“It is only a surface wound. I think we have some maize meal left; give me some.”
Hume unbound a small bundle, and produced a packet of meal, of which she grasped a handful and laid it on the wound, pressing it with her hand till the oozing blood caked it into an impervious plaster.
“That will stop the bleeding. Now a drop of brandy,” and, taking a pannikin handed to her, she poured a few drops into his mouth, bathing his forehead with the rest. “Make a couch there with the blankets.” This was done, and the insensible form laid softly down.
Then she sat by his side, bathing his forehead at intervals, and watching with an absorbed look, while Hume stood near pale and silent, and the two natives crouched in the cave.
“Don’t stand there,” she said, without removing her gaze; “it irritates me. Find out how it happened.”
Hume stepped out on to a broad ledge and stood in a maze, looking without seeing anything, until the rush of an eagle before his face made him recoil and restored his faculties. Then he keenly noted the surroundings. The ledge terminated at the cave, and from its lip a frightful precipice sank down and down into the rock-strewn depths. On his right the ledge swept up the face of the krantz to where the Face stood out from the rock, about two hundred feet above. He noted that the outline was not so clear, the smoothness observable from a distance being broken up by cracks and inequalities, while the neck was detached, and in the eye was a jagged opening without design. Slowly he mounted towards the profile, scanning the ledge for a sign of human presence, but finding nothing but a certain polish on the rock, which might have been caused by the passage of human feet. Without difficulty, and without emotion, he stepped into the socket of the eye; but no sooner was he there, with one hand holding to the rock to support him, than he thrilled to the thought that at last the mysterious Golden Rock was in the range of his vision. He drew a deep breath, and, forgetting everything, stood looking at the scene spread in noble beauty at his feet. There it lay, calm, beautiful and peaceful, the valley of the shining rock; the place where no white man had entered; whose secret had been jealously protected for centuries, to find its way at last through those gloomy ravines to the solitary hunter, and from him to the three who had been so strangely thrown together, and who were risking all to win it. Far and wide stretched the valley, flanked on the east and south by the frowning battlement of rocky mountains; on the north and west by deep forests, whose dark and sombre mantle stretched without a break, a valley of gentle grassy undulations, with clusters of trees scattered about, and with a broad and shining river running through its centre. On the further side large herds of cattle grazed, the slopes leading to the river showed green in patches, where the mealies grew, while dozens of native kraals were visible, and diminutive figures moved about in the fields, about the huts, or along the winding paths. On the nearer side there were no cattle, neither people nor villages, nor the criss-cross of trodden paths, but only an irregular structure overgrown with bush, which marked, no doubt, the site of the ruins referred to in the map. Long he stood drinking in the scene, and making many guesses as to the place where the rock should be, until he remembered that there was no one with him to share this pleasure. Then he examined the rock about him, and saw that a ledge ran from his feet along the front of the mountain facing the valley, to disappear round a projecting shoulder about one hundred yards away. Returning to the cave, he found Laura still sitting by the still figure. She looked up with a smile as he entered.
“He is breathing regularly now, and the bleeding has stopped.”
“You have saved his life, then,” he said warmly; and added softly, “his life is yours.”
A deep flush suffused her face, and her lips trembled.
“Did you find anything?” she asked absently.