Chapter Twenty Six.
On the March.
They had passed their first night in safety, disturbed only at intervals by the snorting of buffalo, and in the morning they were seated round the fire, eating rather unpalatable “cookies” of meal baked under the coals, and drinking black coffee, steaming hot, from tin pannikins, Hume having made a good selection of stores.
Suddenly Webster planted his tin in the soft ground, threw his head back, and laughed long and hearty.
“Well?” questioned Laura, parting her lips in a smile.
“Excuse me,” said Webster helplessly; “but, upon my word, of all going-a-fishing, this is the funniest,” and he laughed again.
“I don’t see the joke,” growled Hume, as he looked through the steam of his coffee.
“Exactly; that’s what makes it so absurd. Lord, just think of it; we’ve been to great expense and enormous trouble, and have taken a year or a month—I don’t know for the life of me which—to get here, and now here we are adrift with about two weeks’ provisions.”
“I see no fun in that.”
“Man, it’s brimful of fun, if you only look at it in a proper light,” and carefully lifting up his tin, he began to sip his coffee, the light of laughter still gleaming pleasantly in his eyes.
“The most dreadful part, to my mind,” said Laura, “is the ease with which we adapt ourselves to the most sudden changes. Look at my hands; how coarse they are!”
It was now Hume’s turn to laugh. “That is an extraordinary ground for complaint,” he said, “when you have so many greater grievances at hand.”
“What greater grievance can a woman have than that of diminishing charms? I believe my face is freckling. Give me that tin plate. Thank you.”
She took the plate from Webster, polished the bottom of it, and then calmly studied her reflection.
“I am sorry I did not think of a looking-glass,” said Hume, “but I must confess I was not in a state to pick and choose carefully.”
“You did well,” said Webster heartily; “though it was a pity you forgot my razor, both for me and yourself. By-the-way, why did you burden yourself with that small crowbar?”
Hume looked a little confused. “Well,” he said, after a pause, “I thought that if we did find this—this infernal rock—the crowbar would be of use.”
“Of course,” replied Webster gravely; “of course. Let me see, what would be the value of fifty pounds of raw gold?”
“Close on 3,000 pounds.”
“Is that all. Lord love you! and has it not struck you that we could never get away with fifty pounds weight of dead metal about each of us? So that if there is a ton of gold it would not be worth to us more than the little we could carry away.”
They looked at each other blankly.
“We could hide a great quantity away, to be recovered on another journey.”
“Gentlemen, may I remind you of Mrs Glass’s advice to catch your hare before you cook him?”
“Now we’ve lost our bearings again,” said Webster, “and just, too, when we’d almost put into port and got the precious cargo on board, though by the same token the breadth of our backs is the only space at the disposal of our supercargo.”
“By Jove, you are right! we have lost our bearings,” growled Hume. “If you’ll believe me, I never thought of retrieving the gold, a work of uncommon difficulty, since we cannot possibly coax the metal from its matrix and will have to load ourselves with a worthless weight of quartz. If the rock is as rich as the specimen implies, we would have to carry away half of quartz, giving twenty-five pounds of gold to each, or only 1,500 pounds. Now, is it worth while advancing for such a little?”
“Nonsense,” said Miss Anstrade, with a frown.
“I am merely looking at the matter from a common-sense point, and Jim has just considered the humorous side. We both apparently come into the same ‘blind alley,’ and see the absurdity of running against a stone wall. We have lost everything, we have narrowly escaped with our lives, and now, even if, when not properly equipped for continuing the enterprise, we do succeed, the reward sinks to insignificant proportions—insignificant, that is, compared to the boundless wealth we originally contemplated.”
“Nonsense,” she repeated; “you originally had the very slightest faith in the existence of this rock, and the value of the reward is not the consideration you would prize. We have risked all and braved all to find it. Let us find it, and the pride of discovery after so many dangers and disappointments will be our reward. You mean to continue the search?”
“Of course,” said Hume.
“How about a canoe?” said Webster, getting up, and jobbing his hunting knife into the fig-tree.
“We don’t want a canoe, for the distance to the belt of reeds must be about nineteen miles, and we can walk that before you would finish your vessel. Afterwards we will ask you to build us a raft, which I think would be better, as there are many rocks in the channel.”
“A raft,” she said, with a smile; “then what would there be to prevent your making two or three trips to load your raft with as much of the metal as you like?”
