"I don't know that you're altogether wise, all of you," were the Police captain's parting words. "You've held your own against tremendous odds so far; but when it's a case of the whole country being up against you, I'm afraid you'll have no show."

But to this the reply was there were plenty of them now, and they could hold their own against every carmine-tinted n.i.g.g.e.r in Matabeleland.

It was late in the afternoon when the mounted force arrived at Hollingworth's farm. There was a silence about the place, an absence of life that struck upon them at once.

"I expect they've cleared," said Moseley. "In fact, they must have, or we'd have heard the kids' voices in some shape or form."

"Let's hope so," replied the Police captain. Then a startled gasp escaped him. For exactly what had attracted Nidia's glance on her return attracted his--the broad trail in the dust and the blood-patches, now dry and black.

With sinking hearts they dismounted at the door, and Overton knocked.

No answer.

Somehow several of the faces of those who stood looking at each other had gone white. A moment of silence, then, turning the handle, the Police captain entered. He was followed by Moseley and Tarrant.

Almost instinctively they made a movement as though to back out again, then with set faces advanced into the room. Those horrible remains-- battered, mutilated--told their own tale. They were too late--too late by twenty-four hours.

Then Tarrant's behaviour astonished the other two. Pushing past them he entered the other rooms, casting quick searching glances into every corner or recess. When he returned there was a look almost of relief upon his face.

"Miss Commerell is not here," he said.

"Miss who?" asked Overton, quickly.

"Miss Commerell. A visitor. Moseley, can she have escaped?"

"I hope to Heaven she has," was the reply. "Wait. We haven't examined the huts or the stable."

Quickly they went round to the back, and with sinking hearts began their search. In one of the huts the body of poor little Jimmie came to light; then the lock of the store-hut was battered off--the stable-- everywhere. Still, no trace of the missing girl.

"She may have escaped into the bush," suggested Tarrant, whose suppressed excitement, even at that moment, did not escape the others.

"Quick, Overton! Send some of your men to scour it in every direction."

"Not so fast," said the Police captain. "Things can't be done that way.

We must go to work systematically."

He called up two of his men who were born colonists and versed in the mysteries of spoor. They, however, did not look hopeful. The ground around the homestead was so tramped and withal so dry, it would be difficult to do anything in that line. But they immediately set to work.

Meanwhile Overton, with the aid of his sergeant, was drawing up an official report, and making general examination. It was clear that the whole family had been set upon and treacherously ma.s.sacred.

And those who looked upon these pitiful remains--a black l.u.s.t of vengeance was set up in their hearts which was destined to burn there for many a long day. Woe to the savage who should meet these men in battle, or who, vanquished, should expect mercy. Such mercy they might expect as they had shown; and what that mercy was let the mutilated remains of father, mother, and little children treacherously slaughtered beneath their own roof-tree speak for themselves. "Remember the Hollingworths," would henceforth be a sufficient rallying cry to those who had stood here, when the savage foe should stand before them.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

IN SAVAGE WILDS.

In the morning, peace, tranquillity, security; in the evening, violence, bloodshed, death--such is the sort of contrast that life seems to enjoy affording, especially life in a barbarous land--and however it may appeal to those at a distance from its tragedy, to a refined English girl, brought up amid the comforts of an advanced civilisation, unused, alike, to scenes of violence or to the endurance of hardships, the matter is different. Which may be taken to mean that the position in which Nidia Commerell now found herself was simply appalling.

She was alone--alone in a strange wild land--surrounded by beings who were devils in human shape; at their mercy, in fact; and, we repeat, what that "mercy" would be likely to mean, let those fearful remains within the ill-fated dwelling testify. Whither could she turn--whither fly?

Night was falling fast. Where would she find shelter, let alone food?

Not at the price of her life would she enter that awful room again. She dared not. She felt that her reason would go. That sight repeated would turn her into a maniac, and indeed that this had not already happened was due to the saving diversion effected by the finding of poor little Jimmie, and his partial revival. Action. This alone had saved her.

She could not remain where she was. The murderers might return. Little Jimmie's last words came back to her--"Down below the river-bank. They won't look for you there." Yes; she would go.

