She nodded her head with a very hard look in her eyes.

Compton kept down his rising wrath at this ominous speech.

"Very well, mother," he said quietly. "You know best. I will now get about my work, if ye order that I am left in silence."

"I will see to that," she answered; "and see to it that you do all I have asked, lest you also go to those wizards you spoke of to the men."

She looked at him meaningly, and went on with her escort.

Compton watched them out of sight, then ran to his moulds. Taking out the canes, he split them down in turn, disclosing a dozen candles, roughly moulded, and very greasy, but he hoped suitable for his venture. One he fixed in the socket of the torch, the others he packed away carefully in an oilskin bag. Then slinging on his carbine, bandolier, haversack, and making them all secure by strapping a belt over all, he crept through the opening at the far end of the cave, replaced the rock, and lit his candle. After much spluttering and a great deal of smoke, the flame caught, and he started on his tour, breathing a fervent hope that it would lead him to his lost friends.

CHAPTER XXII

A TERRIBLE NIGHT

We will return now to Mr. Hume, who was left supporting the unconscious form of Venning on the brink of the rushing river, with the vast vault above him, and the roar of sharp explosions bellowing at intervals through the hollows. As he stooped over his young companion, he caught a fluttering of the eyelids, and placing the boy on the ground with a pillow made by his rolled-up coat, he unfastened the little medicine-bag which each always carried, and gave him a strong restorative. Then he chafed the cold hands, took off the wet shoes, and did the same to the feet, which were like marble. As the blood circulated under the friction, Venning regained his colour, and suddenly looked about him.

"I'm here, lad," said Mr. Home, cheerily. "You grew a little dizzy, but you're all right."

"What's that noise?" asked the boy, breathlessly. Mr. Hume picked him up, and carried him to the door of the vault.

"Magnificent, isn't it? Aren't you glad we came? One of the wonders of the world; and you've got the crow over d.i.c.k this time."

Venning sighed. "It's rather awful," he muttered. "It's grand, lad, grand! See how the water juts out like a column of steam with the roar of a big gun, and how the light falls upon it in a thousand hues, as the fine spray falls."

Venning's eyes opened wide as they looked up. "Like golden rain at a display of fireworks."

"The very thing, lad," answered the hunter, enthusiastically.

Venning's eyes ranged slowly down to the well of green water arching out from the black wall, and then to the snow-white flood where the foam hissed in its giddy descent.

"Where is she?"

"She'll be back soon. But we cannot wait for her here---there is too much moisture. We'll get back to a drier place."

Still carrying the boy, he made his way back to the great chamber, lit up mysteriously by those pale cones and glistening columns. Here he found a dry place in a comer, and after placing Venning on the ground, he struck a match.

"Here's a find," he said, pouncing on a piece of driftwood.

With his Ghoorka knife he soon split it up, and in a short time a fire was blazing, throwing a red reflection on the stalact.i.tes. It was an eerie place, echoing to the thunders of the explosions, with pitch-dark comers, and those ghost-like forms in the misty heights, but Mr. Hume would not allow his patient time to brood over the surroundings. He shaved off fragments of biltong for him to eat, talking cheerfully all the time, and at last had the satisfaction of seeing the overwrought nerves of the lad quieted in sleep. Then the anxiety that had filled him all the time appeared in the expression of his face, and he stepped away a few yards to send a call for the woman ringing up into the vault. The cry ran away mournfully in a series of diminishing echoes, but no answer came, and he looked to his weapons, built up the fire with other fragments of wood that had been evidently borne in at times of flood, and explored the cave.

There was no sign of the woman anywhere, but he found three exits.

