“They found the kid’s hat next day, more than twenty miles from where they lost her. Think of it! A child of that age wandering twenty miles!”
“She ran of course,” said the light-eyed man briefly. “They always run.”
“Or perhaps... you never know... a Hon—”
“Oh, don’t!” Vivienne cried out suddenly, and put her hand over her eyes. The others stared at her moodily, and the subject dropped. But presently the Kimberley man asked the Colonial if he had ever heard of the fellow who was lost from the Pioneer Column?
“Ya!” said the Colonial. “Seen him often in Buluwayo. He’s got a queer look in his eye and I don’t wonder. Forty days before he found the Column again—long after they had given him up. And he could never tell a thing he did in those forty days.”
“They never can. A fellow I knew in the B.B.P. got lost out from Tuli one time. And when they found him again, all his front teeth were gone. He couldn’t remember how it happened. But of course it was lying on the ground gnawing roots did it.”
The barmaid leaned on her elbows, eagerly interested; but Vivienne, white-lipped, listened because she must.
“The great thing is not to lose your head,” said the Kimberley man, pleasantly conversational. “I’ve known lots of fellows who’ve been lost, and they all agree that the first instinct when you realise you’re lost is to start running. Just run and run till you drop. Then the madness gets you, and you begin to tear off your clothes and pitch them in every direction as you run. Nearly every fellow ever found after being lost is stark naked—begging your pardon, Miss,” he added as his eye fell upon Vivienne. She took no notice. The rain had stopped, and she fled before she should hear more horrors.
But that night she could not sleep for thinking of the lost little child, and its desolate mother. The storm commenced again, and raged round the hut. Lightning streaked through the canvas windows and rain lashed the earth. She was still wide-eyed on a tear-wet pillow when the hotel-keeper banged the door to say that the coach would start in twenty minutes.
The first thing she noticed as they clambered to their places was that the light-eyed man was missing. She was far too distant to make any remark, but the others with a kind of road-fellowship that surprised her refused to let the coach start until some explanation was forthcoming. The driver, a ferocious looking half-caste, scowled at them.