But that he himself was the right man to remain behind, John Dawes was now more than ever convinced. Where would Gerard have been, for instance, under the critical circumstances of that night? The only thing to do now was to await with what patience he might the result of his comrade’s enterprise.
Chapter Eighteen.
How Gerard Fared.
Gerard, up to his chin in water, concealed by the sweeping boughs, stood back within his hiding-place hardly daring to breathe.
Then it was that his quickness of foresight in swimming rather than wading, in swimming beneath the surface rather than in the ordinary way, stood him in good stead, for the first would have troubled the water, while the second would have sent a line of bubbles floating down the sluggish current, revealing the method of his escape to his pursuers. Now they were puzzled.
By the greatest good luck the manner and place of his entering the river had been perfect for its purpose. He had got upon the tree trunk in such wise as to leave no spoor. Even in letting himself down into the water by the branches, he had managed so as to avoid breaking off a shower of twigs and fresh leaves, or even bark, to float down and indicate the way of his disappearance. The spoor seemed to come abruptly to an end—as if the fugitive had been whisked up to the skies. The Zulus were puzzled.
They squatted in a ring with their heads together and discussed matters. What did it mean? The fugitive could not have climbed a tree. In the first place there was no tree with sufficient foliage to afford him cover; in the second, he was not in any tree within sight; in the third, the spoor did not lead up to the foot of any tree. For Gerard, by a deft spring of a couple of yards, had landed himself upon the nearly horizontal trunk without treading beneath it. They came to the unanimous conclusion that he must have got into the river. But how? The spoor no more led to the river than it did to any tree. Still, there he must be.
Acting upon this idea they spread themselves out to search along beneath the bank, and then it was that Gerard first discovered their shadowed heads upon the water. But searching along the bank was no simple matter, for the bank itself was a high clayey wall, perpendicular for the most part, and often overhanging. Moreover it was concealed by profusion of bushes, whose tangled boughs swept right down into the water itself, as we have shown.