Книга H. Rider Haggard — King Solomon’s Mines на английском языке

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Книга H. Rider Haggard — King Solomon's Mines на английском языке. Текст «Книга H. Rider Haggard — King Solomon's Mines на английском языке». Сначала смысл целиком, затем 8–12 ключевых слов, без пословного перевода.

CHAPTER I

I MEET SIR HENRY CURTIS

It is a curious thing that at my age—fifty-five last birthday—I
should find myself taking up a pen to try to write a history. I wonder
what sort of a history it will be when I have finished it, if ever I
come to the end of the trip! I have done a good many things in my
life, which seems a long one to me, owing to my having begun work so
young, perhaps. At an age when other boys are at school I was earning
my living as a trader in the old Colony. I have been trading, hunting,
fighting, or mining ever since. And yet it is only eight months ago
that I made my pile. It is a big pile now that I have got it—I don’t
yet know how big—but I do not think I would go through the last
fifteen or sixteen months again for it; no, not if I knew that I
should come out safe at the end, pile and all. But then I am a timid
man, and dislike violence; moreover, I am almost sick of adventure. I
wonder why I am going to write this book: it is not in my line. I am
not a literary man, though very devoted to the Old Testament and also
to the «Ingoldsby Legends.» Let me try to set down my reasons, just to
see if I have any.

First reason: Because Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good asked me.

Second reason: Because I am laid up here at Durban with the pain in my
left leg. Ever since that confounded lion got hold of me I have been
liable to this trouble, and being rather bad just now, it makes me
limp more than ever. There must be some poison in a lion’s teeth,
otherwise how is it that when your wounds are healed they break out
again, generally, mark you, at the same time of year that you got your
mauling? It is a hard thing when one has shot sixty-five lions or
more, as I have in the course of my life, that the sixty-sixth should
chew your leg like a quid of tobacco. It breaks the routine of the
thing, and putting other considerations aside, I am an orderly man and
don’t like that. This is by the way.

Third reason: Because I want my boy Harry, who is over there at the
hospital in London studying to become a doctor, to have something to
amuse him and keep him out of mischief for a week or so. Hospital work
must sometimes pall and grow rather dull, for even of cutting up dead
bodies there may come satiety, and as this history will not be dull,
whatever else it may be, it will put a little life into things for a
day or two while Harry is reading of our adventures.

Fourth reason and last: Because I am going to tell the strangest story
that I remember. It may seem a queer thing to say, especially
considering that there is no woman in it—except Foulata. Stop,
though! there is Gagaoola, if she was a woman, and not a fiend. But
she was a hundred at least, and therefore not marriageable, so I don’t
count her. At any rate, I can safely say that there is not a
/petticoat/ in the whole history.

Well, I had better come to the yoke. It is a stiff place, and I feel
as though I were bogged up to the axle. But, «/sutjes, sutjes/,» as
the Boers say—I am sure I don’t know how they spell it—softly does
it. A strong team will come through at last, that is, if they are not
too poor. You can never do anything with poor oxen. Now to make a
start.

I, Allan Quatermain, of Durban, Natal, Gentleman, make oath and say—
That’s how I headed my deposition before the magistrate about poor
Khiva’s and Ventvoegel’s sad deaths; but somehow it doesn’t seem quite
the right way to begin a book. And, besides, am I a gentleman? What is
a gentleman? I don’t quite know, and yet I have had to do with niggers
—no, I will scratch out that word «niggers,» for I do not like it.
I’ve known natives who /are/, and so you will say, Harry, my boy,
before you have done with this tale, and I have known mean whites with
lots of money and fresh out from home, too, who /are not/.

At any rate, I was born a gentleman, though I have been nothing but a
poor travelling trader and hunter all my life. Whether I have remained
so I known not, you must judge of that. Heaven knows I’ve tried. I
have killed many men in my time, yet I have never slain wantonly or
stained my hand in innocent blood, but only in self-defence. The
Almighty gave us our lives, and I suppose He meant us to defend them,
at least I have always acted on that, and I hope it will not be
brought up against me when my clock strikes. There, there, it is a
cruel and a wicked world, and for a timid man I have been mixed up in
a great deal of fighting. I cannot tell the rights of it, but at any
rate I have never stolen, though once I cheated a Kafir out of a herd
of cattle. But then he had done me a dirty turn, and it has troubled
me ever since into the bargain.

Well, it is eighteen months or so ago since first I met Sir Henry
Curtis and Captain Good. It was in this way. I had been up elephant
hunting beyond Bamangwato, and had met with bad luck. Everything went
wrong that trip, and to top up with I got the fever badly. So soon as
I was well enough I trekked down to the Diamond Fields, sold such
ivory as I had, together with my wagon and oxen, discharged my
hunters, and took the post-cart to the Cape. After spending a week in
Cape Town, finding that they overcharged me at the hotel, and having
seen everything there was to see, including the botanical gardens,
which seem to me likely to confer a great benefit on the country, and
the new Houses of Parliament, which I expect will do nothing of the
sort, I determined to go back to Natal by the /Dunkeld/, then lying at
the docks waiting for the /Edinburgh Castle/ due in from England. I
took my berth and went aboard, and that afternoon the Natal passengers
from the /Edinburgh Castle/ transhipped, and we weighed and put to
sea.

Among these passengers who came on board were two who excited my
curiosity. One, a gentleman of about thirty, was perhaps the biggest-
chested and longest-armed man I ever saw. He had yellow hair, a thick
yellow beard, clear-cut features, and large grey eyes set deep in his
head. I never saw a finer-looking man, and somehow he reminded me of
an ancient Dane. Not that I know much of ancient Danes, though I knew
a modern Dane who did me out of ten pounds; but I remember once seeing
a picture of some of those gentry, who, I take it, were a kind of
white Zulus. They were drinking out of big horns, and their long hair
hung down their backs. As I looked at my friend standing there by the
companion-ladder, I thought that if he only let his grow a little, put
one of those chain shirts on to his great shoulders, and took hold of
a battle-axe and a horn mug, he might have sat as a model for that
picture. And by the way it is a curious thing, and just shows how the
blood will out, I discovered afterwards that Sir Henry Curtis, for
that was the big man’s name, is of Danish blood.[*] He also reminded
me strongly of somebody else, but at the time I could not remember who
it was.

[*] Mr. Quatermain’s ideas about ancient Danes seem to be rather
confused; we have always understood that they were dark-haired
people. Probably he was thinking of Saxons.—Editor.

The other man, who stood talking to Sir Henry, was stout and dark, and
of quite a different cut. I suspected at once that he was a naval
officer; I don’t know why, but it is difficult to mistake a navy man.
I have gone shooting trips with several of them in the course of my
life, and they have always proved themselves the best and bravest and
nicest fellows I ever met, though sadly given, some of them, to the
use of profane language. I asked a page or two back, what is a
gentleman? I’ll answer the question now: A Royal Naval officer is, in
a general sort of way, though of course there may be a black sheep
among them here and there. I fancy it is just the wide seas and the
breath of God’s winds that wash their hearts and blow the bitterness
out of their minds and make them what men ought to be.

Well, to return, I proved right again; I ascertained that the dark man
/was/ a naval officer, a lieutenant of thirty-one, who, after
seventeen years’ service, had been turned out of her Majesty’s employ
with the barren honour of a commander’s rank, because it was
impossible that he should be promoted. This is what people who serve
the Queen have to expect: to be shot out into the cold world to find a
living just when they are beginning really to understand their work,
and to reach the prime of life. I suppose they don’t mind it, but for
my own part I had rather earn my bread as a hunter. One’s halfpence
are as scarce perhaps, but you do not get so many kicks.

The officer’s name I found out—by referring to the passengers’ lists
—was Good—Captain John Good. He was broad, of medium height, dark,
stout, and rather a curious man to look at. He was so very neat and so
very clean-shaved, and he always wore an eye-glass in his right eye.
It seemed to grow there, for it had no string, and he never took it
out except to wipe it. At first I thought he used to sleep in it, but
afterwards I found that this was a mistake. He put it in his trousers
pocket when he went to bed, together with his false teeth, of which he
had two beautiful sets that, my own being none of the best, have often
caused me to break the tenth commandment. But I am anticipating.

