Thereon a voice that instantly struck me as familiar, answered:
"We want to know where the great hunter lives."
"_Ikona_," said the Kafir.
"Can"t you remember his native name?" asked another voice which was also familiar to me, for I never forget voices though I am unable to place them at once.
"The great hunter, Here-come-a-zany," said the first voice triumphantly, and instantly there flashed back upon my mind a vision of the splendid drawing-room at Ragnall Castle and of an imposing majordomo introducing into it two white-robed, Arab-looking men.
"Mr. Savage, by the Heavens!" I muttered. "What in the name of goodness is he doing here?"
"There," said the second voice, "your black friend has bolted, and no wonder, for who can be called by such a name? If you had done what I told you, Savage, and hired a white guide, it would have saved us a lot of trouble. Why will you always think that you know better than anyone else?"
"Seemed an unnecessary expense, my lord, considering we are travelling incog., my lord."
"How long shall we travel "incog." if you persist in calling me my lord at the top of your voice, Savage? There is a house beyond those trees; go in and ask where----"
By this time I had reached the gate which I opened, remarking quietly,
"How do you do, Lord Ragnall? How do you do, Mr. Savage? I thought that I recognized your voices on the road and came to see if I was right.
Please walk in; that is, if it is I whom you wish to visit."
As I spoke I studied them both, and observed that while Savage looked much the same, although slightly out of place in these strange surroundings, the time that had pa.s.sed since we met had changed Lord Ragnall a good deal. He was still a magnificent-looking man, one of those whom no one that had seen him would ever forget, but now his handsome face was stamped with some new seal of suffering. I felt at once that he had become acquainted with grief. The shadow in his dark eyes and a certain worn expression about the mouth told me that this was so.
"Yes, Quatermain," he said as he took my hand, "it is you whom I have travelled seven thousand miles to visit, and I thank G.o.d that I have been so fortunate as to find you. I feared lest you might be dead, or perhaps far away in the centre of Africa where I should never be able to track you down."
"A week later perhaps you would not have found me, Lord Ragnall," I answered, "but as it happens misfortune has kept me here."
"And misfortune has brought me here, Quatermain."
Then before I had time to answer Savage came up and we went into the house.
"You are just in time for lunch," I said, "and as luck will have it there is a good rock cod and a leg of oribe buck for you to eat. Boy, set two more places."
"One more place, if you please, sir," said Savage. "I should prefer to take my food afterwards."
"You will have to get over that in Africa," I muttered. Still I let him have his way, with the result that presently the strange sight was seen of the magnificent English majordomo standing behind my chair in the little room and handing round the square-face as though it were champagne. It was a spectacle that excited the greatest interest in my primitive establishment and caused Hans with some native hangers-on to gather at the window. However, Lord Ragnall took it as a matter of course and I thought it better not to interfere.
When we had finished we went on to the stoep to smoke, leaving Savage to eat his dinner, and I asked Lord Ragnall where his luggage was. He replied that he had left it at the Customs. "Then," I said, "I will send a native with Savage to arrange about getting it up here. If you do not mind my rough accommodation there is a room for you, and your man can pitch a tent in the garden."
After some demur he accepted with grat.i.tude, and a little later Savage and the native were sent off with a note to a man who hired out a mule-cart.
"Now," I said when the gate had shut behind them, "will you tell me why you have come to Africa?"
"Disaster," he replied. "Disaster of the worst sort."
"Is your wife dead, Lord Ragnall?"
"I do not know. I almost hope that she is. At any rate she is lost to me."
An idea leapt to my mind to the effect that she might have run away with somebody else, a thing which often happens in the world. But fortunately I kept it to myself and only said,
"She was nearly lost once before, was she not?"
"Yes, when you saved her. Oh! if only you had been with us, Quatermain, this would never have happened. Listen: About eighteen months ago she had a son, a very beautiful child. She recovered well from the business and we were as happy as two mortals could be, for we loved each other, Quatermain, and G.o.d has blessed us in every way; we were so happy that I remember her telling me that our great good fortune made her feel afraid. One day last September when I was out shooting, she drove in a little pony cart we had, with the nurse, and the child but no man, to call on Mrs. Scroope who also had been recently confined. She often went out thus, for the pony was an old animal and quiet as a sheep.
"By some cursed trick of fate it chanced that when they were pa.s.sing through the little town which you may remember near Ragnall, they met a travelling menagerie that was going to some new encampment. At the head of the procession marched a large bull elephant, which I discovered afterwards was an ill-tempered brute that had already killed a man and should never have been allowed upon the roads. The sight of the pony cart, or perhaps a red cloak which my wife was wearing, as she always liked bright colours, for some unknown reason seems to have infuriated this beast, which trumpeted. The pony becoming frightened wheeled round and overturned the cart right in front of the animal, but apparently without hurting anybody. Then"--here he paused a moment and with an effort continued--"that devil in beast"s shape c.o.c.ked its ears, stretched out its long trunk, dragged the baby from the nurse"s arms, whirled it round and threw it high into the air, to fall crushed upon the kerb. It sniffed at the body of the child, feeling it over with the tip of its trunk, as though to make sure that it was dead. Next, once more it trumpeted triumphantly, and without attempting to harm my wife or anybody else, walked quietly past the broken cart and continued its journey, until outside the town it was made fast and shot."
