Juanna staggered to her feet.
"I am so stiff and sore that I can hardly stand," she said, "but, Leonard, what is the matter with you? You are covered with blood."
"I will tell you afterwards," he replied again.
Then Otter collected their baggage, which consisted chiefly of the hide line and the spear, and they crawled forward up the snow-slope. Some twenty or thirty yards ahead of them, and almost side by side, lay the two glacier stones on which they had passed the bridge, and near them those which Otter had despatched as pioneers on the previous morning. They looked at them wondering. Who could have believed that these inert things, not an hour before, had been speeding down the icy way quicker than any express train that ever travelled, and they with them?
One thing was certain: did they remain unbroken for another two or three million years, and that is a short life for a stone, they would never again make so strange a journey.
Then the three toiled on to the top of the snow-slope, which was about four hundred yards away.
"Look, Baas," said Otter, who had turned to gaze a fond farewell at the gulf behind; "there are people yonder on the further side."
He was right. On the far brink of the crevasse were the forms of men, who seemed to be waving their arms in the air and shouting. But whether these were the priests who, having overcome the resistance of Olfan, had pursued the fugitives to kill them, or the soldiers of the king who had conquered the priests, the distance would not allow them to see. The fate of Olfan and the further domestic history of the People of the Mist were now sealed books to them, for they never heard any more of these matters, nor are they likely to do so.
Then the travellers began to descend from field to field of snow, the great peak above alone remaining to remind them that they were near to the country of the Mist. Once they stopped to eat a little of such food as they had with them, and often enough to rest, for their strength was small. Indeed, as they dragged themselves wearily forward, each of the men holding Juanna by the hand, Leonard found himself wondering how it came about, putting aside the bodily perils from which they had escaped, that they had survived the exhaustion and the horrors, physical and mental, of the last forty-eight hours.
But there they were still alive, though in a sorry plight, and before evening they found themselves below the snow line in a warm and genial climate.
"I must stop," said Juanna as the sun began to set; "I can drag myself no further."
Leonard looked at Otter in despair.
"There is a big tree yonder, Baas," said the dwarf with an attempt at cheerfulness, "and water by it. It is a good place to camp, and here the air is warm, we shall not suffer from cold. Nay, we are lucky indeed; think how we passed last night."
They reached the tree, and Juanna sank down half fainting against its bole. With difficulty Leonard persuaded her to swallow a little meat and a mouthful of spirit, and then, to his relief, she relapsed into a condition with partook more of the nature of stupor than of sleep.
CHAPTER XL
OTTER'S FAREWELL
The night which followed, Leonard is wont to declare, proved to be the very worst that he ever spent in his life. Notwithstanding his intense weariness, he could not sleep, his nerves were too shattered to allow of it. Whenever he shut his eyes, he saw himself hanging head downwards over the oubliette in the cell beneath the idol, or flying through the air across the dreadful gap in the ice-bridge, or in some other position of terror, similar to those with which they had made such intimate acquaintance of late. Did these visions cease, from time to time he seemed to hear the voice of Francisco bidding him farewell, the yell of Soa falling to her dreadful death, or Nam raving his last defiance at them. Also his hurts, which were many, gave him great pain, and though the climate here was mild, the breeze from the snow heights chilled him through, and they had not even a match wherewith to light a fire and scare the wild beasts that roared about them.
Rarely have three human beings been in a position more desolate and desperate than that in which they found themselves this night, exhausted, unarmed, almost without food or clothing, and wandering they knew not where through the vastness of Central Africa. Unless some help found them, as Leonard was aware, they must perish of starvation, by the fangs of lions, or the spears of natives. It was impossible that they could live through another week, and the thought came into his mind that it would be well for them if they died that night and had done with it.
It would be well; yes, and it would have been better if he had been laid by the side of his brother Tom before ever he listened to Soa's accursed tale of the People of the Mist and their treasure of rubies. Only then he would never have known Juanna, for she must have died in the slave camp.
This was the fruit of putting faith in the visions of dying men. And yet, it was strange, he had /nearly/ got the money and "by the help of a woman," for those rubies would have sufficed to buy back Outram ten times over. But, alas! nearly is not quite. That dream was done with, and even if they escaped, it would be to find himself more utterly beggared than before, for now he would be a married beggar.
At last the night wore away and the dawn came, but Juanna did not wake until the sun was high. Leonard, who had crept to a little distance-- for now he was quite unable to walk--saw her sit up and crawled back to her. She stared at him vacantly and said something about Jane Beach. Then he knew that she was wandering. There was nothing to be done. What could be done in that wilderness with a woman in delirium, except wait for death?
Accordingly Leonard and Otter waited for some hours. Then the dwarf, who was in far the best condition of the three, took the spear-- Olfan's gift--and said that he would go and seek for food, since their store was exhausted. Leonard nodded, though he knew that there was little chance of a man armed with a spear alone being able to kill game, and Otter went.
