Reduced to existence in its most primitive state, it followed that the
means of sustaining such existence were perforce primitive, and,
foreseeing this, John Ames had managed, during their progress through
the inhabited districts, to levy upon the grain fields. But although
the supply was not yet exhausted, it had to be supplemented. There was
no grain in the mountains, wherefore it became necessary to go out and
hunt.
This primitive method of obtaining food was, however, handicapped by two
important considerations. First, there was very little game indeed,
most of that little consisted of birds--wild guinea-fowl, francolin, and
a few partridges--and the hunter, though well set up in rifle
ammunition, had no shot-gun. Much hard climbing sometimes produced a
klip-springer; but this comes under the second of the two
considerations, the inexpediency of discharging a firearm lest the
report should reach undesirable ears. Fortunately John Ames, having
been raised among natives, was an adept at throwing a kerrie, and with
this primitive weapon was able to keep the larder supplied.
It meant hard work, though. Just as he would be congratulating himself
upon having successfully stalked a troop of guinea-fowl, yet wanting a
little shorter throwing-range, the abominable birds would raise their
grating cackle of alarm, and, running like spiders through the grass,
eventually wing their way to a lofty pile of boulders. Then the stalk
had to be begun over again, involving unwearied patience and a well-nigh
superhuman display of activity; involving, too, a more or less prolonged
absence from camp.
Nidia, left alone during such absences, was obliged to summon all her
courage, all her self-command. For she felt so thoroughly alone. The
consciousness that no human being was within reach, that she stood
solitary as she looked forth upon the tossing sea of granite crags and
feathery foliage and frowning piles of rocks towering to the sky like
giants' castles, would get upon her nerves to such an extent that when
her companion was absent longer than usual she would become half frantic
with uneasiness and fear. What if he should not come back? What if he
should meet with an accident, a fall, perhaps, and perish miserably in
those grim solitudes, alone, unaided, or, what was much more likely,
allow himself to be surprised by the savage enemy? What would become of
her? And then she would take herself to task. Was it only of herself
she could think at such a time? Had she no thought for him and his
safety? Ah! had she not? She could hardly disguise the truth from
herself. It was of no use to reason that being thrown together she must
perforce make the best of the companionship into which she was thrown.
She was face to face with the fact that John Ames was becoming very dear
to her indeed.
More and more did each enforced absence emphasise this consciousness.
It did not lessen her uneasiness; indeed, if any thing, very much the
reverse. But it changed the quality thereof. She thought less and less
of what a mishap involving him would entail upon her, more and more of
what it would mean on his account.
And yet this growing consciousness did not give rise to any alteration
in their daily relations. Nidia Commerell's character was stamped with
a very strong individuality. Prudery was utterly foreign to it, and she
could not for the life of her see any necessity for affecting a reserve
she did not feel, because she had for the first time in her life
discovered a man possessed of every quality to which she could look up--
merely because she and that man happened to be alone together in a
wilderness, in hiding for their lives. She smiled a little to herself
as she thought of her people in England, and what they would say if they
could see her now. Then she thought of their anxiety on hearing of the
outbreak in Rhodesia, but they would not have time to be anxious before
hearing of her safety. She wondered, too, whether Susie Bateman was
becoming alarmed about her, and from that she got to thinking, not for
the first time that afternoon, that John Ames was later than usual; and,
thus thinking, she rose to look forth.
The sun was dipping to the serrated sky-line, bathing the granite-piles
in a lurid flush. The light had gone off the wide hollow beneath,
leaving its broken-up stormy billows cold and grey, and the hush of
evening was in the air. Then a sound fell upon her ear, the sound as of
a stone dislodged by a light footfall. Her pulse beat quicker. It was
her companion returning at last.
But the glad smile, which she had prepared to welcome him faded from her
lips, and her face grew pale. Down yonder, on the fringe of the acacia
growth, a figure was standing; but it was not his.
Had the savage enemy found them out at last? Nidia's heart-strings
tightened and her blood froze. A further glance served to reassure her,
but only partially. The figure was not that of a native, of a savage.
But--was it human?
It had vanished--silently, imperceptibly; had vanished as suddenly as it
had appeared, but in that brief moment she had taken in every detail.
