THE SCHIMMEL’S LAST RACE

Ralph cleared the mountain slope, but before he had covered a mile of way the darkness began to fall, till presently the night was black.  Now he must ride slowly, steering his path by the stars, and searching the dim outline of the mountains with his eyes.

But search as he would Ralph could not see the saw-edged rock.  He reached the range indeed, and for hour after hour roamed up and down it, his heart torn with helpless haste and fears, but it was of no use, so at last he dismounted, and holding the schimmel by the bridle allowed him to eat a little grass while he waited for the moon to rise.  Oh! never was the moon so long in coming, but at length it came, and with it clear, soft light.  He looked, and there, not half a mile away, just showing in the shadows, was the saw-edged rock he sought.

“There is little time to lose,” Ralph muttered to himself as the stallion swept across the plain towards the rock.  “In three hours it will be dawn, and these mountains are sheer and wide.”

Now he was in the pass and galloping up its rocky steeps as fast as the horse dare travel and not fall.  Up he went through the moonlit silence that was broken only by the distant roaring of lions; up for one hour and for two.  Now he was at the crest of the mountains, and beneath him, miles away, lay the dim veldt, and there ­yes, there in the far distance ­the moonbeams sparkled upon a white-topped koppie and the waters of a river that washed its base.  Miles and miles away, and but one hour left to cover them.  One short hour, and if it was not enough then death by the Zulu assegai would be the portion of Suzanne and of those among whom she sheltered.  For a moment Ralph breathed the horse, then he shook the reins, and with a snort of pride the schimmel started upon his last gallop.

Ah! what a ride was that.  Had ever man the like of it?  Rushing down an untrodden mountain way swifter than others dare travel on a plain, bounding from rock to rock like a buck, dashing through streams, and leaping dim gullies at a stride.  On, on went the schimmel, with never a slip and never a stumble.  On, swifter than a sassaby and surer-footed than a fox; now the worst of the road was passed, and a long, smooth slope, almost free from stones, led them to the grassy plain beneath.  The schimmel swept down it at a fearful pace and reached the level land in safety, but the strain of that mad gallop told its tale upon him, for he was drenched with sweat, his eye was red with blood, and the breath whistled in his throat.

Ralph raised himself in his stirrups and scanned the sky, which began to brighten with the coming dawn.

“There is time,” he muttered, “for the koppie is near, and the Zulus will not attack till they can see the white moons upon their finger nails.”

Now he was speeding up a long rise, for here the land lies in waves like a frozen sea.  He topped it, and in an instant ­almost before he saw them ­he had swept through a Zulu impi marching stealthily in a triple line with companies thrown forward to the right and left.  They shouted in astonishment, but before they could harm him or the horse he was out of reach of their spears and galloping forward with a glad heart, for now he thought the danger done with.

Down the slope he thundered, and the sound of his horse’s hoofs came to the ears of Suzanne, who, frozen with terror, crouched in the grass near the spring at the foot of it.  Turning her eyes from the ridge where she had seen the Zulus, she looked behind her.  At first she could see nothing except a great horse with a man upon its back, but as she stared, presently she recognised the horse ­it was the schimmel, and none other.

And the man.  Whose shape was that?  No, this one had a golden beard.  Ah!  He lifted his head, from which the hat had fallen, and ­did she dream?  Nay, by Heaven, it was her husband, grown older and bearded, but still her husband.  In the piercing agony of that happiness she sank back half-fainting, nor was it till he was almost upon her that she could gain her feet.  He saw her, and in the dim light, mistaking her for a Zulu soldier who way-laid him, lifted the gun in his hand to fire.  Already he was pressing the trigger when ­when she found her voice and cried out: 

“Ralph, Ralph, I am Suzanne, your wife.”

As the words left her lips it seemed to her as though some giant had thrown the big horse back upon its haunches, for he slipped past her, his flanks almost touching the ground, which he ploughed with outstretched hoofs.  Then he stopped dead.