Relinquishing any idea of following them until Venning was fit to walk, he returned to the fire, and sat down with his back to the rock waiting for the woman's return. If he felt doubt or fear, he fought against it, resolving that, come what would, his first care was to save his companion, but that there was cause for doubt he knew very well from the remarks and bearing of the woman. Probably, he thought, the secret of the underground was hers only, and she might well have a motive sufficiently strong to preserve that secret even at the sacrifice of their lives. Full of these thoughts, he began another examination of the cave, confining himself this time to a search of the floor. Going down on hands and knees, and carrying a lighted stick, he minutely inspected the thin layer of dust which had settled since the last flood-waters had rushed through. Traversing slowly the width of the cave, he found his own spoor and the spoor of the woman. Then working round with the object of finding which of the three openings she had taken on leaving, he came upon a calabash and a kaross made of goats'-skin. The calabash, from the smell, contained goats'-milk. Leaving the fire-stick to mark the spot to which he had carried his search, he went back to place the kaross over the sleeping boy. Then taking another stick from the fire, he took up the spooring from the place he had left off, and crawled inch by inch, till he came to the first exit. Here he saw his spoor entering together with the footprints of the woman, both very plain from the mud which had adhered to their feet. The woman, however, had not pa.s.sed out. That, at any rate, was one point settled, and he went on with a feeling of distinct relief at the thought that there might be another way out than by the fearful track they had followed on entering. On nearing the second exit he paused, startled by what seemed to him the sound of shrill voices borne suddenly in a pause between the bellowing of the water-jets in the neighbouring vault. When he listened he could, however, distinguish no sound in the mutterings and the boomings that was human, and repressing a desire to cry out, he groped along up to the second exit. Here, however, there were no footprints. The surface was smooth rock, and he was pa.s.sing on when something about the rock attracted his attention again. Leaving one of the sticks again to guide him on his return by its glowing end, he returned to the fire, rebuilt it, waited till it was fairly blazing, then with another glaring torch he ran to continue his search. He found what he had half expected, that the rock had been polished by the pa.s.sage of many feet, which had worn out quite a marked depression. He also satisfied himself that the woman had not pa.s.sed out there, for as her feet had been wet she must have left some trace on the smooth surface. There remained now the third and last exit, and as he edged away to the left, he saw that the beaten track also led in the same direction. He rose and walked, feeling for the opening with his right hand, and, coming to it, he was glad, but not surprised, to make two discoveries, first, that the well-marked path entered the opening, and second, that the woman had also pa.s.sed that way. There was the spoor of one foot clearly outlined in particles of moist dust.

"That's good," he muttered, standing up. "But I don't like the look of that path. Means people. But what sort of people? And the kaross and the goats'-milk. People again. No good taking risks."

He went back to the fire, drew the sticks away, thrust the burning ends into crevices, and left the comer in darkness once more. Then he sat down by Venning with his rifle across his knees and waited.

He had no thought of moving a foot from the cave until Venning was fit to move; he would let him have his sleep out, and if he was no better, well, then, he would carry him. So he sat waiting and watching, listening to the hoa.r.s.e rumblings which all the time ascended from below, and to the tremendous reports, a little dulled by the intervening wall, made by the spurting water. He watched the coming of the night, marked the gradual fading of the sheen on the stalact.i.tes, until softly the shadows sank and merged into the darkness of the cave, leaving nothing visible but a faint gleam where the nearest sulphur cone stood.

Eerie it was in the dim light, eerier it was now in the dark, with those hoa.r.s.e mutterings from beneath, and those thunderous reverberations pealing at irregular intervals through the unknown s.p.a.ces above. He had his pipe, but his habitual caution deterred him from seeking its comfort, and he was glad he had abstained, and glad at having extinguished the fire, when suddenly he heard the sound of shrill laughter. A sullen roar from the water-hole beyond drowned the sound, but he knew in every fibre that he had not been mistaken.

There were others beside him and Venning in the vaults, but not for a moment was he pleased at the thought. Instinct or the a.s.sociation of the place warned them of danger. For a long spell, however, he could distinguish nothing human in the hurly-burly of sounds, and then again, nearer and plainer, the shrill peal rang out exultant, with a note in it of some savage beast flinging back the news to the pack that the scent was hot.

Slowly he stooped his head to hear if Venning slept, for he dreaded what would happen if the boy awoke in the pitchy darkness and heard that demoniac cry. The boy's breathing came at regular intervals, and with a muttered prayer that he would sleep on, the Hunter felt for the trigger.

