"You may call it a lack of sensibility if you like," said Ferrier, "but I guess it"s a fine thing from a military point of view."
"One can understand how Wellington"s army in the Peninsula, the sc.u.m of the earth, as he called them, did what they did. I wish we could do something for these poor chaps. One of them is done for, I"m afraid; I don"t feel fit to-day to dig out the bullets from the others. All we can do is to bathe "em and bandage them up; they"ve astonishing vitality. Did you read some time ago about a fellow who got a bullet in him in the Franco-Prussian war, and didn"t have it removed till thirty years afterwards? Hallo! You"ve had a knock yourself."
"So have you."
"I didn"t know it," said John, looking himself up and down.
"I"m sorry to say it"s behind," said Ferrier, with a smile: "just under your shoulder. You"d better take your shirt off and let me see to it."
"After you. You"ve got a pretty gash in your neck. My face must have scared "em, and they didn"t recover till I had turned, and then jabbed me in the back."
"If we were only outside, Bill might find some of his herbs and plaster us. However, we"re lucky to have got off so well, and I hope we shan"t have anything worse to go through before we get back."
Said Mohammed was unwontedly silent when he brought their supper. He handed them their bovril and ca.s.sava cakes without a word. John suddenly remembered that he had brushed hastily past the Bengali just as the fight was over.
"By the way, khansaman," he said, "you began to tell me something. Sorry I was too busy to attend to you. What was it?"
"Trifling matter, sir, not worthy of august attention," murmured the man.
"You made some remark about your billy, didn"t you?" said Ferrier. "I didn"t quite catch it."
"Foreign lingo, sir: in short, Latin, reformed p.r.o.nunciation."
"Ah! that accounts for it. I was taught by an old Westminster man. You should take pity on my ignorance, khansaman."
"Accepting your invite, sir, I take you back to critical moment when all seemed U P. The hour brings forth the man. There came into my mind the lovely words of Alfred Lord Tennyson, poet laureate--
Fill the can, and fill the cup: All the windy ways of men Are but dust that rises up, And is lightly laid again.
There was the enemy, rising up like dust; here was the can, ready to be filled. Whereupon I filled it in a jiffy, boiled it in the time ordained by nature, and with this right hand hurled it in teeth of the foe. The dust was laid, sir. Q.E.F."
"By Jove!" cried John, "I wondered why they slackened off all of a sudden. You did jolly well, khansaman."
"Shows the usefulness of English literature," said Ferrier gravely. "You never know what inspiration it may give at times of difficulty and danger."
"Verree true, sir; and it makes me feel jolly bucked to know I have such spanking good memory."
CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH--Trapped
The failure of their determined a.s.sault had evidently discouraged the enemy, for during the following day they scarcely showed themselves.
John was disappointed, however, to find that it had not caused them to break up their camp. The stock of food in the fort was seriously deplenished; but after the spirit the enemy had displayed he felt that the chances of surviving a running fight with them would be small. The notion of slipping away in the darkness again occurred to him, and as he talked it over with Ferrier it suddenly came into his head to make a preliminary night sortie himself, to see how the land lay on the side of the fort remote from the enemy.
"We can carry one of the canoes to that end, lift it over the wall, and launch it without being seen."
"If there are none of the enemy about," said Ferrier. "You remember we saw a party of them cross the river to-day and march in that direction, foraging, I suppose."
"Yes, but we"ve never seen or heard a sign of them at night."
"That"s true."
"And I say, I"ve another idea. We want food badly: why shouldn"t I go out at night with Bill and a few others and shoot something?"
"Are you quite mad, my dear chap? Your shots would bring them on you in no time."
"Of course I shouldn"t attempt to shoot anything until we were miles away from the camp. We could cover five or six miles before it was light, and if we take care not to go to windward they won"t hear a single rifle-shot. A volley would be a different thing, I grant you."
"I doubt whether the reeds on that side of the pool are thick enough to hide the canoe, and if they discover it----"
"There"s no need to hide it," John interrupted. "One of the men can paddle it back, and come for us again when we give you a hail. We shall have to return by night, of course."
"Well, you bowl over my objections one after another, so I suppose you must go. Can"t I come too?"
