A weight had fallen from him--the weight of a lifetime; the galling,
hopeless, demoralising weight which had paralysed his energies,
sterilised his brain, and, in the case of a subject less clear-sighted,
would have brought him down to drink or suicide, possibly both. And now
it had fallen from him.
The man on the mountain top looked around, and as he did so, something
of buoyancy that he had not known for years, came over his mind. He was
free--free. His life was now his own. He could have sung aloud in the
stillness of the night. And yet the said night was not one calculated
to effect excessive exaltation in any mind. It was oppressive and
boding; and even its usual voices, of bird and beast and insect life,
seemed hushed as in awe of something impending. The broad moon glared
drearily down, ghastly athwart a filmy haze; and ever and anon a heavy
boom seemed to shake the earth, while huge, plume-like masses of cloud
rising higher and higher above the cliffs and ridges, gleamed beautiful
in golden depths with every intermittent flash. When the storm broke it
would be an appalling one, but to the man on the mountain top this
brought no misgiving whatever, yet he knew that it would overtake him
long before he had time to reach home.
He knew something else, knew that it was vital to him to choose his
steps carefully. For the summit was flat and to all appearance smooth
and unbroken, yet it was seamed with crevices; crevices partly or
entirely hidden by the coarse, sour herbage; crevices of no great width
but some of them awful rifts, into which should a man fall, he would he
entombed by that lonely mountain height until the crack of doom. But
this man had no intention of undergoing any such fate. He knew his
ground well, and, knowing it well, moved with especial care.
All of a sudden he was conscious of a quick tingling of the blood, but
he had sufficient control neither to stop nor look round. He only
_listened_; listened with an acute, almost painful intensity. He had
seen nobody, had heard nothing, yet that strange sixth sense of
realisation had told him that he was no longer alone on the mountain
top.
For a moment a quiver or qualm of superstition shook even his mind.
What consideration on earth could have brought any being other than
himself--any _human_ being--up here to-night? Yet even the misgiving of
superstition was a relief. The thing to be feared was the presence of
such human being.
He whirled round quickly and suddenly. Just as he had thought. In the
flash, lighting up the whole plateau, something dropped; disappeared
behind a flat boulder not fifty yards away, and in that flash the man on
the mountain top realised that he had to do with a human being. In
which case every instinct of self-preservation cried out loudly that the
other must not leave the mountain top alive.
There was something cat-like in his movement as with incredible speed
and agility he made straight for the spot. Something sang past his
head. It was not the breeze--now sweeping the tableland in fitful
puffs. It was something which he heard strike the stones behind him
with a steely ring. Then he had grappled with the figure behind the
rock.
It rose, to fully his own height. Something else that was steely
gleamed in his eyes--a broad, formidable blade. But the wrist of its
wielder was grasped with a grip as of iron.
The huge white mountainous cloud, lit up by un-intermittent lightning
flashes, now illuminated this life and death struggle with weird,
lamp-like effect. For it was a life and death struggle. The white man
could not, by every known law of self-preservation, let any witness get
away from this place a _living_ witness. The dark man, by the same
intuition realised that fact, and such being the case realised also that
he was in the position of a "cornered" animal. He must fight--hard and
desperately--for his life. And he came of a race of hard and desperate
fighters.
Neither spoke. Both were equally matched, the white man, tough,
powerful, and in the pink of training; the dark man lithe, cat-like, but
accustomed to depend more on quick sinuosity of movement than on sheer
muscular power. Moreover he was armed, and his opponent was not.
Armed. One quick deft stroke of that broad-headed short-handled
stabbing spear, and where was the other? Yet he could not deliver it.
His adversary had bent back his arm. In his iron strength he had forced
it out to its full length behind, well nigh dislocating it at the
shoulder. The dark man could not even change the weapon into his left
hand. And, so sudden had been the onslaught, that his great knobbed
stick lay on the ground, yards away.
Wait. The white man could have made an end of the struggle at any
moment. He was armed--though to all intents and purposes not--and this
is how such a paradox unravels. He had a fully loaded five chambered
revolver upon him, but it was a matter of vital importance to refrain
from firing a shot on this silent, lonely mountain top at such a moment.
So for all practical purposes he was an unarmed man.
Yet his plan of campaign was clear--clear, fell, and remorseless. He
had seen what his opponent had not; and now by every effort of his
straining, powerful muscles he was forcing that opponent steadily
backward. For in the weird light of Heaven's fires above and around he
had detected a certain line in the waving grass bents, which labelled
its own character. His adversary should perform his own funeral.
His said adversary was giving way. In fact he was gathering himself for
a final spring. Still no word between the two men. Only the deep heave
of laboured, but carefully husbanded breathing. Now and then something
like a cracking sound, as joints and muscles tightened. Then the dark
man suddenly and with a mighty effort, wrenched himself free, and--
disappeared.
Disappeared. For a fraction of a second the great white fiery cloud
shed its gleam upon an appalled face and rolling eyeballs, and a
convulsive clutching of two sinewy hands at the grass tufts; and then
upon the white man standing once more on the mountain top--alone.
He stood for a few moments panting after the struggle. Then, having
recovered breath, he took a couple of steps forward and peered down into
the narrow black rift. No sound came up. He found a stone, and dropped
it in. A rattle or two against the rocky sides, and then silence. Only
the thunder boom, now growing fainter, relieved it from time to time:
but still the immensity of the white fiery cloud shed its lamp-like
light, upon him and the scene of this silent tragedy. Then he made a
careful search around. The weapon that had been flung at him he picked
up, also the great knobstick, and dropped them over into the rift; and
as he smoothed back the trampled grass into position as best he could,
for the first time he spoke.
"_Hlala gahle_! A fighter's weapons should be buried with him, and this
is a right fitting tomb for such."
Again he glanced around. The flat, table-like mountain top was silent
once more. It was time to descend, and having thus decided, a new and
louder thunder roll from a dark curtain swiftly moving up from another
direction caused him no anxiety but rather the reverse. The witness of
one tragedy had furnished material for another, and the storm now coming
up would thoroughly and effectually eliminate any possible remaining
trace of either.