Forging the Blades Part 15

"Yes, it is jolly, isn't it?" she answered, with that very "naturalness"

that he had applauded. "I'm enjoying it no end. Was that all you were thinking?"

"Must I answer that question?"

"Certainly."

"I was thinking what a delightful speaking voice yours is. It must be great as a singing one."

A slight flush came over her face.

"You must not pay me compliments, Mr Denham. I had a better opinion of you. But I'm not musical at all. I haven't even got a piano, and if I had I couldn't play it. 'Utterly uneducated,' as I told you."

This was met by the same unbelieving head-shake.

"By the way, how many of you are there in the family?" he asked.

"You've seen all the family. My mother died when I was quite a wee kiddie, so did a brother. I can't remember either of them. So you see there are only the two of us."

"I suppose you get girl friends to visit you sometimes?"

"They'd be bored to death in a week. Besides, I haven't got any."

"How strange!"

"Yes, isn't it? But then, you see, I've never been to school, and am seldom away from home. So I have neither time nor opportunity to make them."

"You are a problem," he said, looking at her with a strange expression.

"Am I? Well, at any rate, now you know what to expect. But I don't think you'll get bored, because you have strong interests of your own."

Denham was above uttering such a ba.n.a.lity as that he could not get bored if she was there, but he felt it all the same. A problem he had called her. Yes, she was a problem indeed; and he would be surprised if she were not the most interesting one with which he had ever been faced.

"Look," went on Verna, coming to a standstill and pointing with her light _umzimbiti_ walking-stick. "That's not bad for a view."

They had emerged from the forest ravine and now stood on high ground.

The plains swept away to a line of round-topped hills, whose slopes were intersected with similar forest-filled ravines to that behind them, making dark stripes upon the bright green of the slope. It was a lovely evening, and the sky was blue and cloudless.

"No; it's beautiful," he answered. "I came here that way, round the back of that range."

"But that's the way to Makanya. You didn't come from Makanya?"

"No; I left it on the left. I wanted to find my way across country.

All that forest part is splendid, but rough."

"Were you alone?"

"Yes, except when I got a native as guide for what looked like some of the most difficult parts."

Verna's pretty lips emitted a whistle, as she looked at him in astonishment.

"You did rather a risky thing," she said. "The people down there are none too well affected, and it's hardly safe in these days for a solitary white man in some parts of the country. And the Zulus are not what they used to be. But how did you manage about talking?"

"Oh, I had picked up an ordinary word or two, and the potent sign of a half-crown piece did the rest. It was quite interesting as an experience, really."

Verna still looked at him astonished; then she remembered he had said something about South America; still, his undertaking was at that time, as she had said, a risky thing. He, remembering one experience, at any rate, thought she was very likely right.

"Well, you mustn't take any risks when you are with us," she said.

"Why? Are the people your way disaffected, too?"

"It isn't so much that, but you might get lost wandering about by yourself. The forest country is flatter, and there are no landmarks, at any rate, that would be of any use to a stranger."

"Oh, I'm not much afraid of that," he answered lightly. They had resumed their walk, which lay back through the forest by a different way, chatting freely about anything and everything, as if they had known each other for years, at least so Denham looked upon it. He had had a most delightful walk, he told her, and she said she was glad. What he did not tell her was that he had found in her personality something so alluring, in her propinquity something so magnetic that it seemed ages ago when he had never known her. And now he was due to spend an indefinite time in a wild and unfrequented place, with herself and her father as sole companions. a.s.suredly the situation was charged with potentialities, but from such Alaric Denham, recognising, did not shrink.

Two figures were walking a little way in front of them as they drew near the hotel garden gate.

"Why, who can that be with father?" said Verna. Then, as they got a little nearer, "Why, if it isn't Harry Stride!"

"Who's he?"

"A prospector. He's a nice boy. A little while ago he got into a difference of opinion with some of our people and learnt which was softest--his head or a k.n.o.bkerrie. We mended him up, but it took a little while."

"Poor chap. Is he all right now?"

"Oh yes." And the other two, hearing them, turned and waited.

During the greetings which followed a mere glance was sufficient to make Denham acquainted with two things--one, that the newcomer was over head and ears in love with Verna Halse, and the other that Verna was not in the least in love with him. She greeted him with frank, open-hearted friendliness, while his face, in that brief moment, spoke volumes.

Then the two men were introduced, and Denham became alive to the fact that the other regarded him with no friendly eyes.

"Poor boy," he thought to himself. "He is handsome, too, very, in the Anglo-Saxon, blue-eyed style, manly-looking as well. I wonder why he has no show."

As the evening wore on this subtle antagonism deepened, at any rate such was obvious to the object thereof. Yet Denham laid himself out to be friendly. He made no attempt to monopolise Verna's society, but spent most of the time chatting and smoking with her father, leaving the other a clear field so far as he himself was concerned. And of this the other had laid himself out to make the most; as why should he not, since he had ridden a two days' journey with that express object?

Once, when the conversation was general, and turning on the probability of a general rising, the subject of the state of native feeling in the Makanya district came up; Verna said, "Mr Denham came right through the Makanya bush all alone."

But it happened that several people were talking at once, as is not unfrequently the case when a topic of public interest is under discussion, and the remark was lost. Verna did not repeat it. Some strange, unaccountable instinct kept her from doing so. It could be nothing else but instinct, for certainly Denham himself gave no sign of having so much as heard it. But the time was to come when she should look back on that instinct with very real meaning indeed.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

TREACHERY.

The Lumisana forest covers many square miles of country, and that the roughest and most impenetrable country imaginable. Huge tree-trunks, dense undergrowth, impenetrable thickets of _haak doorn_, that awful fishhook-like thorn which, like the sword of the Edenic angel, turns every way, and growing in such close abattis that any one trying to force his way through it would in a second find not only his clothes but his skin torn to ribbons and could not get through even then. Where the ground was comparatively level a way might be made by the following of game paths; but there were broken, tumbled ma.s.ses of rocks and cliffs, and dark ravines falling away suddenly, with lateral clefts running up from these for long distances, the said clefts so overhung by dense foliage as to form actual caves into which the light of day could hardly straggle. A terrible, an appalling place to get lost in, save for those with a lifetime of veldt-craft at their back, and the means of procuring wild food. To a new and inexperienced wanderer such a position would be well-nigh hopeless. Snakes of the most deadly varieties were abundant, the hyena and the leopard prowled at night--the latter abnormally bold and fierce, and giant baboons barked raucously from the rocks. Even in full, broad daylight, with the sun glancing down through the network of the tree-tops, there was an awesome stillness and an oppressiveness in the air, breathing of fever; at night the dense solitude and mysterious voices and rustlings were calculated to get upon the nerves.