The spot they did select for a camp-ground was some little way further on, and a wild and secluded one it was, right in among rocks and trees, and well up on the hillside. This elevated position was of further advantage in that a reedy swamp wound through the valley bottom; two water-holes of oval formation, gleaming like a pair of great eyes from its midst.
“I’m afraid ‘skoff’ is running low, Nidia,” remarked John Ames, surveying gravely a pair of turtle-doves and a swempi, the latter a small variety of partridge, which he had knocked over with stones during their journeying. “A brace of record pedestrians can’t afford to let themselves run down in condition. The English of which is that I must go out and kill something—or try to.”
“Mayn’t I go with you?” she asked, rather wistfully. He looked doubtful.
“I wish you could,” he answered slowly. “But—you have walked enough the last couple of days; and apart from the discomfort to you, it is essential you should not overtire yourself. In fact, it might become a matter of life or death. No. Be good now, and remain perfectly quiet here, and rest. I’ll be back before dark. Good-bye.”
What impulse moved her to put out both her bands to him? He took them.
“Good-bye,” he said again. One second more of their eyes thus meeting and his resolution would be shattered. With a farewell pressure he dropped her hands and was gone.
It was early in the afternoon, and warm withal. Left alone Nidia grew drowsy and fell into a doze. When she awoke the sun was just going off the valley beneath, and she was still alone. She sat up congratulating herself upon having got through those lonely hours in sleep. He would be back now at any moment. Rising, she went over to the runnel of water which trickled down the rocks just behind their resting-place, and bathed her face in one of its clear basins. Then she returned. Still no John Ames.
The sun was off the valley now—off the world. In the brief twilight the stars began to rush forth. A terrible loneliness came over her. Oh, why was he so late? The two water-holes in the valley glared up at her with a lack-lustre stare, as of a pair of gigantic eyes, watching her loneliness. Still he came not.
Was he uncertain of the place? They had but just arrived there, and he might well be. Fool that she was not to have thought of it, and now her hands trembled with eagerness as she collected some dry grass and sticks together, and caring nothing what other eyes might see it if only his would, kindled them into a bright blaze.
How her hearing was strained to its uttermost tension! Every rustle of a leaf, every snapping of a twig, sent a thrill of anticipatory joy through her being, only to give way to sickening disappointment. An hour went by, then two. Faint and exhausted, she had not even the energy to prepare food. The one consciousness of her appalling loneliness here in this scarcely trodden waste seemed to sap and paralyse all her facilities. The weird voices of the night held a different meaning now that she was lying out alone on the hillside. Below, in the swamp, the trailing gleam of will-o’-the-wisps played fitfully, and the croaking of frogs was never stilled.