John Ames, Native Commissioner Part 30

If harm were to befall her I should feel that life had no more value."

"Then how will you face the--parting of the ways?"

The question chilled upon its hearer. Was it a prophecy?

"The parting of the ways?" he echoed slowly, comprehending the other's meaning. "Why should there be any parting?"

"Because it is the way of life."

And with the harsh, jeering, mirthless laugh which accompanied the cynicism, the stranger's countenance became once more transformed. The stare of hate and repulsion came into it again, and he turned away. But in the mind of his hearer there arose a vision of that last farewell, and he felt rea.s.sured--yet not. Coming from any other, he would have laughed at the utterance as a mere cynical commonplace, but from this one it impressed him as a dire prophecy.

"There will come a time when you will look back upon these rough wanderings of yours--the two of you--as a dream of Paradise, John Ames.

Hourly danger; scarce able to compa.s.s the means of existence; unknown country swarming with enemies; what a fearful experience it seems!

Yet--how you will look back to it, will long for it! Ah, yes, I know; for your experience was once mine."

"Once yours?"

"Once mine." Then, with sudden change of tone and demeanour--"And now, be advised by me, and restore Nature a little. You will find the wherewithal in that chest, for you may need all your strength."

Had it been anybody else, John Ames might have thought it somewhat unhostlike of the other to leave him to do all the foraging for himself, but somehow in this case it seemed all right. He could hardly have imagined this strange being bustling about over such commonplace work as rummaging out food. So he opened the chest indicated, and found it well stored with creature comforts. He set out, upon the table which had so startled him at first, enough for his present wants, and turned to speak to his host. But the latter was no longer there. He looked in the other apartment. That, too, was empty!

Weird and uncanny as this disappearance was, it disconcerted John Ames less than it would have done at first. In was in keeping with the place and its strange occupant, for now, as he gazed around, he noted that the rock in places was covered with strange hieroglyphics. He had seen Bushman drawings in the caves of the Drakensberg, executed with wonderful clearness and a considerable amount of rude skill. These, however, seemed the production of a civilised race, and that in the dim ages of a remote past, probably the race which was responsible for the ancient gold workings whereof the land showed such plentiful remains.

At any other time the investigation of these hieroglyphics would have afforded him a rare interest, at present he had enough to think about.

But if his host--or gaoler--chose to disappear into the earth or air at will it was no concern of his, and he had not as yet found any great encouragement to curiosity in that quarter. Meanwhile, he set to work to make a hearty breakfast--or dinner--or whatever it might be, for he had no idea of time, his watch having been smashed in his fall.

Strangely enough, a feeling of complete confidence had succeeded to his agony of self-reproach and anxiety as to Nidia's safety. Stranger, too, that such should be inspired by the bare word of this marvellous being who held him, so far, in his power. Yet there it was, this conviction.

It surprised him. It was unaccountable. Yet there it was.

Among other creature comforts he had found in the cupboard was a bottle of whisky. He mixed himself a modest "peg." But somehow the taste brought back the terrible tragedy in Inglefield's hut, that, perforce, being the last time he had drunk any, and a sort of disgust for the spirit came over him.

So did something else--a sadden and unaccountable drowsiness, to wit.

He strove to combat it, but fruitlessly. Returning to his couch, he lay down, and fell into a deep and heavy sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

WHAT WAS DISCLOSED.

When he awoke, John Ames found himself in the dark; not the ordinary darkness of night, wherein objects are faintly outlined, but black, pitchy, impenetrable gloom--an outer darkness which weighed upon mind and spirits with a sense of living entombment.

Breathed there a mystic atmosphere in this weird place which affected the mind? This darkness seemed to unnerve him, to start him wide awake with a feeling of chill fear. Light! That was the first requisite.

But a hurried search in every pocket revealed that he was without the means of procuring that requisite. He could find no matches. Had he by chance put them on the table, and left them there? He had no recollection of doing so, but in any case dared not get up and grope for them, bearing in mind the shaft-like pit at one end of the room.

Nothing would be easier than to fall into this in the bewildering blackness. Equally nothing was there for it but to lie still and await the course of events.

More and more did the walled-in blackness weigh him down. The air seemed full of whispering voices--indistinct, ghostly, rising and falling in far-away flute-like wailings; and there came upon him a vision. He saw again the great granite cone with the black hole, dark and forbidding, piercing its centre; but not as he had pointed it out to his fellow-fugitive in the sunlight gold. No; it was night now, and there, around its base, a mighty gathering occupied the open, and from this arose a roar of voices--voices in supplication, voices in questionings, voices singing fierce songs of war. Then there would be silence, and from the cavern mouth would issue one voice--denunciatory, reproachful, prophetic, yet prophesying no good thing. And the voice was as that of the strange being in whose power he lay.

