Dulcie Carlyon: A novel. Volume 3 (of 3)

A new emotion--a hot thirst for blood--was in the heart of Florian now; his whole nature seemed to have undergone a sudden and temporary change; and to those who could have seen him his face would have been found deadly pale, and his dark eyes full of sombre fury.

The longing for retribution and destruction was keen in his mind at that time. Often he reined up the horse he rode to take a steady shot between the animal's quivering ears at one or other of the two desperadoes; but always missed them, and found that time was thus lost and the distance increased.

His present charger was not so steady as the old Cape nag, Tattoo, and Florian's hands, in the intensity of his excitement, trembled too much for his aim to be true; so the fugitives rode on and on, without firing a shot in return, thus showing that their ammunition had been expended, and they had nothing to hope for or trust to but a successful escape.

A cry left Florian's lips as the fugitives disappeared into a donga, and he thought he had lost them; but anon he saw them ascending the opposite slope at a rasping pace.

He could only think of the generous and chivalrous Vivian Hammersley, that good officer and noble Englishman, shot down thus in the pride of his manhood by the felon hand of an assassin, whose bullet was meant for himself--Hammersley, whose form stood with a kind of luminous atmosphere amid the dark surroundings that beset them both since he (Florian) had come as a soldier to Zululand; and then he thought of Dulcie's friend Finella, whom he only knew by name.

Poor girl! the next mail for Britain might bring sorrowful tidings to her, with the very letter his hand had so recently indited, full of hope and expressions of happiness.

Crossing by flying leaps the Umvutshini stream, a tributary of the greater Umvolosi, the pursuers and pursued traversed an undulating tract of country, scaring a great troop of the brindled gnu, which were grazing quietly there; anon a terrified herd of the koodoo--graceful antelopes, with magnificent spiral horns--swept past them, where the karoo shrubs and the silvery hair-grass and wild oats grew; elsewhere their horses' hoofs, as they crushed or bruised the creeping fibrous roots of the Akerrania, shed a fragrance in the air.

The Umvolosi had now to be waded through near a rocky kop which towered on the right hand, and the opposite bank had to be scrambled up at a place where the tree-fern flourished thickly, and drooping date-palms overhung the water.

Next they had to cross a nameless tributary of the Upoko River, and then to skirt the base of the Mabenge Mountains (within two miles of Fort Newdigate), where, in some places, an odour, sickly and awful, loaded the evening air; and by experience they knew it came from the bodies of slain Zulus lying unburied, or covered only by their shields and a few loose stones.

In some places--one particularly--Florian and his companions found their progress almost arrested by spiky plants of giant size--the Doornboom, with its ox-horn-like prickles; for there are thickets of those through which even horses cannot pass--odious and terrible plants which tear the clothes to rags, and pierce the flesh to the bone; but they discovered two breaches through which the fugitives had passed, and, forcing a passage, they rode onward again, and, in the fierce ardour of pursuit, Florian was all unconscious, till afterwards, how he and his horse too were lacerated, scratched, and torn by the sharp spines as he rushed through them at full speed.

One of the fugitives had evidently found a cartridge, in a pocket perhaps, for he fired one shot rearward, in Parthian fashion, but fruitlessly, as it hit no one, and then he rode wildly but steadily on.

Believing that if ever he returned to camp it would only be to find his friend dying or dead, Florian, plunged in grief, maddened by rage and a thirst for dire vengeance, rode furiously yet silently on, closely followed by his four infantry men.

His horse--Hammersley's--was a fine English charger, and soon outstripped those of his comrades, who erelong began to drop rearward one after another, though Tom Tyrrell continued to head the rest; but after a time Florian found himself almost alone; thus it was fortunate for him that those he pursued were without ammunition.

Once or twice he lost sight of them, as dongas or eminences intervened, and then a low cry would escape him; but by the aid of his field-glass he 'spotted' them again, and gored his horse with the spurs anew.

Now broad before them lay the foaming Nondweni River, with the lion-shaped hill of Isandhlwana about seven miles distant, its rocky crest then reddened by the western sun, and Florian knew that now the pursuit had lasted for more than twenty miles from the Euzangonyan Hill.

Here the assassins reined up, and seemed to confer for a moment or two, as if in evident confusion and dismay. To remain was to die, and to attempt to cross the river would end in death by drowning, it was so deep and swift, red and swollen by recent storms of such rain as falls in the tropics only.

Florian dismounted now, dropped a fresh cartridge into the breech-block of the rifle he still carried, and just as he threw the bridle over his arm, Tom Tyrrell came tearing up and also leaped from his saddle, prepared to fire at four hundred yards range.

