John Ames, Native Commissioner Part 24

But the glad smile, which she had prepared to welcome him faded from her lips, and her face grew pale. Down yonder, on the fringe of the acacia growth, a figure was standing; but it was not his.

Had the savage enemy found them out at last? Nidia's heart-strings tightened and her blood froze. A further glance served to rea.s.sure her, but only partially. The figure was not that of a native, of a savage.

But--was it human?

It had vanished--silently, imperceptibly; had vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, but in that brief moment she had taken in every detail.

The figure was that of a European, clad in brown, weather-beaten garments, tall, and wearing a long white beard. But the face. She had seen it for that moment, turned towards the setting sun, the light full upon it--full in the eyes--and never before had she beheld so awful an expression of fiendish hate stamped upon the human countenance. Was it human? The face was that of a devil! Nidia felt her flesh creep, and her hair rise, as she called to mind its expression, and all sorts of weird ideas, begotten of solitude amid vastness, circled through her brain. Was this frowning wilderness truly a demon-haunted spot, or had she seen the spectre of one of her murdered countrymen, who could not rest in his blood-stained grave? But that it could be a human figure she felt it impossible to believe.

Then another idea struck her. Was it indeed human--one who had escaped, like themselves, only to discover, or perhaps to witness the slaughter of those dear to him, whose brain had been turned thereby, and who, in a state of maniacal fury, was wandering at large? This solution, however, was hardly more palatable than the first. Had it seen her? She thought not; for she had remained perfectly still, true to an oft repeated injunction of her companion's, as to the fatal attraction exercised towards oneself by any sudden movement, however slight. The sun had sunk altogether now, and already the very brief twilight was descending upon the surrounding waste. Would he never return? Nidia's heart was well-nigh bursting with mingled terror and anxiety. Then it leapt for joy. A low whistle, a bar or two of a favourite song, a home-coming signal agreed upon between them, was borne to her ears. She could have laughed aloud in her delight. She composed both her face and manner to hide from him her terrors, for she had been careful never to let him suspect the half of what she went through during these protracted absences. Then his figure appeared striding out from the darkness.

"I've been in luck to-day, Miss Commerell!" he exclaimed gaily, flinging down a brace of full grown guinea-fowl, "Got them both at one throw, too."

Nidia did not for a moment reply. She was looking up at him with a very soft and entrancing flush upon her face, and a light in her wide-opened eyes which he never quite remembered ever having seen there before.

Then she said slowly, and with the air of one repeating a lesson--

"We have been through a good deal together during the last four days, including one of the narrowest shaves for our lives we can ever possibly again experience, and Heaven knows how long we are destined to roam the wilds together; but why not keep the conventional until our return to conventionality? Have I got a good memory, John?"

"Excellent," he answered. "I must try to imitate it."

His tone was even; but Nidia was not deceived. She was as well aware as he of the thrill that went through his heart on hearing his own words so exactly repeated, and all that they involved, and being so, she admired his self-restraint, and appreciated it in proportion to its rarity. If he had begun "to hang out the signals" at one time, he was careful to avoid doing so now. Yet--she knew.

"I'm afraid I'm late," he went on. "I hope you did not begin to get frightened. The fact is, I had a very long hard scramble after those wretched birds."

"Yes. Oblige me by putting down that bundle of sticks, and going and sitting over there. _I_ am going to build this fire, not you. Don't you hear? Do as you're told," she went on, with a little stamp of her foot, as he made no movement towards obeying. "You do the outdoor work, I the in. That's fair division of labour."

"I won't hear of any 'division of labour,' falling to you," he objected.

"Now, how often have we fought over this already? The only thing we ever do fight about, isn't it? Go and sit over there, you poor tired thing, and--and talk to me."

The while she took the sticks from his hands, looking up into his face, with a merry, defiant expression of command mingled with softness upon hers, that again John Ames came near losing his head. However, he obeyed. It was sheer delight to him to sit there watching her, as she broke up the sticks and deftly kindled a blaze in the fireplace, securely sheltered by rocks from outside gaze, chatting away the while.

The fire was wanted rather for light and cheerfulness than for cooking purposes, for it was late, and there was sufficient remaining from the last cooking to make a supper of. While they were discussing this he told her about his afternoon's doings, and the long and hard scramble he had been obliged to undertake over two high granite kopjes before obtaining his birds. There was smoke visible, far away to the south-west, but what it meant was impossible to say. Then she, for her part, told him what she had seen. He looked surprised, even startled, and the next moment strove to conceal it.

"Are you dead sure your imagination wasn't playing tricks with you, Nidia? When one is alone in a place like this for hours at a time one's imagination will turn anything into shape. I have more than once blazed at a stump in the dusk, when my mind has been running upon bucks."

"But my mind wasn't running upon bucks, nor yet upon tall old men with long white beards," returned Nidia, sweetly. "But the face! oh, it was too awful in its expression. I don't believe the thing was of this earth."

