“What’s wrong, Quatermain?” he shouted.
“Everything. There is a plot to murder the Queen tomorrow at dawn. Alphonse here, who has just escaped from Sorais, has overheard it all,” and I rapidly repeated to him what the Frenchman had told me.
Curtis’s face turned deadly pale and his jaw dropped.
“At dawn!” he gasped, “and it is now sunset. It dawns before four and we are nearly a hundred miles off—nine hours at the outside. What is to be done?”
An idea entered into my head. “Is that horse of yours fresh?” I said.
“Yes, I have only just got on to him—when my last was killed; and he has been fed.”
“So is mine. Get off him, and let Umslopogaas mount; he can ride well. We will be at Milosis before dawn, or if we are not—well, we cannot help it. No, no; it is impossible for you to leave now. You would be seen, and it would turn the fate of the battle. It is not won yet. The soldiers would think you were making a bolt of it. Quick now.”
In a moment he was down, and at my bidding Umslopogaas sprang into the empty saddle.
“Now farewell,” I said. “Send a thousand horsemen with remounts after us in an hour if possible. Stay; despatch a general to the left wing to take over the command and explain my absence.”
“You will do your best to save her, Quatermain?” he said in a broken voice.
“Ay, that I will. Go on; you are being left behind.”
He cast one glance at us, and accompanied by his staff galloped off to join the advance, which by this time was fording the little brook that now ran red with the blood of the fallen.
As for Umslopogaas and myself, we left that dreadful field as arrows leave a bow, and in a few minutes had passed right out of the sight of slaughter, the smell of blood, and the turmoil and shouting, which only came to our ears as a faint, far-off roaring, like the sound of distant breakers.
XXI
Away! Away!
At the top of the rise we halted for a second to breathe our horses, and turning, glanced at the battle beneath us, which, illumined as it was by the fierce rays of the sinking sun staining the whole scene red, looked from where we were more like some wild titanic picture than an actual hand-to-hand combat. The distinguishing scenic effect from that distance was the countless distinct flashes of light reflected from the swords and spears, otherwise the panorama was not so grand as might have been expected. The great green lap of sward in which the struggle was being fought out, the bold round outline of the hills behind, and the wide sweep of the plain beyond, seemed to dwarf it; and what was tremendous enough when one was in it, grew insignificant when viewed from the distance. But is it not thus with all the affairs and doings of our race about which we blow the loud trumpet and make such a fuss and worry? How utterly antlike, and morally and physically insignificant, must they seem to the calm eyes that watch them from the arching depths above!
“We win the day, Macumazahn,” said old Umslopogaas, taking in the whole situation with a glance of his practised eye. “Look, the Lady of the Night’s forces give on every side; there is no stiffness left in them, they bend like hot iron, they are fighting with but half a heart. But alas! the battle will in a manner be drawn, for the darkness gathers, and the regiments will not be able to follow and slay!”—and he shook his head sadly. “But,” he added, “I do not think that they will fight again; we have fed them with too strong a meat. Ah! it is well to have lived! At last I have seen a fight worth seeing.”
By this time we were on our way again, and as we went side by side I told him what our mission was, and how that, if it failed, all the lives that had been lost that day would have been lost in vain.
“Ah!” he said, “nigh on a hundred miles, and no horses but these, and be there before the dawn! Well—away! away! man can but try, Macumazahn; and mayhap we shall be there in time to split that old witch-finder’s” (Agon’s) “skull for him. Once he wanted to burn us, the old ‘rainmaker,’ did he? And now he would set a snare for my mother” (Nyleptha), “would he? Good! So sure as my name is the name of the Woodpecker, so surely, be my mother alive or dead, will I split him to the beard. Ay, by T’Chaka’s head I swear it!” and he shook Inkosi-Kaas as he galloped. By now the darkness was closing in, but fortunately there would be a moon later, and the road was good.
On we sped through the twilight; the two splendid horses we bestrode had got their wind by this, and were sweeping along with a wide, steady stride that neither failed nor varied for mile upon mile. Down the side of slopes we galloped, across wide vales that stretched to the foot of far-off hills. Nearer and nearer grew the blue hills; now we were travelling up their steeps, and now we were over and passing towards others that sprang up like visions in the far, faint distance beyond.
On, never pausing or drawing rein, through the perfect quiet of the night, that was set like a song to the falling music of our horses’ hoofs; on, past deserted villages, where only some forgotten starving dog howled a melancholy welcome; on, past lonely moated dwellings; on, through the white patchy moonlight, that lay coldly upon the wide bosom of the earth, as though there was no warmth in it; on, knee to knee, for hour after hour!
We spake not,
