A Frontier Mystery Part 33

"How do you know that?" asked Falkner.

"Because the ground underneath him is perfectly dry. If he had been killed or died later it wouldn't have been. It would have been damp with dew. Look--Ah!"

The last exclamation was evoked by a curious circ.u.mstance as I moved the body of the dead animal. A strange odour greeted my nostrils. It was as the odour of death, and yet not altogether, and--it was the same that poisoned the air on the occasion of my horse refusing to go forward on that night at Kendrew's, and again here, almost on this very spot three nights ago when we had come away from witnessing Ukozi's uncanny performance at the pool. Some dark villainy underlay this, and that the witch doctor was connected with it was borne in upon my mind without a doubt.

I examined the dead dog long and carefully, but could read no clue as to the manner of his death, unless he had been poisoned, but this I thought unlikely. One thing was certain. Never in life would he have allowed harm or violence to reach his mistress. Poor Arlo! At any other time I should have been moved to genuine grief for his loss; now that loss was not even felt.

Quickly, eagerly, I cast around for spoor, beyond the radius of the disturbed part of the ground. All in vain. No trace. No trampled gra.s.s or broken twig, or displaced leaf, absolutely nothing to afford a clue. The thing was incomprehensible. It was as if she had been caught up bodily into the air.

The ground here was a gentle declivity, moderately studded with bush.

It was not rocky nor rugged, and was entirely devoid of holes or caves into which anyone might fall.

Suddenly every drop of blood within me was set tingling. I had found a trace. Where the ground was stony, just above the path I discovered an abrasion, as though a boot, with nail heads in the soles, had sc.r.a.ped it.

It was very faint, but still--there was no mistaking it. It was a genuine spoor. And it led on and on, utterly undiscernible to the Major or Falkner, hardly visible to Kendrew at times, but plain enough to me.

And now hope beat high. We would find her. We had only to follow on this spoor which we had struck, and we would find her. Heaven knew how, but still! we would find her. She might have met with an accident and be sorely in need of help, but--still we would find her, and this--even this--after the blank, awful realisation of her loss, akin, as it was, to the disappearance of Hensley--contained relative comfort.

The others were watching me with mingled anxiety and curiosity as, bent low over the ground, I followed these faint indications. The latter were tolerably perceptible now to a practised eye, though to no other, and I kept upon them steadily. Then a ghastly fear smote me again upon the heart. The spoor was leading straight for the waterhole.

What did it mean? She would not have gone there--voluntarily. After the spectacle we had witnessed that night nothing on earth would have induced her to revisit the uncanny place alone, even by daylight. Yet the dreadful thought had already forced itself upon my mind, that there, if anywhere, would the mystery be solved.

In silence, eager, intensified, we pursued our way; for the others would not speak lest they should distract my mind from its concentration.

Thus we came out upon the waterhole.

The spoor had led us straight to the high brow of cliff overhanging the pool--the spot upon which we had all stood that afternoon when we had first seen the mysterious monster which had disturbed the water. And-- what was this?

All the soil here, where it was not solid rock, had been swept with branches. There was the pattern in the dust, even if stray leaves and twigs scattered about had not gone towards showing that, beyond a doubt.

The object was manifest--to efface all traces of a struggle.

Heavens! my brain seemed to be turning to mud with the drear despair of each fresh discovery. The witch doctor's promise to show the old man the mystery of the waterhole came back to my mind. I put together the words of _sibongo_ to the snake I had heard him chanting. Ukozi had been preparing a way towards a sacrifice to his demon. He had accustomed the great python to seizing its victim as he brought it--and he had always brought it, so small, so insufficient, in the shape of the kid we had seen him give it, as to excite the appet.i.te of the monster rather than to gratify it. He had been practising on Major Sewin's curiosity, so that when the time should be ripe he would bring him to the edge of the pool, where all unsuspecting he would be seized by the monster and never be seen or heard of again. And now, and now--this unspeakably horrible and revolting fate, instead of overtaking the old man, had overtaken Aida, my love, the sun and Paradise of my life, instead. She had been subst.i.tuted for him, as the easier, possibly the more acceptable victim.