Soon after we had got under way evening closed in, and brought with it
very dirty weather. A keen breeze sprung up off land, and a kind of
aggravated Scotch mist soon drove everybody from the deck. As for the
/Dunkeld/, she is a flat-bottomed punt, and going up light as she was,
she rolled very heavily. It almost seemed as though she would go right
over, but she never did. It was quite impossible to walk about, so I
stood near the engines where it was warm, and amused myself with
watching the pendulum, which was fixed opposite to me, swinging slowly
backwards and forwards as the vessel rolled, and marking the angle she
touched at each lurch.

«That pendulum’s wrong; it is not properly weighted,» suddenly said a
somewhat testy voice at my shoulder. Looking round I saw the naval
officer whom I had noticed when the passengers came aboard.

«Indeed, now what makes you think so?» I asked.

«Think so. I don’t think at all. Why there»—as she righted herself
after a roll—«if the ship had really rolled to the degree that thing
pointed to, then she would never have rolled again, that’s all. But it
is just like these merchant skippers, they are always so confoundedly
careless.»

Just then the dinner-bell rang, and I was not sorry, for it is a
dreadful thing to have to listen to an officer of the Royal Navy when
he gets on to that subject. I only know one worse thing, and that is
to hear a merchant skipper express his candid opinion of officers of
the Royal Navy.

Captain Good and I went down to dinner together, and there we found
Sir Henry Curtis already seated. He and Captain Good were placed
together, and I sat opposite to them. The captain and I soon fell into
talk about shooting and what not; he asking me many questions, for he
is very inquisitive about all sorts of things, and I answering them as
well as I could. Presently he got on to elephants.

«Ah, sir,» called out somebody who was sitting near me, «you’ve
reached the right man for that; Hunter Quatermain should be able to
tell you about elephants if anybody can.»

Sir Henry, who had been sitting quite quiet listening to our talk,
started visibly.

«Excuse me, sir,» he said, leaning forward across the table, and
speaking in a low deep voice, a very suitable voice, it seemed to me,
to come out of those great lungs. «Excuse me, sir, but is your name
Allan Quatermain?»

I said that it was.

The big man made no further remark, but I heard him mutter «fortunate»
into his beard.

Presently dinner came to an end, and as we were leaving the saloon Sir
Henry strolled up and asked me if I would come into his cabin to smoke
a pipe. I accepted, and he led the way to the /Dunkeld/ deck cabin,
and a very good cabin it is. It had been two cabins, but when Sir
Garnet Wolseley or one of those big swells went down the coast in the
/Dunkeld/, they knocked away the partition and have never put it up
again. There was a sofa in the cabin, and a little table in front of
it. Sir Henry sent the steward for a bottle of whisky, and the three
of us sat down and lit our pipes.

«Mr. Quatermain,» said Sir Henry Curtis, when the man had brought the
whisky and lit the lamp, «the year before last about this time, you
were, I believe, at a place called Bamangwato, to the north of the
Transvaal.»

«I was,» I answered, rather surprised that this gentleman should be so
well acquainted with my movements, which were not, so far as I was
aware, considered of general interest.

«You were trading there, were you not?» put in Captain Good, in his
quick way.

«I was. I took up a wagon-load of goods, made a camp outside the
settlement, and stopped till I had sold them.»

Sir Henry was sitting opposite to me in a Madeira chair, his arms
leaning on the table. He now looked up, fixing his large grey eyes
full upon my face. There was a curious anxiety in them, I thought.

«Did you happen to meet a man called Neville there?»

«Oh, yes; he outspanned alongside of me for a fortnight to rest his
oxen before going on to the interior. I had a letter from a lawyer a
few months back, asking me if I knew what had become of him, which I
answered to the best of my ability at the time.»

«Yes,» said Sir Henry, «your letter was forwarded to me. You said in
it that the gentleman called Neville left Bamangwato at the beginning
of May in a wagon with a driver, a voorlooper, and a Kafir hunter
called Jim, announcing his intention of trekking if possible as far as
Inyati, the extreme trading post in the Matabele country, where he
would sell his wagon and proceed on foot. You also said that he did
sell his wagon, for six months afterwards you saw the wagon in the
possession of a Portuguese trader, who told you that he had bought it
at Inyati from a white man whose name he had forgotten, and that he
believed the white man with the native servant had started off for the
interior on a shooting trip.»

«Yes.»

Then came a pause.

«Mr. Quatermain,» said Sir Henry suddenly, «I suppose you know or can
guess nothing more of the reasons of my—of Mr. Neville’s journey to
the northward, or as to what point that journey was directed?»

«I heard something,» I answered, and stopped. The subject was one
which I did not care to discuss.

Sir Henry and Captain Good looked at each other, and Captain Good
nodded.

«Mr. Quatermain,» went on the former, «I am going to tell you a story,
and ask your advice, and perhaps your assistance. The agent who
forwarded me your letter told me that I might rely on it implicitly,
as you were,» he said, «well known and universally respected in Natal,
and especially noted for your discretion.»

I bowed and drank some whisky and water to hide my confusion, for I am
a modest man—and Sir Henry went on.

«Mr. Neville was my brother.»

«Oh,» I said, starting, for now I knew of whom Sir Henry had reminded
me when first I saw him. His brother was a much smaller man and had a
dark beard, but now that I thought of it, he possessed eyes of the
same shade of grey and with the same keen look in them: the features
too were not unlike.

«He was,» went on Sir Henry, «my only and younger brother, and till
five years ago I do not suppose that we were ever a month away from
each other. But just about five years ago a misfortune befell us, as
sometimes does happen in families. We quarrelled bitterly, and I
behaved unjustly to my brother in my anger.»

Here Captain Good nodded his head vigorously to himself. The ship gave
a big roll just then, so that the looking-glass, which was fixed
opposite us to starboard, was for a moment nearly over our heads, and
as I was sitting with my hands in my pockets and staring upwards, I
could see him nodding like anything.

«As I daresay you know,» went on Sir Henry, «if a man dies intestate,
and has no property but land, real property it is called in England,
it all descends to his eldest son. It so happened that just at the
time when we quarrelled our father died intestate. He had put off
making his will until it was too late. The result was that my brother,
who had not been brought up to any profession, was left without a
penny. Of course it would have been my duty to provide for him, but at
the time the quarrel between us was so bitter that I did not—to my
shame I say it (and he sighed deeply)—offer to do anything. It was
not that I grudged him justice, but I waited for him to make advances,
and he made none. I am sorry to trouble you with all this, Mr.
Quatermain, but I must to make things clear, eh, Good?»

«Quite so, quite so,» said the captain. «Mr. Quatermain will, I am
sure, keep this history to himself.»

«Of course,» said I, for I rather pride myself on my discretion, for
which, as Sir Henry had heard, I have some repute.

«Well,» went on Sir Henry, «my brother had a few hundred pounds to his
account at the time. Without saying anything to me he drew out this
paltry sum, and, having adopted the name of Neville, started off for
South Africa in the wild hope of making a fortune. This I learned
afterwards. Some three years passed, and I heard nothing of my
brother, though I wrote several times. Doubtless the letters never
reached him. But as time went on I grew more and more troubled about
him. I found out, Mr. Quatermain, that blood is thicker than water.»

«That’s true,» said I, thinking of my boy Harry.

«I found out, Mr. Quatermain, that I would have given half my fortune
to know that my brother George, the only relation I possess, was safe
and well, and that I should see him again.»

«But you never did, Curtis,» jerked out Captain Good, glancing at the
big man’s face.

«Well, Mr. Quatermain, as time went on I became more and more anxious
to find out if my brother was alive or dead, and if alive to get him
home again. I set enquiries on foot, and your letter was one of the
results. So far as it went it was satisfactory, for it showed that
till lately George was alive, but it did not go far enough. So, to cut
a long story short, I made up my mind to come out and look for him
myself, and Captain Good was so kind as to come with me.»

«Yes,» said the captain; «nothing else to do, you see. Turned out by
my Lords of the Admiralty to starve on half pay. And now perhaps, sir,
you will tell us what you know or have heard of the gentleman called
Neville.»

CHAPTER II

THE LEGEND OF SOLOMON’S MINES

«What was it that you heard about my brother’s journey at Bamangwato?»
asked Sir Henry, as I paused to fill my pipe before replying to
Captain Good.

«I heard this,» I answered, «and I have never mentioned it to a soul
till to-day. I heard that he was starting for Solomon’s Mines.»

«Solomon’s Mines?» ejaculated both my hearers at once. «Where are
they?»