But the dead boy? She could not leave him thus, in the open. Two huts which did duty for outhouses stood at the back of the house. One of these was locked. It was the store-room. The other was open. The poor little fellow was not heavy for his age, and Nidia was endowed with an average share of strength. She managed to get the body inside; then, shutting the door upon it, stood pondering as to what she should do next.

It was now quite dark, yet thanks to the myriad stars which had rushed forth in the heavens, not so blackly so but that outlines were discernible. Standing thus she thought she heard a sound--the sound of voices. Hope--relief--gave way to terror, as she recognised the clear, yet deep-toned, drawl of native voices. It is probable they were a great way off, for the sound of the human voice, especially the native voice, carries far in the stillness of night; but of this, wholly unnerved by the ghastly discoveries of the last hour, she did not pause to think. In wild panic she fled.

By the light of the stars she could see her way dimly. She knew the path leading to the river-bed, and down it she dashed. Something rustled in the bushes at her right. Her brain throbbed like a steam-hammer, and she pressed her hands to her breast to keep down the piercing, panic-stricken scream which rose to her lips. The grasp of murderous hands put forth to seize her, the crash or stab of savage weapon, were what she expected. Her limbs gave way beneath her, and she sank to the earth.

Only for a moment, though. The instinct of self-preservation rose strong within her. She must conquer her fears. The effort must be made. Rising, she continued her flight, and soon had gained the bed of the river, and the hiding-place for which she was making. There, like a hunted hare, she crouched, striving to still the beatings of her heart, which to her terrified imagination seemed audible enough to reach any ears within hearing of anything.

The place she was in she knew well. It had been a favourite spot for the Hollingworth children to use for their impromptu pic-nics, and more than once she had helped them light their fire and grill the birds they had shot with their catapults--playing at camping out having been one of their favourite amus.e.m.e.nts. It was a hollow in the river-bank--which here was of stiff clay and perpendicular--and the front being entirely hidden by brushwood, it formed a sort of cave. Here, if anywhere, she would be safe from discovery.

That a great and imminent peril has the effect of nullifying lesser or imaginary ones is a wise provision of Nature. Had it been suggested to Nidia Commerell, say that time the evening before, that she should pa.s.s the night all alone in a hole on the banks of the Umgwane River, her reply would have been as unhesitating as it was uncompromising. Not for a fortune--not for ten fortunes--would she have embarked on such an experience, and that with the house and its inhabitants within half a mile. Any one of the half-hundred ordinary terrors of the night, actual or shadowy, potential lions, snakes, leopards--even down to ghosts-- would simply turn her into a lunatic before the hours of darkness were half through, she would have declared. Now, the house was there just the same, but turned into a tomb for the awful remains of those with whom last evening at that time she was in happy and social converse, yet she welcomed the darkness of this hole as a very haven of refuge.

But as the night wore on the terrors which came upon the unhappy girl grew more and more acute. Visions of the Hollingworth family, not as she remembered it in life, but as she had seen it in the mutilation and agony of savage butchery, rose before her in the darkness, seeming to point to and suggest her own fate, ghastly and revolting as that which had overtaken them. Each stealthy rustle in the brake--every weird cry of night bird or beast, near or for--carried with it a new terror. A tiger-wolf howled along the river-bank, and although she knew that this brute is the most skulking and cowardly of carnivora, yet it might be different where there was only a frightened and defenceless woman to deal with. Lions, too, were not unknown in that part of the country; but their movements were sporadic, and there had been no sign of them anywhere in the neighbourhood for some time. Still, the horrible bloodshed which had taken place might attract all manner of wild animals; and she shivered with renewed terror at every sound. Soft footfalls seemed to be stealing towards her under cover of the foliage, breathings as of some fierce carnivorum stalking its prey; and there she lay utterly helpless. And then, the appalling loneliness of those dark hours!

