It would be well; yes, and it would have been better if he had been laid by the side of his brother Tom before ever he listened to Soa’s accursed tale of the People of the Mist and their treasure of rubies. Only then he would never have known Juanna, for she must have died in the slave camp.
This was the fruit of putting faith in the visions of dying men. And yet, it was strange, he had nearly got the money and “by the help of a woman,” for those rubies would have sufficed to buy back Outram ten times over. But, alas! nearly is not quite. That dream was done with, and even if they escaped, it would be to find himself more utterly beggared than before, for now he would be a married beggar.
At last the night wore away and the dawn came, but Juanna did not wake until the sun was high. Leonard, who had crept to a little distance—for now he was quite unable to walk—saw her sit up and crawled back to her. She stared at him vacantly and said something about Jane Beach. Then he knew that she was wandering. There was nothing to be done. What could be done in that wilderness with a woman in delirium, except wait for death?
Accordingly Leonard and Otter waited for some hours. Then the dwarf, who was in far the best condition of the three, took the spear—Olfan’s gift—and said that he would go and seek for food, since their store was exhausted. Leonard nodded, though he knew that there was little chance of a man armed with a spear alone being able to kill game, and Otter went.
Towards evening he returned, reporting that he had seen plenty of buck, but could not get near them, which was just what his master expected. That night they passed hungry, by turns watching Juanna, who was still delirious. At dawn Otter started out again, leaving Leonard, who had been unable to sleep as on the previous night, crouched at Juanna’s side, his face buried in his hands.
Before noon Leonard chanced to look up, and saw the dwarf reeling towards him, for he also was faint with want of food. Indeed his great head and almost naked body, through the skin of which the misshapen bones seemed to start in every direction, presented so curious a spectacle that his master, whose brain was shaken by weakness, began to laugh.
“Don’t laugh, Baas,” gasped the dwarf; “either I am mad, or we are saved.”
“Then I think that you must be mad, Otter, for we shall take a deal of saving,” he answered wearily, for he had ceased to believe in good fortune. “What is it?”
“This, Baas. There is a white man coming this way and more than a hundred servants with him; they are marching up the mountain slope.”
“You are certainly mad, Otter,” Leonard replied. “What in the names of Jâl and Aca is a white man doing here? I am the only one of that species who have been fool enough to penetrate these regions, I and Francisco,” and he shut his eyes and dozed off.