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"I ate as much as I could, and then lay down on my face under the wagon till the boy came to wake me to inspan, and then we drove on again all night; so it went, so it went. I think sometimes when I walked by my oxen I called to them in my sleep, for I know I thought of nothing; I was like an animal. My body was strong and well to work, but my brain was dead.
Then orders were given to "inspan" all our carts and other conveyances as the commandos would all have to retire. I do not know the extent of the British losses in that engagement. My friend Conan Doyle wisely says nothing about them, but we knew they had suffered very severely indeed.
I asked him as well as I could, for at that time my knowledge of his tongue was very imperfect, what she wished to say. At this tidings my heart seemed to stand still, so that for more than a minute I could not speak. There were the wagons at last, but oh! who and what should I find in them? I called Hans and bade him inspan as quickly as possible, explaining to him that yonder was Marais's camp.
Then she poured brandy into his mouth, but, although the spirit brought a little colour into his pale face, it did not awaken him, for his swoon was deep. "Lay him on the cartel in the waggon," she said, and, lifting him, they placed him upon the rimpi bed. Then she ordered them to inspan the waggon, and this was done quickly, for the oxen lay tied to the trek-tow.
There was no time to inspan the oxen, and even if there had been, stiff and weary as the beasts were, we should be overtaken before we had gone a hundred yards on that bad road. What then was to be done? Run for it? It was impossible, Anscombe could not run. My eye fell upon the horse munching the last of his mealies.
"Sometimes if the mind is old, Macumazahn, which is why I love the Spirits only who are more ancient than the mountains, and with them Zikali their servant, who was young before the Zulus were a people, or so he says, and still year by year gathers wisdom as the bee gathers honey. Inspan your horses, Macumazahn, for I have done my business and am ready to start."
But the men who served the Krupp were naturally unable to do this; and, seeing that the gun must be moved, I gave this order: "Inspan the gun, gallop it three thousand paces back; then blaze away again as fiercely as you can!" Under a hail of bullets the horses were attached to the gun.
"Our oxen will benefit by having another day's rest and good feeding, which neither yours nor mine are likely to obtain for some time to come; for when once I inspan, I shall let nothing stop me until I get to the end of my journey, and you, of course, will have to traverse the barren country I lately passed over." The young chief, however, showed great impatience at the delay.
I suppose that they had orders to kill or capture us at any cost, for instead of giving up the chase, as I hoped they would, they stuck to us in surprising fashion. We splashed through the river, and luckily on the further bank were met by Footsack who had seen us coming and guessed that something was wrong. "Inspan!" I shouted to him, "and be quick about it if you want to see tomorrow's light.
I told him I was going on to Constantinople and would take Peter with me, and he was agreeable. He would have to wait at Rustchuk to get his return cargo, and could easily inspan a fresh engineer. I worked about the hardest twenty-four hours of my life getting the stuff ashore.