When Hilary Blachland awoke to consciousness, the moon was shining full
down on his face.
He was chilled and stiff--but the rest and sleep had done him all the
good in the world, and now as he sat up in the hard damp rock-crevice,
he began to collect his scattered thoughts.
He shivered. Thoughts of fever, that dread bugbear of the up-country
man, took unpleasant hold upon his mind. A sleep in the open,
blanketless, inadequately protected from the sudden change which
nightfall brings, in the cool air of those high plateaux--the more
pronounced because of the steamy tropical heat of the day--had laid many
a good man low, sapping his strength with its insidious venom, injecting
into his system that which should last him throughout the best part of
his life.
He peered cautiously out of his hiding-place. Not a sign of life was
astir. He shook himself. Already the stiffness began to leave him. He
drained his flask, and little as there was, the liquor sent a warming
glow through his veins. The next thing was to find his way back to
where he had left Hlangulu.
Somehow it all looked different now, as he stepped forth. In the
excitement of the projected search he had not much noticed landmarks.
Now for a moment or so he felt lost. But only for a moment. The great
monolith of the King's grave rose up on his left front, the granite
pile, white in the moonlight. Now he had got his bearings.
Cautiously he stepped forth. There was still a reek of smoke on the
night air, ascending from the spot of sacrifice and wafted far and wide
over the veldt. But of those who had occupied it there was no sign.
They had gone. Cautiously now he stole through the shade of the bushes:
the light of the moon enabling him to step warily and avoid stumbling.
He was glad to put all the distance possible between himself and that
accursed spot. His bruised ankle was painful to a degree, and he was
walking lame. That there was no luck in meddling with Umzilikazi's last
resting-place assuredly he had found.
He travelled but slowly, peering cautiously over every rise prior to
surmounting it, not needlessly either, for once he came upon a Matabele
picket, the glow of whose watch-fire was concealed behind a great rock.
The savages were stretched lazily on the ground, their assegais and
shields beside them, some asleep, others chatting drowsily. Well for
him that he was cautious and that they were drowsy. But--where was
Hlangulu?
Then a thought stabbed his mind. He had brought back no spoil. The
Matabele, foiled in his cupidity, would have no further motive for
guiding him into safety. All his malevolence would be aroused. He
would at once jump to the conclusion that he had been cheated--that
Blachland had hidden the gold in some place of safety, intending to
return and possess himself of the whole of it. He would never for a
moment believe there was none there, or if there was that it was
inaccessible. A white man could do everything, was the burden of native
reasoning. If this white man had returned without the spoil it would
not be that there was no spoil there, but that he had hidden it,
intending to keep it all for himself. Acting on this idea Blachland
filled the pockets of his hunting coat with small stones so as to give
to the appearance of those useful receptacles a considerable bulge.
That would deceive his guide until they two were in safety once more--
and then--he didn't care.
A sound struck upon his ear, causing him to stop short. It was that of
one stone against another. Then it was repeated. It was the signal
agreed upon between them. But it was far away on the left. He had
taken a wrong bearing, and was shaping a course which would lead him
deeper and deeper into the heart of the Matopo Hills. He waited a
moment, then picking up a good-sized stone, struck it against a rock,
right at hand, thus answering the signal.
Had Hlangulu heard it, he wondered? It was of no use to go in his
direction. They might miss in the darkness, pass each other within a
few yards. So he elected to sit still. The rest was more than welcome.
His bruised ankle was stiff and sore and inflamed. Fortunately he
would soon come to where he had left his horse. Much more walking was
out of the question. Time wore on. He longed to smoke, but dared not.
He was still within the dangerous limits. He was just about to give the
signal once more, when--a voice raised in song hardly louder than a
whisper! It was Hlangulu.
The eyes of the savage were sparkling with inquiry as he ran them over
the white man. The latter rather ostentatiously displayed his bulged
pockets, but said nothing--signing to the other to proceed. Not a word
was spoken between the two as they held on through the night--and
towards the small hours came upon the spot where the horse had been left
concealed.
A European could hardly have dissembled his curiosity as to what had
happened. The Matabele, however, asked no questions, and if a quick,
fleeting look across his mask-like countenance, as they took their way
onward through the starlight, betrayed his feelings it was all that did.
Just before dawn they turned into a secure hiding-place formed by the
angle of two great boulders, walled in in front by another accidental
one--to rest throughout the hours of daylight.
And now a sure and certain instinct had taken hold upon Blachland, and
the burden of it was that under no circumstances whatever dare he go to
sleep. Once or twice he had detected a look upon the sinister race of
his confederate and guide which implanted it more and more firmly within
his mind. Yet, in spite of the few hours of half-unconscious doze, he
was worn out for lack of rest, and there were two more nights and three
whole days before he could reach home. He was feeling thoroughly done
up. The fiery, gnawing pain of his swelled ankle, the strain which all
that he had gone through had placed upon his nerves--combined to render
him almost light-headed, yet, with it all, a marvellous instinct of
self-preservation moved him to watchfulness. This could not go on. He
must put it to the test one way or the other.
"I think I will try to sleep a little, Hlangulu," he said. "Afterwards
we can talk about what has been."
"_Nkose_!" replied the Matabele, effusively, striving to quell the dark
look of fierce delight which shot across his sinister countenance.
