Under ordinary circ.u.mstances the climb would have been a difficult one, especially at night. But now, as in the case of the somnambulist, matter triumphed over mind. The mind being dormant and the centre of gravity undisturbed by mental misgivings, however unconscious, he ascended safely.
The climb came to an end. Here was the very thing. A ledge, at first barely four feet broad, and then widening out as it ran round the face of the cliff--and sloping--not outward as ordinarily, but inward. What he did not see in his now returning torpor, was a black, narrow cave running upward in continuation of the cleft by which he had ascended.
He crawled along the ledge. Here at any rate nothing could disturb his last hours. The cool night wind fanned his brow--the single strip of radiant stars seemed to dance in one dazzling ocean of light. His stupefaction rea.s.serted itself. He sank down in dead unconsciousness.
Was it slumber or death?
It was not death. Renshaw awoke at last; awoke to consciousness in a strange half-light. Above was a roof of overhanging rock--underneath him, too, was the same hard rock. A strip of sky, now a pale blue, was all he could see.
Raising himself upon his elbow, he looked forth. The sun was setting in a blood-red curtain of cloud beyond the distant mountain peaks, shedding a fiery glow upon the stupendous chain of iron cliffs which overhung the weird and desolate defile. It came home to Renshaw then, that he must have slept for nearly twenty-four hours.
He still felt terribly weak, and his dazed and dizzy brain was still beclouded as in a fog. The events of yesterday, of his lifetime, in fact, seemed but as a far-away and uncertain dream. At any rate he could die in peace here--in peace with all mankind. He felt no fear of death, he had faced it too often. The utter loneliness of his last hours seemed to hold no terrors for him either, and he even found himself drowsily thinking that such surroundings--the grim, beetling cliffs, the wild and rugged peaks, the utter desolation of this remote untrodden solitude--were meet witnesses to the last hours of one who had spent the bulk of his life in their midst. His mind went back to the present undertaking and its disastrous results--to the "Valley of the Eye," to Sellon"s selfish treachery--and his own self-sacrifice. But for that same act of treachery, tardily repented of as it was, they would both have got out safe, for it was during the time thus lost that the horde of Bushmen and Korannas had stolen up to surprise them. Ah, well, what did it matter now? What did anything matter? The treasure-- the precious stones which he had thrown into the balance against his own life--what did they count now? He had enough of them about him at that moment to place him in affluent circ.u.mstances, had it been willed that he should live. Yet of what account were they now? Mere dross.
Then there arose before him a vision of Sunningdale--the cool, leafy garden, the spreuws piping among the fig trees, the plashing murmur of the river, and Violet Avory, as he had last seen her--no not then so much as at the moment when she had extracted that promise. Well, he had kept his promise, at any rate. And then Violet"s image faded, and, strange to say, the face which bent over his rocky couch, even the hard bed of death, was not hers, but that of Marian--sweet, pitying, soothing. And then the poor, clouded brain grew dim again--dim and restful.
But there are times when a subtle instinct of peril will penetrate even a drugged understanding. Uneasily Renshaw raised himself on his elbow, and again looked forth. The sun had disappeared now; a red afterglow still lingered on the loftier peaks, but the abrupt scarps of the great mountains were a.s.suming a purpler gloom. Looking up, he noted that the overhanging rock projected beyond the slope of the ledge, forming a kind of roof. Looking downward along the ledge he saw--
A huge leopard crouching flat upon its belly, its long tail gently waving, its green scintillating eyes fixed upon him. As they met his, a low rumbling purr issued from the beast"s throat, and with a stealthy, almost imperceptible glide, it crawled a little nearer.
With consummate presence of mind, he followed its example. Without changing his position he felt cautiously for his gun. Fool that he was!
He had left it behind--surely at the spot where he had sunk down in his stupor. Then he felt for his revolver; but that too, he had somehow contrived to lose. He was unarmed.
The beast was barely twenty yards distant. The low, rumbling purr increased in volume. As he kept his eyes fixed on those of the huge cat, Renshaw felt a strange eerie fascination creeping over him. The thing was not real. It was a nightmare--an illusion come to haunt his last hours. He would break the spell.
