Part 28 (1/2)

With many injunctions to her not to wander far from this spot, where to hide in the event of any Matabele chancing to pa.s.s that way, and promising to be back by sundown, Pukele took his departure. Once more Nidia was alone. This time, however, loneliness in itself no longer oppressed her. Intense anxiety on behalf of another precluded all thought of self.

True to his promise Pukele returned at sundown, and he had learned something. Jonemi had fallen in with the Matabele, even as he had expected. He had talked with the indunas, and having bidden farewell had walked away. That was about the same time last evening. But Pukele said nothing of the subsequent and stealthy pursuit, and the plunge from the height, for the simple reason that these were among the things he had not learned. The agents concerned in that last tragedy had their own motives for not advertising it abroad.

”Who were the indunas he was talking with?” asked Nidia, suddenly.

”Dey izinduna from Sik.u.mbutana,” replied the warrior, as she thought, evasively; and in truth this was so, for although he would do anything to a.s.sist his former master, or one in whom his former master took an interest, Pukele's native instincts were against revealing too much.

There was always in the background a possibility of the whites regaining the upper hand, in which case it was just as well that the prime movers in the rising should not be known to too many by name.

”But if they were his own people they would not harm him?”

”Not harm him, missie. He walk away.”

”Then why is he not here, long before now?” Then, excitedly, ”Pukele, you don't think--they--followed him up in the dark--and--and killed him?”

This again Pukele thought was far from unlikely. But he dissembled. It was more probable, he declared, that Jonemi had taken a longer way to come back in order to throw off his track any who might be following.

Or he might have discovered another impi and be forced to travel in the opposite direction to avoid it. He might be back any time.

This for her benefit. But in his heart of hearts the Matabele warrior thought that the chances of his former master being still in the land of the living were so small as to be not worth reckoning with. So he made up the fire, and cooked birds for Nidia and prepared to watch over her safety.

That night weird sounds came floating up to their resting-place, a rhythmical distant roaring, now subsiding into silence, then bursting forth again, till it gathered volume like the rolling of thunder. Fires twinkled forth, too, like eyes in the darkness, among the far windings of the hills.

”What is that, Pukele?” cried Nidia, starting up.

”Matabele make dance, missie. Big dance. Umlimo dance Matabele call him,” replied the savage, who was listening intently.

”Umlimo dance. Ah! I remember. Is there an Umlimo cave down there, where they are?” For she was thinking of the place John Ames had pointed out to her the day before, and his remark that if it wasn't a real Umlimo cave, it ought to be. And these strange wild sounds seemed to proceed from about that very spot.

”_An_! Umlimo cave, what dat, missie?” inquired Pukele.

”A cave--a hole--where Umlimo speaks from,” she tried to explain. But the other became suddenly and unaccountably dense.

”Gave? Hole? Oh yes, missie. Plenty hole here. Plenty hole in Matopo. Oh yes. Big mountain, plenty hole.”

The great volume of savage sound came rolling up almost unintermittently till midnight. Then there was silence once more.

The next day, John Ames did not appear, nor the next. Then, in utter despair, Nidia agreed to Pukele's repeated proposal to guide her out of the hills, and if possible to bring her into Bulawayo itself.

And right well and faithfully did this barbarian fulfil his undertaking.

The rebels were coming into the hills now, and every step of the way was fraught with danger. He made her lie hidden during the day, always choosing some apparently inaccessible and least suspicious looking retreat, while he himself would wander forth in search of the means of subsistence. At night they would do their travelling, and here the eyes of the savage were as the eyes of a cat, and actually the eyes of both of them. And throughout, he watched over her safety with the fidelity of a dog.

One great argument which had availed to induce Nidia to yield to her guide's representations, was that once she was safe in Bulawayo, he would be left free to pursue his search for the missing man. As to which, let him but succeed, she a.s.sured him, and he would be a rich man--as his people counted riches--for life.

Thus journeying they had reached the outskirts of the hills, and could now and then obtain glimpses of the open country. Twice had Pukele fallen in with his countrymen, from whom he had gleaned that it was so far open around Bulawayo, but would not be long, for the Umlimo had p.r.o.nounced in favour of shutting it in, and the impis were ma.s.sing with that object.

Pukele was returning from a solitary hunt, bringing with him the carcase of a klip-springer. He was under no restriction as to who heard the report of his rifle, and being a fair shot, and as stealthy and active as the game itself, he seldom returned from such empty handed.

Moreover, he knew where to find grain when it was wanted, wherefore his charge suffered no disadvantage by reason of short commons. He was returning along the base of a large granite kopje. The ground was open immediately in front, but on his left was a straggling line of trees and undergrowth. Singing softly to himself he was striding along when--

Just the faintest suspicion of a tinkling sound. His quick ears caught it. At any other time he would have swerved and with the rapidity of a snake would have glided and disappeared among the granite boulders.

Now, however, he stood his ground.