“Can you run a little farther?” he asked.
“Where?”
He pointed, and she darted ahead of him, her dark hair streaming in a cloud that began to catch a faint luster of increasing light. Alan ran a little behind her. He was afraid of the light. Only gloom had saved them this night, and if the darkness of mist and fog and cloud gave way to clear twilight and the sun-glow of approaching day before they reached the kloof he would have to fight in the open. With Stampede at his side he would have welcomed such an opportunity of matching rifles with their enemies, for there were many vantage points in the open tundra from which they might have defied assault. But the nearness of the girl frightened him. She, after all, was the hunted thing. He was only an incident. From him could be exacted nothing more than the price of death; he would be made to pay that, as Sokwenna had paid. For her remained the unspeakable horror of Graham’s lust and passion. But if they could reach the kloof, and the hiding-place in the face of the cliff, they could laugh at Graham’s pack of beasts while they waited for the swift vengeance that would come with Stampede and the herdsmen.
He watched the sky. It was clearing steadily. Even the mists in the hollows were beginning to melt away, and in place of their dissolution came faintly rose-tinted lights. It was the hour of dawn; the sun sent a golden glow over the disintegrating curtain of gloom that still lay between it and the tundras, and objects a hundred paces away no longer held shadow or illusionment.
The girl did not pause, but continued to run lightly and with surprising speed, heeding only the direction which he gave her. Her endurance amazed him. And he knew that without questioning him she had guessed the truth of what lay behind them. Then, all at once, she stopped, swayed like a reed, and would have fallen if his arms had not caught her.
“Splendid!” he cried.
She lay gasping for breath, her face against his breast. Her heart was a swiftly beating little dynamo.
They had gained the edge of a shallow ravine that reached within half a mile of the kloof. It was this shelter he had hoped for, and Mary’s splendid courage had won it for them.
He picked her up in his arms and carried her again, as he had carried her through the nigger-head bottom. Every minute, every foot of progress, counted now. Range of vision was widening. Pools of sunlight were flecking the plains. In another quarter of an hour moving objects would be distinctly visible a mile away.
With his precious burden in his arms, her lips so near that he could feel their breath, her heart throbbing, he became suddenly conscious of the incongruity of the bird-song that was wakening all about them. It seemed inconceivable that this day, glorious in its freshness, and welcomed by the glad voice of all living things, should be a day of tragedy, of horror, and of impending doom for him. He wanted to shout out his protest and say that it was all a lie, and it seemed absurd that he should handicap himself with the weight and inconvenient bulk of his rifle when his arms wanted to hold only that softer treasure which they bore.