you shout behind us.'
'That's what did it, then, Hedgehog. You must be a champion prayer maker.' Although he grinned, Jim felt an almost irresistible urge to lift her down from Trueheart's back and hold her close, to protect her and cherish her. She looked so thin, pale and exhausted. Instead he swung down from his own saddle. 'Make a fire, Zama,' he ordered. 'We can warm up and rest. Damn me, if we won't eat the last mouthful of the food, drink the last mug of coffee, then sleep until we wake up.' He laughed. 'Keyset is on his way back to the colony on Shanks's pony and we won't have any more trouble from him for a while.'
This time Jim would not allow Louisa to refuse a mug of coffee, and once she had tasted the bitter liquid she could no longer deny herself, and drank the rest thankfully. It revived her almost immediately. She stopped shivering and a little colour returned to her cheeks. She even raised a wan smile at a few of Jim's worst jokes. He refilled the canteen with boiling water every time it was emptied. Each brew of coffee
became progressively weaker but it restored his spirits and he was cheerful and ebullient again. He described to Louisa how Keyser had reacted to the surprise raid, and imitated him staggering about barefoot, waving his sword over his head, bellowing threats and tripping over his own feet in the dark. Louisa laughed until tears ran down her cheeks.
Jim and Zama examined the horses they had captured. They were in good condition, considering the long, gruelling journey that had been forced on them. Keyser's grey gelding was the pick of the herd. Keyser had named him Zehn, but Jim translated that to the English, Frost.
Now that they had remounts they would be able to push on at speed towards the rendezvous on the Gariep. But first Jim rested and grazed the horses knowing that Keyser could not harass them. Louisa took full advantage of this respite. She curled under her kaross and slept. She lay so still that Jim was worried. Quietly he lifted a corner of the fur to make sure she was still breathing.
That morning, just before they had caught up with Zama and Louisa, Jim had spotted a small herd of four or five mountain rhebuck grazing among the rocks higher up the slope from the valley. Now he saddled Frost and Bakkat rode bareback on another of the captured horses. Jim left Louisa to sleep with Zama to guard her, and they rode back to where they had seen the rhebuck. They found that the herd had moved on and the slope was empty, but Jim knew they were unlikely to have gone far. They knee-haltered the horses and left them to graze on a patch of sweet grass with fluffy pink seed heads ripening in the spring sunshine. They climbed the slope.
Bakkat picked up the rhebuck spoor just below the crest, and worked it swiftly, trotting along over rocky ground with Jim striding after him. On the far side of the ridge they found the herd already bedded down in the lee of a cluster of large boulders that sheltered them from the cold wind. Bakkat led Jim in close, leopard-crawling with the musket cradled in the crook of his elbow. At seventy paces Jim knew they could not get closer without bolting the herd. He picked a fat dun-coloured ewe who was lying facing away from him, chewing the cud contentedly. He knew that the musket threw three inches to the right at a hundred paces, so he propped his elbows on his knees for a steady shot and laid off his aim a thumb's width. The ball struck at the base of the ewe's skull with a sound like a ripe melon dropped on a stone floor. She did not move again, except to drop her head flat against the earth. The rest of the herd bounded away, flashing their bushy white tails and whistling with alarm.
They skinned the ewe and gralloched her, feasting on raw liver as
they worked. She was only a medium-sized antelope, but young and plump. They left the skin and head and entrails and between them carried the rest of the carcass back to the horses.
Once they had loaded it on to Frost's back, Bakkat stuffed his food bag with strips of fresh raw meat, and they parted. Armed with Jim's telescope, he rode back to spy on Keyser and his troopers. Jim wanted him to make certain that they had abandoned the chase, now that they had lost their horses, and that they were starting on the long, bitter march back through the mountains to the distant colony. Jim would not trust Keyser to do what was expected of him: he was learning to respect the colonel's tenacity, and the strength of his hatred.
By the time Jim reached the camp where he had left Louisa it was after noon, and she was still sleeping. The aroma of roasting rhebuck steaks roused her. Jim managed to brew one more watery canteen of coffee with the old beans, and Louisa ate with obvious relish.
In the late afternoon, just as the sun was settling on the peaks, painting them bloody and fiery, Bakkat rode back into camp. 'I found them about five miles from where we attacked them last night,' he told Jim. 'They have given up the chase. They have abandoned all of the supplies and equipment they could not carry on their backs they did not even take the time to burn it. I brought back everything I thought we could use.'
