Chapter Nineteen.
Between Two Perils.
Nothing is so prone to defeat its own end as the fixed, overstrained attentiveness of intense expectation. The eye, riveted on one point, almost ceases to see it; the mind, dwelling on one person or object, confuses the idea of that person or object twenty times over. Thus Gerard Ridgeley, hanging there, staring down into the waters of the Black Umfolosi, momentarily expecting the swift stealthy rush, to behold the current darkened by the hideous shape of the huge lizard rising beneath him, soon lost the power of seeing almost anything at all, so intense was the strain upon his faculties of sight and hearing. Minutes were like aeons. His muscles seemed cracking. The terrible suspense seemed to tell upon him physically, to exhaust him. Then suddenly there rose out of the water a pair of great bony jaws, and closing with a vicious snap within half a yard of his body, sank back again out of sight as suddenly and noiselessly as they had appeared.
Appalling as this occurrence was, its effect was salutary. The presence of real and tangible danger broke the spell of his terrible suspense. Gerard was himself again now. So narrowly had the monster failed to seize him, that he had almost seemed to be looking into those hideous jaws with their saw-like and curved-back teeth, could distinguish the scales on the gaunt bony head, and mark the fiend-like expression in the beady cruel eye. Certainly the brute would come again, and this time it would be one or the other of them.
Grasping his impromptu bayonet, Gerard waited, cool and calm now, but every faculty on the alert. There was a ripple and a swirl on the water, showing that something was moving beneath; and so strange are the fancies that flash through our minds at critical times, that at that moment Gerard remembered how often he had marked that same ripple and swirl, though on a smaller scale, where some big trout was on the feed, and had stolen down to throw in his cast. Now he himself was being “risen.”
Again came that bubbling swirl, and now again that grisly head rose up. And, as it did so, Gerard, with all the strength of his arm struck the blade of the knife right down into the reptile’s eye. In it went, nearly to the hilt. The blood spurted forth in a great jet, and the strong, thick-backed knife-blade snapped like a bit of rotten stick, as the stricken monster wrenched himself round, and, with a convulsive plunge, sank out of sight.
It was all done in a moment—so suddenly, so quickly, that Gerard could at first hardly believe it had actually happened, but for the deep streak of blood upon the surface and the seething bubbles where the water was lashed into spume by the frantic blow of the monster’s tail. But as he realised that he had defeated and probably slain his formidable enemy, a feeling of elation set in, which, however, was not destined to last. True, he had slain one alligator, but then there were two. Would not the other attack him next, even if the blood did not attract yet more of them? He could not go on killing alligators in this fashion all day; besides, his cleverly devised bayonet was snapped and useless. Not altogether, though. There was still enough left of the knife-blade to make a sufficiently serviceable weapon if planted straight in the eye as before.
Suddenly his attention was diverted to another matter—a sound of quick ejaculations and the vibration of footsteps running upon the bank above. Gerard’s first thought was that he was discovered, but, by the sound, he knew that they had run past. Ha! They had discovered the alligator—wounded or slain!
From his present position he could not see out, and he dared not move from it without exposing himself to the twofold danger of being seized in the water, and thus at every disadvantage, by another alligator, or by the agitation of the branches making his presence known to his enemies. So he strove to make up for it by listening with all his might.
That the savages had made a discovery of some sort was, from their conversation, inevitable. From the sound of their voices he estimated that they were about fifty yards below.
“Ha! The blood!” he heard one say. “It has taken him; picked him up under the bank. Ou!”
“We could not find him, but the alligator has been a good hunting-dog. It has nosed him out.” And there was a general laugh.
Then followed a volley of quick, excited ejaculations.
“See there!” cried one. “He still struggles! Look! Out in the middle. Ha!” And Gerard, listening, with all his ears, could hear the sound of the distant splashing, and knew what had happened. The wounded alligator had risen again in the middle of the river and was struggling in its agony or perchance in the throes of death. The savages, watching from the bank, were under the impression that it was engaged in devouring him. His heart bounded with the thought. If such was their belief, assuredly they would abandon the search and go away. But as against this, it occurred to him that if the alligator should die the carcase might float; he was not sure whether it would or not. If it did, why then he was in worse case than ever, for they would discover that the monster had been slain by him, instead of the other way about, and redouble their efforts at finding him.
“Hau!” he heard one say after a minute of silence. “What a struggle! The white man dies hard.”
“Not so,” said another. “They are fighting for his carcase. Au! What a number of them. They are making as much splashing as a steam-vessel I once saw at Tegwini!” (Durban.)
Again there was an interval of silence, broken only by the sound of splashing. Then a voice said—
“He is gone! They have eaten him up among them; a leg here, and an arm there—a head to another, and so on. There is nothing left of the white man. He is distributed among all the alligators in the river. But, perhaps, that is better than being bitten on the point of The Tooth.”
A general laugh greeted this remark, and then a voice called out, “Hlala gahle! Rest easy, white man! Sleep peacefully inside all the alligators. Don’t cause them bad dreams. Farewell. Rest easy!”
This witticism seemed to the listener to be the parting one, for with the roar of laughter which greeted it the sound of voices seemed to be receding. With unspeakable and heartfelt thankfulness Gerard realised that the savages had at length abandoned the search.
Even then he was not without misgivings. Their last words might have been but a blind to draw him from his concealment. He would cling to the latter as long as prudence should dictate.