«I don’t know,» I said; «I know where they are said to be. Once I saw
the peaks of the mountains that border them, but there were a hundred
and thirty miles of desert between me and them, and I am not aware
that any white man ever got across it save one. But perhaps the best
thing I can do is to tell you the legend of Solomon’s Mines as I know
it, you passing your word not to reveal anything I tell you without my
permission. Do you agree to that? I have my reasons for asking.»

Sir Henry nodded, and Captain Good replied, «Certainly, certainly.»

«Well,» I began, «as you may guess, generally speaking, elephant
hunters are a rough set of men, who do not trouble themselves with
much beyond the facts of life and the ways of Kafirs. But here and
there you meet a man who takes the trouble to collect traditions from
the natives, and tries to make out a little piece of the history of
this dark land. It was such a man as this who first told me the legend
of Solomon’s Mines, now a matter of nearly thirty years ago. That was
when I was on my first elephant hunt in the Matalebe country. His name
was Evans, and he was killed the following year, poor fellow, by a
wounded buffalo, and lies buried near the Zambesi Falls. I was telling
Evans one night, I remember, of some wonderful workings I had found
whilst hunting koodoo and eland in what is now the Lydenburg district
of the Transvaal. I see they have come across these workings again
lately in prospecting for gold, but I knew of them years ago. There is
a great wide wagon road cut out of the solid rock, and leading to the
mouth of the working or gallery. Inside the mouth of this gallery are
stacks of gold quartz piled up ready for roasting, which shows that
the workers, whoever they were, must have left in a hurry. Also, about
twenty paces in, the gallery is built across, and a beautiful bit of
masonry it is.»

«‘Ay,’ said Evans, ‘but I will spin you a queerer yarn than that’; and
he went on to tell me how he had found in the far interior a ruined
city, which he believed to be the Ophir of the Bible, and, by the way,
other more learned men have said the same long since poor Evans’s
time. I was, I remember, listening open-eared to all these wonders,
for I was young at the time, and this story of an ancient civilisation
and of the treasures which those old Jewish or Phoenician adventurers
used to extract from a country long since lapsed into the darkest
barbarism took a great hold upon my imagination, when suddenly he said
to me, ‘Lad, did you ever hear of the Suliman Mountains up to the
north-west of the Mushakulumbwe country?’ I told him I never had. ‘Ah,
well,’ he said, ‘that is where Solomon really had his mines, his
diamond mines, I mean.’

«‘How do you know that?’ I asked.

«‘Know it! why, what is «Suliman» but a corruption of Solomon?[*]
Besides, an old Isanusi or witch doctoress up in the Manica country
told me all about it. She said that the people who lived across those
mountains were a «branch» of the Zulus, speaking a dialect of Zulu,
but finer and bigger men even; that there lived among them great
wizards, who had learnt their art from white men when «all the world
was dark,» and who had the secret of a wonderful mine of «bright
stones.»‘

[*] Suliman is the Arabic form of Solomon.—Editor.

«Well, I laughed at this story at the time, though it interested me,
for the Diamond Fields were not discovered then, but poor Evans went
off and was killed, and for twenty years I never thought any more of
the matter. However, just twenty years afterwards—and that is a long
time, gentlemen; an elephant hunter does not often live for twenty
years at his business—I heard something more definite about Suliman’s
Mountains and the country which lies beyond them. I was up beyond the
Manica country, at a place called Sitanda’s Kraal, and a miserable
place it was, for a man could get nothing to eat, and there was but
little game about. I had an attack of fever, and was in a bad way
generally, when one day a Portugee arrived with a single companion—a
half-breed. Now I know your low-class Delagoa Portugee well. There is
no greater devil unhung in a general way, battening as he does upon
human agony and flesh in the shape of slaves. But this was quite a
different type of man to the mean fellows whom I had been accustomed
to meet; indeed, in appearance he reminded me more of the polite doms
I have read about, for he was tall and thin, with large dark eyes and
curling grey mustachios. We talked together for a while, for he could
speak broken English, and I understood a little Portugee, and he told
me that his name was Jose Silvestre, and that he had a place near
Delagoa Bay. When he went on next day with his half-breed companion,
he said ‘Good-bye,’ taking off his hat quite in the old style.

«‘Good-bye, senoer,’ he said; ‘if ever we meet again I shall be the
richest man in the world, and I will remember you.’ I laughed a little
—I was too weak to laugh much—and watched him strike out for the
great desert to the west, wondering if he was mad, or what he thought
he was going to find there.

«A week passed, and I got the better of my fever. One evening I was
sitting on the ground in front of the little tent I had with me,
chewing the last leg of a miserable fowl I had bought from a native
for a bit of cloth worth twenty fowls, and staring at the hot red sun
sinking down over the desert, when suddenly I saw a figure, apparently
that of a European, for it wore a coat, on the slope of the rising
ground opposite to me, about three hundred yards away. The figure
crept along on its hands and knees, then it got up and staggered
forward a few yards on its legs, only to fall and crawl again. Seeing
that it must be somebody in distress, I sent one of my hunters to help
him, and presently he arrived, and who do you suppose it turned out to
be?»

«Jose Silvestre, of course,» said Captain Good.

«Yes, Jose Silvestre, or rather his skeleton and a little skin. His
face was a bright yellow with bilious fever, and his large dark eyes
stood nearly out of his head, for all the flesh had gone. There was
nothing but yellow parchment-like skin, white hair, and the gaunt
bones sticking up beneath.

«‘Water! for the sake of Christ, water!’ he moaned and I saw that his
lips were cracked, and his tongue, which protruded between them, was
swollen and blackish.

«I gave him water with a little milk in it, and he drank it in great
gulps, two quarts or so, without stopping. I would not let him have
any more. Then the fever took him again, and he fell down and began to
rave about Suliman’s Mountains, and the diamonds, and the desert. I
carried him into the tent and did what I could for him, which was
little enough; but I saw how it must end. About eleven o’clock he grew
quieter, and I lay down for a little rest and went to sleep. At dawn I
woke again, and in the half light saw Silvestre sitting up, a strange,
gaunt form, and gazing out towards the desert. Presently the first ray
of the sun shot right across the wide plain before us till it reached
the faraway crest of one of the tallest of the Suliman Mountains more
than a hundred miles away.

«‘There it is!’ cried the dying man in Portuguese, and pointing with
his long, thin arm, ‘but I shall never reach it, never. No one will
ever reach it!’

«Suddenly, he paused, and seemed to take a resolution. ‘Friend,’ he
said, turning towards me, ‘are you there? My eyes grow dark.’

«‘Yes,’ I said; ‘yes, lie down now, and rest.’

«‘Ay,’ he answered, ‘I shall rest soon, I have time to rest—all
eternity. Listen, I am dying! You have been good to me. I will give
you the writing. Perhaps you will get there if you can live to pass
the desert, which has killed my poor servant and me.’

«Then he groped in his shirt and brought out what I thought was a Boer
tobacco pouch made of the skin of the Swart-vet-pens or sable
antelope. It was fastened with a little strip of hide, what we call a
rimpi, and this he tried to loose, but could not. He handed it to me.
‘Untie it,’ he said. I did so, and extracted a bit of torn yellow
linen on which something was written in rusty letters. Inside this rag
was a paper.

«Then he went on feebly, for he was growing weak: ‘The paper has all
that is on the linen. It took me years to read. Listen: my ancestor, a
political refugee from Lisbon, and one of the first Portuguese who
landed on these shores, wrote that when he was dying on those
mountains which no white foot ever pressed before or since. His name
was Jose da Silvestra, and he lived three hundred years ago. His
slave, who waited for him on this side of the mountains, found him
dead, and brought the writing home to Delagoa. It has been in the
family ever since, but none have cared to read it, till at last I did.
And I have lost my life over it, but another may succeed, and become
the richest man in the world—the richest man in the world. Only give
it to no one, senoer; go yourself!’

«Then he began to wander again, and in an hour it was all over.

«God rest him! he died very quietly, and I buried him deep, with big
boulders on his breast; so I do not think that the jackals can have
dug him up. And then I came away.»

«Ay, but the document?» said Sir Henry, in a tone of deep interest.

«Yes, the document; what was in it?» added the captain.

«Well, gentlemen, if you like I will tell you. I have never showed it
to anybody yet except to a drunken old Portuguese trader who
translated it for me, and had forgotten all about it by the next
morning. The original rag is at my home in Durban, together with poor
Dom Jose’s translation, but I have the English rendering in my pocket-
book, and a facsimile of the map, if it can be called a map. Here it
is.»