Blachland lay down, drawing his blanket half over his head. The
Matabele sat against a rock and smoked.
Blachland watched him through his closed lids, but still Hlangulu sat
and smoked. He became really sleepy. The squatting form of the savage
was visible now only as through a far-away misty cloud. He dropped off.
Suddenly he awoke. The same instinct, however, which had warned him
against going to sleep warned him now against opening his eyes. Through
the merest crack between their lids he looked forth, and behold, some
one was bending over him, but not so much as to conceal the haft of a
short, broad-bladed, stabbing assegai.
There was not much time to decide. Cool now, as ever, in the face of
ordinary and material danger, Blachland realised that his hands were
imprisoned in his blanket, and that before he could free them, the blade
of the savage would transfix his heart. He heaved a sigh that was
partly a snore--and made a movement as though in his sleep, which if
continued would still more invitingly present his breast to the deadly
stroke. The murderer saw this too and paused.
But not for long. He spun round wildly, his weapon flying from his
outstretched hand, then fell, heavily, on his face--and this
simultaneously with the muffled roar of an explosion beneath the
blanket. The supposed sleeper had stealthily drawn his hip-pocket
revolver, and, firing through the covering, had shot Hlangulu dead.
Then the sleep which was overpowering him came upon him, and with a
profound sense of security he dropped off, slumbering peacefully, where,
but a few yards off lay the corpse of his victim and would-be murderer.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is often a sort of an instinct which tells that a place is empty,
whether house or room--empty, untenanted by its ordinary occupant. Just
such a feeling was upon Blachland as he drew near his home. The gate of
the stockade was shut and no smoke arose--nor was there any sign of life
about the place. It had a deserted look.
The fact depressed him. He was feeling fatigued and ill; in short,
thoroughly knocked up. He had even realised that there were times when
it is pleasant to have a home to return to, and this was one of them,
and now as he rode up to his own gate there was no sign of a welcoming
presence.
He raised his voice in a stentorian hail. The two little Mashuna boys
shot out of the back kitchen as scared as a couple of rabbits when the
ferret is threading the winding passages to their burrow. Scared,
anxious-looking, they opened the gate.
"Where is your mistress?" he asked in Sindabele.
"Gone, _Nkose_," was the reply.
"Gone!" he echoed mentally.
So Hermia had taken him at his word, and had decided to retreat to Fort
Salisbury. Perhaps though, some disquieting news had arrived since his
departure, causing her to take that step. His feeling of depression
deepened as he entered the empty house. Ah! What was this?
A letter stared at him from a conspicuous place, a sealed enclosure--and
it was directed in Hermia's handwriting. That would explain, he
thought. And it did with a vengeance.
"You will not be astonished, Hilary," it began, "because even you must
have seen that this life was getting beyond endurance. You will not
miss me, because for some time past you have been growing more and
more tired of me. So it is best for us to part: and you can now go
back to your Matabele wives, or bring them here if you prefer it; for
I shall never return to this life we have been leading. I warned you
that if you did not appreciate me, others did--and now I am leaving,
not only this country but this continent. I am going into the world
again, and now, you too, will be able to make a fresh start. We need
never meet again and in all probability we never shall. Farewell.
"Hermia."
Twice he read over this communication--slowly, carefully, as though
weighing every word. So she had gone, had deserted him. There was
truth in what she wrote. He had been growing tired of her--very: for he
had long since got to the bottom of the utter shallowness of mind which
underlay her winning and seductive exterior--winning and seductive, that
is, when laying herself out to attract admiration, a thing she had long
since ceased to do in his own case. The sting too, about his Matabele
wives, he never having possessed any, was a not very adroit insinuation
designed to place him in the wrong, and was all in keeping with a
certain latent vulgarity of mind which would every now and then assert
itself in her, with the result of setting his teeth on edge.
He smiled to himself, rather bitterly, rather grimly. He was sorry for
Spence. The boy was merely a fool, and little knew the burden he had
loaded up on his asinine and youthful shoulders, and, as for Hermia, his
smile became more saturnine still, as he pictured her roughing it in a
prospector's camp: for he looked upon her statement about leaving Africa
as mere mendacious bounce, and of course was unaware of any change for
the better in Spence's fortunes. For her he was not sorry, nor for
himself. As she had said, he would now be able to make a fresh start,
and this he fully intended to do. Yet, as he stood there, ill and tired
and shaken, looking around on his deserted home, it may be that some
tinge of abandonment and desolation crept over him. Hermia had chosen
her time well, at any rate, he thought, as he busied himself fomenting
and bandaging his throbbing and swollen ankle.
The sun had gone down, and the shades of evening seemed to set in with a
strange, unaccountable chill, as he limped about, looking after his
stock and other possessions. Decidedly there was a lonely feeling,
vague, indefinable, which hovered about him. And then those dreadful
chills increased. Lying out in that rock-crevice, in fact lying out for
several nights insufficiently covered, had sown the seeds. Assuredly no
luck had come to him through meddling with the King's grave. And then,
before evening had merged for an hour into dark night, Hilary Blachland
lay shivering beneath his piled-up blankets as though they had been
ice--shivering in the terrible ague-throes of that deadly malaria--weak,
helpless as a child, deserted, alone.
End of Book I.