Colonel Thorndyke's Secret by G. A. Henty (acx book reading TXT) 📖

in the bush. My mouth has been like an oven all day, and it is no use getting away from jail to die of thirst out here.”

There had been similar remarks during the day, and the two leaders agreed together that it would be madness to push further, and that, whatever the risk, they would have to return to the settlements unless they could strike water. As they were sitting moodily round the fire they were startled by a dozen natives coming forward into the circle of light. These held out their hands to say that their intentions were peaceful.

“Don't touch your muskets!” Captain Wild exclaimed sharply, as some of the men were on the point of jumping to their feet. “The men are friendly, and we may be able to get them to guide us to water.”

The natives, as they came up, grinned and rubbed their stomachs, to show that they were hungry.

“I understand,” the Captain said; “you want a sheep, we want water;” and he held up his hand to his mouth and lifted his elbow as if in the act of drinking.

In two or three minutes the natives understood what he wanted, and beckoned to the men to follow. The tired sheep were got onto their legs again, and half a mile away the party arrived at a pool in what in wet weather was the bed of a river. A sheep was at once handed over to the natives, and when the men had satisfied their thirst another sheep was killed for their own use.

After a great deal of trouble the natives were made to understand that the white men wanted one of their party to go with them as a guide, and to take them always to water holes, and a boy of fifteen was handed over to them in exchange for two more sheep, and at daybreak the next morning they started again for the interior, feeling much exhilarated by the piece of luck that had befallen them. They traveled for four days more, and then, considering that the soldiers had ceased their pursuit long ago, they encamped for ten days, enjoying to the utmost their recovered freedom and their immunity from work of any kind. Then they returned to the neighborhood of the settlements, and broke up, as their leader proposed, into pairs.

They had been there but a short time before the depredations committed roused the settlers to band themselves together. Every horse that could be spared was lent to the military, who formed a mounted patrol of forty men, while parties of infantry, guided by native trackers, were constantly on the scent for the convicts.

“This is just what I expected,” Captain Wild said to his lieutenant. “It was the choice of two evils, and I am not sure that the plan we chose was not the worst. We might have been quite sure that these fellows would not be able, even for a time, to give up their old ways. If they had confined themselves, as we have done, to taking a sheep when they wanted it, and behaving civilly when they went to one of the houses and begged for a few pounds of flour or tea, the settlers would have made no great complaint of us; they know what a hard time we have had, and you can see that some of the women were really sorry for us, and gave us more than we actually asked for. But it has not been so with the others. They had been breaking into houses, stealing every thing they could lay their hands upon, and in three or four cases shooting down men on the slightest provocation.

“The money and watches were no good to them, but the brutes could not help stealing them; so here we are, and the settlement is like a swarm of angry bees, and this plan of handing over most of their horses to the military will end in all of us being hunted down if we stay here. Two were shot yesterday, and in another week we shall all either be killed or caught. There is nothing for it but to clear out. I am against violence, not on principle, but because in this case it sets people's backs up; but it cannot be helped now. We must get a couple of horses to ride, and a spare one to carry our swag. We must have half a sack of flour and a sheep—it is no use taking more than one, because the meat won't keep—and a good stock of tea and sugar. We must get a good supply of powder, if we can, some bullets and shot. We shall have to get our meat by shooting.

“There is no time to be lost, and tonight we had better go to that settler's place nearest the town. He has got two of the best horses out here—at least so Redgrave, that shepherd I was talking to today, told me—and a well filled store of provisions. If he will let us have them without rumpus, all well and good; if not, it will be the worse for him. My idea is that we should ride two or three hundred miles along the coast until we get to a river, follow it up till we find a tidy place for a camp, and stop there for three or four months, then come back again and keep ourselves quiet until we find out that a ship is going to sail; then we will do a night among the farmhouses, and clean them out of their watches and money, manage to get on board, and hide till we are well out to sea. We must get a fresh fit out before we go on board; these clothes are neither handsome nor becoming. We must put on our best manners, and tell them that we are men who have served our full time, and want to get back, and that we were obliged to hide because we had not enough to pay our full passage money, but that we have enough to pay the cost of our grub, and are ready to pull at a rope and make ourselves useful in any way. If we are lucky we ought to get enough before we start to buy horses and set ourselves up well in business at home.”

“I think that is a very good plan,” the other agreed, “and I am quite sure the sooner we make ourselves scarce here the better.”