Hume looked at Webster, and then told the story of the lovers who had waited so long.
“But how,” she said, in low tones, “did you know each other’s thoughts?”
The two looked at each other.
“We also are waiting,” said Hume, with a sad smile; but from that moment the shadow of distrust that was coming between them melted before the sympathy revealed by that one chance word.
They talked then, as they had often done before, of Captain Pardoe and the gallant men who went down on the Swift, and planned how they would help the widows and children out of the Golden Rock. And as they talked there came through the darkness a startling cry as of a human soul in agony—so wild, so sudden, that they leant towards each other, and Klaas bolted under the waggon with a cry of “Amapakati!”—“Wizard!”
Again it was repeated, a long quivering cry.
Hume took his rifle from where it stood against the waggon, and, bidding Webster stay, slipped into the darkness. The minutes passed by slowly to those two, standing with bated breath, listening for any cry or token that would break the spell. Ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour, went wearily by, and still there was no sign; then Webster shouted, but without response, then fired his rifle.
“I must go after him,” he said.
“And I will go, too. We should not have let him face that terrible darkness alone.”
“I will go alone.”