Laura recovered from her prostration filled with an intense longing to
get away from the savage surroundings, which had too surely left their
mark upon her spirits. The whole enterprise had lost for her its zest,
and under the reaction which had set in she wondered how she could have
entered upon the expedition.
"Let us go," she said to Webster. "Take me away from this. It fills me
with disgust."
"I do not wonder," he said gloomily, running his eyes over her frayed
dress. "You look ill; won't you rest?"
"It is not rest, but change--change from this fearful, this degrading
life--that I need."
"Degrading?"
"Yes, degrading!" she replied passionately. "Where is Mr Hume?"
"I do not know," he said.
"Find him, then."
He rose slowly, looked at her a moment dully, then heavily moved off
towards the ruins, where after a long search he found Hume seated with
his hands over his eyes. He waited for some time patiently, but as
Frank showed no signs of his presence he touched him on the shoulder.
"Miss Anstrade asks for you. She wishes to return."
There was no reply.
"You must go back with her. She is weary of this life--sick of it and
of me. I will remain here for a time. You hear me, don't you, Frank?
besides, it is necessary your eyes should be looked to. Of course," he
went on patiently, "I understand how you feel. I have seen that you
have shunned me, but God knows, my lad, I would not have left you alone
in the ruins if I could have helped it Frank, I tried to get back to
you, but I was overcome by those cursed fumes. Do you believe it,
Frank?"
"Ay, I believe it, Jim."
"Ah!" he said with a sigh of relief. "Now will you take her back, my
lad? Take her away out of this, and when you are once again back among
your fellows, forget that ever I had the impudence to make a pact about
her. Forget it, and win her."
Hume withdrew his hand from his eyes, and, rising slowly, faced his
friend, his worn face pale, his eyes burning from out that blackened
mask.
"My God!" said Webster, drawing back. "But you can see," he muttered.
"I can see--yes," said Hume, in hollow tones. "See how you shrink from
me. Do you ask me now to take her back?"
Webster said nothing, but a groan shook his frame, and he caught his
friend's hand and held it.
"You don't speak?"
"The black will fade out. It is only powder."
"Yes, and my eyebrows will grow," he said with a bitter laugh, "and the
red will disappear from my eyes; but before that she would have learnt
to dread my presence. Do you still ask me to take her?"
"No, lad; you must not see her until you have recovered."
"Then, you must take her, and I will at once see Sirayo about your
departure. By the way, he has our share of one part of the treasure
already found, and it will be sufficient to pay your way to Cape Town
and to take her passage."
He related what had occurred in the underground chamber.
"You will come also, of course, keeping near by day, and sharing our
camp by night?"
"You have forgotten the Golden Rock. I will remain here."
"Impossible! I could not leave you behind."
"I will stay."
"But what must I tell her?"
"Tell her that, as we came for the Golden Rock, it would be folly for
the whole of us to return at the very time when the natives are
friendly, and that I have remained behind in the interests of the
party."
"She will want to hear that from your own lips."
"I will see Sirayo--tell him to make arrangements for your departure,
and will leave for the rock. If she asks for me I will not be within
call."
"It is a miserable ending," said Webster.
"Not for you," said Hume meaningly.
"Why?"
"You will have an opportunity to push your suit, and you may do so."
"Look here, Frank: I will take Miss Anstrade to Pretoria or Cape Town,
and part with her as a friend--if she is willing to call me friend--and
I will come back here to you. How long will it take for the double
journey?"
"Three months."
"In three months, then, I will be back."
He went to the camp, and Miss Anstrade advanced quickly to meet him.
"Have you seen him?" she asked impatiently.
"Yes."
"Why, then, is he not with you?"
"He is making arrangements for our departure, and I am afraid you will
not see him--at any rate, at present."
"Why not?"
"You will remember that we came here for a certain purpose, and that,
certainly, was not to return as soon as we had arrived. One of us is to
remain, and it is decided that I go with you."
"Oh," she said, looking haughtily at him, "is this your arrangement?"
"Yes," he answered slowly; "I made it."
"Then I decline to go with you."
"I am afraid you must."
"Where is Mr Hume?" she asked, as the blood flashed in her cheeks.
"Frank asked me to say good-bye. He is very busy. I told him how
important it was he should lose no time."
"Would you leave a blind man alone, and again seek the safest course
yourself, you--you coward?"
"I should have told you," he said gravely, "that Frank has recovered his
sight;" and he stood waiting for her to speak, but she turned away, and,
with a wild look around, he moved heavily down to the river, where he
stood with head sunk, watching the water.
