Chapter Twenty Five.“A Region of Emptiness, Howling and Drear.”Right up under the cliff—the beetling rock overhead, the slope of the hillside falling away into the basin above described—did our adventurers make their fireless camp. But though fireless they were under no lack of ingredients for a substantial meal, nor of the wherewithal to wash it down satisfactorily; which latter fact was perhaps the better appreciated from the certainty of this being the last water they should find until their return.“Queer thing this sort of contrast, Fanning,” said Sellon, who with his back against the rock was blowing tobacco clouds with post-prandial contentment. “I suppose some of these evenings, when one gets back into dress clothes and heavy dinner-parties again, one will look back to this crouch under a big cliff as a kind of dream.”“I suppose so. Yet man is a would-be adaptable animal, after all. I remember a chap, an Englishman, who was with me sea-cow shooting up on the Tonga border. He had an idea of doing at Rome as Romans do, so he got hold of a Zulumútya(A kind of apron—pretty scanty in dimensions. It is usually made of cat-tails and bullock-hide), and cut about in nothing but that and a pair of canvas shoes. We were after the hippos in a boat, and it was risky, too—for the river was full of crocodiles—in case a hippo should tilt us over. Well, before we had pushed off an hour, the joker was burnt red, and in less than two was literally skinned alive. He didn’t kill any sea-cows that day.”“Battling sport, that sea-cow shooting must be. What do you say, Fanning, when we’ve found our Golconda, to starting a shooting-trip bang into the interior? Hallo! What’s that giving tongue? Sounds for all the world like a pack of foxhounds.”A shrill, long-drawn, baying chorus came floating upon the night-air, but very distant. Then it drew nearer, then faded again, then plainer still, then seemed to die away fainter and fainter in the distance. The chorus, borne upon the night in fluctuating waves of sound, blended in wild harmony with the frowning heights and untrodden desolation of this out-of-the-world gorge.“Wild dogs,” said Renshaw, listening intently. “They’re hunting something—running it pretty closely, too, or they wouldn’t be tonguing like that. By the way, talking of wild dogs, I had an experience with them once which was very much akin to that one of yours with the baboons a little while ago. I was returning from a trip into the Gaza country, with a waggon, and knocking around to shoot something, I fell in with a clump of giraffes. They were shyer than usual, and led me a long chevy. I only managed to wound one—not badly enough—and then it got dark. My horse was rather done up, and I didn’t quite know where I was. Then it became obvious I shouldn’t fetch the waggon again that night.“Just as I was casting about for a good place to camp, I heard a whimper close at hand. The veldt was sprinkled about with clumps of mimosa and other thorns—in parts thickish—and all of a sudden the horse threw up his ears and began to snort. I looked up. There, right in front, squatted on their haunches in a semicircle, not a hundred yards off, were a lot of wild dogs. Couldn’t have been less than forty of them. I just gave a shout and rushed at them. But they didn’t move until I got within twenty yards, and then they got up, cantered away the same distance, and squatted down again. Then I lost patience, and picking out a big one, just bowled the brute over as he sat. He stiffened out without a yelp, but the rest didn’t seem to care. So I stuck in another cartridge, and stretched out another, and rushed at them at the same time. They scattered then, but in no hurry. Now, I thought, I’ll ride on. But I happened to look back to see if they had dropped off. Not a bit of it. The brutes were quietly trotting along in my wake. Again I turned back. They just stopped, and squatted down as before.“Now I had never known wild dogs act like this, the difficulty being, as a rule, to get within shot of them at all, and I own to a kind of eerie feeling as I marked the persistency of these ordinarily sneaking and cowardly brutes, sitting on their haunches there in the dusk, licking their lips as if they knew I was for them. You see it wasn’t so much on their account I felt shivery, but it looked as if they knew what I didn’t—like the old superstition, if it be a superstition, of a shark following a ship, pointing to an approaching death on board, or the actual fact of a lot of aasvogels watching a wounded buck, or a wounded anything.“All of a sudden, I became conscious of a most sickening and overpowering stench. By that time it was almost dark—but not too dark to make out objects indistinctly—and the objects that caught my eye at that moment were sufficiently hideous and appalling. All around, the veldt was strewn with human corpses—swollen and decomposed, torn and mangled by wild animals, or ripped and hacked by the assegais of their slayers. They were natives, and of all ages and sexes, lying about in contorted attitudes, some heaped upon each other, the frightfully distorted countenances staring up at the sky. Pah! it was sickening, I tell you, coming upon this in the dusk. There seemed no end of them, and they were scattered as if cut down while fleeing. I learned afterwards it was the result of a Matabili raid. Well, this find accounted in a measure for the boldness of the wild dogs. They had been largely feeding on the human form divine, and had acquired a proportionate contempt for the same.”“What an experience!” said Sellon, whom this story, told amid the dark and savage surroundings of their fireless camp, considerably impressed. “You must have seen some uncommonly queer things in your time, Fanning?”The other smiled slightly.“Well, yes, I have. This is a land of strange experiences, although prosaic enough on the surface. I hope none will befall us before we get home again—always excepting the strange experience of finding ourselves rich men in the shape of what we are looking for.”“By the way, whereabouts was it you were attacked that time? Anywhere near here?”“About half an hour’s ride further on. The poort narrows very much, and the cliffs are not nearly so high. It was just sundown, and I was jogging quietly along homewards very much down on my luck over the third failure, when bang came a shower of assegais and arrows and kerries, hurtling about the rocks like a young hailstorm. I spurred up then, you bet; but the ground is beastly rough, as you’ve seen, and the enemy could get along as fast as I could—besides, I had a brute of a pack-horse that wouldn’t lead properly. They chased me down to where we first entered this defile, and by that time it was dark—luckily for me. As it was, I only shook them off by sacrificing the pack-horse.”“Now, how the deuce did you manage that?”“Why, I knew they’d reckon on me taking the shortest cut for the river. So when I got out of the poort at the bottom of the turret-head mountain—you remember that steep little slope where your horse turned a somersault—I put on pace a little so as to get a start. Then I stuck a burr under the pack-horse’s tail and cast him loose. Away he went, slanting off into the other poort, which seems to lead towards the river, while I lay low. I could see the devils skipping down the poort on his heels, in high old glee. In the night I moved on again, striking due north, and after making nearly a week’s cast—and nearly dying of hunger and thirst—I fetched up at the drift we came through day before yesterday. And, by the way, I think old Greenway was wrong in saying, ‘Beware the schelm Bushmen.’ Those chaps struck me as more like Korannas. There were some quite big fellows among them.”The time and place were singularly appropriate to the narration of wild and perilous experiences. But this latest in no wise tended to raise the listener’s spirits. Sellon was not of the stuff of which adventurers are made. He was keen enough on this expedition and the dazzling possibilities it held out. But he didn’t want to be killed or wounded if he could help it. No such thing as going into danger out of pure love of excitement found a place in his philosophy. He was not imaginative, yet the idea of being struck down by an unseen enemy, or worse still, perhaps, dragging himself away mortally wounded to die like an animal in a hole or cave, in the heart of this frightful desert, a multitude of foul and loathsome beasts howling for his blood, per adventure waiting till mortal weakness should embolden them to pounce on him before life was extinct—these considerations struck home to him now, and fairly made him shiver.“By-the-by, Sellon,” said the careless voice of his companion, “do you think you’d be able to find your way back to the river again?”“Now, why the deuce should you ask that, Fanning?” was the testy rejoinder.“Oh, naturally enough. I wanted to know!” said Renshaw, astonished somewhat. “Besides, supposing anything happened to me—and a hundred things might happen—could you find your way out?”“Well, it’s certainly an infernal labyrinth so far, and I suppose likely to get worse. Still, I’ll take extra notice of the landmarks,” growled Sellon.Then he rolled himself up in his blanket to turn in, characteristically leaving his companion to do whatever watching was necessary. And there was some of the latter to be done, for ever and anon the scream of a leopard away among the crags, or the growling snuffle of some beast, unseen in the darkness, slaking his thirst at the waterhole just below, would cause the horses to snort wildly, and tug and strain at their picketreimsin alarm. It needed the sound of a human voice, the touch of a human hand, and that frequently, to allay their fears—peradventure to prevent them from breaking loose and galloping madly off into the night; and however his less inured companion may have been able to revert to more congenial scenes in the blissful illusions of dreams, there was little sleep that night for Renshaw Fanning.
Right up under the cliff—the beetling rock overhead, the slope of the hillside falling away into the basin above described—did our adventurers make their fireless camp. But though fireless they were under no lack of ingredients for a substantial meal, nor of the wherewithal to wash it down satisfactorily; which latter fact was perhaps the better appreciated from the certainty of this being the last water they should find until their return.
“Queer thing this sort of contrast, Fanning,” said Sellon, who with his back against the rock was blowing tobacco clouds with post-prandial contentment. “I suppose some of these evenings, when one gets back into dress clothes and heavy dinner-parties again, one will look back to this crouch under a big cliff as a kind of dream.”
“I suppose so. Yet man is a would-be adaptable animal, after all. I remember a chap, an Englishman, who was with me sea-cow shooting up on the Tonga border. He had an idea of doing at Rome as Romans do, so he got hold of a Zulumútya(A kind of apron—pretty scanty in dimensions. It is usually made of cat-tails and bullock-hide), and cut about in nothing but that and a pair of canvas shoes. We were after the hippos in a boat, and it was risky, too—for the river was full of crocodiles—in case a hippo should tilt us over. Well, before we had pushed off an hour, the joker was burnt red, and in less than two was literally skinned alive. He didn’t kill any sea-cows that day.”
“Battling sport, that sea-cow shooting must be. What do you say, Fanning, when we’ve found our Golconda, to starting a shooting-trip bang into the interior? Hallo! What’s that giving tongue? Sounds for all the world like a pack of foxhounds.”
A shrill, long-drawn, baying chorus came floating upon the night-air, but very distant. Then it drew nearer, then faded again, then plainer still, then seemed to die away fainter and fainter in the distance. The chorus, borne upon the night in fluctuating waves of sound, blended in wild harmony with the frowning heights and untrodden desolation of this out-of-the-world gorge.