[MAP OMITTED]

«I, Jose da Silvestra, who am now dying of hunger in the little
cave here no snow is on the north side of the nipple of the
southernmost of the two mountains I have named Sheba’s Breasts,
write this in the year 1590 with a cleft bone upon a remnant of my
raiment, my blood being the ink. If my slave should find it when
he comes, and should bring it to Delagoa, let my friend (name
illegible) bring the matter to the knowledge of the king, that he
may send an army which, if they live through the desert and the
mountains, and can overcome the brave Kukuanes and their devilish
arts, to which end many priests should be brought, will make him
the richest king since Solomon. With my own eyes I have seen the
countless diamonds stored in Solomon’s treasure chamber behind the
white Death; but through the treachery of Gagool the witch-finder
I might bring nought away, scarcely my life. Let him who comes
follow the map, and climb the snow of Sheba’s left breast till he
reaches the nipple, on the north side of which is the great road
Solomon made, from whence three days’ journey to the King’s
Palace. Let him kill Gagool. Pray for my soul. Farewell.

Jose da Silvestra.»[*]

[*] Eu Jose da Silvestra que estou morrendo de fome na pequena cova
onde nao ha neve ao lado norte do bico mais ao sul das duas
montanhas que chamei scio de Sheba; escrevo isto no anno 1590;
escrevo isto com um pedaco d’osso n’ um farrapo de minha roupa e
com sangue meu por tinta; se o meu escravo der com isto quando
venha ao levar para Lourenzo Marquez, que o meu amigo ———
leve a cousa ao conhecimento d’ El Rei, para que possa mandar um
exercito que, se desfiler pelo deserto e pelas montonhas e mesmo
sobrepujar os bravos Kukuanes e suas artes diabolicas, pelo que se
deviam trazer muitos padres Far o Rei mais rico depois de Salomao
Com meus proprios olhos ve os di amantes sem conto guardados nas
camaras do thesouro de Salomao a traz da morte branca, mas pela
traicao de Gagoal a feiticeira achadora, nada poderia levar, e
apenas a minha vida. Quem vier siga o mappa e trepe pela neve de
Sheba peito a esquerda ate chegar ao bica, do lado norte do qual
esta a grande estrada do Solomao por elle feita, donde ha tres
dias de jornada ate ao Palacio do Rei. Mate Gagoal. Reze por minha
alma. Adeos. Jose da Silvestra.

When I had finished reading the above, and shown the copy of the map,
drawn by the dying hand of the old Dom with his blood for ink, there
followed a silence of astonishment.

«Well,» said Captain Good, «I have been round the world twice, and put
in at most ports, but may I be hung for a mutineer if ever I heard a
yarn like this out of a story book, or in it either, for the matter of
that.»

«It’s a queer tale, Mr. Quatermain,» said Sir Henry. «I suppose you
are not hoaxing us? It is, I know, sometimes thought allowable to take
in a greenhorn.»

«If you think that, Sir Henry,» I said, much put out, and pocketing my
paper—for I do not like to be thought one of those silly fellows who
consider it witty to tell lies, and who are for ever boasting to
newcomers of extraordinary hunting adventures which never happened—
«if you think that, why, there is an end to the matter,» and I rose to
go.

Sir Henry laid his large hand upon my shoulder. «Sit down, Mr.
Quatermain,» he said, «I beg your pardon; I see very well you do not
wish to deceive us, but the story sounded so strange that I could
hardly believe it.»

«You shall see the original map and writing when we reach Durban,» I
answered, somewhat mollified, for really when I came to consider the
question it was scarcely wonderful that he should doubt my good faith.

«But,» I went on, «I have not told you about your brother. I knew the
man Jim who was with him. He was a Bechuana by birth, a good hunter,
and for a native a very clever man. That morning on which Mr. Neville
was starting I saw Jim standing by my wagon and cutting up tobacco on
the disselboom.

«‘Jim,’ said I, ‘where are you off to this trip? It is elephants?’

«‘No, Baas,’ he answered, ‘we are after something worth much more than
ivory.’

«‘And what might that be?’ I said, for I was curious. ‘Is it gold?’

«‘No, Baas, something worth more than gold,’ and he grinned.

«I asked no more questions, for I did not like to lower my dignity by
seeming inquisitive, but I was puzzled. Presently Jim finished cutting
his tobacco.

«‘Baas,’ said he.

«I took no notice.

«‘Baas,’ said he again.

«‘Eh, boy, what is it?’ I asked.

«‘Baas, we are going after diamonds.’

«‘Diamonds! why, then, you are steering in the wrong direction; you
should head for the Fields.’

«‘Baas, have you ever heard of Suliman’s Berg?’—that is, Solomon’s
Mountains, Sir Henry.

«‘Ay!’

«‘Have you ever heard of the diamonds there?’

«‘I have heard a foolish story, Jim.’

«‘It is no story, Baas. Once I knew a woman who came from there, and
reached Natal with her child, she told me:—she is dead now.’

«‘Your master will feed the assvoegels’—that is, vultures—‘Jim, if he
tries to reach Suliman’s country, and so will you if they can get any
pickings off your worthless old carcass,’ said I.

«He grinned. ‘Mayhap, Baas. Man must die; I’d rather like to try a new
country myself; the elephants are getting worked out about here.’

«‘Ah! my boy,’ I said, ‘you wait till the «pale old man» gets a grip
of your yellow throat, and then we shall hear what sort of a tune you
sing.’

«Half an hour after that I saw Neville’s wagon move off. Presently Jim
came back running. ‘Good-bye, Baas,’ he said. ‘I didn’t like to start
without bidding you good-bye, for I daresay you are right, and that we
shall never trek south again.’

«‘Is your master really going to Suliman’s Berg, Jim, or are you
lying?’

«‘No,’ he answered, ‘he is going. He told me he was bound to make his
fortune somehow, or try to; so he might as well have a fling for the
diamonds.’

«‘Oh!’ I said; ‘wait a bit, Jim; will you take a note to your master,
Jim, and promise not to give it to him till you reach Inyati?’ which
was some hundred miles off.

«‘Yes, Baas.’

«So I took a scrap of paper, and wrote on it, ‘Let him who comes . . .
climb the snow of Sheba’s left breast, till he reaches the nipple, on
the north side of which is Solomon’s great road.’

«‘Now, Jim,’ I said, ‘when you give this to your master, tell him he
had better follow the advice on it implicitly. You are not to give it
to him now, because I don’t want him back asking me questions which I
won’t answer. Now be off, you idle fellow, the wagon is nearly out of
sight.’

«Jim took the note and went, and that is all I know about your
brother, Sir Henry; but I am much afraid—«

«Mr. Quatermain,» said Sir Henry, «I am going to look for my brother;
I am going to trace him to Suliman’s Mountains, and over them if
necessary, till I find him, or until I know that he is dead. Will you
come with me?»

I am, as I think I have said, a cautious man, indeed a timid one, and
this suggestion frightened me. It seemed to me that to undertake such
a journey would be to go to certain death, and putting other
considerations aside, as I had a son to support, I could not afford to
die just then.

«No, thank you, Sir Henry, I think I had rather not,» I answered. «I
am too old for wild-goose chases of that sort, and we should only end
up like my poor friend Silvestre. I have a son dependent on me, so I
cannot afford to risk my life foolishly.»

Both Sir Henry and Captain Good looked very disappointed.

«Mr. Quatermain,» said the former, «I am well off, and I am bent upon
this business. You may put the remuneration for your services at
whatever figure you like in reason, and it shall be paid over to you
before we start. Moreover, I will arrange in the event of anything
untoward happening to us or to you, that your son shall be suitably
provided for. You will see from this offer how necessary I think your
presence. Also if by chance we should reach this place, and find
diamonds, they shall belong to you and Good equally. I do not want
them. But of course that promise is worth nothing at all, though the
same thing would apply to any ivory we might get. You may pretty well
make your own terms with me, Mr. Quatermain; and of course I shall pay
all expenses.»

«Sir Henry,» said I, «this is the most liberal proposal I ever had,
and one not to be sneezed at by a poor hunter and trader. But the job
is the biggest I have come across, and I must take time to think it
over. I will give you my answer before we get to Durban.»

«Very good,» answered Sir Henry.

