Adams Henry Cadwallader
Hair-Breadth Escapes: The Adventures of Three Boys in South Africa

Chapter Twenty Three
Frank and Nick Rebel – A Hazardous Determination – A Sudden Departure – A Wounded Buffalo – Ominous Sounds – Rescue at the Last Moment

Of all the party, De Walden was now the only one who was contented to remain in his present position. He was, indeed, in a more contented frame of mind than any he had enjoyed since he first entered the Cape Colony. It seemed as if his wishes, so long frustrated, had on a sudden received their full accomplishment – as though the seed he had been vainly sowing for so many years, had sprung up to ripeness in an hour. Not only had he his band of regular worshippers, who every Sunday publicly attended his ministrations; not only had he his school filled with boys and girls, learning, with an intelligence which would hardly have been found among European children of the same age, the rudiments of Christianity – but there were several adult converts, who were so far advanced that they were almost ready to receive baptism; and many more, though they had not openly given in their adhesion to the new doctrines, were gravely and seriously considering the matter. If things should continue to go on as favourably as at present, such an impression would be made in the course of a few months on the whole tribe, as could hardly fail to end in their open profession of Christianity. De Walden had seen much of life – much in particular of missionary life; and felt inwardly assured that he would not be permitted to accomplish so great a work, without strong and determined opposition. He marvelled at his success from day to day; but meanwhile it was his duty to go on in faith, thankful for the mercy shown so far, and prepared to face the reverse, as soon as it should appear.

Ernest Warley, we have seen, felt perplexed and embarrassed by his position as regarded Ella; but the Basuto village had, nevertheless, an attraction for him, which would have made it full of delightful and absorbing interest, if his conscience had not every day pricked him more keenly as to the mischief he was unwillingly doing. But Wilmore and Gilbert, who had not the same sources of interest as either De Walden or Warley, began at last find their sojourn so intolerably wearisome, that they to could no longer endure it. “I tell you what it is, Frank,” said Gilbert one day, when they had lain down to rest, under the shade of a large oomahaama overshadowing their hut, after an hour’s practice at throwing the assegai, with which sport they had endeavoured to relieve the tedium of an idle morning – “I tell you what it is; if I stay here much longer, I shall go downright melancholy mad. They can’t put me into an asylum, because, I suppose, there are no articles of that kind to be met with hereabouts. But they’ll have to appoint keepers, and extemporise a straight waistcoat of rhinoceros hide, and shave my head, and all the rest of it.”

“I am pretty nearly as bad as you are, Nick,” returned Wilmore. “There’s De Walden for ever teaching those niggers, and there’s Ernest for ever dangling about Ella; and very pleasant I dare say, they find it. But you and I don’t particularly fancy young darkies, and haven’t any girls to talk to, seeing Miss Ella has no ears for any one but Ernest. I am tired of trying to learn Basuto, or to throw an assegai, or shoot with one of their bows and arrows, which are about big enough for a child of ten years old. If we could only go out with our guns every day – ”

“We are not to go out again,” interrupted Nick. “The powder’s running so very short, that there are not above a dozen charges left. So we must learn assegai throwing and archery, if we mean to have any sport in future.”

“I shall never make a hand at either,” said Frank. “A fellow must be born to it, to knock things over as these Basutos do. Well, I agree with you, I don’t think I can stand this much longer, without going stark crazy.”

“Suppose we don’t stand it, Frank,” suggested Gilbert. “It quite rests with ourselves. No one can compel us.”

“I don’t quite understand you,” said Wilmore. “How can we help ourselves?”

“By taking ourselves off,” answered the other.

“Look here. They say we ought to remain until the messengers return that were sent to Cape Town, and that it would be hard upon Lavie, if he were to come here and find us gone. Very good. But De Walden and Warley both mean to remain with Queen Laura; so that whenever he may come (if he does come) he will find them, and that will answer every purpose. But you and I may go our way, and leave them to go theirs.”

“What! you propose that we two should set off for Cape Town alone, hey? Could we find our way, think you?”

“I don’t see why we shouldn’t. We know the exact position of Cape Town, and the pocket compass, which Lavie gave me, will enable us to go at all events in the right direction. It will take a long time, no doubt – ”

“Three or four months, at least,” said Wilmore.

