Still carrying the boy, he made his way back to the great chamber, lit up mysteriously by those pale cones and glistening columns. Here he found a dry place in a comer, and after placing Venning on the ground, he struck a match.
"Here's a find," he said, pouncing on a piece of driftwood.
With his Ghoorka knife he soon split it up, and in a short time a fire was blazing, throwing a red reflection on the stalactites. It was an eerie place, echoing to the thunders of the explosions, with pitch-dark comers, and those ghost-like forms in the misty heights, but Mr. Hume would not allow his patient time to brood over the surroundings. He shaved off fragments of biltong for him to eat, talking cheerfully all the time, and at last had the satisfaction of seeing the overwrought nerves of the lad quieted in sleep. Then the anxiety that had filled him all the time appeared in the expression of his face, and he stepped away a few yards to send a call for the woman ringing up into the vault. The cry ran away mournfully in a series of diminishing echoes, but no answer came, and he looked to his weapons, built up the fire with other fragments of wood that had been evidently borne in at times of flood, and explored the cave. There was no sign of the woman anywhere, but he found three exits. Relinquishing any idea of following them until Venning was fit to walk, he returned to the fire, and sat down with his back to the rock waiting for the woman's return. If he felt doubt or fear, he fought against it, resolving that, come what would, his first care was to save his companion, but that there was cause for doubt he knew very well from the remarks and bearing of the woman. Probably, he thought, the secret of the underground was hers only, and she might well have a motive sufficiently strong to preserve that secret even at the sacrifice of their lives. Full of these thoughts, he began another examination of the cave, confining himself this time to a search of the floor. Going down on hands and knees, and carrying a lighted stick, he minutely inspected the thin layer of dust which had settled since the last flood-waters had rushed through. Traversing slowly the width of the cave, he found his own spoor and the spoor of the woman. Then working round with the object of finding which of the three openings she had taken on leaving, he came upon a calabash and a kaross made of goats'-skin. The calabash, from the smell, contained goats'-milk. Leaving the fire-stick to mark the spot to which he had carried his search, he went back to place the kaross over the sleeping boy. Then taking another stick from the fire, he took up the spooring from the place he had left off, and crawled inch by inch, till he came to the first exit. Here he saw his spoor entering together with the footprints of the woman, both very plain from the mud which had adhered to their feet. The woman, however, had not passed out. That, at any rate, was one point settled, and he went on with a feeling of distinct relief at the thought that there might be another way out than by the fearful track they had followed on entering. On nearing the second exit he paused, startled by what seemed to him the sound of shrill voices borne suddenly in a pause between the bellowing of the water-jets in the neighbouring vault. When he listened he could, however, distinguish no sound in the mutterings and the boomings that was human, and repressing a desire to cry out, he groped along up to the second exit. Here, however, there were no footprints. The surface was smooth rock, and he was passing on when something about the rock attracted his attention again. Leaving one of the sticks again to guide him on his return by its glowing end, he returned to the fire, rebuilt it, waited till it was fairly blazing, then with another glaring torch he ran to continue his search. He found what he had half expected, that the rock had been polished by the passage of many feet, which had worn out quite a marked depression. He also satisfied himself that the woman had not passed out there, for as her feet had been wet she must have left some trace on the smooth surface. There remained now the third and last exit, and as he edged away to the left, he saw that the beaten track also led in the same direction. He rose and walked, feeling for the opening with his right hand, and, coming to it, he was glad, but not surprised, to make two discoveries, first, that the well-marked path entered the opening, and second, that the woman had also passed that way. There was the spoor of one foot clearly outlined in particles of moist dust.
"That's good," he muttered, standing up. "But I don't like the look of that path. Means people. But what sort of people? And the kaross and the goats'-milk. People again. No good taking risks."
He went back to the fire, drew the sticks away, thrust the burning ends into crevices, and left the comer in darkness once more. Then he sat down by Venning with his rifle across his knees and waited. He had no thought of moving a foot from the cave until Venning was fit to move; he would let him have his sleep out, and if he was no better, well, then, he would carry him. So he sat waiting and watching, listening to the hoarse rumblings which all the time ascended from below, and to the tremendous reports, a little dulled by the intervening wall, made by the spurting water. He watched the coming of the night, marked the gradual fading of the sheen on the stalactites, until softly the shadows sank and merged into the darkness of the cave, leaving nothing visible but a faint gleam where the nearest sulphur cone stood.
Eerie it was in the dim light, eerier it was now in the dark, with those hoarse mutterings from beneath, and those thunderous reverberations pealing at irregular intervals through the unknown spaces above. He had his pipe, but his habitual caution deterred him from seeking its comfort, and he was glad he had abstained, and glad at having extinguished the fire, when suddenly he heard the sound of shrill laughter. A sullen roar from the water-hole beyond drowned the sound, but he knew in every fibre that he had not been mistaken. There were others beside him and Venning in the vaults, but not for a moment was he pleased at the thought. Instinct or the association of the place warned them of danger. For a long spell, however, he could distinguish nothing human in the hurly-burly of sounds, and then again, nearer and plainer, the shrill peal rang out exultant, with a note in it of some savage beast flinging back the news to the pack that the scent was hot.
Slowly he stooped his head to hear if Venning slept, for he dreaded what would happen if the boy awoke in the pitchy darkness and heard that demoniac cry. The boy's breathing came at regular intervals, and with a muttered prayer that he would sleep on, the Hunter felt for the trigger.
"Ngonyama!" From the height a voice calling to him dropped soft as the flight of a bat, faint as a whisper, yet clear as a bell in all that turmoil.
He smiled grimly, but did not answer. This was some trick of the woman. If she was friendly, why had she left them?
"Indhlovu! "—again it fell as from afar.