“Have I found you at last, wife?” cried Ralph, in a voice of joy so strange that it sounded scarcely human.  “Mount swiftly, for the Zulus are behind.”

Thus, then, these two met again, not on the Mountain of the Man’s Hand indeed, as the vision had foretold, but very near to it.

“Nay,” Suzanne answered, as she sprang on to the saddle before him, “they are in front, for I saw them.”

Ralph looked.  Yes, there they were in front and to the side and behind.  All round them the Zulu impi gathered and thickened, crying, “Bulala umlungu” (Kill the white man) as they closed in upon them at a run.

“Oh!  Ralph, what can we do?” murmured Suzanne.

“Charge them and trust to God,” he answered.

“So be it, husband,” and, turning herself upon the pommel of the saddle, she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him on the lips, whispering, “At least we have met again, and if we die it shall be together.”

“Hold fast,” said Ralph, and calling aloud to the horse he set his teeth and charged.

By now the Zulus in front were running down the opposing slope in clusters not much more than a hundred yards away; indeed, the space between them was so narrow that the schimmel, galloping up hill under his double load, could scarcely gather speed before they were among them.  When they were within ten yards Ralph held out the gun in one hand and fired it, killing a man.  Then he cast it away as useless, and placing his right arm about the waist of Suzanne, he bent his body over her to protect her if he might, urging on the horse with feet and voice.

Now they were in them and ploughing through their ever-thickening ranks, throwing their black bodies to this side and to that as a ship throws the water from its bows.  Here, there, everywhere spears flashed and stabbed, but as yet they were unhurt, for the very press saved them, although an assegai was quivering in the flank of the schimmel.  Ah! a pang as of the touch of red-hot iron and a spear had pierced Ralph’s left shoulder, remaining fast in the wound.  Still lower he bent his body till his head was almost hidden in the flowing mane of the schimmel, but now black clutching hands caught feet and bridle rein, and slowly the great horse lost way and stopped.  A tall Zulu stabbed it in the chest, and Ralph gasped, “It is over!”

But it was not over, for, feeling the pain of this new wound, of a sudden the stallion went mad.  He shrieked aloud as only a horse can shriek, and laying back his ears till his face was like the face of a wolf, he reared up on his hind legs and struck out with his hoofs, crushing the skulls and bodies of his tormentors.  Down he came again, and with another scream rushed open-mouthed at the man who had stabbed him; his long white teeth gripped him across the body where the ribs end, and then the awful sight was seen of a horse holding in his mouth a man who yelled in agony, and plunging forward with great bounds while he shook him to and fro, as a dog will shake a rat.

The reader may think this incident scarcely credible, but for an authenticated instance of such behaviour on the part of a horse he may be referred to the “Memoirs of General Marbot.”

Yes, he shook and shook till the flesh gave, and the man fell dying on the veldt.  Again the furious beast opened his jaws from which gore dripped and rushed upon another, but this one did not wait for him ­none waited.  To the Zulus in those days a horse was a terrible wild beast, and this was a beast indeed, that brave as they were they dared not face.

“It is a devil! and wizards ride it!” they cried, as they opened a path before its rush.

They were through, and behind them like the voice of hounds that hunt swelled the cry of the war-dogs of Dingaan.  They were through and living yet, though one broad bangwan was fast in Ralph’s shoulder, and another stood in the schimmel’s chest.

Not two miles away rose the koppie.  “The horse will die,” thought Ralph as he drew Suzanne closer to him, and gripped the saddle with his knees.  Indeed, he was dying; yet never since he was a colt did the schimmel cover two miles of plain so fast as those that lay between the impi and the camp.  Slowly and surely the spear worked its way into his vitals, but stretching out his head, and heedless of his burden, he rushed on with the speed of a racer.

The Boers in the laager were awake at last, the sound of the gun and the war-cry of the Zulus had reached them faintly.  Half-clad, men and women together, they stood upon their waggon-boxes looking towards the west.  Behind them the pencils of daylight were creeping across the sky, and presently in their low rays they saw such a sight as they would never see again.  Fast, fast towards them thundered a great roan horse, blood dripping from his chest, and jaws, and flank, and on its back a yellow-bearded man, in whose shoulder stood a spear, and who held in front of him a fainting woman.

