"So the blighter is making for Twashi," remarked Wilmshurst, consulting his field service map. "That's well up in the Karewenda Hills. We may head him off even yet."
Mounting, the patrol, their energies quickened by the evidence of this latest Hunnish atrocity, set off at a gallop across the comparatively open country betwixt the Kiwa and the base of the Karewenda Hills. Woe betide von Gobendorff should he be spotted by one of the lynx-eyed Rhodesians.
It was well into the dry season. As far as the eye could reach lay an expanse of sun-baked ground dotted with scrub and parched grass, terminating in the rugged outlines of the Karewenda Geberge. In the clear African atmosphere the hills, although a good forty miles distant, looked no more than ten or twelve miles away. With a powerful telescope an outpost on the high ground ought to be able to spot the khaki-clad horsemen as they spurred across the bush.
The patrol had no immediate intention of following the fugitive's spoor. Their idea was to cut off his retreat by keeping on a parallel route until they had out-distanced him, and then, by extending to the right, to achieve their object. It was a game of hide-and-seek on a large scale--a contest of wits. Around the spot where the Hun was supposed to be an extended cordon was being formed. It was up to him to break through--if he could, but once detected he stood little chance against a well-mounted patrol composed of some of the crack shots of Rhodesia.
"We've cut across his spoor," announced one of the men. "Jones has just semaphored through. We've nabbed him this time."
The order was passed from man to man for the investing horsemen to contract the enfolding circle. Each man, his rifle ready for instant use, trotted towards an imaginary centre, the while keeping his eyes on the alert for signs of the fugitive.
Then, without warning, a column of smoke, beaten down by the strong northerly wind, rose from the scrub at a point a good two miles off. In a very short space of time the cloud increased in density of volume, moving with the rapidity of a trotting horse.
At the signal the patrol closed. The situation was serious, for not only were the chances of a successful pursuit knocked on the head, but there was the danger of the men being overtaken by the flames.