"Quick, white one. I can hear the death-song of our warriors. Quick, if ye would see the sun again."
Mr. Hume raised his Express. He saw the need as well as she for swift measures, and he planted each smashing shot on the little white mark at each corner of the square.
The square was starred with cracks from side to side, and before the echoes of the reports had ceased to roll and rumble through the vaults, there was a dark stain on the rock.
The water was coming through, but the woman, in her mad impatience, could not bear the delay. Clambering down, she worked feverishly at the cracks with a spear-head, and with a sharp hiss a stream of water like steam shot out.
"Climb up," roared Mr. Hume.
"Another thrust, Indhlovu, and a woman will have won. One blow for the sake of my child—the chief." Her long sinewy arm flew back, and she drove the spear-head into the crack.
Then came a tremendous report. The block of loosened stone flew out as if propelled from a big gun, whizzed far out, and after it, with a deafening roar, flashed a white column, that widened as it leapt forward. Spreading his arms, the Hunter threw himself back, bearing his companions with him, as a mass of water struck the platform on which they had stood. As the flood poured through the opening, tearing and screaming like a thousand furies, other fragments of rock were torn out and sent whirling down, to increase the terrible din rising up from the cauldron below, where the waters once again rushed and boiled through the dark tunnels, after their terrific leap. The whole upper space of the great vault was filled with a mist, which condensed and fell in a fine rain upon the three crouching figures, deafened by the uproar, and expecting every moment to be involved in one complete break-up of the interior walls under the smashing blows of the flood. As they crawled back into the passage for safety, some solid object crashed against the rock near them, and the broken blade of a canoe paddle shot past them into the passage.
It was sign of the terrible fate that must have overtaken those of Hassan's men who had entered the valley by canoe. It served as a spur to urge them to escape.
They crept into the Cave of Skulls, and there finding some relief from the uproar, Mr. Hume asked Compton if he knew the way out. Compton nodded, lit the last of his candles, and, guided by marks he had made on the wall, led the way out and down to a spot where he pointed to a hole several feet above the ground. They passed through that, and after a long and wearying march—during the last part of which the Hunter again carried Venning—they crawled out into the old cave, and through that on to the ledge overlooking the valley.
A glance took in the position. Muata's people were gathered on the tableland where stood the new village, watching the sinking of the river, as unaccountable to them as had been the swift rising in the night that had cut them off and marked them out as easy victims to the men in the canoes, which Hassan, in his great cunning, had brought up to complete his plan for the complete destruction of the community. Of Hassan's men, and the canoes, carried up through the forest with so much labour, there was no trace. Men and canoes must have been sucked into the canon, dashed to pieces, and swept down into the dark, probably to emerge in the Deadman's Pool.