"And where have you been all this fearful night?"
"Tied to a tree. Three times the light from your lantern fell upon me, and twice a hyaena came and stared at me. Ugh, the brute!"
"Tied to a tree? How did it happen, and that voice, did you hear it calling?"
Frank shuddered slightly.
"I heard it," he said, "and I would have thought it supernatural, so like my uncle"s voice it was, had it been possible for a spirit to knock me down and bind me."
"Strange," she murmured. "I also thought it was your uncle calling, though I had never seen or heard him."
"It struck me to the marrow," said Webster, "and I fired at the sound out of sheer terror."
They all sat silent for some time pondering over the mystery.
"It is beyond me," said Hume wearily. "When I left you last night I expected to find some black, perhaps a woman, from the terror in the sound of her cry, fallen into the river, or caught by a crocodile, and I ran down to the bank, making noise enough to inform anyone of my whereabouts. On reaching the river I stood still, and without the slightest warning was felled to the ground. On recovering consciousness I found myself bound to a tree and gagged. It all happened within the s.p.a.ce of ten minutes after leaving the waggon."
"The cry was a decoy, then?"
"It must have been."
"You saw no one?"
"No, nor heard the step of my a.s.sailant, though at the time I was listening intently."
"His feet must have been naked, then?"
"Not necessarily, for he may have worn veldschoens, which give no sound.
I examined the ground with Klaas before coming up, and we could see no spoor beyond that made by our party."
"What possible object could he have had," mused Webster, "since it was not your death he sought? Do you think he mistook you for someone else?"
"Impossible! Whoever did it must have watched us, and he could only have mistaken me for you. No one has a grudge against you."
"I see it!" cried Miss Anstrade, who had been looking with knitted brows into the fire. "Just before dusk we were talking of the Golden Rock.
It was possible for an enemy to creep up undetected and to listen to our talk."
"Yes," said Hume, and he felt for the pocket-book that contained the map.
"That is it," she cried; "they have taken your secret."
Frank opened the book with trembling fingers, while the others gazed anxiously, leaning forward.
"It is gone," he said, starting up.
While they looked at each other, with pale faces, Klaas came up.
"Baas," he said in a low voice. "Baas," he repeated.
"Well?" said Hume sharply.
"De ossa is gone."
"What!" shouted Hume, glad for some excuse to give vent to the anger and bitter disappointment that filled him.
"They were stampeded by lions," said Webster.
"Didn"t I tell you to have them properly tied?"
"Yoh, my baas! But the rheims; someone cut them in the night. Come, see!"
"Good heavens! Can this be true?"
They ran to the trek-tow, and there saw that the tough rheims which secured each ox to the chain had been severed by a sharp instrument.
Hume laughed bitterly.
"Upon my soul," he said, "you must think me a nice leader."
"We can walk," said Miss Anstrade, looking to the distant mountains.
"We could make a raft from the waggon timber, and float down the river,"
said Webster.
"It is not the loss of the oxen I fear. We will recover enough of them to continue; it is the ease with which these unknown enemies have succeeded in their plans that troubles me. Now that I have lost the map I believe there does exist a Golden Rock, and their cunning and superior woodcraft will enable them to win it."
"Nonsense," she said; "they succeeded because we were off our guard.
Now we know what we have to expect, we will oppose our wits to their cunning."
"It is too late--they have the map--and will have a long start."
"There was nothing in the map," said Webster, "that I could not describe with a stick on this patch of sand."
"Besides," she said, with spirit, "do you suppose I am going to give up the search after coming all this way?"
"You are right," replied Hume; "but it does not improve one"s spirit to be fast bound to a tree all night with a handkerchief in your mouth.
Map or no map, we must find the Golden Rock."
"That is better," she said, with a smile. "Now, then, let us do something."
Klaas set the example by starting off on the spoor of the oxen, armed with a.s.segai and kerrie. Miss Anstrade sat down to draw, from memory, a facsimile of the lost map; Hume walked on to a small kopje to plan out the route, for there was no trace of road here; while Webster went down to the river to see whether he could decipher any explanation of the night"s mystery on its broad and shining surface. Long he listened to the murmur and ripple of the shallow river against huge round and jagged boulders strewn across its bed, and gazed into the dark beds of shade cast by the wild palmiet, but nowhere was there any trace of human life--not so much even as a piece of driftwood fashioned by man, or a broken beer-bottle, sign throughout the world of the pa.s.sage of roaming Englishmen. Overhead pa.s.sed a flight of cranes, their long legs trailing behind like rudders to steer them in their heavy flight, and from their long bills emitting, at intervals, the harsh cry with Nature"s melancholy note, while flocks of "sprews," the white-bellied African starlings, flew, with noisy clatter, from side to side, and grey monkeys, their black faces rimmed in white, grimaced from waving branches. As he went down the bank, in and out among the thick bushes and clinging thorns, he started a troop of wild buffalo, which crashed off with many an angry snort, and a minute later was brought to a sudden stand by a moaning sound of no great volume, but conveying an undoubted warning. It proceeded from a cl.u.s.ter of rushes, and he moved his head from side to side in an endeavour to see what caused it, succeeding presently in detecting a slight movement made apparently by a small creature like a rat. Smiling at his doubts, he stepped forward, when once again the moaning was repeated, and he stooped down to peer more narrowly into the thicket. Then he saw that the small object was the tuft of a tail, and following the direction, he made the indistinct outline of a large animal crouching flat, and then, with a start, he met the full, fierce gaze of the yellow eyes. Cautiously he stepped back foot by foot until he reached the shelter of a tree, when the rushes shook, and out sprung a full-grown lion, which, after one look at him, trotted off after the buffalo which he had evidently been stalking.
"Phew!" said Webster, his heart thumping, "I suppose Frank would have shot the beggar, but hang me if I wasn"t pleased to see him cut."
He waited for some time till his heart beat more regularly, then advanced with greater caution, examining each cl.u.s.ter of rushes and dark patch of bushes very carefully before pa.s.sing. Half a mile further on the river took a bend and swept against a rampart of huge rocks flanked by a krantz, the home of a pair of white-headed eagles, whose harsh screams wakened weird echoes. Attracted to the wild spot, Webster stepped on one of the rocks, which jutted into the swirling water, to examine the krantz, and, noticing that caverns had been worn into the base by the water, he sprang from rock to rock till his way was barred by a smooth wall of slaty rock, which rose considerably above his head.
Slinging his rifle over his back, he made use of his seamanship and quickly scaled the slope, slipped down on the other side, manoeuvred a narrow ledge, and stood in the first of a row of caves. There was nothing in this but a half-eaten fish, left evidently, from the signs, by an otter, but on rounding a slippery corner he entered a roomier cave. To his intense surprise, he saw that it had been occupied, and that recently. The walls and roof were blackened with smoke; on the smooth floor was a pile of ash, with the burnt ends of driftwood around, and on a ledge at the back was a ma.s.s of dried gra.s.s which had evidently served as a couch. He disturbed this with his gun, and dislodged a skin bag made of the entire skin of a monkey, the neck serving as an opening.
Stepping to the mouth of the cave, he emptied its contents. These consisted of a copper cylinder, such as Kaffirs use to keep their "pa.s.ses" clean, a necklet of crocodile teeth, a bracelet of solid ivory, stained with tobacco, and a lump of quartz, rounded at the edges from much friction. There was nothing in the cylinder, and Webster after a curious inspection of the quartz, which was heavy as lead almost, replaced the articles, and returned the bag to the ledge. He entered two other caves without finding anything fresh, and returned to the waggon, where he reported his discovery.