The earlier uneasiness was gone now, and they leaned forward in their saddles, eager as hunting dogs on the leash with a hot scent in their nostrils. Jameson had promised them a bonus of twenty guineas each and all the loot that they could carry away from the valley of the Umlimo.
Zouga began to recognize landmarks that he passed.
There was a pile of rocks, the largest of them the size of Sint Paul's dome, and three others, graded down in size, all of them weathered to almost perfect spheres and balanced one upon the other, and he knew they would reach the entrance to the valley before noon. He halted the patrol and let them snatch a quick meal standing at their horses" heads as he went down the line checking their equipment and assigning each of them a separate task.
"Sergeant, you and trooper Thorn are to stay close behind me. We will be the first through the pass and into the valley. There is a small village in the centre of it, and there may be Matabele amongst the huts. Don't stop for them, even if there are warriors with them, leave them for the others. Ride straight on to the cave at the end of the valley; we must find the witch before she can escape."
"This witch, what does she look like, skipper?"
"I am not sure, she may be quite young, probably naked."
"You leave "er to me, mate." Jim Thorn grinned lasciviously and nudged Will, but Zouga ignored him.
"Any woman you find in the cave will be the witch.
Now don't be put off by the sound of wild animals, or strange voices, she is a skilled ventriloquist." He went on, giving precise details, and ended grimly: "Our orders are harsh, but they may eventually save the lives of many of our comrades by breaking the morale of the Matabele fighting impis., They mounted again, and almost immediately the road began to narrow so that the branches brushed their stirrups as they passed, and Zouga's horse stumbled in a narrow stream, clumsy with the leathers over its hooves.
Then he was through and he looked up the sheer granite cliff that blocked their way. The entrance to the passage through the rock was a dark vertical cleft and high above it a thatched watch-hut was perched in a niche of the granite. [ As he stared up at it, Zouga saw an indistinct movement on the ledge.
"Look out above!" Even as he yelled, a dozen black men appeared on the lip of the cliff, and each of them hurled a bundle of what looked like staves out over the edge.
They scattered as they fell, and the steel sparkled as the weighted heads dropped, points first, towards them.
There was a fluting sound in the air all around them, soft as swallows" wings, then the rattle of steel against rock and the thud of the points into the earth beneath the hooves of the horses.
One of the steel-headed javelins caught a trooper in the side of his neck, driving down behind the collar bone, deep into one lung so that when he tried to scream the blood gagged him and bubbled out over his chin. His horse reared and whinnied wildly, and he fell backwards out of the saddle; and then all was milling, shouting confusion on the narrow track.
Through it Zouga craned to watch the ledge, and saw the defenders lining the lip again, each with another bundle of javelins on his shoulder. Zouga dropped his reins and used both hands to aim his rifle vertically upwards.
He emptied the magazine, firing as rapidly as he could pump cartridges into the breech, and though his aim was spoiled by the dancing horse under him, one of the men on the ledge arched over backwards with his arms windmilling wildly and then fell free, writhing and twisting and shrieking in the air until he hit the rock in front of zouga's horse, and his screams and struggles ceased abruptly.
The rest of the men on the ledge scattered away, and Zouga waved the empty rifle over his head.
"Forward! he yelled. "Follow me!" And he plunged into the forbidding crevice that split the cliff vertically from base to crest.
The passage was so narrow that his stirrup irons struck sparks from the rock walls on each side of him, but he looked back and saw Will Daniel pounding along behind.
He had lost his slouch hat. His bald head was washed with sweat, and he was grinning like a hungry hyena as he reloaded his rifle from the bandolier across his chest.
The passage turned sharply, and the white sand that floored it splashed up under the hooves, and the mica chips sparkled even in the gloom. Ahead of Zouga a tiny freshet of clear water fountained from the rock, and his horse gathered its front feet under its chest and jumped the stream easily; then suddenly they burst out from the narrow passage, back into the sunlight again.
The hidden valley of the Umlimo lay in a green basin below them, the little village of huts at its centre; and in the base of the cliff beyond it, a mile or so away, Zouga could make out the low entrance of the cavern, dark as the eye cavity in a bleached skull. It was all exactly as he remembered it.
"Troop, into line wheel!" he shouted as his horsemen galloped out into the open behind him; and they swung into extended formation, facing the valley, the rifles unsheathed and cocked, impatient and fierce as they saw before them the prize they had come so far to find.
"Amadoda!" shouted Will Daniel, pointing at the band of warriors that were trotting out of the village to face the line of horsemen.
"Twenty of them," Zouga counted swiftly. "They'll give us no trouble." And then he stood in his stirrups. "Walk march, forward!"
The horsemen moved down the slope, keeping their line, while the warriors lifted their shields high and raced to meet them.
"Troop, halt." Zouga ordered when the nearest Matabele was a hundred paces ahead. "Pick your targets."
The first volley, carefully aimed by hard and experienced soldiers, scythed the line of charging warriors like the reaper's steel; and they went down, falling over their shields, plumes tumbling from their heads, assegais pinning harmlessly into the earth, and yet a handful of them came on without checking.
"Fire at will!" Zouga called, and looked over the sights of his rifle at a bounding Matabele, watching him grow in size with every pace, seized by a strange reluctance to kill a brave man such as this one.
Jee! the Matabele yelled defiantly, and raised his shield to clear his spear arm. Zouga shot him in the notch of bone at the base of his throat and the Matabele spun sharrly round, hit the ground with one shoulder and rolled against the legs of Zouga's horse.
Half a dozen of the Matabele had broken in the face of those deadly volleys, and were running back towards the village. The others were strewn about in front of the line of horsemen.
"After them." Zouga hardly raised his voice above a conversational tone. "Forward! Charge!"
"Sergeant Daniel. Trooper Thorn, to the cave." He swung his horse's head to gallop clear of the cluster of huts, and there was the body of one of the fallen Matabele directly in his path. He altered course again to miss it, and both Thorn and Daniel pulled a length ahead of him.
Then the Matabele rolled lithely to his feet, and dodged in front of Zouga. Playing dead was an old Zulu trick, and Zouga should have been ready for it. But his rifle was in his left hand, and he tried to get it across, at the same time trying to turn his horse and shouting an impotent challenge at the warrior.
The Matabele extended his spear arm stiffly and let the running horse impale itself upon the broad silver blade. It went deeply into the heaving chest between the front legs, and the horse reeled from the blow and then went over on its side.
Zouga barely had time to kick his feet out of the irons and jump clear before the carcass hit the earth with all four legs kicking briefly at the sky.
Zouga landed badly, but gathered himself and whirled to face the warrior. He was only just in time to deflect the blood-smeared assegai as the Matabele struck at his belly. The steel rang against the barrel of his rifle and then they were straining chest to chest.
The man smelled of woodsmoke and ochre and fat, and his body was hard as carved ebony and slippery as a freshly caught catfish. Zouga knew he could not hold him for more than a few seconds, and with one hand on the muzzle and the other on the breech Zouga rammed the barrel of the rifle up under the man's chin into his bulging corded throat, and hooked desperately with the wel of his spur for the ankle.