Again he looked forth. The loom of the towering peaks was blacker now against the silvery sky--the grey shadows deeper within the desolate kloofs. He noted too that he was at an elevation of nearly thirty feet from the ground. In his weakened state there was no escape that way.
The hungry savage beast crawled nearer and nearer along the ledge. The feline purr changed to a hideous snarl, as with eyes glittering like green stars from its round, speckled head, it bared its fangs, and gathered its lithe muscular body for the fatal spring.
And the man lay powerless to avoid it; unarmed, helpless, unable to stir, to move a finger in his own defence.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.
THE PRICE OF BLOOD.
After the explanations attendant upon Christopher Selwood"s awkward discovery, relations between Violet and her entertainers became somewhat strained.
Spoiled and petted ever since she could remember, bowed down to as a very G.o.ddess as she grew up in her fascinating girlhood; accustomed to the most unbounded admiration, and undivided withal, Violet Avory was now receiving almost her first check.
It was all very well for her host to wonder "what the deuce she could see in the fellow," the fact remained that her love for Maurice Sellon engrossed her whole headstrong and pa.s.sionate nature, and opposition served no other purpose than to rivet her determination.
To reasoning she was deaf. All appeals to her sense of self-respect rendered her sullen--but underlying this sullenness lurked a dogged intensity of resolution. If ever a woman was on the road to ruin Violet Avory was that woman, and she would be lucky did she escape the final goal.
The days that followed were tolerably uncomfortable for all concerned.
Violet sulked. She was an adept in the art of putting on an air of outraged innocence, and managed to make everybody supremely uncomfortable accordingly. She kept to her room as much as she conveniently could, and when she did venture out she shunned Marian"s companionship, taking her solitary wanderings in secluded places. Her hostess, angered and disgusted, after one or two further attempts at reasoning with her, fell in with her mood, and left her severely to herself. But kind-hearted Chris--with whom she had always been a great favourite--persisted in declaring that she was not the one to blame in the matter--that she was rather deserving of sympathy--and he accordingly was the only one to whom she condescended to unbend.
She was so sorry to be such a nuisance to everybody, she would say, putting on the most winningly plaintive air for his benefit. Had she not better go at once instead of waiting for opportunities, which might not occur for weeks? She would be quite safe, and had no fear of travelling by herself. She was only a "wet blanket" in the house, and an intolerable burden--she could see that. Everybody was so strange now--as if she had done something awful. He, Christopher, was the only one who ever gave her a kind word, or seemed to care whether she was alive or dead. And then out would come the daintiest little lace handkerchief in the world, and, of course, poor old soft-hearted Christopher felt extremely foolish--as she intended he should--and wilder than ever with the absent Sellon, which she did not intend.
Then he would endeavour to rea.s.sure her and reiterate again and again that n.o.body blamed her, which, of course, did not impose upon her, for with the freemasonry existing among women Violet knew better; knew that she was in fact the very one whom her hostess indeed did think the most to blame. She must not hurry away from them like that, he would say.
Things would come right again--it was only a temporary misunderstanding, and they would all be as jolly again together as before. And Violet in her secret heart rejoiced--for any day might bring back her lover.
However great was her apparent anxiety to relieve them of her presence it would not do to be hurried away just in time to miss him. That would be too awful.
Her relief at the welcome reprieve would not, however, have been so great had she been aware of a certain fact as to which she had been designedly kept in ignorance. Selwood had written to Maurice, directing the letter to the princ.i.p.al hotel of a town through which the treasure seekers were bound to pa.s.s on their return. He had taken steps to ensure its immediate delivery, or return to himself if not claimed within a given period, and in it she asked Sellon not to come to Sunningdale until he had had an interview with the writer--at any place he, Sellon, might choose to appoint. No, a.s.suredly, her equanimity might have been a trifle disturbed had she known of that. So the days went by.
