will appreciate the yarn."
"Well, then, gentlemen," Mr Richards began, taking a look round thecompany as if he wanted to find some individual upon whom to fix hiseye, "you must know that I met with this adventure in '25, when I was asmart spry young fellow of nine-and-twenty. I was trapping beavers atthe time, in company with my friend Job Potter, near the head-waters ofthe Missouri; and as we knew that the Blackfoot Indians were on thewar-path, and that we should meet with but scant mercy if we fell intotheir hands, we just set our beaver-traps at night, visited them atdawn, and remained concealed in the woods during the day.
"Early one morning Job and I were paddling up stream in our canoe, onour way to examine the traps, when of a sudden we heard a noise asthough a herd of buffaloes were galloping towards us; and the nextminute a number of Red-skins in their war-paint came rushing alongeither bank of the river--a couple of hundred of them at the least.
"We turned the head of the canoe like lightning and paddled down streamas hard as we could paddle, but the Indians sent a flight of arrowsafter us and killed poor Job Potter, who in his fall upset the canoe.By a miracle, I only received two slight flesh-wounds; and when I foundmyself in the river I dived like a duck in order to escape the secondshower. Now some thirty yards lower down the stream was a small island,and when we paddled past it I had noticed that against the upper part asort of raft of drift-timber had lodged. This raft, I must explain, wasformed of the trunks of several trees, large and small, covered overwith smaller and broken wood to the depth of five or six feet.
"In my extremity I happily remembered this raft, and I saw in it my onlychance of eluding my pursuers. Rising for one second to the surface inorder to make sure of its position, I dived again and swam under wateruntil I found myself directly beneath the raft. I then--not withoutconsiderable difficulty--managed to force my head and shoulders betweenthe trunks of trees, so that the upper portion of my body was well abovewater, and at the same time completely hidden from view by the brokenwood on the top of the raft.
"Hardly had I fixed myself in this position when the Indians arrivedopposite my place of refuge, and several swam off to the island andsearched for me amongst the brushwood; one or two actually got on theraft.
"Gentlemen, I remained in that terrible position for eleven mortalhours!--in fact, until the Red-skins took their departure, which was notbefore nightfall. As soon as I was certain that they were gone I divedfrom under the raft and swam some distance down the river, and therelanding, made my way to Fort Jefferson. When I arrived there, after twodays' tramp, I found that my hair had turned quite grey; and I canassure you, that, if I live to be a hundred, I shall Dever forget theagony of suspense I suffered when fixed up between those trees."
Many a thrilling tale of sport and war, of peril by flood and field, wastold that evening; and the circle round the watch-fire would not havebroken up until the small hours of the morning had not the commandingofficer reminded them that they must be on the move by cock-crow. Sothe officers lay down to rest with their weapons beside them, ready foraught that might occur; and before midnight the camp was hushed inslumber, no sound being heard save the measured tramp of the patrol orthe hoarse challenge of the sentinels.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
THE 18TH APRIL--A FIGHT AGAINST TERRIBLE ODDS--NUMBERED WITH THESLAIN!--THE MARCH TO BLOCK DRIFT.
The stars were still bright in the heavens, and the grey dawn of day hadnot yet appeared in the east, when the camp at Burns Hill was once moreastir with the final preparations for the march to Chumie Hoek; and sosoon as the waggons were ready and the draught cattle inspanned, thetroops paraded without blast of bugle or beat of drum, and the order toform column-of-route was given. The advance-guard moved off just as themorning broke, and was presently followed by the long train ofbullock-waggons--one hundred and twenty in number--and the guns andcaissons of the Royal Artillery; but the day had "begun its broilingcourse" before the rear-guard, of which Jamieson's Horse formed part,was clear of the camping ground.
As daylight grew more distinct, thousands of Caffre warriors weredescried pouring down from the mountains; and it became palpable to allconcerned that the way would be disputed by a determined and--so far asnumbers went--an overwhelming force.
Said old Captain Jamieson, as he brought his glass to bear on thedistant hordes, "Mark my words, G--! the 18th April will become famousin the annals of South African warfare. Those fellows yonder meanbusiness; they have no doubt been excited to the verge of madness bytheir witch doctors, and will attack us with maniacal fury."