Sirayo made arrangements that evening with the people, and next morning
a party of men with two trained oxen approached the little camp. Laura
was persuaded to mount one of these; the kit was packed on another, and
Webster, with Klaas and five natives, moved off in the direction of the
forest for a secret path which led directly over the mountains beyond
into the Transvaal.
Hume, from the ruins, saw the little party go, and watched them across
the plain--watched them until they were out of sight, and afterwards
stood there looking towards the west with a half-formed hope that they
might return. For now in his loneliness the bitterness and pride of his
spirit melted away. And so, he thought, had ended their great quest,
his companions surrendering in disgust, himself filled with
disappointment, though he had reached the goal.
The Golden Rock, the golden dreams, the links of friendship, the ties of
love--where were they now? Ah, well, there was still the rock. He
turned from the ruins, and with Sirayo went along the right side of the
valley in search of it. Away over the river the women moved among the
fields singing, and beyond in the great kraal the men were drinking
beer; their drinking-song had gone droning on through the night, and was
still coming in snatches.
"They sing loud and drink deep," said Sirayo; "to-day they will slay
whole armies in song; to-morrow they will have forgotten Sirayo and the
help he gave. Already they have asked me about the gold that was in my
sack."
"Is there any danger, then?" asked Hume listlessly.
"I care not," said Sirayo; "and your heart is heavy too. What will it
matter?"
Hume stopped and looked anxiously across the river. "As you say, chief,
what does it matter? But are our friends safe?"
"They are safe, for they go and have the word of Umkomaas the chief; but
we are here, and they would love us better if we were away."
"But you have done them a service, and they would have made you chief."
"I have done them a service, and when they were hot they would have set
me above them; but some of them will think the service was too great for
any reward but death. Water will run, and men will always act the same.
See where the vultures circle; below them lays the field of the fight."
The unclean birds, with their bald heads bent earthwards between the
vast sweep of their fringed wings, were circling round above the stained
and trampled ground, whereon were many scores of dark figures rigid in
death, and each swift circle bringing them nearer to their dreadful
repast.
"Phaugh! to think that a warrior should come at last to the maw of such
a creature!"
They moved among the dead, lying as they fell, with gaping wounds on the
naked breasts, and saw standing alone a large rock rising from a bed of
flat stone stained red with blood.
"See the stone of blood!" said Sirayo. "It was here they made their
last stand."
The Golden Rock! Hume looked at it with a feeling of horror and
disgust, as though it were itself answerable for that ominous tinge of
red; then his eye was caught by a singular life-like appearance, and
advancing, he saw that the rock had been carved into the semblance of a
coiled serpent, with the head slightly raised and projecting, giving to
it a touch of defiance.
Looking closer, he saw that the coils were beautifully carved, the
muscles standing out with startling distinctness, while each scale was
clearly defined, and the whole polished to the smoothness of marble.
The head stood about five feet from the ground, and the tail ran out in
a small ridge across the flat rock at the back. Under the throat a
broad vein of white quartz gave a wonderful touch of reality to the
carving, and along the side of the coils were patches of yellow and
black, while the topmost coils in line with the head were richly marked
with yellow. From the broad blunt nose there was a continuous line of
yellow over the head and along the backbone of the topmost coil.
"It is gold," said Hume hoarsely--"pure gold--and if these veins and
splashes run through the mass there must be thousands of ounces."
"There are men hurrying from the kraal," said Sirayo quietly.
"Let them come;" and Hume, without turning his head, drew his knife and
began feverishly to scratch a yellow patch. "It is as hard as iron," he
muttered; "we shall have to blow it to pieces."
"It has been long here," said Sirayo, "that snake of stone, looking over
the plain at the mountains. The people think it watches over them."
"The people are fools," said Hume gruffly. "There is gold enough here
to buy up their cattle ten times over."
"Soh! If they had so many cattle, other nations would have eaten them
up. As it is, they have lived in peace to the present."
"A fragment has been broken off here," muttered Hume, going down on his
knees; "and the vein runs right into the rock. Why, it spreads right
over here!" He crept over the flat rock, thinking nothing of the stains
of blood, and cried out that the whole bed was thickly shot with gold.
"The rock has been cut down all round--see, here are the marks of the
chisel! Miners have been at work here--white men."
"No white people have been here. So they told me; but here are those
who can answer best."
A band of warriors led by an old Induna rapidly approached. The leader
held a white wand in his hand; the warriors wore their blankets, which
fell gracefully over their right shoulders, covering their right arms.
