ahead the mountain barrier was riven into a labyrinth of ravines and soaring rock buttresses, of cliffs and deep gorges in which grew. dense strips of forest and tangled scrub. He could pick out no path nor pass through this confusion.
'Althuda knows the way, and he has left signs for us to follow.' The spoor of five horses and the band of fugitives was deeply trodden ahead of them, but to enhance it Althuda had blazed the bark from the trees along his route. They followed at the best of their speed, and from the next ridge saw the tiny shapes of the five grey horses crossing a stretch of open ground two or three miles ahead. Hal could even make out Sukeena's small figure perched on the back of the leading horse. The silver colour of the horses made them stand out like mirrors in the dark, surrounding bush, and he murmured, 'They are beautiful animals, but they draw the eye of an enemy.'
'In the traces of a gentleman's carriage there could be no finer,' Aboli agreed, 'but in the mountains they would flounder. We must abandon them when we reach the rough ground, or else they will break their lovely legs in the rocks and crevices.'
'Leave them for the Dutch?' Hal asked. 'Why not a musket ball to end their suffering?'
'Because they are beautiful, and because I love them like my children,' said Aboli softly, reaching up and patting the animal's neck. The grey mare rolled an eye at him and whickered softly, returning his affection.
Hal laughed, 'She loves you also, Aboli. For your sake we will spare them.'
They plunged down the next slope and struggled up the far side. The ground grew steeper at each pace and the mountain crests seemed to hang suspended above their heads. At the top they paused again to let the mare blow, and looked ahead.
'It seems Althuda is aiming for that dark gorge dead ahead.' Hal shaded his eyes. 'Can you see them?'
'No,' Aboli grunted. 'They are hidden by the folds of the foothills and the trees.' Then he looked back again. 'But look behind you, Gundwane!'
Hal turned and stared where he pointed, and exclaimed as though he were in pain. 'How can they have come so quickly? They are gaining on us as though we were standing still.'
The column of running green-jackets was swarming over the ridge behind them like soldier ants from a disturbed nest. Hal could count their numbers easily and pick out the white officers. The mid-afternoon sunlight flashed from their bayonets and Hal could hear their faint but jubilant cries as they viewed their quarry so close ahead.
'There is Schreuder!' Hal exclaimed bitterly. 'By God, that man is a monster. Is there no means of stopping him?' The dismounted colonel was trotting along near the rear of the long, spread-out column but, as Hal watched him, he passed the man ahead of him on the path. 'He runs faster than his own Hottentots. If we linger here another minute, he will be up to us before we reach the mouth of the dark gorge.'
The ground ahead rose up so steeply that the horse could not take it straight up, and the path began to zigzag across the slope. There was another joyous cry from below, like the halloo of the fox hunter, and they saw their pursuers strung out over a mile or more of the track. The leaders were much closer now.
'Long musket shot,' Hal hazarded, and as he said it one of the leading soldiers dropped to his knee behind a rock and took deliberate aim before he fired. They saw the puff of muzzle smoke long before they heard the dull pop of the shot. The ball struck a blue chip off a rock fifty feet below where they stood. 'Still too far. Let them waste their powder.'
The grey mare leaped upwards over the rocky steps in the path, much surer on her feet than Hal could have hoped. Then they reached the outer bend in the wide dogleg and started back across the slope. Now they were approaching their pursuers at an oblique angle, and the gap between them narrowed even faster.
The men on the path below welcomed them with joyous shouts. They flung themselves down to rest, to steady their pounding hearts and shaking hands. Hal could see them checking the priming in the pans of their muskets and lighting their slow-match, preparing themselves to make the shot as the grey mare and her rider came within fair musket range.
'Satan's breathP Hal muttered. 'This is like sailing into an enemy broadsideP But there was nowhere to run or hide, and they laboured. on up the path.
Hal could see Schreuder now. he had worked his way steadily towards the head of the column and was staring up at them. Even at this range Hal could see that he had driven himself far beyond his natural strength. his face was drawn and haggard, his uniform torn, filthy, soaked with sweat, and blood from a dozen scratches and abrasions. He heaved and strained for breath, but his sunken eyes burned with malevolence. He did not have the strength to shout or to shake a weapon but he watched Hal implacably.
