The Luck of Gerard Ridgeley

“Don’t lose heart, Ridgeley, whatever you do,” said Dawes, looking at him earnestly. “The situation is pretty black, but, please Heaven, we’ll get through to talk over it snug and safe at home one of these days. The worst of it is that it’s all my doing you’re in this fix at all. That’s what I blame myself for, my lad.”

“Then don’t think of doing that,” returned Gerard, with all his old alacrity. “Aren’t we in it together, share and share alike, risks as well as good times. Come now, Dawes, if I think you’re bothering over that, it’ll go far towards knocking the bottom out of me. Hang it all, can’t we get on the horses some dark night, and make a dash for it?”

“We can’t, Ridgeley, and for this reason. It would simply be the death warrant of all our people if we succeeded, and of ourselves if we didn’t. I’m not a more straight-laced chap than most, but, you see, I can’t exactly bring myself to slope off and leave Sintoba and the rest of them in the lurch. No. We must either march out as we came, with all the honours of war, or – stay here.”

“I never thought of it from that point of view, I admit,” said Gerard.

“There is another scheme I’ve been plotting, but it don’t pan out overmuch,” went on Dawes. “If one could manage to smuggle you out, by hook or by crook, you might find your way to Ulundi, and lay the case before the king, always provided there’s no such thing as a British war, of course. But, bar that event, Cetywayo would soon bring Master Ingonyama to book. He’s a straight man, is Cetywayo, and well-disposed towards Englishmen, though we have been badgering him more than enough of late. But he’d never allow a couple of British subjects to be put upon in this outrageous manner by one of his own subordinate chiefs.”

“By Jove! that is an idea,” said Gerard. “But would it be better than knocking up a rescue expedition among our own people – in Natal for instance?”

“Rather. About five hundred per cent, better. Why such an expedition would mean a young war, and do you think Government would embark on that for the sake of a brace of poor devils of traders? Not much. It’d say we travelled at our own risk, and if we’d got into difficulties we must get out of them on the same terms. Even if otherwise, just think of the red tape! No. My plan is the best, and, I’m afraid, the only one.”

For a few moments both men sat puffing at their pipes in silence. Gerard felt his pulses beginning to throb already with the excitement and prospect of such an adventure. Then he said —

“It won’t do, Dawes; I’m not going to leave you. We must go out together or not at all.”

“That’s no sort of good sense,” was the other’s rejoinder. “I shall be all right here, and it’s the only way out of the difficulty.”

“But, on your own showing, they will take it out of you,” urged Gerard, speaking quickly. “Didn’t you give that as a reason just now for not leaving Sintoba and the others behind? You go, and leave me to take my chance here.”

“Yes; but the cases are different, I can manage them better. You see, I understand them thoroughly, and you, after all, are a good bit of a novice. Still, you know enough of the country and people to get along among them, and find your way to Ulundi as quick as possible; but if you were left here on your own hook you’d likely make a mess of it. Tell the first you meet you are the bearer of a message to the king, and they will be bound to help you. They dare not refuse. We must pan out the thing, though, with every care. The main difficulty will, of course, be that of getting you clear out of this place, in the first instance. The rest is simplicity itself in comparison.”

In the dead of night, by the light of a lantern, the two would sit in the waggon-tent, while Dawes, with surprising accuracy, drew from memory, and in as small a compass as possible, a map of that section of the Zulu country which comprised their present place of captivity and the king’s capital and night after night, with their heads together, they would sit studying this rough plan, while Dawes pointed out the general features of the country – the lay of the mountains and the most convenient and least frequented route to be chosen. With extra good luck, he reckoned Gerard might make Ulundi in a little over two days – with ordinary luck it might take him four. But that Cetywayo would order their immediate release he never entertained or uttered the smallest doubt.

One day Gerard saddled up his pony, and started off alone to see how their stock was getting on. And, indeed, it really seemed that he was alone, for strange to say, none of the Igazipuza offered to accompany him, nor did he meet with a soul on the way. But between seeing nobody and being himself seen by nobody, he well knew there lay a wide difference, and he must be careful accordingly; indeed, he almost began to fear that this unwonted immunity from surveillance concealed a trap – was designed to draw him into some indiscretion, which might be turned into a reason for his destruction.

