Forging the Blades: A Tale of the Zulu Rebellion. Mitford Bertram

he had done what he could to save him. It was not his fault if the fool chose to topple into the river. Yet, but for his own compulsion the said “fool” would not have been standing where he was.

      He stands gazing down the reach. Is that blood, floating in a dark patch upon the surface lower down? No. Only the light and shade. And now, what to do next?

      If the body should be found the bullet wound would tell its own tale. Even then the natives, already in a state of unrest, would be credited with another outrage. But if, as he surmised, the dead man had been pulled under by crocodiles, why then there would be little enough left of him to tell any tale at all. But – what of his horse?

      This is something of a problem, and sitting down with his back against a yellowwood-tree he proceeds to think it out. Shall he shoot the animal and leave it there, for its return anywhere without its rider will, of course, raise an alarm? Then an idea strikes him – rather an original and ghastly one. The dead mamba? Its poison glands are intact. Can he not by some means make the dead head bite the living animal? That would look less suspicious than a bullet hole, in the event of the carcase being found. But he doubts whether the venom will inject under the circumstances. No. He must sacrifice the poor brute to his own sense of self-preservation.

      The two horses have withdrawn some little way, uneasy at the sound of the firing. Now he lounges quietly towards them, and has no difficulty in securing the bridle rein of both, trailing, as that is, upon the grass. He hitches his own mount to a strong sapling and leads the other to the river bank.

      But this is not so easy. The horse, by some instinct, grasps that something is wrong, and demurs to leaving its fellow. At last by dint of patience and coolness it is induced to do so, and is led to an overhanging bank similar to that whence its owner took his last plunge. A quick shot. Four kicking hoofs turn convulsively upwards and the lifeless carcase falls into the deep water with a great splash. The man looks after it for a minute or two as it sinks.

      “A pity, but necessary,” he reflects. “Too much cannonading, though. Sure to have been heard.” Then he reseats himself on the grass and lights his pipe.

      “This is no murder,” run his reflections. “The fool brought it upon himself. He was given every chance.” Then, as the long period of blackmailing to which the dead man has subjected him comes back, he feels ruthless. Yet the tragedy just enacted seems to have left its mark. He has taken life – human life – and somehow the consideration weighs; in spite of the feeling of relief at having rid himself, and the world, of that most pestilent thing alive – a blackmailer. Should the circumstances leak out he would have to stand his trial for murder – an ugly word. But – how should they? This wild, lonely forest valley, seldom visited even by natives, never by whites, would keep its own secret. And nobody had seen them together.

      As he sits there the whole situation seems to get upon his nerves, high-strung as they are after the quick excitement of the foregoing events. The whole atmosphere of the tangled forest, of the deep-flowing river, seems to breathe death. The dank, decaying vegetation, the dimness, the very airlessness of the sweltering valley – all this is not merely heat. It is asphyxia. It is strangely silent too; only the murmur of the river, and that remindful of its voracious denizens, breaks upon the fever-breathing stillness. He shivers, then, as with an effort, starts up, and going over to his horse, he hitches it, straps tighter the girths, and mounted, rides away down the dim, overhung path.

      But not until six hours later does he remember that the dead man’s shotgun has been left lying just where it was dropped.

      Chapter Two.

      The Mystery

      For some time the thought uppermost in the mind of the survivor was that of relief. An incubus had fallen from him; a plague spot that for the last two or three years had been eating into and embittering his life, and rendering its otherwise achieved success null and void.

      He did not regret what he had done. He had given the other every chance, and the other had refused to take it. If ever an act of self-defence had been committed it was this one. Self-defence, yes; for sooner or later the dead man’s exactions would have culminated in his own ruin and suicide. Even from the physical side of it the other had drawn a weapon upon him. And, in sum, what more loathsome and poisonous animal exists in the world than a blackmailer? This one had richly earned his fate.

      That was all very well, but in came another side to the situation. How would the law regard it? Well, he supposed that in this wild, out-of-the-way part things were done of which the law never got wind at all. The country, of course, was within the administration of British jurisprudence, but then, as he had told the slain man, they had not been seen together, and he had done his best to destroy all possibility of the discovery of any corpus delicti.

      But as he held on through the dark and solemn forest path he grew less elate. The hideous end of the dead man seemed to haunt him, the agony depicted on that livid distorted countenance, the whole seemed to rise up before him again in these gloomy shades. He concentrated his attention on the surroundings, vividly interesting in their wildness and novelty, in their strange denizens, specimens of which in the shape of bird or animal would now and again dash across his way, but still the haunting face was there.

      The thing was absurd, he kept saying to himself. Men shot their fellows in battle in defence of their country or of their country’s cause, and thought no more about it. Some even bragged of it. Again, in a naval engagement, when a hostile ship was sunk, did not the other side do all it could to rescue the survivors struggling in the water? Well, this was precisely an analogy as regarded his own case, with this difference, that the rescued in the naval engagement had not the power to injure their rescuers further, whereas the man he had slain had, and certainly had the will. Yet, at the last moment, he had honestly attempted to rescue him, at any rate from that horrible fate.

      What was this? Had he taken a wrong path in the course of his reflections? For his way seemed suddenly barred. A fallen trunk, massive and rotting with age lay across it, and there seemed no way round it but cutting one through a dense wall of creepers and coarse grass. Even then the path seemed to end.

      He dismounted and, hitching his horse to a bough, climbed on to the fallen tree-trunk to reconnoitre. A snake glided off it, hissing, but too rapidly for him to be able to distinguish the species. No, there was no way beyond the trunk. It had evidently been disused since it was blocked, and some other taken. That other way he must have missed, and the only thing to do would be to find it.

      Acting upon this idea he remounted and rode back upon his trail. After going some distance it occurred to him that the surroundings were unfamiliar, for he had neglected that safe rule that in travelling on a strange way for the first time, it is well to look back occasionally to accustom oneself to it from the contrary direction for purposes of return; wherein the simile of the “hand to the plough” emphatically does not hold good.

      Ah, here it was! He had left the path even as he had thought. Here was the right one. Accordingly he put his horse into it, and then discovered that his said horse was going lame. Carefully he examined all four hoofs. No, there was no stone or anything of the kind.

      This was a blank outlook. The still atmosphere of the forest seemed more fever-breathing than ever, and the sky had darkened. A boom of thunder came rolling through the stillness, not so distant either, then a gleam and then another sullen roll. He started. This was no joke. He was in for a sudden storm, and among all these tall tree-trunks too. If only he could reach some native kraal.

      But, then, he had heard that the natives were restless, and that it was not altogether safe for one man alone to go among many. He was well armed, certainly, but what is one among many? He had sufficient food for one meal, and a flask. By way of putting a more cheerful light on the situation he took a pull at the latter.

      “A beastly place to camp in,” he said to himself, looking around. “Faugh! It simply reeks of fever. If only one could find somewhere more open.”

      Now the lightning began to gleam vividly down through the tree-tops, and the thunder crashed in short, angry barks; but no rain had fallen as yet. It was one of those most dangerous storms of all – a dry storm. Suddenly a big yellowwood, barely thirty yards off, burst into splinters and sparks as a wreath