Part 33 (1/2)
”N-no,” he answered thoughtfully ”I don't see how any natives could have been concealed within sight or even earshot The horses would have winded theot restive, whereas they were perfectly quiet”
”I can't make out that part of it at all,” said Verna ”Iincident I could see that
The question is--if he kne did he know? So they'd have seen the other”
”Yes; they loomily, ”a sure and certain instinct that this net will close round ht since I succeeded in ridding myself of this incubus, and, then I found _you_ After that everything was positively radiant Of course it couldn't last”
”But it can last, and it shall Dear one, you said just now that you were placing your life in uard with a jealous care I have s from outside which you would hardly believe, and shall set thereat deal more to part us now--Do you remember the day we firstof this very affair in the hotel? Well, I volunteered the reh the Makanya, but nobody heard They were all talking at once, but I didn't repeat it Some instinct warned ht ere going to be to each other then”
Verna shook her head ”I'm by no means so sure of that,” she said
”No more am I, now I come to think of it”
After this Denhaic As the days went by and no news came from outside, he was almost dazzled in the sunshi+ne of happiness that flooded his heart He had dreaded the effect of the revelation upon Verna, and now that he hadit had, if possible, deepened tenfold
Then fell the bolt from the clear sky
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
VERNA'S DILEMMA
Alaric Denhaone out by hi with hiht fell and still no sign of him
Verna's anxiety deepened She could hardly be persuaded to go into the house at all Her eyes strove to pierce the gathering gloom, her ears were open to every sound that could tell of his approach Yet no such sound rewarded theht of her fears
”Denhairlie,” he said ”He knows his way about by this time Likely he's wandered further than he intended, after soot lost He'll have turned in at so”
But n, then midday By that tiht be as well to institute a search
TheBut, starting from that point, an exploration of hours failed to elicit the slightest trace Inquiries a natives, too, proved equally futile
None had so limpsed any solitary white man They had called at Sapazani's kraal, but the chief was absent It was in this direction that Denha Undhlawafa, however, proain, and Denhaetic, Verna had taken an active part in the search; but for any trace they could find, or clue they could grasp, the ht have disappeared into eloomy, and shook a despondent head There were perilous clefts about those wild rass, into which a ht easily fall and thus effectually perforht have done so was now her father's belief, but to Verna herself another alternative held itself out What if he had been secretly followed and arrested for that which he had done? Or what if he had detected such danger in ti?
So The heartsick, despairing agony of the girl was beyond words
Four days thus went by, Verna was despairing, her father gloomy To the latter she had now confided Denhaed between theencies
Ben Halse came to the conclusion that this rather tied his hands, for to advertise the disappearance would be to draw tooit
It was night Verna stood in the open door looking forth A faint snore now and again from another room told that her father had subsided into obliviousness, but to-night she herself could not sleep; indeed, but for the sheer physical exhaustion of the day she would never have been able to sleep at all The soft velvet of the sky was afire with stars, and above the disain rise the distant song and roar of savage revelry from some kraal far out on the plain beneath Back in the sombre recesses of the uised by echo, the voices of bird or beast would ring forth, or a falling star dart, in trailing spark, through the zenith Suddenly another sound fell upon her ear Soling through her frame She listened--listened hard Footsteps! Alaric had returned He should find her there, waiting But the glow of intense thankfulness sank in her heart But for the one obsessing idea she would have recognised that those soft-padded footfalls were not those of any white looht indistinctly Even then her heart throbbed to bursting
This nocturnal visitor must be the bearer of news But he had halted