unencumbered, he had the greatest difficulty in making his way through the bushes, which scratched and tore his flesh terribly; but the chief seemed to be possessed of the eyes of a bat, and glided through them, scarcely moving a twig as he passed. After going on for upwards of three hours, the chief stopped.

"It will be getting light soon. We must hide her now. Cannot get further until to-morrow night."

Although Ronald Mervyn, struggling along in the darkness, had not noticed it, the party had for the last hour turned off from the line they had before been following. They stopped by a little stream, running down the valley. Here a native refilled the gourds, and Mary Armstrong felt better after a drink of water.

"I think," Ronald said to her, "that if you were to bathe your face and hands it would refresh you. There is a rock here just at the edge of the stream, I am sure your feet must be sore and blistered. It will be half an hour before there is a gleam of light, and I should recommend you to take off your shoes and stockings and paddle your feet in the water."

"That would be refreshing," the girl said. "My feet are aching dreadfully. Now please tell me all that has happened, and how you came to be here."

Sitting beside her, Ronald told her what had been done from the time when his party arrived and beat off the natives attacking the waggons.

"How can I thank you enough?" she said, when he had finished. "To think that you have done all this for me."

"Never mind about thanks, Miss Armstrong; we are not out of the wood yet, our dangers are only half over, and if it were not that I trust to the cunning of our good friend Kreta and his Fingoes I should have very little hope of getting out of this mess. I think it is just beginning to get light, for I can make out the outlines of the trunks of the trees, which is more than I could do before. I will go and ask Kreta what he is going to do, and by the time I come back perhaps you had better get your shoes on again, and be ready for a start. I don't suppose we shall go far, but no doubt he will find some sort of hiding-place." Kreta, in fact, was just giving instructions to his men.

"We are going out to find some good place to hide away in to-day," he said. "In the morning they search all about the woods. We must get into shelter before it light enough for the men on hill tops to see down through trees. You stop here quiet. In half an hour we come back again. There is plenty time; they no find out yet that woman gone."

In a few minutes Mary Armstrong joined Ronald.

"How do you feel now?" he asked.

"All the fresher and better for the wash," she said; "but I really don't think I could walk very far, my feet are very much blistered. I don't see why they should be so bad; we have only gone about twenty-four miles each day, and I always considered that I could walk twenty miles without difficulty."

"It makes all the difference how you walk, Miss Armstrong. No doubt, if you had been in good spirits, and with a pleasant party, you could have walked fifty miles in two days, although that is certainly a long distance for a woman; but depressed and almost despairing, as you were, it told upon you generally, and doubtless you rather dragged your feet along than walked."

"I don't want to think about it," the girl said, with a shudder. "It seems to have been an awful dream. Some day I will tell you about it; but I cannot now."

"Here are some mealies and some cold meat. We each brought a week's supply with us when we left the waggons. I am sure that you will be all the better for eating something."

"I do feel very hungry, now I think of it," the girl assented; "I have hardly eaten a mouthful since that morning."

"I am hungry myself," Ronald said "I was too anxious yesterday to do justice to my food."

"I feel very much better now," the girl said when she had finished. "I believe I was faint from want of food before, although I did not think of it. I am sure I could go on walking now. It was not the pain that stopped me, but simply because I didn't feel as if I could lift my foot from the ground. And there is one thing I want to say: I wish you would not call me Miss Armstrong, it seems so formal and stiff, when you are running such terrible risks to save me. Please call me Mary, and I will call you Harry. I think I heard you tell my father your name was Harry Blunt."

"That is the name I enlisted under, it is not my own name; men very seldom enlist under their own names."

"Why not?" she asked in surprise.

"Partly, I suppose, because a good many of us get into scrapes before we enlist, and don't care for our friends to be able to trace us."

"I am sure you never got into a scrape," the girl said, looking up into Ronald's face.

"I got into a very bad scrape," Ronald answered, "a scrape that has spoilt my whole life; but we will not talk about that. But I would rather, if you don't mind, that you should call me by my own name now we are together. If we get out of this I shall be Sergeant Blunt again, but I should like you to call me Ronald now."

"Ronald," the girl said, "that sounds Scottish."

"I am not Scotch, nor so far as I know is there any Scotch blood in my veins, but the name has been in the family a good many years; how it got there I do not know."

"I almost wish it was dark again," the girl said, with a little laugh; "in the dark you seem to me the Sergeant Blunt who came just in time to save us that day the farm was attacked; but now I can see you I cannot recognise you at all; even your eyes look quite different in that black skin."

"I flatter myself that my get up is very good," Ronald laughed. "I have had some difficulty in keeping up the colour. Each day before starting we have gone to our fires and got fresh charcoal and mixed it with some grease we brought with us and rubbed it in afresh."

"Your hair is your weak point, Ronald; but, of course, no European could make his hair like a native's. Still, as it is cut so close, it would not be noticed a little way off."

