The People of the Mist Part 60

Accordingly Leonard and Otter waited for some hours. Then the dwarf, who was in far the best condition of the three, took the spear--Olfan's gift--and said that he would go and seek for food, since their store was exhausted. Leonard nodded, though he knew that there was little chance of a man armed with a spear alone being able to kill game, and Otter went.

Towards evening he returned, reporting that he had seen plenty of buck, but could not get near them, which was just what his master expected.

That night they pa.s.sed hungry, by turns watching Juanna, who was still delirious. At dawn Otter started out again, leaving Leonard, who had been unable to sleep as on the previous night, crouched at Juanna's side, his face buried in his hands.

Before noon Leonard chanced to look up, and saw the dwarf reeling towards him, for he also was faint with want of food. Indeed his great head and almost naked body, through the skin of which the misshapen bones seemed to start in every direction, presented so curious a spectacle that his master, whose brain was shaken by weakness, began to laugh.

"Don't laugh, Baas," gasped the dwarf; "either I am mad, or we are saved."

"Then I think that you must be mad, Otter, for we shall take a deal of saving," he answered wearily, for he had ceased to believe in good fortune. "What is it?"

"This, Baas. There is a white man coming this way and more than a hundred servants with him; they are marching up the mountain slope."

"You are certainly mad, Otter," Leonard replied. "What in the names of Jal and Aca is a white man doing here? I am the only one of that species who have been fool enough to penetrate these regions, I and Francisco,"

and he shut his eyes and dozed off.

Otter looked at him for a while, then he tapped his forehead significantly and started down the slope again. An hour later, Leonard, still dozing, was awakened by a sound of many voices, and by a hand that shook him not too gently.

"Awake, Baas," said the dwarf, for the hand was his; "I have caught the white man and brought him here."

Leonard staggered to his feet and saw before him, surrounded by gun-bearers and other attendants, an English gentleman, rather under than over middle age, with a round and kindly face tanned by the sun, and somewhat deep-set dark eyes having an eyegla.s.s fixed in one of them, through which its wearer regarded him with much commiseration.

"How do you do, sir?" said the stranger in a pleasant voice. "So far as I can make out from your servant you seem to be in a baddish way. By George! there is a lady."

"How do you do?" answered Leonard. "Capital sun-helmet that of yours.

I envy it, but you see I have had to go bare-headed lately," and he ran his fingers through his matted hair. "Who is the maker of that eight-bore? Looks a good gun!"

"Achmet," said the stranger, turning to an Arab at his side, "go to the first donkey and fetch this lord of the earth a pint of champagne and some oatmeal cakes; he seems to want them. Tell the bearers also to bring up my tent and to pitch it there by the water. Quick, now."

Forty-eight hours had pa.s.sed, and the benevolent stranger was sitting on a camp-stool in the door of his tent, looking at two forms that lay wrapped in blankets and comfortably asleep within it.

"I suppose that they will wake some time," he murmured, dropping his eyegla.s.s and taking the pipe from his mouth. "The quinine and champagne have done them a lot of good: there is nothing like quinine and champagne. But what an unconscionable liar that dwarf must be! There is only one thing he can do better, and that is eat. I never saw a chap stow away so much grub, though I must say that he looks as though he needed it. Still, allowing for all deductions, it is a precious queer story. Who are they, and what the deuce are they doing here? One thing is clear: I never saw a finer-looking man nor a prettier girl." And he filled his pipe again, replaced the eyegla.s.s in his eye, and began smoking.

Ten minutes later Juanna sat up suddenly, whereupon the stranger withdrew out of sight. She looked round her wildly, then, seeing Leonard lying at the further side of the tent, she crept to him and began kissing him, saying: "Leonard! Thank G.o.d that you are still alive, Leonard! I dreamed that we both were dead. Thank G.o.d that you are alive!"

Then the man who had been thus adjured woke up also and returned her caresses.

"By George! this is quite affecting," said the traveller. "I suppose that they are married; if not, they ought to be. Any way, I had better clear out for a while."

An hour later he returned to find that the pair had made themselves as presentable as soap and water, and some few spare garments which he had sent to Leonard, would allow, and were now sitting in the sun outside the tent. He advanced, lifting his helmet, and they rose to meet him.

"I suppose that I had better introduce myself," he said with some hesitation, for he was a shy man. "I am an English traveller, doing a little exploring on my own account, for lack of any other occupation, and my name is Sydney Wallace."

"Mine is Leonard Outram," answered Leonard, "and this young lady is Miss Juanna Rodd."

Mr. Wallace started and bowed again. So they were _not_ married!

"We are deeply indebted to you, sir," went on Leonard; "for you have rescued us from death."

"Not at all," answered Mr. Wallace. "You must thank that servant of yours, the dwarf, and not me, for if he had not seen us, I should have pa.s.sed a mile or more to the left of you. The fact is that I am rather fond of mountaineering, and seeing this great peak above us--I am told that it is the highest in the Bisa-Mushinga Mountains--I thought that I might as well have a try at it before I turn homewards, _via_ Lake Nya.s.sa, Livingstonia, Blantyre, and Quilimane. But perhaps you will not mind telling me how you came to be here. I have heard something from the dwarf, but his tale seems a little too steep."