The intense longing to escape, however, soon overweighed all prudential consideration to the extent of causing him to scan for the fiftieth time every cranny and crevice in the face of the cliffs, which might by any chance afford exit. Surely there was some such – a cleft, a gnarled tree, a concealed passage. Hardly could he believe there was not. But, even as heretofore, he could not find it, and despondently he once more turned his horse to ride back to the waggons.

Suddenly the animal shied, and dropping his nose to the ground sniffed at something and then backed away, snorting. The white round object which had caused the alarm needed no second glance. It was a human skull.

Yet another lay there, its fleshless eye-holes staring upward from the grass. Scattered around were fragments of broken bones.

Gerard looked up. In his meditative fit he had ridden abstractedly, not seeing where he was going. Now he found himself at the foot of a great rock, and a cold shiver ran through his frame, for he recognised it as the rock called Izinyo, “The Tooth.” It was the rock of slaughter – “the tooth that eats,” as Vunawayo had grimly put it.

For various reasons he had always avoided this locality. He had no sort of an inclination to explore it – very much the reverse – and he feared lest in doing so he might unconsciously be offending the superstitions of the people. Now, thus brought by chance to its very base, he looked up at it with a cold, creepy sensation of shuddering awe. He contemplated it much as a Liberty, Equality and Fraternity “citizen” during the thick of the Reign of Terror, may have contemplated the guillotine, as an institution with which he might any day be called upon to cultivate a much closer acquaintance.

He looked down at the shattered bones, then up at the cliff. This was the mode of death then. The victims were taken to the summit of this latter-day Tarpeian rock and hurled therefrom. But as he looked something seemed to be flapping softly against the face of the cliff high overhead. Ropes? Reims? Were people then hanged from the brow – not merely thrown over? Hanging was not a Zulu method of slaughter. Gerard was more mystified than ever.

And with this mystification came a great and growing curiosity. As he was here he determined to explore further. He would take advantage of being alone and unwatched to ascend the rock. A horrible fascination, which was more than mere curiosity, seemed to beckon him on, and with it ran an instinctive feeling that the knowledge thus gained might possibly be of use to him. Acting upon this impulse he rode round to the other side and began the ascent.

The latter was not difficult. Precipitous only on its front face, the further side of the pyramid, though steep, was smooth enough to enable him to ride nearly to the top. Here, however, he was obliged to leave his horse and ascend on foot by a rough-hewn but well-worn path.

The summit was large enough to hold about fifty persons. It was smoothly rounded, with a hollow depression in the centre. And as Gerard’s glance fell upon this, every drop of blood within him seemed to turn to ice.

A sharp, tough stake, pointed at the top, rose upright in the centre of the hollow, and upon this stake, in a sitting posture, shrivelled, half mummified, was impaled a human body. The head lay over on the shoulder, and on the features, drawn back from the bared teeth in a grin of ghastly torment, was the most horrible expression of fear and agony. The eyeballs, lustreless and shrunken, stared upon the intruder with a stare that might haunt him to his dying day, and gazing upon the grisly contortion of the bound and trussed limbs – the terrible attitude – the foetid odour of the corpse – for in this dry atmosphere decomposition had been a long and gradual process – it seemed to the petrified and unutterably horror-stricken spectator that the tortured wretch must still have life in him.

Recovering by a strong effort of will some degree of self-possession, for the horrid sight had turned him sick and faint, Gerard drew nearer to the corpse. The stake, burnt and hardened to a point, was of the umzimbili or iron-wood. This was clearly not the first time it had been so used, and now as he remembered the skulls and bones lying beneath, he thought with a shudder on the numbers of wretches who might have suffered this most hideous of deaths. Heavens! and might not he himself, and Dawes, be called upon to suffer in like fashion, at the mercy, as they were, of this horde of cruel barbarians?

