'Tween Snow and Fire: A Tale of the Last Kafir War

  CHAPTER FORTY TWO.

  THE SEARCH PARTY.

  Midwinter as it was, the heat in the valley of the Bashi that morningwas something to remember.

  Not so much the heat as an extraordinary closeness and sense ofoppression in the atmosphere. As the sun rose, mounting higher andhigher into the clear blue of the heavens, it seemed that all his rayswere concentrated and focussed down into this broad deep valley, whosesides were broken up into a grand panorama of soaring krantzes and wildrocky gorges, which latter, as also the great terraced slopes, werecovered with dense forest, where the huge and spreading yellow-wood, alldangling with monkey trailers, alternated with the wild fig and themimosa, the _spekboem_ scrub and the _waacht-een-bietje_ thorn, thespiky aloe and the plumed euphorbia, and where, in the cool dank shade,flourished many a rare orchid, beginning to show sign of blossoming,winter as it was.

  But the four men riding there, making a path for themselves through thiswell-nigh virgin forest, had little thought to give to the beauties ofNature. Seriousness and anxiety was absent from none of thosecountenances. For to-day would see the object of their quest attained.

  So far their expedition had been in no wise unattended by danger. Fourmen would be a mere mouthful if discovered by any of the scattered bandsof the enemy, who still roamed the country in its wildest and mostrugged parts. The ferocity of these savages, stimulated by a sullen butvengeful consciousness of defeat, would render them doubly formidable.Four men constituted a mere handful. So the party had travelled bycircuitous ways, only advancing at night, and lying hidden during thedaytime in the most retired and sequestered spots. Twice from suchjudicious hiding places had they espied considerable bodies of the enemymarching northward, and two or three times, patrols, or armed forces oftheir own countrymen. But these they were almost as careful to avoid asthe savage Gcalekas. Four men advancing into the hostile country was anuncommon sight. They did not want their expedition talked about, evenamong their own countrymen, just yet. And now they were within twohours of the object of their search.

  The dangers they had gone through, and those which were yet to come,were courted, be it remembered, not in search of treasure or riches, noteven out of love of adventure. They were braved in order to rescue afriend and comrade from an unknown fate, whose mysteriousness wasenhanced by vague hints at undefined horrors, on the part of the onlyman qualified to speak, viz., their guide.

  For Josane had proved extraordinarily reticent as to details; and allattempts to draw him out during their journey had failed. As they drewnear the dreaded spot this reticence had deepened to a remarkabledegree. The old Gcaleka displayed an ominous taciturnity, a gloom even,which was in no degree calculated to raise the spirits of the threewhite men. Even Eustace failed to elicit from him any definite facts.He had been "smelt out" and condemned to "the Home of the Serpents" andhad escaped while being taken into it, and to do this he had almost hadto fly through the air. But the place would try their nerves to theuttermost; of that he warned them. Then he would subside again intosilence, regardless of any further attempt to "draw" him.

  There was one of the party whose motives, judged by ordinary humanstandards, were little short of heroic, and that one was Eustace Milne.He had nothing to gain by the present undertaking, nor had the others.But then they had nothing to lose by it except their lives, whereas hehad not only that but everything that made life worth living into thebargain. Again and again he found himself cursing Xalasa's "gratitude,"from the very depths of his soul. Yet never for a moment did he swervein his resolve to save his unfortunate cousin if the thing were to bedone, although there were times when he marvelled over himself as astrange and unaccountable paradox. A silence was upon them all, as theymoved at a foot's pace through the dense and jungly tangle, mountingever upwards. After an hour of this travelling they had reached aconsiderable height. Here in a sequestered glade Josane called a halt.

  "We must leave the horses," he said. "It is impossible to take themwhere we are going. _Whau_!" he went on, looking upwards and snuffingthe air like a stag. "There will be plenty of thunder by and by. Wehave no time to lose."

  Taking with them a long twisted rawhide rope, of amazing strength, whichmight be necessary for climbing purposes, and a few smaller _reims_,together with a day's provisions, and every available cartridge, theystarted on foot, Josane leading the way. Each was armed with a doublegun--one barrel rifled--and a revolver. The Gcaleka carried threesmall-bladed casting assegais, and a broad headed, close-quarter one, aswell as a kerrie.

  They had struck into a narrow gorge in the side of the hill. It washard work making any headway at all. The dense bush, intertwined withcreepers, met them in places in an unbroken wall, but Josane would hackaway manfully with his broad-bladed assegai until he succeeded inforcing a way.

  "It seems as if we were going to storm the devil's castle," saidShelton, sitting down to wipe his streaming brow. "It's hot enoughanyway."

  "Rather," assented Hoste. "Milne, old chap, how do you feel?"

  "Headachy. There's a power of thunder sticking out--as Josane says--against when we get out."

  "If we ever do get out."

  "That's cheerful. Well, if we mean to get in, I suppose we'd bettermake a move? Eh, Josane!" The Kafir emphatically agreed. He hadwitnessed their dilatoriness not without concern. He appeared strangelyeager to get the thing over--contrary to the habits of his kind, forsavages, of whatever race, are never in a hurry. A line of rockyboulders in front, thickly grown with straight stemmed euphorbia, stiffand regular like the pipes of an organ, precluded any view of the sortof formation that lay beyond. Right across their path, if path it mightbe called, rose another impenetrable wall of thorns and creepers. Infront of this Josane halted.