Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Passing across the open space, we presently plunged into the jungle, traversing a bush-path just wide enough to allow of two men walking abreast. I had not much opportunity, however, for noting any of the incidents of our journey, for, owing to the clumsy way in which I was being carried, my wounds burst open afresh, and I soon fainted from loss of blood.
Twenty-five minutes' walking brought me to where the main road, a mere bush-path, strikes across a gully separating two crests of the Tákwá ridge. Then came a good stretch of level ground, composed of sand and gravel of stained quartz, clothed with the ordinary second-growth.
These people carry on the shoulder, not as Africans always should do, on the head: they even cross the fallen trunks which act as rickety bridges, with one side of the body thus heavier than the other. The bush-path began by wheeling westward, as though we were returning to Anenge-nenge; thence it struck south-eastwards, a rhumb from which it rarely deviated.
And, notwithstanding all their caution, they failed to effect their passage entirely unobserved through this dangerous district; it unfortunately happening that, just as they emerged from the bush, and were about to cross a high-road, which they had been watching for nearly half an hour, a vehicle appeared in sight, suddenly wheeling into the road close to them from a bush-path which they had failed to observe.
The messenger soon returned, a few questions were put to them and answered; a couple of sentries were posted with loaded muskets at the entrance to the bush-path leading to the fort; a man was detailed to keep watch upon the two prisoners; the watch-fire was bountifully replenished with brushwood; and then the camp sank gradually into a state of repose.
The air, which during the earlier hours of the night had been oppressively sultry, now came cool and refreshing to the fevered brows of the anxious watchers; the insects had subdued their irritating din, as is their wont toward the dawn; the watch-fire had smouldered down to a heap of grey, feathery, faintly-glowing ashes; the two sentinels at the entrance of the bush-path had ceased their alert pacing to and fro, and, having grounded their muskets, were now drooping wearily upon them with their hands crossed over the top of the barrels; whilst the Malay who had been detailed to watch the prisoners, having some half a dozen times during the earlier hours of the night tested their bonds and satisfied himself of their perfect security, was now seated on the ground before his charges, with his ringers interlocked across his knees and his head bowed forward, manifestly napping.
The road was the ordinary African bush-path, intensely winding and only foot-sole wide; the little army, with Kettle at its head, could only march in single file, and Clay, who brought up the straggling rear, sweated and panted quite half a mile behind his leader.
What he meant was that a rhinoceros had cut across the bush path not so very long ago, as the freshly trampled grass showed. "All right," replied Wilmshurst. "Warn the men to be on the alert. We don't want casualties." Bela Moshi hurried to the head of the column, for the Haussas were in single file, owing to the narrowness of the bush-path.
"Then, on again!" exclaimed the engineer, snatching up his frightened child and regaining Henderson's side. As they ran, Henderson placed a whistle between his lips and blew a single short piercing call upon it. "That will soon bring the other two to our help," he gasped. They were by this time within a hundred feet of the bush-path; but the light-heeled Malays were close behind them.
Some attempts had been made to blast a rock in the skirt of Jama's garment; but all had notably failed. The reeking, unwholesome bottom showed extensive traces of digging and washing. Following the water, we came to the second little mining-village, also deserted. From this place an old bush-path once led directly to the lands we call 'Izrah, but it has long been closed by native squabbles.
Word Of The Day