Across the Cameroons Part 28

They ran to the place where he was, and found him pointing to the ground.

"Look there!" he cried. "I was right. The sheikh has escaped!"

Sure enough, upon the soft sand was a line of footmarks, leading in the direction of the plateau. Every now and again the trail was marked by a small drop of blood.

Harry asked for an explanation.

"It is very simple," answered Cortes. "The leopards first attacked the camel, which was tethered to a palm-tree outside the temple. The Black Dog was awakened from his sleep and endeavoured to escape. As he fled from the entrance he must have encountered a leopard. His cloak was torn, but he escaped, bearing the marks of the leopard's teeth or claws, probably in his thigh. Wounded, he has gone back to the hills, knowing that there lies his only chance of safety."

The man was certain of his facts. Moreover, the evidence of the foot-marks and the blood spoor was too strong to be denied.

"Come!" cried Fernando. "He is as good as ours, unless he is only slightly hurt."

CHAPTER x.x.xI--The Fox in View

Before the heat of the day had arisen, Harry, Jim Braid, and the two guides had covered many miles across the desert, leaving the Arab village to their left. All this time it was easy to follow the track of the sheikh. The Black Dog evidently suffered pain, and progressed only with the greatest difficulty; for, as they went on, his footsteps became more irregular, as though he staggered when he walked.

Indeed, the whole thing was like the hunting of a wounded deer. It is a well-known fact that all wounded animals take to higher ground, because there they know they are more likely to be safe, since there are usually hiding-places in the mountains--crannies in the rocks, and caves. And besides, it is good to lay down one's life a little nearer to the stars.

The desert ended suddenly in a great expanse of scrub, bordering the plateau, where the ground was stony, and where the foot-marks of the sheikh were no longer visible. For some miles the two guides held the track, until they came to a place where the fugitive had halted by the side of a little stream. Here he had washed and bathed his wounds; he had torn strips from his clothing, making bandages for himself. He had gone down upon his knees at the side of the stream and had drunk the fresh water from his hands. Then he had continued on his way, invigorated and refreshed, making straight towards the Maziri mountains.

Soon after that they were obliged to leave the camel to browse upon the hill-side. The ground had become so steep and broken that the animal could advance but slowly. They off-loaded the provisions and ammunition and divided these equally among the party.

Presently they climbed the lower slopes of the mountains, where the country was much intersected by strips of forest and dried-up watercourses, with here and there a patch of sand--a kind of offshoot of the desert. There was no longer any trail to follow.

The Black Dog had chosen his way with sagacity, walking upon stony ground, where his sandals left no marks. For all that both Cortes and Fernando were confident that they would overtake him. However, to make the more sure of their victim, they decided to divide their forces, Harry and the elder man going one way, and Jim and Cortes another.

Late that afternoon, Harry and his companion had attained a great height on the ridge of the mountains. Before them extended a great valley, and it was on the other side of this that they beheld a white figure moving rapidly from rock to rock, bearing steadily towards the east.

The guide lifted his rifle and fired in the air.

"That is to warn my brother," said he. "He will know the signal. This time it is you and I who lead the chase."

He set off running down the mountain-side, springing from boulder to boulder. There was no foot-path, and the way was almost precipitous; but the man, though not so sure of foot as his brother, was as agile as a panther. In fact, it was as much as Harry could do to keep up with him. The half-caste was all impatience to overtake the fugitive.

The sheikh was no longer in sight, nor was there any sign of Jim and the younger guide, when the sun sank beyond the mountains, and the shadows of night crept into the valleys with the mists. For all that, Fernando held upon his way until long after dark, until at last Harry was obliged to call upon him to halt. The boy was utterly exhausted. Since daybreak that morning they had travelled without a halt, and must have covered nearly forty miles, over country that was rugged, wild, and pathless.

The guide agreed to halt, but would permit no fire. Harry appeased his appet.i.te with some wild fruit he had procured on the margin of the desert, and then lay down to sleep. In less than a minute he was buried in the deepest slumber.

It seemed to him he had not been sleeping for more than an hour when the guide took him by the shoulder and shook him lightly.

