This was out of the question, and she knew it. The fact being that the whole move was a little ruse on her part with the object of befriending Claverton and Lilian, in a way covering their retreat, so as not to make it quite so conspicuous. Who knew, thought the good-natured girl, but that this very afternoon might decide the future of those two? So she had laid her little plan.
Gough, who had his own reasons for wanting to rejoin the others, professed that turning back was the very course he should have thought advisable, so with a conventional word or two of regret, they separated.
"Now one can breathe again," exclaimed Claverton, in a tone of relief.
"I don"t know," laughed his companion; "climbing a flight of very steep steps is likely to put one out of breath. And it"s awfully steep here."
"It is rather," he answered, taking her arm to help her up the rough bush path, which was, in truth, like a flight of stairs. "But you"ll go wild with delight when we get to the top, I expect. It"s just one of those views you revel in. And," he added, tenderly, "this is the first time I have had you all to myself to-day."
"I thought I should have ridden this morning," she said.
"Were you sorry you didn"t?"
"They said it was too far for me to ride," she went on as if not hearing his question. Then, looking suddenly at him: "Yes, I was sorry; but--"
Claverton"s heart gave a bound. Was this anything to augur from, after all? No. Lilian was not as most girls.
"But what?" he asked, eagerly. "Nothing," and the expression of her face was grave and troubled.
Of late she had been a prey to sad misgivings; at times she felt as if she had been playing a deceitful and unworthy part. She had let this man go on thinking she was learning to care for him--for she was sure that he did think so--knowing the while that she could never be anything to him; and now the time of her stay was drawing very near its close, and she must explain to him that the fact of having given him so much of her society, and sought his confidence, and shown her unmistakable esteem for him, was only her side to the compact which they had ratified that evening under the stars, and that they must part as they had met-- strangers, or what to him would seem but little less cold--friends only.
Yet she had been very happy with him, happier even than she dared own to herself. And now she must explain all this, and what would he think of her? Would he hate her? Would his powerful, all-in-all love change to bitter contempt? Ah! there lay the sting. But, no! She felt that he was different somehow to other men. He would understand perhaps, and pity her, and even not withdraw his love. She could not bear the thought of losing that--and she was so lonely. Yes; she would explain; this very day, she had made up her mind as to that. But when she tried to begin she had stopped short, and when he would have had her continue, had answered "Nothing."
Claverton did not urge her. He respected her sudden reticence, as he respected her every word, her lightest look. He, too, had his own thoughts to occupy him. With the shadow of her approaching departure lying upon his mind, deepening day by day as the time drew on, he was fast relapsing into the state of restless despondency to which he had been a prey before he tempted his fate so futilely. The wave of reckless happiness into which he had unquestioningly plunged, with nearly two months of Lilian"s society before him, had rolled on, leaving him even worse than before. He would cast the dice again; but, instinctively, he felt that this time the throw would be fatal. Should he do it to-day? The opportunity was a rarely favourable one. But, no!
He would not mar the recollection of this one golden day, one of the few last they would spend together.
So in silence they continued the ascent, every now and then pausing to rest and look back. At length the arching trees overhead gave way, and a wall of rock rose in front.
"We are nearly there now," said Claverton, leading the way along beneath the rock. "This is our way."
"Oh, look!"
There was a rustle among the bushes, as a buck, which had been lying in the sun at the base of the cliff, sprang up and plunged into the cover, where they could hear it bounding away down the hill.
"How pretty! I"ve never seen one so close before--at least, not alive,"
she went on. "I could see its eyes quite plainly; but how it startled me!" she added, with a laugh.
"All the unwonted eights that you do see are always when you are with me," said Claverton, with a pleased smile. "But here we are at last.
One more staircase, though."
They stood before a yawning fissure falling back so as to make a natural staircase to the brow of the cliff. Nearly a hundred feet above, queer jagged pinnacles stood one above the other all up the sides of the gully, at whose entrance rose a great perpendicular tower of rock, with a huge boulder resting fantastically upon its summit. A tiny thread of water trickled down a well-worn channel, and from every cornice and cranny trailed a profusion of the most delicate maiden-hair ferns.
Lilian was enchanted. While pausing for a moment to rest, she dipped her hands into some clear water gathered in its little stony basin. In the act of withdrawing them, a ring slipped from one of her fingers and fell to the bottom of the water. It was a curious ring, consisting of two ropes of solid gold twisted together. Her companion fished it out, and, as he returned it to her, he noticed that she was deathly pale.
But he made no remark, only glanced in the opposite direction for a moment, in order to give her time to recover her self-possession. Yet he connected the circ.u.mstance with her former lapses of hesitation and restraint. In silence they resumed their way, and at length gained a wide ledge at the other end of which was the cave. It seemed of some depth, being wider and loftier at the month, narrowing thence into darkness.
