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So off we went to the brow of the hill on which the Temple stood, whence old Marnham pointed out to me a beacon, which I could not see in the dim, silvery bush-veld below, and how the line ran from it to another beacon somewhere else. "You know the Yellow-wood swamp," he said. "It passes straight through that.
There's Heda's ready." "Heda might return at any moment," replied the doctor. "Also Mr. Quatermain had better sleep in Mr. Anscombe's room. He will very likely want some one to look after him at night." Marnham opened his mouth to speak again, then changed his mind and was silent, as a servant is silent under rebuke.
For my part I became alarmed, especially as I perceived that Anscombe was on the verge of breaking into open merriment, and his legs being up I could not kick him under the table. "My partner ought to go to bed. Don't you think we should stop?" I said. "On the whole I do," replied Rodd, glowering at Marnham, who, somewhat unsteadily, was engaged in wiping drops of brandy from his long beard.
Particularly did she seem to take refuge behind my own insignificance, having, I suppose, come to the conclusion that I was a harmless person who might possibly prove useful. But all the while I felt that the storm was banking up. Indeed Marnham himself, at any rate to a great extent, played the part of the cloud-compelling Jove, for soon it became evident to me, and without doubt to Dr.
"The odd part of the affair is that one of those Basutos called out to us that some infernal scoundrel of a white had warned Sekukuni of our coming and that he had ordered them to take our guns and cattle. This Basuto, who was wounded and praying for mercy, was drowned before he could tell me who the white man was." "A Boer, I expect," said Marnham quietly.
"How old are you, Miss Marnham?" "I shall be of age in three months' time. You may guess that I did not intend to return here until they were over, but I was, well trapped. He wrote to me that my father was ill and I came." "At any rate when they are over you will not have to obey any one. It is not long to wait." "It is an eternity.
The cooking was good; there was real silver on the table, then a strange sight in that part of Africa, and amongst engravings and other pictures upon the walls, hung an oil portrait of a very beautiful young woman with dark hair and eyes. "Is that your daughter, Mr. Marnham?" I asked. "No," he replied rather shortly, "it is her mother."
He was a blackguard who, under other influences or with a few added grains of self-restraint and of the power of recovery, might have become a good or even a saintly man. But by some malice of Fate or some evil inheritance from an unknown past, those grains were lacking, and therefore he went not up but down the hill. "Case for you, Rodd," called out Marnham.
Again I wondered why the Basutos should look upon this particular spot as sacred, but thinking it wisest to ask no questions, I only answered "Thank you very much. We'll bear your invitation in mind, Mr. "Marnham." "Marnham," I repeated after him. "Good-bye and many thanks for your kindness." "One question," broke in Anscombe, "if you will not think me rude.
The man was Marnham. On the table were writing materials, also a brandy bottle with only a dreg of spirit in it. I looked for the glass and found it by his side on the floor, shattered, not merely broken. "Drunk," I said aloud, whereon the servant, who understood me, spoke for the first time, saying in a frightened voice in Dutch "No, Baas, dead, half cold. I found him so just now."
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