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Twenty-five
I
came to myself slowly and painfully. I was conscious of an aching head and a shooting
pain down my left arm when I tried to move, and everything seemed dreamlike and unreal.
Nightmare visions floated before me. I felt myself falling—falling again. Once Harry
Rayburn’s face seemed to come to me out of the mist. Almost I imagined it real. Then it
floated away again, mocking me. Once, I remember, someone put a cup to my lips and I
drank. A black face grinned into mine—a devil’s face, I thought it, and screamed out. Then
dreams again—long troubled dreams in which I vainly sought Harry Rayburn to warn him—
warn him—what of? I did not know myself. But there was some danger—some great danger
—and I alone could save him. Then darkness again, merciful darkness and real sleep.
I woke at last myself again. The long nightmare was over. I remembered perfectly
everything that had happened: my hurried flight from the hotel to meet Harry, the man in the
shadows and the last terrible moment of falling. . . .
By some miracle or other I had not been killed. I was bruised and aching, and very weak,
but I was alive. But where was I? Moving my head with difficulty I looked round me. I was
in a small room with rough wooden walls. On them were huge skins of animals and various
tusks of ivory. I was lying on a kind of rough couch, also covered with skins, and my left
arm was bandaged up and felt stiff and uncomfortable. At first I thought I was alone, and
then I saw a man’s figure sitting between me and the light, his head turned towards the
window. He was so still that he might have been carved out of wood. Something in the
close-cropped black head was familiar to me, but I did not dare to let my imagination run
astray. Suddenly he turned, and I caught my breath. It was Harry Rayburn. Harry Rayburn in
the flesh.
He rose and came over to me.
“Feeling better?” he said a trifle awkwardly.
I could not answer. The tears were running down my face. I was weak still, but I held his
hand in both of mine. If only I could die like this, whilst he stood there looking down on me
with that new look in his eyes.
“Don’t cry, Anne. Please don’t cry. You’re safe now. No one shall hurt you.”
He went and fetched a cup and brought it to me.
“Drink some of this milk.”
I drank obediently. He went on talking, in a low coaxing tone such as he might have used
to a child.
“Don’t ask any more questions now. Go to sleep again. You’ll be stronger by and by. I’ll
go away if you like.”
“No,” I said urgently. “No, no.”
“Then I’ll stay.”
He brought a small stool over beside me and sat there. He laid his hand over mine, and,
soothed and comforted, I dropped off to sleep once more.
It must have been evening then, but when I woke again the sun was high in the heavens. I
was alone in the hut, but as I stirred an old native woman came running in. She was hideous
as sin, but she grinned at me encouragingly. She brought me water in a basin and helped me
wash my face and hands. Then she brought me a large bowl of soup, and I finished it every
drop! I asked her several questions, but she only grinned and nodded and chattered away in
a guttural language, so I gathered she knew no English.
Suddenly she stood up and drew back respectfully as Harry Rayburn entered. He gave her
a nod of dismissal and she went out leaving us alone. He smiled at me.
“Really better today!”
“Yes, indeed, but very bewildered still. Where am I?”
“You’re on a small island on the Zambesi about four miles up from the Falls.”
“Do—do my friends know I’m here?”
He shook his head.
“I must send word to them.”
“That is as you like, of course, but if I were you I should wait until you are a little
stronger.”
“Why?”
He did not answer immediately, so I went on:
“How long have I been here?”
His answer amazed me.
“Nearly a month.”
“Oh!” I cried. “I must send word to Suzanne. She’ll be terribly anxious.”
“Who is Suzanne?”
“Mrs. Blair. I was with her and Sir Eustace and Colonel Race at the hotel—but you knew
that, surely?”
He shook his head.
“I know nothing, except that I found you, caught in the fork of a tree, unconscious and with
a badly wrenched arm.”
“Where was the tree?”
“Overhanging the ravine. But for your clothes catching on the branches, you would
certainly have been dashed to pieces.”
I shuddered. Then a thought struck me.
“You say you didn’t know I was there. What about the note then?”
“What note?”
“The note you sent me, asking me to meet you in the clearing.”
He stared at me.
“I sent no note.”
I felt myself flushing up to the roots of my hair. Fortunately he did not seem to notice.
“How did you come to be on the spot in such a marvellous manner?” I asked, in as
nonchalant a manner as I could assume. “And what are you doing in this part of the world,
anyway?”
“I live here,” he said simply.
“On this island?”
“Yes, I came here after the War. Sometimes I take parties from the hotel out in my boat,
but it costs me very little to live, and mostly I do as I please.”
“You live here all alone?”
“I am not pining for society, I assure you,” he replied coldly.
“I am sorry to have inflicted mine upon you,” I retorted, “but I seem to have had very
little to say in the matter.”
To my surprise, his eyes twinkled a little.
“None whatever. I slung you across my shoulders like a sack of coal and carried you to
my boat. Quite like a primitive man of the Stone Age.”
“But for a different reason,” I put in.
He
flushed this time, a deep burning blush. The tan of his face was suffused.
“But you haven’t told me how you came to be wandering about so conveniently for me?” I
said hastily, to cover his confusion.
“I couldn’t sleep. I was restless—disturbed—had the feeling something was going to
happen. In the end I took the boat and came ashore and tramped down towards the Falls. I
was just at the head of the palm gully when I heard you scream.”
“Why didn’t you get help from the hotel instead of carting me all the way here?” I asked.
He flushed again.
“I suppose it seems an unpardonable liberty to you—but I don’t think that even now you
realize your danger! You think I should have informed your friends? Pretty friends, who
allowed you to be decoyed out to death. No, I swore to myself that I’d take better care of
you than anyone else could. Not a soul comes to this island. I got old Batani, whom I cured
of a fever once, to come and look after you. She’s loyal. She’ll never say a word. I could
keep you here for months and no one would ever know.”
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