These objects, at any rate, pointed to their owner"s creed, a heritage received with his Irish descent, and the plainness, or roughness rather, of the domicile in general seemed to point to a hard and struggling existence.
The night brought with it but little respite from the broiling heat of the day. Not a breath stirred the air. Even with the house door and all the windows wide open the oppressive stuffiness of the room seemed wellnigh unbearable. Winged insects, attracted by the light, found their way in by swarms, and a huge tarantula, leaving his lair in the thatch, began to walk leisurely down the wall. With something like a shudder of disgust, the stranger picked up a slipper and shied it at the hairy monster, with the effect of making him scuttle back to the shelter of the friendly thatch as fast as his legs could carry him.
The sick man tossed restlessly from side to side, now moaning, now talking to himself. Listening intently, the watcher noted that the patient"s wildly spoken thoughts seemed to run strongly in two grooves-- diamond seeking, and a member of the other s.e.x. As to the latter, his voice would a.s.sume a thrilling tenderness as he pa.s.sionately and oft seemed to be abjuring somebody of the name of Violet. As to the former, he was alternately despondent and fiercely sanguine, as he alluded again and again to a certain "Valley of the Eye."
"The Valley of the Eye, by Jove!" muttered the watcher to himself.
"Why, that"s the very thing he began about directly I came in. Said it was going to make our fortunes. There must be something in it--and-- I"ll bet a guinea that thing he wears round his neck holds the secret, or the clue, to it," he added, starting up in excitement over the idea.
He went softly over to the patient. The latter"s left hand was clutching a flat pouch or bag of buckskin which lay upon his chest. It was suspended from his neck by a stout lanyard of raw hide.
The watcher stood for a few minutes, his eyes glittering with a strange excitement. A temptation, which was well-nigh irresistible, had come upon him. Why should he not obtain possession of the pouch, and thus share in the secret which might lead to boundless wealth? He need not retain it long, only long enough to master its contents. He could easily return it.
Then his instincts of good seemed to get the upper hand. He was not a blackguard, he told himself, and surely to take advantage of this man"s helplessness to steal his secrets would be a blackguardly and dishonest act. But, alas and alas! When the possibility opens of acquiring wealth, a man"s best instincts are sure to be heavily handicapped, and so it was here.
He took a cup of milk which stood by the bedside, and, raising the patient"s head, put it to his lips. It was only goat"s milk, and thin stuff at that, thanks to the parched state of the veldt; but poor Renshaw drank eagerly, then fell back quiet and composed. It seemed as though the delirium had departed.
Watching him thus for a moment the stranger left him and sought the house door. He seemed to feel an irresistible longing for the open air.
But so close, so stifling was the night that, as he stood outside, he hardly realised the change into the outer air. Not a living thing was moving, not a sound was heard, save now and then the trumpet-like sneeze of a goat in the kraals. Overhead, the dark vault of heaven seemed literally to flash and grow with constellations. Shooting stars darted, rocket-like, across the zenith in numbers unknown to our colder skies; and, as he looked, a bright meteor shot athwart the velvety s.p.a.ce, leaving a red sinuous trail. But in the dead still solitude a voice seemed to whisper to his now heated imagination, "The Valley of the Eye!
The Valley of the Eye!"
Re-entering, he stole a glance at his patient. The latter was now slumbering peacefully. His hand had relaxed its convulsive grasp of the buckskin pouch, and was resting beside him. Now was the time.
The stranger bent over him; then the deft "snick" of a sharp knife. The pouch was in his hand.
For the moment he felt like a common footpad. His heart beat violently as he regained his seat near the window and the light. For some minutes he sat watching the sick man. But the latter slept on peacefully. Now for the secret!
He ripped open one side of the pouch in such wise that it could easily be sewn up again. Then came a waterproof wrapper which, being unrolled, disclosed a large sheet of parchment-like paper covered with writing.
Down this he hurriedly ran his eye prior to a more careful perusal of its contents. But even this cursory glance was enough to make his face flush and his eye glisten. His hand shook so that it could scarcely hold the paper. Here was the key to wealth illimitable.
And then a strange and startling thing happened. The paper was suddenly s.n.a.t.c.hed from his grasp.
So quickly was this done, so absolutely terrifying was his abrupt and wholly unlooked-for turn in the state of affairs, that his glance was hardly quick enough to mark the paper disappearing through the open window beside which he was seated, or the black, claw-like hand which had seized it. Yet he did only just see both.