The two fugitives plunged into the water, where trees, branches, cartloads of enormous leaves and yellow pumpkins were being swept past, and strove to make their horses breast the stream by turning them partly at an angle to the current. More than once the animals snorted with fear, throwing up their heads wildly as their haunches went down under the weight of their riders.

Tyrrell fired and shot one in mid-stream; he threw up his hands in agony or despair, and fell on the mane of his horse, which, with himself, was swept round a rocky angle and disappeared.

The other had gained footing on the opposite bank, but at that moment Florian planted a rifle bullet between his shoulders.

Sharply rang the report of the rifle, and a shriek mingled with the rush of the world of waters as the deserter and assassin fell backward over the crupper of his struggling horse, which gained the land, while his rider sank to rise no more just as the last red rays of the sun died out on the stern hill-tops, and in its rush the river seemed to sweep past with a mightier sound than ever.

Which of the two he had shot in the twilight Florian knew not, nor did he care; suffice it that he and Tom Tyrrell 'had polished them off,' as the latter said, and thereupon proceeded to light his pipe with an air of profound contentment.

Hammersley was avenged, certainly.

Before setting out on his return, Florian paused to draw breath, to wipe the cold perspiration from his forehead, and nerve himself anew for aught that might befall him on his homeward way, for with tropical speed darkness had fallen now, and he was glad when he and Tyrrell overtook the three mounted men, as they had a most lonely district to traverse back to camp, and one in which they were not likely to meet friends; so they now rode somewhat slowly on, breathing and enjoying what some one calls the cool and mysterious wind of night.

Zulus might be about in any number, with rifle, assegai, and knobkerie; but though Florian and his companions rode with arms loaded as a precaution, they scarcely thought of them, and were intent on comparing notes and studying the features of the country as a guide on their lonely way.

At last, with supreme satisfaction, after many detours and mistakes, they saw the red glowworm-like lights of the camp appearing in the streets of tents, and knew thereby that the last bugle had not sounded.

Ere long they heard the challenge of the advanced sentinel of an outlying piquet, and responding thereto, passed within the lines, when Florian went at once to the headquarter tents to report himself to the Adjutant-General, together with the events that had so recently transpired by the Nondweni River.

'You have done precisely what the General commanding would have ordered you to do,' said the Adjutant-General, 'and I am sure he will thank you for punishing the rascals as they deserved. There are too many of "Cardwell's recruits" afloat in Cape Colony!'

'Is Captain Hammersley still alive?'

'Yes--but little more, I fear.'

He repaired straight to the sufferer's tent, but was not permitted by the hospital orderly, acting under the surgeon's strict orders, to see him--or at least to speak with him.

The ball had broken some of the short ribs on the left side, nearly driving them into the lung; thus he was in a dangerous state. Florian peeped into the bell-tent, and, by a dim lantern hung on the pole thereof, could see Hammersley lying on his camp-bed asleep, apparently, and pale as marble; and he thought it a sorrowful sight to see one whose splendid physique seemed of that kind which no abstract pain or trouble could crush--who could ever bear himself like a man--weak now as a little child--levelled by the bullet of a cowardly assassin.

Florian, though worn, weary, and sorely athirst after the skirmish by the Euzangonyan Hill, the subsequent pursuit, and all connected therewith, before betaking him to his tent, paid his next visit to Tattoo, for, after his friend, he loved his horse.

A little way apart from where the store-waggons were parked and the artillery and other horses knee-haltered, Tattoo was lying on a heap of dry brown mealie-stalks in a pool of his own blood, notwithstanding that, awaiting Florian's return and orders, a kindly trooper of the Mounted Infantry had bound an old scarlet tunic about the poor animal's off thigh, where the bullet, meant for his rider, had made a ghastly score-like wound, in one part penetrating at least seven inches deep; and where Tattoo had remained standing for some time in one spot, the blood had dripped into a great dark crimson pool.

'Can nothing be done to stop it?' asked Florian.

'Nothing, sir,' replied a Farrier-Sergeant of the Royal Artillery.

'But the horse will die if this kind of thing goes on.'

The sergeant shrugged his shoulders, saluted, and turned away, while Florian put an arm round the drooping head of the horse caressingly; and, as if sensible of his sympathy, the animal gazed at him with his large, soft brown eyes, that were streaked with blood-shot veins now.

'His vitals is safe, sir, anyhow,' said Tom Tyrrell.

'I can't leave him thus in the cold--for cold it is here, by Jove, at night; bring a blanket from my tent, Tom, and put it over him.'