“No, I don’t. I know nothing of the people of the valley, and it will be folly now to continue.”
“You must not,” cried Laura; “you are not fit to face fresh dangers.”
“I have brought you thus far,” he replied doggedly, “now you must take me down. I swear if you do not I will not budge from here. Let us pack up and go while there is still light, for the day must be far advanced.”
In vain they tried to persuade him, but opposition only made him the more stubborn, and after noon they began the long and perilous descent. Klaas, as being the most active, went ahead; Sirayo followed, then Laura, Hume, and Webster, with rheims connecting them. Of necessity their advance was slow, but after they had passed over the scene of the night’s conflicts, with its stains of blood, and rounded the projecting rock, they struck the top of a ravine, down which the way was safer, though more difficult to traverse because of the loose shale. From the ledge they saw a body of Zulus marching on one side of the valley, while beyond the river a larger body was massed inside a wide military kraal. After many a rest they arrived safely near the bottom, and, waiting until Klaas, who had been sent on to scout, returned with a favourable report, they reached the valley near sunset.
Chapter Thirty One.
A Strange Awakening.
Immediately before them rose a conspicuous mound, which they believed to be the ruins marked on the map, and though, from the fires still smouldering near, they knew the Zulus had camped there, they rapidly determined it was the best position for them to hold. Quickly, therefore, they struck across and found themselves under a broken bush-covered wall, which surrounded an irregular mass of masonry, out of which rose a crown of foliage. They walked round seeking for an inlet, and stepped off the circumference at one hundred and fifty yards. On the south, where the wall was intact, it rose to a height of ten feet, and appeared to be of great thickness, and, though at other points it was lower, there was a continuous natural fence of stiff brushwood, showing no entrance anywhere. They saw, too, from the ring of fires, that the Zulus had camped quite a hundred yards from the ruins at a spot where a spring of clear water bubbled from a belt of rushes.
“It would not be safe to camp out here,” said Webster; “and if there is no inlet to this place there is no reason why we should not climb over the outer wall.” He very quickly mounted to the top, and, springing down, disappeared. “Come on,” he cried presently; “there is good shelter in here and a clean floor, in the very centre of winding passages.”