“Miller will be there, and so will the others by the time you get there. You’ll have a good time.”
The dying man muttered a few words that Trim could not distinguish, his strength failed rapidly and a moment later his heart stopped beating.
“I haven’t a doubt,” thought Trim, as he went on down the mountain, “that that chap gave me the right steer; at the same time he probably means that I shall step right into the lion’s den, so to speak, and a good time I’m likely to have to be sure in keeping the beasts off.”
He kept eyes and ears open as he[Pg 30] went down the mountain for any sign or sound of the enemy.
When he came to the edge of the meadow he looked out toward the river and saw a number of blacks hurrying toward the bank where apparently they were boarding a raft.
“It looks as if the blacks were being scared out of the country,” thought Trim. “That is not surprising when one thinks that fears have been so stirred up by the stories of Miller and the Massais and by the shots that came at them from the waterfall.”
Believing that he had nothing to fear from the blacks now, he went directly across the meadow without attempting to conceal himself, and at the end found just such a trail as the dying criminal had told him about.
It led up a very steep mountain, and at times he had to cling to roots and bushes in order to get along; sometimes it led along the very face of a precipice, and at others he had to pull himself up by gripping the edge of the rock above his head.
It was a strange path, but he was sure that he was making no mistake, for he could see many marks to show that others had taken exactly the same course.
There were scratches evidently made by the nails in men’s boots, and many a bush and root was rubbed almost bare where it had been grasped by many hands.