Away among the masses of the wonderful Matopo range.
Huge granite piles rearing up skyward in every varied form of bizarre
delineation, like the mighty waves of an angry sea suddenly petrified,
the great flow of fallen stones covering the entire slope like the
inflow of surf upon a slanting shore; the scanty trees, and tall,
knife-edged tambuti grass in the valley bottoms, like seaweed in the
rainy moisture of the dusking evening. Then a blue gleam of lightning
along the grim granite faces; and a dull boom, re-echoed again and again
as the thunder-peal is tossed from crag to crag in a hundred deep-toned
reverberations.
Standing just within their ample shelter--which is formed by the
overhang of a great boulder--Blachland gazes forth upon the weird and
awe-inspiring solitude. Opposite, a huge castellated rock, many
hundreds of feet in height, balances on its summit a mighty slab, which
it seems would need but the touch of a finger to send crashing into the
valley beneath; then a ridge of tumbled boulders; further down another
titanic pile, reft clean through the centre by a chasm, in whose jaws is
gripped tight the enormous wedge of stone which seems to have split it:
and so on, till the eye is tired and the mind overawed by the stupendous
grimness of these Dante-esque heights and valleys.
The adventure is in full swing now. Blachland and his strange guide
have been out several days, travelling when possible only at night, and
then keeping to the hills as much as practicable. And now they are
nearing their goal.
And, looking at it calmly, it is a strange adventure indeed, almost an
aimless one. The story of the buried gold Blachland is inclined to
scout utterly. But no amount of questioning will shake the faith of his
guide, and so, at last, he has come to believe in it himself. Indeed,
otherwise, what motive would Hlangulu have for aiding and abetting that
which, in his eyes, was nothing more nor less than a monstrous piece of
sacrilege? He knew that savages are the most practical of mortals, and
that it is entirely outside their code of ethics to go to a vast deal of
trouble and risk without the prospect of adequate and substantial
advantage to be gained thereby.
It had occurred to him that there might be another motive, and a
sinister one. Hlangulu might be decoying him into the most
out-of-the-way recesses of Matabeleland in order to make away with him
treacherously; and the idea was not a pleasant one, in that, however on
the alert he might be, there must always be times when a crafty and
determined foe could strike him down when off his guard. But here,
again, motive counted for something, and here, again, motive utterly
failed, as we have said. He could not call to mind that Hlangulu had
the faintest occasion to owe him any sort of a grudge, and, even if it
were so, he would not go to work in any such roundabout fashion to pay
it. There was nothing for it but to set the whole thing down to its
real motive, cupidity to wit.
To this had succeeded another idea. What if this concealed gold were
really there, and be succeeded in obtaining it? It was then that he
would have to watch his guide and companion with a jealous eye. For the
whole is greater than the half, and would this covetous savage remain
content with the half? He resolved to keep his eyes very wide open
indeed, during the return journey.
The return journey! It was rather early to think about that, for the
perils of the enterprise were only about to begin. Turning back within
their shelter now, he proceeded to question Hlangulu, who was squatting
against a rock, smoking a pipe--to question him once more as to the
surroundings of the King's grave.
But the man's answers were mere reiterations of all that he had said
before. They would soon be within touch of the guards whom, in the
ordinary way, it would be impossible to pass. The snake? Yes, there
was no doubt but that it was the _itongo_, or ghost of the Great Great
One who sat there. Many had seen it. He, Hlangulu, had seen it twice,
and had retreated, covering his face, and calling out the _sibonga_ of
the dead King. It was an immense black _mamba_, and had been seen to go
in and out of the grave. It was as long and again half as long as
Isipau himself, he declared, looking Blachland up and down.
The latter, remembering Sybrandt's narrative, concluded that there was
something decidedly creepy in bearding a particularly vicious and deadly
species of serpent within a narrow cleft of rock, the beast being about
nine feet long at that--which is what Hlangulu's estimate would make it.
Under any circumstances it would be bad enough, but now with all the
grim and eerie adjuncts thrown in, why the whole scheme seemed to
bristle with peril. And what was there to gain by it? Well, the gold.
It must not be supposed, however, that the idea of obtaining this was
cherished without a qualm. Did not the whole thing look uncommonly like
an act of robbery, and the meanest kind of robbery too--the robbery of a
grave? The gold was not his. It had been put there by those to whom it
belonged. What right to it had he? As against this he set the fact
that it was lying there utterly useless to any living soul; that if he
did not take it, somebody else would; that the transfer of the whole of
the Matabeleland to the British flag was only a question of time, and
that, during the war which should be necessary to bring about this
process, others would come to hear of this buried wealth, or light on it
by chance, and then, would they be more scrupulous? Not one whit.
