The glory of the slanting sun rays swept wide and golden over the broad river valley as the sinking disc touched the green gold line of the further ridge, then sank beneath it, leaving the sweep of bush-clad mound and lower lying level first lividly clear, then indistinct in the purple afterglow. Birds had ceased to pipe farewell to the last light of falling day, and here and there along the river bank a jackal was shrilly baying. But if the light of day had failed, with it another lamp had been lighted in the shape of a broad moon approaching its full, its globe reddening into an increasing glow with the twilight darkening of the sky.
“We shall pass by the waterhole,” I said. “You are not afraid.”
“Afraid? With you? But it is an uncanny place. We have rather avoided it since that time we first saw that weird thing in it. But we have been there since in the daytime with Falkner, and father, and whatever the thing may have been we have never seen it since.”
“Well, we’ll have a look at it in this grand moonlight. Perhaps the bogey may condescend to appear again.”
“Hark!” exclaimed Aïda suddenly. “What is that?” Then listening—“Why, it’s a lamb or a kid that must have strayed or been left out.”
A shrill bleat came to our ears—came from the bush on the further side of the hole to us, but still a little way beyond it.
“Couldn’t we manage to catch it?” she went on. “It’ll be eaten by the jackals, poor little thing.”
“Instead of by us,” I laughed. “Well, it doesn’t make much difference to it though it does to its owner. Wait—Don’t speak,” I added in a whisper, for my ears had caught a sound which hers had missed.
We stood motionless. We were on high ground not much more than twenty yards above the pool, every part of which we could see as it lay, its placid surface showing like a dull, lack-lustre eye in the moonlight. In the gloom of the bush we were completely hidden, but through the sprays we could see everything that might take place.
Again the bleat went forth shrilly, this time much nearer. But—it ceased suddenly, as if it had been choked off in the middle.