Part 4 (1/2)
The other started, and his eyes lit up with savage triumph.
”How? Where? Where is he?”
”You shall have him. Listen, Juarez. He has been here, but if you try to find him now you will fail. I promised to meet him two hours after midnight at the corner of the cane planting. He thinks I love him, but I hate him,” she went on, working herself into a state of admirably-feigned fury. ”He laughed at me and treated me as a plaything--now I shall have revenge. But listen. Go back to the camp.
He is suspicious of you already; but he will come to me two hours after midnight. Then be in waiting, and you shall take him as easily as a leopard in a net. Don't tell the others about it until the time comes, only get them away now.”
If Juarez felt a qualm of suspicion, she acted her part so well, that he fell headlong into the trap. With difficulty, he persuaded his fellow ruffians to abandon their quest for the present. He trusted Anita implicitly; and, full of elation at the speedy vengeance which would overtake his rival, he returned with the others to their carousals.
The hours drag their length, and silence reigns in the tropical forest.
A damp, unwholesome mist rises from the river and spreads over the tree-tops. Now and again the shout of the revellers breaks upon the silence, or the deep ba.s.s of a bloodhound is raised in dismal bay at the moon. Still Anita sits there, gazing out upon the forest, and following in spirit every step of him whose life she has saved, further and further as each step takes him from her. At last she falls fast asleep, worn out with the excitement and tension of the past few hours. Then comes a loud, angry knocking at the door.
Opening it, she is confronted with her father. He is shaking with wrath, and behind him are nine or ten others all armed to the teeth.
”Where is the Englishman?” he roared. ”Have you fooled us? It is nearly daybreak--and two hours after midnight we were to take him!
Where is he?”
”Where is he?” echoed Anita, her voice as clear as a bell. ”Where is he? Safe. Far away--leagues and leagues. You will never see him again. He is safe.” And her large eyes flashed upon the enraged and astonished group in scornful defiance as she stood in the doorway.
With the yell of a wild beast baffled of its prey, the old ruffian sprang at his daughter. She never moved. But his clenched hand was seized in a firm grasp before it could descend.
”Softly--softly, patron!” said Juarez. ”You would not strike the senorita!”
De Castro struggled in the grasp of the younger man and yelled the most awful curses upon Lidwell, his daughter, and all present; but Juarez was firm. He was not all bad, and a glow of admiration went through him at Anita's daring, and the shrewd way in which she had outwitted them.
Moreover, rivalry apart, he had rather liked Lidwell. The latter they would never see again, for had not Anita herself said as much. On the whole, therefore, it was just as well that he had escaped, and saved them the necessity of killing a former brave comrade. So he tried to pacify the old man.
”Patron,” he said, ”be reasonable. We are well rid of this English devil. Certainly, he has won a lot of our dollars; but then he will lose his share in the profits of the last expedition.” Then, in a low tone: ”And he has rid us of that turbulent beast, Sharkey. He is a determined devil, and while he was with us he served us well. Let him go.”
The old slave-dealer fumed and raved, then fell in with things as they were. ”Ah well,” he said at last, ”what is--is, and we can't help it.
We will empty another skin of wine.” Then they withdrew to drown their discomfiture in drink, though some of the party, less easily pacified, would fain have started in pursuit of the fugitive, but that they knew it would be useless.
Six weeks later the mail steamer from Zanzibar was securely docked in the port of London, and Lidwell, bidding farewell to a few fellow pa.s.sengers, stepped ash.o.r.e, and in a moment was lost among the busy crowd in the great restless city. He was now in easy circ.u.mstances for life.
VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FOUR.
SERINGA VALE.
One round, black speck high up yonder on the stony hillside. There he sits--the large old baboon; wary sentinel that he is, keeping jealous watch over the safety of the nimble troop under his charge, which, scattered about amid the bush, is feasting upon succulent roots and other vegetable provender afforded by its native wilds. And from his lofty perch he can descry something unwonted immediately beneath--danger possibly, intrusion at any rate--and he lifts up his voice: ”Baugch-m!
Baugch-m?” The sun blazes in a blue, cloudless sky, darting down his beams with a fierceness and vigour somewhat premature this lovely afternoon of an early South African spring day, and all nature is at rest in the drowsy stillness now broken by that loud, harsh cry. A cliff rears its perpendicular face from amid the bush-covered slopes, which, meeting at its base, form a triangular hollow. From the brow of the cliff rises a rugged steep, thickly grown with dark p.r.i.c.kly aloes, whose bristling shapes, surmounted by bunches of red blossom, sprout upwards from the dry, stony soil. The tiniest thread of a streamlet trickles down the face of the rock, losing itself in a pool beneath, which reflects, as in a mirror, cliff, and overhanging bushes, and blue sky. A faint cattle track leading down to the water betokens that in a land of droughts and burning skies even this reservoir, remote and insignificant, is of account at times; but to-day here are no cattle.
The long-drawn piping whistle of a spreuw [of the starling species]
echoes now and again from the cool recesses of the rock; the hum of bees among the blossoming spekboem and mimosa; the twittering of the finks, whose pear-shaped pendulous nests sway to and fro over the water as the light-hearted birds fly in and out--all tell of solitude and of the peace of the wilderness. Here a big b.u.t.terfly flits lightly on spotted wings above the flowering bushes; there, stalking solemnly among the stones, an armour-plated tortoise seems to be in rivalry with a h.o.r.n.y and long-legged beetle as to which of them shall be the first to reach the other side of the small open s.p.a.ce.
”Baugch-m! Baugch-m!”
Two round black specks high up there on the stony hillside. The resounding call is answered, and the two guardians of the troop sit there, a couple of hundred yards apart, looking down into the sequestered nook below.
The sleeper moves, then rolls over on his back and draws his broad-brimmed hat right over his face.
Clearly he does not intend rousing himself just yet. The sun's beams strike full upon him, but he feels them not; evidently he is indisposed to let even the monarch of light interfere with his siesta. A few minutes more, and, with a start, he raises himself on his elbow and looks around.