Gaining her saddle without my aid she led the way from that evil and accursed spot. But it was the opposite way to that by which we had come. She uttered no word. But the positions were reversed now. She led, and I followed—wondering.
We reached the high ridge at the head of the kloof, then descended into the valley wherein, much higher up, the house stood. This we left, and, crossing the valley, ascended by a steep track to a high “neck” which cleft the heights on the further side. We had by this time been riding for nearly an hour.
Now, as we halted to breathe our horses, and sat in our saddles, gazing forth upon the more open country beyond, before us the shadowy veldt, stretching away into moonlit dimness, was lit up here and there in the distance by twinkling points of light, over which hung a misty glow. These were the fires in the Ndhlambe location, whence, ever and again, in humming waves of sound, came a weird rhythmical chant, to a strange stamping accompaniment, varied by the howling of dogs or the faint shrill laughter of women. The savages were enjoying themselves in uproarious merrymaking.
No word had Beryl uttered all this time, but now she spoke, and the words which she did say fairly startled me, for they were of such import that I knew the chances were as fifty to one against either or both of us living to see the light of another day. She read off my thoughts as in a flash.
“Do not let me take you into this, Kenrick. After all, there is a risk. I can bring it off alone.”
“Do be just to me, dear,” I said gently, putting forth my hand till it rested on hers. “Do you think the idea of deserting you ever crossed my mind for the single fraction of an instant? It was of you I was thinking. Now listen. Leave this to me. I will do exactly what you have been planning—I alone. I will carry it out to the letter. Life is nothing to me—forgive me for speaking selfishly at such a time. Go back to—to them. I pledge you my word of honour and my life that I will do all you would have done. But you?—you must not embark in such an undertaking as this. Now—will you leave it to me?”
“No—a thousand times no. Kenrick, you are loyal and brave as few men are. Pardon my doubting you, or seeming to, for I never did so really.”
In spite of the grief and woe which had come upon us, of the desperate undertaking to which we were pledged, a thrill of genuine exaltation set my pulses tingling at her words, her tone. We were close together. Our horses, glad of even this temporary rest, were standing still. I was going into almost certain death—with her, and I would not have exchanged the situation for any other on earth. A wild, well-nigh uncontrollable impulse seized me. Her great eyes were turned full upon mine, and the pallid hardness of her face seemed to relax. Then the recollection of what had happened, of what we had just looked upon, came back and I mastered the impulse. Assuredly if there was a time for all things this was not a time for some things—yet I read a meaning into a strange weary sigh that escaped her, as she gave the word to resume our way.
The Ndhlambe huts, beehive-shaped, yellow-thatched, lay clustering in the moonlight, spreading over the veldt far and wide. Innumerable they seemed, and from the dark, mimosa-stockaded enclosures came now and then a bleat, or the trumpet-like sneeze of a goat, and the sweet night air was unfragrant with the mingled odour of kine and wood smoke, and the musty reek of ochre-smeared Kafir humanity.
Most of the merrymakers had departed to their own kraals, but here and there, in that of the chief, dark groups still stood around. These gazed, with muttered wonder, upon this strange apparition of two white people riding into their midst at such a time of night, and one of those whites a woman. Formidable, too, they looked, those astonished and staring savages, many of them tall, well-nigh gigantic of frame, and you could see the rolling white of their distended eyeballs as they stood and gazed.