"We can"t both leave the place."
"Well, why shouldn"t I go and you stay?"
"You see, I understand Bill better than you do, and he"ll be the one to find the game. I really think, Charley, this time----"
"Oh, all right!" said Ferrier, interrupting. "This time, and that time, and all the other times!"
"But you fired the boma!"
"Is that to last me for ever?"
"And came to find me, fighting: what about that? Still, if you want to go----"
"Not a bit of it, old man. It"s your idea; you go; I"ll run over in my mind all the poetry I know and see if I can get a happy thought like Said Mohammed."
Two hours before dawn the canoe was gently lowered by ropes over the wall at the end of the fort opposite the gate. Here, it will be remembered, the slope of the ground immediately beneath the wall was steep, but the island jutted out, in a fairly level spit, for some distance into the pool. John, the Wanderobbo, and five other men were let down in the same way, four of them to accompany John as carriers of any game he might obtain, the fifth to paddle the canoe back when they had landed. The night was very dark; they moved with scarcely a sound; and having gained the further sh.o.r.e John and his companions struck off across country.
John"s intention had been to go directly north, but when Bill told him that the banks of the river would be the most likely quarter in which to find game at sunrise, when the animals came down to drink, he resolved to strike off in a north-westerly direction, from which quarter the wind blew, and gain the river somewhere north of the rapids. They marched very quickly, the plain on this side of the river being open, came to the river-bank in about half-an-hour, and then tramped along up-stream, careful not to approach the water too closely for fear of crocodiles.
At dawn they were, John thought, at least five miles from the fort, but he decided to go a mile or two farther before beginning operations, to lessen any risk of shots being heard in the camp.
The river wound this way and that, now between level banks, now bordered by steep bluffs thick with overhanging trees. The current was always swift, and John had been conscious ever since the start that the ground was gradually rising. Bill did not stick closely to the river: indeed, that would have been impossible; he sought the easiest way, which led sometimes through scrub, sometimes over stretches of bare rock which tried John"s boots sorely, sometimes through patches of woodland: always, however, coming to the river at last. From one elevated position to which they came John looked back and, now that the morning haze had lifted, saw the river serpentining behind him, and in the far distance the pool gleaming in the sunlight, the island and fort a dark spot in the midst.
At last he considered that he had come far enough to be out of earshot from the enemy"s camp, and since the nearest village, the abode of the "bad men," was about a day"s march to the north-west, he felt that no danger was to be antic.i.p.ated from that quarter. Accordingly the party of six descended to the level of the river, and Bill began his search for game-tracks. The river here flowed through narrow channels between great boulders of a pinkish rock, the brink being lined with reeds.
Before long Bill came upon the spoor of a hippopotamus, and since necessity knows no law, John thought himself justified in following it up, in spite of the technical transgression of the terms of his licence.
He was not shooting for sport, he reflected, but for food.
They came at length to a rocky pool. Bill halted, and pointing to an overhanging rock on the other side, drew John"s attention to a gentle rippling disturbance of the water. In a moment appeared two red nostrils covered with coa.r.s.e black hair. John lifted his rifle, but Bill signed to him to wait, and after a few seconds the nostrils sank below the surface: the animal had merely risen to breathe. They all sat down on the bank to await his reappearance. Several times during half-an-hour he showed just as much of himself, and no more. This was tantalizing. Would he never emerge? John"s patience at length gave out. He thought that if he could cross to the other side he might get a fair shot at the beast, or at least stir him to movement. Looking down-stream, he saw that some little distance away the surface of the river was broken, which indicated shallow water. He hastened to the spot, and stripping to his shirt, waded across waist deep, climbed the bank, and stealthily crept up until he came directly over the place where the hippo had last appeared.
Scarcely had he arrived there when the beast heaved its great back, with a convulsion of the water, above the surface a little farther up the pool. In an instant the rifle was at his shoulder: he fired; the hippo gave a snort, and the water around him was agitated as by an immense churn. Quick as thought John fired the second barrel: and the beast rolled over on its side, with a bullet through the brain.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "The hippo gave a snort, and the water around him was agitated as by an immense churn."]