This obstruction was very carefully examined, but it bore no traces of having been tampered with in any shape or form, nor was there the slightest mark upon it which would lead even the most suspicious to believe that the obstacle had been climbed over by either man or beast.
Kenyon at last decided that it would be best for them to mount the log and proceed on their way, arguing that if the people they sought were really concealed anywhere in the kloof—which certainly did not appear to offer even sufficient cover for a fox—they must be on the watch, and any attempt to return and investigate would be the signal for instant destruction, whilst if their party, on the other hand, passed quietly onwards, the slavers would probably conclude that it was composed of explorers and was best left alone, knowing what an awkward habit England has, during her spasms of activity, of beating up the world at large for her missing scientific men.
This course was accordingly adopted, on the principle of choosing the least of two evils, and before night fell, the party had left the dismal gorge behind them, and were sitting comfortably round their camp fire, after having taken the precaution to post two scouts near the exit of the kloof, with instructions that, should anything suspicious occur, one of them was instantly to come into camp with the news. All, however, remained perfectly quiet, and the night passed without an alarm of any kind, even the ultra-particular night-watchman failing for once to discover so much as the shadow of one of his customary nocturnal horrors.
Thus did Leigh and his astute comrade for the second time miss the secret of the place, or, as it is known amongst the scattered native tribes, the “Black Pass of the Dark Spirit of Evil.”
For hours that evening did Leigh and Kenyon discuss the question of the mysterious disappearance of the slave caravan, for that those who composed it had not penetrated as far as their own present position they had quite satisfied themselves before pitching their tent for the night.
The outer, or western end of the rocky defile debouched upon highlands of soft spongy turf, and this nowhere bore the slightest impress of a human foot, which it would most certainly have done had anyone crossed it recently; indeed, had the “slave-drive” passed that way, the whole place would have been paddled like a sheep pen.
“You may well cudgel your brains, Leigh,” said Kenyon, after hours of profitless arguing on the following night, “for those fellows never left the kloof either by this end or the other after they once entered it. Tell me, Leigh,” he continued, venturing a question, which, hardened man-hunter that he was, had scores of times trembled upon the tip of his tongue in the past few months, and had yet remained unasked—“tell me, have you no clue, no idea, and absolutely no theory as to who was responsible for the murder of your wife and child? for foully murdered I am quite convinced they were.”
Vitally important as the query was, Kenyon would have given all he possessed could he have withdrawn the words ere they were well spoken, for the fearful anguish depicted in the countenance of his friend gave him, for but one second as it were, a fleeting glimpse of the agony of soul in which this strong man lived from day-to-day, and from hour to hour. The misery of expression was awful, but a glance infinitely less keen than that of the skilled detective would have noted, with a wealth of pity, that it was a misery which had never learned to say “Thy will be done.”
For full five minutes did Leigh hide his face in his hands and give no answering sign, and it was the detective who had once again to break the dread silence.
“Forgive me,” he said, “old friend, if I have torn the quivering wound anew, and believe me when I say that not idle curiosity, but dire necessity, as I conceived it, on behalf of the living, could have made me touch upon the hallowed subject of the loved but unavenged dead.” And he rose to walk away.