“Good,” said Hume, laughing; “but, as you observed, we must first catch our hare, and he appears to be vanishing while we talk. Opstan—Klaas—we march.”
In half an hour they struck out of the forest into the glare of the sun, slightly tempered by the feathery mimosa, whose little fluffy buds of yellow bloom scented the heavy air. From the river banks there rose in thick masses the lustrous green foliage of the wild palmiet, rising from out of a ring of golden yellow, where the old leaves drooping had faded, and above the river, defining its winding course, rested a slight vapour, while beyond was the wide plain of rolling grass out of which had come their enemies.
They stood long with fixed gaze bent upon the wide expanse for sign, but could see nothing but herds of game, with a fine group on the opposite bank of gemsbok, whose long horns, when the game looked up, rested lightly on the striped haunches. Flocks of blue starlings, their wings glittering with a metallic lustre, flew across the river, and the birds alighted on the bucks to hunt for parasites.
“I can see no one,” said Hume, “but, nevertheless, we must proceed with caution, and before we advance into this blaze we must take the glint off our weapons. A gleaming spark, even from the point of an assegai, would be seen when the sharpest eyes could not detect us.”
“It is well,” said Sirayo, when the necessity was explained; “but of what use to dim your weapons when you have white about your clothes?”
Hume and Webster wore only shirts of grey flannel, the sleeves turned up to the elbows, leaving bare the brawny arms, bronzed almost to the colour of old oak, but their wide-brimmed hats were of a light blue, and Miss Anstrade wore a white puggaree.
“Have you some red clay, Klaas?”
The Gaika produced a small lump which he had himself used that morning to paint his face, and Hume deliberately stained all those articles of clothing which showed white.
“Why do you smear that red over your face, Klaas?”
“Make the skin soft, missy.”
“Oh, vanity of vanities, and I have seen you men smile when I have used a powder-puff. Does it really make the skin soft?”
“Oh, yes, the sun does not burn through the red clay; all mooi Kaffir girls put on red clay when the sun is hot.”
“That decides it; give me the clay!”
“Surely—” expostulated Hume.
“Give it to me; now Klaas, come.”
With an imbecile grin, Klaas followed the lady to a little stream of water, and performed the necessary toilet duties.
“Merciful heavens!” gasped Webster, when the two returned, while Hume tried gallantly to preserve a look of stoical indifference.
The beautiful white skin was covered by a hideous mask of red, out of which blazed the black eyes with a challenge that dared them to laugh at their peril.
“Forward,” said Hume, and off they went in single file; and as they went, their eyes would ever and again seek the great mountain before them, no longer blue and shadowy, but grey and rugged, with a cloud coming and going about its highest peak. They went on now among a litter of stones, now in and out among ant-hills standing above their heads, now struggling through some intervening kloof, or breasting the far side of a steep valley, whose tributary stream crept slowly on through thick rushes to the great river. In one of these valleys, where the water opened up into a shallow lagoon, a large reed buck, standing up to its belly, regarded them unmoved, and at another spot a long tree snake of vivid green whipped across their path at incredible speed and streamed up a small bush, above which its head appeared as though carved; locusts of strange form and brilliant colours flew from their path, while a brace of hawks accompanied their march for some distance. Their shadows from the right dwindled down to little round patches at their feet, then gradually lengthened out on their left, and the shrill cry of the cicada pulsating through the air beat upon their brains.
“Is it time we came to our moorings?” said Webster.
“A little further,” said Hume, looking at the mountain; and they went on over a ridge and down into a rounded valley, where a small vlei shone like a jewel. They were leaving this sheet of water on their left, when Hume suddenly halted.
“What a sight!” he whispered. “Look there!”
Out of the centre of the vlei rose the clear-cut head of a lioness, with her eyes gleaming green as emeralds. She was lying there in the shallow water for coolness.
“She cannot see us,” said Hume; “the sun is shining in her eyes. See how they glow like bits of glass.”
They stood absorbed in the spectacle; but the lioness hearing, though she could not see, began to move her head, then sat up like a dog, with the water streaming from her yellow shoulders, and her eyes still sparkling with green fire. She thrust her head forward, then, detecting some taint in the air, gave a low growl, whereupon, from out the withered grass on the further side, rose a huge lion, who, being out of the direct rays of the sun, saw the silent group, and fetched a deep growl. Thereupon, the lioness walked towards him, and, after one long stare over her shoulder, she lay on the grass and rolled over like a big dog, and the lion crouched down with his shaggy head on his outstretched paws.
