“Gert.”
“Baas?”
“Did you hear what Hans Vermaak was saying just now?”
“Part of it, sir.”
“Why do you think he wanted us not to go back by way of Klip Poort?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Gert, you are an ass.”
“Perhaps he thought the river might be ‘down,’ sir. The clouds are very thick and black up in the bergen.”
“Yes.”
An indescribable feeling of helpless apprehensiveness came over Colvin, and indeed it is a creepy thing the consciousness that at any step during the next half-dozen miles or so you are a target for a concealed enemy whose marksmanship is unerring. For this was about what he had reduced the situation to in his own mind, and within the same heartily anathematised the foolish curiosity which had moved him to go up and explore the hiding-place of the concealed arms. That Gideon Roux and his confederate were aware that he shared their secret he now believed. They must have waited to watch him, and have seen him come out of the cave; and with this idea the full force of Vermaak’s warning came home to him.