"Who the--" They both stood up as the horse came clattering into the clearing, and its rider gasping and haggard flung himself down. He was one of de Rivas' a.s.sistants out at the Green Carnation Mine--a young Scotchman called Dent, well known to them both.

"The natives are 'up.' They've murdered everyone in our district except de Rivas and his wife," he burst forth. "You fellows had better get your horses and scoot for Mazoe before--."

"Steady, Dent," said Hammond in a voice like cold steel. At the first mention of trouble, he had thrown his eye around and in a flash heard and seen the danger signals about him--his servants' faces, the timbre of the song in the kraal, the sudden dead silence which, with the horseman's coming had fallen on camp and kraal, and--_the rustle of feet creeping up behind the mine-head shanties_!

"Pull yourself together. My boys are observing you. Get your revolver from your hut, Girder, and all the ammunition you can lay hands on, but keep them out of sight." (He had his own revolver on him--too wise a citizen of Africa ever to be without it.) "Sit down, my dear fellow," he now added heartily to Dent, and called for fresh coffee, sitting down himself too, but with his face towards the mine-head. Girder coming back casually from his hut resumed his chair. Speaking in an ordinary voice, smoking, and pouring out coffee, Hammond questioned the Scotchman and elicited facts.

The natives had set to work at four o'clock that morning, and systematically visiting every farm, hut, and tent within the district had butchered the surprised and defenceless occupants. Everyone at the Green Carnation taken unawares had been k.n.o.bkerried or a.s.segaied to death--except de Rivas and his wife who got warning in time to barricade themselves in their ranch. Dent had been with them and the two men had managed to drive the demons off for a time, but it was certain that they would return. In the circ.u.mstances, de Rivas had ordered Dent to try and get away by means of an old mine working that came right up close to the back verandah of the house and bring help to them, for Mrs de Rivas was a sick woman and could not travel any distance except in comfort, and well protected.

"They can't last out long," finished Dent dismally. "Half their ammunition is gone--Mrs de Rivas is in hysterics most of the time--if I don't get help they'll be done for in a few hours--I must push on to Mazoe and--"

His sentence was broken off by the smart snap of a revolver. Hammond was firing across Girder's shoulder, not once but many times.

_Snap--phit! Snap--pht! Snap--pht_! And the grim eyes of the man behind the revolver snapped and flashed too, as he picked off one after another of those who led the advancing horde. In less time than it takes to write it, five of the leaders were groaning in the dust, and the murderous band behind had fallen back dumbfounded, staring like fascinated rabbits at the man who now advanced on them still covering them with that gleaming deadly revolver and his ice-cold deadly glance.

At last, he flung them a few brief words in their own tongue.

"Get down to your work in the mine. Anyone who loiters will be shot-- like these things here."

They gazed at the "things" for a silent moment, then cringing before the white man like the dogs they were, they dropped a.s.segais and k.n.o.bkerries in the dust and retreated sullenly, step by step, to the mine mouth.

Girder close behind Hammond, opened the little gate leading to the enclosure round the shaft and hustled half a dozen boys into the power-house to set the cage going. Then, one by one, with downcast looks and modest mien the boys filed into the cage and were lowered in little companies down the mine. Hammond stood by silent, dominating, the sunshine glinting on his revolver barrel, Boston, casual and indifferent, lounging beside him. The two other men, un.o.bliged even to draw their guns, contented themselves with speeding up an occasional loiterer by means of a brisk application of the boot. In the end, every "boy" of three hundred was at the bottom of the shaft, except those in the power-house. Hammond approached them.

"You too--get in," he remarked briefly, and they got in, humble and sleek, with air deprecative of giving so much trouble. Dent and Girder took possession of the power-house and worked the cage, for as is well known, two white men can do the work of six natives any day in the week.

Afterwards they cut the steel ropes that held the cage and it fell crashing to the bottom of the shaft.

"_That's_ all right," said Hammond at last. "They've plenty of water, and a couple of days with empty stomachs will take the cheek out of them. At the end of that time, if all goes well, we'll be here to let 'em up again--if not, so much the worse for them."

"The blessed tinkers!" was all that Girder permitted himself to remark.

"Now you fellows," said Hammond briskly, "take your horses and beat it for Mazoe, h.e.l.l-for-leather. Get a party together--half a dozen guns and make for the Green Carnation. I shall go on ahead and help de Rivas hold out."

"I'm coming with you," said Girder carelessly. Hammond looked at him coldly.

"You will kindly do as I ask you, Bill. If you meet trouble between here and Mazoe, as you probably will, and one of you is potted, there is still a chance of the other getting in to give the alarm."

Girder merely smiled. Hammond knew that obstinate smile, and he also knew there was no time to lose.

"Don't be a fool, Bill," he said brusquely. "We are not in this for glory, or fun, or friendship. Just remember there's a woman in the matter, will you?--a sick woman. What you two fellows have got to do-- or one or other of you--is to get together a big enough party to convey her in a cart to Mazoe. If you are delayed you will probably find when you reach us that we have left the ranch and taken to the bush. The house won't be safe once the ammunition has given out--and I know the country all round there like the palm of my hand. There are plenty of places we can lie doggo in until help comes. But you must get help, and get it quick. Take the fresh horses, you've farther to go than I. I'll take Dent's. Go on now, Bill. Don't be pig-headed--and take charge of Boston will you? I don't want him with me. Where is the beggar?"

