taste of the honey-pot since we left the colony. You promised us a go at the blonde girl.'
'If you can catch yourself a bit of poesje, well and good. But make sure all of the men are dead before you drop your pants. If not, you might get a cutlass up your arse end to help you along while you're pumping cream.' They had all laughed. At times Koots could show the common touch and speak to them in the language they understood best.
Now the troopers pressed forward eagerly. Earlier that day, from the heights above the gorge, some had glimpsed the cattle, the ivory and the women. They had told their companions and all were fired by the promise of pillage and rape.
Suddenly a single musket shot thudded out in the darkness ahead and, without waiting for the order, the column reined in. They peered ahead uneasily.
'Son of the great whore!' Koots swore. 'What was that?' He did not have long to wait for his answer. Abruptly the night was filled with uproar and clamour. None of them had ever heard before the sound of drumming on war-shields, and that made it more alarming. Moments later there was a fusillade of musket fire, wild shouts and screams, the bellowing and lowing of hundreds of cattle, then the rising thunder of hoofs bearing down on them out of the night.
In the fallible light of the moon it seemed that the earth was moving, a flowing mass like black lava bearing down on them, stretching across the full breadth of the gorge from wall to cliff wall. The sound of hoofs was deafening, and they saw the humped backs of the monstrous herd looming closer and faster, the moonlight glinting on their horns.
'Stampede!' Oudeman yelled in terror, and the others took up the cry. 'Stampede!'
The tight-knit group of riders whirled round, broke up and scattered away before the solid wall of great horned heads and pounding hoofs. Within a dozen strides GoffePs horse hit an ant bear burrow with his off fore. The leg snapped as the horse went down. Goffel was thrown forward to hit the earth with one shoulder. In terror he dragged himself to his feet with his arm dangling from the shattered bones, just as the front rank of cattle swept over him. One of the lead bulls hooked at him as it passed. The point of the horn slid in under his ribs and out of the small of his back at the level of his kidneys. The bull tossed its head and Goffel was thrown high, to drop back under the hoofs of the herd, then trampled and kicked to a boneless pulp. Three other troopers were trapped against an angle of the cliff. When they tried to turn back the herd engulfed them, and their mounts were gored by the enraged bulls.
The frenzied horses reared, kicked and threw their riders, and men and horses were overwhelmed by the thrusting of horns and went down under the pounding hoofs.
Habban and Rashood raced side by side, but when Habban's horse stepped in a hole and fell with a broken leg Rashood turned back and, right under the horns of the stampede, dragged him up behind his saddle. They rode on, but the double-loaded horse could not keep ahead of the cattle, and was swallowed up by a wave of swinging horns and bellowing beasts. Habban was gored deeply in the thigh and dragged from his perch behind his companion's saddle.
'Ride on!' he screamed at Rashood, as he hit the ground. 'I am lost. Save yourself!' But Rashood tried to turn back, and his horse was horned again and again until it also fell in a tangle of legs and loose equipment. On hands and knees Rashood crawled through the dust and flying hoofs. Though he was kicked repeatedly, felt muscle and sinew tear in his back and chest and his ribs snap, he reached his fallen comrade and dragged him behind the hole of one of the larger trees. They huddled there, choking and coughing in the dust clouds while the stampede thundered by.
Even after the stampede had passed they could not leave their hiding place because a wave of howling Nguni spearmen followed hard on the heels of the herds. Just when it seemed that they would find the two ; Arabs, an unhorsed Hottentot trooper broke from cover and tried to make a run for it. Like hounds on the fox the Nguni went after him, and were drawn away from Rashood and Habban. They stabbed the '. trooper repeatedly, washing their blades in his blood.
Koots and Kadem spurred their horses at full gallop along the bank of the river to keep ahead of the stampede. Oudeman stuck close behind them. He knew that Koots had the animal instinct for survival, and trusted him to find an escape for them from this disaster. Suddenly the horses ran into stands of hook-thorn and were slowed by the dense thickets. The herd leaders coming on close behind them crashed through the thorn without check, and swiftly overhauled them. ;
'Into the river!' Koots bellowed. 'They'll not follow us in there.'
