"A lot of those fellows who were hunting the Bull–Baas, whom I wish we had never met, got away yesterday evening, Baas, and told their brothers, who have come to make us pay for those who didn't get away."
"No doubt," I grunted, "and what's more, I think they will reach the mouth of the pass—if there is one—before us."
"Yes, Baas, I think so too, for the Bull–Baas has a sore heel and walks slowly and that cliff is still some way ahead. But, Baas, the ones who escaped yesterday have told these fellows about what happened to those who didn't escape and what bullets are like. Perhaps we can hold them back with the rifles, Baas."
"Perhaps. At any rate we'll try. Look how fast Kaneke is going."
"Yes, Baas, he climbs like a baboon or a rock–rabbit. HE doesn't mean to be caught by the Abanda, Baas, or his porters either, whatever happens to us. Suppose I sent a bullet after him, Baas, before he is out of shot, aiming at his legs to make him go a bit slower."
"No," I answered. "Let the brute run. We must take our chance."
At this moment Arkle, who was growing lamer, called out:
"Quatermain, get on with your servants. I'll look after myself."
"No, you won't," I replied. "We will sink or swim together."
Then I looked at Tom and Jerry and saw that they were alarmed, as well they might be. Hans saw it too, and began to fire sarcasms at them.
"Why don't you run, you brave hunters?" he asked. "Will you let yourselves be beaten by the Owl–man? If the rifles are heavy, you might leave them behind, as you remember you did when the elephants were after us."
Such were his rather bitter jests, for Hans would crack jokes at Death itself. I know that afterwards he regretted them earnestly enough, as we often regret unkind words which it is too late to recall. They stung Tom to fury, for I heard him mutter:
"I'll kill you for this afterwards, yellow man," a threat at which Hans grinned.
The more phlegmatic Jerry, however, only smiled in a sickly fashion and made no reply.
At length we were quite close to the face of the cliff, into which we saw the porters vanishing, showing us where the pass or cleft began. Unfortunately, too, the Abanda were quite close to us; indeed, their leading spearsmen had emerged from the fold in the mountain–side about three hundred yards away on to the open slope of lava, and were racing to cut off Kaneke. That active person, however, was too quick for them, as before they came within spear– cast of him he bolted into the cliff–face like a meer–cat into its hole—perhaps a snake would be a better simile.
"Now we are done," I said. "We can't get there before those brutes and it's no use trying to run down the hill, for they would overtake us. So we had better stay where we are to get our breath and make the best end we can."
"No, Baas," puffed Hans, who had been searching the scene with his hawk–like eyes. "Look. The Abanda are halting. They want to kill us, Baas, but there is a donga between them and the hole in the cliff. See, one of them is beginning to climb down it."
I looked. Although I had not observed it before, because it curved away from us, on our left there was a donga, that is a gully or crack, formed no doubt when the hot lava contracted ages before, which crack the Abanda must cross to reach us.
"Push on!" I cried. "We may beat them yet."
Forward we went, the lame Arkle resting his hand upon my shoulder. Now at last we were near the face of the cliff and, not more than sixty or seventy yards ahead of us, could see the crevice into which Kaneke and his crowd had vanished. Could we reach it? As I wondered an Abanda appeared on this side of the donga. I halted, lifted my rifle, fired, and, so blown was I, missed him. Yes, I missed him clean, for I saw the bullet strike the spear–blade three feet above his head and shatter it to pieces. This seemed to frighten him, however, for he dropped back into the donga, and we pressed on.
When we had all but reached the cleft in the precipice that once had been the lip of the extinct volcano, whence I trusted, quite vainly as it proved, that Kaneke and his people would sally forth to help us, out of the donga appeared six or seven men who rushed between us and the cliff face in which we hoped to refuge.
There they stood preparing to attack us with their spears. We opened fire on them and this time did not miss. They went down, but as they fell more appeared, brave and terrible–looking fellows, furious at the death of their companions. We fired rapidly, forcing our way forward all the while, but I saw that the game was almost hopeless, for every moment more of these Abanda crawled up some narrow ladder or pathway from the bottom of the donga.
Then it was that I heard the Abyssinian hunter Tom call out:
"Run on, Macumazahn, with the lame master. Run on. I see how to stop them."
Without waiting to reflect how he proposed to do this, for at such moments one has little time to think; with Arkle leaning on my shoulder and Hans at my side, I charged forward to the mouth of the cleft. Certain of the Abanda were between us and it, but with this we managed to deal with the help of our revolvers before they could stab us. Thus we reached the cleft and plunged into it, for, to my relief, no more Abanda appeared. Once in the mouth of the place, which was very narrow, so narrow and twisted that a few men could have held it against a thousand, as Horatius and his two companions held the bridge in the old Roman days, I stopped, for I heard firing still going on outside.
"Who is shooting?" I asked, peering about me in the gloom of that hole, and as I spoke the echoes of the last shot died away and were followed by a savage yell of triumph.
"Little Holes and Jerry, I believe, Baas," answered Hans, wiping his brow with his sleeve, "though I do not think they will shoot any more. You see, Baas, for once in their lives they behaved very nicely. Yes, they ran to the edge of that donga and stuffed themselves into the mouths of the two paths by which these Abanda are climbing up it, firing away until they were speared, thus giving you and the Bull–Baas time to get into this hole, for of course they did not care what happened to me who was their friend. So I suppose that they are now dead, although perhaps they may have been taken alive."
"Great heavens!" I exclaimed. Then after a moment's reflection, in spite of the remonstrances of Hans (at the moment Arkle was ahead of us), I crept back to the mouth of the cleft and looked out, taking the risk of being speared.
He was right. Yonder on the lava plateau lay the bodies of Tom and Jerry, dragged there by the Abanda, one of whom was engaged in cutting off poor Jerry's head with a spear.
Filled with grief and fury, I put a bullet through that savage, which caused them all to scuttle back into their donga. Then, before they could recover from their surprise, followed by Hans I rushed out, seized Tom's rifle which one of them had been carrying and let fall in his fright, and bolted back with it into the mouth of the cleft. That of Jerry unfortunately we could not recover. I suppose it was carried away.
That was the end of those two brave but ill–fated hunters who, from the first day of our journey, had seemed to walk in the shadow of approaching doom. It was a very gallant end, for without doubt they had given their lives to save us, or rather to save me.
This indeed they had done, for by blocking the two exits of the steep–sided donga for a few minutes, they had enabled us to fight our way through into the cleft. Whether their courage was spontaneous, or whether it was induced by a sense of their previous failure when they had thrown away their guns, a trivial incident that seemed to prey upon their minds, and by the gibes of Hans, I do not know. At least in this moment of trial it asserted itself, with the result that they died and we lived. All honour to their memory! One of my hopes is that in some place and time unknown I may be able to thank them face to face.