the first outrider of Lord Chelmsford’s column mounted on the col above the camp. Melvill’s servant, who escaped with his life when his master died at the Buffalo River, was standing by and heard this curiosity pointed out. A single rider sitting astride a dappled horse, as if watching the last act of the tragedy from above. Sitting at the salute. That was all.”
“All this came from Captain Carey and nobody else?”
“It did.”
“Captain Carey, who is now conveniently dead. I am bound to say that we are singularly unfortunate in our witnesses, Mr. Dordona. How they desert us! Lieutenant Melvill. Trooper Le Brun. Captain Carey. It is so often the way with ghost stories, is it not? Everyone knows someone who has seen the elusive spectre, but what man can vouch for it from the evidence of his own eyes?”
For a moment, Samuel Dordona looked as if we had deliberately encouraged him, only to dismiss his account.
“I tell you the story as it was told to me, Mr. Holmes. I am no more a believer in spectres than you are. Perhaps because he was dying, Carey’s last words to me were about the phantom, if a phantom it was, above Isandhlwana. Goodness knows where the tale of this apparition came from. Officers never believed it, only the few survivors from those lower ranks who had died in their hundreds that morning. Those survivors had heard of this ghostly sighting on the col.”
“I am relieved to hear it, sir. All the available evidence, then, points to a horseman being within sight on each occasion of a disaster. Is that so remarkable? There were enough horsemen around, in all conscience. Perhaps he was an outrider thanking his lucky stars that he was not part of the encounter, and keeping clear. Or perhaps he was a sensible fellow who felt that this was not a fight of his making. What good might he do, when everyone else was running away? Captain Carey would have been very foolish to rely upon such a man riding into a skirmish and offering himself to be butchered when he could so very easily save his skin.”
“Do you tell me, Mr. Holmes, that you do not believe me?”
The tone of my friend’s voice changed at once. “You misjudge me, Mr. Dordona. I do not believe readily. I confess that I was sceptical in the matter before your arrival—and until I heard your complete story. Who would not be? Almost all the doubts that I have now are on your side. I cannot vouch for Isandhlwana, of course. Such catastrophes may happen for the most ordinary reasons. The death of the Prince Imperial is another matter. Let us stick to that.”
Mr. Dordona waited, still as a sphinx on the edge of his chair, to hear judgment passed. Sherlock Holmes spoke quietly.
“Let us have done with apparitions, sir, and stick to the art of war. A score or more of men with rifles and spears cannot remain concealed while advancing over such flat and open terrain unless they are assisted. A man on a hill, as you describe it, is no spectre. Hidden from Captain Carey’s patrol by the ridge of that hill, he alone has the whole landscape in sight. How easily he may communicate directions to the assailants and those who command them.”
Samuel Dordona continued to watch him closely as Holmes concluded.
“But how convenient afterwards to be dismissed as some phantom of the veldt or a figure of common soldiers’ folklore! The litmus-paper test, sir, if I may borrow a chemical term, is simple. Surely if there was such a rider who was innocent in this matter of the prince’s death, he would have reported what he had seen immediately on his return to whatever camp he had come from. At the very least, he would have told the story to some friend or other. Why should he not—if he was innocent? The court-martial, for all its faults, seems to have been scrupulous in tendering evidence. I think we may be certain that no such report was ever made. Whether he was a spectre or flesh and blood, your horseman was no friend to Captain Carey. Again, would he not have tendered information to defend an innocent man’s honour at his trial?”
For the first time, Samuel Dordona smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Holmes. Thank you, sir.”
My friend silenced him by a raised hand. “And let us not forget Trooper Le Brun. From all you have told us, I cannot