With many a backward glance, the party moved on, glad that they had seen such a spectacle without being compelled to fire in defence. They rested at noon for lunch, then pushed on steadily, gradually edging along to the higher watershed, away for miles within easy view. Presently there came to them a low, tremulous murmur, which grew as they advanced, until it sounded at last like the sweep of the outermost fringe of the waves swinging to and fro over loose shells.
“It is the voice of the reeds swayed by the wind,” said Hume; “and when we reach the ridge above we shall be above this leafy sea.”
“Oh, how beautiful!” murmured Laura, a few minutes later, as they looked over a vast sea of feathered green; now shining with a silver reflection as the sun struck upon the leaves all bent in one direction by the wind; now with a ripple of dark shadows as the light tops sprang back together; now mottled all over with specks and splashes of black and white, and yellow. And all the time there rose the sweet, soft murmur and sibilant swishing, low and melancholy. As far as the eye could see stretched this moving mass, and it widened out to a dense fringe of bush on the right, beyond which, again, rose the buttresses of the mountain, springing to where, in one straight mass of frowning granite, seamed and scarred into a thousand fissures, towered the precipitous sides of the mountain itself.
Resting on their weapons, they stood gazing from the restless level of green to the grim sentinel of rock, its brow among the clouds, and its front overlooking the lowlands; and as they looked it was borne in upon them by the melancholy in the voice of the reeds and by the impassive face of the mountain that there might well be some dark mystery of Nature hidden away in this desolate place, but there could be no hope, or joy, or sound of laughter. Here was Nature of vast unpeopled places, of voiceless rivers languishing through thirsty sands, of rock-strewn uplands, and arid flats—Nature gloomy, mournful, and yet majestic too.
They sat down and, while there was still light, studied once more the well-thumbed map, with its vague outlines, and no longer simple when compared with the tossed and broken zigzag of mountain kloof and gorge.
“It would seem easier,” said Webster, “to flank the mountain from the spot where we now stand, rather than attempt to scale its front in search of that profile of a face, whose likeness may have appeared plain to your uncle, but which very likely will offer to us no resemblance.”
“I think so also,” said Laura, “for, see, when we get round the mountain through the forest here marked, we enter apparently a wide valley where we should have no difficulty in finding the ruins said to exist, and the rock bears to the north-west, distant about ten miles.”
“I should prefer to follow the old hunter’s directions,” said Hume; “but if we cannot find the face in the mountain, then we could adopt your suggestion.”
“Very well,” said Webster, “but it will be more difficult to scale that wall than to strike through the forest.”
“Perhaps, but I have a desire to stand where he stood in the place of the eye at sunrise and see the flaming signal as he saw it, or fail to see, for now I have lost faith.”
“No, my friend, you have not,” said Laura; “for then you would have no wish to follow your uncle’s wanderings. He must have been a man of rare courage to have struggled alone as he did, and as we are five, if we have but a part of his determination we must succeed. How desolate, how melancholy, the place is, with scarce a sign of life, except for that eagle soaring there.”
“Yet those reeds must shelter herds of buffalo, and sea-cow, and we know not what else.”
“We are seen,” broke in Sirayo’s deep tones.
“Seen! By whom?”
Sirayo pointed with an assegai to the nearest peak, distant about two miles, and shading their eyes, for they stood in the light, while the slopes running towards them were in shadow, they looked anxiously up.
“I see nothing,” said Laura.
“There is a man standing on a rock,” said Klaas.
“It may be a bush or stone,” muttered Webster.
“Neh, sieur, it is a man.”
“They are right,” said Hume; “look!” and he pointed to where a column of smoke rose straight into the air from a spur which ran to the forest behind them.
As they watched, another column shot into the air behind; then a third, from the summit of the mountain; then a fourth, faintly descried still more distant; and as they looked, the darkness swept over the scene, and in place of the smoke there gleamed out a spot of red on the peak.
“They speak to one another of our coming,” said Sirayo.
“There you see Kaffir telegraphy, Miss Laura; in five minutes the villages within ten miles have warning. The way through the forest you suggested is guarded; we must seek the shelter of the reeds and push on under their cover. There must be no fires to-night. Forward!”
Slowly they picked their way over loose stones, through dongas deep and slippery, through thorns and bushes, until the reeds closed upon them. Then, with their heavy hunting knives, they cut out an open space, stacked the fallen reeds in a wall, made beds with the leaves of others, and passed the night.