Rosa Mundi and Other Stories Part 64

"I shall come back to you, Betty," he said.

"Oh, you will!" she said very earnestly. "You will!"

"I shall," said Montague Herne; and he said it as a man whose resolution no power on earth might turn.

III

No country for white men indeed! Herne grimly puffed a cloud of smoke into a whirl of flies, and rose from the packing-case off which he had dined.

Near by were the mult.i.tudinous sounds of the camp, the voices of Arabs, the grunting of camels, the occasional squeal of a mule. Beyond lay the wilderness, mysterious, silent, immense, the home of the unknown.

He had reached the outermost edge of civilization, and he was waiting for the return of an Arab spy, a man he trusted, who had pushed on into the interior. The country beyond him was a dense tract of bush almost impenetrable; so far as he knew, waterless.

In the days of the British expedition this had been an almost insuperable obstacle, but Herne was in no mood to turn back. Behind him lay desert, wide and barren under the fierce African sun. He had traversed it with a dogged patience, regardless of hards.h.i.+p, and, whatever lay ahead of him, he meant to go on. Hidden deep below the man's calm aspect there throbbed a fierce impatience. It tortured him by night, depriving him of rest.

Very curiously, the conviction had begun to take root in his soul also that Bobby Duncannon still lived. In England he had scouted the notion, but here in the heart of the desert everything seemed possible. He felt as if a voice were calling to him out of the mystery towards which he had set his face, a voice that was never silent, continually urging him on.

Wandering that night on the edge of the bush, with the camp-fires behind him, he told himself that until he knew the truth he would never turn back.

He lay down at last, though his restlessness was strong upon him, compelling his body at least to be pa.s.sive, while hour after hour crawled by and the wondrous procession of stars wheeled overhead.

In the early morning there came a stir in the camp, and he rose, to find that his messenger had returned. The man was waiting for him outside his tent. The orange and gold of sunrise was turning the desert into a wonderland of marvellous colour, but Herne's eyes took no note thereof.

He saw only his Arab guide bending before him in humble salutation, while in his heart he heard a girl's voice, low and piteous, "Bobby is still alive and wanting me."

"Well, Ha.s.san?" he questioned. "Any news?"

The man's eyes gleamed with a certain triumph.

"There is news, _effendi_. The man the _effendi_ seeks is no longer chief of the Zambas. They have been swallowed up by the Wandis."

Herne groaned. It was only what he had expected, but the memory of the boy's face with its eager eyes was upon him. The pity of it! The vast, irretrievable waste!

"Then he is dead?" he said.

The Arab spread out his hands.

"Allah knows. But the Wandis do not always slay their prisoners, _effendi_. The old and the useless ones they burn, but the strong ones they save alive. It may be that he lives."

"As a slave!" Herne said.

"It is possible, _effendi_." The Arab considered a moment. Then, "The road to the country of the Wandis is no journey for _effendis_," he said. "The path is hard to find, and there is no water. Also, the bush is thick, and there are many savages. But beyond all are the mountains where the Wandis dwell. It is possible that the chief of the Zambas has been carried to their City of Stones. It is a wonderful place, _effendi_. But the way thither, especially now, even for an Arab----"

"I am going myself," Herne said.

"The _effendi_ will die!"

Herne shrugged his shoulders.

"Be it so! I am going!"

"But not alone, _effendi_." A speculative gleam shone in the Arab's wary eyes. He was the only available guide, and he knew it. The Englishman was mad, of course, but he was willing to humour him--for a consideration.

Herne saw the gleam, and his grim face relaxed.

"Name your price, Ha.s.san!" he said. "If it doesn't suit me--I go alone."

Ha.s.san smiled widely. Certainly the Englishman was mad, but he had a sporting fancy for mad Englishmen, a fancy that kept his pouch well filled. He had not the smallest intention of letting this one out of his sight.

"We will go together, _effendi_," he said. "The price shall not be named between us until we return in peace. But the _effendi_ will need a disguise. The Wandis have no love for the English."

"Then I will go as your brother," said Herne.

The Arab bowed low.

"As traders in spice," he said, "we might, by the goodness of Allah, pa.s.s through to the Great Desert. But we could not go with a large caravan, _effendi_, and we should take our lives in our hands."

"Even so," said the Englishman imperturbably. "Let us waste no time!"

It had been his att.i.tude throughout, and it had had its effect upon the men who had travelled with him. They had come to look upon him with reverence, this mad Englishman, who was thus calmly preparing to risk his life for a man whose bones had probably whitened in the desert years before. By sheer, indomitable strength of purpose Herne was accomplis.h.i.+ng inch by inch the task that he had set himself.

A few days more found him traversing the wide, scrub-grown plateau that stretched to the mountains where the Wandis had their dwelling-place.

The journey was a bitter one, the heat intense, the difficulties of the way sometimes wellnigh insurmountable. They carried water with them, but the need for economy was great, and Herne was continually possessed by a consuming thirst that he never dared to satisfy.

The party consisted of himself, Ha.s.san, an Arab lad, and five natives.

The rest of his following he had left on the edge of civilization, encamped in the last oasis between the desert and the scrub, with orders to await his return. If, as the Arab had suggested, he succeeded in pus.h.i.+ng through to the farther desert, he would return by a more southerly route, giving Wanda as wide a berth as possible.

Thus ran his plans as, day after day, he pressed farther into the heart of the unknown country that the British had abandoned in despair over three years before. They found it deserted, in some parts almost impenetrable, so dense was the growth of bush in all directions. And yet there were times when it seemed to Herne that the sense of emptiness was but a superficial impression, as if unseen eyes watched them on that journey of endless monotony, as if the very camels knew of a lurking espionage, and sneered at their riders' ignorance.

This feeling came to him generally at night, when he had partially a.s.suaged the torment of thirst that gave him no peace by day, and his mind was more at leisure for speculation. At such times, lying apart from his companions, wrapt in the immense silence of the African night, the conviction would rise up within him that every inch of their progress through that land of mystery was marked by a close observation, that even as he lay he was under _surveillance_, that the dense obscurity of the bush all about him was peopled by stealthy watchers whose vigilance was never relaxed.

He mentioned his suspicion once to Ha.s.san; but the Arab only smiled.

"The desert never sleeps, _effendi_. The very gra.s.s of the _savannah_ has ears."

It was not a very satisfactory explanation, but Herne accepted it. He put down his uneasiness to the restlessness of nerves that were ever on the alert, and determined to ignore it. But it pursued him, none the less; and coupled with it was the voice that called to him perpetually, like the crying of a lost soul.

They were drawing nearer to the mountains when one day the Arab lad, Ahmed, disappeared. It happened during the midday halt, when the rest of the party were drowsing. No one knew when he went or how, but he vanished as if a hand had plucked him off the face of the earth. It seemed unlikely that he would have wandered into the bush, but this was the only conclusion that they could come to; and they spent the rest of the day in fruitless searching.

Herne slept not at all that night. The place seemed to be alive with ghostly whisperings, and he could not bring himself to rest. He spent the long hours revolver in hand, waiting with a dogged patience for the dawn.

But when it came at last, in a sudden tropical stream of light illuminating all things, he knew that, his vigilance notwithstanding, he had been tricked. The morning dawned upon a deserted camp. The natives had fled in the night, and only Ha.s.san and the camels remained.

Ha.s.san was largely contemptuous.

"Let them go!" he said. "We are but a day's journey from Wanda. We will go forward alone, _effendi_. The chief of the Wandis will not slay two peaceful merchants who desire only to travel through to the Great Desert."