But she was destined to meet with a very real fright before they were over. A clinking of stones struck upon her ear, as though something were coming along the dry river-bed. With despair in her heart she peered forth. Dawn was at hand, and in its gathering light she made out a shape--long, stealthy, sinuous--that of a beast. A leopard was crossing obliquely to the side opposite her hiding-place, where under the further bank lay a small water-hole. Not fifty yards distant, she could make out the markings of its beautiful skin as the great cat crouched there, lapping. At length it rose, and, facing round upon her hiding-place, stood for a moment, the water dripping from its jaws, its yellow eyes blinking. Then it walked back to the other side, uttering a throaty see-saw noise, taking a line which would bring it within twenty yards of where the terrified girl lay. Would it discover her presence?

Surely. With fascinated gaze she stared at the beast. She could mark its great fangs as it bared them, emitting its horrid plank-sawing growl, even each smooth and velvety footfall hardly rattling the loose stones as it pa.s.sed--but--wholly unsuspicious of her proximity.

Then as the sun arose, and all the glad bird and insect life of the wilderness broke into voice, Nidia felt for the moment a gleam of hope.

Whether it was that the strain of the last twelve hours had hardened her to peril, or that the shock had changed her, she seemed to herself hardly the same personality, and was surprised at the calmness with which she could now map out the situation. For the first time it began to strike her that the murder of the Hollingworths was part of a preconcerted rising. The latter eventuality she had heard now and again discussed during her brief stay in the country, but only to be dismissed with contempt, as something outside the bounds of possibility. The only one who had not so treated it was John Ames; but even he had not reckoned it as an imminent or even probable danger.

And with the thought of John Ames came an inspiration. If she could strike across-country, surely at his place, if anywhere, she would find refuge. As a Government official he would be provided with police; in fact, she remembered hearing him say there was a strong police force stationed at his headquarters. She had an idea of the direction in which lay Sik.u.mbutana, and she was a good walker. Yet--twenty miles, Moseley had said it was. This was a long distance. If she had only her bicycle to help her over the half of it!

Their nearest neighbour on the other side, she remembered, was Jekyll, who kept a store, for the supplying of prospectors and others with necessaries and general "notions." She had pa.s.sed it on her way out to the Hollingworths. This was quite eighteen miles off, practically as far as the Sik.u.mbutana. Besides, a store was the first thing to be attacked and looted were the rising a general one. No; the first was the best plan.

But, as she began to contemplate its immediate carrying out, her heart sank. The wild vastness of the country filled her with dread. She remembered how impressed she had been with it during their journey out from Bulawayo, how every mile covered, as they drove through the hot steamy atmosphere, seemed to be taking them further and further into remote and mysterious regions; and now here she found herself, alone and thrown upon her own resources to accomplish what a man under like circ.u.mstances might well recoil from.

Then she called to mind all the stories she had heard or read of what had been done by persons--women especially--situated as she was, more particularly during the Indian Mutiny. They had escaped, and so far so had she. And, she was determined, so _would she_.

But to travel a distance of twenty miles necessitates a food supply.

The bare idea of returning to the homestead filled Nidia with a shuddering dread, and that quite apart from the possible peril of such a course. It seemed to bring back all the terrors of the previous night.

Yet it must be done. The store-hut was outside; she need not enter the house at all. Yet--the knowledge of what lay within!

It must be done, however. Already the pangs of hunger were taking hold of her, for she had eaten nothing since the middle of the previous day.

Cautiously she stepped forth from her hiding-place, and climbing the steep path down which she had dashed so panic-stricken in the darkness, was soon at the homestead.

How peaceful it looked in the morning sunlight--as though the whole pitiful tragedy had been but a dream--a nightmare. Her eyes filled as she thought of it all; but no, she would not think, except as to the methods of accomplishing her own escape. And the first of these was to obtain the food she had come to seek.

Check Number 1.--The door of the store-hut was padlocked.

She looked round for a stone of convenient shape and size for smashing out the staples that held the lock, and soon found one. Then an idea occurred to her. What if the sound of hammering should reach hostile ears? There was no help for it, however; and soon the pretty, tapering fingers were all sore and rubbed; but the abominable iron remained obdurate. In despair she desisted, and stood panting with the exertion.

The key? To obtain it she would have to enter the house: No, that was not to be thought of--not for a moment. Then another idea struck her.

The kitchen door was at the back of the house. No gruesome spectacle of slaughter would meet her eyes if she entered that department, and it was just possible she might find something there, enough, at any rate, to sustain life for a day or two.