But not to Nidia was he going to impart his misgivings. With a change of camping-place she would forget this rather unpleasant mystery, if only it did not take to following them, that is—and indeed they would be fortunate if they met with no more material cause for alarm.
“On the whole it’s rather lucky we struck old Shiminya’s place,” he remarked, as they were seated at their primitive breakfast. “Blankets, matches, everything we have—and that’s not much—we owe to him, even the rifle and cartridges. When I cleared from Sikumbutana, with nothing on earth but a pipe, a sword-bayonet, and a bunch of keys, I felt pretty helpless, I can tell you. What must you have felt, when you first found yourself adrift?”
“It was awful. That night—shall I ever forget it? And how strange we should have met like that. The very next day I was going to send over to let you know I was at the Hollingworths’. I only heard from Mr Moseley that you were so near. Would you have come to see me?”
“Have you forgotten that last long day of ours, down by the sea, that you can ask such a question?” he said gravely, his full, straight glance meeting hers. Nidia was conscious of ever so slight a flush stealing over her face. “How ingenious you are,” intently examining one of the wooden forks which he had roughly carved for her as they went along. “You must let me keep these as a memento of this wandering of ours.”
“How many are there?” he answered. “Three—may not I keep one of them? I want a memento, too.”
“Am I getting irremediably freckled and tanned?” she said. “And tattered? Yet one would be in absolute rags, but for that thorn-and-fibre needle and thread of yours.”
“I never saw you look better in my life. There are no freckles, and the brown will soon wear off, if you want it to. Though really it’s becoming—makes the eyes larger. So make your mind easy on that score. As for tatters”—looking at his own attire—“I’m afraid we are rather a ragged pair. By the way, I wonder what your people in England would say if they could see you now.”
“I know what they’d say to you for the care you’ve taken of me,” she answered seriously, “what they will say, I hope, one of these days.”
He turned away suddenly, and bending down, began busying himself over the rolling up of their scanty kit.
“Oh, as to that,” he rejoined, speaking in a tone of studied carelessness, “where should I have been all this time without you? Nice cheerful work it would have been romping about the mountains alone, wouldn’t it?”