John Ames, Native Commissioner Part 25

"Do you know, I am glad you have come to that conclusion. What I told you yesterday has rather got upon my nerves, and, now we are going to move, I'll tell you something more. I dreamt of it--dreamt that awful face was bending over me looking into mine. You know--one of those dreams that is horribly real, one that remains with you after you wake, and, in fact, that you remember as though it had actually happened. Are those birds ready?"

"Yes. Never mind. I'll fix them," he replied; and in a moment, fixed on a deft arrangement of sticks, they were hissing and sputtering over the fire. His mind was full of Nidia's dream. But was it a dream?

That shape, brushing past him in the darkness--the hollow, demoniacal laugh? Had the being, whatever it was, actually entered the cave, pa.s.sing him seated there on guard? Was it a dream, indeed, or was it the actual face which she had seen? The latter seemed far more like it.

Then he remembered that even if such were the case, it was too dark for features to be distinguishable. He was fairly puzzled. And by way of finding some solution to the mystery he went down to the spot which Nidia pointed out to him as the scene of the first apparition, and examined the ground long and carefully. There was not a trace of a human footmark--not a stone displaced. He felt more puzzled than ever.

But not to Nidia was he going to impart his misgivings. With a change of camping-place she would forget this rather unpleasant mystery, if only it did not take to following them, that is--and indeed they would be fortunate if they met with no more material cause for alarm.

"On the whole it's rather lucky we struck old Shiminya's place," he remarked, as they were seated at their primitive breakfast. "Blankets, matches, everything we have--and that's not much--we owe to him, even the rifle and cartridges. When I cleared from Sik.u.mbutana, with nothing on earth but a pipe, a sword-bayonet, and a bunch of keys, I felt pretty helpless, I can tell you. What must you have felt, when you first found yourself adrift?"

"It was awful. That night--shall I ever forget it? And how strange we should have met like that. The very next day I was going to send over to let you know I was at the Hollingworths'. I only heard from Mr Moseley that you were so near. Would you have come to see me?"

"Have you forgotten that last long day of ours, down by the sea, that you can ask such a question?" he said gravely, his full, straight glance meeting hers. Nidia was conscious of ever so slight a flush stealing over her face. "How ingenious you are," intently examining one of the wooden forks which he had roughly carved for her as they went along.

"You must let me keep these as a memento of this wandering of ours."

"How many are there?" he answered. "Three--may not I keep one of them?

I want a memento, too."

"Am I getting irremediably freckled and tanned?" she said. "And tattered? Yet one would be in absolute rags, but for that thorn-and-fibre needle and thread of yours."

"I never saw you look better in my life. There are no freckles, and the brown will soon wear off, if you want it to. Though really it's becoming--makes the eyes larger. So make your mind easy on that score.

As for tatters"--looking at his own attire--"I'm afraid we are rather a ragged pair. By the way, I wonder what your people in England would say if they could see you now."

"I know what they'd say to you for the care you've taken of me," she answered seriously, "what they will say, I hope, one of these days."

He turned away suddenly, and bending down, began busying himself over the rolling up of their scanty kit.

"Oh, as to that," he rejoined, speaking in a tone of studied carelessness, "where should I have been all this time without you? Nice cheerful work it would have been romping about the mountains alone, wouldn't it?"

"You would have been in safety long ago without myself as a drag upon you."

"Possibly; possibly not. But, speaking selfishly, I prefer things as they are. But it's rough on you, that's what I'm thinking about. By the way, old Shiminya isn't quite such a rip as I thought. I was more than half afraid he'd have given us away when they cut him loose. But he doesn't seem to have done so, or we'd have heard about it before now."

This apparently careless change of subject did not impose upon Nidia.

She saw through and appreciated it--and a thrill of pride and admiration went through her. Whimsically enough, her own words, spoken to her friend on the day of that first meeting, came into her mind. "I think we'll get to know him, he looks nice." And now--he had impressed her as no man had ever before done. Full of resource, strong, tactful, and eminently companionable as he had shown himself, she was intensely proud of the chivalrous adoration with which she knew he regarded her, and all manifestation of which he was ever striving to repress. What would she do when they returned to safety, and their ways would lie apart? For somehow in Nidia's mind the certainty that they would return to safety had firmly taken root.

"Perhaps they haven't cut him loose yet," she suggested.

Her companion gave a whistle, and looked scared. Only for a moment, though.

"Bad for him in that case. It would have been better for him and safer for us--to have given him a tap on the head. I couldn't prove anything against him, though I've had my eye on him for some time--besides, he seems to have taken some care of you. But he's sure to have been found.

He's one of these Abantwana 'Mlimo, and too much in request just now."

"Is there anything in that Umlimo superst.i.tion, do you think, John?"

"There is, to this extent. From what I can get out of the natives it is of Makalaka origin, and manifests itself in a voice speaking from a cave. Now I believe that to be effected by ventriloquy. There is a close 'ring' of hierarchs of the Abstraction, probably most of them ventriloquists, and they retain their power by the very simple but seldom practised expedient of keeping their eyes and ears open and their mouths shut. That is about the secret of all necromancy, I suspect, from its very beginning."

"Then you don't believe in a particular prophet who talks out of a cave?"

"No; if only for the reason that the cave the Umlimo is supposed to speak from is one that no man could get into or out of--at least, so the Matabele say. No; the thing is a mere abstraction; an idea cleverly fostered by Messrs. Shiminya and Co. They shout up questions to the cave, and ventriloquise the answers back."

What was it? Did the speaker actually hear at that moment a shadowy echo of the mocking laugh which had been hurled at him from the darkness, or did he imagine it? The latter, of course. But here, in the very home of the superst.i.tion they had been discussing, could there, after all, be more in it--more than met the eye? He could not but feel vaguely uneasy. He glanced at his companion. She had altered neither att.i.tude nor expression. He felt relieved.

