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 dream-like 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, some one 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 that 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 hung 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 toward 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 to-day!”
“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 infallibly 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 any one 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.”
I could keep you here for months and no one would ever know! How some words please one!
“You did quite right,” I said quietly. “And I shall not send word to any one. A day or so more anxiety doesn’t make much difference. It’s not as though they were my own people. They’re only acquaintances really—even Suzanne. And whoever wrote that note must have known—a great deal. It was not the work of an outsider.”
I managed to mention the note this time without blushing at all.
“If you would be guided by me——” he said, hesitating.
“I don’t expect I shall be,” I answered candidly. “But there’s no harm in hearing.”
“Do you always do what you like, Miss Beddingfeld?”
“Usually,” I replied cautiously. To any one else I would have said “Always.”
“I pity your husband,” he said unexpectedly.
“You needn’t,” I retorted. “I shouldn’t dream of marrying any one unless I was madly in love with them. And of course there is really nothing a woman enjoys so much as doing all the things she doesn’t like for the sake of some one she does like. And the more self-willed she is, the more she likes it.”
“I’m afraid I disagree with you. The boot is on the other leg as a rule.” He spoke with a slight sneer.
“Exactly,” I cried eagerly. “And that’s why there are so many unhappy marriages. It’s all the fault of the men. Either they give way to their women—and then ............