"Greeting!" said the old man.
"Greeting!" said Sirayo courteously.
"Why do you linger here among the dead, when on the other side there is
plenty of beer and merriment? And what was the white man doing crawling
around the rock?"
"And why have you left the feast to question me?"
"These questions are through my mouth, but they come from Umkomaas, the
chief. He would have you near him, and he has sent a message."
"Hu-em!" said Sirayo, while his nostrils expanded; "the time has come.
Say what shall it be--one last fight, or, like an old lion weary of
life, shall we die as we stand without a sound or a movement? I care
not."
"Why," said Hume, "they are peaceful men;" but he brought his heavy
rifle forward and stood beside the chief with his back to the rock.
"I know your message," said Sirayo in his deep voice. "I can see it in
your eyes, that fear to look straight. You carry it under your
blankets, and it has a sharp edge to it. Stop!" he thundered, as there
was a movement among the men. "I have a word to say to you. Let slip
your blankets; the air is warm, and I know what you hold beneath them."
The blankets slipped to the ground, and every man stood revealed with a
stabbing assegai in his hand.
"Soh! It is well. Look around on the dead and tell me who they are."
"Amazulus!" was the sullen cry.
"Yebo--Amazulus; and they lie as still as the blades of grass beneath
them. Look, and think how ye would have fared, had not Sirayo fought
against them. Where to-day would have been your flocks and your women?
Sirayo is a great chief; it is because he is great that Umkomaas has
sent you each with a message--Umkomaas, who was drawn by these hands out
of the hole. Do you think that men such as you can slay me?" and he
took a stride towards them.
They fell back, looking at each other, and the old Induna lifted his
hands. "It is the will of Umkomaas and the headmen in council, O
chief."
"Learn--Sirayo cannot be slain. See these wounds--the blood yet drips
from them--these scars; they tell you that Sirayo cannot be slain unless
he so wishes." He let his fierce gaze dwell on them, and his giant form
seemed to tower above them. "Let this white man go, and to-night you
may do the will of the chief; but if harm befalls my friend, my spirit
will return; you will hear your cattle moan in the night, and in the
morning they will be dead."
"Never!" said Hume, who had followed the strange speech without
difficulty. "I will not take my life on such terms."
"Hu-em! my day has passed and the night comes. Of what use is it that
we should both die? Take the road to the forest while there is light,
and the dread of me will keep these men quiet till I give them the
sign."
"And they will follow me up!"
"What say you? can the white man go? Remember my words: Sirayo living
is not to be so feared as Sirayo dead."
"Ay, he can go; the chief said nothing concerning him."
"Go, my friend, and when you grow old, see that you have children about
you. It is not well to be alone then."
"I stay with you, chief," said Hume quietly.
"Is that the last word?"
"Yes."
"It is a fight, then;" and the big Zulu, throwing back his head, began
to shout of his deeds, while he stamped on the rock in a sort of dance,
a dance that grew quicker, winding up with a terrific bound in the
direction of the men. They did not wait for him, but turned and fled,
and Sirayo stood looking after them in amazement.
"You frightened them," said Hume with a laugh.
The chief shook his head, took a pinch of snuff, and smiled grimly.
"Ay," he said; "they will have some lies to tell the council. You see
it was as I said: they would like us better if we went away. I cannot
frighten them with words when they come again. Why stay, since they
don't want us, and you cannot carry that rock away with you?"
Hume laid his hand on the carved head of the serpent, and looked
gloomily across the river, then at the deserted stretch of the valley on
the near side. Its desolation struck him, and he called his companion's
attention to it.
"How is it that this side of the valley is deserted, while beyond there
are so many? The ground looks rich, and the grass is good."
"It is some folly of the witch-doctors, from what I have heard."
Under cover of the night they went back to the ruins, and there they
found the old witch-woman alone, sitting smoking over the fire.
"I thought," she said, "you would have been crow's meat before this.
The witch-doctors smelt you out last night. They doctored some
warriors; how is it you escaped?"
"Oh, they were old women. They came, but I shook my fingers at them,
and they ran."
"Ho, ho! if they'd been old women they would not have run. So they ran;
and you--why did you not run also?"
"We have come for the stone of fire, old mother."
"Yinny! That is where the _amapagati_ dance and make their medicine.
No one can touch the rock and live."
"We have touched it. The _amapagati_ are fools; but surely if they
touch it now that we claim it, they will die."
The old dame grinned.
