Chapter Twelve.
The Mystery of the Waterhole.
Suddenly Arlo sprang up, barking furiously.
“Shut up, you brute,” growled Falkner, for this sudden interruption had, as he put it, made him jump. But the dog heeded him not, as he sprang up and rushed down the steps still giving vehement tongue.
“Be quiet, Arlo, do you hear!” ordered his mistress. “It’s only Ivondwe.”
The calm clear voice commanded obedience where Falkner’s bluster did not. To the furious barking succeeded a series of threatening growls, not loud but deep. In the midst of which the innocent cause of the disturbance appeared, smiling, and as little perturbed by this sudden and rather formidable onslaught, as though it were a matter of an ordinary kraal cur.
To the physiognomist this Ivondwe was a remarkably prepossessing native—rather handsome in the good-looking style of his race. He had a pleasant, open countenance, good-humoured withal, and when he smiled it would be hard to equal his display of magnificent white teeth. Though somewhat past his first youth and the owner of a couple of wives he did not wear the head-ring; for he was fond of earning money in doing spells of work for white men, such as waggon driving, or the sort of job on which he was now engaged: and this being so he held, and perhaps rightly, that the ring would not be exactly in keeping. I had known him well for some time and had always had a high opinion of him.
Now he saluted, and addressing himself to Falkner, in very fair English, asked leave to go over to a neighbouring kraal after the cattle were in. There was a merrymaking there, on the strength of the wedding of someone or other of his numerous kinsfolk.
“So, Ivondwe,” I said, in the vernacular, when he had got his answer. “So you speak with the tongue of the Amangisi, and I knew it not?”
He laughed.
“That is so, Iqalaqala,” he answered. “Yet it is well for Umsindo, who is long since tired of talking to deaf ones. Au! How shall he talk yonder—kwa Majendwa?”
Umsindo, meaning a man who is given to swagger, was Falkner’s native name, though he didn’t know it.
“That we shall see,” I said. “It may be that by then his tongue will have become loosened. But now, while he is away you must do well by these here. They treat you well, and their hands are very open—so open that soon you will be for building a new hut.”
He laughed, and owned that such might indeed be the case. All the while the great white dog was walking up and down behind him, eyeing his calves and snarling malevolently.
“The dog,” I went on. “He is very unfriendly towards you. Why?”
“Who may say? The dogs of the white people are seldom friendly to us, and our dogs are seldom friendly to the whites. And this dog is very white.”
I got out a large native snuff tube I always carried, and gave him some.
“Come up to Isipanga before we start,” I said. “I have a present there for him who should serve these faithfully.”
“You are my father, Iqalaqala,” and with this formula of thanks, he once more saluted and went his way.
“What have you been talking about all this time?” said Edith Sewin. “By the way isn’t it extraordinary that Arlo won’t take to Ivondwe? Such a good boy as he is, too.”
“Perhaps he’s a thundering great scoundrel at bottom,” said Falkner, “and Arlo’s instinct gets below the surface.”
“Who’s a thundering great scoundrel at bottom, Falkner?” said Mrs Sewin’s voice in the doorway.
“Eh. Oh come now, aunt. You mustn’t use these slang terms you know. Look, you’re shocking Glanton like anything.”
“You’ll shock him more for an abominably rude boy who pokes fun at his elders,” laughed the old lady. “But come in now and have tea. What a lovely afternoon it is—but a trifle drowsy.”
“Meaning that somebody’s been asleep,” rejoined Falkner mischievously, climbing out of his hammock. “Oh well. So it is. Let’s go for a stroll presently or we shall all be going to sleep. Might take the fishing lines and see what we can get out of the waterhole.”
“Fishing lines? And it’s Sunday,” said Mrs Sewin, who was old fashioned.
“Oh I forgot. Never mind the lines. We can souse Arlo in and teach him to dive.”
“We can do nothing of the kind,” said Arlo’s owner, decisively. “He came within an ace of splitting his poor dear head the last time you threw him in, and from such a height too. What do you think of that, Mr Glanton?” turning to me. And then she gave me the story of how Falkner had taken advantage of the too obedient and confiding Arlo—and of course I sympathised.
When we got fairly under way for our stroll—I had some difficulty by the bye in out-manoeuvring the Major’s efforts to keep me pottering about listening to his schemes as to his hobby—the garden to wit—the heat of the day had given place to the most perfect part of the same, the glow of the waning afternoon, when the sun is but one hour or so off his disappearance. We sauntered along a winding bush path, perforce in single file, and soon, when this widened, I don’t know how, but I found myself walking beside Miss Sewin.