While Zama helped him unload the booty, Jim asked, 'Which way are they heading?'
'As you hoped, Xhia is leading them back west again, straight towards the colony. But they are travelling slowly. Most of the white men are suffering. Their boots are better suited to riding than walking. The fat colonel is already limping, and using a stick. It does not seem as though he will be able to carry on much longer, not for the ten days' travel it will take them to reach the colony.' Bakkat looked at Jim. 'You said that you did not want to kill him. The mountains might kill him for you.'
Jim shook his head. 'Stephanus Keyser is no fool. He will send Xhia ahead to fetch fresh horses from the Cape. He might lose some of his belly, but he won't die,' he declared, with assurance he did not feel. He added silently, Or, at least, I hope not. He did not want Keyset's murder laid at the door of his family.
For the first time in weeks they did not have to run to keep ahead of their pursuers. Bakkat had found a small bag of flour and a bottle of wine in one of the saddlebags Keyser had abandoned. Louisa cooked flat unleavened bread cakes over the coals, and kebabs of rhebuck meat and liver, and they washed it down with Keyser's fine old claret. Alcohol is
poison to the San, and Bakkat, giggling tipsily, almost fell into the fire when he tried to stand. The fur karosses had dried out after the soaking in the previous day's thunderstorm, and they collected armfuls of cedar wood to feed a fragrant campfire, so they enjoyed their first unbroken sleep for many a night.
Early the next morning they rode on, well fed, rested and mounted, towards the meeting place at the Hill of the Baboon's Head. Only Bakkat was still suffering the ill-effects of the three mouthfuls of wine he had drunk the night before. 'I am poisoned,' he muttered. 'I am going to die.'
'No, you won't,' Jim assured him. 'The ancestors will not take a rogue like you.'
For three days Colonel Stephanus Keyser limped along, leaning heavily on the staff that Captain Koots had cut for him, supported on the other side by Goffel, one of the Hottentot troopers. The trail was endless: steep descents followed by treacherous uphill stretches on which the loose round scree rubble rolled underfoot. An hour before noon on the third day of the march Keyser could go no further. He collapsed with a groan on a small boulder beside the game trail they were following.
'Goffel, you useless bastard, pull off my boots,' he shouted, and offered one of his feet. Goffel struggled with the large, scuffed, dusty boot, then staggered backwards as it came free in his hands. The others gathered around and stared in awe at the exposed foot. The stocking was in bloody ribbons. The blisters had burst and tatters of skin hung from the open wounds.
Captain Koots blinked his pale eyes. His eyelashes were colourless which gave him a perpetual bland stare. 'Colonel, sir, you cannot go on with your feet in that condition.'
That's what I have been telling you for the last twenty miles, you gibbering idiot,' Keyser roared at him. 'Get your men to build me a carrying chair.'
The men exchanged glances. They were already heavily burdened with the equipment Keyser had insisted they carry back to the colony, including his English hunting saddle, his folding camp chair and bed, his canteen and bedroll. Now they were about to be accorded the honour of carrying the colonel himself.
'You heard the colonel.' Koots rounded on them. 'Richter! You and Le Riche find two cedar wood poles. Use your bayonets to trim them
into shape. We will tie the colonel's saddle over them with strips of bark.' The troopers scattered to their tasks.
Keyser hobbled on bare, bleeding feet to the stream and sat on the bank. He soaked his feet in the cold clear water and sighed with relief. 'Koots!' he shouted, and the captain hurried to join him.
'Colonel, sir!' He stood to attention on the bank. He was a lean, hard man, with narrow hips and wide bony shoulders under the green baize tunic.
'How would you like to earn ten thousand guilders?' Keyser dropped his voice to a confidential tone. Koots thought about that sum of money. It represented almost five years' pay on his present level, and he had no illusions about climbing higher up the military ladder. 'It is a large sum of money, sir,' he said cautiously.
'I want that young bastard Courtney. I want him as much as anything I have ever wanted in my life.'
'I understand, Colonel.' Koots nodded. 'I would like to get my hands on him myself.' He smiled like a cobra at the thought, and clenched his fists instinctively at his sides.
'He is going to get away, Koots,' Keyser said heavily. 'Before we ever reach the castle he will be over the frontier of the colony and we
