“Oh, the hole in my back!” he yelled. “I am murdered! I am dead! Oh, Annette!”
I searched again, but could see no wound. Then the truth dawned on me—the man was frightened, not hurt.
“Get up!” I shouted—“get up! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? You are not touched.”
Thereupon he rose, not a penny the worse. “But, monsieur, I thought I was,” he said apologetically; “I did not know that I had conquered.” Then, giving the body of the Masai a kick, he ejaculated triumphantly, “Ah, dog of a black savage, thou art dead! what victory!”
Thoroughly disgusted, I left Alphonse to look after himself, which he did by following me like a shadow, and proceeded to join the others by the large entrance. The first thing that I saw was Mackenzie, seated on a stone, with a handkerchief twisted round his thigh, from which he was bleeding freely, having indeed received a spear-thrust that passed right through it, and still holding in his hand his favourite carving knife now bent nearly double, from which I gathered that he had been successful in his rough and tumble with the Elmoran.
“Ah, Quatermain!” he sung out, in a trembling, excited voice, “so we have conquered; but it is a sorry sight, a sorry sight!” and then, breaking into broad Scotch, and glancing at the bent knife in his hand, “It fashes me sair to have bent my best carver on the breastbane of a savage,” and he laughed hysterically. Poor fellow! what between his wound and the killing excitement he had undergone, his nerves were much shaken, and no wonder. It is hard upon a man of peace and kindly heart to be called upon to join in such a gruesome business. But there, Fate puts us sometimes into very ironical positions!
At the kraal entrance the scene was a strange one. The slaughter was over by now, and the wounded men had been put out of their pain, for no quarter had been given. The bush-closed entrance was trampled flat, and in place of bushes it was filled with the bodies of dead men. Dead men, everywhere dead men; they lay about in knots, they were flung by ones and twos in every position upon the open spaces, for all the world like the people on the grass in one of the London parks on a particularly hot Sunday in August. In front of this entrance, on a space which had been cleared of dead and of the shields and spears which were scattered in all directions as they had fallen or been thrown from the hands of their owners, stood and lay the survivors of the awful struggle, and at their feet were four wounded men. We had gone into the fight thirty strong, and of the thirty but fifteen remained alive, and five of them (including Mr. Mackenzie) were wounded, two mortally. Of those who held the entrance, Curtis and the Zulu alone remained. Good had lost five men killed, I had lost two killed, and Mackenzie no less than five out of the six with him. As for the survivors they were, with the exception of myself who had never come to close quarters, red from head to foot—Sir Henry’s armour might have been painted that colour—and utterly exhausted, except Umslopogaas, who, as he grimly stood on a little mound above a heap of dead, leaning as usual upon his axe, did not seem particularly distressed, although the skin over the hole in his head palpitated violently.
“Ah, Macumazahn!” he said to me as I limped up, feeling very sick, “I told thee that it would be a good fight, and it has. Never have I seen a better, or one more bravely fought. As for this iron shirt, surely it is tagati (bewitched); nothing could pierce it. Had it not been for the garment I should have been there,” and he nodded towards the great pile of dead men beneath him.
“I give it thee; thou art a gallant man,” said Sir Henry, briefly.
“Koos!” answered the Zulu, deeply pleased both at the gift and the compliment. “Thou, too, Incubu, didst bear thyself as a man, but I must give thee some lessons with the axe; thou dost waste thy strength.”
Just then Mackenzie asked about Flossie, and we were all greatly relieved when one of the men said he had seen her flying towards the house with the nurse. Then bearing such of the wounded as could be moved at the moment with us, we slowly made our way towards the Mission-house, spent with toil and bloodshed, but with the glorious sense of victory against overwhelming odds glowing in our hearts. We had saved the life of the little maid, and taught the Masai of those parts a lesson that they will not forget for ten years, but at what a cost!
Painfully we made our way up the hill which, just a little more than an hour before, we had descended under such different circumstances. At the gate of the wall stood Mrs. Mackenzie waiting for us. When her eyes fell upon us, however, she shrieked out, and covered her face with her hands, crying, “Horrible! horrible!” Nor were her fears allayed when she discovered her worthy husband being borne upon an improvised stretcher; but her doubts as to the nature of his injury were soon set at rest. Then when in a few brief words I had told her the upshot of the struggle (of which Flossie, who had arrived in safety, had been able to explain something) she came up to me and solemnly kissed me on
