CHAPTER NINE.
A WEIRD QUEST.
Away among the masses of the wonderful Matopo range.
Huge granite piles rearing up skyward in every varied form of bizarredelineation, like the mighty waves of an angry sea suddenly petrified,the great flow of fallen stones covering the entire slope like theinflow of surf upon a slanting shore; the scanty trees, and tall,knife-edged tambuti grass in the valley bottoms, like seaweed in therainy moisture of the dusking evening. Then a blue gleam of lightningalong the grim granite faces; and a dull boom, re-echoed again and againas the thunder-peal is tossed from crag to crag in a hundred deep-tonedreverberations.
Standing just within their ample shelter--which is formed by theoverhang of a great boulder--Blachland gazes forth upon the weird andawe-inspiring solitude. Opposite, a huge castellated rock, manyhundreds of feet in height, balances on its summit a mighty slab, whichit seems would need but the touch of a finger to send crashing into thevalley beneath; then a ridge of tumbled boulders; further down anothertitanic pile, reft clean through the centre by a chasm, in whose jaws isgripped tight the enormous wedge of stone which seems to have split it:and so on, till the eye is tired and the mind overawed by the stupendousgrimness of these Dante-esque heights and valleys.
The adventure is in full swing now. Blachland and his strange guidehave been out several days, travelling when possible only at night, andthen keeping to the hills as much as practicable. And now they arenearing their goal.
And, looking at it calmly, it is a strange adventure indeed, almost anaimless one. The story of the buried gold Blachland is inclined toscout utterly. But no amount of questioning will shake the faith of hisguide, and so, at last, he has come to believe in it himself. Indeed,otherwise, what motive would Hlangulu have for aiding and abetting thatwhich, in his eyes, was nothing more nor less than a monstrous piece ofsacrilege? He knew that savages are the most practical of mortals, andthat it is entirely outside their code of ethics to go to a vast deal oftrouble and risk without the prospect of adequate and substantialadvantage to be gained thereby.
It had occurred to him that there might be another motive, and asinister one. Hlangulu might be decoying him into the mostout-of-the-way recesses of Matabeleland in order to make away with himtreacherously; and the idea was not a pleasant one, in that, however onthe alert he might be, there must always be times when a crafty anddetermined foe could strike him down when off his guard. But here,again, motive counted for something, and here, again, motive utterlyfailed, as we have said. He could not call to mind that Hlangulu hadthe faintest occasion to owe him any sort of a grudge, and, even if itwere so, he would not go to work in any such roundabout fashion to payit. There was nothing for it but to set the whole thing down to itsreal motive, cupidity to wit.
To this had succeeded another idea. What if this concealed gold werereally there, and be succeeded in obtaining it? It was then that hewould have to watch his guide and companion with a jealous eye. For thewhole is greater than the half, and would this covetous savage remaincontent with the half? He resolved to keep his eyes very wide openindeed, during the return journey.
The return journey! It was rather early to think about that, for theperils of the enterprise were only about to begin. Turning back withintheir shelter now, he proceeded to question Hlangulu, who was squattingagainst a rock, smoking a pipe--to question him once more as to thesurroundings of the King's grave.
But the man's answers were mere reiterations of all that he had saidbefore. They would soon be within touch of the guards whom, in theordinary way, it would be impossible to pass. The snake? Yes, therewas no doubt but that it was the _itongo_, or ghost of the Great GreatOne who sat there. Many had seen it. He, Hlangulu, had seen it twice,and had retreated, covering his face, and calling out the _sibonga_ ofthe dead King. It was an immense black _mamba_, and had been seen to goin and out of the grave. It was as long and again half as long asIsipau himself, he declared, looking Blachland up and down.
The latter, remembering Sybrandt's narrative, concluded that there wassomething decidedly creepy in bearding a particularly vicious and deadlyspecies of serpent within a narrow cleft of rock, the beast being aboutnine feet long at that--which is what Hlangulu's estimate would make it.Under any circumstances it would be bad enough, but now with all thegrim and eerie adjuncts thrown in, why the whole scheme seemed tobristle with peril. And what was there to gain by it? Well, the gold.
It must not be supposed, however, that the idea of obtaining this wascherished without a qualm. Did not the whole thing look uncommonly likean act of robbery, and the meanest kind of robbery too--the robbery of agrave? The gold was not his. It had been put there by those to whom itbelonged. What right to it had he? As against this he set the factthat it was lying there utterly useless to any living soul; that if hedid not take it, somebody else would; that the transfer of the whole ofthe Matabeleland to the British flag was only a question of time, andthat, during the war which should be necessary to bring about thisprocess, others would come to hear of this buried wealth, or light on itby chance, and then, would they be more scrupulous? Not one whit.
