A light burned in Claverton"s tent as they were about to enter, and, pausing for a moment, the figures of the two men were thrown out into full relief.
Crack!
A bright jet shoots out of the gloom just beneath the shadowy outline of the ridge overlooking the camp, and the sharp report rolls away in dull echo upon the night. Then another flash, and, amid the roar that follows, Claverton and his companion both experience a strange, jarring sensation, for a bullet has pa.s.sed, with a shrill whiz, between them, narrowly missing the head of either.
"Good shot that, whoever it is," remarked Naylor, coolly, while his companion, who had quickly extinguished the light, was by his side again. "There"ll be tall cannonading for the next half-hour, and tolerably wild shooting, too."
And there was. The effect of the double shot upon that camp--which fancied itself so secure--was marvellous. In a moment every man had seized his piece, and was standing eagerly peering into the gloom in the direction of the shot--and not merely that, for many discharged their weapons haphazard--and presently, as Naylor had said, the cannonading waxed alarming. The frontier corps, beyond a few shots fired on the impulse of the moment, had remained cool; they knew the futility of blazing at random into the darkness, and had too much respect for themselves and their reputation to be made the subject of a practical joke played by one or two skulking Kafirs. But the camps of the Fingo and Hottentot levies were like a disturbed ants" nest; and heeding the voices of their officers no more than the wind, those startled and panic-stricken auxiliaries poured a terrific fire into the darkness, and the air was aflame with the flash of their wild, reckless volleys as they blazed away--round after round--as fast as ever they could reload.
It was in vain that their officers strove to restrain them--their voices were lost in the constant bellow of musketry. Now and then they would knock down a refractory n.i.g.g.e.r or two within reach, but it had no effect upon the others, and confusion reigned supreme.
"Well, Lumley, here"s a lively kettle of fish."
He addressed, turned, perspiring and despairing in his frantic attempts to restore order.
"Good G.o.d! Claverton, is that you? Now just look at these d.a.m.ned fools. Drop that, will you?" he roared, bestowing a violent kick on one of his men who was blazing away without even bringing his piece to his shoulder. The fellow gave a yell of pain and made off.
At length the confusion began to abate. Seeing no further sign of an attack upon the camp, and their ammunition having decreased alarmingly, the native auxiliaries ceased firing by degrees, each man, as he did so, sneaking off looking very much ashamed of himself.
"d.a.m.ned fools, in sooth," a.s.sented Claverton, when the uproar had calmed down. "But, Lumley, I wish you"d just turn up that fellow Smith--Vargas Smith. There"s something I want to see him about at once."
"Certainly. Here, pa.s.s the word there for Corporal Smith," he called out.
"Oh, he"s promoted, then?"
"Well, yes. A sharp fellow, you know; helps me no end."
But Corporal Smith was not forthcoming. He was nowhere to be found, in fact. He was not on guard, for he had been in the camp not long before the alarm, they said, but now there was no trace of him.
"How long before?"
Well, it might have been half an hour since he was seen, certainly not much more.
"Not less?"
No, not less. On that point they were all ready to swear.
"Even as I suspected," thought Claverton to himself. And he waited some time longer talking to Lumley, and ironically bantering some of his former men for their contribution to the recent chaos.
"A set of smart fellows you are, eh, old Cobus?" he said, addressing one of the sergeants. "Blazing away all night at the stars and bushes."
"Nay what, kaptyn," rejoined the old Hottentot, shamefacedly. "You see a lot of us shooting like that must hit somebody. We shall find many of the _schelms_ lying there in the morning."
"Many of the _schelms_? Devil a bit. One or two of your own sentries, perhaps."
"No--Kafirs, kaptyn."
"Bah. There won"t be a leaf or a twig left on the bushes within a circle of two miles, perhaps, but if you find a single Kafir lying within it, I"ll engage to eat him."
There was a roar of laughter, half deprecatory, half of intense amus.e.m.e.nt, from the group of listeners who had drawn near, at this sarcastic hit. But just then a diversion occurred in the shape of the reappearance of the missing Corporal Smith.
"Hallo, Smith; where the devil have you been?" cried Lumley.
"Been on guard, sir," was the reply, in a tone which seemed to add, "and now shut up."
"You weren"t told off."
"I went because they said Gert Flinders was ill, and I took his place,"
he said, with a touch of defiance.
Claverton, meanwhile, eyed him narrowly. Two impressions were present to his mind--one, the extremely loose state of discipline into which Lumley had let the corps drift; the other, which more nearly concerned himself, the evident anxiety of the Cuban mulatto to avoid further questioning. He noticed also, with one keen, swift glance, that that worthy wore a pair of new veldtschoens.