I believe I was rather silent. The fact is, reason myself out of it as I would, I was not in the least anxious to leave home, and now that it had come to the point would have welcomed any excuse to have thrown up the trip. Yet I was not a millionaire—very far from it—consequently money had to be made somehow, and here was a chance of making quite a tidy bit—making it too, in a way that to myself was easy, and absolutely congenial. Yet I would have shirked it. Why?
“What is preoccupying your thoughts to such an alarming extent,” said my companion, flashing at me a smile in which lurked a spice of mischief. “Is it the cares and perils of your expedition—or what?”
“By Jove—I must apologise. You must find me very dull, Miss Sewin,” I answered, throwing off my preoccupation as with an effort. “The fact is I believe I was thinking of something of the kind—ruling out the ‘perils.’ Do you know, I believe you’ve all been rather spoiling me here—spoiling me, I mean, for—well, for my ordinary life. But—anyhow, the memory of the times I have known lately—of days like this for instance—will be something to have with one, wherever one is.”
I was stopped by a surprised look in her face. Her eyes had opened somewhat, as I had delivered myself of the above rather lame declamation. Yet I had spoken with quite an unwonted degree of warmth, when contrasted with my ordinary laconic way of expressing myself. “Good Lord!” I thought, “I seem to be getting sentimental. No wonder she thinks I’ve got softening of the brain.”
But if she thought so she gave no sign of anything of the sort. On the contrary her tone was kind and sympathetic, as she said:
“Strange how little we can enter into the lives of others. Now yours, I suppose, is lonely enough at times.”
“Oh, I’ve nothing to complain of,” I answered with a laugh, anxious to dispel any impression of sentimentality which my former words and tone might have set up. “I started on this sort of life young, and have been at it in one way or another ever since. It hasn’t used me badly, either.”
She looked at me, with that straight, clear glance, and again a little smile that was rather enigmatical, hovered around her lips. But before she could say anything, even if she had intended to, Falkner’s voice was raised in front.
“Wake up, Aïda, and come along. I’m just going to heave Arlo in.”
“No. You’re not to,” she cried hurrying forward.
The others had already reached the waterhole, and there was Falkner, on the rock brink, holding on to Arlo, grinning mischievously. The dog was licking his hands, and whining softly, his tail agitating in deprecatory wags. He wasn’t in the least anxious for the plunge—and speaking personally I should have been uncommonly sorry to have undertaken to make him take it against his will, but then Falkner was one of the family. Now there was a half playful scrimmage between him and his cousin, in the result of which Arlo was rescued from taking what really was rather a high leap, and frisked and gambolled around us in delight.
This waterhole or pool, was rather a curious one. It filled a cup-like basin about twenty-five yards across, surrounded by precipitous rocks save at the lower end, and here, overflowing, it trickled down to join the Tugela, about half a mile distant. It was fed from a spring from above, which flowed down a gully thickly festooned with maidenhair fern. Where we now stood, viz. at the highest point, there was a sheer drop of about twenty feet to the surface of the water—a high leap for a dog, though this one had done it two or three times and had come to no harm. The hole was of considerable depth, and right in the centre rose a flat-headed rock. It was a curious waterhole, as I said, and quite unique, and I more than suspected, though I could never get anything definite out of them, that the natives honoured it with some sort of superstitious regard. Incidentally it held plenty of coarse fish, of no great size, likewise stupendous eels—item of course mud-turtles galore.
“Hie in, old dog! Hie in!” cried Falkner.
But Arlo had no intention whatever of “hie-ing in,” being in that sense very much of an “old dog.” He barked in response and frisked and wagged his tail, the while keeping well beyond reach of Falkners treacherous grasp.
“Rum place this, Glanton,” said the latter. “I wonder there ain’t any crocs in it.”
“How do you know there are not?” I said.
“Oh hang it, what d’you mean? Why we’ve swum here often enough, haven’t we?”
“Not very. Still—it’s jolly deep you know. There may be underground tunnels, connecting it with anywhere?”
“Oh hang it. I never thought of that. What a chap you are for putting one off a thing, Glanton.”
“I never said there were, mind. I only suggested the possibility.”
He raised himself on one elbow, and his then occupation—shying stones at every mud-turtle that showed an unwary head—was suspended.
“By Jove! Are there any holes like this round Hensley’s place?” he said earnestly.
“Not any,” I answered. “This one is unique; hence its curiosity.”
“Because, if there were, that might account for where the old chap’s got to. Underground tunnels! I never thought of that, by Jove. What d’you think of that, Edith? Supposing you were having a quiet swim here, and some jolly croc grabbed you by the leg and lugged you into one of those underground tunnels Glanton says there are. Eh?” grinned Falkner, who was fond of teasing his cousins.