One afternoon she was indulging in a solitary stroll, according to her recent habit. It was nearly sundown. She walked along absently, her dress sweeping the crickets in chirruping showers from the long dank herbage under the shade of the quince hedge. She crossed, the deserted garden, and gained the rough wicket-gate opening out of it on the other side. Down the narrow bridle-path, winding through the tangled brake she moved, still absently as in a dream. And she was in a dream, for it was down this path that they two had walked that first morning--ah! so long ago now.
She stood upon the river bank, on the very spot where they had stood together. The great peaks soaring aloft were all golden in the slanting sunset. The shout and whistle of the Kaffir herds bringing in their flocks sounded from the sunlit hillside, mellowed by distance. Doves cooed softly in the thorn-brake--their voices mingling with the fantastic whistle of the yellow thrush and the shrill chatter of a cloud of finks flashing in and out of their hanging nests above the water.
She stood thus in the radiant evening light, trying to infuse her mind with a measure of its peace.
But above the voices of Nature and of evening came another sound--the dull thud of hoofs. Some one was riding up the bridle-path on the other side of the river. Heavens! Could it be--?
The thought set her every pulse tingling. Nearer, nearer came the hoof strokes.
The horseman emerged from the brake. Tired and travel-worn he looked, so too did his steed. The latter plunged knee-deep into the cool stream, and drank eagerly, gratefully, of the flowing waters.
But the glint of the white dress on the bank opposite caught the rider"s eye. Up went his head. So too did that of the horse, jerked up suddenly by a violent wrench of the bridle. There was a prodigious splashing, stifling the horseman"s exclamation, as he plunged through the drift, and the water flew in great jets around. Then scarce had the dripping steed touched the opposite bank than the rider sprang to the ground and the waiting, expectant figure was folded tight in his arms.
"Oh, Maurice, darling, it is you at last!" she murmured, clinging to him in his close embrace. And then she felt that it was good indeed to live.
"Me? Rather! And "at last" is about the word for it. And so my little girl has been waiting here for me ever since I went away. Confess!
Hasn"t she?"
"Yes."
"Of course. This was always our favourite retreat, wasn"t it? Still, I thought just the very moment I happened to arrive you would be anywhere else--with the rest of the crowd. It"s just one"s luck as a rule. But mine is better this time--rather!"
"But--but--where"s Renshaw?" she asked, lifting her head, as she suddenly became alive to the other"s non-appearance. Sellon looked rather blank.
"H"m--ha!--Renshaw? Well--he isn"t here--hasn"t come, anyhow."
"But--is he coming on after you?" she said, awake to the inconvenience of their first meeting being suddenly broken in upon.
"M--well. The fact is, Violet darling, you don"t care about anything or anybody now we are together again? The long and the short of it is, poor Fanning has rather come to grief!"
"Come to grief!" she echoed, wonderingly.
"Well--yes. Fact is, I"m afraid the poor chap will never show up here again. He got hit--bowled over by those cursed Bushmen or Korannas, or whatever they were. We had to give them leg-bail, I can tell you. They pinked him with one of their poisoned arrows. He"s done for."
"Oh! Poor Renshaw!" cried Violet, in horror. "But you--you are unhurt, dearest? You have--have come back to me safe!"
"Safe as a church. I got a trifle damaged too. Sprained my ankle just at the wrong time--those Bushmen devils coming on hard in our rear.
Touch and go, I"ll tell you all about it by-and-bye. I shan"t tell the others about Fanning all at once--break it gradually, you know. So don"t you cut in with it."
"Poor Renshaw!" That was all. In those two words she dismissed the memory of the man but for whose unselfish heroism the lover in whose embrace she nestled so restfully, so gladsomely, would now be lying in ghastly fragments among the weird mountains of that far-away land.
"Poor Renshaw!" Such was his epitaph at her lips. Truly her all-absorbing clandestine pa.s.sion had exercised no improving, no softening influence upon Violet Avory--as, indeed, how should it?--for was it not the intensely selfish absorption of an intensely selfish nature! "Poor Renshaw!"