But, Ukozi! Whatever might happen to me I would capture and revenge myself upon him in a manner which should out-do the vengeance of the most vindictive and cruel of his own countrymen. I would spend days and nights gloating over his agony, and afterwards it should be talked about with fear and shuddering among the whole population of the border--ay, and beyond it I would do it; how I knew not, but, I would do it. All h.e.l.l was seething in my brain just then--all h.e.l.l, as I thought of my love, in her daintiness and grace; the very embodiment of a refinement and an elevating influence that was almost--no, entirely--divine, sacrificed horribly to the revolting superst.i.tions of these savages, whom I had hitherto regarded as equalling in manly virtues those who could boast of centuries of so-called civilisation at their backs. And yet--revenge--could it bring back to me my love--my sweet lost love?

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

THE DIVE OF THE WATER RAT.

We stood there--we four--gazing into each other's livid faces. Then the Major broke down. Sinking to the ground he covered his face with his hands and sobbed. I broke fiercely away. I could not stand for a moment doing nothing, so I set to work to go right round the pool and see if I could find any further trace. But the search was a vain one.

"The next thing is, what are we going to do?" said Falkner when we had rejoined them. "We don't propose to spend the rest of the day staring at each other like stuck pigs, I take it?"

"We ought to drag the hole," I said, "but we haven't got the necessary appliances, nor even a draw net. Can any of you think of some expedient?"

"We might get a long pole, and splice a couple of meat-hooks to the end somehow," said Falkner, "and probe about with that. Only, the cursed hole is about a mile too deep for the longest pole to get anywhere near the bottom in the middle."

"_Amakosi_!"

We started at the interruption. So intent had we been that not one of us had been aware of the approach of a fifth--and he a native.

"Ha, Ivondwe!" I cried, recognising him. "What knowest thou of this, for I think thou couldst not have been far from this place at sundown yesterday?"

He answered in English.

"Do the _Amakosi_ think the young missis has got into the water?"

"They do," I said, still keeping to the vernacular. "Now, Water Rat, prove worthy of thy name. Dive down, explore yon water to its furthest depths for her we seek. Then shall thy reward be great."

"That will I do, Iqalaqala," he answered--greatly to my surprise I own, for I had been mocking him by reason of his name.

"And the snake?" I said. "The snake that dwells in the pool. Dost thou not fear it?"

I had been keenly watching his face, and the wonder that came into it looked genuine.

"Why as to that," he answered, "and if there be a snake yet I fear it not. I will go."

He stood looking down upon the water for a moment; he needed to lose no time in undressing, for save for his _mutya_ he was unclad. Now he picked up two large stones and holding one in each hand, he poised himself at a point about ten feet above the surface. Then he dived.

Down he went--straight down--and the water closed over him. We stood staring at the widening circles, but could see nothing beneath the surface. Then it suddenly dawned upon us that he had been under water an abnormally long time.

"He'll never come up again now," declared Falkner. "No man living could stick under water all that time," he went on after a wait that seemed like an hour to us. "The beast has either got hold of him, or he's got stuck somehow and drowned. Oh good Lord!"

For a black head shot up on the further side of the hole, and a couple of strokes bringing it and its owner to the brink, he proceeded calmly to climb out, showing no sign of any undue strain upon his powers of endurance.

"Thou art indeed well named, Ivondwe," I said. "We thought the snake had got thee."

"Snake? I saw no snake," he answered. "But I will go down again.

There is still one part which I left unsearched."

He sat for a moment, then picked up two stones as before. He walked round to an even higher point above the water, and this time dived obliquely.

"By Jove, he must have come to grief now," said Falkner. "Why he's been a much longer time down."

As we waited and still Ivondwe did not reappear, the rest of us began to think that Falkner was right. It seemed incredible that any man could remain under so long unless artificially supplied with air. Then just as we had given him up Ivondwe rose to the surface as before.

This time he was panting somewhat, as well he might. "There is no one down there," he began, as soon as he had recovered breath.

"No one?"

"No one. All round the bottom did I go--and there was no one. _Au_! it is fearsome down there in the gloom and the silence, and the great eels gliding about like snakes. But she whom you seek must be found elsewhere. Not under that water is she."

Was he going on the native principle of telling you what you would most like to know? I wondered. Then Falkner began kicking off his boots.

"Here goes for a search on my own account," he said. "Coming, Glanton?

If there's nothing to hurt him, there's nothing to hurt us. We'll try his dodge of holding a couple of stones. We'll get down further that way."

Ivondwe shook his head.