Louder and louder boomed the roar of the war-song. It shook the air; it vibrated as in waves upon the dense opacity of the darkness, echoing from the walls of this mysterious vault, for he was conscious of a dual personality--one side of it without, a witness of the scene conjured up by the vision; the other still within himself, still entombed and helpless within the heart of the earth. And then again the whole faded, into sleep or nirvana.

Once more came awakening. He was no longer in darkness. The rose-light threw quivering shadows from the objects about the place, and he was no longer alone. His host--or gaoler stood contemplating him.

"You have had a long sleep, John Ames."

"And strange dreams, too," was the reply, made with a certain significance. "When I woke up in the dark--"

"Are you sure you did wake up in the dark? Are you sure you did not dream you woke up?"

"Upon my word, I can't tell. I sometimes think that in these days I can be sure of nothing."

"Well, you shall hear what will give you something to rejoice over. The 'friend' you were taking care of is safe."

"Safe?"

"Yes. I told you exactly what had happened. And now she will be in Bulawayo as soon as yourself."

"As soon as myself?"

"Yes, for you will soon be there. You see, I have a use to turn you to.

I have a message for the outside world, and you shall be the means of transmitting it."

"That will I do, with the greatest of pleasure. But what if I do not get through? The Matabele seem to be taking to the hills in force, and it's a long few days to get through from where we are--or were, rather, should I say, for I'm not at all sure where I am now."

"Quite right, John Ames. You are not. Still you shall get through.

And then, when you rejoin your 'friend'--the girl with the very blue eyes, and the quick lift of the eyelids, and the animated countenance changing vividly with every expression, and the brown-gold hair--I suppose you will think life holds for you no greater good?"

"I say, but you seem to have studied her rather closely," was the rejoinder, with a dry smile. "Anybody would think you knew her."

"I have watched her from far more closely than you dream of, John Ames.

For instance, every step of your way since leaving s.h.i.+minya tied up in his hut, has been known to me and to others too. Your life--both your lives--have been in my hand throughout, what time you have prided yourself upon your astuteness in evading pursuit and discovery. The lives of others have been in my hand in like manner, and--the hand has closed on them. You will soon learn how few have escaped."

The grim relentlessness succeeding to the even, almost benevolent tone which had characterised the first part of this extraordinary statement impressed John Ames. At the same time he felt correspondingly reduced.

He had prided himself, too--in advance--upon bringing Nidia safely in, alone and unaided; now he was done out of this satisfaction, and others would take to themselves the credit. Then he felt smaller still because thoroughly ashamed of himself. How could he harbour such a thought amid the great glad joy of hearing that her safety was a.s.sured?

"Are you influencing these rebels, then?" he asked, all his old repulsion for the other returning, as he saw, as in a flash, the fell meaning of the words. "It seems strange that you should aid in the murder of your own countrymen."

"My own countrymen!" and the expression of the speaker became absolutely fiendish. "'My own countrymen' would have doomed me to a living death-- a living h.e.l.l--long years ago, for no crime; for that which injured n.o.body, but was a mere act of self-defence. Well, 'my own countrymen'

have yielded up hundreds of lives in satisfaction since then."

"But--great Heavens! you say 'would have.' They _would_ have done this?

Why, even if it had happened, such a revenge as yours would have been too monstrous. Now I begin to see. Yet, in aiding these murderers of women and children, you are sacrificing those who never harmed you. But surely you can never have done this!"

"Ha, ha! Really, John Ames, I am beginning to feel I have made a mistake--to feel disappointed in you, in thinking you were made of very different clay to the swaggering, bullet-headed fool, the first article of whose creed is that G.o.d made England and the devil the remainder of the world. Well, listen further. To escape from this doom I was forced to flee--to hide myself. And with me went one other. We wandered day after day as you have wandered--we two alone."

In spite of his repulsion John Ames was interested, vividly interested.

Verily here a fellow-feeling came in. A marvellous change had crept into the face of the other. The hard steely expression, the eyes glittering with hate, had given way to such a look of wondrous softness as seemed incredible that that countenance could take on.

"There is a lonely grave in the recesses of the Lebombo Mountains, unmarked, unknown to any but myself. I once had a heart, John Ames, strange to say, and it lies buried there. But every time I return thence it is with the fire renewed within me; and the flames of that fire are the hate of h.e.l.l for those you were just now describing as 'my own countrymen.'"

The hopeless pathos, the white-hot revenge running side by side, silenced the listener. There was a fury of pa.s.sion and of pain here which admitted of no comment. To strive further to drive home his original protest struck him now as impertinent and commonplace. For a while neither spoke.