The survivor stands on the bank appalled.
“The ‘crocs’ have got him, by God!” he exclaims. A moment back and he himself was ready to take this man’s life—for all he knew he had taken it. But the final method of his death is so revolting, so ghastly that he could wish him safe back again. Well, at any rate he had done what he could to save him. It was not his fault if the fool chose to topple into the river. Yet, but for his own compulsion the said “fool” would not have been standing where he was.
He stands gazing down the reach. Is that blood, floating in a dark patch upon the surface lower down? No. Only the light and shade. And now, what to do next?
If the body should be found the bullet wound would tell its own tale. Even then the natives, already in a state of unrest, would be credited with another outrage. But if, as he surmised, the dead man had been pulled under by crocodiles, why then there would be little enough left of him to tell any tale at all. But—what of his horse?
This is something of a problem, and sitting down with his back against a yellowwood-tree he proceeds to think it out. Shall he shoot the animal and leave it there, for its return anywhere without its rider will, of course, raise an alarm? Then an idea strikes him—rather an original and ghastly one. The dead mamba? Its poison glands are intact. Can he not by some means make the dead head bite the living animal? That would look less suspicious than a bullet hole, in the event of the carcase being found. But he doubts whether the venom will inject under the circumstances. No. He must sacrifice the poor brute to his own sense of self-preservation.
The two horses have withdrawn some little way, uneasy at the sound of the firing. Now he lounges quietly towards them, and has no difficulty in securing the bridle rein of both, trailing, as that is, upon the grass. He hitches his own mount to a strong sapling and leads the other to the river bank.
But this is not so easy. The horse, by some instinct, grasps that something is wrong, and demurs to leaving its fellow. At last by dint of patience and coolness it is induced to do so, and is led to an overhanging bank similar to that whence its owner took his last plunge. A quick shot. Four kicking hoofs turn convulsively upwards and the lifeless carcase falls into the deep water with a great splash. The man looks after it for a minute or two as it sinks.
“A pity, but necessary,” he reflects. “Too much cannonading, though. Sure to have been heard.” Then he reseats himself on the grass and lights his pipe.
“This is no murder,” run his reflections. “The fool brought it upon himself. He was given every chance.” Then, as the long period of blackmailing to which the dead man has subjected him comes back, he feels ruthless. Yet the tragedy just enacted seems to have left its mark. He has taken life—human life—and somehow the consideration weighs; in spite of the feeling of relief at having rid himself, and the world, of that most pestilent thing alive—a blackmailer. Should the circumstances leak out he would have to stand his trial for murder—an ugly word. But—how should they? This wild, lonely forest valley, seldom visited even by natives, never by whites, would keep its own secret. And nobody had seen them together.
As he sits there the whole situation seems to get upon his nerves, high-strung as they are after the quick excitement of the foregoing events. The whole atmosphere of the tangled forest, of the deep-flowing river, seems to breathe death. The dank, decaying vegetation, the dimness, the very airlessness of the sweltering valley—all this is not merely heat. It is asphyxia. It is strangely silent too; only the murmur of the river, and that remindful of its voracious denizens, breaks upon the fever-breathing stillness. He shivers, then, as with an effort, starts up, and going over to his horse, he hitches it, straps tighter the girths, and mounted, rides away down the dim, overhung path.