and sticks
together, and caring nothing what other eyes might see it if only his
would, kindled them into a bright blaze.

How her hearing was strained to its uttermost tension! Every rustle of
a leaf, every snapping of a twig, sent a thrill of anticipatory joy
through her being, only to give way to sickening disappointment. An
hour went by, then two. Faint and exhausted, she had not even the
energy to prepare food. The one consciousness of her appalling
loneliness here in this scarcely trodden waste seemed to sap and
paralyse all her facilities. The weird voices of the night held a
different meaning now that she was lying out alone on the hillside.
Below, in the swamp, the trailing gleam of will-o'-the-wisps played
fitfully, and the croaking of frogs was never stilled.

Had anything befallen him? It must be so. Nothing short of that could
have kept him from returning to her. And she? She could do nothing to
aid him. She was so absolutely helpless.

"Oh, darling! why did I ever allow you to leave me, my own, my true
chivalrous love?" she murmured to herself amid a rain of tears,
confiding to herself the secret of her heart in the agony of her
distress and terror. And still the dark hours wore on, one upon
another, and he--the companion, protector--lover--did not return.

The night she had spent hiding in the river-bank after the slaughter of
the Hollingworths could hardly be surpassed for horror and apprehension,
Nidia had thought at the time. Now she recognised that it had been as
nothing to this one. Then she had hardly known the secret of her
heart--now she had discovered it. But--too late.

Yet, was it too late? Harm might not have befallen him, after all. He
might have missed his way in the darkness. In the very earliest dawn he
would return, and then the joy of it! This hope acted like a sedative
to poor Nidia's overwrought brain. The night air was soft and balmy.
At last she slept.

It was grey dawn when she awoke, but her awakening was startling, for it
was brought about by a loud harsh shout--almost in her ear. Nidia
sprang to her feet, trembling with terror. Several great dark shapes
fled to the rocks just overhanging her resting-place, and, gaining them,
faced round again, uttering their harsh, angry shout. Baboons? Could
they be? Nidia had seen here and there a dejected looking baboon or two
chained to a post; but such had nothing in common with these great
fierce brutes up th