"I expect it's some one in the same boat as ourselves." And John Ames lighted his pipe--for he had obtained a stock of tobacco from Shiminya's store-hut as well as matches--and sat silent. The prospect of falling in with another fugitive was anything but welcome. It would not even add to their safety, rather the reverse, for it was sure to mean two skippers in one ship. Such a fugitive too, as Nidia had described this one to look like, would prove anything but an acquisition. But--was that all?

No, not quite. He was forced to own to himself that he had no desire to hurry the end of this idyllic and primitive state of existence, certainly not at any price less than Nidia's entire safety. He would have welcomed a strong patrol, though with mingled feelings. He certainly would not welcome at all the appearance of a fellow refugee, which would end the idyll, without the compensating element of rescue.

"He had no gun, you say?" he went on.

"No. At least, I don't think so, or I should have seen it. What can it have been?"

"As I say, some one in the same boat as ourselves. He'll be walking up to our camp directly. And--I would rather he didn't."

"Would you?"

"Wouldn't you?"

Nidia laughed.

"I believe I would. But what if it is some poor wretch who is lost?

Oughtn't we to try to help him?"

"At our own risk? Your description of this individual does not make one precisely yearn for his society, Nidia. Indeed, I gather from it that we should not be at all likely to get on, and I never heard that two skippers in one ship tended to enhance the safety of that craft. On the whole, I think we will leave the interesting stranger to his own devices. If, as you surmise, he really is off his chump, why, for that very reason the Matabele won't hurt him, and for the same reason he will be the reverse of an acquisition to us."

Then they talked on about other things--the times of their first meeting, and the Hollingworths, and Bulawayo, and presently Nidia grew sleepy. But, as she lay down, her last thought was a drowsy, half amused recollection that the apparition of the mysterious stranger seemed to have much the same effect upon her companion as the footprint in the sand had upon Robinson Crusoe.

He, for his part, sat thinking hard, and gradually growing drowsy.

Suddenly an idea struck him, an idea that started him wide awake with a smothered whistle, expressive of mingled surprise and dismay. Rising, he took off the blanket which had been wrapped round him, and going over to the sleeping girl spread it softly over her, for there was a chill edge in the atmosphere. Then, taking his rifle and cartridges, he went to the entrance of the cave, and with his back against the rock, prepared to spend a wakeful and a watchful night.

Now, a seated posture, with one's back against a hard and uneven surface of rock, in the open air, and that air with a particularly keen edge upon it, is not conducive to sleep unless the sitter is there with the object of being on the watch; which paradoxical deduction may for present purposes be sufficient to account for the fact that, as the night hours followed each other one by one, John Ames began to grow very drowsy indeed. Still, by reason of his enforced att.i.tude, he could not yield; at least, so he would have said but for the fact that in that dead dark hour which just precedes dawn he was awakened--yes, awakened-- by the weird instinct which warns of a presence, although neither by sight nor sound is that presence suggested. Something brushed past him as he sat there, and with it his ear caught a sound as of a stealthy human footfall. He started to his feet. Yes, his gaze was true. It was a figure--a tall figure disappearing in the darkness.

"Stand, or I fire!" he called.

But there came no reply.

He stood thus for a moment. There was nothing to be gained by discharging his piece at a venture in darkness like this. It might be heard anywhere, and furthermore would startle Nidia out of her wits.

No, he would not fire.

"Who is it?" he called again, clear but low, so as not to be heard by the sleeper within.

For answer there came a far away, mocking laugh, harsh and long-drawn.

Then silence.

With every drop of blood tingling in his veins, John Ames sprang within the cave again, for an awful idea had seized him. This thing must have been, right inside their hiding-place. His hand shook so that he could hardly get out a match and strike it. He bent down over the sleeping girl. She still slumbered--breathing softly, peacefully, but with brow slightly ruffled as though by dreams. He gazed upon her unconscious face until the match burned out, then turned away, filled with unutterable relief. No harm had happened to her, at any rate.

Then the first grey of dawn lightened upon the mountains.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

ALONE.

"I think we'll move on a little further to-day, if you feel equal to it, Nidia."

She looked up in surprise.

"Certainly, if you think it advisable," she answered.

"Well, to tell the truth, I do. It's not a good plan to remain too long in the same place. My notion is to work our way gradually to the northern edge of the range, where we can reconnoitre the open country between it and Bulawayo. It'll be that way we shall be most likely to strike a patrol."

John Ames was occupied in plucking the guinea-fowls he had brought in yesterday. Nidia had just lighted the fire and was engaged in making it burn. The sun had just risen upon a glorious day of cloudlessness, of coolness too, judging from the keen edge which still ran through the atmosphere.

"John," she said, looking up suddenly, "is it because of what I told you yesterday?"

"The proposed move? N-no. Yet, perhaps a little of that too. You would never feel easy if left alone here again. But I have other reasons--that smoke, for instance, I saw yesterday. It may mean natives. There may have been fighting down Sik.u.mbutana way or on the Umgwane, and they may be taking to the mountains. We had better get further on."