Death on a Pale Horse - By Donald Thomas Page 0,48

from the river and made a fire. Then they brewed coffee and ate their rations.”

“How long were they there?”

“By all accounts, about three hours. Though Captain Carey was uneasy at remaining so long, the prince was in no hurry to go. Carey was the senior officer in command, but it was not easy for him to overrule the Prince Imperial. That was at the root of the tragedy. The prince treated this survey as a picnic rather than a patrol. Just then, the native guide reappeared and said that he thought he had seen a single tribesman coming over the far hill.”

Mr. Dordona lowered his eyes, as if to prepare us for what lay in store.

“Even this was no cause for alarm at such a distance. All the same, Captain Carey insisted that they should gather their horses. They did so and began to mount. The prince himself called out ‘Prepare to mount.’ Just as if he had put himself in command. Each man had his foot in the stirrup and one hand gripping the saddle. At that moment there was a crash of rifle-fire, though the shots went wide. The tribesmen lack experience of firearms and are poor marksmen. However, several of the horses were startled and tried to bolt. Then thirty or forty Zulus burst towards the patrol from the tall grass just short of the village.”

“Thirty or forty tribesmen who could not possibly have been there?” I asked.

“I cannot see how they could have got there—so many of them. Nor could poor Carey. The place had been searched for a possible ambush.”

“Indeed,” said Holmes quietly, in the tone of one who needs no more evidence. But Samuel Dordona was not to be denied a hearing.

“The first casualty was Rogers, one of the troopers. He lost hold of his horse when the animal bolted at the explosion of the rifles. All the rest managed to restrain their mounts in one way or another. Of course, Rogers was helpless on foot. It seems he must have run back into the cover of the huts and fired his carbine before one of tribesmen pierced him with a spear. A few of the Zulus were carrying Martini-Henrys captured at Isandhlwana, but they fought mostly with their spears to which they were accustomed. One of them then hit Trooper Abel in the back with an assegai and brought him down from his horse. He was probably dead by the time he hit the ground.”

“And the Prince Imperial?” Holmes inquired thoughtfully: “Where was he in all this confusion?”

“The prince caught his horse before it could bolt, Mr. Holmes, and he was a first-rate rider. He made as if to vault straight into the saddle. He had done it hundreds of times and it should have been child’s-play to him. When Captain Carey saw this, he never doubted that the prince must have mounted. So Brenton Carey turned and led what he believed to be his entire patrol to safety at a gallop—excepting Rogers and Abel. He swore to me again on his last night alive that he had been sure the prince must be with them. Looking back presently, he saw Rogers and Abel lying dead but no one else.”

“And the prince?” I asked.

Mr. Dordona came unwillingly to the truth.

“There was a native hut between the patrol and the tribesmen. It hid the details of what had happened. But then Captain Carey saw the prince’s horse, Percy, cantering out of the kraal without a rider. He guessed that the prince must have fallen as he was mounting. The young man was helpless, but he fired the last shots from his revolver at the attackers. Thirty or forty of them. In a few seconds, he was overwhelmed and killed. A matter of seconds, gentlemen. Whatever a court might say, Captain Carey protested to me that there was nothing he could have done to save him, even if he had given his own life. Nothing. Carey was a brave man, and he spoke the truth.”

“Nothing to be done except to have foreseen such an ambush,” Holmes said as he turned his brooding deep-set eyes upon our visitor.

“Mr. Holmes! By all the laws of military logic, those tribesmen could not have been there. Do you not see that?”

“I find that an interesting assumption, Mr. Dordona. I see at least half a dozen ways in which an assassin might have put them there—supposing, of course, that there had been an assassin, of whatever tribe, or race, or