He turned his face outward to look over the valley. The sweet golden sunshine, now declining, shed a softened and beautiful light upon the verdure of the bush, toning down the angles of the grey cliffs. Blue smoke clouds curled lazily upward from the great circle of the kraal, lying below in the distance, and the sound of far-away voices floated melodiously, pleasingly upon the clear still air. It was a lovely scene, a scene that many might travel any distance to look upon, but to him who now gazed upon it from this grim and horrid Golgotha it was darker, blacker than the Tartarus of Dante.

Then another sight arrested Gerard’s attention. Along the brow of the cliff was a row of stout pegs driven firmly into the ground, and round each was tied a reim, or raw-hide rope, whose other end dangled over into space. These were what he had seen flapping overhead when he was below. With a shuddering loathing he drew up one of them. Its end was not a running noose as he had expected, only a loop, so small that he could not even put his hand through it. What new horror did this represent?

And then a quick, deep-toned ejaculation behind made him start – start so violently in the sudden unexpectedness of the interruption in the then state of his nerves, that he was within an ace of losing his balance and pitching headlong over the height. Recovering himself, however, he turned to confront a tall Zulu who stood contemplating him with an expression of ironical mirth, and recognised the great frame and evil countenance of Vunawayo.

“Ha, Umlúngu!” said the latter. “So you have come to look at the point of The Tooth?”

“Yes,” answered Gerard, as composedly as possible. “But, Vunawayo, what is that?”

“This?” said the savage, reaching up his hand to the point of the stake. “It is the point of The Tooth – the part it eats with.”

“No; that, I mean,” pointing to the impaled corpse.

“Hau! That is – its last morsel,” replied Vunawayo, with the laugh of a demon. “When The Tooth bites, it bites hard. Wizards – and such people. I told you it did.”

“What, then, are these used for?” went on Gerard, showing the raw-hide rope which he had drawn up.

“These? Ha! not all who come here to be eaten by The Tooth are bitten by its point. This loop you see was tied round a man’s wrists. He was then flung over to the full end of the rope, and his arms being fastened behind him, were broken by the jerk. He dangled there until he dropped loose. The last to suffer in this way was a woman who had been a captive, and was taken to wife by the chief. She killed her newborn child, saying that she would die rather than increase the strength of the Igazipuza. She did die – but she took a long time about it – a long, long time.”

“And who was the man who was impaled, Vunawayo? What did he die for?”

“Be not too curious, Umlúngu,” was the answer. “Have patience. There may soon come a time when you shall attend at the ‘eating of The Tooth.’ Have patience.”

To Gerard, in his then frame of mind, it seemed that the other’s tone was fraught with grim irony, with fell significance.

“Let us go down,” resumed Vunawayo. “Ha! our meeting up here has been short and unexpected. But it may be that we shall meet again upon the point of The Tooth, and then our meeting will be a much longer one. Oh yes; we shall meet again up here,” added the savage, with a sinister laugh, as he turned to lead the way down.

And Gerard, unnerved by these evidences of the sickening barbarities practised by this ferocious clan, could hardly bring himself on his return to tell Dawes what he had seen.

Chapter Sixteen.

The Attempted Escape

Dawes, prompt to discern that his young companion had seen or heard something to unnerve him, was not long in getting at the whole story of the latter’s discovery.

“It’s a pity you turned your explorations in that direction, Ridgeley,” was his verdict, “for I’m afraid the result has knocked you out of time some – and it’s still more a pity that Vunawayo should have stumbled across you up there, because of course he saw that you were a bit upset, and it gives them a sort of a hold on us. Well now, you see, my plan is the best in the long run. You must try and make a break for it, and see what you can do for the rest of us.”

But still Gerard refused, refused uncompromisingly to leave his comrade alone in the power of these barbarians. At length it was agreed they should toss up which should make the attempt.

“Here, you’d better do the throwing, or you’ll be swearing I’ve hocussed the coin,” said Dawes, with a dry smile. “By Jove, I’ve tossed for many a thing, from drinks upwards, but never for quite such a life-and-death business as this. Still, I hope you may win, for I tell you candidly you would stand a bad chance if left here. Well, heads you go, tails I stay. What’s it to be – two out of three, or ‘sudden death’?”

“Sudden death sounds unlucky. Two out of three we’ll say. You throw.”

