Storyteller.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 8, 20 May 1893, Page 13

Storyteller.

AGAINST SHIELD and ASSEGAI

“ Pull—pull for your life,” cried Dalton. “ The Zulus are upon as! ” We gripped the oars firmly in an instant, and up that strange underground river the little craft shot, propelled by our united efforts. We were barely in time even then to escape our enemies, for the whirr of an assegai sounded sharply in my ears as it whizzed by, grazing my cheek as it did so.

“ Fling the torch into the river,” I hastily exclaimed to the friendly Zulu who sat in the prow of the boat. Down he sent it, and the torch fell with a hiss and a splutter into the current. For several minutes we tugged madly at the oars, blind darkness before us, while behind, on each rocky ledge lining the river, a fierce band of yelling Zulus pursued us. We heard the loud beating of assegais against shields as the enemy dashed onward, eager to destroy us, from whom all hope of safe retreat had vanished.

“We must go on ; pull quicker! ” cried Dalton again, and althougli each stroke we took thrust us more and more into the pitchy darkness, on sped the boat faster and faster still. What else was left for us to do ? Certainly we could think of no other plan, so completely had our enemies taken us by surprise. Only a few short hours before we had passed through the Kraal of Gaan, the Chief of that part of South Africa. He had accepted our presents, and supplied us with the frail boat in which at that particular minute we were struggling forward for our lives, pursued by his warriors.

Midway in the course of one of the feeders of the Tugela a strange cave was said to exist, so hiring a halfcivilized Zulu as guide, Dalton and I set out from Katal and crossed into ■ Zululand to explore it. We started up the river quite deceived by Gaan’s friendly manner, and as soon as the grey and jagged rocks met in a vault above our heads our guide stood up in the boat. In his right hand he carried a flaring torch as we passed along the subterranean riverway. Its red flicker fell strangely upon the walls of rock and the pathway of rugged boulders lining the sides of the stream, formed, so we conjectured, by the falling of mighty masses of rock from above, such as still hung threateningly over our heads.

Then came the Zulu surprise, and so with all our force we toiled with the oars. Suddenly our guide gave a warning cry —but it came too late. Crash ! The prow of our boat struck violently against a rocky wall. With our rifles slung across our shoulders we leapt from the sinking boat and began to climb upward, groping in the blind darkness for the smallest projections to which to cling. Surely a strange peril confronted us, but it was nothing to what followed. We had scrambled fully a dozen yards upward when a shower of assegais rattled against the rocks which we were climbing. Then the darkness behind us was dispelled, and casting hurried glances down we saw fully twenty of the pixrsuing Zulus holding flaming torches in their hands.

“ Only a few more yards and we shall be saved,” whispered Dalton in my ear as we climbed np side by side. I clenched my teeth resolutely as with scarred and bleeding hands I struggled up that awful way, the Zulus extinguishing their torches as they climbed up after us, with wild cries of wrath.

Dalton was lying by my side a minute afterwards upon a huge platform of rock which we determined to hold as long as we could. Behind us the side of this platform descended abruptly to a molten lava stream, which glowed intensely in its mid-channel, the glare of which lit up the roof of the far side of a vast cave rising 100 feet or more above it.

Our Zulu guide had already described this cave to us, but knowing the many exaggerations current among African races of ordinary natural spots, we had doubted his description of what he called a Mountain Fire river. Yet he he had spoken only the truth, for there, to our astonishment, it was in all its grandeur and impressiveness, while to save ourselves from being thrust down to a dreadful death in it we were forced to hold the platform of rock against such overwhelming odds. “ We are as good as dead men,” I muttered to Dalton in despair, and following .his example gripped my rifle, mady to club the first Zulu who reached us. Leaning over close by our guide, who poised his assegai in our defence, I saw the faint outline of the wattled ring adorning a Zulu’s head.

