The second stage of the tirikeza lasted until sunset when it became too dark to see the ground under their feet.
The fires were dying and the voices of the porters in their thorn bush scherms had slowly descended through the occasional mutter and soft murmur to ultimate silence before Zouga left his tent and limped silently as a night creature out of the camp.
He carried the Sharps rifle slung over his shoulder, the staff in one hand and a bull's eye lantern in the other, while the Colt revolver hung in its holster upon his belt.
Once clear of the camp, he stepped out as briskly as his leg would allow two miles along the freshly beaten footpath that the column had made that afternoon until he reached the fallen tree trunk that was the agreed rendezvous.
He stopped and whistled softly, and a smaller figure stepped out from the undergrowth into the moonlight, carrying a rifle at high-port. The jaunty step and alert set of head on narrow shoulders was unmistakable. All is well, Sergeant.
'We are ready, Major.'
Zouga inspected the ambush positions that Sergeant Cheroot had chosen for his men astride the path. The little Hottentot had a good eye for ground and Zouga found his trust and liking for him increasing with every such display of competence. A puff? ' Jan Cheroot asked now, with the clay pipe already in his mouth. No smoking, ' Zouga shook his head. 'They will smell it. ' And Jan Cheroot reluctantly buttoned the pipe into his hip pocket.
Zouga had chosen a position in the centre of the line, where he could make himself comfortable against the trunk of the fallen tree. He settled down with a sigh, his leg thrust out stiffly ahead of him, after the tirikeza it was going to be a long wearying night.
The moon was a few days short of full, and it was almost light enough to read the headlines of a newspaper. The bush was alive with the scurry and rustle of small animals, and it kept their nerves tightened and their ears strained to catch the other sounds for which they waited.
Zouga was the first to hear the click of a pebble striking against another. He whistled softly and Jan Cheroot snapped his fingers, imitating the sound of a black scarab beetle to show that he was alert. The moon had dropped low upon the hills, and its light through the forest trees laid silver and black tiger stripes upon the earth and played tricks with the eye.
Something moved in the forest, and then was gone, but Zouga picked up the whisper of bare feet scuffling the sandy disturbed earth of the path, and then suddenly they were there, and very close, man shapes in file, hurrying, silent, furtive. Zouga counted them, eight, no nine.
Each of them straight-backed under the bulky burden he carried balanced upon his head. Zouga's anger simmered to the surface and yet at the same time he felt a grim sense of satisfaction that he had not wasted the night.
As the leading figure in the file came level with the fallen tree trunk, Zouga pointed the muzzle of the Sharps rifle straight into the air and pressed the trigger. The crash of the shot broke the night into a hundred echoes that bounced and rebounded through the forest, and the silence magnified it until it seemed like the thunder of all the heaven.
The echoes had not dispersed, and the nine dark figures were still frozen with shock when Jan CherOUE-S Hottentots fell upon them from every direction in a shrieking pack.
The sound of their cries was so shrill, so inhuman, that it even startled Zouga, while the effect on the victims was miraculous. They let fall the burdens they carried, and dropped to earth in a paralysis of superstitious awe, adding their walls and screams to the pandemonium. Then the thud and clatter of cudgels against skull and cringing flesh mingled with it all, and the screams and howls rose to a new pitch.
Jan Cheroot's men had spent much time and care on selecting and cutting their clubs and now they wielded them with a lusty glee, making up for a night of discomfort and boredom. Sergeant Cheroot himself was in the thick of it, and in his excitement he had almost lost his voice. He was yipping squeakily like a demented fox terrier with a cat up a tree.
Zouga knew he would have to stop it soon, before they killed or seriously maimed somebody, but the punishment was richly earned, and he gave it a minute more.
He even joined in himself when one of the prostrate figures scrambled to its feet and tried to dart away into the undergrowth. Zouga swung his staff and brought him down again with a blow to the back of his knees, and when he sprang up again as though he were on springs, Zouga dropped him in the dust with a short right-handed punch to the side of the head.
Then, stepping back out of the fray, Zouga took one of his few remaining cheroots from his top pocket, and lit it from the chimney of the lantern, inhaling with deep satisfaction, while around him the enthusiasm of his Hottentots flagged a little as they tired and Jan Cheroot regained his voice and became coherent for -the first time. Slat hulle, kerels! Hit them, boys! ' It was time to stop it, Zouga decided and opened the shutter of the lantern. That's enough, Sergeant, he ordered, and the thuds of blows became intermittent and then ceased while the Hottentots rested on the cudgels, panting and streaming with the honest sweat of their exertions.
The deserting porters lay moaning and whimpering in pitiful heaps, with their loot scattered about them. Some of the packs had burst open, and trade cloth and beads, flasks of gunpowder, knives, mirrors and glass jewellery were strewn about and trodden into the dirt. Zouga's fury returned at full strength when he recognized the tin box which contained his dress uniform and hat. He delivered a last kick at the nearest figure and then growled at Sergeant Cheroot, Get them on their feet and clean it up.'
The nine deserters were marched into camp, roped together and bearing not only the heavy burdens which they had stolen, but also an impressive set of contusions, cuts and bruises. Lips were swollen and split, some teeth were missing, a good many eyes were puffed closed and most of their heads were as lumpy as newlypicked Jerusalem artichokes.
More painful than their injuries, however, was the ridicule of the entire camp which turned out to a man to jeer and mock them with laughter.
Zouga lined up the captives, with their booty piled in front of them, and in the presence of their peers made a speech in limping but expressive Swahili in which he likened them to sneaking jackals and lurking hyena and fined them each a month's wages.
The audience was delighted with the show, and hooted at every insult while the culprits tried physically to shrink themselves into insignificance. There was not one of the watching porters who would not have done the