“Wild dogs,” said Renshaw, listening intently. “They’re hunting something—running it pretty closely, too, or they wouldn’t be tonguing like that. By the way, talking of wild dogs, I had an experience with them once which was very much akin to that one of yours with the baboons a little while ago. I was returning from a trip into the Gaza country, with a waggon, and knocking around to shoot something, I fell in with a clump of giraffes. They were shyer than usual, and led me a long chevy. I only managed to wound one—not badly enough—and then it got dark. My horse was rather done up, and I didn’t quite know where I was. Then it became obvious I shouldn’t fetch the waggon again that night.
“Just as I was casting about for a good place to camp, I heard a whimper close at hand. The veldt was sprinkled about with clumps of mimosa and other thorns—in parts thickish—and all of a sudden the horse threw up his ears and began to snort. I looked up. There, right in front, squatted on their haunches in a semicircle, not a hundred yards off, were a lot of wild dogs. Couldn’t have been less than forty of them. I just gave a shout and rushed at them. But they didn’t move until I got within twenty yards, and then they got up, cantered away the same distance, and squatted down again. Then I lost patience, and picking out a big one, just bowled the brute over as he sat. He stiffened out without a yelp, but the rest didn’t seem to care. So I stuck in another cartridge, and stretched out another, and rushed at them at the same time. They scattered then, but in no hurry. Now, I thought, I’ll ride on. But I happened to look back to see if they had dropped off. Not a bit of it. The brutes were quietly trotting along in my wake. Again I turned back. They just stopped, and squatted down as before.
“Now I had never known wild dogs act like this, the difficulty being, as a rule, to get within shot of them at all, and I own to a kind of eerie feeling as I marked the persistency of these ordinarily sneaking and cowardly brutes, sitting on their haunches there in the dusk, licking their lips as if they knew I was for them. You see it wasn’t so much on their account I felt shivery, but it looked as if they knew what I didn’t—like the old superstition, if it be a superstition, of a shark following a ship, pointing to an approaching death on board, or the actual fact of a lot of aasvogels watching a wounded buck, or a wounded anything.
“All of a sudden, I became conscious of a most sickening and overpowering stench. By that time it was almost dark—but not too dark to make out objects indistinctly—and the objects that caught my eye at that moment were sufficiently hideous and appalling. All around, the veldt was strewn with human corpses—swollen and decomposed, torn and mangled by wild animals, or ripped and hacked by the assegais of their slayers. They were natives, and of all ages and sexes, lying about in contorted attitudes, some heaped upon each other, the frightfully distorted countenances staring up at the sky. Pah! it was sickening, I tell you, coming upon this in the dusk. There seemed no end of them, and they were scattered as if cut down while fleeing. I learned afterwards it was the result of a Matabili raid. Well, this find accounted in a measure for the boldness of the wild dogs. They had been largely feeding on the human form divine, and had acquired a proportionate contempt for the same.”
“What an experience!” said Sellon, whom this story, told amid the dark and savage surroundings of their fireless camp, considerably impressed. “You must have seen some uncommonly queer things in your time, Fanning?”
The other smiled slightly.
“Well, yes, I have. This is a land of strange experiences, although prosaic enough on the surface. I hope none will befall us before we get home again—always excepting the strange experience of finding ourselves rich men in the shape of what we are looking for.”
“By the way, whereabouts was it you were attacked that time? Anywhere near here?”
“About half an hour’s ride further on. The poort narrows very much, and the cliffs are not nearly so high. It was just sundown, and I was jogging quietly along homewards very much down on my luck over the third failure, when bang came a shower of assegais and arrows and kerries, hurtling about the rocks like a young hailstorm. I spurred up then, you bet; but the ground is beastly rough, as you’ve seen, and the enemy could get along as fast as I could—besides, I had a brute of a pack-horse that wouldn’t lead properly. They chased me down to where we first entered this defile, and by that time it was dark—luckily for me. As it was, I only shook them off by sacrificing the pack-horse.”
“Now, how the deuce did you manage that?”
“Why, I knew they’d reckon on me taking the shortest cut for the river. So when I got out of the poort at the bottom of the turret-head mountain—you remember that steep little slope where your horse turned a somersault—I put on pace a little so as to get a start. Then I stuck a burr under the pack-horse’s tail and cast him loose. Away he went, slanting off into the other poort, which seems to lead towards the river, while I lay low. I could see the devils skipping down the poort on his heels, in high old glee. In the night I moved on again, striking due north, and after making nearly a week’s cast—and nearly dying of hunger and thirst—I fetched up at the drift we came through day before yesterday. And, by the way, I think old Greenway was wrong in saying, ‘Beware the schelm Bushmen.’ Those chaps struck me as more like Korannas. There were some quite big fellows among them.”
The time and place were singularly appropriate to the narration of wild and perilous experiences. But this latest in no wise tended to raise the listener’s spirits. Sellon was not of the stuff of which adventurers are made. He was keen enough on this expedition and the dazzling possibilities it held out. But he didn’t want to be killed or wounded if he could help it. No such thing as going into danger out of pure love of excitement found a place in his philosophy. He was not imaginative, yet the idea of being struck down by an unseen enemy, or worse still, perhaps, dragging himself away mortally wounded to die like an animal in a hole or cave, in the heart of this frightful desert, a multitude of foul and loathsome beasts howling for his blood, per adventure waiting till mortal weakness should embolden them to pounce on him before life was extinct—these considerations struck home to him now, and fairly made him shiver.
“By-the-by, Sellon,” said the careless voice of his companion, “do you think you’d be able to find your way back to the river again?”
“Now, why the deuce should you ask that, Fanning?” was the testy rejoinder.
“Oh, naturally enough. I wanted to know!” said Renshaw, astonished somewhat. “Besides, supposing anything happened to me—and a hundred things might happen—could you find your way out?”
“Well, it’s certainly an infernal labyrinth so far, and I suppose likely to get worse. Still, I’ll take extra notice of the landmarks,” growled Sellon.
Then he rolled himself up in his blanket to turn in, characteristically leaving his companion to do whatever watching was necessary. And there was some of the latter to be done, for ever and anon the scream of a leopard away among the crags, or the growling snuffle of some beast, unseen in the darkness, slaking his thirst at the waterhole just below, would cause the horses to snort wildly, and tug and strain at their picketreimsin alarm. It needed the sound of a human voice, the touch of a human hand, and that frequently, to allay their fears—peradventure to prevent them from breaking loose and galloping madly off into the night; and however his less inured companion may have been able to revert to more congenial scenes in the blissful illusions of dreams, there was little sleep that night for Renshaw Fanning.
Chapter Twenty Six.Selwood’s Dilemma.The post at Sunningdale was a weekly, not a daily event. Happy Sunningdale!It was conveyed from the nearest Field Cornet’s, by a ragged native, bestriding a still more ragged pony, and who was “run” by general contribution on the part of those residents whose letters he delivered.We have said that the postal delivery at Sunningdale was a weekly event. After rainy weather, when the Umtirara and other rivers were down, it was a fortnightly business; sometimes even three weeks would go by without postal communication with the outer world. Happy, happy Sunningdale!To-day, however, the courier was up to time, and Christopher Selwood, unlocking the weather-beaten leather bag, began to sort and distribute its contents.“Miss Avory—Miss Avory—Miss Avory—heavens! There’s no end to them. We shall have the postboy striking for double pay if Miss Avory’s correspondents don’t hold their hand.”Violet—devouring with her eyes the contents of the bag as they came forth—laughed at her host’s remark, but the laugh was a hollow one. The missive she hungered for was not there. True, she had expected this contingency sooner or later—yet now that it had come it did not seem any the less poignant. Every post hitherto had brought letters from her lover, each with a different postmark. Now his silence meant that he was beyond the reach of any such civilised institutions. She would see no more of his handwriting until she should again have heard the sound of his voice. But—what if it were fated that never again should she hear that voice?“That’s all the ‘hopes and fears’ this week,” said Selwood, holding the leather bag upside down. Then gathering up the bundle of his own correspondence he crammed it carelessly into his pocket and went out.There was some irrigating to be attended to down at the “lands,” and for the next two hours Christopher was very busy. Then as he returned to the house, he suddenly remembered his unopened correspondence. It was near sundown, but there was half an hour to spare before counting-in time.Looking around, he espied a seat—the same rustic bench where we first witnessed Violet’s stolen interview. The place was shady, and cool and inviting withal. Selwood sat down, and dragging the letters out of his pocket and having laid them out, face downwards, along the bench, proceeded to open them one by one.They were mostly of the ordinary kind—business letters relating to the sale of stock or corn—an official notification or two—soon disposed of. But one he had opened near the last must have been of a different nature. First a puzzled look came into his eyes—then he guffawed aloud.“Pray do not flatter yourself,” began the missive, dispensing entirely with the regulation formality of opening—“pray do not flatter yourself in the idea that I am in ignorance of your whereabouts. Clever as you may imagine yourself, not one of your disreputable movements takes place unknown to me. I know where you are now,and who is with you. But it is of no use. If you exercise your influence over that abandoned creature to the utmost she can never be anything but your mistress. For mark my words, Maurice Sellon, whatever you may do I will never set you free. You are bound to me by a tie that nothing but my own will or my death can sever. But I will never consent to play into your villainous hands or into those of your creature Violet Avory—”“Oh, good God in heaven,” cried Selwood, horror-stricken. “What in the world have I gone and done now! ‘Maurice Sellon! Violet Avory!’ Good Lord, what does it all mean?” Then, instinctively he did what he should have done at first, turned the sheet to glance at the signature. There it was.“Your shamefully injured wife,“Adela Sellon.”