The White Hand and the Black Part 9

"Yes do," he said, bending over the brow of the gra.s.s-roll as though to help her. But she needed no help. She sprang up, lithe, agile as a cat, and in a moment was beside him.

"Would you like to try it?" she said eagerly, as if the feat was the most ordinary one in the world. "Would you like to look over Sipazi? I can tell you it's worth it. It feels like flying. But don't if you think you can't," she added, quick to take in the not to be concealed momentary hesitation.

That challenge settled it; yet the words were not meant as a challenge at all, but as sheer practical warning. She would not have thought an atom the worse of him if he had laughingly declined, but Elvesdon did not know this. Was he going to shrink from a feat which a girl could perform--had often performed? Not he.

"Yes. I think I should," he answered. "I should like to be able to brag of having looked over Sipazi."

Yet as he let himself down over the gra.s.s and root-hung brow which led to the actual brink, he owned to himself that by no possibility could he ever tell a bigger he, and further, that at that moment he would cheerfully have forfeited a year's pay to find himself standing safe and sound on the summit again. Well, he would not look down. He would get through the performance as quickly as possible, and return.

He was out on the tree, grasping the branch her hand had held on by.

Yet why did the confounded trunk tremble and sway so, and--horror! it seemed to be giving way, actually sinking under him. The ghastly thought darted through his mind that there was all the difference in their weight--that that which would carry her would break down with him.

His nerve was tottering. His face grew icy cold, and the hand which held the bough trembled violently. He was perched over that awful height even as she had been. He was not unused to heights, but to be suspended thus between heaven and earth in mid-air--no, to that he was not used. Beneath him the face of the great rock wall sloped away _inwards_. Anyone falling from here would strike the ground about thirty feet from its base. All the world seemed going round with him-- not even the thought that Edala had just done the same thing availed to pull him together. He must go--must hurl himself off and end this agony of nightmare--when--

"You down there, Elvesdon? Well, come up, because it's getting late, and it's time to think of getting back."

The calm, strong, matter of fact tones of Thornhill broke the spell like magic. This was an everyday performance after all, was the effect they conveyed. Elvesdon's nerve had returned. He was himself again.

"Let's see. What's the best way of getting off?" he asked, trying to suppress the tremor in his voice.

"Same as you got on. Grab hold of that root above, there under the stone, and--don't look down. Look up. That's all right," as Elvesdon, panting somewhat, stood once more on the summit beside them.

"Well done," cried Edala enthusiastically. "You are the only one besides myself who has ever looked over the Sipazi krantz. Several have tried but none of them had the nerve to get as far as the tree. Some wouldn't even go at all."

"The only sensible ones of the lot," said Thornhill shortly. "It's a fool's trick, anyway."

"Have you done it yourself, Thornhill?" asked Elvesdon. "I suppose you have?"

"Not any. Anyone could see that the thing wouldn't stand my weight for a minute: even if I were such a--" He checked himself, remembering that his guest had just qualified for the uncomplimentary substantive he had been on the point of defining. "But I'm going to have a charge of dynamite brought up here and the thing blown to blazes. It's too silly risky."

Elvesdon was rather astonished. Thornhill was undergoing the process known as 'working himself up.' Yet when he himself was down there, his host's tone had been absolutely level. And Thornhill himself was making up his mind to talk very seriously to Edala on the subject, little thinking that before any opportunity of doing so should come round, that might occur which should put any such idea clean out of his mind.

CHAPTER NINE.

THE ZULU AGAIN.

"You're going to do nothing of the kind, father," said Edala, taking up the challenge. "I'm not going to have my aerial throne blown to blazes at all. Why it's a curiosity--one of the sights. I bring everybody up here to see it."

"And to sit on it?" rejoined Elvesdon, mischievously.

"Only that no one ever has, except you. Tell me. What did it feel like, for the first time?"

Her straight, clear glance was full upon his face. He was thinking that 'the first time' felt uncommonly like being the last. But he answered:

"Well, I don't know. It was a queer experience--for the first time. To be absolutely candid I won't pretend that I completely enjoyed it."

"I know you didn't. I could see that your hand on the bough was not quite steady. That makes it all the more a big thing to have done."

"What did you yourself feel like the first time, Miss Thornhill, and-- what on earth put the idea into your head?"

"I felt just as I do now, how glorious it was being suspended in mid-air,"--the listener felt creepy in the calves of the legs, as the words brought back his own feelings. "What put it into my head? I was up here one day with another girl and it occurred to me it would be good fun to go and sit there, overhanging s.p.a.ce. She didn't believe I meant it, but I just climbed out on to the tree and sat there. She nearly fainted."

"Well, nerve isn't a monopoly of our s.e.x. Look at the wonderful things women do--diving from a ghastly height into a narrow tank--or looping the loop on a bicycle, and so on. By George! it's enough to make your hair stand on end to watch them."

"We've missed the sunset," cried Edala. "Never mind. You can see plenty of sunsets, but you can't sit on my aerial throne every day.

Why, where's father?" looking around. "Oh, there; over by that flat rock."

Thornhill had strolled away while the two were talking and was standing, shading a match to light his pipe, when--

"_Inkose_!"

He started slightly. The mountain top was flat and he had seen no one on it but themselves. The salute, however, had proceeded from a tall native, who had risen from behind the flat boulder before mentioned.

This man now advanced, and in the limp of his gait, the other recognised him as the Zulu. Then--Heavens and earth! He had wondered where he had seen him before. Now he knew.

But it was ghastly. No, the thing could not be. It was only a striking likeness. Moonlight is untrustworthy--and now, this light up here in the afterglow of the sunset was dusking. The Zulu stood--contemplating him with a faint, ironical grin.

"There are 'mouths' on this mountain top," he began, "waiting to swallow up men--and women," he added, with a glance at Edala who together with her companion had now come up. "_Whau_! it is easy to fall into such.

There are those that only half swallow, and return their prey, such as that,"--pointing with his k.n.o.bstick to the mouth of a crevice a few yards on the other side of the boulder. "Yet it may be that the prey though it returns to life does not do so unbitten. There are other 'mouths' who do not return their prey at all, and if it is sought for it is too late, for it is already dead."

To two of the listeners this bit of dark talking was intelligible because they were familiar with the tricks and turns of the Zulu language. The speaker merely meant to convey that some of the crevices were more dangerous than others. But to the third there was nothing 'dark' about it. And then, either from the fact--which no one but herself would have noticed--that her father's voice had lost some of its imperturbability, or by some mysterious conjunction of weird telepathy-- Edala began to think there must be some deeper, darker meaning underlying the words. All sorts of ghastly conjectures shot through her mind, but all vague, shadowy, nebulous. Through them she heard the voice of Elvesdon questioning the stranger.

"Who are you?"

"Manamandhla, son of Gwegula."

"Of the Zulu?"

"_Yeh-bo 'Nkose_."

"And your chief--who is he?"

"The Government."

"But your own chief?"

"The King."

"Which king?" said Elvesdon, becoming 'short.'

"_Au_! are there then two kings? I had not heard that."

This answer given so quietly and innocently would have caused the other two to smile, only they were in no smiling mood.

"But who is your chief in Zululand, your Zulu chief?" went on Elvesdon, growing impatient. But the deprecatory smile on the other's face was beautiful to behold. He replied.

"Now _Nkose_, I would ask--Are there any chiefs in Zululand other than the Government? Not to-day--Government is our chief."