Harry Urquhart looked about him.

"It is still dark," said he.

"The dawn comes," said the man, as if that clinched the matter once and for all.

"Have you not slept?" asked Harry.

"Does the hound sleep," said Fernando, with a grim smile, "with the fox in view? Remember, I have sworn to the saints."

When they had eaten such of the desert fruit as remained over from the previous day, they set forward on their journey, the guide leading as before.

They traversed valley after valley, the guide selecting the route, as it seemed, by some kind of natural instinct similar to that which will lead a cat to find its way across unknown country. Though during that morning they saw nothing of the Arab, Fernando was certain that the Black Dog was not many miles ahead. Every time they reached a hill-top, he screened his eyes with a hand and examined the surrounding country for signs of the fugitive, who, they were convinced, was making back to the Caves of Zoroaster.

They were returning to the hills of Maziriland by a route that lay far to the south of that of their former journey. The mountains here were not so high as those farther to the north. For all that, they were exceedingly desolate and rugged. They were in a land where nothing appeared to live. There were no villages; neither cattle nor sheep grazed upon the lowlands.

At midday the guide caught sight of the sheikh, still bearing towards the south-east. His white robes were conspicuous at a distance.

On the opposite side of the valley in which they found themselves, the man was hurrying forward along a ledge that did not appear to be more than a few feet across, that hung--as it were--between earth and sky.

Beneath this ledge, the smooth face of a precipice dropped sheer to the depths of the valley; above, the same inaccessible cliff continued, rising upward to the clouds.

"If Cortes were only here," said the half-caste, "the task would be easy; the Black Dog would be ours."

"Where is your brother?" asked Harry.

"I am inclined to think he is somewhere toward the north. For the last three days the wind has been blowing from that direction. Had he been to the south he must have heard the shot I fired, in which case he would have caught us up."

"Perhaps," said Harry, "he returns by the way we came."

"It may be," said the guide. "Sooner or later, he will discover his mistake. Then he will come south; but he and Braid will be many miles in rear of us. If Cortes were with me now, I could capture the sheikh before sunset."

"How?"

"You see where he is," said the guide, pointing across the valley. "He walks on the brink of one precipice and at the foot of another. He can turn neither to the right nor to the left. He must either go straight on or else turn back. My brother can run faster than you or I. If he were with us, I would send him down the valley in all haste, to ascend the mountain-path in advance of the sheikh; whilst I would mount to the path at this end of the valley. Thus the Black Dog would be caught between us two."

Harry looked at the great, yawning abyss that arose before them like a mighty wall. The figure of Bayram was not more than two miles away. In mid-valley was a stream that flowed through a narrow strip of gra.s.sland, upon which it would be possible to run.

"I may not be able to run as fast as your brother," said he, turning to the guide, "but I think I can overtake the sheikh."

Fernando laughed.

"I think so too," said he. "As for me, though I can climb for many hours, I am no runner on the flat. Do you, therefore, set forth upon your way. At the foot of the valley you will see that the precipice ends; a spur of rock juts out. If you reach that place before the sheikh, you will be able to climb up to the path at the top of the precipice. There you will lie in wait for him. I will follow in his rear. He will be caught between two fires."

As there was little time to lose, Harry was not slow to obey the man's injunctions. Side by side they climbed down into the valley, and there they separated, Fernando going to the north, Harry Urquhart setting out in the opposite direction.

CHAPTER x.x.xII--Between Two Fires

In less than an hour Harry drew level with the Arab. The progress of the Black Dog was necessarily slow. In the first place, he still suffered from his wound; in the second place, the path he followed was in places so narrow as to be dangerous, and he was obliged to proceed with the utmost caution. Harry, on the other hand, had been able to run as fast as his legs could carry him by the side of the stream that rushed down from the mountains.

The boy paused for breath and looked about him. Though he and the sheikh were making for the same point, in regard to which they were level with one another, there was more than a mile between them. In other words, that was the distance that separated the precipice from the stream in mid-valley. Harry looked up and saw Fernando far in rear. He had already gained the path at the top of the abyss, and was following with all dispatch upon the heels of the fugitive.