Time went by. Gerard, listening with all his ears, could hear no sound which betokened the presence of his enemies, not a murmur, not a footstep. A bird alighted, twittering, on the branches just over his head, then another and another. A pair of yellow thrushes in the brake behind set up their half-grating, half-piping, duet; and he could hear the raucous croak of a white-necked crow, sailing lazily along the river-bank. Relieved of the presence of its natural enemy, man, the life of this solemn wilderness was beginning once more to come forth.
Gerard, however, delayed long to follow its example, as we have said. His enemies might have left some of their number at a little distance to watch; or the very birds whose presence now assured him of his safety, might by their calls of alarm, attract the notice of the receding Igazipuza. So for upwards of an hour he waited there, momentarily expecting another attack from an alligator; but whether it was that the struggle and the fate of the one had scared away the others from the spot, he was spared the ordeal of a second conflict. At length, cramped and shivering, every bone and muscle in his body aching, poor Gerard hauled himself cautiously up by the overhanging branches and stood, or rather rolled, upon the bank again.
To a feeling of unspeakable elation and thankfulness succeeded one of depression. He had escaped so far—had escaped a double peril, in a manner that was little short of miraculous. But here he was, alone in a semi-hostile, if not entirely hostile country, which was completely unknown to him, without food, and not daring to fire a shot lest it should bring his enemies down upon him. Moreover, he was numbed and shivering from his long immersion, which might result in fever, ague, and such evils, not unknown in the belts of bush country. Again, he was still on the wrong side of the river, and now, bearing in mind his recent experience of its grisly denizens, the contingency of being obliged to cross it alone, and that by wading or swimming, he contemplated with shrinking and horror. But then again would come the thought of his almost miraculous escape. Surely he had been preserved for some purpose, and what purpose could be more worthy of accomplishment than that which he had in hand. No; this was not the time to despair, not it, indeed.
The day was now well advanced. Gerard, thinking hard, resolved that he had better not begin to move until dusk. It was dangerous now. He might be sighted from afar, or fall in with wandering bands, and not yet did he consider such a meeting a safe one or likely to result in the furtherance of his object. Moreover, he was deadly tired. He had slept but little of late, what with the anxiety of their position and the excitement of anticipating his own attempt—and not at all the previous night. He would find some sequestered hiding-place and take the rest he so greatly needed; would sleep, if possible, until evening. Then he would contrive to cross the river, and travel the night through. Thanks to the repugnance of Zulus to being abroad during the hours of darkness, he stood a pretty good chance of moving unmolested, and by morning he ought to have put a wide enough space between the Igazipuza and himself, to feel comparatively safe.
Acting upon this idea, he started off along the river-bank to find a snug and convenient place of concealment; and when he had gone about a mile, wending carefully and quietly so as to disturb as little as possible the very birds, keeping well under cover of the bush, he found one. It was a small hollow, in the midst of which rose a great boulder. The heat and the exercise had dried his clothes and restored circulation to his veins, and now at the foot of this boulder where the sun struck in dry and warm, Gerard lay down.
The sense of restfulness was indescribably delicious. His mind in its dreamy half-wakeful state went off into retrospect. Could it, indeed, be barely a year since he had received the twofold welcome news that he was to leave school immediately, and proceed—scarcely less immediately—to shift for himself in a far colony; that dream of Utopia to the average English boy, that too frequently rough awakening? He saw himself again on board the Amatikulu, gazing with wonder and a touch of mysterious awe upon the green shores of his “promised land.” Once more he was leading the old disillusioning monotonous and rather sordid life at Anstey’s, and an uneasy longing to take that specious rascal by the throat—for he was quite asleep now—was forgotten in the more pleasant vision of May Kingsland. And then his dreams took no further shape—merging into the complete unconsciousness of the more restful form of sound slumber.
The hours followed each other, and even the live creatures of the wilderness ceased to fear the motionless sleeping form of the young adventurer, but a year ago a hearty unsophisticated English schoolboy, now the bearer of his own life and the lives of others; thrown upon his own resources, alone, in the then scarcely known wilds of northern Zululand. Birds began to flit from spray to spray, balancing themselves on swaying twig, and chirruping and twittering just over the sleeper’s head. Little lizards, creeping along the face of the rocky boulder, dropped upon the sleeping form and ran tentatively over it, and a bush-buck, stepping gingerly through the hollow, turned its full bright eye upon the prostrate figure, and resumed its way as though finding no cause for alarm.
Hour followed hour, and now the sun’s rays began to decline, to slant more and more horizontally upon the green sprays of the foliage. Gerard stirred uneasily in his sleep, for with the approach of the waking hour he was beginning to dream again. Once more he was in the Igazipuza kraal with Dawes, discussing the seriousness of the situation. He had made the attempt to escape, and was being brought back—had been brought back. And then into his dreams there stole a vague sense of danger, strange, indefinable, but none the less present. It was fearful. Some weight was upon him, boding, terrible. He could neither straggle nor call out. Then breaking the spell with a mighty effort, he started up from his sleep—awoke to a reality more fearsome, more formidable than the nightmarish delusion. For, as he started up into a sitting posture, he nearly brought his face into contact with a dark grim visage which was peering into it, and a cry of surprise, dismay, despair escaped him. He was surrounded by a crowd of armed Zulus!