Then I said good-night and turned in, and dreamt about poor long-dead
Silvestre and the diamonds.

CHAPTER III

UMBOPA ENTERS OUR SERVICE

It takes from four to five days, according to the speed of the vessel
and the state of the weather, to run up from the Cape to Durban.
Sometimes, if the landing is bad at East London, where they have not
yet made that wonderful harbour they talk so much of, and sink such a
mint of money in, a ship is delayed for twenty-four hours before the
cargo boats can get out to take off the goods. But on this occasion we
had not to wait at all, for there were no breakers on the Bar to speak
of, and the tugs came out at once with the long strings of ugly flat-
bottomed boats behind them, into which the packages were bundled with
a crash. It did not matter what they might be, over they went slap-
bang; whether they contained china or woollen goods they met with the
same treatment. I saw one case holding four dozen of champagne smashed
all to bits, and there was the champagne fizzing and boiling about in
the bottom of the dirty cargo boat. It was a wicked waste, and
evidently so the Kafirs in the boat thought, for they found a couple
of unbroken bottles, and knocking off the necks drank the contents.
But they had not allowed for the expansion caused by the fizz in the
wine, and, feeling themselves swelling, rolled about in the bottom of
the boat, calling out that the good liquor was «tagati»—that is,
bewitched. I spoke to them from the vessel, and told them it was the
white man’s strongest medicine, and that they were as good as dead
men. Those Kafirs went to the shore in a very great fright, and I do
not think that they will touch champagne again.

Well, all the time that we were steaming up to Natal I was thinking
over Sir Henry Curtis’s offer. We did not speak any more on the
subject for a day or two, though I told them many hunting yarns, all
true ones. There is no need to tell lies about hunting, for so many
curious things happen within the knowledge of a man whose business it
is to hunt; but this is by the way.

At last, one beautiful evening in January, which is our hottest month,
we steamed past the coast of Natal, expecting to make Durban Point by
sunset. It is a lovely coast all along from East London, with its red
sandhills and wide sweeps of vivid green, dotted here and there with
Kafir kraals, and bordered by a ribbon of white surf, which spouts up
in pillars of foam where it hits the rocks. But just before you come
to Durban there is a peculiar richness about the landscape. There are
the sheer kloofs cut in the hills by the rushing rains of centuries,
down which the rivers sparkle; there is the deepest green of the bush,
growing as God planted it, and the other greens of the mealie gardens
and the sugar patches, while now and again a white house, smiling out
at the placid sea, puts a finish and gives an air of homeliness to the
scene. For to my mind, however beautiful a view may be, it requires
the presence of man to make it complete, but perhaps that is because I
have lived so much in the wilderness, and therefore know the value of
civilisation, though to be sure it drives away the game. The Garden of
Eden, no doubt, looked fair before man was, but I always think that it
must have been fairer when Eve adorned it.

To return, we had miscalculated a little, and the sun was well down
before we dropped anchor off the Point, and heard the gun which told
the good folks of Durban that the English Mail was in. It was too late
to think of getting over the Bar that night, so we went comfortably to
dinner, after seeing the Mails carried off in the life-boat.

When we came up again the moon was out, and shining so brightly over
sea and shore that she almost paled the quick, large flashes from the
lighthouse. From the shore floated sweet spicy odours that always
remind me of hymns and missionaries, and in the windows of the houses
on the Berea sparkled a hundred lights. From a large brig lying near
also came the music of the sailors as they worked at getting the
anchor up in order to be ready for the wind. Altogether it was a
perfect night, such a night as you sometimes get in Southern Africa,
and it threw a garment of peace over everybody as the moon threw a
garment of silver over everything. Even the great bulldog, belonging
to a sporting passenger, seemed to yield to its gentle influences, and
forgetting his yearning to come to close quarters with the baboon in a
cage on the foc’sle, snored happily at the door of the cabin, dreaming
no doubt that he had finished him, and happy in his dream.

We three—that is, Sir Henry Curtis, Captain Good, and myself—went
and sat by the wheel, and were quiet for a while.

«Well, Mr. Quatermain,» said Sir Henry presently, «have you been
thinking about my proposals?»

«Ay,» echoed Captain Good, «what do you think of them, Mr. Quatermain?
I hope that you are going to give us the pleasure of your company so
far as Solomon’s Mines, or wherever the gentleman you knew as Neville
may have got to.»

I rose and knocked out my pipe before I answered. I had not made up my
mind, and wanted an additional moment to decide. Before the burning
tobacco had fallen into the sea I had decided; just that little extra
second did the trick. It is often the way when you have been bothering
a long time over a thing.

«Yes, gentlemen,» I said, sitting down again, «I will go, and by your
leave I will tell you why, and on what conditions. First for the terms
which I ask.

«1. You are to pay all expenses, and any ivory or other valuables we
may get is to be divided between Captain Good and myself.

«2. That you give me L500 for my services on the trip before we start,
I undertaking to serve you faithfully till you choose to abandon the
enterprise, or till we succeed, or disaster overtakes us.

«3. That before we trek you execute a deed agreeing, in the event of
my death or disablement, to pay my boy Harry, who is studying medicine
over there in London, at Guy’s Hospital, a sum of L200 a year for five
years, by which time he ought to be able to earn a living for himself
if he is worth his salt. That is all, I think, and I daresay you will
say quite enough too.»

«No,» answered Sir Henry, «I accept them gladly. I am bent upon this
project, and would pay more than that for your help, considering the
peculiar and exclusive knowledge which you possess.»

«Pity I did not ask it, then, but I won’t go back on my word. And now
that I have got my terms I will tell you my reasons for making up my
mind to go. First of all, gentlemen, I have been observing you both
for the last few days, and if you will not think me impertinent I may
say that I like you, and believe that we shall come up well to the
yoke together. That is something, let me tell you, when one has a long
journey like this before one.

«And now as to the journey itself, I tell you flatly, Sir Henry and
Captain Good, that I do not think it probable we can come out of it
alive, that is, if we attempt to cross the Suliman Mountains. What was
the fate of the old Dom da Silvestra three hundred years ago? What was
the fate of his descendant twenty years ago? What has been your
brother’s fate? I tell you frankly, gentlemen, that as their fates
were so I believe ours will be.»

I paused to watch the effect of my words. Captain Good looked a little
uncomfortable, but Sir Henry’s face did not change. «We must take our
chance,» he said.

«You may perhaps wonder,» I went on, «why, if I think this, I, who am,
as I told you, a timid man, should undertake such a journey. It is for
two reasons. First I am a fatalist, and believe that my time is
appointed to come quite without reference to my own movements and
will, and that if I am to go to Suliman’s Mountains to be killed, I
shall go there and shall be killed. God Almighty, no doubt, knows His
mind about me, so I need not trouble on that point. Secondly, I am a
poor man. For nearly forty years I have hunted and traded, but I have
never made more than a living. Well, gentlemen, I don’t know if you
are aware that the average life of an elephant hunter from the time he
takes to the trade is between four and five years. So you see I have
lived through about seven generations of my class, and I should think
that my time cannot be far off, anyway. Now, if anything were to
happen to me in the ordinary course of business, by the time my debts
are paid there would be nothing left to support my son Harry whilst he
was getting in the way of earning a living, whereas now he will be set
up for five years. There is the whole affair in a nutshell.»

«Mr. Quatermain,» said Sir Henry, who had been giving me his most
serious attention, «your motives for undertaking an enterprise which
you believe can only end in disaster reflect a great deal of credit on
you. Whether or not you are right, of course time and the event alone
can show. But whether you are right or wrong, I may as well tell you
at once that I am going through with it to the end, sweet or bitter.
If we are to be knocked on the head, all I have to say is, that I hope
we get a little shooting first, eh, Good?»

«Yes, yes,» put in the captain. «We have all three of us been
accustomed to face danger, and to hold our lives in our hands in
various ways, so it is no good turning back now. And now I vote we go
down to the saloon and take an observation just for luck, you know.»
And we did—through the bottom of a tumbler.

Next day we went ashore, and I put up Sir Henry and Captain Good at
the little shanty I have built on the Berea, and which I call my home.
There are only three rooms and a kitchen in it, and it is constructed
of green brick with a galvanised iron roof, but there is a good garden
with the best loquot trees in it that I know, and some nice young
mangoes, of which I hope great things. The curator of the botanical
gardens gave them to me. It is looked after by an old hunter of mine
named Jack, whose thigh was so badly broken by a buffalo cow in
Sikukunis country that he will never hunt again. But he can potter
about and garden, being a Griqua by birth. You will never persuade a
Zulu to take much interest in gardening. It is a peaceful art, and
peaceful arts are not in his line.