Towards evening he returned, reporting that he had seen plenty of buck, but could not get near them, which was just what his master expected. That night they passed hungry, by turns watching Juanna, who was still delirious. At dawn Otter started out again, leaving Leonard, who had been unable to sleep as on the previous night, crouched at Juanna's side, his face buried in his hands.
Before noon Leonard chanced to look up, and saw the dwarf reeling towards him, for he also was faint with want of food. Indeed his great head and almost naked body, through the skin of which the misshapen bones seemed to start in every direction, presented so curious a spectacle that his master, whose brain was shaken by weakness, began to laugh.
"Don't laugh, Baas," gasped the dwarf; "either I am mad, or we are saved."
"Then I think that you must be mad, Otter, for we shall take a deal of saving," he answered wearily, for he had ceased to believe in good fortune. "What is it?"
"This, Baas. There is a white man coming this way and more than a hundred servants with him; they are marching up the mountain slope."
"You are certainly mad, Otter," Leonard replied. "What in the names of Jal and Aca is a white man doing here? I am the only one of that species who have been fool enough to penetrate these regions, I and Francisco," and he shut his eyes and dozed off.
Otter looked at him for a while, then he tapped his forehead significantly and started down the slope again. An hour later, Leonard, still dozing, was awakened by a sound of many voices, and by a hand that shook him not too gently.
"Awake, Baas," said the dwarf, for the hand was his; "I have caught the white man and brought him here."
Leonard staggered to his feet and saw before him, surrounded by gun- bearers and other attendants, an English gentleman, rather under than over middle age, with a round and kindly face tanned by the sun, and somewhat deep-set dark eyes having an eyeglass fixed in one of them, through which its wearer regarded him with much commiseration.
"How do you do, sir?" said the stranger in a pleasant voice. "So far as I can make out from your servant you seem to be in a baddish way. By George! there is a lady."
"How do
you do?" answered Leonard. "Capital sun-helmet that of yours. I envy it, but you see I have had to go bare-headed lately," and he ran his fingers through his matted hair. "Who is the maker of that eight-bore? Looks a good gun!"
"Achmet," said the stranger, turning to an Arab at his side, "go to the first donkey and fetch this lord of the earth a pint of champagne and some oatmeal cakes; he seems to want them. Tell the bearers also to bring up my tent and to pitch it there by the water. Quick, now."
Forty-eight hours had passed, and the benevolent stranger was sitting on a camp-stool in the door of his tent, looking at two forms that lay wrapped in blankets and comfortably asleep within it.
"I suppose that they will wake some time," he murmured, dropping his eyeglass and taking the pipe from his mouth. "The quinine and champagne have done them a lot of good: there is nothing like quinine and champagne. But what an unconscionable liar that dwarf must be! There is only one thing he can do better, and that is eat. I never saw a chap stow away so much grub, though I must say that he looks as though he needed it. Still, allowing for all deductions, it is a precious queer story. Who are they, and what the deuce are they doing here? One thing is clear: I never saw a finer-looking man nor a prettier girl." And he filled his pipe again, replaced the eyeglass in his eye, and began smoking.
Ten minutes later Juanna sat up suddenly, whereupon the stranger withdrew out of sight. She looked round her wildly, then, seeing Leonard lying at the further side of the tent, she crept to him and began kissing him, saying: "Leonard! Thank God that you are still alive, Leonard! I dreamed that we both were dead. Thank God that you are alive!"
Then the man who had been thus adjured woke up also and returned her caresses.
"By George! this is quite affecting," said the traveller. "I suppose that they are married; if not, they ought to be. Any way, I had better clear out for a while."
An hour later he returned to find that the pair had made themselves as presentable as soap and water, and some few spare garments which he had sent to Leonard, would allow, and were now sitting in the sun outside the tent. He advanced, lifting his helmet, and they rose to meet him.
"I suppose that I had better introduce myself," he said with some hesitation, for he was a shy man. "I am an English traveller, doing a little exploring on my own account, for lack of any other occupation, and my name is Sydney Wallace."
"Mine is Leonard Outram," answered Leonard, "and this young lady is Miss Juanna Rodd."
Mr. Wallace started and bowed again. So they were /not/ married!
"We are deeply indebted to you, sir," went on Leonard; "for you have rescued us from death."
"Not at all," answered Mr. Wallace. "You must thank that servant of yours, the dwarf, and not me, for if he had not seen us, I should have passed a mile or more to the left of you. The fact is that I am rather fond of mountaineering, and seeing this great peak above us--I am told that it is the highest in the Bisa-Mushinga Mountains--I thought that I might as well have a try at it before I turn homewards, /via/ Lake Nyassa, Livingstonia, Blantyre, and Quilimane. But perhaps you will not mind telling me how you came to be here. I have heard something from the dwarf, but his tale seems a little too steep."
"I am afraid you will think ours rather steeper, Mr. Wallace," said Leonard, and he proceeded to give him a short outline of their adventures.