"We shall have hard work to get through them," the major replied,somewhat gloomily, for he felt much his responsibility; "and I fear manya good soldier amongst us will never see another sunrise. Still, wereit not for the `impedimenta,' I would not mind encountering double thenumber; and if we could only get them in the open for half an hour ourcavalry should read them a lesson they'd never forget--a lesson thatshould be handed down to posterity! But I must move on to the front._Au revoir_, Jamieson! I trust we shall meet again at Chumie Hoekbefore many hours have passed."
The road by which the convoy was to march followed the bank of theKeiskamma for some two or three miles; until the river, suddenlychanging its course by a sharp bend to the right, swept round a rockyeminence upon which stood the ruins of a long-abandoned military postknown as Fort Cox. At the base of this eminence (which the roadtraversed before it again met the Keiskamma at the drift or ford) theway led for nearly a half mile up a precipitous ascent, encumbered withhuge boulders, and surrounded by bush.
It was at this point that the Caffre chiefs massed their eager warriorsfor the attack on the baggage-train.
The leading division of waggons, which carried the "impedimenta"belonging to Colonel Somerset's column, were so admirably defended byG--n's advanced-guard and their own escort, that they passed up thisdangerous ground without disaster, and descending to the drift (whichwas held by a squadron of the Cape Mounted Rifles, under LieutenantBissett) [General Sir John Bissett, K.C.B., author of _Sport and War inSouth Africa_] crossed over the Keiskamma. This part of the trainsubsequently reached the camp at Chumie Hoek in safety; its rear beingcovered by Bissett's riflemen, who, after the passage of the river waseffected, were relieved at the ford by Major G--n's advanced force. Butthe journey between the ford and Chumie Hoek was not made withoutopposition, for there was some very hard fighting all through the bushycountry, and several of the escort were killed and wounded; Mr Bissetthimself had a narrow escape of his life, his charger being shot underhim, and his rifle knocked to pieces in his hands.
The centre division of the convoy--consisting principally of thebaggage-waggons of the 7th Dragoon Guards--did not meet with similargood fortune; for the enemy attacked the escort with such impetuosityand in such overwhelming numbers, that the latter was compelled to fallback on the troops in the rear, and so the whole of the waggons werecaptured. To make matters worse, this disaster occurred in a narrowpart of the road, and the wily Caffres immediately freed the teams fromthe yokes, overturned several of the waggons, and so completely blockedthe way for the rest of the train.
By this time Colonel Somerset had despatched every man he could spareout of camp to Major G--n's assistance; namely Sutton's Kat RiverBurghers, and two companies of the 91st Regiment, under Captain Scott;but the enemy continued to come up to the attack in such astonishingforce that the major was reluctantly compelled to abandon thebaggage-waggons of the 7th Dragoon Guards (fifty-two in number) in orderthat he might have more men to defend the guns and ammunition train,which he was determined to save at all hazards.
Leaving the waggons to their fate, Major G--n made a detour to the leftalong the bushy slope, and having fought his way across the Keiskamma heentered a valley at the foot of the Seven Kloof Mountain.
Up this valley G--n led his column, fighting over every yard of thebroken ground, until--just as night was falling--he reached the opencountry in the vicinity of Chumie Hoek. The Caffres here made one moredesperate a
ttempt to take the guns, but the gunners opening upon themwith shot and shell, repulsed the attack, and it was not renewed; thecolumn then marched on, and eventually arrived in camp with the loss ofan artillery waggon, which had to be abandoned owing to the collapse ofits team of bullocks...
We must now return to the rear-guard, and see how it had fared with ourfriends in "Jamieson's Horse" during that eventful day.
When the officer commanding the rear-guard heard that the escort of thecentre division of the convoy was being driven back, and that thewaggons were in imminent danger of falling into the enemy's hands, heconsulted with Captain Jamieson as to whether he should not take it uponhimself to send a troop to their assistance; but before he had time tocome to a decision a mounted orderly arrived from the front with thealarming intelligence that the waggons had already been captured, andthat the road