"What an awful story!" I said with a gasp.
"Yes, but there is worse to follow. My poor wife went off her head, with the shock I suppose, for no physical injury could be found upon her. She did not suffer in health or become violent, quite the reverse indeed for her gentleness increased. She just went off her head. For hours at a time she would sit silent and smiling, playing with the stones of that red necklace which those conjurers gave her, or rather counting them, as a nun might do with the beads of her rosary. At times, however, she would talk, but always to the baby, as though it lay before her or she were nursing it. Oh! Quatermain, it was pitiful, pitiful!
"I did everything I could. She was seen by three of the greatest brain-doctors in England, but none of them was able to help. The only hope they gave was that the fit might pa.s.s off as suddenly as it had come. They said too that a thorough change of scene would perhaps be beneficial, and suggested Egypt; that was in October. I did not take much to the idea, I don"t know why, and personally should not have acceded to it had it not been for a curious circ.u.mstance. The last consultation took place in the big drawing-room at Ragnall. When it was over my wife remained with her mother at one end of the room while I and the doctors talked together at the other, as I thought quite out of her earshot. Presently, however, she called to me, saying in a perfectly clear and natural voice:
""Yes, George, I will go to Egypt. I should like to go to Egypt." Then she went on playing with the necklace and talking to the imaginary child.
"Again on the following morning as I came into her room to kiss her, she exclaimed,
""When do we start for Egypt? Let it be soon."
"With these sayings the doctors were very pleased, declaring that they showed signs of a returning interest in life and begging me not to thwart her wish.
"So I gave way and in the end we went to Egypt together with Lady Longden, who insisted upon accompanying us although she is a wretched sailor. At Cairo a large dahabeeyah that I had hired in advance, manned by an excellent crew and a guard of four soldiers, was awaiting us. In it we started up the Nile. For a month or more all went well; also to my delight my wife seemed now and again to show signs of returning intelligence. Thus she took some interest in the sculptures on the walls of the temples, about which she had been very fond of reading when in health. I remember that only a few days before the--the catastrophe, she pointed out one of them to me, it was of Isis and the infant Horus, saying, "Look, George, the holy Mother and the holy Child," and then bowed to it reverently as she might have done to an altar. At length after pa.s.sing the First Cataract and the Island of Philae we came to the temple of Abu Simbel, opposite to which our boat was moored. On the following morning we explored the temple at daybreak and saw the sun strike upon the four statues which sit at its farther end, spending the rest of that day studying the colossal figures of Rameses that are carved upon its face and watching some cavalcades of Arabs mounted upon camels travelling along the banks of the Nile.
"My wife was unusually quiet that afternoon. For hour after hour she sat still upon the deck, gazing first at the mouth of the rock-hewn temple and the mighty figures which guard it and then at the surrounding desert. Only once did I hear her speak and then she said, "Beautiful, beautiful! Now I am at home." We dined and as there was no moon, went to bed rather early after listening to the Sudanese singers as they sang one of their weird chanties.
"My wife and her mother slept together in the state cabin of the dahabeeyah, which was at the stern of the boat. My cabin, a small one, was on one side of this, and that of the trained nurse on the other. The crew and the guard were forward of the saloon. A gangway was fixed from the side to the sh.o.r.e and over it a sentry stood, or was supposed to stand. During the night a Khamsin wind began to blow, though lightly as was to be expected at this season of the year. I did not hear it for, as a matter of fact, I slept very soundly, as it appears did everyone else upon the dahabeeyah, including the sentry as I suspect.
"The first thing I remember was the appearance of Lady Longden just at daybreak at the doorway of my cabin and the frightened sound of her voice asking if Luna, that is my wife, was with me. Then it transpired that she had left her cabin clad in a fur cloak, evidently some time before, as the bed in which she had been lying was quite cold.
Quatermain, we searched everywhere; we searched for four days, but from that hour to this no trace whatever of her has been found."
"Have you any theory?" I asked.
"Yes, or at least all the experts whom we consulted have a theory. It is that she slipped down the saloon in the dark, gained the deck and thence fell or threw herself into the Nile, which of course would have carried her body away. As you may have heard, the Nile is full of bodies. I myself saw two of them during that journey. The Egyptian police and others were so convinced that this was what had happened that, notwithstanding the reward of a thousand pounds which I offered for any valuable information, they could scarcely be persuaded to continue the search."
"You said that a wind was blowing and I understand that the sh.o.r.es are sandy, so I suppose that all footprints would have been filled in?"
He nodded and I went on. "What is your own belief? Do you think she was drowned?"
He countered my query with another of:
"What do _you_ think?"
"I? Oh! although I have no right to say so, I don"t think at all. I am quite sure that she was _not_ drowned; that she is living at this moment."
"Where?"
"As to that you had better inquire of our friends, Hart and Mart," I answered dryly.