It will be remembered that he was all eagerness to effect this weird
exploration even before he had the faintest inkling that the place
concealed, or might conceal, anything more valuable than a few
mouldering relics--a few trumpery articles of adornment, perhaps, which
might be worth bringing away as curios. Yet, strange as it may seem,
his later knowledge scarcely added to that eagerness.
A curious trait in Hilary Blachland's character was a secret horror of
one day failing in nerve. He could recall at least one experience in
his life when this had happened to him, and that at a critical juncture,
and it had left an impression on him which he had never forgotten.
There were times when it haunted him with a ghostlike horror, and under
its influence he would embark in some mad and dare-devil undertaking,
utterly inconsequent because utterly without rhyme, reason, or
necessity. It was as though he were consumed with a feverish desire to
cultivate a reputation for intrepidity, though, as a matter of actual
fact, his real motive was to satisfy himself on the point. As a matter
of actual fact, too, he was as courageous as the average, and possessed
of more than the average amount of resolution.
"We should be starting," said Hlangulu, coming to the entrance of their
shelter, and sending a scrutinising look at the sky. "The rain has
stopped, and the clouds will all blow apart. Then there will be a moon.
We shall arrive there before daybreak." And, without waiting for the
other's consent or comment, he dived within again, and began putting
together the few things they carried.
One can travel light on such a march, provided the wayfarer makes up his
mind, and that rigidly, to take nothing along that is not strictly and
absolutely necessary. To this rule the strangely assorted pair had
adhered, so that the time taken to get under way was no longer than that
required to saddle Blachland's horse.
Hlangulu's prediction was verified, for in less than half an hour the
clouds had parted in all directions, revealing the depths of the
blue-black vault all spangled with gushing stars--and lo, a silver
crescent moon flooded the sombre valleys and fantastic crags with her
soft light. It was a strange and eerie march through that grim
wilderness in the hush of the silent night--a silence, broken now and
again by mysterious cries as of bird or beast--the effect heightened by
the varying echo from cave or crag. An ant-bear, looking like a great
bald pig in the magnifying moonlight, scuttled across their path. A
strange variety of nightjar flitted overhead, looking something between
a butterfly and a paper kite; or a troop of baboons, startled suddenly
from their feast of roots, would skip hurriedly out of the way, their
dark, gnome-like shapes glancing through the long grass as they sought
refuge among the granite crags, there to bark loud and excited defiance
after the disturbers.
These, however, took no notice, intent only on getting forward. They
were safe here from the one great object of their apprehension, their
fellow-man--as yet: the point was to cover all the ground possible while
such immunity was still theirs. The Matabele led the way in long wiry
strides--the horseman following. As a matter of precaution, the horse's
shoes had been removed; for the clink of a shod hoof travels far, at
night, in uninhabited solitudes, or, for the matter of that, even by
day.
During the long night march, Blachland's thoughts were busy, and they
were mainly concerned with the events of the three or four days during
which he had been making up his mind to this undertaking; with the
parting with Hermia, and with the future. She had not accepted the
position quietly, and, a rare thing with her, had treated him to rather
a stormy scene.
He had only just returned after a long absence, she declared, and now
was anxious to start off again. Assuredly he was tired of her--or was
it that her suspicions were correct, and that he had a kraal of his own
in Matabeleland, like that horrid old Pemberton and other traders? Ah
well, if he was tired of her, there might be other people who were not
perhaps. If he did not appreciate her, there might be other people who
did.
"Meaning, for present purposes, Spence," he had rejoined, but without
heat. "Well, you are old enough and experienced enough to know where
your own interests lie, and so it is superfluous for me to remind you,"
he had added. And so they had parted with but scant affection; and it
might well be, remembering the perilous nature of his present
undertaking, never to behold each other again.
A short off-saddle, about midnight, relieved the march. At length, in
the black hour succeeding the setting of the moon, Hlangulu called a
halt.
"We must leave the horse here," he said. "We can hide him in yonder
cleft until to-morrow night. It will not be safe to ride him any
further, Isipau. Look!"
The other had already beheld that to which his attention was now
directed. For a dull glow arose upon the night, and that at no great
distance ahead: a glow as of fires. And, in fact, such it was; for it
was the glow of the watch-fires of one of the armed pickets, guarding,
day and night, the approaches to the sacred neighbourhood of the King's
grave.