The Golden Rock Part 37

"You saw nothing to indicate whether the occupant was a European?" asked Hume.

"No; and I took it for granted he must be a black."

"Natives don't, as a rule, lead solitary lives, and still less could one of them dwell in loneliness by the side of a river, though the place may be the secret retreat of a witch-doctor."

"Perhaps," suggested Miss Anstrade, "the unknown visitor of last night and this hermit may be one and the same."

"Well," said Hume, "it is worth looking into; but in the absence of Klaas it would not be wise to leave the waggon."

"I'll run down and get the bag," said Webster; "for there is nothing else in the cave from which you could draw conclusions."

He started off, and in half an hour returned with the bag.

"This is Kaffir work, certainly," said Hume; "but," putting it to his nose, "it has not the native flavour, strong and pungent. This string of teeth threaded on a gut is native, and so is this bracelet. Humph!

Quartz. What a weight!" He opened his knife and sc.r.a.ped the surface.

"Why, look here; it is half gold."

A streak of shining yellow showed on one side, between two white veins of crystal.

"It's as rich as that piece which my uncle broke from the Golden Rock.

I wonder where he found it?"

"There's something more in the bag," said Miss Anstrade.

"It's the empty cylinder," said Webster.

She slipped her hand in, drew out the little tube and opened it, at the same time uttering a cry of surprise.

"Look here!" she said, drawing out a roll of paper.

"I swear," said Webster, with excitement, "it was empty when I found it, for I placed my finger in."

She flattened the paper out, and looked at them with eyes wide-opened, and a flush on her cheek.

There, in her hand, lay the missing copy of the map!

Each in turn took it, turned it over and over with a blank look.

"Well, I'm hanged," muttered Webster, under his breath. "That fellow must have placed that paper in the tube after I left the cave, and probably watched me the whole time, yet I never caught a glimpse of him."

"He is some half-witted native," said Hume, after a long pause.

"You forget the cry, after your disappearance. That was the voice of a white man who knew you or your uncle, and had learnt the object of our journey."

"True, I had forgotten that. Still, one of my uncle's men, escaping from the attack made upon his camp, may have taken up his home in the cave, and have lost his mind in the solitude. Such a man might have learnt about the Golden Rock, and he would have picked up a few words of English."

They now heard the lowing of oxen, and presently Klaas appeared with the runaways. Hume quickly counted fifteen.

"Well, Klaas, did you search far?"

The Gaika stretched his naked arm out and swept it round. "They stood all about, some in one place, some in others, but I whistled to them, and they were joyful to see a man. Three I could not find, but the body of one."

"You have done well, Klaas. What are these things?" and Hume handed over the bag and contents.

"Yoh! Kaffir man made these, but a white man uses them."

"A white man?"

"Yah, sieur, it is so. It smell white man."

The three looked at each other with uplifted eyebrows, while Klaas turned the necklet over in his hand.

"That settles it," said Hume. "Let us search for the stranger. But, as he may be on the look-out, I will make a circuit to the top of the krantz, while you go towards the base, and leave the bag on some rock that can be seen from above."

This was done. Webster placed the bag on a rock well out in the river, and then retired towards the camp, while Hume watched behind an aloe.

For an hour he waited without seeing aught, then descended to the bottom, and himself examined the cave, without, however, finding any fresh evidence. He then returned to the camp.

"It is no use," he said; "we should be wasting valuable time in searching for this mysterious being. If he had some design in taking that map we should be serving his purpose by lingering here. Inspan, Klaas."

The oxen were yoked, and the waggon moved on slowly, Hume going ahead to mark out the road, and Webster, taking the "trek-tow," or looped rheim to guide the leaders.

Before dusk they outspanned on a gra.s.sy knoll, and set to work at once with axes to build a fence round. The oxen were driven to the water, allowed to graze a short time, then driven into the enclosure and tied up. Fuel was stacked up in preparation for fires, supper was made and eaten, and then they sat talking about the man of the krantz until the clamorous howling of jackals warned them to be on watch. Miss Anstrade retired to the waggon, the sail was drawn down and two huge fires lit, one on either side of the oxen. Hume crept under, the waggon, and was soon in a deep sleep, while Webster and Klaas, on either side the waggon, kept watch.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

A STARTLING VISIT.

To Webster there was nothing unfamiliar in the lonely watches of the night, and the first long silent stretch recalled to him many a fleeting memory of hours spent upon the bridge amid the dark waters, when the mystery of night would close down upon the ship, bringing with it all manner of fancies and haunting superst.i.tions. There was here, in this unpeopled land, the same brooding stillness, the same murmur in the air; and the deep darkness, too, was instinct and alive with the same sense of things unreal. It seemed as though, beyond the flickering circle of ruddy light cast by the crackling fires, there were forms peering in, under cover of the shadows which concealed them, at those within the light, and now and again he would strain his eyes and finger the rifle that rested across his knees.

The minutes slipped by quietly, with an occasional sigh from a contented ox; then the long, wailing cry of a jackal rose and fell, to be followed, as though it were a signal, by the deep, hollow growl of a lion. The oxen stirred uneasily, and Klaas came softly up with his red blanket wrapped about him.

"Seen anything, Klaas?"

"Nix, sieur; but I hear de leeuw."

"Will he jump the fence?"

"Ek d.i.n.k so. The wind blows across, and he will come from that side."

"We will hear him when he springs?"

"Neh, baas, he will come over where it is dark, and lie still against the ground, so that we could walk up to him without seeing, though he sees us."

Webster picked up a bull's-eye lantern, pushed back the slide, and shot a vivid fan-like shaft into the gloom.

"Come, then, you hold this, and I will shoot."