"Wait, let me go in first and explore," he went on, as a matter of precaution holding ready in his pocket the small revolver which had been his constant companion since Mopela"s attempt on his life. Then striking a match he was about to advance.
"What"s that?" exclaimed Lilian. But he had seen it as soon as she had, and placed himself in front of her. It was a human skull, standing on a ledge of rock about breast-high, and the eyeless sockets and white teeth looked ghastly enough, grinning at them dimly through the darkness. In an instant he had laid hold of it and jerked it away out of the cave down into the bush beneath.
"What was it?" she repeated.
"Only a stone. A rolling one, like yours truly. I don"t suppose it has stopped yet."
He was glad she had not seen the hideous thing, and lighting another match he peered cautiously around, lest there should be a second skull.
There was, but it was lying on the ground with the face turned away from them, and Lilian took it for a stone. There would have been to her something horribly ghastly in these grisly death"s-heads, lying there in that gloomy cavern, just faintly visible by the flickering light of the match he carried.
"That"s all right," he said, as they returned to the light. "I didn"t much think we should find anything very terrific, but it"s as well to look. Sometimes a snake takes up his quarters in a place like this."
"What"s this?" cried she, as something crackled beneath her feet.
"Oh, some of those old bones the _Baas_ was telling us about. I don"t suppose there"s much left of them now, five-and-twenty years after."
Lilian shuddered slightly.
"Let"s get into the air again," she said. "This place is rather awesome."
"Very well. But look, here are the Bushman drawings."
The walls of the cavern were plentifully adorned with hieroglyphics-- rude figures of men and animals--worked into the smoother parts of the rock with a kind of blue dye. Here and there the surface had been smoothed away to admit of the barbarous frescoes.
"They are very queer," said Lilian, "but candidly I am just a little disappointed in them. I thought they were much more artistically done."
"Yes, I always think people make more fuss about them than they are worth. They are sorry attempts after all."
"I think I shall make a sketch of the kloof, bringing in that great jutting cliff. What a pity it just hides the waterfall!" continued she.
He undid her basket and got out her drawing materials. Then they discovered that the little portable water-tin was empty.
"I"ll get you some from down there in half a minute," he said, starting to his feet.
"But--but--I don"t quite like being left alone here," she said, hesitatingly, casting an apprehensive look backward at the gloomy cave.
Claverton stopped.
"Then we must go together," he said. "As far as the end of the ledge, anyhow. Then I shall have you in sight while I scramble down the rocks."
"What a helpless creature I am!" she exclaimed, with a sad little smile.
"I wouldn"t have you otherwise for all the world," replied he, tenderly; and they started on their quest. Swinging himself over the ledge he filled the little vessel from the trickle of water in the gully, and was with her again in a minute.
"Now," he went on, arranging a large flat stone as a seat for her, just in the shade of the cavern"s month. "Now, you must make the most of the time, and knock up an adequate representation of the scene, and I believe I shall have the cheek to ask you to copy it again for me," and he threw himself down on the rock beside her.
"Don"t sit there in the sun," said she. "And I shall tire you out, keeping you tied here by the hour. It would be much more amusing to you to be away with the others."
Claverton indulged in a long, quiet laugh. "That idea strikes me as something too rich. Tire me out! When I have been longing the whole day to be with you, and with you only and alone. When I could sit here for ever and ever only to be by your side and to see you and to hear the music of your voice, darling. I never want a better heaven than this-- than this one--here, at this moment," he went on, with a burst of pa.s.sionate abandonment as different from his ordinary self-control of speech as the beautiful scene before them was from a Lincolnshire fen.
Lilian made no reply, but bent her head rather lower over her drawing, and her fingers trembled ever so slightly. Clouds of spreuws flitted among the crags opposite, their shrill whistle echoing melodiously from rock to rock. Bright-eyed little conies sat up peering warily around for a moment, and then scampering into their holes among the stones and ledges; and a large bird of prey circled slowly overhead uttering a loud rasping cry, then soared away over the valley. Beneath, the forest lay sleeping in the l.u.s.trous sunlight, and now and again from its cool recess would be upborne the soft note of a hoopoe.
Lilian worked on, neither of them speaking much. Claverton, for his part, was content to lounge there, as he had said, for ever, so that only he might watch that graceful white figure--bending over the sketch-block--and the delicate patrician profile, the fringed eyelid opening wide as she kept looking up from the paper to take in the scene.
The sound of his own voice had a tendency to break the charm, so he kept silence. And thus the time wore on, till at last the sketch was finished, and Lilian, laying down the block to dry, rose to her feet.