I heard him as through a mist as he told me how the afternoon before she had gone for a walk alone with her dog. It was towards sundown. She had not returned, and a search had been instituted, with the result that her dog had been found dead not very far from the waterhole, but of her no trace remained. “My God, Glanton,” he ended up. “Buck up, man. Pull yourself together or you’ll go clean off your chump. Buck up, d’you hear!”
I daresay I had a look that way, for I noticed Tom staring at me as if he contemplated taking to his heels.
“I’m on my way down there now,” said Kendrew.
I nodded. I couldn’t speak just then somehow. I went into the house, slung on a heavy revolver, and crammed a handful of cartridges into my pocket. Then I remounted, Kendrew doing likewise, and so we took our way down that rocky bush path at a pace that was neither wise nor safe.
“Is that all they have to go upon?” I said presently, as soon as I had recovered my voice.
“That’s all—I gather from the old man’s note. I say, Glanton, what can be behind it all? It seems on all fours with my old uncle taking himself off. I’m beginning to think now there’s some infernal foul play going on among the niggers round us.”
I was thinking the same. At first a thought of Dolf Norbury had crossed my mind, but I dismissed it. Ukozi was behind this, somewhere. The proximity to the waterhole associated him in my mind with the outrage. His beastly performance with the snake!—was he training it to seize human beings, in the furtherance of some devilish form of native superstition? Oh, good Heavens no! That wouldn’t bear thinking about. But Aïda—my love—had disappeared—had disappeared even as Hensley had. He had never been found; the mystery of his disappearance had never been solved. And she! Had she been hideously and secretly done to death? Oh God! I shall go mad!
When we arrived, the Major and Falkner had just returned, and their horses were simply reeking. They had scoured the whole farm, but utterly without result. As for Mrs Sewin and Edith their grief was pitiable—would have been only it was nothing by the side of mine.
“How was the dog killed?” was my first question, ignoring all greeting. I had resolved to waste no time in grief. I had now pulled myself together, and was going to do all that man was capable of to find my loved one again.
“That’s the strange part of it,” said Falkner gruffly. “There’s no wound of any kind about the beast, and he hasn’t even been hit on the head, for his skull is quite smooth and unbroken. But, there he is—as dead as the traditional herring.”