“About that, I judge,” rejoined Gilbert. “But then we shall be tolerably sure to fall in with some Dutch village or farm before we have got half-way; and the Dutch are hospitable, though not civil to the English. They couldn’t turn us out into the wilderness, anyhow.”

“No, I suppose not,” said Frank, “particularly as we have got money to pay for what we want. But then, Nick, how are we to subsist till we reach one of these villages or farms. The nearest, I believe, are fully two hundred miles off, if we went ever so straight. With only six charges in our guns – ”

“We must reserve our fire for great emergencies,” interrupted Nick. “I have my knife, any way, and we have learned something by this time, remember, and know where to find the roots and fruits these fellows eat. Besides, it’s the season for birds’ eggs now, and there’ll be heaps of them.”

“Yes, and we can take a lot of mealeys with us,” added Wilmore. “They will go into a small compass and last a long time. Well, Nick, I don’t mind, if I go in for this with you. So far as I can see, we may wait here, day after day, for the next twelvemonth; and I’d rather take my chance of being devoured alive by the wild beasts, or knocked on the head by the savages, than have to go through that. When do you propose that we should make a start?”

“Well, we must first of all lay in a store of mealeys – I always meant to take them: and I should like to get out of De Walden the nearest way to the banks of the Gariep. I’ve an idea that if we could reach that, we might make another raft like that on which we made our voyage to the island, and float on it till we came to the place where we were carried away by the flood. We should both know that again.”

“That’s not a bad idea, Nick. We should find plenty to eat as we went along. We could store up a lot of figs, or dates or bananas on the raft – enough to last us a week, I dare say; and the current runs pretty swift, I expect. Only how about the falls at different parts of the river? I’ve heard there are several places where there are rapids, or actual cascades.”

“I don’t think there are between this and the place I was speaking of. Anyhow we must be on the look out, and if we see any reason to think we are getting near one, we must run ashore. Of course there must be some risk, you know.”

“Of course. Well, I am game to go, and I think we had better make a start as soon as possible. Suppose we look up the mealeys to-morrow and the next day – Tuesday, that is, and Wednesday, and set out on Thursday.”

“We had better set out on Wednesday night. There is a full moon then, which will light us as well as broad day would. And it would give us a start of ten hours or so before we were missed.”

“Very good. I have no objection. It is the pleasantest time for travelling during the warm weather.”

On the Wednesday evening, accordingly, the two boys set out on their expedition. Nick had managed skilfully to extract the information he desired from the missionary, without exciting his suspicions; and they had had no difficulty in gathering a heap of ripe mealeys, as large as they could carry in their knapsacks, unobserved by any one. They were careful to take no more than the exact amount of powder, which they considered to be their share of the remaining stock. Frank also wrote a few lines, addressed to Warley, in which he told him, that they had found their life of late so unendurable that they had resolved to brave every toil and danger, rather than continue to undergo it. He begged that no attempt might be made at pursuit; because in event of their being overtaken, they were resolved positively to refuse to return to the Basuto village. Lastly, he assured Ernest, that if they succeeded in reaching Cape Town, they would take care that steps were immediately taken for securing his safe journey thither.

Having left this letter on the table, where it would be sure to be found on the following morning, the two lads set forth under the bright moonlight, and travelled in safety some fifteen or sixteen miles through the night and into the next day, when the burning heat warned them that it was time to rest. They started again an hour or two after sunset, and again pursued their way through almost unbroken solitude, tracking their way partly by the aid of Gilbert’s compass, partly by their recollection of Mr De Walden’s information. So many days passed on, until the whole of their store of provisions was exhausted, and they were fain to supply themselves with anything eatable, which the desert or forest could furnish.

But here they found, for the first time, their calculations fail them. The plains they traversed were either wastes of arid sand, or ranges of forest producing haak-doorns and kamel doorns and mimosas in abundance, and occasionally sycamores and acacias, but none of the fruit trees they had reckoned on finding. At the end of the second day, they were obliged to expend some of their dearly cherished ammunition in firing at a gemsbok, which came full upon them in one of the turnings of the forest, and which they were fortunate enough to wound with the first shot they fired, and kill with a second.