“Oh, good Lord, I’ve done it now!” he cried again, the horrible truth dawning upon him that he had not only opened and read another man’s letter, but had surprised another man’s secret, and that a secret of a peculiarly awkward nature. How he anathematised his carelessness. He snatched up the envelope, which he had thrown down among the others. There was the address—plain as a pikestaff. Yet, stay, not so very plain after all. It was directed “M. Sellon, Esq.” But the long letters were dwarfed and the short extended. The “M” at a casual glance looked not unlike “Ch,” a common abbreviation on envelopes of Selwood’s longish Christian name. Then like lightning, his memory sped back to the day of his guest’s arrival and his own joke relative to each of them holding half their names in common. “We are both ‘Sells,’” he had said with a laugh, and now into what a cursed mistake had that coincidence led him.Poor Chris groaned aloud as he thought of the awkward position in which his carelessness had placed him. It would have been bad enough had the letter been of an ordinary nature. But being such as it was, the probabilities that its real owner would believe in accident having anything to do with the matter were infinitesimal. No. He would certainly suspect him of a deliberate intention to pry into his affairs. And what made things worse was the fact of the other man being his guest.But only momentarily did this idea serve to divert his thoughts from the extreme awkwardness of his own position. Violet Avory was his guest, too; and with far greater claim on his consideration than this stranger—for was she not under his care? And as the full force of the disclosure with which he had so involuntarily become acquainted—and its consequences—struck home to his mind, honest Chris felt fired with hot anger against the absent Sellon. What business had the latter—a married man—laying himself out to win poor Violet’s heart? That he had succeeded—and thoroughly succeeded—had been only too obvious to every member of the Sunningdale household—and that for some time past. No, no. Sellon had abused his hospitality in a shameful manner, and in so doing had almost forfeited any claim to consideration. Had he learned the ugly secret in the ordinary way Christopher would not have hesitated for a moment. He would have forbidden Sellon the house in terms which should leave no sort of margin for dispute. But then—the manner of his information. There lay the rub. Never in the whole course of his life had Christopher Selwood found himself in so difficult—so perplexing a situation.Then he did the very worst thing he could have done. He resolved to take his wife into confidence in the matter at once. Bundling the whole heap of correspondence into his pocket again, he rose, and took his way to the sheep-kraals for the evening count-in. But it is to be feared that if Gomfana or old Jacob had carelessly left a sheep or two in the veldt that eveningpro bonothe jackals, their master was too uncertain in his count to be sure of it.Mrs Selwood’s indignation at the disclosure was as great as that of her husband, but the method by which that disclosure had come about, womanlike, she dismissed as a comparative trifle. Indeed, had she been the one to open the letter, it is pretty safe to assert that so far from resting content with the fragment which Christopher had found more than enough, she would have read it through to the bitter end. For to the feminine mind the axiom that “the end justifies the means” is a thoroughly sound one. Not one woman in fifty can resist the temptation of reading a letter which she is not meant to read when it is safe to do so, and not one in ten thousand if she suspects any particular reason why she should be left in ignorance of its contents.“Well, now, Hilda, what’s to be done?” said Selwood, when he had told her—for with scrupulous honour he had refused to let her see one word of the letter itself. It was only intended for one person’s eyes. It was horribly unfortunate that two had seen it, but it would be worse still to extend the privilege to a third.“What’s to be done?” she echoed. “It’s a shocking business, and the man must be an arrant scoundrel. The only thing to be done is, in the first place, to request him not to return here; in the next, to sound Violet herself. Things may not have gone so far as we think, but I’m very much afraid they have. Why, latterly the girl has become quite changed, and for a week or so before he left she could hardly bear him out of her sight.”“Yes, that’ll be the best plan, I suppose,” acquiesced Chris, ruefully.“I hope Violet will show a proper amount of sense and self-respect,” concluded Mrs Selwood, in a tone which seemed to convey that the hope was but a forlorn one. “But remember, Chris, we must take up a firm position and stand to it. The girl is very young, and we are responsible for her until she returns home, and indeed I begin to think the sooner she does that the better, now. She is very young, as I said, but she has turned one and twenty, and there’s no knowing what mad suicidal act of folly a girl of her temperament, and legally her own mistress, may be capable of under these circumstances.”“It’ll be a difficult thing for me to explain matters about the letter,” said Selwood, ruefully. “The fellow is sure to scout the idea of a mistake. However, there’s no help for it. I must explain, and that, too, at the earliest opportunity.”Tact is not, as a rule, a feminine characteristic, but Hilda Selwood possessed a larger share of it than many women with considerably the advantage over herself in training and general knowledge of the world. She began as she had said by literally “sounding” Violet. But there was something in the latter’s manner which seemed to show that the news of Sellon’s previous appropriation was no news to her at all—in fact, that she had known it all along. Finally she admitted as much, and rather gloried in it.Then ensued a tolerably lively scene. What if he was chained to a fiend of a woman whose sole end and object had always been to make life a burden to him? burst forth Violet, with livid face and flashing eyes. The creature would die some day, it was to be hoped, and then ten thousand heavens were as nothing to the happiness before them both. Give him up? Not she! She would rather die a thousand times over, and would do so first. She was his real wife in the sight of God, she declared, as the stock blasphemous balderdash runs, whatever the other woman was in name, and so forth. Rebuke, reason, appeals to pride, to self-respect were all alike in vain before this furious outburst of uncontrollable passion. The girl seemed possessed of a very demon. She hurled reproaches at her hostess and friend, taxing her with playing the spy upon her—conspiracy, amateur detective business, everything—and declared she would sooner sleep in the veldt than pass another night under that roof. Finally she went off into a fit of shrieking, violent hysterics, and in this condition articulated things that set Hilda Selwood’s ears tingling with outraged disgust.“The most painfully shocking scene I ever witnessed in my life, and I hope and trust I never may again,” was the latter’s comment to her husband some time afterwards.“And the curious part of it is I can’t for the life of me make out what the deuce she can see in the fellow,” had been Christopher’s rejoinder. “He’s not much to look at, and although he’s good company in a general way, I don’t think his brain-box holds a very close fit.”A common enough speculation, and one which must ever remain in the category of things speculative. “What the deuce can she see in the fellow?” Who is to say?
The post at Sunningdale was a weekly, not a daily event. Happy Sunningdale!
It was conveyed from the nearest Field Cornet’s, by a ragged native, bestriding a still more ragged pony, and who was “run” by general contribution on the part of those residents whose letters he delivered.
We have said that the postal delivery at Sunningdale was a weekly event. After rainy weather, when the Umtirara and other rivers were down, it was a fortnightly business; sometimes even three weeks would go by without postal communication with the outer world. Happy, happy Sunningdale!
To-day, however, the courier was up to time, and Christopher Selwood, unlocking the weather-beaten leather bag, began to sort and distribute its contents.
“Miss Avory—Miss Avory—Miss Avory—heavens! There’s no end to them. We shall have the postboy striking for double pay if Miss Avory’s correspondents don’t hold their hand.”
Violet—devouring with her eyes the contents of the bag as they came forth—laughed at her host’s remark, but the laugh was a hollow one. The missive she hungered for was not there. True, she had expected this contingency sooner or later—yet now that it had come it did not seem any the less poignant. Every post hitherto had brought letters from her lover, each with a different postmark. Now his silence meant that he was beyond the reach of any such civilised institutions. She would see no more of his handwriting until she should again have heard the sound of his voice. But—what if it were fated that never again should she hear that voice?
“That’s all the ‘hopes and fears’ this week,” said Selwood, holding the leather bag upside down. Then gathering up the bundle of his own correspondence he crammed it carelessly into his pocket and went out.
There was some irrigating to be attended to down at the “lands,” and for the next two hours Christopher was very busy. Then as he returned to the house, he suddenly remembered his unopened correspondence. It was near sundown, but there was half an hour to spare before counting-in time.
Looking around, he espied a seat—the same rustic bench where we first witnessed Violet’s stolen interview. The place was shady, and cool and inviting withal. Selwood sat down, and dragging the letters out of his pocket and having laid them out, face downwards, along the bench, proceeded to open them one by one.
They were mostly of the ordinary kind—business letters relating to the sale of stock or corn—an official notification or two—soon disposed of. But one he had opened near the last must have been of a different nature. First a puzzled look came into his eyes—then he guffawed aloud.
“Pray do not flatter yourself,” began the missive, dispensing entirely with the regulation formality of opening—“pray do not flatter yourself in the idea that I am in ignorance of your whereabouts. Clever as you may imagine yourself, not one of your disreputable movements takes place unknown to me. I know where you are now,and who is with you. But it is of no use. If you exercise your influence over that abandoned creature to the utmost she can never be anything but your mistress. For mark my words, Maurice Sellon, whatever you may do I will never set you free. You are bound to me by a tie that nothing but my own will or my death can sever. But I will never consent to play into your villainous hands or into those of your creature Violet Avory—”
“Oh, good God in heaven,” cried Selwood, horror-stricken. “What in the world have I gone and done now! ‘Maurice Sellon! Violet Avory!’ Good Lord, what does it all mean?” Then, instinctively he did what he should have done at first, turned the sheet to glance at the signature. There it was.
“Your shamefully injured wife,
“Adela Sellon.”
“Oh, good Lord, I’ve done it now!” he cried again, the horrible truth dawning upon him that he had not only opened and read another man’s letter, but had surprised another man’s secret, and that a secret of a peculiarly awkward nature. How he anathematised his carelessness. He snatched up the envelope, which he had thrown down among the others. There was the address—plain as a pikestaff. Yet, stay, not so very plain after all. It was directed “M. Sellon, Esq.” But the long letters were dwarfed and the short extended. The “M” at a casual glance looked not unlike “Ch,” a common abbreviation on envelopes of Selwood’s longish Christian name. Then like lightning, his memory sped back to the day of his guest’s arrival and his own joke relative to each of them holding half their names in common. “We are both ‘Sells,’” he had said with a laugh, and now into what a cursed mistake had that coincidence led him.
Poor Chris groaned aloud as he thought of the awkward position in which his carelessness had placed him. It would have been bad enough had the letter been of an ordinary nature. But being such as it was, the probabilities that its real owner would believe in accident having anything to do with the matter were infinitesimal. No. He would certainly suspect him of a deliberate intention to pry into his affairs. And what made things worse was the fact of the other man being his guest.
But only momentarily did this idea serve to divert his thoughts from the extreme awkwardness of his own position. Violet Avory was his guest, too; and with far greater claim on his consideration than this stranger—for was she not under his care? And as the full force of the disclosure with which he had so involuntarily become acquainted—and its consequences—struck home to his mind, honest Chris felt fired with hot anger against the absent Sellon. What business had the latter—a married man—laying himself out to win poor Violet’s heart? That he had succeeded—and thoroughly succeeded—had been only too obvious to every member of the Sunningdale household—and that for some time past. No, no. Sellon had abused his hospitality in a shameful manner, and in so doing had almost forfeited any claim to consideration. Had he learned the ugly secret in the ordinary way Christopher would not have hesitated for a moment. He would have forbidden Sellon the house in terms which should leave no sort of margin for dispute. But then—the manner of his information. There lay the rub. Never in the whole course of his life had Christopher Selwood found himself in so difficult—so perplexing a situation.