“I wouldn’t be having a quiet swim in it, for one thing. I think it’s a horrid place,” answered the girl, while I for my part, mildly disclaimed having made any such statement as that which he had attributed to me.
“Bosh!” he declared. “Why you can take splendid headers from the middle rock there. Oh—good Lord!”
The exclamation was forcible, and to it was appended a sort of amazed gasp from all who saw. And in truth I was not the least amazed of the lot. For there was a disturbance in the depths of the pool. One glimpse of something smooth, and sinuous, and shiny—something huge, and certainly horrible—was all we obtained, as not even breaking the surface to which it rose, the thing, whatever it might be—sank away from sight.
“What was it?”
“Can’t say for certain,” I said, replying to the general query. “It didn’t come up high enough to take any shape at all. It might have been a big python lying at the bottom of the hole, and concluding it had lain there long enough came up, when the sight of us scared it down again. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a crocodile.”
“Tell you what, Glanton. You don’t catch me taking any more headers in there again in a hurry,” said Falkner. “Ugh! If we’d only known!”
“There is prestige in the unknown,” I said. “It may be something quite harmless—some big lizard, or a harmless snake.”
“Well it’s dashed odd we should just have been talking of that very sort of thing,” said the Major. “Let’s keep quiet now and watch, and see if it comes up again.”
We did, but nothing came of it. Indeed if I alone had seen the thing I should have distrusted my senses, should have thought my imagination was playing me false. But they had all seen it.
“I shall come down here again with the rifle and watch for an hour or two a day,” said Falkner. “Or how would it be to try bait for the beast, whatever it is—eh, Glanton?”
“Well you might try to-morrow. Otherwise there isn’t much time,” I answered. “We trek on Wednesday, remember.”
Now all hands having grown tired of sitting there, on the watch for what didn’t appear, a homeward move was suggested, and duly carried out. We had covered a good part of the distance when Miss Sewin made a discovery, and an unpleasant one. A gold coin which was wont to hang on her watch chain had disappeared.
“I must go back,” she said. “I wouldn’t lose that coin for anything. You know, Mr Glanton, I have a superstition about it.”
She went on to explain that she had it at the time we had seen the disturbance in the waterhole so that it must have come off on the way down, even if not actually while we were on the rocks up there. Of course I offered to go back and find it for her, but she would not hear of it. She must go herself, and equally of course I couldn’t let her go alone. Would I if I could? Well, my only fear was that Falkner would offer his escort. But he did not, only suggesting that as it was late it was not worth while bothering about the thing to-night. He would be sure to find it in the morning when he came up with a rifle to try and investigate the mystery of the pool. But she would not hear of this. She insisted on going back, and—I was jubilant.
I knew the coin well by sight. It was of heavy unalloyed gold, thickly stamped with an inscription in Arabic characters. But, as we took our way along the bush path, expecting every moment to catch the gleam of it amid the dust and stones, nothing of the sort rewarded our search, and finally we came to the rocks at the head of the pool.
“This is extraordinary and more than disappointing,” she said, as a hurried glance around showed no sign of the missing coin. “I know I had it on here because I was fingering it while we were looking at the water. I wouldn’t have lost it for anything. What can have become of it, Mr Glanton? Do you think it can have fallen into the water?”
“That, of course, isn’t impossible,” I said. “But—let’s have another search.”
I was bending down with a view to commencing this, when a cry from Aïda arrested me.
“Oh, there it is. Look.”
She was standing on the brink of the rocks where they were at their highest above water, peering over. Quickly I was at her side, and following her glance could make out something that glittered. It was in a crevice about five feet below, but as for being able to make it out for certain, why we could not. The crevice was narrow and dark.
“I think I can get at that,” I said, having taken in the potentialities of hand and foothold.
“No—no,” she answered. “I won’t have it. What if you were to fall into the water—after what we have just seen? No. Leave it till to-morrow, and bring a rope.”
This was absolutely sound sense, but I’ll own to a sort of swagger, show-off, inclination coming into my mind. The climb down was undoubtedly risky, but it would be on her account.
“As to that,” I answered with a laugh, “even if I were to tumble in, I should make such an almighty splash as to scare the father of all crocodiles, or whatever it is down there. By the time he’d recovered I should be out again on the other side.”
“Don’t risk it,” she repeated earnestly. “Leave it till to-morrow. With a long reim you can easily get down.”
But I was already partly over the rock. In another moment I should have been completely so, with the almost certain result, as I now began to realise, of tumbling headlong into the pool below, when a diversion occurred. Arlo, who had been lying at his mistress’ feet, now sprang up, and charged furiously at the nearest line of bush, barking and growling like mad.