“All right,” said Dawes, producing a shilling and contemplating it with that dry, quizzical look of his that did duty for most men’s laugh. “Her most Gracious Majesty isn’t in it up here compared with Ingonyama – confusion to the latter. Now – call.” And up went the coin.

“Heads!” sang out Gerard. Heads it was.

Up went the coin again. This time “tails” turned up.

“So far a draw. Now for the casting vote,” said Dawes.

“Heads!” cried Gerard again. “Hurra – No. I’ve lost – though I’ve won the toss,” he ended, as the coin, having wobbled indecisively, settled down, head uppermost, on the waggon-box.

“That’s as it should be,” said Dawes. “The next thing is to choose our time. A rainy, dark night would be the best. Zulus, you know, hate being out of doors at night. They’re as frightened of bogies as so many children. But there’s no chance of any such luck, I’m afraid. Well, we must just watch our opportunity.”

The latter came. Two nights after the decision by lot there was a gathering and a war-dance at the Igazipuza kraal. Throughout the afternoon the warriors were parading and singing, and towards sundown there was a great beef-killing, at which Gerard himself assisted, and in order to lull suspicion, affected great interest in the spearing of the doomed cattle, half of which, frenzied with apprehension and the clamour of the crowd, broke loose and temporarily escaped their slayers, affording much sport to the excited savages in hunting them down one by one, and slaughtering them, amid an indescribable uproar.

“Now, Ridgeley, you have got everything you will require,” said Dawes. “The map, ammunition, everything. The row will be at its thickest in less than an hour. That will be the time. Even the guards at the entrance to this hole will be so taken up watching the fun down here, you may be able to slip past them.”

But Fortune was destined to prove unfavourable. As the moment for making the attempt drew near, and even John Dawes the imperturbable felt his pulses beat quicker, messengers arrived from the chief requesting – though the request was really a command – their presence at the gathering.

It was disconcerting, at first. But Dawes’s keen faculties saw in the apparent difficulty his opportunity. The messengers were few in number, and eager to get back themselves to the scene of the festivities. He readily fell in with the request, and with great deliberation replied that they would saddle up their horses and ride over forthwith. This proposal, so far from being received with suspicion, excited no surprise. Zulus are great sticklers for etiquette; therefore it struck the messengers as in no wise strange that the two white men should elect to put in their appearance with every adjunct of state at their command – to wit, on horseback.

“God bless you, Ridgeley,” said Dawes, with unwonted seriousness, contriving, under cover of saddling up, to exchange a firm hand-clasp with his young companion, unseen by the messengers. “When we get near the kraal, then edge off and make a dash for it. I’ll give you the word.”

Their outspan was some three or four hundred yards distant from the kraal. As they approached the latter, they could see that the war-dance was in full swing. In the red glow of the great fires the forms of hundreds of excited savages, in all their wild paraphernalia, showed forth weird, monstrous, fantastic, as they went through their barbarous performance, and the thunder of the war-song gathered in volume, swelling up to the star-lit heavens like the fierce roar of ravening beasts. Gerard’s heart was beating like a hammer.

“Now, Ridgeley! Now is your time!” whispered Dawes, as the messengers who were escorting them had in their eagerness been gradually increasing their distance in advance.

Gerard, who had learnt promptitude in a sufficiently hard and practical school, said not a word. Wrenching round his horse’s head, for the animal was loath to part from its companion, he spurred away into the dark bush, straight for the head of the valley. And as he rode, from all the agonised suspense of his young heart, went up an unspoken prayer that he might succeed, that he might be the means of rescuing his companion from the deadly peril which lowered over him, which lowered over them both.

The kraal was already left behind on his right, the wild tumult of the war-dance began to grow fainter. A puff of cool air fanned his face. He had almost gained the ridge. Could it be – dared he hope – that he was after all to meet with no opposition? Could it be that the guards had all been summoned to attend the revelry? Ha! what was that?

In the light of the stars – and South African starlight can be very bright – he saw dark forms running, converging on his line of flight, could even distinguish the white on their shields, the occasional glint on the point of an assegai. Then a line of figures started up right before him, as it were out of the earth itself, barring his way, and a deep-toned, peremptory voice called upon him to halt.