"See," she said. "I know. You cannot frighten me with such things.
But, as you say, the wise men are fools; they have made this side of the
valley a fear to the people. Oh, I know their tricks--how they would
prick cattle, when they strayed on this side, with a snake's tooth, and
then tell the people the deed was done by the fetich, the great
snake-spirit. Ay, they have slain men too, and girls who went to the
river for water have disappeared."
"If that is so," said Hume, "it would be better if the snake rock were
removed."
"Eweh, O red eyes--and the _amapagati_ as well. They have beaten me.
Let them die, I say."
Hume gave a bit of tobacco to her, and as she filled her pipe he shot a
significant look across at Sirayo.
"It is not well for an old woman to be here without good food and warm
shelter. You should have a hut in the kraal," said Sirayo.
"They killed my son when he brought me food one night," she said
hoarsely; "and they threaten to smell out my daughter if I leave these
rocks--the sons of dogs and earth-pigs!"
"Soh! we will talk over this in the morning. In the meantime go you to
the river, and call out that we have gone."
"But you will stay and slay them?"
"We have said it."
"Oh ay, I will go. They have grown fat on lies; now I will repay them.
I will show you this night where they keep their girls, all young and
fat, the he-goats that they are."
When she had gone, Hume immediately pointed out that they could turn the
superstitious fears of the people to their own advantage.
"Well, for my part," said Sirayo, "I am curious about these girls. If
they have put up long with the company of snuffy old men, they will know
how to receive a man and a warrior;" and he stretched his limbs.
The old woman, having done her mission by shouting until someone heard
her, returned, and led them up the mountain, where, in a kloof whose
narrow entrance was almost hidden by huge rocks, they found a small
kraal and saw the light of fires.
The old woman clapped her hands and called out:
"Come and see what presents I have brought you, children!"
A door was opened and three girls crept out, laughing, one of them, with
her naked toe, pushing the half-burnt logs on to the smouldering coals.
"What is it, mother?"
"Guess, my children."
"A young kid," said one, smacking her lips.
"Tobacco," said another.
"Hark to them!" said a third scornfully. "You bring news, is it not so?
We heard sounds of a fight. Our people have fled, and we are free!"
"Ay, there was a big fight, and our people have won."
"You gabble, old woman! Our men have no stomach for fighting. They can
only talk."
"Noenti, how you chatter! If our folk have won, they will be feasting
and dancing."
"Oh, your news is old like yourself, mother," said Noenti. "We saw the
fighting, and our people won; but it was because of the stranger who led
them--a great man."
"Oh, well, if you know everything I will return; when I was a girl I
always listened to what my elders had to say. So you saw the fight and
the great chief. I could have told about him, but you already know."
"Tell us!" they all cried together. "Catch her, hold her fast!" and,
running round the fire, they came full tilt against Sirayo.
"Yinny!" they cried, and bolted like rabbits for the hut, while the old
dame laugh shrilly.
Presently they peeped out, and after much giggling emerged once more,
and came and peeped up at Sirayo, and walked round him.
"What say you, my children, have I not done well? Here is the great
chief himself."
The girls shrieked with laughter, and then, under the direction of
Noenti, brought out meat and thick Kaffir beer.
Hume left them seated round the fire, chattering like children all
together, and sat at the mouth of the kloof, gazing idly before him.
And as he sat there watching the stars in the east he heard footsteps
approaching stealthily, so he stepped gently from the rock, crouching
down in the shadow.
As the group at the fire laughed while the girls filled the calabash,
seeing how much their magnificent visitor could drink, Hume appeared
within the circle of light with a man in his grasp.
"Here is another visitor," he said.
"Yoh!" exclaimed one of the girls, "it is our master;" and she ran
frightened away, while the old dame seized a brand from the fire, and
held it before the malignant face of the same man who had led the Zulus
to the ruins.
"Soh! it is you," said Sirayo; "you are welcome; come, sit by me;" and,
seizing the man by the leg, he jerked him over the fire to his side.
"The beer is good--drink, man, drink."
"Nay," cried the old dame, "drink he shall not."
"Drink," said Sirayo, with a frightful grimace; "for it is the last your
lips will touch. Since you have walked into the den, you will not leave
it alive."
"No, chief," said Hume; "you must not take the blood of such a
creature."
"As you say, Hu-em. Let us leave him to the old woman; but this tuft on
your hair let me have it, and this necklet of teeth, and this bag of old
bones;" and Sirayo stripped from the cowering man all the ornaments and
trappings of his office. "Now, Noenti, fix them on me; I will to-night
play the part of witch-doctor."
