In Search of the Okapi Part 50

"What's the good? Remember how she spotted Mr. Hume the day he 'blazed' the trees. Believe she's got eyes in the back of her head.

No; but I learnt a trick from a keeper in dear old Surrey that will do what we want."

In the dusk Venning put the trick into effect with the help of his companions. It was simple enough. He drew fine linen threads from a handkerchief, stained them black and stretched them across the track down the gorge at five different intervals, and at the height of a few inches from the ground.

In the morning, at sunrise, the chief's mother was at the cave.

Seeing Mr. Hume, she promptly begged a pipe of tobacco, and sitting down, expounded at great length the laws of the clan, together with those which had been pa.s.sed during the past few days.

"The chief's hut," she said, "will be ready at the round of the moon, and the people look forward to much feasting."

"They had better be preparing to meet Ha.s.san and his wolves, lest they themselves be food for the pot."

She snapped her fingers. "Ha.s.san will die within the gates, and his wolves will perish in the uttermost depths."

"What depths are they?"

She laughed, and, with a glance at Compton, went off down towards the village, bearing on her head a square-shaped package.

"Your book, Compton! Better follow her. Evidently she wants to speak to you alone, Keep her engaged while Venning and I go back on her trail."

Compton overtook her below the ledge, where, as if expecting his coming, she was waiting; and while they were engaged, the others went off on the trail.

"Hurrah!" said Venning, pointing to the ground as they turned into the gorge; "the first string is broken. She came out this way."

They went on, keen as hounds on the scent, and both pointed to the snapped ends of the second string. Pa.s.sing over the stone wall just built which here crossed the defile, they came to the third cotton-- broken also. The fourth was, however, intact, and so was the fifth.

"Thank goodness!" muttered Venning.

"Bad luck, you mean."

"No, sir; good luck. I was beginning to think that she had gone right on down to that dismal pool."

They went back to the broken strand, and Mr. Hume brought the broken ends together. "Just hold them in position." He climbed on the wall, and, with the gorge opening away between the enclosing cliffs, he took his line from the spot where Venning kept his fingers on the broken ends.

"Good," he said, returning. "The cotton was broken at a point two or three yards out of the straight track. She must have gone towards the wall on our right."

Venning's eyes went to the cliff; but the Hunter examined the ground, and expressed his satisfaction at what he saw in a low chuckle.

"What do you see?" asked Venning, breathlessly, glancing quickly at Mr. Hume's face, and back at the wall of rock.

"I should like Muata to be here. It is a good point."

"What, sir--what?"

"A woman's skirt on the dew, lad. See, a man would pa.s.s through those two rocks there and leave no mark; but a woman, with the swing of her skirt, wipes a spread of dew off on either side. You can see the dark smudge in the glister of the dewdrops."

"I see," said Venning, starting forward towards two rocks with a pa.s.sage between.

"Steady, lad. Follow me."

He went forward to the rocks, which were almost under the right wall, and inch by inch examined the stony ground.

"The direction should be there," he said, pointing ahead; "but there's nothing but a dead wall."

They ranged up and down in a fruitless attempt to pick up the lost spoor, and came back to the two rocks.

"Maybe she did not pa.s.s this way, sir."

"A sign is a sign, and a spoor a spoor. She pa.s.sed between these rocks this morning."

"Then she must have come down the wall;" and Venning, stepping forward, placed his hand on the rock. He started back and stared up at the rock. Then he touched it again, with a curious look in his face, and next placed his ear against it. "Come here, sir."

Mr. Home went forward, and, placing his hand on the rock, felt it vibrating. Then he placed his ear to the rock.

"What do you hear?" asked Venning.

"A noise like the roar of the sea."

"Or the rush of a great body of water."

"Seek ye the honey-bee, O Spider."

They whipped round at the mocking voice, and saw the Inkosikase standing a few feet off, having come upon them with great quietness.

"Where is the young chief?" asked Mr. Hume at once.

"Be not afraid, great one. He sits over the 'familiar' of his father, learning wisdom and strong medicine. And is your medicine at fault, great one, that you should set snares in the path for a woman, as boys do for the coneys?"

She laughed, and the great one caught hold of his beard, as he eyed her, wondering whether the time had come to make her speak.

"Is it honey ye seek, O Spider, young chief who watches always?"

"It is honey, mother." Venning tapped the rock. "Ye may hear the bees humming within. We would enter the hive."

She laughed again. "Ohe! ye are too wise for me, ye two. If I did not show you the way, I see ye would find it."

She stepped past them, walked a few paces, then, with one hand upreaching to a k.n.o.b of rock, and a naked toe in a notch, she climbed up the height of a man, stepped to a ledge, and held a hand down to Venning. A few steps along the ledge, when they stood by her side, brought them to a depression in the cliff. Removing a few stones, she said with a look of sadness--

"Behold the depth that was my secret, and is now yours."

A gush of moist air came out of the dark opening, bringing with if the sound of hoa.r.s.e mutterings. Now they had found the opening, they did not know what to do, far; it was not inviting, and they stood looking at it warily:

"You would have me enter first," she said quietly. "Come, then, for it is not all dark within."

She disappeared, and Mr. Hume followed next, with a whisper to Venning that they must not let her get out of sight. A little way they pa.s.sed along a narrow pa.s.sage, facing a rushing current of moist air, and then stepped out into a cavern dimly lit by a shaft of light that crept through the roof. The woman crossed the floor, and they followed her down another pa.s.sage, into another cavern larger than the first. This, too, was dimly lit, and as they stood with a feeling of mystery and uncertainty that comes to men when they quit the surface bathed in light fop the-dark underground, they felt the floor vibrate under their feet, and heard, as if the source of the uproar were near at hand, a great booming with a shrill note at intervals.

"Would ye enter further?" asked the woman.

"Have ye entered further, mother?"