It was a critical, a fearful moment, yet he hesitated not. Putting his horse right at the foremost, he charged through. And then the wild Igazipuza war-cry rent the night, and he could hear the whiz of flying assegais past his head.

Even then he would not use a weapon – would not fire. Like lightning it flashed through his brain that he must get through bloodlessly – without taking a life – or not at all. He might kill one or more of his assailants. He might even thus ensure his own escape; but in that case would he not be dooming to death his comrade? Would not the latter be inevitably sacrificed? Would not the revengeful and exasperated barbarians demand life for life, blood for blood? Seldom, we trow, has one so young in years been called upon to face so difficult and delicate a dilemma, seldom has he disposed of it so resolutely, so judiciously.

He heard the swarming rush of his pursuers as they charged down the hill on either side of him. His pulses bounded, and his steed, maddened with excitement and terror, snorted and tugged at the reins as the terrible slogan rang forth from those fierce throats, expressing in curdling meaning their veritable thirst for blood —

“Igazi – pu – za!”

And now with a thrill of unspeakable exaltation, he realised that he was going downhill, that he was actually outside that hated and ill-omened hollow which had been their drear prison-house all these weary weeks. Every drop of blood in his veins tingled; every nerve thrilled. But the pursuers kept up their pace horribly, and the way was rough, fearfully rough. Even the sure-footed Basuto pony stumbled and floundered in the darkness; once or twice came down nearly on his knees.

“Igazi – pu – za!”

The frightful shout thundered still in his wake, still as close as before. In the darkness, on the steep and ragged descent the fleet-footed savages could almost keep pace with the horse. With the very brief start he had been able to obtain, they would surely run him down sooner or later. His steed could not keep on at that pace for ever. Besides, a hole, an excrescence in the ground, a false step, anything, and he would be at their mercy.

On he kept. The air seemed to tear past his ears as he sped. The stars overhead were as a whirling wheel of fire-works. Would not Nature even come to his aid, afford him a hiding-place, a refuge? The rugged mountains loomed black to the sky in all their savage wildness. Oh for a few miles of level stretch to yield him the precious start which should be the saving of him, the saving of them both! And then it seemed that his despairing wish was answered. A black line rose right across his way. It was a wide belt of forest land. Here at any rate he might find hiding – shelter – some means of baffling the pursuers.

For although the fierce shouts of the latter had long since ceased, not on that account did he flatter himself they had given up the chase. These bloodhounds would not abandon their prey so readily. Even though the morning might see him a long distance from their haunt, yet would he by no means be safe. The Igazipuza were drawn mainly from the Aba Qulusi clan, who inhabited almost exclusively the mountainous region of northern Zululand. Not among these could he look for help, for guidance in reaching the kraal of the king.

And, indeed, could he so look to any? What if the war with the English had actually broken out? In that case he would be a lawful prey to the first armed band he should meet. The hand of every man, woman, and child in the country would be against him.

The first thing, however, was to evade those now in pursuit of him, and with feelings of the deepest thankfulness, Gerard plunged into the dark, welcome shades of the forest. But here a new drawback, a new peril arose to confront him. The ground was hardly less rough than the open hillside, and being in shadow, he could not see to guide his horse, with the result that now and again the animal would crash right into a bush, or stumble and slide over the roots of a tree, at the same time nearly braining his rider against a limb of the same. Or a buck would start up and rush away headlong through the covert, making a prodigious clatter, and, as sound travels far at night, the keen ears of his enemies would have no difficulty in following him by their sense of hearing alone.

How long he thus pursued his course Gerard could hardly have told; but at length the deep-drawn breathing and stumbling gait of his steed warned him that it was high time the latter had a rest, however brief. So he dismounted, and having listened a moment, loosened the girths, but without removing the saddle, and then stood listening again.

If he had come upon this expedition in search of adventure, assuredly he had found it, thought Gerard, as he stood there by his horse, with the bridle in his hand ready to mount at the very first alarm; as he stood there in the midnight darkness of the forest, listening with beating heart for the stealthy footsteps of his pursuing enemies. As a situation of wild, adventurous peril, assuredly this one would be hard to surpass.