"There is a place in the hut here for you," she said.
"Keep it warm for me, then, but to-night I will cross the river and
listen to their talk. Is it not well, Hu-em?"
"No, the plan is wild; they will detect you at once."
"I will crouch under a blanket and keep in the shadow. Moreover, I see
there is a good time for me if I can keep them on their side. I will
frighten them with a tale of the spirit of the snake; and is it not said
among the tribes that in council Sirayo is as cunning as the jackal?
though it is a mangy beast. Yes, I will go."
"If you will go, warn them that when the sun is up they must collect the
dead on the field, and bury them well and deep, lest a pestilence strike
them."
"Ho, ho! I see you would work by the rock. Good! I will say the
spirit is offended by the dead."
Noenti having finished fixing on the witch-doctor's belongings, Sirayo
bounded over the fire, and was in a moment out of sight, while the old
dame, with the willing help of the girls, bound the despoiled rascal
tightly, and thrust him into a hen-coop with unnecessary violence.
Whether the man died of fright, or whether some darker fate befell him,
Hume never found out, but in the morning he saw that the coop was empty.
Before daybreak Sirayo returned, cool and uninjured, with the report
that the people had already set out to bury the dead, and that they
fully believed that he and Hume had fled. Then he rolled himself in his
blanket and slept soundly till morn, when he awoke to eat heartily, and
then to play and talk with the girls, who were merry enough, no matter
what part they might have taken in the disappearance of the
witch-doctor.
They remained within the shelter of their retreat through the day, and
in the night, with the laughing help of the girls, they made strange
noises by the river, and bore aloft on poles weird globes of light to
frighten the natives and imbue them with respect for the sanctity of the
deserted side of the valley. Those mysterious, pale, and ghostly globes
that flitted in the air were but the rinds of hollowed pumpkins,
luminous from the light of burning tinder within; but they produced a
great sensation on the people, who on the following day crossed the
river with presents of food which they placed round the Golden Rock.
This was, however, an unwelcome sign of respect, and when the darkness
once brought down hundreds of people to the river to watch for the
globes of spirit-light, they saw suddenly a horrid face literally blaze
out of the night, with a tongue of flame and fiery eyes, while a slow,
solemn, thunderous voice bade them keep to their huts, lest they should
be driven into the water. That lesson was enough for the credulous
folk; the hollowed pumpkin with the punctured eyes and mouth was put
away, Sirayo dallied with the girls, and Hume, with the crowbar he had
carried from the waggon, slowly bored into the carved rock.
In the still nights when the wide valley was hushed in silence, except
only for the melancholy howl of a jackal, he laboured to destroy that
old, old work of human hands, done in a time long past. It was eerie
work, and there were times when he would lay down his tool and stare at
the menacing head of the great snake, then take a slow look around him.
It was very quiet, and the darkness shut him in like a wall, but that
still, erect head he could always see outlined as he sat, against the
stars, and one night suddenly he thought of the lone hermit of the river
and shivered. It seemed that there were strange forms peering at him
also, undefined, shadowy shapes with muffled faces. He stood up, looked
around him fiercely, as though he would invite his fancies to take shape
so that he might confront them, then he ran blindly away. In the
daylight he smiled bitterly at his fears, but that night again the
forbidding phantoms crowded thick and thicker on his imagination, until,
without accomplishing a stroke, he once more fled from his task.
"You have seen," said Sirayo, as he looked at Hume's face by the light
of the fire. "What have you seen?"
"I am a child again, chief. I am frightened by shadows."
"See," said the old woman solemnly; "I said they would come."
"Yebo!" said Sirayo, "a rock is a rock, and it cannot speak; but when
men have breathed into it, have put themselves into it, have taken it
into their inmost thoughts, it is no longer a rock. No man has said
that I fear, but yet if, not knowing of it, I came on that rock in the
night, I should be afraid. Leave it, my friend, lest the spirit take
possession of you, and you start and mutter, and grow wild-eyed."
"I have bored three holes," said Hume; "to-morrow I will split it
without doing more work."
"It is true: white men are never content. They have been bitten by the
water-beetle, and never rest."
The next night the people in the kraals saw once again the pale globe
flitting about, and as they marvelled there was a flash of fire and a
dull rumbling report. The next morning, when they looked across, they
saw that the Golden Rock was no more, and, with a sense of something old
and familiar gone from their lives, they wailed in their sorrow.