He fell back in his chair in a cold sweat. Such a thing to happen in the dead midnight, with not a soul but himself astir. Small wonder that, unnerved by the dastardly act of robbery he had just committed, his thoughts should revert straight to Satan himself. The sick man was still slumbering peacefully.
Recovering his nerve to some extent, he rushed to the door and gained the outer air. All was still as death. As his sight became used to the modified gloom of the starlight he went round to the back of the house-- made the complete circuit of it. Not a living thing was astir. He went even further afield, peering here, there, and everywhere. In vain.
Then, with nerve and system shaken as they had never been before in his life, he returned indoors.
For long he sat motionless, pondering over this extraordinary occurrence. The first shock of surprise, the first involuntary access of superst.i.tion past, two considerations obtruded themselves. The prospect of possible wealth had been s.n.a.t.c.hed from his grasp, literally strangled at its birth, for the paper looked genuine, and was certainly lucid enough, but it required studying, and that carefully. For the rest, how should he eventually account to its owner for its disappearance? And at this thought he began to feel exceedingly uncomfortable.
Not for long, however. The bag could easily be replaced, and the chances were that its owner would take for granted the security of its contents, and not go to the trouble of opening it to ascertain. Or he himself might be far enough away by that time, but that he was loth to abandon a fellow-countryman on a lonely sick-bed in that frightful wilderness; and we must, in justice to the man, record that this consideration was genuine and wholly untinged by his own reluctance to turn his back on the place until every effort to recover the precious doc.u.ment had been tried. Should, however, the worst come to the worst, and Renshaw be moved to a.s.sure himself of the safety of his secret, what could be easier than to persuade him that he had himself insisted on destroying it in his delirium?
He rose softly to hunt for a needle and some twine. Having found them he re-st.i.tched the pouch, carefully copying the mode of st.i.tching which had held it together before. Then he went over to the bedside to re-fasten it to the sick man"s neck.
This was no easy task. Poor Renshaw began to grow restless again, as though a glimmer of inspiration across his clouded and enfeebled brain warned him that his cherished secret had been tampered with. At last, however, through the exercise of consummate patience and care, the thing was done.
With a feeling of relief the stranger once more sought the outer air.
"What a fool the man must be!" he said to himself. "From the date of that paper he must have been in possession of the clue for at least two years, and yet he hasn"t turned it to account. The place should be easy to find, too; anyway, I"ll lay a guinea I"d have ferreted it out long before this. Rather! Long before!"
Thus he decided, overlooking the trifling probability that if Renshaw Fanning, with lifelong experience as a hunter, treasure-seeker, and adventurer in general, had failed to hit upon the mysterious locality, it was hardly to be supposed that he, Maurice Sellon, new arrival in South Africa, who, for instance, had been unable to travel across the Karroo plains without losing himself, would fare any better.
But then an under-estimate--either habitual or occasional--of his own merits or abilities did not rank among the failings of the said Maurice Sellon.
CHAPTER FOUR.
SUNNINGDALE.
A wild, deep, romantic valley, winding between lofty bush-clad hills, their summits broken into many a rugged cliff, which echoes back the m.u.f.fled roar of a mountain torrent foaming and hissing through its pent-up rocky channel. A lovely valley as travelled in the morning sunshine, melodious with the piping of birds from the cool shade of tangled brake and sylvan recesses on either side. Overhead a sky of the most brilliant blue; around a fresh, clear atmosphere, revivifying as wine; for it is mountain air and the day is yet young.
At its head the valley opens out into a wide basin, where the stream winds and curves through a green fertile bottom, whose rich soil for many acres is covered with growing crops of wheat and maize. Higher up still, in vivid contrast to the darker-hued foliage around, stands forth a group of tall willows, their trailing feathery boughs--affording a nesting-place to a perfect colony of noisy and chattering finks--shading the gla.s.sy surface of a large dam. Between this and an extensive orchard, whose well-cared-for trees are groaning beneath the weight of their ripening loads--peaches and apricots, the delicate nectarine, and the luscious pear--stands the homestead.