Then he did the very worst thing he could have done. He resolved to take his wife into confidence in the matter at once. Bundling the whole heap of correspondence into his pocket again, he rose, and took his way to the sheep-kraals for the evening count-in. But it is to be feared that if Gomfana or old Jacob had carelessly left a sheep or two in the veldt that eveningpro bonothe jackals, their master was too uncertain in his count to be sure of it.
Mrs Selwood’s indignation at the disclosure was as great as that of her husband, but the method by which that disclosure had come about, womanlike, she dismissed as a comparative trifle. Indeed, had she been the one to open the letter, it is pretty safe to assert that so far from resting content with the fragment which Christopher had found more than enough, she would have read it through to the bitter end. For to the feminine mind the axiom that “the end justifies the means” is a thoroughly sound one. Not one woman in fifty can resist the temptation of reading a letter which she is not meant to read when it is safe to do so, and not one in ten thousand if she suspects any particular reason why she should be left in ignorance of its contents.
“Well, now, Hilda, what’s to be done?” said Selwood, when he had told her—for with scrupulous honour he had refused to let her see one word of the letter itself. It was only intended for one person’s eyes. It was horribly unfortunate that two had seen it, but it would be worse still to extend the privilege to a third.
“What’s to be done?” she echoed. “It’s a shocking business, and the man must be an arrant scoundrel. The only thing to be done is, in the first place, to request him not to return here; in the next, to sound Violet herself. Things may not have gone so far as we think, but I’m very much afraid they have. Why, latterly the girl has become quite changed, and for a week or so before he left she could hardly bear him out of her sight.”
“Yes, that’ll be the best plan, I suppose,” acquiesced Chris, ruefully.
“I hope Violet will show a proper amount of sense and self-respect,” concluded Mrs Selwood, in a tone which seemed to convey that the hope was but a forlorn one. “But remember, Chris, we must take up a firm position and stand to it. The girl is very young, and we are responsible for her until she returns home, and indeed I begin to think the sooner she does that the better, now. She is very young, as I said, but she has turned one and twenty, and there’s no knowing what mad suicidal act of folly a girl of her temperament, and legally her own mistress, may be capable of under these circumstances.”
“It’ll be a difficult thing for me to explain matters about the letter,” said Selwood, ruefully. “The fellow is sure to scout the idea of a mistake. However, there’s no help for it. I must explain, and that, too, at the earliest opportunity.”
Tact is not, as a rule, a feminine characteristic, but Hilda Selwood possessed a larger share of it than many women with considerably the advantage over herself in training and general knowledge of the world. She began as she had said by literally “sounding” Violet. But there was something in the latter’s manner which seemed to show that the news of Sellon’s previous appropriation was no news to her at all—in fact, that she had known it all along. Finally she admitted as much, and rather gloried in it.
Then ensued a tolerably lively scene. What if he was chained to a fiend of a woman whose sole end and object had always been to make life a burden to him? burst forth Violet, with livid face and flashing eyes. The creature would die some day, it was to be hoped, and then ten thousand heavens were as nothing to the happiness before them both. Give him up? Not she! She would rather die a thousand times over, and would do so first. She was his real wife in the sight of God, she declared, as the stock blasphemous balderdash runs, whatever the other woman was in name, and so forth. Rebuke, reason, appeals to pride, to self-respect were all alike in vain before this furious outburst of uncontrollable passion. The girl seemed possessed of a very demon. She hurled reproaches at her hostess and friend, taxing her with playing the spy upon her—conspiracy, amateur detective business, everything—and declared she would sooner sleep in the veldt than pass another night under that roof. Finally she went off into a fit of shrieking, violent hysterics, and in this condition articulated things that set Hilda Selwood’s ears tingling with outraged disgust.
“The most painfully shocking scene I ever witnessed in my life, and I hope and trust I never may again,” was the latter’s comment to her husband some time afterwards.
“And the curious part of it is I can’t for the life of me make out what the deuce she can see in the fellow,” had been Christopher’s rejoinder. “He’s not much to look at, and although he’s good company in a general way, I don’t think his brain-box holds a very close fit.”
A common enough speculation, and one which must ever remain in the category of things speculative. “What the deuce can she see in the fellow?” Who is to say?
Chapter Twenty Seven.The Key at Last.“Well, Fanning, I guess this time it’s all U.P.”Renshaw made no reply. He gazed wearily at the great iron-bound hills, whose cliffs were now beginning to reflect the glow of the declining sun—and chipped mechanically at the rocks with the geological hammer in his hand. His mind upon the subject was much the same as that of his companion; but in actual fact his despondency was far greater. Still with the desperate tenacity born of the habits of a lifetime, he was unwilling to give in.Four days have gone by since we last saw our two adventurers bivouacking under the cliff—four days of threading mazy defiles and climbing the roof-like sides of mountains—four days of burning, sweltering exhaustion, ever eager, ever energetic with the tenfold vigour of a fierce hunt for riches. Three out of the four have been devoted to nothing but prospecting for their quest, for they passed the third beacon—the third turret-headed mountain of the clue—early on the day following that on which we last saw them—and now, worn out with toil and disappointment! they are resting in the sweltering afternoon heat deep down in a rock-bound valley where not a breath of air can come—not a whisper of a stir to relieve the oven-like glow which is rendering Sellon, at any rate, almost light-headed.“A blank draw this time,” growled the latter, wearily. “And what an awful business it has been to get here! I wouldn’t go through it again for a thousand pounds. And then, just think what a brace of fools we shall look to the people at Sunningdale.”Then as if the thought of Sunningdale—and what he had left there—put the crowning stone upon his misery, Sellon proceeded to curse most vehemently.With weariness and disappointment, misfortune had overtaken our two friends since we saw them last. While riding along the burning sandy bottom of a dreary defile towards evening, the led horse had inadvertently trodden on a puff-adder—which, sluggish brute that it is, rarely gets out of the way. Blowing himself out with rage, this hideous reptile had flung up his squat bloated length, fastening his fangs in the leg of the unfortunate horse. The animal was doomed, and, indeed, in less than an hour was in its expiring throes.Now, this was a terrible misfortune, for not only was the climbing and digging gear among the pack-load, but also the water-skin, and by far the greater part of their provisions; nearly the whole of the latter had to be abandoned, and loading up all that was indispensable upon their riding horses—already fast losing their former freshness—the two adventurers had pushed on. But by now the contents of the water-skin had run very low indeed; were it not for the lucky find of a tiny pool of slimy fetid water standing in a cavity of a rock, the horses would have given out already. As it was, they drank it up every drop, and felt the better for it.“I doubt whether that bag of bones will carry me back, as it is,” said Sellon, gloomily, eyeing his dejected steed, now too weary to graze.“Sellon,” said Renshaw, earnestly, still gazing around and completely ignoring his companion’s last remark—“Sellon, I can’t make it out now any more than the first time I was here. We have followed out the clue most minutely: ‘Straight from the smaller turret-head, facing the setting sun. Within a day’s ride.’ Now, we have explored and surveyed every point westerly between north and south, and within a good deal more than a day’s ride, thoroughly and exhaustively. There isn’t the shadow of a trace of any such valley, or rather crater, as old Greenway describes. But let’s go over the thing carefully again.”Suddenly Maurice sat up from his weary lounging attitude.“By Jove, Fanning, but you’ve given me an idea,” he said, speaking eagerly and quickly.“One moment,” said Renshaw, holding up his hand. “I have an idea, too, and indeed it’s astonishing it should never have struck me before. You must remember old Greenway was talking very disjointedly at the end of his yarn—poor old chap. He was nearly played out. Well, I tried to take down his words exactly as he uttered them. Look at this ‘Straight from—the smaller one—facing the setting sun. Within—day’s ride.’ Does nothing strike you now?”“Can’t say it does,” growled Sellon, “except that the old sinner must have been telling a most infernal lie. We’ve spent the last four days fossicking around within a day’s ride of his turret-top mountain, and devil a valley of the kind he describes exists.”“Well, what strikes me is this. He may have meant to say ‘Within two days’, or three days’, or four days’ ride.’ See?”“Yes. If that’s so he might as well have told us there was plenty of gold to be found between this and Morocco. It would have helped us about as much. But now I’ll give you my idea. It sounds ‘tall,’ and I dare say you’ll laugh.”“Never mind. Drive on,” rejoined Renshaw, looking up from the paper which he had been studying intently.“Well, you mentioned the word ‘crater’ just now. If this ‘valley’ of old Stick-in-the-mud’s really exists, it is, as you say, a crater-shaped concern. Now we’ve fooled away days in hunting for this place at the bottom of each and every mountain around. What if, after all, we ought to be looking for it at the top?”An eager flash leaped from the other’s eyes.“By Jove! That is an idea!” he burst forth.“Eh! Not a bad one, I think?” said Sellon, complacently.“No. It just isn’t.”For a few moments both sat staring at each other. Sellon was the first to speak.“How about that queer cock’s-comb-looking peak we came round this morning?” he said. But Renshaw shook his head.“Not that. There’s no room for any such place on top of it.”“Not, eh? Look here, Fanning. Have you ever been up it?”“No. But I’ve been to the top of every blessed berg of any considerable height around. I never went up that because it commands no range of ground that the others don’t.”“Very well. My theory is that the best thing we can do is to make the ascent forthwith. Let me look at the yarn for a moment. Ah, here it is,” he went on, pointing out a place on the soiled and weather-beaten document. “‘We were looking about for a hole in a cave to sleep in, for it was coldish up there of nights.’ ‘Up there’ you notice. Now, from its conformation, that cock’s-comb is about the only mountain top around here where they would be likely to find ‘a hole or a cave,’ for ‘up there’ points to the top of the mountain or near it. Do you follow?”Renshaw nodded.“All right. ‘I saw we were skirting a deep valley—though it was more like a hole than a valley, for there was no way in or out,’” quoted Sellon again. “Now, you would hardly find such a formation at the bottom of a mountain—though you very conceivably might at the top.”“But I tell you there can’t be room for such a thing at the top of that cock’s-comb,” objected Renshaw, dubiously. “I’ve been all round the mountain more than once, and it’s narrow at the top.”“Maybe. On the other hand, it may not be so narrow as you think. A mountain is the devil for changing its shape from whatever point you look at it—almost in whatever light or shade. Then, again, Greenway may have exaggerated the size of the hole. I tell you what it is, Fanning old chap. I believe I’ve solved the riddle that has been besting you all these years. As you said when we first talked the affair over, ‘two heads are better than one—even donkeys’ heads,’ There’s a third head, and that’s the head of the ‘right nail,’ and I believe we’ve hit it. Saddle up.”“Don’t be too sanguine, Sellon. You’ll be doubly sold if your idea ends in smoke.”They were not long in reaching the mountain referred to. It was of conical formation and flat-topped. But from one end of its table-like summit rose a precipitous, razor-backed ridge—serrated and on its broader side taking the shape of a cock’s-comb.Though steep and in parts rugged, the ascent was easy; indeed, it seemed likely they could ride to the very summit. Renshaw eyeing the towering slope, shook his head.“It’s rough on the horses,” he said. “They haven’t got any superfluous energy at this stage of the proceedings, and that berg can’t stand much under three thousand feet. Still they’ve got to go with us. If we left them down here they might be jumped; and then, again, if your idea should be the right one, we might be days up there. I only hope we shall find water, anyhow.”