Over less forbidding looking ground their way now lay. The grey chaotic billowings and craters of granite blocks gave way to table-land covered with long gra.s.s and abundant foliage. Here they advanced ever with caution, conversing but little, and then only in whispers. Indeed, after the rest and comparative safety of their late refuge, it was like entering into all the anxiety and apprehensions of peril renewed. Not very fast, however, could they travel, for Nidia, though a good walker, felt the heat, and John Ames, although, as he declared, he had "humped"

a heavier "swag" than that comprised by their load, yet it demoralised him too.

A fireless camp amid the rocks, then on again in the cool of the morning. And as their way lay over high ground, the sun rose upon such a sea of vast and unrivalled wildness--castellated peaks and needle-like granite shafts, here a huge grey rock-dome, smooth, and banded round by a beautiful formation of delicate pink; there, and all around, cone-like kopjes of tumbled angular boulders, as though the fire whirlpool beneath earth's surface had swept round and round, throwing on high its rocky billows, leaving in the centre this great dome, smooth and unriven.

Doves cooed among the greenness of the acacias, whose feathery sprays gleamed bright against the background of grim rock in sombre ma.s.ses.

"Yes, it is about as wild a bit of scene as you could find anywhere,"

said John Ames, in reply to his companion's cry of amazement and delight. "You will have something to talk about after this; for you can safely say you have been where very very few whites have ever set foot.

Even now there are parts of the Matopos which have never been explored.

The old-time hunters avoided them because there was no game--as we, by the way, know to our cost; the traders because there were no natives--as we know to our advantage; and the prospectors because granite and gold don't go together."

The foliage grew more abundant as they advanced; the "marula" and wild fig, and omnipresent acacia. Winding around the spurs of the great hills every turn of their way would reveal some fresh view of exquisite wildness and beauty.

"Look over there, Nidia. That might be the cave of the Umlimo himself,"

said John Ames, pointing to a great granite cone which rose up from the valley bottom some little distance off. It was apparently about two hundred feet in height, and in the centre of its face yawned a great square hole, black and darksome.

"I wonder is it?" she said, gazing with interest at what was in fact a sufficiently remarkable object, "If it isn't, it ought to be."

"Look," he went on. "Imagine it a bright moonlight night, and that valley bottom crowded with about half the Matabele fighting-men, all ranged in crescent formation, looking up at the cave there. Then imagine the oracle booming forth its answers from the blackness of yonder hole. Wouldn't that make a scene--eh?"

"Yes, indeed it would. But--how could anybody get up there? It looks quite inaccessible."

"So it probably is. But there would be no necessity for anybody to get up there. Messrs. Shiminya and Co. would take care of that part of the entertainment, as I was telling you the other day. Well, we won't camp near it on the off chance that it may be the real place."

The spot they did select for a camp-ground was some little way further on, and a wild and secluded one it was, right in among rocks and trees, and well up on the hillside. This elevated position was of further advantage in that a reedy swamp wound through the valley bottom; two water-holes of oval formation, gleaming like a pair of great eyes from its midst.

"I'm afraid 'skoff' is running low, Nidia," remarked John Ames, surveying gravely a pair of turtle-doves and a _swempi_, the latter a small variety of partridge, which he had knocked over with stones during their journeying. "A brace of record pedestrians can't afford to let themselves run down in condition. The English of which is that I must go out and kill something--or try to."

"Mayn't I go with you?" she asked, rather wistfully. He looked doubtful.

"I wish you could," he answered slowly. "But--you have walked enough the last couple of days; and apart from the discomfort to you, it is essential you should not overtire yourself. In fact, it might become a matter of life or death. No. Be good now, and remain perfectly quiet here, and rest. I'll be back before dark. Good-bye."

What impulse moved her to put out both her bands to him? He took them.

"Good-bye," he said again. One second more of their eyes thus meeting and his resolution would be shattered. With a farewell pressure he dropped her hands and was gone.

It was early in the afternoon, and warm withal. Left alone Nidia grew drowsy and fell into a doze. When she awoke the sun was just going off the valley beneath, and she was still alone. She sat up congratulating herself upon having got through those lonely hours in sleep. He would be back now at any moment. Rising, she went over to the runnel of water which trickled down the rocks just behind their resting-place, and bathed her face in one of its clear basins. Then she returned. Still no John Ames.

The sun was off the valley now--off the world. In the brief twilight the stars began to rush forth. A terrible loneliness came over her.

Oh, why was he so late? The two water-holes in the valley glared up at her with a lack-l.u.s.tre stare, as of a pair of gigantic eyes, watching her loneliness. Still he came not.

Was he uncertain of the place? They had but just arrived there, and he might well be. Fool that she was not to have thought of it, and now her hands trembled with eagerness as she collected some dry gra.s.s and sticks together, and caring nothing what other eyes might see it if only his would, kindled them into a bright blaze.

How her hearing was strained to its uttermost tension! Every rustle of a leaf, every snapping of a twig, sent a thrill of antic.i.p.atory joy through her being, only to give way to sickening disappointment. An hour went by, then two. Faint and exhausted, she had not even the energy to prepare food. The one consciousness of her appalling loneliness here in this scarcely trodden waste seemed to sap and paralyse all her facilities. The weird voices of the night held a different meaning now that she was lying out alone on the hillside.

Below, in the swamp, the trailing gleam of will-o'-the-wisps played fitfully, and the croaking of frogs was never stilled.

Had anything befallen him? It must be so. Nothing short of that could have kept him from returning to her. And she? She could do nothing to aid him. She was so absolutely helpless.