One of the green-jackets fired and they heard the ball hum close over their heads. Aboli was urging on the mare at her best pace over the steep, broken path, but they would be within musket range for many more minutes. Now a ripple of fire ran along the line of soldiers along the path below. Musket balls thudded among the rocks around them, some flattening into shiny discs where they struck. Others sprayed chips of stone down upon them, or whined away in ricochet across the valley.
Unscathed, the grey mare reached the outward leg of the path and started back. Now the range was longer and most of the Hottentot infantrymen jumped to their feet and took up the pursuit. One or two started directly up the slope, attempting to cut the corner, but the hillside proved too sheer for even their nimble feet. They gave up, slid back to the angled pathway and hurried after their companions along the gentler but longer route.
A few soldiers remained kneeling in the path, and reloaded, stabbing the ramrods frantically down the muzzles of their muskets, then pouring black powder into the pan. Schreuder had watched the fusillade, leaning heavily against a rock while his pounding heart and laboured breathing slowed. Now he pushed himself upright and seized a reloaded musket from one of his Hottentots, elbowing the other man aside.
'We are beyond musket shot!' Hal protested. 'Why does he persist?'
'Because he is mad with hatred for you,' Aboli replied. 'The devil gives him strength to carry on.'
Swiftly Schreuder stripped off his coat and bundled it over the rock, making a cushion on which to rest the forestock of the musket. He looked down the barrel and picked up the pip of the foresight in the notch of the backsight. He settled' it for an instant on Hal's bobbing head, then lifted it until he had a slice of blue sky showing beneath it, compensating for the drop of the heavy lead ball when it reached the limit of its carry. In the same motion he swept the sight ahead of the grey's straining head.
'He can never hope for a hit from there!' Hal breathed, but at that instant he saw the silver smoke bloom like a noxious flower on the stern of the musket barrel. Then he felt a mallet blow as the ball ploughed into the ribs of the grey mare an inch from his knee. Hal heard the air driven from the horse's punctured lungs. The brave animal reeled backwards and went down on its haunches. It tried to recover its footing by rearing wildly, but instead threw itself off the edge of the narrow path. just in time, Aboli grabbed Hal's injured leg and pulled him from its back.
Hal and Aboli sprawled together on the rocks and looked down. The horse rolled until it struck the bend in the pathway, where it came to rest in a slide of small stones, loose earth and dust. It lay with all four legs kicking weakly in the air. A resounding shout of triumph went up from the pursuing soldiers, whose cries rang along the cliffs and echoed through the gloomy depths of the dark gorge.
Hal crawled shakily to his feet, and quickly assessed their circumstances. Both he and Aboli still had their muskets slung over their shoulders and their swords in their scabbards. In addition they each had a pair of pistols, a small powder horn and a bag containing musket balls strapped around their waists. But they had lost all else.
Below them their pursuers had been given new heart by this reverse in their fortunes and were clamouring like a pack of hounds with the smell of the chase hot in their nostrils. They came scrambling upwards.
'Leave your pistols and musket,' Aboli ordered. 'Leave the powder horn and sword also, or their weight will wear you down.'
Hal shook his head. 'We will need them soon enough. Lead the way on.' Aboli did not argue and went away at full stride. Hal stayed close behind him, forcing his injured leg to serve his purpose through the pain and the quivering weakness that spread slowly up his thigh.
Aboli reached back to hand him up over the more formidable steps in the pathway, but the incline became sharper as they laboured upwards and began to work round the sheer buttress of rock that formed one of the portals of the dark gorge. Now, at every pace forward, they were forced to step up onto the next level, as though they were on a staircase, and were skirting the sheer wall that dropped into the valley far below. The pursuers, though still close, were out of sight around the buttress.
'Are we sure this is the right path?' Hal gasped, as they stopped for a few seconds' rest on a broader step.
'Althuda is leaving sign for us still,' Aboli assured him, and kicked over the cairn of three small pebbles balanced upon each other which had been erected prominently in the centre of the path. 'And so are my grey horses.' He smiled as he pointed out a pile of shining wet balls of dung a little further ahead. Then he cocked his head. 'Listen!'
Now Hal could hear the voices of