“Well, Fanning, I guess this time it’s all U.P.”
Renshaw made no reply. He gazed wearily at the great iron-bound hills, whose cliffs were now beginning to reflect the glow of the declining sun—and chipped mechanically at the rocks with the geological hammer in his hand. His mind upon the subject was much the same as that of his companion; but in actual fact his despondency was far greater. Still with the desperate tenacity born of the habits of a lifetime, he was unwilling to give in.
Four days have gone by since we last saw our two adventurers bivouacking under the cliff—four days of threading mazy defiles and climbing the roof-like sides of mountains—four days of burning, sweltering exhaustion, ever eager, ever energetic with the tenfold vigour of a fierce hunt for riches. Three out of the four have been devoted to nothing but prospecting for their quest, for they passed the third beacon—the third turret-headed mountain of the clue—early on the day following that on which we last saw them—and now, worn out with toil and disappointment! they are resting in the sweltering afternoon heat deep down in a rock-bound valley where not a breath of air can come—not a whisper of a stir to relieve the oven-like glow which is rendering Sellon, at any rate, almost light-headed.
“A blank draw this time,” growled the latter, wearily. “And what an awful business it has been to get here! I wouldn’t go through it again for a thousand pounds. And then, just think what a brace of fools we shall look to the people at Sunningdale.”
Then as if the thought of Sunningdale—and what he had left there—put the crowning stone upon his misery, Sellon proceeded to curse most vehemently.
With weariness and disappointment, misfortune had overtaken our two friends since we saw them last. While riding along the burning sandy bottom of a dreary defile towards evening, the led horse had inadvertently trodden on a puff-adder—which, sluggish brute that it is, rarely gets out of the way. Blowing himself out with rage, this hideous reptile had flung up his squat bloated length, fastening his fangs in the leg of the unfortunate horse. The animal was doomed, and, indeed, in less than an hour was in its expiring throes.
Now, this was a terrible misfortune, for not only was the climbing and digging gear among the pack-load, but also the water-skin, and by far the greater part of their provisions; nearly the whole of the latter had to be abandoned, and loading up all that was indispensable upon their riding horses—already fast losing their former freshness—the two adventurers had pushed on. But by now the contents of the water-skin had run very low indeed; were it not for the lucky find of a tiny pool of slimy fetid water standing in a cavity of a rock, the horses would have given out already. As it was, they drank it up every drop, and felt the better for it.
“I doubt whether that bag of bones will carry me back, as it is,” said Sellon, gloomily, eyeing his dejected steed, now too weary to graze.
“Sellon,” said Renshaw, earnestly, still gazing around and completely ignoring his companion’s last remark—“Sellon, I can’t make it out now any more than the first time I was here. We have followed out the clue most minutely: ‘Straight from the smaller turret-head, facing the setting sun. Within a day’s ride.’ Now, we have explored and surveyed every point westerly between north and south, and within a good deal more than a day’s ride, thoroughly and exhaustively. There isn’t the shadow of a trace of any such valley, or rather crater, as old Greenway describes. But let’s go over the thing carefully again.”
Suddenly Maurice sat up from his weary lounging attitude.
“By Jove, Fanning, but you’ve given me an idea,” he said, speaking eagerly and quickly.
“One moment,” said Renshaw, holding up his hand. “I have an idea, too, and indeed it’s astonishing it should never have struck me before. You must remember old Greenway was talking very disjointedly at the end of his yarn—poor old chap. He was nearly played out. Well, I tried to take down his words exactly as he uttered them. Look at this ‘Straight from—the smaller one—facing the setting sun. Within—day’s ride.’ Does nothing strike you now?”
“Can’t say it does,” growled Sellon, “except that the old sinner must have been telling a most infernal lie. We’ve spent the last four days fossicking around within a day’s ride of his turret-top mountain, and devil a valley of the kind he describes exists.”
“Well, what strikes me is this. He may have meant to say ‘Within two days’, or three days’, or four days’ ride.’ See?”
“Yes. If that’s so he might as well have told us there was plenty of gold to be found between this and Morocco. It would have helped us about as much. But now I’ll give you my idea. It sounds ‘tall,’ and I dare say you’ll laugh.”
“Never mind. Drive on,” rejoined Renshaw, looking up from the paper which he had been studying intently.
“Well, you mentioned the word ‘crater’ just now. If this ‘valley’ of old Stick-in-the-mud’s really exists, it is, as you say, a crater-shaped concern. Now we’ve fooled away days in hunting for this place at the bottom of each and every mountain around. What if, after all, we ought to be looking for it at the top?”
An eager flash leaped from the other’s eyes.
“By Jove! That is an idea!” he burst forth.
“Eh! Not a bad one, I think?” said Sellon, complacently.
“No. It just isn’t.”
For a few moments both sat staring at each other. Sellon was the first to speak.
“How about that queer cock’s-comb-looking peak we came round this morning?” he said. But Renshaw shook his head.
“Not that. There’s no room for any such place on top of it.”
“Not, eh? Look here, Fanning. Have you ever been up it?”
“No. But I’ve been to the top of every blessed berg of any considerable height around. I never went up that because it commands no range of ground that the others don’t.”
“Very well. My theory is that the best thing we can do is to make the ascent forthwith. Let me look at the yarn for a moment. Ah, here it is,” he went on, pointing out a place on the soiled and weather-beaten document. “‘We were looking about for a hole in a cave to sleep in, for it was coldish up there of nights.’ ‘Up there’ you notice. Now, from its conformation, that cock’s-comb is about the only mountain top around here where they would be likely to find ‘a hole or a cave,’ for ‘up there’ points to the top of the mountain or near it. Do you follow?”
Renshaw nodded.
“All right. ‘I saw we were skirting a deep valley—though it was more like a hole than a valley, for there was no way in or out,’” quoted Sellon again. “Now, you would hardly find such a formation at the bottom of a mountain—though you very conceivably might at the top.”
“But I tell you there can’t be room for such a thing at the top of that cock’s-comb,” objected Renshaw, dubiously. “I’ve been all round the mountain more than once, and it’s narrow at the top.”
“Maybe. On the other hand, it may not be so narrow as you think. A mountain is the devil for changing its shape from whatever point you look at it—almost in whatever light or shade. Then, again, Greenway may have exaggerated the size of the hole. I tell you what it is, Fanning old chap. I believe I’ve solved the riddle that has been besting you all these years. As you said when we first talked the affair over, ‘two heads are better than one—even donkeys’ heads,’ There’s a third head, and that’s the head of the ‘right nail,’ and I believe we’ve hit it. Saddle up.”
“Don’t be too sanguine, Sellon. You’ll be doubly sold if your idea ends in smoke.”
They were not long in reaching the mountain referred to. It was of conical formation and flat-topped. But from one end of its table-like summit rose a precipitous, razor-backed ridge—serrated and on its broader side taking the shape of a cock’s-comb.
Though steep and in parts rugged, the ascent was easy; indeed, it seemed likely they could ride to the very summit. Renshaw eyeing the towering slope, shook his head.
“It’s rough on the horses,” he said. “They haven’t got any superfluous energy at this stage of the proceedings, and that berg can’t stand much under three thousand feet. Still they’ve got to go with us. If we left them down here they might be jumped; and then, again, if your idea should be the right one, we might be days up there. I only hope we shall find water, anyhow.”
