Also, she saw beyond the shoulder of the kopje, which they were
rounding, hundreds of men marching, and behind them a herd of cattle,
the dim light gleaming upon the stabbing spears and on the horns of the
oxen. She glanced to the right, and there were more men. The two wings
of the impi were closing upon them. Only a little lane was left in the
middle. They must get through before it shut.
"Come," she gasped, striking the horse with her heel and the butt of her
gun, and jerking at its mouth.
Her father saw also, and did likewise, so that the beasts broke into a
gallop. Now from the point of each wing sprang out thin lines of men,
looking like great horns, or nippers, whose business it was to meet and
cut them off. Could they pass between them before they did meet? That
was the question, and upon its answer it depended whether or no they had
another three minutes to live. To think of mercy at the hands of these
bloodthirsty brutes, after they had just killed one of their number
before their eyes, was absurd. It was true he had been shot in
self-defence; but what count would savages take of that, or of the
fact that they were but harmless travellers? White people were not very
popular with the Matabele just then, as they knew well; also, their
murder in this remote place, with not another of their race within a
couple of hundred miles, would never even be reported, and much less
avenged.
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