White Man's Bullets Were To Turn To Water In The Air

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 10, 27 January 1937, Page 12

White Man's Bullets Were To Turn To Water In The Air

How Two Lone Scouts Stopped A Rebellion

k NCE I sat in a big livingI room listening to a small, I grey-haired man tell of one I night that he lay in a hill1 side cave, listening and . watching, while thousands 3 upon thousands of armed

natives danced and drummed and screamed hideous sounds, while they invoked the aid of the spirits in wiping out every white settler'in South Africa (writes J. Coggswell in the San Francisco Chronicle). It was Major Frederick R. Burnham, in . his youth a scout who could outwit even the crafty Apaches of the American southwest. He, an American, rose to be the highest scout for the British Army and, finally, had the medal of the Distinguished Service Order pinned on his tunic by Queen Victoria herself. Matabele Rising. The Matabele were up, sworn to kill every white man, woman and child in South Africa. • From all sides they had gathered, led by their greatest medicine man, M'Limo, who promised them that he, by his magic, would make the white man's bullets turn to water as they sped through the air. The Colonials knew where the greatest gatherings of the native warriors were — warriors that outnumbered the white soldiers twenty or thirty to one, some of them well armed, all of them fanatical in their zeal to wipe out the whites to the last man. But where was the M'Limo? The British forces knew that if they could capture or kill the medicine man, the uprising would die before it was well started. One night there was a knock on the door of the little brick house known as the "Rat's Nest," where the chief scout was living with his wife. • • • * ^HERE entered one Armstrong, native commissioner at Mangwe, in a pass through the Matoppo Mountains. Armstrong said that a certain Zulu, who had a Matabele wife, had betrayed to him the location of the M'Limo's cave in the Matoppos. As Armstrong described the location, it was one that no large force could approach without being detected miles away. Such an attempt would find the M'Limo and his best forces far away 0 by the time the soldiers arrived. Armstrong proposed that he and Burnham should go by themselves to find the cave, kill the M'Limo, and put an end to the source of all the whites' trouble with the;, natives. After conference with the commanders of the British forces, their permission to carry out the dangerous enterprise was given. There was no need'

of urging the American scout; before his eyes there was always the picture of his beloved little daughter, dying in her motlier's arms, the victim of a treacherous Matabele. Burnham bade good-bye to his wife, the chances a million to one that it would be their last embrace. Then, with Armstrong, he rode away into the night. Never for an instant, after entering the mountains, were the pair out of danger. Every wile that the American had learned in years of scouting had to be brought in play to keep their presence a secret. Nearing the mountain where the M'Limo had his cave, they were forced to hide their horses and go on afoot, keeping back from the trails, forcing their way through the bush. Half-way up the mountain, in a mass of detached boulders, among some scrub, they at last found the entrance to the cave. From it a zig-zag path descended to the base of the mountain where there was a level ceremonial dancing floor of hard-beaten clay large enough to accommodate thousands of natives at the same time. Guarded Entrance. ALL around the entrance to the cave armed guards were stationed. To gain an entrance to the cave and kill the M'Limo seemed a hopeless proposition, but, nevertheless, the two whites decided to try it. First, though, their horses would have to be brought nearer;,they'd have no chance to get away without them. It took them ■ all night to get their steeds to within half a mile of the cave entrance. There they lay all through a hot, parching day, without food or water. But what they saw gave them courage to endure the torture. The actions of the natives encamped at the foot of the mountain showed them that undoubtedly preparatiops were being made for a great ceremonial dance that night. Maybe the M'Limo would go down and grace the function in person. Indeed, and he did, The big medicine man had declared that more medicine must be made; that a new regiment must be doctored and made immune to bullets. An ox was to be skinned alive and the meat eaten raw and a great ceremonial dance must take place on the wide clay floor. At last, night fell. Lying in their covert, the two white men heard the drums begin to roar, saw the' native warriors start stamping, assume animal-like postures, swing into the measures of the dance. As the tempo of the drums accelerated, the fanaticism of the dancers rose with it. Their -hideous yells mingled with the throb of the tom-toms.

Then suddenly there issued from the cave on the mountainside a great voice. None but the M'Limo knew that a call from within the cave was magriified a thousand times by some peculiar conformation of the walls. The natives thought that this great voice was that of their god. At its sound, the drummmg, the rattling, the shrieking, stopped dead. The assembled natives flung themselves on their faces. From the mouth of the cave there stepped a tall, strong man; it must be the M'Limo himself, for none but he was allowed to enter the sacred portals of this temple of their god. That would have been a great chance to shoot the medicine man and still make a safe getaway. But the distance was too great to risk chance of a miss; better to risk capture and a horrible death than to leave the M'Limo a chance to live. ' So the men waited. « • * * J^ED by the medicine man, all the guards marched down to the ceremonial floor. This was the scouts' chance. Stooping low, they ran for the entrance of the cave, made it without being seen, slipped inside, and lay waiting. It was hours before the danqe was finished and the regiment made immune to the bullets from the white men's guns. Too bad for him that M'Limo did not work a little of his magic upon his own purpose, for his fate lay waiting for him inside the cavq. At last the throbbing of the drums died away. Footsteps sounded outside. The two white men cocked their rifles and waited. Into the glare of the fire that had been left buring at the cave's entrance stepped a tall man, perhaps sixty years old, with short-cropped hair. His face was forceful, hard, cruel. "He's Yours." ■ "J whispered, 'Armstrong, he's yours if you want him; as he enters the cave kill him.' "No, you get him,' he replied. 'I might miss.' "So, as the M'Limo came in I made a slight sound and gave him his last chance to turn a white man's bullet to water. I put the bullet just under his heart," The dread of the cave that the M'Limo had instilled into the hearts of his followers proved the white men's salvation. At the boom that issued from the opening, the guards threw down their arms and ran, fearful that the gods inside had gone on a rampage. In the confusion, Burnham and Armstrong made it to their horses and ' got away without a scratch.