CHAPTER XXII

A TERRIBLE NIGHT

We will return now to Mr. Hume, who was left supporting the unconscious form of Venning on the brink of the rushing river, with the vast vault above him, and the roar of sharp explosions bellowing at intervals through the hollows.  As he stooped over his young companion, he caught a fluttering of the eyelids, and placing the boy on the ground with a pillow made by his rolled-up coat, he unfastened the little medicine-bag which each always carried, and gave him a strong restorative.  Then he chafed the cold hands, took off the wet shoes, and did the same to the feet, which were like marble.  As the blood circulated under the friction, Venning regained his colour, and suddenly looked about him.

“I’m here, lad,” said Mr. Home, cheerily.  “You grew a little dizzy, but you’re all right.”

“What’s that noise?” asked the boy, breathlessly.  Mr. Hume picked him up, and carried him to the door of the vault.

“Magnificent, isn’t it?  Aren’t you glad we came?  One of the wonders of the world; and you’ve got the crow over Dick this time.”

Venning sighed.  “It’s rather awful,” he muttered.  “It’s grand, lad, grand!  See how the water juts out like a column of steam with the roar of a big gun, and how the light falls upon it in a thousand hues, as the fine spray falls.”

Venning’s eyes opened wide as they looked up.  “Like golden rain at a display of fireworks.”

“The very thing, lad,” answered the hunter, enthusiastically.

Venning’s eyes ranged slowly down to the well of green water arching out from the black wall, and then to the snow-white flood where the foam hissed in its giddy descent.

“Where is she?”

“She’ll be back soon.  But we cannot wait for her here—–­there is too much moisture.  We’ll get back to a drier place.”

Still carrying the boy, he made his way back to the great chamber, lit up mysteriously by those pale cones and glistening columns.  Here he found a dry place in a comer, and after placing Venning on the ground, he struck a match.

“Here’s a find,” he said, pouncing on a piece of driftwood.

With his Ghoorka knife he soon split it up, and in a short time a fire was blazing, throwing a red reflection on the stalactites.  It was an eerie place, echoing to the thunders of the explosions, with pitch-dark comers, 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