No one knew. A moment before he had been lounging idly against the power-house, his tongue lolloping from his mouth, his eye expressing boredom; a moment later he simply was not. It is hard to say what instinct had bidden him make himself scarce in a manner as swift and un.o.btrusive as possible, and turn into a motionless, sand-coloured ant-heap about fifty yards from the road down which anyone leaving camp must pa.s.s. No one had time to look for him and no one would have found him in any case. Hammond let loose a bad word, gave Girder's hand a parting grip, and skimmed out of camp on Dent's horse.

Within a quarter of a mile of the Green Carnation, he dismounted, and, leaving the horse in the bush, advanced under cover and with great caution towards the ranch. It was then that the rough rocky ground and thorns under foot brought him the realisation that he was still wearing the pair of silk slippers made and sent him by his sister for a Christmas present.

It was a little dell-like place--not more than ten feet by six, hollowed out by the heavy streams that in bad weather came rushing down the slopes of the kopje above it, darkened by the thick bush all round, full of small sharp stones and thorns, and red ants that stung like wasps, with not a single smooth tree trunk or flat rock to lean against.

Still, it was a hiding-place; and to three people it had been for as many days, a haven and a home. Three people--to say nothing of the dog!

It was indeed Boston who lay in one of those triangular positions which only a dog can find reposeful, his head on a stone, his tongue lolling languorously from his mouth, one eye closed, the other c.o.c.ked on his master. For Hammond seated uneasefully upon a small rock, his arms round his knees, his empty pipe in his mouth, was plainly busy on an intricate problem, and Boston too was interested in the solution of that problem.

Close beside them, touching feet with Hammond and the dog, de Rivas half-lay, half-leaned in the cramped s.p.a.ce, painfully shifting his wounded leg every few minutes. Between his lips was a thick white mimosa thorn which he bit on when he shifted, as a wounded soldier might bite on a bullet to keep in his trouble. Mrs de Rivas lay sleeping on the men's folded coats.

"Well--what next, Hammond?" asked de Rivas in a whisper. They had been obliged to whisper for days; the natives were all round them in the bush, searching; but Hammond had chosen his retreat well, and the odds were against discovery so long as they lit no fires and were not heard talking. It was characteristic of the man, however, that this business of whispering annoyed him more than any of the risks and hardships of the past few days. To have to whisper on account of a lot of murdering n.i.g.g.e.rs!--When all he wanted was to get out and beat the brains out of a score of them--and he would too if--

Mrs de Rivas gave a little moan in her sleep. So he whispered, in spite of his fierce desires.

"I shall start for Salisbury to-night."

"Salisbury!--on foot?"

"It's no use trying Mazoe. Something's gone wrong there or Girder would have been back by now."

"But Salisbury is seventy miles!"

"Sixty when you know your map."

"Well, sixty!--without food! And you've got no boots!"

It was no use offering his own. He was a big man and his feet were on a generous scale. As for Hammond, he could not forbear to smile when he looked at the travesties from which his toes protruded--a few rags and ribbons of dark blue silk.

"No; but I've got feet."

He had indeed--the most famous feet at Harvard in his time, and in Africa at any time. All the same, he cursed himself for criminal carelessness in leaving his camp improperly shod; for he too knew that sixty miles barefoot through an enemy's country, over krantz and kop and rough unbroken ground, was not going to be the funniest thing that had ever happened to him. Still, they couldn't sit whispering here forever, and Cara de Rivas had got to be saved.

She had stood the strain well up till now, but it was doubtful if she would last out much longer. _And she must not die_. No woman in the same case would be allowed to die if he could help it. But only he knew the stain and disgrace it would be on him to let her of all women die, whose death would give him his heart's desire.

When de Rivas spoke again, his whisper had grown fainter. His thoughts appeared to have taken the same direction as Hammond's.

"How am I going to keep her alive, Hammond? She can't go on without water."

"I shall fill the can before I start, and you must try and make it spin out for three days. I promise you I shan't be longer than that."

Fortunately they had thought to bring a can with them in their hurried escape from the ranch, and Hammond stole out every night and filled it from the river not two hundred yards away. De Rivas' wounded leg entirely incapacitated him from doing anything; Hammond had been obliged to carry him more than half the way on the night of their flight.

"Three days!" de Rivas was thinking to himself. "He can never do it even if he had boots!"

Three days was too short a time in which to walk to Salisbury and bring back help. Three days was only long when contemplated from the point of view of a man whose larder is empty, and whose death lurks in the shadows.

"What am I going to give her to eat?"

"I've thought of that too," said Hammond quietly. The other man looked up questioningly. The problem of provisions had been a haunting one ever since they arrived in their refuge. If Hammond had a solution to it now, why not before? But Hammond was apparently not inclined to be communicative. He merely sat there staring at Boston; and Boston as though suddenly aware of something personal in his master's attention rose suddenly, and in his silent, floundering way came over and laid his nose on Hammond's knee. Hammond after a moment or so raised the dog's head in his hands and looked into the golden brown eyes, tender and trustful as a woman's, far more trustworthy than many women's. Then, for Maryon Hammond, he did a strange thing; he bent his head and kissed his dog's nose. De Rivas bit suddenly on the thorn between his lips, and looked away. He had seen Hammond's eyes, and it is not good to see the eyes of a strong man in pain. He knew now what Hammond meant to do to keep him and his wife alive during the next three days.

When Cara de Rivas awoke from her long sleep of exhaustion it was dusk, and she found herself alone with her husband in the dell. She crept to his side and kissed him with a whispered inquiry for the pain of his wound. Then:

"Where is Maryon?"

Unfalteringly, without the flicker of an eyelid, de Rivas repeated the lesson in which Hammond had instructed him.

"He has gone to get water--and Cara,--he has had a great stroke of luck--got a buck in a kind of primitive trap he fixed up last night. We shall have meat for several days."