Sir Henry and Good slept in a tent pitched in my little grove of
orange trees at the end of the garden, for there was no room for them
in the house, and what with the smell of the bloom, and the sight of
the green and golden fruit—in Durban you will see all three on the
tree together—I daresay it is a pleasant place enough, for we have
few mosquitos here on the Berea, unless there happens to come an
unusually heavy rain.

Well, to get on—for if I do not, Harry, you will be tired of my story
before ever we fetch up at Suliman’s Mountains—having once made up my
mind to go I set about making the necessary preparations. First I
secured the deed from Sir Henry, providing for you, my boy, in case of
accidents. There was some difficulty about its legal execution, as Sir
Henry was a stranger here, and the property to be charged is over the
water; but it was ultimately got over with the help of a lawyer, who
charged L20 for the job—a price that I thought outrageous. Then I
pocketed my cheque for L500.

Having paid this tribute to my bump of caution, I purchased a wagon
and a span of oxen on Sir Henry’s behalf, and beauties they were. It
was a twenty-two-foot wagon with iron axles, very strong, very light,
and built throughout of stink wood; not quite a new one, having been
to the Diamond Fields and back, but, in my opinion, all the better for
that, for I could see that the wood was well seasoned. If anything is
going to give in a wagon, or if there is green wood in it, it will
show out on the first trip. This particular vehicle was what we call a
«half-tented» wagon, that is to say, only covered in over the after
twelve feet, leaving all the front part free for the necessaries we
had to carry with us. In this after part were a hide «cartle,» or bed,
on which two people could sleep, also racks for rifles, and many other
little conveniences. I gave L125 for it, and think that it was cheap
at the price.

Then I bought a beautiful team of twenty Zulu oxen, which I had kept
my eye on for a year or two. Sixteen oxen is the usual number for a
team, but I took four extra to allow for casualties. These Zulu cattle
are small and light, not more than half the size of the Africander
oxen, which are generally used for transport purposes; but they will
live where the Africanders would starve, and with a moderate load can
make five miles a day better going, being quicker and not so liable to
become footsore. What is more, this lot were thoroughly «salted,» that
is, they had worked all over South Africa, and so had become proof,
comparatively speaking, against red water, which so frequently
destroys whole teams of oxen when they get on to strange «veldt» or
grass country. As for «lung sick,» which is a dreadful form of
pneumonia, very prevalent in this country, they had all been
inoculated against it. This is done by cutting a slit in the tail of
an ox, and binding in a piece of the diseased lung of an animal which
has died of the sickness. The result is that the ox sickens, takes the
disease in a mild form, which causes its tail to drop off, as a rule
about a foot from the root, and becomes proof against future attacks.
It seems cruel to rob the animal of his tail, especially in a country
where there are so many flies, but it is better to sacrifice the tail
and keep the ox than to lose both tail and ox, for a tail without an
ox is not much good, except to dust with. Still it does look odd to
trek along behind twenty stumps, where there ought to be tails. It
seems as though Nature made a trifling mistake, and stuck the stern
ornaments of a lot of prize bull-dogs on to the rumps of the oxen.

Next came the question of provisioning and medicines, one which
required the most careful consideration, for what we had to do was to
avoid lumbering the wagon, and yet to take everything absolutely
necessary. Fortunately, it turned out that Good is a bit of a doctor,
having at some point in his previous career managed to pass through a
course of medical and surgical instruction, which he has more or less
kept up. He is not, of course, qualified, but he knows more about it
than many a man who can write M.D. after his name, as we found out
afterwards, and he had a splendid travelling medicine chest and a set
of instruments. Whilst we were at Durban he cut off a Kafir’s big toe
in a way which it was a pleasure to see. But he was quite nonplussed
when the Kafir, who had sat stolidly watching the operation, asked him
to put on another, saying that a «white one» would do at a pinch.

There remained, when these questions were satisfactorily settled, two
further important points for consideration, namely, that of arms and
that of servants. As to the arms I cannot do better than put down a
list of those which we finally decided on from among the ample store
that Sir Henry had brought with him from England, and those which I
owned. I copy it from my pocket-book, where I made the entry at the
time.

«Three heavy breech-loading double-eight elephant guns, weighing about
fifteen pounds each, to carry a charge of eleven drachms of black
powder.» Two of these were by a well-known London firm, most excellent
makers, but I do not know by whom mine, which is not so highly
finished, was made. I have used it on several trips, and shot a good
many elephants with it, and it has always proved a most superior
weapon, thoroughly to be relied on.

«Three double-500 Expresses, constructed to stand a charge of six
drachms,» sweet weapons, and admirable for medium-sized game, such as
eland or sable antelope, or for men, especially in an open country and
with the semi-hollow bullet.

«One double No. 12 central-fire Keeper’s shot-gun, full choke both
barrels.» This gun proved of the greatest service to us afterwards in
shooting game for the pot.

«Three Winchester repeating rifles (not carbines), spare guns.

«Three single-action Colt’s revolvers, with the heavier, or American
pattern of cartridge.»

This was our total armament, and doubtless the reader will observe
that the weapons of each class were of the same make and calibre, so
that the cartridges were interchangeable, a very important point. I
make no apology for detailing it at length, as every experienced
hunter will know how vital a proper supply of guns and ammunition is
to the success of an expedition.

Now as to the men who were to go with us. After much consultation we
decided that their number should be limited to five, namely, a driver,
a leader, and three servants.

The driver and leader I found without much difficulty, two Zulus,
named respectively Goza and Tom; but to get the servants proved a more
difficult matter. It was necessary that they should be thoroughly
trustworthy and brave men, as in a business of this sort our lives
might depend upon their conduct. At last I secured two, one a
Hottentot named Ventvoegel, or «windbird,» and one a little Zulu named
Khiva, who had the merit of speaking English perfectly. Ventvoegel I
had known before; he was one of the most perfect «spoorers,» that is,
game trackers, I ever had to do with, and tough as whipcord. He never
seemed to tire. But he had one failing, so common with his race,
drink. Put him within reach of a bottle of gin and you could not trust
him. However, as we were going beyond the region of grog-shops this
little weakness of his did not so much matter.

Having secured these two men I looked in vain for a third to suit my
purpose, so we determined to start without one, trusting to luck to
find a suitable man on our way up country. But, as it happened, on the
evening before the day we had fixed for our departure the Zulu Khiva
informed me that a Kafir was waiting to see me. Accordingly, when we
had done dinner, for we were at table at the time, I told Khiva to
bring him in. Presently a tall, handsome-looking man, somewhere about
thirty years of age, and very light-coloured for a Zulu, entered, and
lifting his knob-stick by way of salute, squatted himself down in the
corner on his haunches, and sat silent. I did not take any notice of
him for a while, for it is a great mistake to do so. If you rush into
conversation at once, a Zulu is apt to think you a person of little
dignity or consequence. I observed, however, that he was a «Keshla» or
ringed man; that is, he wore on his head the black ring, made of a
species of gum polished with fat and worked up in the hair, which is
usually assumed by Zulus on attaining a certain age or dignity. Also
it struck me that his face was familiar to me.

«Well,» I said at last, «What is your name?»

«Umbopa,» answered the man in a slow, deep voice.

«I have seen your face before.»

«Yes; the Inkoosi, the chief, my father, saw my face at the place of
the Little Hand»—that is, Isandhlwana—«on the day before the
battle.»

Then I remembered. I was one of Lord Chelmsford’s guides in that
unlucky Zulu War, and had the good fortune to leave the camp in charge
of some wagons on the day before the battle. While I was waiting for
the cattle to be inspanned I fell into conversation with this man, who
held some small command among the native auxiliaries, and he had
expressed to me his doubts as to the safety of the camp. At the time I
told him to hold his tongue, and leave such matters to wiser heads;
but afterwards I thought of his words.

«I remember,» I said; «what is it you want?»

«It is this, ‘Macumazahn.'» That is my Kafir name, and means the man
who gets up in the middle of the night, or, in vulgar English, he who
keeps his eyes open. «I hear that you go on a great expedition far
into the North with the white chiefs from over the water. Is it a true
word?»