Chapter Twenty Eight.“It is a White Man’s Skull.”It was, as Renshaw had put it, “rough on the horses.” But the colonial horse, in contrast to his English brother, is pre-eminently an animal for use, and not for show and the primary object of supporting a crowd of stable hands. So puffing and panting, stumbling a little here and there, the poor beasts gallantly breasted the grassy steep in the wake of their masters, who had elected to spare their steeds by leading instead of riding them.“The mountain certainly is built on a larger scale than one would think from below,” pronounced Renshaw, as he surveyed the summit which they were now very near. “We shall have to make a cast round to the left and look for a gully. The horses will never be able to climb over these rocks.”The said rocks lay strewn thickly around; remnants of a cliff at one time guarding this side of the summit, but which in past ages must have fallen away into fragments. From below they had seemed mere pebbles.“Right you are,” acquiesced Sellon, “Lead on.”A détour of a couple of hundred yards and they rounded the spur, which had ended abruptly in a precipice. They were now on the western angle of the mountain. Immediately above rose a lofty wall of rock, the nearer end of the cock’s-comb ridge. It continued in unbroken fall some hundreds of feet from where they stood. They had reached the extremity of the slope, and halting for a moment paused in admiration of the stately grandeur of the great cliff sweeping down into giddy depths.“Let’s take a look over,” said Maurice, advancing cautiously to the angle formed by the projection whereon they stood, and lying flat to peer over the brink.“Yes; only be careful,” warned his companion.As he peered over there was a “flap—flap—flap” echoing from the face of the cliff, like so many pistol-shots, as a cloud of great aasvogels, startled from their roosting places beneath, soared away over the abyss. So near were the gigantic birds that the spectator could see the glitter of their eyes.“By Jove, but I’d like to go down and have a look at the beggars’ nests,” said Sellon, trying to peer still further over the brink, but in vain, for the aasvogel is among the most suspicious of birds, and, wherever possible, selects his home beneath a jutting projection, and thus out of eyeshot from above.“They don’t make any, only lay one egg apiece on the bare rock,” said Renshaw, impatiently. “But come on. Man alive, we’ve no time for bird’s-nesting. In half an hour it’ll be dark.”The sun had gone off the lower world, though here, on high, he still touched with a golden splendour the red burnished face of the giant cliff. And now from their lofty elevation they were able to gaze forth upon a scene of unsurpassable wildness and grandeur. Mountains upon mountains, the embattled walls of a cliff-girdled summit standing in contrast beside a smooth, hog-backed hump; here and there a lofty peak sheering up defiant above its fellows, but everywhere a billowy sea of giant heads towering over the darkling grey of desolate valleys and gloomy rifts now merging into night. But all is utter lifelessness in the complete silence of its desolation—not a sound breaks upon the now fresh and cooling air—not a sight to tell of life and animation—save the ghostly wings of the great vultures floating away into space. Then the sun sinks down behind the further ridge in ruddy sea, leaving the impression that, the whole world is on fire, until the lustrous afterglow fades into the grey shades of gloaming.“No time for the beauties of Nature,” went on Renshaw, as his companion, rising from his prostrate posture, rejoined him. “Look. There is our way up, if we are to get up at all. And a precious cranky staircase it is, too.”It was. A steep, stony gully, looking as if, in past ages, it had served for a water-shoot round the extremity of the razor-backed ridge. It ran right down to the brink of the projection whereon they were standing, and, in fact, to reach it, at any rate with the horses, was a very risky feat indeed. Sellon suggested leaving them below—but this his companion would not hear of.“Stick to the horses, wherever possible,” he said. “Once lose them, we are like a man in mid-ocean with oars but no sail. Besides, we may find another way down—a much better one than this.”A dozen yards of steep slope, right on the brink of the abyss, covered with loose shingle, had to be crossed prior to gaining the secure foothold of the gully itself. A false step, a jerk back of the bridle on the part of the led horse, might send steed, or rider, or both, into space.“Up, old horse!” said Renshaw, encouragingly, as he took the lead. His steady old roadster, however, fully took in the situation. He gave one snort, a scramble or two, and he was safe within the gully.But Sellon’s steed was disposed to show less gumption. At first he refused to try the place at all; then nearly hurled his master over the brink by rucking at the bridle when half-way across; and the hideously suggestive sound of a shower of loosened rubble sliding into the abyss fairly made his said master’s blood curdle. However, with much snorting and scrambling, he ultimately suffered himself to be led into safety.The ascent was now comparatively easy, though with horses it was a tedious and tiresome business. The gully itself formed a huge natural staircase, seemingly about a couple of hundred feet in height. Up they went, stumbling, scrambling—the ring of the horses’ hoofs upon the stones waking the echoes in the dead silence of the spot. The grey shades of briefest twilight had already enshrouded the passage in gathering gloom.“Well, Fanning, what’s the betting on my shot being the right one?” cried Sellon, whose mercurial spirits had gone up sky-high under the influence of a new excitement. “We must be more than halfway up this beastly water-pipe. A few minutes more will decide it. What’s the betting?”“I still say, don’t make too sure, Sellon. I’m sorry to say it occurs to me that the expression ‘up there,’ on which this new idea of yours turns, may mean nothing more than when a man talks of ‘up country’. It may not mean on top of a mountain, don’t you know.”“The devil it mayn’t! What an old wet blanket you are, Fanning. Well, we shall soon see now. Hallo! What have you got there?”For the other was gazing attentively at something. Then without a word he dropped the end of his bridle, and clambering over a couple of boulders, was stooping over the object which had caught his eye.It was something round and white. Maurice could see that much before following his companion, which, however, he hastened to do. Then both men stood staring down at the object.The latter was embedded in a hole in the ground, firmly wedged between two rocks, half of it projecting. At first sight it might have been mistaken for an ostrich egg.Renshaw bent down and picked up the object. Something of a tug was necessary to loosen it from the imprisoning rock. He held in his hand a human skull.“What’s the matter, old chap?” said Sellon, wonderingly, noticing his companion’s face go deadly white, while the hand that held the skull trembled violently. “You seem rather knocked out of time, eh? A thing like that is a queerish sort of find in this God-forsaken corner; but surely your nerves are proof against such a trifle.”“Trifle, do you call it?” replied Renshaw, speaking quickly and eagerly. “Look at the thing, man—look at it.”“Well, I see it. What then?” said Maurice, wondering if his friend had gone clean off his head, and uncomfortably speculating on the extreme awkwardness of such an occurrence away here in the wilds.“What then? Why, it is a white man’s skull.”“How do you know that?” said Sellon, more curiously, bending down to examine the poor relic which seemed to grin piteously at them in the falling gloom. One side of the lower part was battered in—giving to the bony face and eyeless sockets a most grisly and leering expression.“By the formation, of course. But, man alive, don’t you see what this find means—don’t you see what it means?”“I suppose it means that some other fellow has been fool enough to scramble up here before us, and has come to mortal grief for his pains. Wait, though—hold on—by Jove, yes—I do see! Greenway’s mate; what does he call him? Jim. That’s it, of course. It means that we are on the right track, Fanning, old man. Hooroosh!”“That’s just what it does mean. Observe. This skull is alone—no bones or remnants of bones—no relics of clothing. Now, the absence of anything of the kind points to the fact that the poor chap wasn’t killed here. He must have been killed up top, and the skull eventually have been brought here by some wild animal—or possibly lugged to the edge and rolled down of its own accord. Greenway’s story points that way too. He says they were attacked while looking down into the valley, for if you remember they had just watched the ‘Eye’ fade away. Yes, ‘Jim,’ poor chap, was killed on top of the mountain, and there lies the ‘Valley of the Eye.’ How does that pan out, eh?”“Five ounces to the ton at least,” replied Sellon. “Well, we’ve, as you say, panned out the whole thing to a nicety. There’s one ingredient left, though. How about ‘the schelm Bushmen’?”“Oh, we must take our chances of them. The great thing is to have found the place at all. And now, excelsior! It’ll be pitch dark directly.”Replacing the skull where he had found it, Renshaw led the way back to the horses, and the upward climb was resumed. But Sellon, following in his wake, was conscious of an unaccountable reaction from his eager burst of spirits, and not all the dazzling prospects of wealth untold to be had for the mere picking up—which awaited him up yonder—could altogether avail to dispel the fit of apprehensive depression which had seized upon him. The discovery of that grisly relic of poor humanity in that savage spot, there amid the gathering shades of night—eloquent of the miserable fate of the unfortunate adventurer done to death on the lonely mountain top, his very bones scattered to the four winds of heaven—inspired in Sellon a brooding apprehension which he could not shake off. What if they themselves were walking straight into an ambush? In the shadowy gloom his imagination, run riot, peopled every rock with lurking stealthy enemies—in every sound he seemed to hear the hiss of the deadly missiles. Then there came upon him a strange consciousness of having been over that spot before. The turret-like craggy gorge, the beetling rocks high overhead in the gloom, all seemed familiar. Ha! His dream! He remembered it now, and shivered. Was it prophetic? It was frightful at the time, and now the horror of it all came back upon him, as, leading his horse, he scrambled on in the track of his companion. He could have sworn that something brushed past him in the darkness. Could it be the spirit of the dead adventurer, destined to haunt this grisly place, this remote cleft on the wild mountainside? A weird wailing cry rang out overhead. Sellon’s hair seemed to rise, and a profuse perspiration, not the result of his climbing exertions, started coldly from every pore. What a fool he was! he decided. It could only be a bird.“Up at last!” cried the cheery voice of his companion, a score of yards distant, through the darkness. “Up at last. Come along!”The voice seemed to break the spell which was upon him. It was something, too, to be out of that dismal gully. A final scramble, and Sellon stood beside his companion on the level, grassy summit of the mountain.
It was, as Renshaw had put it, “rough on the horses.” But the colonial horse, in contrast to his English brother, is pre-eminently an animal for use, and not for show and the primary object of supporting a crowd of stable hands. So puffing and panting, stumbling a little here and there, the poor beasts gallantly breasted the grassy steep in the wake of their masters, who had elected to spare their steeds by leading instead of riding them.
“The mountain certainly is built on a larger scale than one would think from below,” pronounced Renshaw, as he surveyed the summit which they were now very near. “We shall have to make a cast round to the left and look for a gully. The horses will never be able to climb over these rocks.”
The said rocks lay strewn thickly around; remnants of a cliff at one time guarding this side of the summit, but which in past ages must have fallen away into fragments. From below they had seemed mere pebbles.
“Right you are,” acquiesced Sellon, “Lead on.”
A détour of a couple of hundred yards and they rounded the spur, which had ended abruptly in a precipice. They were now on the western angle of the mountain. Immediately above rose a lofty wall of rock, the nearer end of the cock’s-comb ridge. It continued in unbroken fall some hundreds of feet from where they stood. They had reached the extremity of the slope, and halting for a moment paused in admiration of the stately grandeur of the great cliff sweeping down into giddy depths.
“Let’s take a look over,” said Maurice, advancing cautiously to the angle formed by the projection whereon they stood, and lying flat to peer over the brink.
“Yes; only be careful,” warned his companion.
As he peered over there was a “flap—flap—flap” echoing from the face of the cliff, like so many pistol-shots, as a cloud of great aasvogels, startled from their roosting places beneath, soared away over the abyss. So near were the gigantic birds that the spectator could see the glitter of their eyes.
“By Jove, but I’d like to go down and have a look at the beggars’ nests,” said Sellon, trying to peer still further over the brink, but in vain, for the aasvogel is among the most suspicious of birds, and, wherever possible, selects his home beneath a jutting projection, and thus out of eyeshot from above.
“They don’t make any, only lay one egg apiece on the bare rock,” said Renshaw, impatiently. “But come on. Man alive, we’ve no time for bird’s-nesting. In half an hour it’ll be dark.”
