rs, and those ghost-like forms in the misty heights,
but Mr. Hume would not allow his patient time to brood over the
surroundings. He shaved off fragments of biltong for him to eat,
talking cheerfully all the time, and at last had the satisfaction of
seeing the overwrought nerves of the lad quieted in sleep. Then the
anxiety that had filled him all the time appeared in the expression
of his face, and he stepped away a few yards to send a call for the
woman ringing up into the vault. The cry ran away mournfully in a
series of diminishing echoes, but no answer came, and he looked to
his weapons, built up the fire with other fragments of wood that had
been evidently borne in at times of flood, and explored the cave.
There was no sign of the woman anywhere, but he found three exits.
Relinquishing any idea of following them until Venning was fit to
walk, he returned to the fire, and sat down with his back to the
rock waiting for the woman's return. If he felt doubt or fear, he
fought against it, resolving that, come what would, his first care
was to save his companion, but that there was cause for doubt he
knew very well from the remarks and bearing of the woman. Probably,
he thought, the secret of the underground was hers only, and she
might well have a motive sufficiently strong to preserve that
secret even at the sacrifice of their lives. Full of these thoughts,
he began another examination of the cave, confining himself this
time to a search of the floor. Going down on hands and knees, and
carrying a lighted stick, he minutely inspected the thin layer of
dust which had settled since the last flood-waters had rushed
through. Traversing slowly the width of the cave, he found his own
spoor and the spoor of the woman. Then working round with the object
of finding which of the three openings she had taken on leaving, he
came upon a calabash and a kaross made of goats'-skin. The calabash,
from the smell, contained goats'-milk. Leaving the fire-stick to
mark the spot to which he had carried his search, he went back to
place the kaross over the sleeping boy. Then taking another stick
from the fire, he took up the spooring from the place he had left
off, and crawled inch by inch, till he came to the first exit. Here
he saw his spoor entering together with the footprints of the woman,
both very plain from the mud which had adhered to their feet. The
woman, however, had not passed out. That, at any rate, was one point
settled, and