It will be remembered that he was all eagerness to effect this weirdexploration even before he had the faintest inkling that the placeconcealed, or might conceal, anything more valuable than a fewmouldering relics--a few trumpery articles of adornment, perhaps, whichmight be worth bringing away as curios. Yet, strange as it may seem,his later knowledge scarcely added to that eagerness.
A curious trait in Hilary Blachland's character was a secret horror ofone day failing in nerve. He could recall at least one experience inhis life when this had happened to him, and that at a critical juncture,and it had left an impression on him which he had never forgotten.There were times when it haunted him with a ghostlike horror, and underits influence he would embark in some mad and dare-devil undertaking,utterly inconsequent because utterly without rhyme, reason, ornecessity. It was as though he were consumed with a feverish desire tocultivate a reputation for intrepidity, though, as a matter of actualfact, his real motive was to satisfy himself on the point. As a matterof actual fact, too, he was as courageous as the average, and possessedof more than the average amount of resolution.
"We should be starting," said Hlangulu, coming to the entrance of theirshelter, and sending a scrutinising look at the sky. "The rain hasstopped, and the clouds will all blow apart. Then there will be a moon.We shall arrive there before daybreak." And, without waiting for theother's consent or comment, he dived within again, and began puttingtogether the few things they carried.
One can travel light on such a march, provided the wayfarer makes up hismind, and that rigidly, to take nothing along that is not strictly andabsolutely necessary. To this rule the strangely assorted pair hadadhered, so that the time taken to get under way was no longer than thatrequired to saddle Blachland's horse.
Hlangulu's prediction was verified, for in less than half an hour theclouds had parted in all directions, revealing the depths of theblue-black vault all spangled with gushing stars--and lo, a silvercrescent moon flooded the sombre valleys and fantastic crags with hersoft light. It was a strange and eerie march through that grimwilderness in the hush of the silent night--a silence, broken now andagain by mysterious cries as of bird or beast--the effect heightened bythe varying echo from cave or crag. An ant-bear, looking like a greatbald pig in the magnifying moonlight, scuttled across their path. Astrange variety of nightjar flitted overhead, looking something betweena butterfly and a paper kite; or a troop of baboons, startled suddenlyfrom their feast of roots, would skip hurriedly out of the way, theirdark, gnome-like shapes glancing through the long grass as they soughtrefuge among the granite crags, there to bark loud and excited defianceafter the disturbers.
These, however, took no notice, intent only on getting forward. Theywere safe here from the one great object of their apprehension, theirfellow-man--as yet: the point was to cover all the ground possible wh
ilesuch immunity was still theirs. The Matabele led the way in long wirystrides--the horseman following. As a matter of precaution, the horse'sshoes had been removed; for the clink of a shod hoof travels far, atnight, in uninhabited solitudes, or, for the matter of that, even byday.
During the long night march, Blachland's thoughts were busy, and theywere mainly concerned with the events of the three or four days duringwhich he had been making up his mind to this undertaking; with theparting with Hermia, and with the future. She had not accepted theposition quietly, and, a rare thing with her, had treated him to rathera stormy scene.
He had only just returned after a long absence, she declared, and nowwas anxious to start off again. Assuredly he was tired of her--or wasit that her suspicions were correct, and that he had a kraal of his ownin Matabeleland, like that horrid old Pemberton and other traders? Ahwell, if he was tired of her, there might be other people who were notperhaps. If he did not appreciate her, there might be other people whodid.
"Meaning, for present purposes, Spence," he had rejoined, but withoutheat. "Well, you are old enough and experienced enough to know whereyour own interests lie, and so it is superfluous for me to remind you,"he had added. And so they had parted with but scant affection; and itmight well be, remembering the perilous nature of his presentundertaking, never to behold each other again.
A short off-saddle, about midnight, relieved the march. At length, inthe black hour succeeding the setting of the moon, Hlangulu called ahalt.
"We must leave the horse here," he said. "We can hide him in yondercleft until to-morrow night. It will not be safe to ride him anyfurther, Isipau. Look!"
The other had already beheld that to which his attention was nowdirected. For a dull glow arose upon the night, and that at no greatdistance ahead: a glow as of fires. And, in fact, such it was; for itwas the glow of the watch-fires of one of the armed pickets, guarding,day and night, the approaches to the sacred neighbourhood of the King'sgrave.