“Soon he will fall suddenly, and we shall be crushed,” thought Ralph, and had the horse died while travelling at that speed it must have been so.  But he did not.  When within fifty yards of the laager suddenly he began to lurch and roll in his stride; then with three bounds he stopped, and standing still, looked round with piteous blood-shot eyes, and whinnied faintly as though he heard some voice that he knew and loved.

Ralph slipped from his back, dragging Suzanne after him, and watched.

For a moment the schimmel stood, his head touching the ground, till presently a bloody foam came upon his mouth, and blood poured from his eyes and ears.  Now for the last time he arched his neck and shook his mane, then roaring straight up on his hind legs as he had done when he beat down the Zulus, he pawed the air with his fore feet and fell over upon his back to move no more.

Suzanne had fainted, and Ralph carried her to the camp.  There they drew out the spear from his shoulder and tended them both, though beyond gasping the words “Prepare, for the Zulus are upon you,” it was long before either of them could speak.

Yes, yes, they beat off the impi with the loss of only one man, but Ralph took no part in that fight.  Indeed, when we joined them four days later, for after burying Sihamba Jan and I trekked round through the waggon pass, by the mercy of Heaven escaping the Zulus, they still lay prostrate on a cartel, clasping each other’s hands and smiling, but speaking little.  The Boers, being warned and awake, beat off the Zulus with great loss to Dingaan, for they had the waggons in front, the koppie behind, and the river to one side.

But there were many on that dreadful night whom no schimmel galloped to warn.  Ah!  God, six hundred of them, men and women, maids and children, and little babies at the breast, went down beneath the Zulu assegai in that red dawn.  Six hundred of them slaughtered!

Is not the name of the land Weenen ­“The Land of Weeping” ­to this day?

We avenged them at the battle of the Blood River indeed; but could vengeance give us back their lives which it had pleased the Lord to take thus fearfully?

So, so, that is the end of my story of the forgotten bygone years.  As I, old Suzanne Botmar, tell it the shadow of that white-topped koppie falls upon this house and beneath my feet is the very spot where the brave schimmel died.  Ralph and Jan would not leave it ­no, not even when the British hoisted their flag in Natal, making us English again after all that we had undergone to escape their usurping rule.  We suffered much at that event, Jan and I, but though he said nothing, for indeed he did not dare to in my presence, I believe that Ralph did not suffer at all.  Well, he was of English blood and it was natural that he should like his own flag best, though to this day I am very angry with my daughter Suzanne, who, for some reason or other, would never say a hard word of the accursed British Government ­or listen to one if she could help it.

Yet, to be just, that same Government has ruled us well and fairly, though I never could agree with their manner of dealing with the natives, and our family has grown rich under its shadow.  Yes, we were rich from the beginning, for Ralph and some Boers fetched back the cattle of Suzanne and Sihamba which Swart Piet’s thieves had stolen, and they were a very great herd.

For many long and happy years after all these events that I have told of did Ralph and Suzanne live together, till at last God took my child Suzanne as she began to grow old.  From that day life had no joys for Ralph, or indeed for any of us, and he fought with the English against Cetywayo at Isandlhwana, and fell there bravely, he and his son together, for his son’s wife, an English-woman of good blood was dead also in childbirth.

Then all the world grew dark for Jan and me, but now in my extreme age once more it lightens like the dawn.

O God, who am I that I should complain?  Nay, nay, to Thee, Almighty God, be praise and thanks and glory.  Quite soon I must fall asleep, and how rich and plentiful is that store which awaits me beyond my sleep; that store of friends and kindred who have passed me in the race and won the immortal crown of peace, which even now their dear hands prepare for me.  Therefore to Thee, Maker of the world, be praise and thanks and glory.  Yes, let all things praise Thee as do my aged lips.