When he came to their arrival among the People of the Mist, and described the inauguration of Otter and Juanna as gods in the temple of the colossus, he noticed that his auditor had let the eyeglass fall from his round eye, and was regarding him with mild amazement.
"I am afraid that all this does not interest you," said Leonard stiffly.
"On the contrary, Mr. Outram, it interests me very much. I am exceedingly fond of romances, and this is rather a good one."
"As I thought; it is scarcely worth while to go on," said Leonard again. "Well, I cannot wonder that you do not believe me."
"Leonard," interposed Juanna quietly, "you still have the star ruby; show it to Mr. Wallace!"
He did so, somewhat sulkily, and then, as he seemed disinclined to say anything more, Juanna took up the tale, showing in evidence of its truth the spear, the frayed rope, and the tattered white robe which she had worn in her character of Aca, and, indeed, still wore beneath poor Francisco's cassock--for she had no other.
Mr. Wallace heard her out, then, without making any comment, he rose, saying that he must try to shoot some meat for the camp, and begged that they would make themselves comfortable until his return that evening.
Before sundown he reappeared, and, coming straight to the tent, asked their pardon for his incredulity.
"I have been up yonder," he said, "following your spoor backwards. I have seen the snow-bridge and the stones, and the nicks which the dwarf cut in the ice. All is just as you told me, and it only remains for me to congratulate you upon having escaped from the strangest series of dangers that ever I heard of"; and he held out his hand, which both Leonard and Juanna shook warmly.
"By the way," he added, "I sent men to examine the gulf for several miles, but they report to me that they found no spot where it would be possible to descend it, and I fear, therefore, that the jewels are lost for ever. I confess that I should have liked to try to penetrate into the Mist country, but my nerves are not strong enough for the ice-bridge, and if they were, stones won't slide uphill. Besides, you must have had about enough of roughing it, and will be anxious to turn your faces towards civilisation. So after you have rested another couple of days I think that we had better start for Quilimane, which, barring accidents, is about three months' march from here."
Shortly afterwards they started accordingly, but with the details of their march we need not concern ourselves. An exception must be made, however, in the case of a single event which happened at the mission- station of Blantyre. That event was the wedding of Leonard and Juanna in conformance with the ceremonies of their own church.
No word of marriage had been spoken between them for some weeks, and yet the thought of it was never out of the minds of either. Indeed, had their feelings been much less tender towards each other than was the case, it would still have been desirable, in view of the extraordinary intimacy into which they had been thrown during the past months, that they should become man and wife. Leonard felt that alone as she was in the wide world, nothing short of mutual aversion would have justified him in separating from Juanna, and as it was love and not aversion that he entertained towards her, this argument came home to him with overmastering force.
"Juanna," he said to her on the day of their arrival at Blantyre, "you remember some words that passed between your father and myself when he lay upon his death-bed, to the effect that, should we both wish it, he trusted to my honour to remarry you formally as soon as an opportunity might arise.
"Now the opportunity is here, and I ask you if you desire to take me for your husband, as, above everything in the world, I desire to make you my beloved wife."
She coloured to her beautiful eyes and answered in a voice that was almost a whisper:
"If you wish it and think me worthy of you, Leonard, you know that I wish it also. I have always loved you, dear, yes, even when I was behaving worst to you; but there is--Jane Beach!"
"I have told you before, Juanna," he answered with some little irritation, "and now I tell you again, that Jane Beach and I have done with each other."
"I am sure that I am very glad to hear it," Juanna replied, still somewhat dubiously. The rest of that conversation, being of a private character, will scarcely interest the public.
When he spoke thus, Leonard little knew after what fashion Jane Beach and he had wound up their old love affair.
Two days later Leonard Outram took Juanna Rodd to wife, "to have and to hold, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death did them part," and their rescuer, Sydney Wallace, who by now had become their fast friend, gave her away.
Ver
y curious were the memories that passed through Juanna's mind as she stood by her husband's side in the little grass-roofed chapel of Blantyre, for was this not the third time that she had been married, and now only of her own free will? She bethought her of that wild scene in the slave camp; of Francisco who died to save her, and of the blessing which he had called down upon her and this very man; of that other scene in the rock prison, when, to protect Leonard's life, she was wed, according to the custom of the Children of the Mist, to that true-hearted gentleman and savage, Olfan, their king. Then she awoke with a happy sigh to know that the lover at her side could never be taken from her again until death claimed one of them.
"We shall be dreadfully poor, Leonard," she said to him afterwards; "it would have been much better for you, dear, if I had fallen into the gulf instead of the rubies."
"I am not of your opinion, love," he answered with a smile for he was very happy. "Hang the rubies! Your price is far above rubies, and no man may struggle against fate. I have always been able to make a living for myself heretofore, and I do not doubt that I shall continue to do so for both of us, and we will leave the rest to Providence. You are more to me, Juanna, than any wealth--more even than Outram."
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