No bare, rough-and-ready shanty of sun-baked bricks this, but a good and substantial house, rendered picturesque by its surrounding of orange trees and pomegranates; of great red cactus, glowing prismatically, now crimson, now scarlet; of many-hued geraniums; of the royal pa.s.sion flower twining up the pillars of the _stoep_, spreading over the roof of the verandah itself. No dead, drear, arid thirst-land this, but a veritable garden of Eden; the murmur of running water in the air, the fruits of the earth glowing and ripening around, the sunlight glinting in a network through the foliage, and a varying chorus of gladsome bird-voices echoing around from far and near. Such is Sunningdale-- Christopher Selwood"s farm in the Umtirara Mountains. Nor was it inappropriately named.
Seated on the _stoep_ aforesaid, under the cool shade of the verandah, are two young women--one busily engaged on a piece of needlework, the other reading, or, to be more accurate, pretending to read. Not less dissimilar in appearance are these two than in their present occupation.
One tall, fair, grave; the Other of smaller build, dark, _espiegle_.
One deliberate of speech and movement; the other all mirth and vivacity upon any or no provocation.
"How much longer are you going on with that eternal st.i.tch, st.i.tch, st.i.tch, Marian?" cries the latter, dropping her book for the twentieth time and yawning.
She addressed smiles slightly.
"Why? What would you rather I did?" she says. "You generally say it"s too hot to stroll in the morning."
"Do I? Well, perhaps it is. But you were looking so preternaturally solemn, and so silent, that I believe you were thinking of--some one.
Who was it? Come, out with it!"
"You shouldn"t judge everybody from your own standpoint, Violet," is the good-humoured reply. "Now, my private opinion is you are developing quite a fidgety vein because we only get a post here once a week."
A close observer, watching the countenance of her thus bantered, might have thought there was a hit underlying this perfectly innocent remark, but if so it escaped the speaker, for she never looked up from her sewing.
"Ha, ha, ha! Oh, wise Marian. The post, indeed! You should see the cartload of astonishing effusions I get. I believe I will let you see them one of these days. They"d astonish you considerably, if only as evidence of what a lot of idiots there are among men. No; your sagacity is at fault. You haven"t hit the right nail this time."
"Don"t you get rather tired of that kind of fun?" said Marian, biting off the end of her thread. "I should have thought there was a great deal of sameness in it."
"Sameness! So there is. But what is one to do? I can"t help it. I don"t ask them to come swarming round me. They do it. I see a man for the first time to-day, forget his very existence to-morrow, and the day after that he tells me he can"t live without me. It isn"t my fault.
Now, is it?"
"Since you ask me, I tell you I firmly believe it is. You"re a hard-hearted little--wretch, and one of these days you"ll find your own wings singed--mark my words."
"A truce to your plat.i.tudes," laughed the other. "I"ve heard that said so often--and--sometimes I almost wish it would come true. It would be such a novel sensation."
By the above it will be manifest to the reader that the enunciator of these sentiments could be nothing less than an arrant flirt; as, indeed, was the case. Violet Avory was as proud of her conquests, and the multifold trophies of a substantial nature which accompanied them, as a Cheyenne war-chief of his scalps, and she looked upon them in the same light--legitimate tributes to her own prowess. She had begun to flirt when she was fourteen, and had carried it on, seriously and without a break, up to date, and she was now twenty-two. And Nature had endowed her with bountiful facilities in that line. Her face conformed to the strictest canons of beauty--oval, high-bred, with regular and delicate features, melting dark eyes, and a winsome little mouth with a smile ever hovering around its corners; and her quick, vivacious manner was forcibly if unconventionally defined by a large section of her admirers, especially the younger ones, as "awfully fetching." She was a sort of distant connection of the Selwoods, whose acquaintance she had made during their last visit to England. They had been immensely taken with her, and now she was fulfilling a long-standing invitation to visit them in their South African home.
But with all her dazzling beauty and winning arts some men would not have looked twice at Violet Avory when Marian Selwood was by. The fair sweet face of the latter, with its large sleepy eyes, its red, smiling lips, parting from a row of white regular teeth, could grow very lovely; indeed, it was one of those faces which gain upon the observer with its owner"s further acquaintance. Nor was its normal gravity other than on the surface, for to cause the great blue eyes to sparkle with fun and mischief was no difficult matter. And Marian"s disposition was as sweet as her face, her mind that of a refined gentlewoman. She was born in the colony, and had lived the greater part of her life where we now see her, helping to keep house for her brother and his wife.