CHAPTER x.x.xV--A Brother
Leaving the body of the wretched man where they found it, they continued to search among the trees; but nowhere could they discover any trace of the elder guide.
"His body cannot be far away," said Harry. "They fell together."
It was then that, at the sound of a faint cry from somewhere far above them, all three looked up. And the sight they beheld was appalling.
Hundreds of feet above the place where they stood, sheltered by a cranny in the face of the cliff, there grew a gnarled and twisted shrub, a kind of withered tree. In the midst of this, caught like a fish in a net, was a man who, even as they watched him, moved, twisting like a thing in pain.
Cortes scanned the face of the cliff; but, look where he might, he could discover no way by which it was possible to ascend to the place where his brother was suspended in mid-air.
Running back several yards, he regarded the precipice above the withered tree. It was equally inaccessible from above. Then he raised his hands to his mouth and cried out in a loud voice, calling upon his brother by name.
The answer came in a voice so weak that Cortes had to hold a hand to an ear in order to catch the words.
"I am in pain. My arm is broken. Can you not come to my a.s.sistance?"
The younger brother looked about him in despair.
"Can nothing be done?" asked Harry.
"Let me think," said Cortes, and lifted a hand to his eyes. On a sudden he cried out to his brother. "Can you hold out for two days?" he asked.
"For two days!" came the answer. "It is too long."
"You must!" cried the other. "Take the belt from your waist and bind yourself to the tree. Then, when your strength is gone, you will not fall."
Whilst the elder man obeyed these injunctions, Harry turned to Cortes.
"What do you intend to do?" he asked.
"We have no rope," said the guide. "Fernando is at least fifty feet from the path above, and there is no rope fifty feet in length nearer to this place than Kano or Sokoto. However, there is--as you know--a rope-like creeper that grows in the bush. I intend to go back as far as the jungle."
"Can you get there in time?" asked Braid, incredulously.
"My wound is now healed," said the man, "my strength returned. I can but do my best."
Cortes looked up again at his brother.
"Courage!" he cried. "In two days I return."
So saying, he bounded off upon his way. As they watched him pa.s.s down the valley, springing from rock to rock, it was apparent that he meant to do all that was humanly possible to effect the salvation of his brother. Even as they looked, his figure grew smaller in the distance, and in a few minutes he was lost to view.
To describe in detail the journey of the younger guide across the mountains would be tedious. The thing can be summed up in a few words: it was magnificent, heroic. Mile upon mile he covered without pausing for breath. For the most part he kept to the valleys, where the atmosphere was stifling and humid, crossing the mountains only when by doing so he could cut off several miles.
He had food with him, but he seldom stopped to eat. Now and again he drank at a mountain stream, but seemed to grudge the time even for this.
At sunset he was still bearing onward. He had cast aside the greater part of his clothing, and the perspiration poured off him, and the veins stood out upon his temples like knotted strands of cord. For all that, he went on and on beneath the stars, whilst the moon marched in the heavens. It was a race for the life of his brother.
As Cortes hastened on his way, his thoughts continually went back to the perilous situation in which he had left Fernando, and every thought was, as it were, a spur to his endeavour. No sooner had he pictured in his mind"s eye that struggling, writhing figure, hanging, as it were, betwixt earth and sky, than he shot forward with renewed energy, clenching both fists and teeth in his strong determination.
At last, breathless, exhausted, he sighted the extremity of the great West African bush. Through this, forcing his way among the thickets, so that the sharp thorns tore his naked flesh, he was obliged to travel for many miles before he found the right kind of creeping plant, and, moreover, one long enough to suit his purpose.
To cut this from the tree around which it was twined, and roll it into a great coil which he suspended around his neck, was the work of not many minutes; and then he set forth upon his return journey to the margin of the desert.
He was already much exhausted, and his load was very heavy. But hour by hour he struggled onward, leaving the jungle far behind, mounting to higher alt.i.tudes. Nightfall found him still upon his way. Repeatedly he stumbled, and then, on a sudden, he fell full length upon the ground.
He lay quite still for several seconds, then rose slowly to his knees, lifting his eyes and hands towards the stars. For a moment he prayed silently; and, seeming to gather courage from his prayer, he rose to his feet and went on.