With a swinging stroke I brought down the butt of my rifle stock, and the warrior with a groan let go his hold and fell with a heavy splash into the rivei’ fifty feet below. Unfortunately for us the ledge which bordered the rocky platform was extremely long, so that with all our efforts we could not keep off our swarming foes. I had beaten down the shield which protected one of our enemies and was laying about me amain when my rifle was seized from behind, wrenched from my hands and fell upon the jagged floor of the platform. Quickly I turned round and grappled with my assailant just in time a huge-limbed fellow who had slung down his shield and assegai. "We closed at once and held on desperately to each other striving for the mastery, the perspiration teeming from every pore of my body as I tried repeatedly to throw my antagonist, but in vain. Backward and forward we -wrestled together upon that rocky platform, now dangerously near to the edge, beyond which was the river below, and the next moment almost over the side, where the glowing lava stream awaited one of us.

A Cornishman by birth, I was by no means a despicable adversary in such a grim conflict, but all my skill seemed to be at fault. My relentless foe held on mightily, twisting his legs about mine and twining his sinewy arms tighter and tighter about my frame until my breath came in halfchoked gasps. Only for a few seconds did that struggle last, but to me, as I fought for life, the moments seemed lengthened into hours. At last the swaying of our bodies to and fro grew less and less; back to the ledge, where below the red lava threatened a weird and dreadful death, the Zulu thrust me, resisting inch by inch, but terribly conscious of the nearness of an awful fate.

On the very brink of the place we fought like tigers for the mastery, and then it was that, nerving myself to one supreme effort, I forced my adversary a few inches away from the edge. Our faces almost met as we glared into each other’s eyes in that fell encounter, then with a sudden tug I twisted the Zulu round, shook myself free and thrust him from the ledge. Headlong he fell with a great cry as shudderingly I drew away from the edge, not daring to look down to witness the dreadful fate which was his, and might have been mine in that thrilling moment. During all that terrible struggle our Zulu guide had been fighting with a will against his treacherous race, while Dalton had succeeded in keeping the rest at bay. Upon us they came, however, and all that men could do, fighting against a wall of shields and beating down our foes’ assegais, we did; yet, as our guide disappeared down the side of the rock and cried ou to us to follow him, we gave up that quixotic struggle and climbed down towards where the molten river lay. The Zulu ran by the side of the stream of fire, then stopping, he beckened us to follow him. Scrambling and slipping we went nearer and nearer our intrepid guide. “He will be killed!” I cried to

Dalton as the fumes enveloped and almost stifled us.

“ Come on, follow him we must!” my companion answered, while our enemies, who had quickly pursued us, gave a loud cry and stopped for a minute awaiting ouxv death. Seeing us still pressing om uninjured they quickly followed us, until we stook face to face with the stream of lava where there was no safety for us unless we passed beyond it. Our Zulu guide pointed across the seething lurid mass to where the rocks ran in an arched passage, then he cried out to us, “ Jump !” With one prodigious spring he cleared the awful abyss of fire and ran toward the place to which he had pointed. We stood still and listened to the cries of the yelling foes behind. The heat w T as overpowering; my hair seemed singed and my body scorched as we hesitated to tiy that desperate way of escape. If we failed to reach the other side what a death would be ours !”

“ Oome on, jump ; the men are upon us !” cried Dalton, and with the courage of despair we leapt forward, making one tremendous spring completely oyer the scorching, seethingand molten mass beneath us.

We fell heavily on the other side, but rising quickly followed our guide, when suddenly we heard the Zulu’s war cry uttered. “ They will never try that hazardous leap!” I exclaimed to Dalton ; but glancing back I saw a great throng of the warriors gathered there, and one of them w r as running preparatory to the jump. “ They mean to destroy us at all risk to themselves,” he answered, amazed at their daring. At that moment our guide cried out to us to stand aside. Down, as he spoke, came a huge fragment of rock from the spot he had loosened, and with a crash it rolled into the middle of the lava

We flung ourselves back from the place as, like a tormented fire geyser, the glowing mass rose in a lurid column, then descended with a dreadful roar and hiss upon our relentless enemies.

We lay there, too appalled to move, for several minutes ; then, unpursued by those of the enemy who had escaped that weird fire column, we struggled on after our g-uide. For an hour we wandered in a gloomy labyrinth of scarred and twisted rocks till at last to our great joy the cool air from without fanned our scorched faces, and we passsed out into the light of day after an adventure such as few indeed have experienced or escaped from. —Selected.