«It is.»

«I hear that you go even to the Lukanga River, a moon’s journey beyond
the Manica country. Is this so also, ‘Macumazahn?'»

«Why do you ask whither we go? What is it to you?» I answered
suspiciously, for the objects of our journey had been kept a dead
secret.

«It is this, O white men, that if indeed you travel so far I would
travel with you.»

There was a certain assumption of dignity in the man’s mode of speech,
and especially in his use of the words «O white men,» instead of «O
Inkosis,» or chiefs, which struck me.

«You forget yourself a little,» I said. «Your words run out unawares.
That is not the way to speak. What is your name, and where is your
kraal? Tell us, that we may know with whom we have to deal.»

«My name is Umbopa. I am of the Zulu people, yet not of them. The
house of my tribe is in the far North; it was left behind when the
Zulus came down here a ‘thousand years ago,’ long before Chaka reigned
in Zululand. I have no kraal. I have wandered for many years. I came
from the North as a child to Zululand. I was Cetewayo’s man in the
Nkomabakosi Regiment, serving there under the great Captain,
Umslopogaasi of the Axe,[*] who taught my hands to fight. Afterwards I
ran away from Zululand and came to Natal because I wanted to see the
white man’s ways. Next I fought against Cetewayo in the war. Since
then I have been working in Natal. Now I am tired, and would go North
again. Here is not my place. I want no money, but I am a brave man,
and am worth my place and meat. I have spoken.»

[*] For the history of Umslopogaasi and his Axe, the reader is
referred to the books called «Allan Quatermain» and «Nada the
Lily.»—Editor.

I was rather puzzled by this man and his way of speech. It was evident
to me from his manner that in the main he was telling the truth, but
somehow he seemed different from the ordinary run of Zulus, and I
rather mistrusted his offer to come without pay. Being in a
difficulty, I translated his words to Sir Henry and Good, and asked
them their opinion.

Sir Henry told me to ask him to stand up. Umbopa did so, at the same
time slipping off the long military great coat which he wore, and
revealing himself naked except for the moocha round his centre and a
necklace of lions’ claws. Certainly he was a magnificent-looking man;
I never saw a finer native. Standing about six foot three high he was
broad in proportion, and very shapely. In that light, too, his skin
looked scarcely more than dark, except here and there where deep black
scars marked old assegai wounds. Sir Henry walked up to him and looked
into his proud, handsome face.

«They make a good pair, don’t they?» said Good; «one as big as the
other.»

«I like your looks, Mr. Umbopa, and I will take you as my servant,»
said Sir Henry in English.

Umbopa evidently understood him, for he answered in Zulu, «It is
well»; and then added, with a glance at the white man’s great stature
and breadth, «We are men, thou and I.»

CHAPTER IV

AN ELEPHANT HUNT

Now I do not propose to narrate at full length all the incidents of
our long travel up to Sitanda’s Kraal, near the junction of the
Lukanga and Kalukwe Rivers. It was a journey of more than a thousand
miles from Durban, the last three hundred or so of which we had to
make on foot, owing to the frequent presence of the dreadful «tsetse»
fly, whose bite is fatal to all animals except donkeys and men.

We left Durban at the end of January, and it was in the second week of
May that we camped near Sitanda’s Kraal. Our adventures on the way
were many and various, but as they are of the sort which befall every
African hunter—with one exception to be presently detailed—I shall
not set them down here, lest I should render this history too
wearisome.

At Inyati, the outlying trading station in the Matabele country, of
which Lobengula (a great and cruel scoundrel) is king, with many
regrets we parted from our comfortable wagon. Only twelve oxen
remained to us out of the beautiful span of twenty which I had bought
at Durban. One we lost from the bite of a cobra, three had perished
from «poverty» and the want of water, one strayed, and the other three
died from eating the poisonous herb called «tulip.» Five more sickened
from this cause, but we managed to cure them with doses of an infusion
made by boiling down the tulip leaves. If administered in time this is
a very effective antidote.

The wagon and the oxen we left in the immediate charge of Goza and
Tom, our driver and leader, both trustworthy boys, requesting a worthy
Scotch missionary who lived in this distant place to keep an eye on
them. Then, accompanied by Umbopa, Khiva, Ventvoegel, and half a dozen
bearers whom we hired on the spot, we started off on foot upon our
wild quest. I remember we were all a little silent on the occasion of
this departure, and I think that each of us was wondering if we should
ever see our wagon again; for my part I never expected to do so. For a
while we tramped on in silence, till Umbopa, who was marching in
front, broke into a Zulu chant about how some brave men, tired of life
and the tameness of things, started off into a vast wilderness to find
new things or die, and how, lo and behold! when they had travelled far
into the wilderness they found that it was not a wilderness at all,
but a beautiful place full of young wives and fat cattle, of game to
hunt and enemies to kill.

Then we all laughed and took it for a good omen. Umbopa was a cheerful
savage, in a dignified sort of way, when he was not suffering from one
of his fits of brooding, and he had a wonderful knack of keeping up
our spirits. We all grew very fond of him.

And now for the one adventure to which I am going to treat myself, for
I do dearly love a hunting yarn.

About a fortnight’s march from Inyati we came across a peculiarly
beautiful bit of well-watered woodland country. The kloofs in the
hills were covered with dense bush, «idoro» bush as the natives call
it, and in some places, with the «wacht-een-beche,» or «wait-a-little
thorn,» and there were great quantities of the lovely «machabell»
tree, laden with refreshing yellow fruit having enormous stones. This
tree is the elephant’s favourite food, and there were not wanting
signs that the great brutes had been about, for not only was their
spoor frequent, but in many places the trees were broken down and even
uprooted. The elephant is a destructive feeder.

One evening, after a long day’s march, we came to a spot of great
loveliness. At the foot of a bush-clad hill lay a dry river-bed, in
which, however, were to be found pools of crystal water all trodden
round with the hoof-prints of game. Facing this hill was a park-like
plain, where grew clumps of flat-topped mimosa, varied with occasional
glossy-leaved machabells, and all round stretched the sea of pathless,
silent bush.

As we emerged into this river-bed path suddenly we started a troop of
tall giraffes, who galloped, or rather sailed off, in their strange
gait, their tails screwed up over their backs, and their hoofs
rattling like castanets. They were about three hundred yards from us,
and therefore practically out of shot, but Good, who was walking
ahead, and who had an express loaded with solid ball in his hand,
could not resist temptation. Lifting his gun, he let drive at the
last, a young cow. By some extraordinary chance the ball struck it
full on the back of the neck, shattering the spinal column, and that
giraffe went rolling head over heels just like a rabbit. I never saw a
more curious thing.

«Curse it!» said Good—for I am sorry to say he had a habit of using
strong language when excited—contracted, no doubt, in the course of
his nautical career; «curse it! I’ve killed him.»

«/Ou/, Bougwan,» ejaculated the Kafirs; «/ou! ou!/»

They called Good «Bougwan,» or Glass Eye, because of his eye-glass.

«Oh, ‘Bougwan!'» re-echoed Sir Henry and I, and from that day Good’s
reputation as a marvellous shot was established, at any rate among the
Kafirs. Really he was a bad one, but whenever he missed we overlooked
it for the sake of that giraffe.

Having set some of the «boys» to cut off the best of the giraffe’s
meat, we went to work to build a «scherm» near one of the pools and
about a hundred yards to its right. This is done by cutting a quantity
of thorn bushes and piling them in the shape of a circular hedge. Then
the space enclosed is smoothed, and dry tambouki grass, if obtainable,
is made into a bed in the centre, and a fire or fires lighted.

By the time the «scherm» was finished the moon peeped up, and our
dinners of giraffe steaks and roasted marrow-bones were ready. How we
enjoyed those marrow-bones, though it was rather a job to crack them!
I know of no greater luxury than giraffe marrow, unless it is
elephant’s heart, and we had that on the morrow. We ate our simple
meal by the light of the moon, pausing at times to thank Good for his
wonderful shot; then we began to smoke and yarn, and a curious picture
we must have made squatting there round the fire. I, with my short
grizzled hair sticking up straight, and Sir Henry with his yellow
locks, which were getting rather long, were rather a contrast,
especially as I am thin, and short, and dark, weighing only nine stone
and a half, and Sir Henry is tall, and broad, and fair, and weighs
fifteen. But perhaps the most curious-looking of the three, taking all
the circumstances of the case into consideration, was Captain John
Good, R.N. There he sat upon a leather bag, looking just as though he
had come in from a comfortable day’s shooting in a civilised country,
absolutely clean, tidy, and well dressed. He wore a shooting suit of
brown tweed, with a hat to match, and neat gaiters. As usual, he was
beautifully shaved, his eye-glass and his false teeth appeared to be
in perfect order, and altogether he looked the neatest man I ever had
to do with in the wilderness. He even sported a collar, of which he
had a supply, made of white gutta-percha.

