Thus grumbling, he followed Wyvern in what was literally a scramble, not always free from danger either; for the river bank along the face of which they had to make their way here was steep enough to be almost precipitous, and high enough to render a fall on to the stones below a contingency not to be contemplated with equanimity. But fortune favoured them, and they gained their objective without accident.

"_Magtig_! what a beastly hole," grunted Le Sage, as they stood within the mouth of the donga. "Well, the brute must be pretty far gone by this time. Sss! I can smell him already. We'd better start our pipes, Wyvern."

They were standing at the bottom of a narrow rift some thirty feet in depth, its sides narrowing walls of a sandy-clayey soil and looking uncomfortably suggestive of the possibility of falling in upon them. A close network of boughs and p.r.i.c.kly pear plants overhead well-nigh shut off the light of day, turning the place into a regular cavern. A little further and the walls narrowed, necessitating single file progress.

"A devilish unpleasant place to find oneself confronted in by a _kwai geel slang_," [Note 1] said Wyvern--who was leading--over his shoulder, grimly. "We couldn't dodge him at any price here."

"Yes, yes. But what about the n.i.g.g.e.r?" said the other testily. "Where the devil is he?"

The same idea had struck Wyvern, who had stopped, and after looking in front was now gazing upwards in most unfeigned amazement.

"Where the devil indeed," he echoed. "Look, Le Sage. There's the hole he made in the green stuff tumbling through. p.r.i.c.kly pear leaves too, broken off by the fall. But--where the devil is the chump himself? He ought to be here, but isn't."

This was indisputable. The precipitous banks of the place were marked and scored, and leaves and twigs, obviously freshly torn, still clung to the said banks here and there. Some heavy body had manifestly fallen down there at that spot, but of any such thing there was now no other sign.

"Oh, look here, Wyvern. Haven't you been filling us up with some sick old yarn?" said Le Sage disgustedly. "Why, man, there's no sign of any dead n.i.g.g.e.r here. Sure your imagination didn't play you tricks?"

"Oh, very. No mistake about that--by the way weren't you saying just now you could smell him?" good-humouredly. "What if some of his pals came and carted him away?"

"Then there'd be spoor, and plenty of it. As it is there's none. And I do know a little about spoor," added Le Sage significantly.

"Well it bangs me, I own," declared Wyvern. "But now we're here we'd better follow the ditch right up. I don't feel like taking on that nasty scramble again, do you?"

"No. Drive ahead then."

Proceeding with some caution, for it was just the place in which to come upon a snake, they made their way gradually upward and soon stood within the open light of day.

"Well, my imagination didn't play me tricks this shot," said Wyvern, as they stood looking at the bones of the slaughtered sheep, picked clean by aasvogels and jackals.

"No. There were two of them at this job. I can see that plainly enough," said Le Sage, scrutinising the ground. "Well, we've had our ride for nothing. The first essential towards holding an inquiry on a dead n.i.g.g.e.r is for there to be a dead n.i.g.g.e.r to hold it on, and there isn't one here."

"Well, I own it bangs me," said Wyvern, puzzled.

"So it does me," said Le Sage, significantly.

Note 1. The _geel slang_, anglice "yellow-snake," is a variety of cobra, and takes first rank among the deadliest reptiles of South Africa.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

A SCARE--AND A HOME CIRCLE.

"Well, Lalante. Wyvern's snake-bitten Kafir has not only killed himself, but he has performed his own funeral into the bargain--at least, he must have, because there's no sign of him down there. Why-- what's the row?"

There was a curious, startled look upon the girl's face--hearing the sound of their voices she had come forward to meet them. She was pale, too, as from the effects of a fright.

"What scared you, dearest?" said Wyvern anxiously--he was at her side in a moment. "Not another snake?"

"No. I believe it was a Kafir."

"A Kafir?" echoed Le Sage. "Hullo, Wyvern. Your snake-bitten chap has not only performed his own funeral but he has already begun to walk."

"Come over to where I was sitting," said the girl. "I can show you better from there."

"But hang it, Lalante, you're not the one to be scared by the sight of a Kafir," said her father, incredulously.

"This one had an awful look," she answered, with a little shudder.

"Hardly human--almost like someone dead."

She had been leading the way--it was only a few yards--to where she had been seated under the shade of some willows.

"Look," she said. "It was over that p.r.i.c.kly pear stem. Something made me look up and I saw a head--a fearful-looking black head, not like anything in life. It was glaring at me with such an awful expression, I wonder I didn't scream, but I believe I was afraid even to do that.

Then it sank down again and disappeared."

The point indicated might have been a couple of dozen yards distant Wyvern, pressing her hand, felt that she was in a state of tremble.

"Come along, Wyvern. We'll look into this," said Le Sage irritably. He was a man who hated mystery, and was incredulous as regarded this one.

"If there is any mad Kafir hanging about here a touch of stirrup iron'll be the best remedy should he prove obstreperous." And so saying he went to his horse's side and detached one of the stirrups. Now a stirrup iron in the hands of one who knows how to use it, is a very formidable weapon of offence or defence.

"But I'll go too," said the girl, quickly. "I'm dead off staying here by myself after that experience."

"Quite sure it was an _experience_?" queried her father, somewhat sourly.

But reaching the place she had pointed out, there was no sign of anybody having stood there. Le Sage's first instinct was to examine the ground.

He looked up again, baffled.

"No trace of any spoor whatever," he said irritably. "No living being could have stood there and left none--let alone coming here and getting away again. Your imagination is very much on the warpath to-day, Lalante."

"Just as you like," she answered, piqued. "Only, I was never credited with such a vivid imagination before."

She felt hurt. She really had been badly frightened. The comforting pressure of Wyvern's hand was inexpressibly sweet to her at that moment.

"Oh, well. We'll just take a cast further round," said Le Sage... "No, just as I thought;" he added, after this operation. "My dear child, your spectral Kafir must have vanished into thin air. He certainly couldn't have done so over hard firm ground and left no trace whatever."

"Well, here are two deuced odd things," p.r.o.nounced Wyvern. "First of all, the chap who was bitten again and again by a puff-adder, and should have been lying down there in an advanced stage of--well-- unpleasantness, isn't there at all. The next, Lalante, who isn't easily frightened, meets with a bad scare at sight of something which sounds uncommonly like the deceased defaulter when last I saw him."

"Yes--it's rum--very," declared Le Sage drily, replacing the stirrup he had taken off his saddle. "Well, good-bye, Wyvern."

"What's that?" said Lalante, decisively. "Goodbye? But he's going back with us. Aren't you, dear? I shall be most frightfully disappointed if you don't."

The glance she shot at him--her father was busy lighting his pipe-- expressed love, entreaty, the possibility of disappointment, all rolled into one. Wyvern would not have been human if he had withstood it. As a matter of fact he had no wish to, but Le Sage's manner was such that the words seemed to convey a broad hint that to that worthy at any rate his room was preferable to his company. But he was not going to take any marching orders from Le Sage.

"Then that you most certainly shall not be," he said, cheerfully, returning, to the full, the girl's loving glance.

"Of course not," she rejoined, brightly. "I had arranged a little programme in my own mind, and you are to stay the night. It seems to me we have not seen half enough of each other lately. Well, it's time to remedy that and I propose we begin now."