Collecting a heap of dry grass and wood, they succeeded, by the help of Lavie’s burning-glass, which had been the doctor’s parting gift to Frank, in lighting a fire, at which they roasted a considerable part of the gemsbok’s flesh, and having made a hearty meal upon it, stored the remains in their knapsacks. A considerable supply of meat was thus obtained, and for two or three days they fared well enough, especially as there was a fall of rain, which gave them plenty of water.

But the line of country through which they passed continued as barren of the means of supporting existence as ever, and they were presently reduced to the same straits as before. They began, indeed, now to be somewhat alarmed at their situation. They had reckoned that it would be a fortnight’s journey to the banks of the Gariep; but they had been ten days on their route, and had not, so far as they could calculate, accomplished half the distance. Each of them had only two charges of powder left, and it was evident that their guns alone could be reckoned on, as furnishing them with food in the country where they were now travelling. Their condition was rendered worse by two unsuccessful attempts which they made to shoot a buffalo on the day after the last batch of gemsbok meat had been consumed. They had come on the track of a herd of buffaloes, which they had resolved to follow, and after many hours of careful stalking, they had got so near to the herd at sunset as to venture a shot. But, just as in the former instance, though the animal was hit, and it might be severely wounded, it did not fall, but was able to make off with the rest of the herd.

“Oh, Frank, what will become of us?” exclaimed Nick, as he witnessed this mishap. “If we don’t get food somewhere to-night, I feel as if I should perish of hunger.”

“Never say die, Nick,” said Frank, cheerily. “Look here! This brute is hit hard, I’m sure of that; and I’m pretty sure, too, that he won’t hold out very long. Just look what lots of blood he has left behind him. They’ll be quite enough to enable us to track him, even by this light. We’ll follow up the blood-marks until we find him. Even if another shot should be necessary, we shall still have a charge apiece left, if we should be attacked. If we kill the buffalo it will supply us with food for a long time to come, and it is very unlikely that the country will continue as bare of all fruit, as it has been since we left the village.”

“All right, Frank,” returned Nick; “that is the best way of viewing it at all events. I’ll just take a hole up in my belt to stop the importunities of my stomach, and then we’ll be off after the buffalo. We may as well go that way as any other, at all events.”

They set out accordingly, following without difficulty, by the help of the moon, the course taken by the herd across the open plain and the intervening patches of scrub for two or three hours. The marks of blood were plainly enough visible all the way, sometimes in large patches, as though the wounded animal had stopped behind the rest through momentary weakness; and then again only a drop here and there, as if it had again exerted its remaining strength to overtake the herd. At last they came to a spot where a larger puddle than any before stained the adjacent grass and sand, and then the marks no longer followed the general track, but turned aside into a deep thicket, through which the two boys had considerable difficulty in following its course.

They had advanced some distance, when Nick suddenly laid his hand on his companion’s arm.

“Did you hear that?” he said.

“Hear what?” returned Wilmore.

“I fancied I heard a shot fired,” said Gilbert, “but I suppose I must have been mistaken.”

“A shot! Who could there be in these parts to fire one? It was the fall of a large stone from the cliffs, most likely. They are often dislodged by the wind, and make a noise like the report of a gun. Come along, we shall not have much further to go, I expect.”

“Hist!” exclaimed Nick, again stopping. “I am quite sure I hear something now, though in a different quarter from that in which I fancied the gun was fired.”

“What do you hear?” asked Wilmore, stopping and listening with all his ears.

“A kind of low growling, or groaning,” answered Nick; “or perhaps grinding of teeth. It is very indistinct; but I am certain that I hear it.”

“It is the poor brute in his dying agony,” said Frank. “Push on. We must be close to him now.”

By this time the dawn had begun to break, and the daylight diffused itself rapidly over the scene. The beams of the rising sun showed that they were, as Frank said, close on the buffalo’s trail. The grass was trampled down, as if by heavy footsteps, and blood, evidently only recently shed, stained the bushes and long grass in profusion. And now the sound heard by Nick became plainly audible to Frank also.

“Cock your gun, Nick!” he said. “He may have life enough left in him to give us some trouble yet.”