The figure was that of a European, clad in brown, weather-beaten
garments, tall, and wearing a long white beard. But the face. She had
seen it for that moment, turned towards the setting sun, the light full
upon it--full in the eyes--and never before had she beheld so awful an
expression of fiendish hate stamped upon the human countenance. Was it
human? The face was that of a devil! Nidia felt her flesh creep, and
her hair rise, as she called to mind its expression, and all sorts of
weird ideas, begotten of solitude amid vastness, circled through her
brain. Was this frowning wilderness truly a demon-haunted spot, or had
she seen the spectre of one of her murdered countrymen, who could not
rest in his blood-stained grave? But that it could be a human figure
she felt it impossible to believe.
Then another idea struck her. Was it indeed human--one who had escaped,
like themselves, only to discover, or perhaps to witness the slaughter
of those dear to him, whose brain had been turned thereby, and who, in a
state of maniacal fury, was wandering at large? This solution, however,
was hardly more palatable than the first. Had it seen her? She thought
not; for she had remained perfectly still, true to an oft repeated
injunction of her companion's, as to the fatal attraction exercised
towards oneself by any sudden movement, however slight. The sun had
sunk altogether now, and already the very brief twilight was descending
upon the surrounding waste. Would he never return? Nidia's heart was
well-nigh bursting with mingled terror and anxiety. Then it leapt for
joy. A low whistle, a bar or two of a favourite song, a home-coming
signal agreed upon between them, was borne to her ears. She could have
laughed aloud in her delight. She composed both her face and manner to
hide from him her terrors, for she had been careful never to let him
suspect the half of what she went through during these protracted
absences. Then his figure appeared striding out from the darkness.
"I've been in luck to-day, Miss Commerell!" he exclaimed gaily, flinging
down a brace of full grown guinea-fowl, "Got them both at one throw,
too."
Nidia did not for a moment reply. She was looking up at him with a very
soft and entrancing flush upon her face, and a light in her wide-opened
eyes which he never quite remembered ever having seen there before.
Then she said slowly, and with the air of one repeating a lesson--
"We have been through a good deal together during the last four days,
including one of the narrowest shaves for our lives we can ever possibly
again experience, and Heaven knows how long we are destined to roam the
wilds together; but why not keep the conventional until our return to
conventionality? Have I got a good memory, John?"
"Excellent," he answered. "I must try to imitate it."
His tone was even; but Nidia was not deceived. She was as well aware as
he of the thrill that went through his heart on hearing his own words so
exactly repeated, and all that they involved, and being so, she admired
his self-restraint, and appreciated it in proportion to its rarity. If
he had begun "to hang out the signals" at one time, he was careful to
avoid doing so now. Yet--she knew.
"I'm afraid I'm late," he went on. "I hope you did not begin to get
frightened. The fact is, I had a very long hard scramble after those
wretched birds."
"Yes. Oblige me by putting down that bundle of sticks, and going and
sitting over there. _I_ am going to build this fire, not you. Don't
you hear? Do as you're told," she went on, with a little stamp of her
foot, as he made no movement towards obeying. "You do the outdoor work,
I the in. That's fair division of labour."
"I won't hear of any `division of labour,' falling to you," he objected.
"Now, how often have we fought over this already? The only thing we
ever do fight about, isn't it? Go and sit over there, you poor tired
thing, and--and talk to me."
The while she took the sticks from his hands, looking up into his face,
with a merry, defiant expression of command mingled with softness upon
hers, that again John Ames came near losing his head. However, he
obeyed. It was sheer delight to him to sit there watching her, as she
broke up the sticks and deftly kindled a blaze in the fireplace,
securely sheltered by rocks from outside gaze, chatting away the while.
The fire was wanted rather for light and cheerfulness than for cooking
purposes, for it was late, and there was sufficient remaining from the
last cooking to make a supper of. While they were discussing this he
told her about his afternoon's doings, and the long and hard scramble he
had been obliged to undertake over two high granite kopjes before
obtaining his birds. There was smoke visible, far away to the
south-west, but what it meant was impossible to say. Then she, for her
part, told him what she had seen. He looked surprised, even startled,
and the next moment strove to conceal it.
"Are you dead sure your imagination wasn't playing tricks with you,
Nidia? When one is alone in a place like this for hours at a time one's
imagination will turn anything into shape. I have more than once blazed
at a stump in the dusk, when my mind has been running upon bucks."