Soon after midnight the sky became overcast. A high wind got up and blew from the mountains, bitter cold after the tropic heat of the bush.
Then the skies opened and the rain came down in sheets. But Cortes still held on, struggling towards his goal, fighting manfully against his own failing strength.
And in the meantime, throughout these two fearful days, Jim Braid and Harry waited in suspense. They could do nothing to help the man who hung, hour after hour, upon the brink of the other world.
Acting on his brother"s advice, Fernando had undone the belt around his waist, and with this had lashed himself to the stoutest branch of the tree. Words fail to describe the torture he must have suffered; for, not only did he endure great pain from his broken arm, but he was tormented by a raging thirst. His cries for water were piteous to hear.
They had no means of a.s.sisting him. They could do nothing but look on in helplessness, praying for the return of the younger brother. On the second night the rain came--in torrents, as it can only rain in the tropics--and Fernando was able to moisten his parched lips by sucking his drenched clothes.
Wishing to get nearer to the poor fellow, in the hope that they might be able to comfort him, at least with words, Harry and Jim Braid climbed the spur and moved along the ledge at the top of the precipice until they were immediately above the withered tree. There, lying down upon their faces, they cried out to him to be of good courage, reminding him that the dawn approached, that his brother would soon return.
Daybreak is the hour when Life is nearest Death. It was shortly before sunrise that Fernando himself gave up all hope, and called upon G.o.d to take charge of his departing soul. He said that he was quite ready to welcome Death; he desired nothing more than to have an end to his misery and suspense. And, even as the words left his lips, the figure of his brother was seen approaching along the ledge.
At the feet of Harry Urquhart, Cortes sank, exhausted. The object of his mission fulfilled, he lost consciousness and drifted into a faint.
With all dispatch they uncoiled the long, snake-like creeper. Pa.s.sing one end over a jutting pinnacle of rock, they lowered the other towards Fernando. It was more than long enough to reach the place where he lay.
With great difficulty the poor fellow managed to untie his belt and make fast the end of the creeper around his waist. And then they had to wait a long time, until Cortes, who had recovered consciousness, was able to a.s.sist the two boys in hauling up the rope.
This was no easy matter, since they had neither a good foothold nor much s.p.a.ce upon the terrace. But in the end they succeeded, and the rescued man lay panting on the ledge. He was immediately given water to drink; and when he had drunk, a smile slowly overspread his face, and he looked at the brother who had saved his life. But no word of grat.i.tude ever pa.s.sed his lips; his thanks--far more eloquent than words--were in his eyes. And the dark eyes of a half-caste are the most expressive and the most beautiful in the world.
CHAPTER x.x.xVI--The Twelfth Hour
Owing to the exhausted state of the two guides, the party could not set forth upon their return journey to the Caves of Zoroaster until the afternoon of the following day.
The powers of endurance of both men had been taxed to the utmost--the elder, by the terrible ordeal through which he had pa.s.sed; the younger, by his almost superhuman efforts.
In spite of that, Harry Urquhart was all anxiety to be off. He had often pictured to himself the agony of suspense that all this time von Hardenberg was being called upon to bear. The boy wondered if the lamp which the Prussian had taken with him into the vault still burned. If so, it would shed its light upon the glittering treasure. If it had gone out, the Prussian was buried in unutterable and eternal darkness--eternal, since escape was beyond the bounds of possibility.
That, combined with the fearful silence that reigned in the place, with hope dying in the prisoner"s heart as the days rolled slowly by, was enough--as it seemed to Harry--to drive any man to madness. The boy found it impossible to forgive his cousin, who had acted so basely from the first; for all that, he was by no means heartless, and, in any case, it was his duty to save a human life from so terrible an end.
As soon as the guides professed themselves able to undertake the journey, they set off towards the caves. It took them more than two days to accomplish what the younger guide had done in under twelve hours, and thence, striking due south-west, they approached the caves from the opposite direction to that in which they had first entered Maziriland.
On this occasion they saw--though they did not come into actual contact with--several of the Maziri peasants who were working in the cultivated tracts of country that lay between the mountains and the bush.
Maziriland was very spa.r.s.ely populated--the race verging on extinction--and at least two-thirds of the inhabitants were congregated in the chief town, where they carried on certain industries, their skill in which they had inherited from the ancients.