The Golden Rock Part 58

"Stay," said Hume; "I have been thinking. There must be another outlet.

The woman was here when we entered; I heard her voice. She must have crept in by another way after bringing us water when we were bound."

"I never thought of that," muttered Webster.

Klaas spoke a word to the witch-doctor, and, at the sullen reply, removed a strip of hide in a corner, slipped through a hole, and disappeared.

There was an exclamation from Laura, and she came swiftly in, holding one of the rifles. "Look," she said, "I have found all our guns and belongings."

Webster caught the rifle and opened the breech. "Loaded! Ah, now we're all right."

Hume sighed heavily.

"Do your eyes pain you still?" she asked gently.

"No; I was thinking of my rifle. If I could only see a little--a very little."

She looked into his face, and, with a curious thrill, saw that the tears were streaming down his cheeks. She took his hand and patted it.

"I am not weeping," he said, with a ghost of a smile, "but the treatment of the old woman makes my eyes water."

"Thank G.o.d," said Webster fervently; and he grasped Hume's disengaged hand in a warm pressure.

"What do you mean?" asked Frank hoa.r.s.ely, while his hand tightened in a convulsive grasp on Laura's fingers.

"I mean that your eyesight will be restored. I saw a similar recovery on the _Barracouta_, and I remember the surgeon's joy when he saw the water run from the powder-burnt eyes of the patient."

"I cannot see yet," muttered Hume, as he raised his fingers to the bandage.

"Nay, man, wait a little longer; you are in the hands of the old woman, and must trust the cure to her. But, believe me, Frank, you will see the sight on your rifle when the Zulus come again."

"And the sunlight and the trees," he whispered.

"Which," Laura said, "would you like to see first?"

"Well," he said, "I would like very much to see my feet, for they appear now not to belong to me, and then one look round the horizon. But the idea frightens me," and he leant against the wall again with folded arms, while Webster paced to and fro, and Laura stood looking at the quiet figure and the three natives, dimly outlined on the floor.

Suddenly the shafts of sunlight that streamed through the lower cracks were cut off, and the black line of shadow crept steadily up the wall, until the narrow cell was faintly illumined by one broad stream only, and this they watched slowly fade away, leaving them in impenetrable gloom.

"It is very still," muttered Hume.

"Yes," said Webster; "it is oppressive. I suppose the night is upon us, but the light has been turned off as though it had been under command.

We must not stay here; it would be folly--madness."

There came a sound of shuffling, and the voice of Klaas, sounding hollow, called out:

"Are you there?"

"What have you seen?"

"Ah, it was so still I thought you had been swallowed up. The Zulus are in three parties; one has marched up the valley, another is by the river, and the rest stay near here, where they were encamped before."

"Are they keeping watch over the ruins?"

"Neh, sieur, I think they fear the stones and the things in them at night."

"Then let us get out of this," said Webster.

"Wait awhile," said Hume, for an animated discussion had sprung up between the natives, and he was listening intently. The strange chief was evidently emphasising some point with great earnestness, and the smack of his fingers into the open palm marked off each point.

"Does he think the Zulus are determined to find us?" asked Hume.

"Oh, ay," said Sirayo; "yoh, I have no more snuff. They will attack to-morrow, and if they do not succeed the others will come to their help. But they do not seek us!"

"They do not seek us?"

"So the chief says. They came here in search of riches stored below,"

and the thud of his a.s.segai was heard as it struck the floor. "They find us here. It is the worse for us--but they do not seek us. So says the chief."

"Is there such a treasure?"

"No chief would tell where the grain pit is dug in the kraal, or if it were full of grain. But the Zulus do not hunt on a cold spoor. If they come after riches, who will say they are not here?"

"But who told the Zulus of the store? They were encamped here before, and did not enter the ruins."

Sirayo repeated this, and the chief, with an angry exclamation, poured out a volume of excited words.

"He says the secret must have been told them by one of the witch-doctors who lived here, and who alone knew of it with the chiefs."

There was a noise in the room of someone moving. Laura cried out that something had brushed against her, and there was a sc.r.a.ping, followed by a rush of cold wind.

Each grasped a weapon, and deep silence ensued as they listened; then Webster struck a match, and, as the feeble light spread, they followed its path through the blackness.

"Yoh!" exclaimed Klaas, whose eyes gleamed as they rolled, "the _umtagati_ (witch-doctor) has gone," and he thrust his a.s.segai through an opening in the wall opposite to the gap through which they had entered.

The match went out, and the stranger chief gave a sharp exclamation.

"What the devil is in the wind now?" demanded Webster impatiently.

"Treachery," said Hume. "Was that the informer?" he asked in Zulu.

"Eweh," said Sirayo fiercely; "my fingers itched to grasp him by the throat as he sat there like an evil toad through the afternoon. He is one of those who knew the secret, so says Umkomaas, the chief, and he must have given the word to the Zulus last night."

"And now he will go straight to them, tell them where we are, and that half of us are wounded."

"Eweh, he will do that."

"For Heaven's sake," said Webster, "give me the bearings of this matter."

Hume explained.