Chapter Twenty Nine.
The Secret of the Lebombo.
All in a second Wyvern’s hopes were dashed to the ground. From a state of elation he was cast once more into blank despair. Not so easily had his enemies abandoned the pursuit. They had tracked him through the night with the persistency of sleuth-hounds, and now had, literally, run him to earth at last.
That the owner of the head had seen him was beyond all doubt for the head itself had been instantaneously withdrawn, with a smothered exclamation. And he himself was unarmed. In a frenzy of desperation he gazed around. No. The cave contained nothing, not even a loose stone.
It is in such moments of desperation that readiness of resource will come to a man or it will not Wyvern at that moment felt something move beneath his foot. Looking down he saw that his said foot was resting on an upturned blade of stone, which, if he had noticed at all he would have taken for a mere projection of the solid rock. Now an idea occurred to him. Bending down, he quickly loosened it. The piece came away in his hand. It was about two feet long, and shaped like a thick and clumsy sword blade. In a trice he had found himself armed with a most formidable weapon.
Gripping this he stood listening intently, his breath coming quick in the tensity of his excitement. The first of his enemies to enter he would infallibly brain, then the next, and so on, while his strength lasted. They should not again take him alive. Still, not a sound without.
What were they planning? Could it be that they had some devilish scheme of forcing him out by fire or smoke, knowing that he had no firearms? He had read of such a situation, and his heart sank as he realised how easily it could be carried out in his case. Ha!
The silence was broken at last. Without he could just catch the sound of a deep-toned, murmuring whisper in the Zulu tongue.
“Go away and leave me in peace,” he called out, in the best Zulu he could muster. “The first to enter shall surely have his head cleft in twain, and then the next. I am not unarmed.”
“Whou!”