“Baugh-m! Baugh-m!”
“Only baboons after all!” he cried, feeling more relieved than he cared to own. And seeing nothing to be gained by further lingering, by extended investigation, he once more mounted his horse and took his way out of this valley of desolation and of death.
And as he gained the opposite ridge, he found that the storm was clearing away, or rather travelling onward. Before him lay a series of grassy flats, fairly open, but dotted with clompjes of bush here and there. The sun had broken forth again, and, the cloud curtain now removed, was flooding the land with dazzling light. The change was a welcome one, and had the effect of restoring the traveller’s spirits, somewhat depressed by the grim and gruesome scene he had just left. And now, as the sun wanted but an hour to his setting, Roden decided to off-saddle for that space of time. Then his steed, rested and refreshed, would carry him on bravely in the cool night air, and but a very few hours should see him safely over the hostile ground, if not among inhabited dwellings once more. So, choosing a sequestered hollow, Roden off-saddled and knee-haltered his steed, and then betook himself to a little clump of bush which grew around a stony kopje, and which afforded him a secure hiding-place and a most serviceable watch-tower, for it commanded a considerable view of the surrounding veldt.
Chapter Twenty.
Mona’s Dream.
Notwithstanding the splendid courage and quickness of resource she had shown upon a certain critical and, but for those qualities on her part, assuredly a fatal occasion, Mona Ridsdale was by no means free from that timidity under given circumstances, which seems second nature with most women. She preferred not to be left alone in the dark if possible to avoid it, and, in fact, had as dread a realisation of what it meant to be “unprotected” as the most commonplace and unheroic of her sex: consequently, when Suffield found it unavoidable to be absent from home a night or two, Mona was apt to conjure up terrors which interfered materially with her peace of mind. Now, just such an absence on the part of her male relative befell some few nights after Roden’s departure for the Main Camp.
“Oh, Grace, I do feel so nervous this evening!” she exclaimed, starting, not for the first time, as one of the ordinary nocturnal wild sounds from veldt or mountain-side came floating in through the open windows. “Feel my hands, now cold they are; and yet it is such a hot night that one wants every square foot of air the windows will admit.”
“That is foolish, Mona,” replied her cousin. “Yes, your hands are indeed cold. Why, to-morrow will ring back not only Charlie, but perhaps somebody else.”