As he spoke he turned the corner of a large mass of prickly pear, which had been partly forced aside and partly torn away by the passage of some heavy body, and came upon a sight which was as alarming as it was unexpected.

The carcass of the buffalo lay on the ground, already partially devoured. Standing over it were a male and female panther (or tiger, as the natives of South Africa are wont to call them), engaged in tearing the flesh from the ribs with their long white shining teeth. The animals were as big as an ordinary English mastiff, and the glare of their large yellow eyes showed that the ferocity of their nature was fully awakened. Frank fell back, as soon as his eye lighted on them, conscious that his best hope of escape lay in instantly withdrawing from the spot; but Nick, who had already raised his gun before he had come in sight of the enemy he was about to encounter, drew his trigger, scarcely aware of what he was doing, wounding the male panther severely, but not mortally, in the chest. With a fierce howl of agony and rage combined, the tiger sprang straight upon him; and if he had not been extraordinarily light of limb and quick of eye, the next moment would have been his last. But the moment the charge left the barrel, he perceived the imminence of the danger threatening him, and, dropping his gun, he sprang lightly on one side. The brute’s claws and teeth just missed their aim, but the body, in passing, struck him with sufficient force to prostrate him insensible on the ground. The wounded panther had no sooner recovered from its spring, than it turned back to fasten on its fallen enemy; but Frank, stepping instantly up, with ready presence of mind, applied the muzzle of his rifle to its ear, as it was on the very point of bending its neck, and it fell lifeless on the ground.

But the boys were now left quite helpless. The last charge had been fired, and the remaining panther, which had stood motionless since the discharge of the gun, watching as it were the issue of the struggle, now gave evident signs that it was about to avenge its mate. Erecting its tail, it uttered a low growl, which swelled gradually into a savage roar. Another minute and his teeth would have been fastened in the lad’s throat; but before the animal could make its leap, the sound of pattering feet was heard, and a large dog, bounding through the bushes, sprang on the tiger and caught it by the throat. The brute turned savagely on its new assailant, and a furious combat commenced; the tiger tearing the ribs of the mastiff with its claws, but unable to shake off the hold it had fastened on its throat Frank gazed with blank amazement at the appearance of this unexpected champion, which seemed to have fallen from the skies for his deliverance; and his astonishment was increased when he perceived, as he presently did, that the dog was no other than his long-lost, faithful Lion! How he could be still living, and still more, what could have brought him there, he could not conceive. But it was no moment for speculation. His favourite was matched against an antagonist which, if it did not prove victor in the struggle, might at all events inflict the most deadly wounds before it could be overcome. Frank stooped, and drew the strong clasped knife which Nick always carried in his belt. Opening this, he stepped forward to the spot, where the two animals, now covered with dust and blood, were savagely rending one another; he waited for the moment when the panther’s breast became exposed, and plunged the knife into it up to the hilt. The stab was mortal. Unfastening the grip of its teeth on Lion’s side, the brute endeavoured to seize this new enemy; but it could not disengage itself from Lion’s hold. Its jaws collapsed, its savage eyes grew filmy and dim, and in another minute the mastiff was tearing and shaking the inanimate carcass of its adversary.

“Lion! Lion! dear old boy! – are you much hurt,” exclaimed Frank, running up, and throwing his arms round his favourite’s neck; “however did you come here? and where have you been all these weeks and months? I can hardly believe, even now, that it is really you.”

“Yes, it really him – it Lion for sure. Kobo and he make friends – know each other ever so long,” said a tall Bechuana, who had now joined the party, and stood with a grin on his black face. “But, Master Nick – he not hurt, is he?”

“What, Kobo, you too here!” exclaimed Frank. “But we’ll talk about that presently. We must see to Nick here. I declare I almost forgot him in the surprise and joy at seeing old Lion again. But men before dogs. I am pretty sure, though, Gilbert isn’t hurt. He’s only stunned by the weight of the leopard’s body, when he sprang on him.”

They raised the lad between them, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing him open his eyes, and draw in a long breath; and then, after once or twice stretching himself, and feeling his chest and ribs, declare that he wasn’t a pin the worse, and would be ready for his dinner, as soon as ever Kobo could supply him with any!