"Ngonyama!" From the height a voice calling to him dropped soft as the flight of a bat, faint as a whisper, yet clear as a bell in all that turmoil.

He smiled grimly, but did not answer. This was some trick of the woman. If she was friendly, why had she left them?

"Indhlovu! "--again it fell as from afar.

He ran his hand over the bandolier, loosened the cartridges, and let his fingers curl round the trigger again.

A gust of wind blowing through some fissure shrieked amid the heights as if terrified at having wandered into such a prison, then for a long time the old sounds continued to make sport in the vaults and tunnels without any interruption.

Then Venning suddenly woke, and Mr. Hume was in a fever to keep the boy's mind occupied, and to get him asleep again.

"Drink this," he said, picking up the calabash, "and go to sleep again."

Venning took a long drink, "I dreamt I was by the sea, listening to the waves. It was almost as good as being home again."

"That's right. It's the sound of water. Go to sleep again and dream of old England, the best medicine you could have."

"I think I will," said Venning; and, with a sigh, he pulled the kaross over him, being too tired out to wonder how it came there.

"Sleep well, lad, sleep well;" and the big hand rested on the boy's shoulder to comfort him with its touch, but the man's face was turned with a straining expression towards the exit which he had last inspected, for it seemed to him that he had seen a streak of light, such as would be thrown in advance by a torch.

To his relief. Venning dropped off once more into a deep slumber, and he bent forward, alert in every fibre. He was not mistaken.

There was a light over in the dark, not a light that sparkled, but a greenish glow, not unlike the eye of an animal as seen at night in the reflection of a bull's-eye lantern. It moved, too, like the eye of an animal, and presently other lights gathered around and at the back, giving off no radiance, not bright enough to throw up into relief the objects that produced them, but watchful, like the eyes of a pack of wild-dogs regarding their prey. The Hunter tried an experiment. Feeling for his great knife, he struck a stone, and watched to see if there was any movement of surprise which would indicate that there were living creatures aware of his presence.

There was no such movement. Like bits of dull green gla.s.s with a light behind, these mysterious points remained as they had been, moving gently as if to the action of respiration. He raised his rifle, tempted to fire under the feeling of nervous suspense that tried his iron nerves, but lowered it at once, with a glance down at the dark form at his side. He would wait; and he sat watching the things, whatever they were, that seemed to be watching him with such cold and silent intentness. Then he made out that they were not animals. The eyes of animals blink, and these did not. Moreover, any animal, however fierce, would turn its eyes away at times; but these remained staring. What were they? He had seen fungus glow like that in the forest, but never so many together. And then he strained his ears to gather from any sound an inkling of their nature, but, beyond the bellowings and the sullen roar, he could hear nothing.

How long could he stand the suspense? Already he felt a strong impulse to jump up, to shout, to break up that fixed regard, to come to the death-grapple, if need be, rather than sit there in doubt.

The minutes slipped by slowly; each slowly spun its time out, as if every minute were an hour, each hour a week, and the moisture gathered on his brow, when at last the tension was broken.

"Sisters, I smell smoke!"

"Thank G.o.d," was the man's thought, "they are living." The suspense fell from him. He pulled himself together, and was ready for anything.

"Smoke!" The voice reached him in sharp shrill accents that pierced the continual growling of the waters. "Who is here?"

"Ngonyama!" was the reply uttered by several.

"He is terrible, sisters. Hear the thunder of his voice. Let us fly, lest he tear us." And the speaker laughed.

"That is not his voice! He is afraid; he crouches like the panther in the trap, trembling. His strength has gone from him."

"I heard a lion was in the plains, and the cows ran together in a cl.u.s.ter, for they were afraid."

A shrill laughter was the response, but the dull lights remained where they were, and again there was a long spell of silence, as far as the voices were concerned. Then the lights went out. The Hunter stooped forward, listening, but he could hear no footfall. He put the gun down, and grasped the knife in his right hand, for he could use it with better effect in a sudden a.s.sault.