The sun had gone off the lower world, though here, on high, he still touched with a golden splendour the red burnished face of the giant cliff. And now from their lofty elevation they were able to gaze forth upon a scene of unsurpassable wildness and grandeur. Mountains upon mountains, the embattled walls of a cliff-girdled summit standing in contrast beside a smooth, hog-backed hump; here and there a lofty peak sheering up defiant above its fellows, but everywhere a billowy sea of giant heads towering over the darkling grey of desolate valleys and gloomy rifts now merging into night. But all is utter lifelessness in the complete silence of its desolation—not a sound breaks upon the now fresh and cooling air—not a sight to tell of life and animation—save the ghostly wings of the great vultures floating away into space. Then the sun sinks down behind the further ridge in ruddy sea, leaving the impression that, the whole world is on fire, until the lustrous afterglow fades into the grey shades of gloaming.
“No time for the beauties of Nature,” went on Renshaw, as his companion, rising from his prostrate posture, rejoined him. “Look. There is our way up, if we are to get up at all. And a precious cranky staircase it is, too.”
It was. A steep, stony gully, looking as if, in past ages, it had served for a water-shoot round the extremity of the razor-backed ridge. It ran right down to the brink of the projection whereon they were standing, and, in fact, to reach it, at any rate with the horses, was a very risky feat indeed. Sellon suggested leaving them below—but this his companion would not hear of.
“Stick to the horses, wherever possible,” he said. “Once lose them, we are like a man in mid-ocean with oars but no sail. Besides, we may find another way down—a much better one than this.”
A dozen yards of steep slope, right on the brink of the abyss, covered with loose shingle, had to be crossed prior to gaining the secure foothold of the gully itself. A false step, a jerk back of the bridle on the part of the led horse, might send steed, or rider, or both, into space.
“Up, old horse!” said Renshaw, encouragingly, as he took the lead. His steady old roadster, however, fully took in the situation. He gave one snort, a scramble or two, and he was safe within the gully.
But Sellon’s steed was disposed to show less gumption. At first he refused to try the place at all; then nearly hurled his master over the brink by rucking at the bridle when half-way across; and the hideously suggestive sound of a shower of loosened rubble sliding into the abyss fairly made his said master’s blood curdle. However, with much snorting and scrambling, he ultimately suffered himself to be led into safety.
The ascent was now comparatively easy, though with horses it was a tedious and tiresome business. The gully itself formed a huge natural staircase, seemingly about a couple of hundred feet in height. Up they went, stumbling, scrambling—the ring of the horses’ hoofs upon the stones waking the echoes in the dead silence of the spot. The grey shades of briefest twilight had already enshrouded the passage in gathering gloom.
“Well, Fanning, what’s the betting on my shot being the right one?” cried Sellon, whose mercurial spirits had gone up sky-high under the influence of a new excitement. “We must be more than halfway up this beastly water-pipe. A few minutes more will decide it. What’s the betting?”
“I still say, don’t make too sure, Sellon. I’m sorry to say it occurs to me that the expression ‘up there,’ on which this new idea of yours turns, may mean nothing more than when a man talks of ‘up country’. It may not mean on top of a mountain, don’t you know.”
“The devil it mayn’t! What an old wet blanket you are, Fanning. Well, we shall soon see now. Hallo! What have you got there?”
For the other was gazing attentively at something. Then without a word he dropped the end of his bridle, and clambering over a couple of boulders, was stooping over the object which had caught his eye.
It was something round and white. Maurice could see that much before following his companion, which, however, he hastened to do. Then both men stood staring down at the object.
The latter was embedded in a hole in the ground, firmly wedged between two rocks, half of it projecting. At first sight it might have been mistaken for an ostrich egg.
Renshaw bent down and picked up the object. Something of a tug was necessary to loosen it from the imprisoning rock. He held in his hand a human skull.
“What’s the matter, old chap?” said Sellon, wonderingly, noticing his companion’s face go deadly white, while the hand that held the skull trembled violently. “You seem rather knocked out of time, eh? A thing like that is a queerish sort of find in this God-forsaken corner; but surely your nerves are proof against such a trifle.”
“Trifle, do you call it?” replied Renshaw, speaking quickly and eagerly. “Look at the thing, man—look at it.”
“Well, I see it. What then?” said Maurice, wondering if his friend had gone clean off his head, and uncomfortably speculating on the extreme awkwardness of such an occurrence away here in the wilds.
“What then? Why, it is a white man’s skull.”
“How do you know that?” said Sellon, more curiously, bending down to examine the poor relic which seemed to grin piteously at them in the falling gloom. One side of the lower part was battered in—giving to the bony face and eyeless sockets a most grisly and leering expression.
“By the formation, of course. But, man alive, don’t you see what this find means—don’t you see what it means?”
“I suppose it means that some other fellow has been fool enough to scramble up here before us, and has come to mortal grief for his pains. Wait, though—hold on—by Jove, yes—I do see! Greenway’s mate; what does he call him? Jim. That’s it, of course. It means that we are on the right track, Fanning, old man. Hooroosh!”
“That’s just what it does mean. Observe. This skull is alone—no bones or remnants of bones—no relics of clothing. Now, the absence of anything of the kind points to the fact that the poor chap wasn’t killed here. He must have been killed up top, and the skull eventually have been brought here by some wild animal—or possibly lugged to the edge and rolled down of its own accord. Greenway’s story points that way too. He says they were attacked while looking down into the valley, for if you remember they had just watched the ‘Eye’ fade away. Yes, ‘Jim,’ poor chap, was killed on top of the mountain, and there lies the ‘Valley of the Eye.’ How does that pan out, eh?”
“Five ounces to the ton at least,” replied Sellon. “Well, we’ve, as you say, panned out the whole thing to a nicety. There’s one ingredient left, though. How about ‘the schelm Bushmen’?”
“Oh, we must take our chances of them. The great thing is to have found the place at all. And now, excelsior! It’ll be pitch dark directly.”
Replacing the skull where he had found it, Renshaw led the way back to the horses, and the upward climb was resumed. But Sellon, following in his wake, was conscious of an unaccountable reaction from his eager burst of spirits, and not all the dazzling prospects of wealth untold to be had for the mere picking up—which awaited him up yonder—could altogether avail to dispel the fit of apprehensive depression which had seized upon him. The discovery of that grisly relic of poor humanity in that savage spot, there amid the gathering shades of night—eloquent of the miserable fate of the unfortunate adventurer done to death on the lonely mountain top, his very bones scattered to the four winds of heaven—inspired in Sellon a brooding apprehension which he could not shake off. What if they themselves were walking straight into an ambush? In the shadowy gloom his imagination, run riot, peopled every rock with lurking stealthy enemies—in every sound he seemed to hear the hiss of the deadly missiles. Then there came upon him a strange consciousness of having been over that spot before. The turret-like craggy gorge, the beetling rocks high overhead in the gloom, all seemed familiar. Ha! His dream! He remembered it now, and shivered. Was it prophetic? It was frightful at the time, and now the horror of it all came back upon him, as, leading his horse, he scrambled on in the track of his companion. He could have sworn that something brushed past him in the darkness. Could it be the spirit of the dead adventurer, destined to haunt this grisly place, this remote cleft on the wild mountainside? A weird wailing cry rang out overhead. Sellon’s hair seemed to rise, and a profuse perspiration, not the result of his climbing exertions, started coldly from every pore. What a fool he was! he decided. It could only be a bird.
“Up at last!” cried the cheery voice of his companion, a score of yards distant, through the darkness. “Up at last. Come along!”
The voice seemed to break the spell which was upon him. It was something, too, to be out of that dismal gully. A final scramble, and Sellon stood beside his companion on the level, grassy summit of the mountain.
