The whole
world, I remember, was still and golden in the sunset.

CHAPTER XX

MY LAST SIGHT OF THE REVEREND JOHN LAPUTA

It was dark before I got into the gorge of the Letaba. I passed many
patrols, but few spoke to me, and none tried to stop me. Some may have
known me, but I think it was my face and figure which tied their
tongues. I must have been pale as death, with tangled hair and fever
burning in my eyes. Also on my left temple was the splash of blood.

At Main Drift I found a big body of police holding the ford. I splashed
through and stumbled into one of their camp-fires. A man questioned me,
and told me that Arcoll had got his quarry. 'He's dead, they say.
They shot him out on the hills when he was making for the Limpopo.'
But I knew that this was not true. It was burned on my mind that
Laputa was alive, nay, was waiting for me, and that it was God's will
that we should meet in the cave.

A little later I struck the track of the Kaffirs' march. There was a
broad, trampled way through the bush, and I followed it, for it led to
Dupree's Drift. All this time I was urging the Schimmel with all the
vigour I had left in me. I had quite lost any remnant of fear. There
were no terrors left for me either from Nature or man. At Dupree's
Drift I rode the ford without a thought of crocodiles. I looked
placidly at the spot where Henriques had slain the Keeper and I had
stolen the rubies. There was no interest or imagination lingering in my
dull brain. My nerves had suddenly become things of stolid, untempered
iron. Each landmark I passed was noted down as one step nearer to my
object. At Umvelos' I had not the leisure to do more than glance at
the shell which I had built. I think I had forgotten all about that
night when I lay in the cellar and heard Laputa's plans. Indeed, my
doings of the past days were all hazy and trivial in my mind. I only
saw one sight clearly--two men, one tall and black, the other little
and sallow, slowly creeping nearer to the Rooirand, and myself, a
midget on a horse, spurring far behind through the bush on their trail.
I saw the picture as continuously and clearly as if I had been looking
at a scene on the stage. There was only one change in the setting; the
three figures seemed to be gradually closing together.

I had no exhilaration in my quest. I do not think I had even much
hope, for something had gone numb and cold in me and killed my youth.
I told myself that