"Many times, but only in self-defence. Now we'll just examine our position, for it is always good to have open a line of retreat."
They walked along the ledge to the mouth of the gorge up which they had ascended, saw that the ledge ended there, then retraced their steps past the cave and the bath to a spot where a break in the ledge opened up a way down into the valley.
"Just take note of that path," said the hunter, "and follow it down."
"What a beautiful spot!" said Compton.
"It does the eyes good to look on it," said Venning, enthusiastically. "See how the sun shines on the broad leaves— banana-leaves, I think—bordering the silver stream."
"Never mind the silver stream," broke in Mr. Hume, testily. "Fix your attention on this path. Get it into your mind. See how it drops down to that solitary palm."
"Now remember that if you are down there, and have to run, you are to make for that palm, ascend here, and cut along to the gorge. Have you got that fixed? Good. Now we will go back."
At last, with their feet dangling over the edge of the ledge before the cave, they were at liberty to satisfy their longing to take their fill of the beauty outspread before them. Perhaps it was by contrast with the monotony of the forest that the scene below them seemed to them all to be the most beautiful that had ever gladdened the eyes of men. Imagine a valley about five miles in length, narrowing at each end, and opening out about the centre to a width of two miles, the sides of grass sloping up to a buttress of rock, and rippling along the whole length into folds, with little valleys in between—narrow at the summit, where they joined the rock-wall, and wide at the base, where they opened out on the parent valley, through which flowed a broad stream, fringed its whole length with a border of pale green banana-leaves with stems of gold. In the little valleys were gardens, showing up like a chessboard pattern in neat patches of green, red, and brown, according to whether there was ripening millet, young maize, or new-turned mould. Halfway down the valley was a village of beehive-shaped huts, with an open space in the centre, adorned with one fine tree, under whose spreading branches they could see distinctly the forms of men. In the strong white light every object could be easily picked out—goats browsing among the rocks at the base of the cliffs; flocks of birds circling above the gardens; fowls walking among the huts; tiny little black forms toddling in the sun, and their mothers squatting with their faces turned to the council tree.
"No women in the gardens," said Mr. Hume, "and that always means war."
Venning readjusted his glasses. "There is something I can't quite make out at the back of the village. Looks like men lying down."