Prester John [77]
At first I thought it was Laputa and screamed. Then I must have tottered in the saddle, for I felt an arm slip round my middle. The rider uncorked a bottle with his teeth and forced some brandy down my throat. I choked and coughed, and then looked up to see a white policeman staring at me. I knew the police by the green shoulder-straps.
'Arcoll,' I managed to croak. 'For God's sake take me to Arcoll.'
The man whistled shrilly on his fingers, and a second rider came cantering down the road. As he came up I recognized his face, but could not put a name to it. 'Losh, it's the lad Crawfurd,' I heard a voice say. 'Crawfurd, man, d'ye no mind me at Lourenco Marques? Aitken?'
The Scotch tongue worked a spell with me. It cleared my wits and opened the gates of my past life. At last I knew I was among my own folk.
'I must see Arcoll. I have news for him - tremendous news. O man, take me to Arcoll and ask me no questions. Where is he? Where is he?'
'As it happens, he's about two hundred yards off,' Aitken said. 'That light ye see at the top of the brae is his camp.'
They helped me up the road, a man on each side of me, for I could never have kept in the saddle without their support. My message to Arcoll kept humming in my head as I tried to put it into words, for I had a horrid fear that my wits would fail me and I should be dumb when the time came. Also I was in a fever of haste. Every minute I wasted increased Laputa's chance of getting back to the kraal. He had men with him every bit as skilful as Arcoll's trackers. Unless Arcoll had a big force and the best horses there was no hope. Often in looking back at this hour I have marvelled at the strangeness of my behaviour. Here was I just set free from the certainty of a hideous death, and yet I had lost all joy in my security. I was more fevered at the thought of Laputa's escape than I had been at the prospect of David Crawfurd's end.
The next thing I knew I was being lifted off the Schimmel by what seemed to me a thousand hands. Then came a glow of light, a great moon, in the centre of which I stood blinking. I was forced to sit down on a bed, while I was given a cup of hot tea, far more reviving than any spirits. I became conscious that some one was holding my hands, and speaking very slowly and gently.
'Davie,' the voice said, 'you're back among friends, my lad. Tell me, where have you been?'
'I want Arcoll,' I moaned. 'Where is Ratitswan?' There were tears of weakness running down my cheeks.
'Arcoll is here,' said the voice; 'he is holding your hands, Davie. Quiet, lad, quiet. Your troubles are all over now.'
I made a great effort, found the eyes to which the voice belonged, and spoke to them.
'Listen. I stole the collar of Prester John at Dupree's Drift. I was caught in the Berg and taken to the kraal - I forget its name - but I had hid the rubies.'
'Yes,' the voice said, 'you hid the rubies, - and then?'
'Inkulu wanted them back, so I made a deal with him. I took him to Machudi's and gave him the collar, and then he fired at me and I climbed and climbed ... I climbed on a horse,' I concluded childishly.
I heard the voice say 'Yes?' again inquiringly, but my mind ran off at a tangent.
'Beyers took guns up into the Wolkberg,' I cried shrilly. 'Why the devil don't you do the same? You have the whole Kaffir army in a trap.'
I saw a smiling face before me.
'Good lad. Colles told me you weren't wanting in intelligence. What if we have done that very thing, Davie?'
But I was not listening. I was trying to remember the thing I most wanted to say, and that was not about Beyers and his guns. Those were nightmare minutes. A speaker who has lost the thread of his discourse, a soldier who with a bayonet at his throat has forgotten the password - I felt like them, and worse. And to crown all I felt my faintness coming back, and my head dropping with heaviness. I was in a torment of impotence.
Arcoll, still holding my hands, brought his face close to mine, so that his clear eyes mastered and