"But my mind wasn't running upon bucks, nor yet upon tall old men with
long white beards," returned Nidia, sweetly. "But the face! oh, it was
too awful in its expression. I don't believe the thing was of this
earth."
"I expect it's some one in the same boat as ourselves." And John Ames
lighted his pipe--for he had obtained a stock of tobacco from Shiminya's
store-hut as well as matches--and sat silent. The prospect of falling
in with another fugitive was anything but welcome. It would not even
add to their safety, rather the reverse, for it was sure to mean two
skippers in one ship. Such a fugitive too, as Nidia had described this
one to look like, would prove anything but an acquisition. But--was
that all?
No, not quite. He was forced to own to himself that he had no desire to
hurry the end of this idyllic and primitive state of existence,
certainly not at any price less than Nidia's entire safety. He would
have welcomed a strong patrol, though with mingled feelings. He
certainly would not welcome at all the appearance of a fellow refugee,
which would end the idyll, without the compensating element of rescue.
"He had no gun, you say?" he went on.
"No. At least, I don't think so, or I should have seen it. What can it
have been?"
"As I say, some one in the same boat as ourselves. He'll be walking up
to our camp directly. And--I would rather he didn't."
"Would you?"
"Wouldn't you?"
Nidia laughed.
"I believe I would. But what if it is some poor wretch who is lost?
Oughtn't we to try to help him?"
"At our own risk? Your description of this individual does not make one
precisely yearn for his society, Nidia. Indeed, I gather from it that
we should not be at all likely to get on, and I never heard that two
skippers in one ship tended to enhance the safety of that craft. On the
whole, I think we will leave the interesting stranger to his own
devices. If, as you surmise, he really is off his chump, why, for that
very reason the Matabele won't hurt him, and for the same reason he will
be the reverse of an acquisition to us."
Then they talked on about other things--the times of their first
meeting, and the Hollingworths, and Bulawayo, and presently Nidia grew
sleepy. But, as she lay down, her last thought was a drowsy, half
amused recollection that the apparition of the mysterious stranger
seemed to have much the same effect upon her companion as the footprint
in the sand had upon Robinson Crusoe.
He, for his part, sat thinking hard, and gradually growing drowsy.
Suddenly an idea struck him, an idea that started him wide awake with a
smothered whistle, expressive of mingled surprise and dismay. Rising,
he took off the blanket which had been wrapped round him, and going over
to the sleeping girl spread it softly over her, for there was a chill
edge in the atmosphere. Then, taking his rifle and cartridges, he went
to the entrance of the cave, and with his back against the rock,
prepared to spend a wakeful and a watchful night.
Now, a seated posture, with one's back against a hard and uneven surface
of rock, in the open air, and that air with a particularly keen edge
upon it, is not conducive to sleep unless the sitter is there with the
object of being on the watch; which paradoxical deduction may for
present purposes be sufficient to account for the fact that, as the
night hours followed each other one by one, John Ames began to grow very
drowsy indeed. Still, by reason of his enforced attitude, he could not
yield; at least, so he would have said but for the fact that in that
dead dark hour which just precedes dawn he was awakened--yes, awakened--
by the weird instinct which warns of a presence, although neither by
sight nor sound is that presence suggested. Something brushed past him
as he sat there, and with it his ear caught a sound as of a stealthy
human footfall. He started to his feet. Yes, his gaze was true. It
was a figure--a tall figure disappearing in the darkness.
"Stand, or I fire!" he called.
But there came no reply.
He stood thus for a moment. There was nothing to be gained by
discharging his piece at a venture in darkness like this. It might be
heard anywhere, and furthermore would startle Nidia out of her wits.
No, he would not fire.
"Who is it?" he called again, clear but low, so as not to be heard by
the sleeper within.
For answer there came a far away, mocking laugh, harsh and long-drawn.
Then silence.
With every drop of blood tingling in his veins, John Ames sprang within
the cave again, for an awful idea had seized him. This thing must have
been, right inside their hiding-place. His hand shook so that he could
hardly get out a match and strike it. He bent down over the sleeping
girl. She still slumbered--breathing softly, peacefully, but with brow
slightly ruffled as though by dreams. He gazed upon her unconscious
face until the match burned out, then turned away, filled with
unutterable relief. No harm had happened to her, at any rate.
Then the first grey of dawn lightened upon the mountains.