Alone.
“I think we’ll move on a little further to-day, if you feel equal to it, Nidia.”
She looked up in surprise.
“Certainly, if you think it advisable,” she answered.
“Well, to tell the truth, I do. It’s not a good plan to remain too long in the same place. My notion is to work our way gradually to the northern edge of the range, where we can reconnoitre the open country between it and Bulawayo. It’ll be that way we shall be most likely to strike a patrol.”
John Ames was occupied in plucking the guinea-fowls he had brought in yesterday. Nidia had just lighted the fire and was engaged in making it burn. The sun had just risen upon a glorious day of cloudlessness, of coolness too, judging from the keen edge which still ran through the atmosphere.
“John,” she said, looking up suddenly, “is it because of what I told you yesterday?”
“The proposed move? N-no. Yet, perhaps a little of that too. You would never feel easy if left alone here again. But I have other reasons—that smoke, for instance, I saw yesterday. It may mean natives. There may have been fighting down Sikumbutana way or on the Umgwane, and they may be taking to the mountains. We had better get further on.”
“Do you know, I am glad you have come to that conclusion. What I told you yesterday has rather got upon my nerves, and, now we are going to move, I’ll tell you something more. I dreamt of it—dreamt that awful face was bending over me looking into mine. You know—one of those dreams that is horribly real, one that remains with you after you wake, and, in fact, that you remember as though it had actually happened. Are those birds ready?”
“Yes. Never mind. I’ll fix them,” he replied; and in a moment, fixed on a deft arrangement of sticks, they were hissing and sputtering over the fire. His mind was full of Nidia’s dream. But was it a dream? That shape, brushing past him in the darkness—the hollow, demoniacal laugh? Had the being, whatever it was, actually entered the cave, passing him seated there on guard? Was it a dream, indeed, or was it the actual face which she had seen? The latter seemed far more like it. Then he remembered that even if such were the case, it was too dark for features to be distinguishable. He was fairly puzzled. And by way of finding some solution to the mystery he went down to the spot which Nidia pointed out to him as the scene of the first apparition, and examined the ground long and carefully. There was not a trace of a human footmark—not a stone displaced. He felt more puzzled than ever.