Two or three of the Fingoes had by this time returned, and in a few minutes all had gathered at the spot. Kreta listened to the reports of each of his men, and they held a short consultation. Then he came up to Ronald.

"One of my men has found a place that will do well," he said. "It is time we were going."

One of the Fingoes now took the lead; the others followed. A quarter of an hour's walk up the hill, which grew steeper and steeper every step, brought them to a spot where some masses of rock had fallen from above. They were half covered with the thick growth of brushwood. The native pushed one of the bushes aside, and showed a sort of cave formed by a great slab of rock that had fallen over the others. Kreta uttered an expression of approval. Two of the natives crept in with their assegais in their hands. In two or three minutes one of them returned with the bodies of two puff adders they had killed. These were dropped in among some rocks.

"You can go in now," Kreta said. "There are no more of them."

Ronald crawled in first, and helped Mary Armstrong in after him; the natives followed. Kreta came in last, carefully examining the bush before he did so, to see that no twig was broken or disarranged. He managed as he entered to place two or three rocks over the entrance.

"Good place," he said, looking round as he joined the others. It was indeed of ample size to contain the party, and was some four feet in height. Light came in in several places between the rocks on which the upper slab rested.

"It could not be better, Kreta, even if it had been made on purpose. It was lucky indeed your fellow found it."

"We found two or three others," the chief said, "but this best."

"It is lucky those men came in first and found the snakes," Mary Armstrong said, "for we have not got here the stuff we always use in the colony as an antidote, and their bite is almost always fatal unless that can be used in time." Ronald was aware of this, and had, indeed, during the night's march, had snakes constantly in his mind, for he knew that they abounded in the hills.

One of the Fingoes had taken his station at the entrance, having moved one of the stones the chief had placed there, so that he could sit with his head out of the opening. Half an hour after they had entered the cave he turned round and spoke to the chief.

"The Kaffirs are hunting," Kreta said. Listening at the opening they could hear distant shouts. These were answered from many points, some of them comparatively close.

"The news is being passed from kraal to kraal," Ronald said; "they will be up like a swarm of bees now, but search as they will they are not likely to find us here. Do you think they will trace us at all, chief?"

"They will find where we stopped close to kraal," Kreta said; "the dead leaves were stirred by our feet; after that not find, too many people gone along path; ground very hard; may find, sometime, mark of the white woman's shoe; but we leave path many times, and after I carry no find at all. Mountains very big, much bush; never find here."

The chief now told his follower to replace the stone and join the others, and ordered all to be silent. Sitting with his ear at one of the openings he listened to the sounds in the woods; once or twice he whispered that Kaffirs were passing close, searching among the bushes; and one party came so near that their words could be plainly heard in the cave. They were discussing the manner in which the fugitive had escaped, and were unanimous in the belief that she had been carried off by the followers of some other chief, for that an enemy should have penetrated into the heart of the Amatolas did not strike them as possible.

The argument was only as to which of the other chiefs would have ventured to rob Macomo, and the opinion inclined to the fact that it must have been Sandilli himself, who would doubtless have heard, from the messenger sent over on the previous afternoon to inform Macomo, of the return of the band with a pretty young white woman as a captive. Macomo had of course been drunk, and Sandilli might have determined to have the prize carried off for himself.

Mary Armstrong shuddered as she listened to the talk, but when they had gone on Kreta said:

"Good thing the Kaffirs have that thought, not search so much here. Search in Sandilli's country. Perhaps make great quarrel between Macomo and Sandilli. Good thing that."

As the day went on the spirits of the Fingoes rose, and in low tones they expressed their delight at having outwitted the Kaffirs.

No footsteps had been heard in their neighbourhood for some time, and they felt sure that the search had been abandoned in that quarter. Towards sunset all ate a hearty meal, and as soon as it became dark the stones at the entrance were removed and the party crept out. Mary Armstrong had slept the greater part of the day, and Ronald and the Fingoes had also passed a portion of their time in sleep. They started, therefore, refreshed and strong.

It took them many hours of patient work before they arrived at the edge of the forest on the last swell of the Amatolas. They had been obliged to make many detours to avoid kraals, and to surmount the precipices that often barred their way. They had started about eight in the evening, and it was, as they knew from the stars, fully three o'clock in the morning when they emerged from the forest.

Mary Armstrong had kept on well with the rest; her feet were extremely painful, but she was now strong and hopeful, and no word of complaint escaped her. Ronald and the chief kept by her side, helping her up or down difficult places, and assisting her to pass through the thorny bushes, which caught her dress, and would have rendered it almost impossible for her to get through unaided. Once out of the bush, the party hurried down the grassy slope, and then kept on a mile further. The chief now gave a loud call. It was answered faintly from the distance; in five minutes the sound of a horse's hoofs were heard, and in a short time the Fingo who had been left in charge of it, galloped up with Ronald's horse. Mary Armstrong was sitting on the ground, for she was now so utterly exhausted she could no longer keep her feet, and had, since they left the bush, been supported and half carried by Ronald and Kreta. She made an effort to rise as the horse came up.