"I am sorry," he said.
"For heaven"s sake!" whispered Webster as he hurried up, "keep quiet, man. Someone has entered, and is coming along the pa.s.sage."
With a low cry, Laura placed her hands before her face.
"I will protect you!" murmured Webster pa.s.sionately, and Hume silently withdrew his head, a feeling of fierce despair at his heart.
He stood in the narrow den, hoping in his bitterness that death would free him from his torture, when the old woman suddenly clicked with her tongue angrily, then muttered to the wounded chief. He rose up, and she supported him to the hole, calling on the Gaika to help him through.
She followed, and said a few words to Klaas, who, with a stifled exclamation, began tapping the sanded floor with the b.u.t.t of his a.s.segai.
"What are you doing?" demanded Webster.
"Wait, sieur;" and the tapping of the a.s.segai continued. "This is the place;" and Klaas with his naked foot pushed the sand away, leaving bare a flat stone in the centre of the room. With the point of his a.s.segai he prised up the stone and then started back, for there was a yawning pit disclosed, out of which came a rush of damp and sickly air.
"Where does that lead?" asked Webster.
"I don"t know, sieur. The old woman will say."
She spoke rapidly, pointing with skinny forefinger at the pit, and turning her gleaming eyes from face to face.
"She says we must go down," said Klaas; "but I am afraid."
"Hark!" said Laura; "I hear voices."
The old woman drew Umkomaas to the hole, then, seizing Laura by the arm, pulled her violently forward.
"What the deuce does the old witch mean?" growled Webster impatiently.
"I think," said Klaas, "she say this is the last place of hiding; and the Amazulus will find us if we stay here."
"Go down, then."
"Neh, sieur. It is too dark."
"It is no blacker than a ship"s hold. Stand away;" and, dropping his feet through, Webster lowered himself till he touched ground, when immediately Umkomaas almost fell on top of him, and he was obliged to catch the helpless chief and stagger back with him.
Before she could utter a word of protest, Laura was seized by wiry arms and dropped into the pit, and the Gaika, with a grunt of anger at such treatment of his mistress, followed her. Then the old woman quickly slid the stone over the opening, rapidly spread the sand above, and stood listening.
Hume had heard the exclamations, the excited whispers, and a m.u.f.fled cry from Webster calling his name, and in the silence which suddenly cut short this commotion he read some fresh calamity, and stood for a moment trembling violently. Then he groped once more to the hole, and, thrusting his head through, called softly:
"Laura!"
No answer came to the murmur.
"Webster!" he cried, a little louder. "Jim! are you there?"
"Ssh! be still," came a suppressed cry in the native tongue.
"I have been still too long--where are you?"
"Listen. The men know that hiding-place. I heard two come and retreat.
They will return in greater numbers. Be not afraid for your people; they are safe with Umkomaas, my chief, under the ground here;" and she stamped with her feet.
"They are safe," he muttered--"safe, you say? Why did they leave me?"
"You must stay there and tell the Amazulus that your people have fled."
"And then?"
"They will kill you. Your strength has gone; it is well."
"Good heavens!" he gasped in horror; "did they know that? No, no, no!
It is a lie. They would not leave me. Jim!"
"Ssh!" she hissed, then swiftly climbed the wild vine and crouched flat on the wall.
"My G.o.d!" he cried, "my G.o.d! and is this the end, to be left in a hole, blind, helpless, and alone? And I lost my sight for them! would have lost my life to save them"--he paused--"ay," he continued softly, "may do so yet." There was the ring of metal against stones, and he drew in his head instinctively and grasped his rifle. "Good!" he muttered fiercely; "I hope there are many, so that even a blind man may strike home."
He heard the soft sound of men brushing against the stones, heard their exclamations of fury as they kicked against the bodies of dead Zulus, and knew they had reached the inner chamber.
"Is this the place?" said one harshly, in Portuguese.
"This is the place, Captain," answered a deep voice that seemed familiar to Hume.
"And where are those robbers hidden?"
"In the wall there. See! there is the gap by which they entered."
"Hark ye," said the first man, raising his voice, and speaking in English, "you who are hidden in there. I will lay a train of powder and blow the walls in upon you if you so much as lift a finger upon us. Do you hear?"
"I hear," said Hume sternly; "and I warn you also that I will shoot you like the dog you are if you attempt to injure one of us."
There was a laugh, and a third man, whom Hume judged to be Lieutenant Gobo, said: "Would it not be better to blow them in now, Captain?"
"What! and kill the girl you rave about?" said the Captain in Portuguese. "We"ll get her first--moreover, we have no time to waste; the people across the river may yet show fight. Hark to their singing!
Blow them up when we have finished this job."
The deep chant of Chanda"s regiment rolled from beyond.
"Now," said the man who had been addressed as Captain, "let us begin.
Ferrara, which is the entrance to this hidden treasure? It must be in the centre. Where is that witch-doctor--ah, you thief of night, come here! Now, Ferrara, tell him to point out the place."
As the witch-doctor stepped forward, a loud hiss arrested his steps.
"What in the devil"s name was that?"
"Look!" said Gobo, trembling; "there is something moving on the wall.
Is it a snake?"