"I am afraid you will think ours rather steeper, Mr. Wallace,"

said Leonard, and he proceeded to give him a short outline of their adventures.

When he came to their arrival among the People of the Mist, and described the inauguration of Otter and Juanna as G.o.ds in the temple of the colossus, he noticed that his auditor had let the eyegla.s.s fall from his round eye, and was regarding him with mild amazement.

"I am afraid that all this does not interest you," said Leonard stiffly.

"On the contrary, Mr. Outram, it interests me very much. I am exceedingly fond of romances, and this is rather a good one."

"As I thought; it is scarcely worth while to go on," said Leonard again.

"Well, I cannot wonder that you do not believe me."

"Leonard," interposed Juanna quietly, "you still have the star ruby; show it to Mr. Wallace!"

He did so, somewhat sulkily, and then, as he seemed disinclined to say anything more, Juanna took up the tale, showing in evidence of its truth the spear, the frayed rope, and the tattered white robe which she had worn in her character of Aca, and, indeed, still wore beneath poor Francisco's ca.s.sock--for she had no other.

Mr. Wallace heard her out, then, without making any comment, he rose, saying that he must try to shoot some meat for the camp, and begged that they would make themselves comfortable until his return that evening.

Before sundown he reappeared, and, coming straight to the tent, asked their pardon for his incredulity.

"I have been up yonder," he said, "following your spoor backwards. I have seen the snow-bridge and the stones, and the nicks which the dwarf cut in the ice. All is just as you told me, and it only remains for me to congratulate you upon having escaped from the strangest series of dangers that ever I heard of"; and he held out his hand, which both Leonard and Juanna shook warmly.

"By the way," he added, "I sent men to examine the gulf for several miles, but they report to me that they found no spot where it would be possible to descend it, and I fear, therefore, that the jewels are lost for ever. I confess that I should have liked to try to penetrate into the Mist country, but my nerves are not strong enough for the ice-bridge, and if they were, stones won't slide uphill. Besides, you must have had about enough of roughing it, and will be anxious to turn your faces towards civilisation. So after you have rested another couple of days I think that we had better start for Quilimane, which, barring accidents, is about three months' march from here."

Shortly afterwards they started accordingly, but with the details of their march we need not concern ourselves. An exception must be made, however, in the case of a single event which happened at the mission-station of Blantyre. That event was the wedding of Leonard and Juanna in conformance with the ceremonies of their own church.

No word of marriage had been spoken between them for some weeks, and yet the thought of it was never out of the minds of either. Indeed, had their feelings been much less tender towards each other than was the case, it would still have been desirable, in view of the extraordinary intimacy into which they had been thrown during the past months, that they should become man and wife. Leonard felt that alone as she was in the wide world, nothing short of mutual aversion would have justified him in separating from Juanna, and as it was love and not aversion that he entertained towards her, this argument came home to him with overmastering force.

"Juanna," he said to her on the day of their arrival at Blantyre, "you remember some words that pa.s.sed between your father and myself when he lay upon his death-bed, to the effect that, should we both wish it, he trusted to my honour to remarry you formally as soon as an opportunity might arise.

"Now the opportunity is here, and I ask you if you desire to take me for your husband, as, above everything in the world, I desire to make you my beloved wife."

She coloured to her beautiful eyes and answered in a voice that was almost a whisper:

"If you wish it and think me worthy of you, Leonard, you know that I wish it also. I have always loved you, dear, yes, even when I was behaving worst to you; but there is--Jane Beach!"

"I have told you before, Juanna," he answered with some little irritation, "and now I tell you again, that Jane Beach and I have done with each other."

"I am sure that I am very glad to hear it," Juanna replied, still somewhat dubiously. The rest of that conversation, being of a private character, will scarcely interest the public.

When he spoke thus, Leonard little knew after what fashion Jane Beach and he had wound up their old love affair.

Two days later Leonard Outram took Juanna Rodd to wife, "to have and to hold, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death did them part," and their rescuer, Sydney Wallace, who by now had become their fast friend, gave her away.

Very curious were the memories that pa.s.sed through Juanna's mind as she stood by her husband's side in the little gra.s.s-roofed chapel of Blantyre, for was this not the third time that she had been married, and now only of her own free will? She bethought her of that wild scene in the slave camp; of Francisco who died to save her, and of the blessing which he had called down upon her and this very man; of that other scene in the rock prison, when, to protect Leonard's life, she was wed, according to the custom of the Children of the Mist, to that true-hearted gentleman and savage, Olfan, their king. Then she awoke with a happy sigh to know that the lover at her side could never be taken from her again until death claimed one of them.

"We shall be dreadfully poor, Leonard," she said to him afterwards; "it would have been much better for you, dear, if I had fallen into the gulf instead of the rubies."

"I am not of your opinion, love," he answered with a smile for he was very happy. "Hang the rubies! Your price is far above rubies, and no man may struggle against fate. I have always been able to make a living for myself heretofore, and I do not doubt that I shall continue to do so for both of us, and we will leave the rest to Providence. You are more to me, Juanna, than any wealth--more even than Outram."