Chapter Twenty Nine.Renshaw’s Discovery.The summit seemed quite flat and level as far as they could judge, for the night had now fully set in. But at the side of it on which they stood the great cock’s-comb ridge rose high in the air, the loom of its precipitous sides sheering up against the starry zenith, showing indistinct and shadowy in the darkness. The night wind, cool and refreshing, sang in tuneful puffs through the grasses, and aloft in the gold-spangled sky the Southern Cross and many a flashing constellation glowed forth with that clear incandescence never so vivid as when gazed upon from desert solitudes.“We can do nothing until the moon rises,” pronounced Renshaw. “There are some lively krantzes around here, I reckon, and it would never do to take a five-hundred foot header, for want of a little patience. We’ll make for the foot of the ridge, and lie by until the moon gets up.”Proceeding cautiously, he led the way up the slope which culminated in the precipitous cliffs of the ridge. He was close under the latter, when his horse suddenly swerved aside, snuffing the air.“What is it, old horse?” he murmured soothingly, reining in, and peering eagerly into the gloom. Was there a deep cleft in front—or did the rocks shelter a lurking enemy? Both these speculations flashed through his mind, as he whispered back a caution to his companion.But the horse didn’t seem inclined to stand still either. He gently sidled away at an angle, and his rider, curious to fathom the mystery, let him have his head. A few steps more and they were right under the cliff. Then something flashed in the starlight. The horse came to a standstill—down went his head, and a long continuous gurgle told of the nature of his find. He drank in the grateful fluid as if he was never going to stop.“Well done, old horse!” said his master, dismounting to investigate this inexpressibly welcome phenomenon. It was a deep cleft in the rock about six feet long by three wide, full to the brim of delicious water, in which a great festoon of maidenhair fern trailing from above, was daintily dripping. “Sellon, this is a find, and no mistake. We’ll camp down here, and wait for the moon.”“And won’t we have a jolly good sluice in the morning. We’ll fill that goat-skin of ours, and pour it over each other. I believe it’s a week since I had a good wash—not since we left the river. The fellow who laid down the axiom that you’re never thoroughly comfortable until you’re thoroughly dirty must have been born in a pigsty himself. I know that for the last few days I’ve been wondering whether I’ve been looking a greater brute than I felt—or the other way about. Hooray for a good sluice to-morrow, anyhow.”Both were too excited to sleep. Even the consolation of tobacco they denied themselves lest the glimmer of a spark of light should betray their whereabouts to hostile eyes. And they were on short commons, too; the death of the packhorse and the necessity of jettisoning a portion of his load having narrowed down their stock of provisions to that which was the most portable, viz. biltong and ship-biscuit; which comestibles, as Renshaw declared, besides containing a vast amount of compressed nutriment, had the additional advantage of being so hard that a very little of them went a long way. So they lay under the cliffs munching their ration of this very hard tack, and speculating eagerly over the chances the next day might bring forth.The night wore on. Save for the tuneful sighing of the wind in the grass, no sound broke through the calm of that wild and elevated solitude. Meteors and falling stars flashed ever and anon in the spangled vault. A whole world seemed to slumber.Soon Renshaw began to notice an incoherency in his companion’s replies. Fatigue versus excitement had carried the day. Sellon, who was of a full-blooded habit, and uninured to such calls as had of late been made upon his energies, had succumbed. He was fast asleep.Left alone in the midst of a dead world, while the whole wilderness slumbered around, Renshaw strove to attune his faculties to the prevailing calm—to try and gain a few hours of much-needed jest. But his nerves were strung to their utmost tension. The speculation of years, the object of his thoughts sleeping and waking, were about to be attained. Sleep utterly refused to visit him.He could not even rest. At last he rose. Taking up his trusty double gun—rifle and shot-barrel—he wandered forth from the fireless camp.By the light of the burning stars he picked his way cautiously along the base of the rocky ridge, keeping a careful eye in front of him, above, around, everywhere. Yes, the object of years of anxious thought, of more than one lonely and perilous expedition into the heart of these arid and forbidding wilds, was within reach at last. It must be. Did not that gruesome find down there in the gully point unmistakably to that?The cool night wind fanned his brow. All the influences of the dead, solemn wilderness were upon him, and his thoughts reverted to another object, but to one upon which he had schooled himself to think no more.In vain. There on that lonely mountain-top at midnight, in his utter solitude, the man’s heart melted within him at the thought of his hopeless love—at the recollection of that anguished face, that broken voice pleading for his forgiveness; for his sympathy in her own dire extremity. What was she doing at that moment, he idly speculated? Ah! her regrets, her longings, her prayers were not for him, were all for the other; for the man who shared his present undertaking, who slumbered so peacefully but a few hundred yards away.Why had he brought this man to Sunningdale, to steal away that which should have been his? Why had he brought him here now, to enrich him in order that nothing might be wanting to complete his own utter self-sacrifice? He owed him nothing, for had he not twice paid the debt in full? Why had he stepped between him and certain death? But for his ready promptitude Maurice Sellon would now be almost as sad a relic of humanity as that upon which they had gazed but a few hours back. But the solemn eyes of the stars looking down upon him, the very grandeur of the mountain solitude, seemed to chide him for such thoughts. What was the puny fate of a few human beings compared with the immensity of ages upon which those stars had looked down—the roll of centuries during which those silent mountains had stood there ever the same?A perceptible lightening suffused the velvety vault above. The horned moon rose higher over the drear sea of peaks. The crags stood forth silvery in the new-born light—and then, as his glance wandered downwards, Renshaw felt every drop of blood flow back to his heart.Far below shone a tiny glimmer—the glimmer of a mere spark. But withal so powerful that it pierced the darkness of the far depths as the flash of a ray of fire.He stood as one turned to stone, holding his very breath. He rubbed his eyes, and looked again. There it was still. Again he averted his gaze, and again he looked. The distant spark was glittering more brilliantly than ever. It seemed to gain in size and power as he looked. It held him spellbound with its green incandescence flashing forth from the darkness down there in the far depths.He tore out the white lining of his soft hat, and bending down, nailed it to the ground with his pocket knife. Then he walked away a few yards and looked again. The spark had disappeared.Feverishly he returned to the mark which he had set, now almost fearing to look. He need not have feared. There shone the “Eye”—more dazzling than ever.Maurice Sellon, sleeping the dreamless slumber of a thoroughly exhausted man, started up with a smothered imprecation, as a hand gently shook him by the shoulder. But his deadened faculties sprang into quick life at the low impressive voice.“At last! Come and look. The ‘Eye’ is shining like a star.”
The summit seemed quite flat and level as far as they could judge, for the night had now fully set in. But at the side of it on which they stood the great cock’s-comb ridge rose high in the air, the loom of its precipitous sides sheering up against the starry zenith, showing indistinct and shadowy in the darkness. The night wind, cool and refreshing, sang in tuneful puffs through the grasses, and aloft in the gold-spangled sky the Southern Cross and many a flashing constellation glowed forth with that clear incandescence never so vivid as when gazed upon from desert solitudes.
“We can do nothing until the moon rises,” pronounced Renshaw. “There are some lively krantzes around here, I reckon, and it would never do to take a five-hundred foot header, for want of a little patience. We’ll make for the foot of the ridge, and lie by until the moon gets up.”
Proceeding cautiously, he led the way up the slope which culminated in the precipitous cliffs of the ridge. He was close under the latter, when his horse suddenly swerved aside, snuffing the air.
“What is it, old horse?” he murmured soothingly, reining in, and peering eagerly into the gloom. Was there a deep cleft in front—or did the rocks shelter a lurking enemy? Both these speculations flashed through his mind, as he whispered back a caution to his companion.
But the horse didn’t seem inclined to stand still either. He gently sidled away at an angle, and his rider, curious to fathom the mystery, let him have his head. A few steps more and they were right under the cliff. Then something flashed in the starlight. The horse came to a standstill—down went his head, and a long continuous gurgle told of the nature of his find. He drank in the grateful fluid as if he was never going to stop.
“Well done, old horse!” said his master, dismounting to investigate this inexpressibly welcome phenomenon. It was a deep cleft in the rock about six feet long by three wide, full to the brim of delicious water, in which a great festoon of maidenhair fern trailing from above, was daintily dripping. “Sellon, this is a find, and no mistake. We’ll camp down here, and wait for the moon.”
“And won’t we have a jolly good sluice in the morning. We’ll fill that goat-skin of ours, and pour it over each other. I believe it’s a week since I had a good wash—not since we left the river. The fellow who laid down the axiom that you’re never thoroughly comfortable until you’re thoroughly dirty must have been born in a pigsty himself. I know that for the last few days I’ve been wondering whether I’ve been looking a greater brute than I felt—or the other way about. Hooray for a good sluice to-morrow, anyhow.”
Both were too excited to sleep. Even the consolation of tobacco they denied themselves lest the glimmer of a spark of light should betray their whereabouts to hostile eyes. And they were on short commons, too; the death of the packhorse and the necessity of jettisoning a portion of his load having narrowed down their stock of provisions to that which was the most portable, viz. biltong and ship-biscuit; which comestibles, as Renshaw declared, besides containing a vast amount of compressed nutriment, had the additional advantage of being so hard that a very little of them went a long way. So they lay under the cliffs munching their ration of this very hard tack, and speculating eagerly over the chances the next day might bring forth.
The night wore on. Save for the tuneful sighing of the wind in the grass, no sound broke through the calm of that wild and elevated solitude. Meteors and falling stars flashed ever and anon in the spangled vault. A whole world seemed to slumber.
Soon Renshaw began to notice an incoherency in his companion’s replies. Fatigue versus excitement had carried the day. Sellon, who was of a full-blooded habit, and uninured to such calls as had of late been made upon his energies, had succumbed. He was fast asleep.
Left alone in the midst of a dead world, while the whole wilderness slumbered around, Renshaw strove to attune his faculties to the prevailing calm—to try and gain a few hours of much-needed jest. But his nerves were strung to their utmost tension. The speculation of years, the object of his thoughts sleeping and waking, were about to be attained. Sleep utterly refused to visit him.
He could not even rest. At last he rose. Taking up his trusty double gun—rifle and shot-barrel—he wandered forth from the fireless camp.
By the light of the burning stars he picked his way cautiously along the base of the rocky ridge, keeping a careful eye in front of him, above, around, everywhere. Yes, the object of years of anxious thought, of more than one lonely and perilous expedition into the heart of these arid and forbidding wilds, was within reach at last. It must be. Did not that gruesome find down there in the gully point unmistakably to that?
The cool night wind fanned his brow. All the influences of the dead, solemn wilderness were upon him, and his thoughts reverted to another object, but to one upon which he had schooled himself to think no more.
In vain. There on that lonely mountain-top at midnight, in his utter solitude, the man’s heart melted within him at the thought of his hopeless love—at the recollection of that anguished face, that broken voice pleading for his forgiveness; for his sympathy in her own dire extremity. What was she doing at that moment, he idly speculated? Ah! her regrets, her longings, her prayers were not for him, were all for the other; for the man who shared his present undertaking, who slumbered so peacefully but a few hundred yards away.
Why had he brought this man to Sunningdale, to steal away that which should have been his? Why had he brought him here now, to enrich him in order that nothing might be wanting to complete his own utter self-sacrifice? He owed him nothing, for had he not twice paid the debt in full? Why had he stepped between him and certain death? But for his ready promptitude Maurice Sellon would now be almost as sad a relic of humanity as that upon which they had gazed but a few hours back. But the solemn eyes of the stars looking down upon him, the very grandeur of the mountain solitude, seemed to chide him for such thoughts. What was the puny fate of a few human beings compared with the immensity of ages upon which those stars had looked down—the roll of centuries during which those silent mountains had stood there ever the same?
A perceptible lightening suffused the velvety vault above. The horned moon rose higher over the drear sea of peaks. The crags stood forth silvery in the new-born light—and then, as his glance wandered downwards, Renshaw felt every drop of blood flow back to his heart.
Far below shone a tiny glimmer—the glimmer of a mere spark. But withal so powerful that it pierced the darkness of the far depths as the flash of a ray of fire.
He stood as one turned to stone, holding his very breath. He rubbed his eyes, and looked again. There it was still. Again he averted his gaze, and again he looked. The distant spark was glittering more brilliantly than ever. It seemed to gain in size and power as he looked. It held him spellbound with its green incandescence flashing forth from the darkness down there in the far depths.
He tore out the white lining of his soft hat, and bending down, nailed it to the ground with his pocket knife. Then he walked away a few yards and looked again. The spark had disappeared.
Feverishly he returned to the mark which he had set, now almost fearing to look. He need not have feared. There shone the “Eye”—more dazzling than ever.
Maurice Sellon, sleeping the dreamless slumber of a thoroughly exhausted man, started up with a smothered imprecation, as a hand gently shook him by the shoulder. But his deadened faculties sprang into quick life at the low impressive voice.
“At last! Come and look. The ‘Eye’ is shining like a star.”