"By the way, on second thoughts it doesn"t matter to-night," he said, carelessly. "To-morrow will do just as well, Smith. It"s late now, and it"s best to get things ship-shape after the row. Good-night, Lumley,"
he added. "Come round and feed to-morrow night if we are still here,"
and he went away.
By the time Claverton reached his tent all was quiet again. His companion had turned in, and was sleeping as unconcernedly as if beneath the roof of an English dwelling instead of having narrowly escaped being shot through the head by a nocturnal foe in the wilds of Kafirland. He hastened to turn in likewise, but not to sleep. Instinct led him to connect this last attempt upon his life with some evil hovering over himself and Lilian. For that he was the intended mark of the a.s.sa.s.sin"s bullet he had known the moment it was fired.
While it was yet dark Claverton left the camp quietly, and the first glimmer of dawn saw him narrowly searching for the spot whence the shot had been fired. It took him nearly an hour, but he found it at last.
And he found something more: he found three distinct footmarks--the print of a pair of new veldtschoens--in the damp soil, for a heavy dew had fallen in the night; and furthermore, sticking among the thorns, the tiny fragment of a flannel shirt of peculiar pattern. And a vindictive light came into the blue-grey eyes as he walked straight back to camp, murmuring to himself complacently:
"Just so--just as I suspected! Mr Corporal Vargas Smith--_alias_ Sharkey--you have chosen to throw away your life again, and now, if you are above ground in six weeks at the outside from to-day, may I be beneath it!"
For a moment the resolve seized him to have the ruffian arrested. There was abundant evidence to convict him before a drum-head court-martial, but then the heads of the field forces would inevitably shrink from administering the extreme penalty; and besides, the question of motive must arise, which would be an inconvenient thing to be ventilated in public just then. No; the safest and best plan would be to pay the a.s.sa.s.sin in his own coin; and, strong-headed and unscrupulous in such a case as this, Claverton doubted not his ability to discharge the debt with interest.
He reached his tent in time to find a trooper dismounting there. The man looked hot, dusty, and tired, having ridden express from Cathcart with letters and despatches for the camp. Saluting, he handed a telegram to Claverton and withdrew. The latter held the ominous missive for a moment, regarding it with a blank stare, then, with a jerk, tore it open, and, at the first glimpse of its purport, his face became ashy.
This is what he saw:
From _Payne, Grahamstown_.
To _Claverton, Brathwaite"s Horse, Colonial Forces in Gaika Location, via Cathcart_.
_Come at once, and at all risks. No cause for alarm, but come_.
He looked at the date. The message had been handed in two days before, and had been lying at Cathcart for lack of an opportunity of transport.
The words swam before his eyes, and his blood ran cold with a chill fear. This brooding presentiment, then, had not come upon him for nothing. Handing his companion the telegram, he strode to the door and called for Sam.
""Nkos?" and the native came running up with alacrity.
"Saddle-up Fleck and the young horse, Sam, and be ready to start in half an hour at the outside."
"Yeh bo, "Nkos," replied Sam, too well accustomed to his master"s ways to be astonished at anything; and he retired to carry out his orders.
Quickly Claverton went over to arrange with Jim Brathwaite for his absence, and long before the appointed time he was ready to start. He fidgeted about, looking at his watch every moment; and lo, just three minutes short of the half-hour his retainer appeared with the two horses.
"My dear fellow, don"t give a thought to me," said Naylor, warmly, in response to his explanations of this sudden departure. "I shall make myself comfortable while you are away, never fear. Now, don"t delay any longer. Your duty shall be looked after all right," he added, and with a close hand grip he bade his friend farewell.
Claverton, with his trusty follower, sped on across the hostile ground, every yard of which might conceal a foe; but of this he took less than no heed. All his thoughts were ahead of him by the hundred and odd miles or so which he had to traverse. His plan was to change horses half-way, leaving Sam to follow at leisure, once they were well out of the localities where they might fall in with roving bands of the enemy; and to push on, even if he killed his steed in the undertaking. Away in the blue heavens clouds of vultures, the ubiquitous scavengers of Southern Africa, were visible, poised above the scene of the late conflict; and these grew fainter and fainter, till they were lost to view in the far distance, and the sun began to decline in the west as the travellers kept steadily on over hill and dale, carefully eschewing short cuts and keeping to the beaten track. Once they were descried by a group of Kafir scouts, who, from their position on a hill-top, opened fire at long range, and of course ineffectually.
"Sam," exclaimed Claverton, as they were saddling up to continue their road, after a short halt, "there"s a devil of a storm coming up. Look there."