As he shouted he swerved his mount towards the bank and lashed him over the top. They dropped twelve feet and hit the surface of the water with a high splash. Kadem and Oudeman followed him over. They surfaced together and saw Koots already half-way across the river. Swim', ming beside the horses, they reached the south bank after Koots had i landed. :
They climbed out and stood in a sodden, exhausted group and watched the herd still careering by on the far bank. Then in the;
moonlight they saw Jim Courtney's horsemen galloping close on the heels of the herd, and heard the thud and saw the muzzle flashes of their muskets as they caught up with the surviving riders of Koots's troop and shot them down.
'Our powder is wet,' Koots gasped. 'We cannot stand and fight.'
'I have lost my musket,' said Oudeman.
'It is over,' Kadem agreed, 'but there will be another day and another place when we shall finish this business.' They mounted and rode on swiftly into the east, away from the river, the stampeding herd and the enemy musketeers.
'Where are we going?' Oudeman asked at last, but neither of the other two answered him.
It took the Nguni herdsmen many days to round up the scattered herds. They discovered that thirty-two of the great humpbacked beasts had died or been hopelessly maimed in the stampede. Some had fallen over precipices, run into holes, drowned in the rapids of the river or been killed by the lions when they had become separated from the herd. The Nguni mourned them. Lovingly they drove back those cattle that had survived the dreadful night. They moved among them, soothing and gentling them. They dressed their injuries, the horn wounds of their peers and the rips and contusions where they had run into trees or other objects.
Inkunzi, the head herdsman, was determined to express his outrage to Jim in the strongest terms he dared. 'I will demand that he suspend the march and rest in this place until all the cattle are recovered,' he assured his herders, and they all agreed staunchly with him. Despite his threats, the request when he made it to Jim was couched in much milder terms, and Jim agreed with him without quibble.
As soon as it was light, Jim and his men rode over the battlefield. They came upon four dead horses of Koots's troop with horn stabs, and two others so badly hurt that they had to be destroyed. However, they retrieved eleven more that were either unhurt or so little injured that they could be treated and added to Jim's own remount herd.
They also found the corpses of five of Koots's men. The features of three were so battered as to be unrecognizable, but from items of their clothing and equipment, and the pay books Jim found in the pockets of two, he could be certain that they were VOC cavalrymen, wearing mufti rather than military uniform. These are all Keyser's men. Although he did not come after us himself, Keyser sent them,' Jim assured Louisa.
Smallboy and Muntu recognized some of the corpses. The Cape colony was a small community where everyone knew his neighbours.
'Goffel! Now there was a truly bad kerel,' said Smallboy, as he prodded one of the battered corpses with his toe. His expression was stern and he shook his head. Smallboy himself was no angel of purity, and if he disapproved, thought Jim, Goffel must have been a veritable tower of vice.
There are still five missing,' Bakkat told Jim. 'No sign yet of Koots and the bald sergeant, or of the three strange Arabs we saw with them yesterday. I must cast the far side of the river.' He waded across and Jim watched him scurry along the bank and peer at the ground as he read sign. Suddenly he stopped, like a pointer dog getting the scent of the bird.
'Bakkat! What have you found there?' Jim yelled across.
Three horses, running hard,' Bakkat called back.
Jim, Louisa and Zama crossed the river to join him and they studied the tracks of galloping horses. 'Can you read who the riders were, Bakkat?' Jim asked. It seemed impossible but Bakkat responded to the question as though it were commonplace. He squatted by the tracks.
These two are the horses that Koots and the bald one were riding yesterday. The other is one of the Arabs, the one with the green turban,' he declared, with finality.
'How can he tell' Louisa asked, with wonder. They are all steel-shod horses. Surely the tracks are identical?'
'Not to Bakkat,' Jim assured her. 'He can tell from the uneven wear of the horseshoes, and dents and chips in the metal. To his eye each horse has a distinctive gait, and he can read it in the spoor.'
'So Koots and Oudeman have got away. What are you going to do now, Jim? Are you going to follow them?'
Jim did not reply at once. To delay the decision he ordered Bakkat to follow the spoor and make sure of the run of it. After a mile the tracks turned determinedly towards the north. Jim ordered a halt and asked Bakkat and
