The Empire Makers: A Romance of Adventure and War in South Africa — David Hume — John Shaqi
The Empire Makers: A Romance of Adventure and War in South Africa
David Hume · en
The Kaffirs leaned on their weapons, and looked round them with
glittering eyes. Here, indeed, seemed a country worth trekking to.
"By George! I do verily believe we are the first discoverers. Let us
christen it at once. What shall it be?" asked Ned, turning to his
companions.
"Jameson Land, if anything," cried Fred. "He risked his life to rescue
us from prison. He deserves this at least from us."
"So be it. Welcome to Jameson Land, boys; and let yonder range of hills
be called the Cecil Mountains and this stream the Rhodes River."
They pitched their camp where they were for the night, and soon
afterwards were busy discussing tea, roasted antelopes, and fresh-made
cake, which the Kaffirs baked from the flour they carried.
A young moon showed in the sky that night like a silver sickle, and the
stars came out gloriously. As our heroes lay and looked at these
sparkling worlds, they thought they had never seen anything more
beautiful than that overarching spangled vault of heaven. God had been
very good to them to guide them safely so far upon their way. Not a man
had been lost. They were as they had started, all except the horses,
which was, of course, a universal regret. Yet they were grateful, and
did not forget to express it before they went to sleep.
From the cries that resounded over the prairie as well as in the forest
beneath them, all through the earlier portion of the night, they knew
that there was plenty of sport before them.
During the night a most tremendous thunderstorm burst over their heads
with a perfect tornado of wind. Fortunately, they were protected from
the full force by those granite cliffs that surrounded them like Titanic
walls. They had chosen for their camp a grassy mound, round which those
strange-shaped rocks upreared.
The tempest came on, with hardly any warning, just after the young moon
had set. They could hear it sweeping over the forest before it reached
up to them with a most terrific shrieking. They had only time to drag
their loads under the waterproof tent and secure that more firmly, when
all the three elements--fire, wind, and rain--were upon them in full
force.
What a spectacle this was to those who cared to look! Our heroes crept
to a split in the rocks, and looked out upon the fierce bombardment with
feelings of awe and admiration.
Over the forest hung the electricity-charged cloud, like a great
war-balloon that had been dropped from the bulging heavens. From this
ruddy and smoke-tinted mass issued a perpetual discharge of forked
lightning. These vivid streaks darted from all sides into that ocean of
rank leafage. It was a magnificent display of fireworks. It needed but
a moderate imagination to transform this driving cloud into a great
demoniac air-vessel armed on all sides with Maxim and Gatling-like
batteries of the deadly flame.