«You see, they weigh so little,» he said to me innocently, when I
expressed my astonishment at the fact; «and I always like to turn out
like a gentleman.» Ah! if he could have foreseen the future and the
raiment prepared for him.

Well, there we three sat yarning away in the beautiful moonlight, and
watching the Kafirs a few yards off sucking their intoxicating
«daccha» from a pipe of which the mouthpiece was made of the horn of
an eland, till one by one they rolled themselves up in their blankets
and went to sleep by the fire, that is, all except Umbopa, who was a
little apart, his chin resting on his hand, and thinking deeply. I
noticed that he never mixed much with the other Kafirs.

Presently, from the depths of the bush behind us, came a loud «/woof/,
/woof/!» «That’s a lion,» said I, and we all started up to listen.
Hardly had we done so, when from the pool, about a hundred yards off,
we heard the strident trumpeting of an elephant. «/Unkungunklovo/!
/Indlovu/!» «Elephant! Elephant!» whispered the Kafirs, and a few
minutes afterwards we saw a succession of vast shadowy forms moving
slowly from the direction of the water towards the bush.

Up jumped Good, burning for slaughter, and thinking, perhaps, that it
was as easy to kill elephant as he had found it to shoot giraffe, but
I caught him by the arm and pulled him down.

«It’s no good,» I whispered, «let them go.»

«It seems that we are in a paradise of game. I vote we stop here a day
or two, and have a go at them,» said Sir Henry, presently.

I was rather surprised, for hitherto Sir Henry had always been for
pushing forward as fast as possible, more especially since we
ascertained at Inyati that about two years ago an Englishman of the
name of Neville /had/ sold his wagon there, and gone on up country.
But I suppose his hunter instincts got the better of him for a while.

Good jumped at the idea, for he was longing to have a shot at those
elephants; and so, to speak the truth, did I, for it went against my
conscience to let such a herd as that escape without a pull at them.

«All right, my hearties,» said I. «I think we want a little
recreation. And now let’s turn in, for we ought to be off by dawn, and
then perhaps we may catch them feeding before they move on.»

The others agreed, and we proceeded to make our preparations. Good
took off his clothes, shook them, put his eye-glass and his false
teeth into his trousers pocket, and folding each article neatly,
placed it out of the dew under a corner of his mackintosh sheet. Sir
Henry and I contented ourselves with rougher arrangements, and soon
were curled up in our blankets, and dropping off into the dreamless
sleep that rewards the traveller.

Going, going, go—What was that?

Suddenly, from the direction of the water came sounds of violent
scuffling, and next instant there broke upon our ears a succession of
the most awful roars. There was no mistaking their origin; only a lion
could make such a noise as that. We all jumped up and looked towards
the water, in the direction of which we saw a confused mass, yellow
and black in colour, staggering and struggling towards us. We seized
our rifles, and slipping on our veldtschoons, that is shoes made of
untanned hide, ran out of the scherm. By this time the mass had
fallen, and was rolling over and over on the ground, and when we
reached the spot it struggled no longer, but lay quite still.

Now we saw what it was. On the grass there lay a sable antelope bull—
the most beautiful of all the African antelopes—quite dead, and
transfixed by its great curved horns was a magnificent black-maned
lion, also dead. Evidently what had happened was this: The sable
antelope had come down to drink at the pool where the lion—no doubt
the same which we had heard—was lying in wait. While the antelope
drank, the lion had sprung upon him, only to be received upon the
sharp curved horns and transfixed. Once before I saw a similar thing
happen. Then the lion, unable to free himself, had torn and bitten at
the back and neck of the bull, which, maddened with fear and pain, had
rushed on until it dropped dead.

As soon as we had examined the beasts sufficiently we called the
Kafirs, and between us managed to drag their carcases up to the
scherm. After that we went in and lay down, to wake no more till dawn.

With the first light we were up and making ready for the fray. We took
with us the three eight-bore rifles, a good supply of ammunition, and
our large water-bottles, filled with weak cold tea, which I have
always found the best stuff to shoot on. After swallowing a little
breakfast we started, Umbopa, Khiva, and Ventvoegel accompanying us.
The other Kafirs we left with instructions to skin the lion and the
sable antelope, and to cut up the latter.

We had no difficulty in finding the broad elephant trail, which
Ventvoegel, after examination, pronounced to have been made by between
twenty and thirty elephants, most of them full-grown bulls. But the
herd had moved on some way during the night, and it was nine o’clock,
and already very hot, before, by the broken trees, bruised leaves and
bark, and smoking droppings, we knew that we could not be far from
them.

Presently we caught sight of the herd, which numbered, as Ventvoegel
had said, between twenty and thirty, standing in a hollow, having
finished their morning meal, and flapping their great ears. It was a
splendid sight, for they were only about two hundred yards from us.
Taking a handful of dry grass, I threw it into the air to see how the
wind was; for if once they winded us I knew they would be off before
we could get a shot. Finding that, if anything, it blew from the
elephants to us, we crept on stealthily, and thanks to the cover
managed to get within forty yards or so of the great brutes. Just in
front of us, and broadside on, stood three splendid bulls, one of them
with enormous tusks. I whispered to the others that I would take the
middle one; Sir Henry covering the elephant to the left, and Good the
bull with the big tusks.

«Now,» I whispered.

Boom! boom! boom! went the three heavy rifles, and down came Sir
Henry’s elephant dead as a hammer, shot right through the heart. Mine
fell on to its knees and I thought that he was going to die, but in
another moment he was up and off, tearing along straight past me. As
he went I gave him the second barrel in the ribs, and this brought him
down in good earnest. Hastily slipping in two fresh cartridges I ran
close up to him, and a ball through the brain put an end to the poor
brute’s struggles. Then I turned to see how Good had fared with the
big bull, which I had heard screaming with rage and pain as I gave
mine its quietus. On reaching the captain I found him in a great state
of excitement. It appeared that on receiving the bullet the bull had
turned and come straight for his assailant, who had barely time to get
out of his way, and then charged on blindly past him, in the direction
of our encampment. Meanwhile the herd had crashed off in wild alarm in
the other direction.

For awhile we debated whether to go after the wounded bull or to
follow the herd, and finally deciding for the latter alternative,
departed, thinking that we had seen the last of those big tusks. I
have often wished since that we had. It was easy work to follow the
elephants, for they had left a trail like a carriage road behind them,
crushing down the thick bush in their furious flight as though it were
tambouki grass.

But to come up with them was another matter, and we had struggled on
under the broiling sun for over two hours before we found them. With
the exception of one bull, they were standing together, and I could
see, from their unquiet way and the manner in which they kept lifting
their trunks to test the air, that they were on the look-out for
mischief. The solitary bull stood fifty yards or so to this side of
the herd, over which he was evidently keeping sentry, and about sixty
yards from us. Thinking that he would see or wind us, and that it
would probably start them off again if we tried to get nearer,
especially as the ground was rather open, we all aimed at this bull,
and at my whispered word, we fired. The three shots took effect, and
down he went dead. Again the herd started, but unfortunately for them
about a hundred yards further on was a nullah, or dried-out water
track, with steep banks, a place very much resembling the one where
the Prince Imperial was killed in Zululand. Into this the elephants
plunged, and when we reached the edge we found them struggling in wild
confusion to get up the other bank, filling the air with their
screams, and trumpeting as they pushed one another aside in their
selfish panic, just like so many human beings. Now was our
opportunity, and firing away as quickly as we could load, we killed
five of the poor beasts, and no doubt should have bagged the whole
herd, had they not suddenly given up their attempts to climb the bank
and rushed headlong down the nullah. We were too tired to follow them,
and perhaps also a little sick of slaughter, eight elephants being a
pretty good bag for one day.

So after we were rested a little, and the Kafirs had cut out the
hearts of two of the dead elephants for supper, we started homewards,
very well pleased with our day’s work, having made up our minds to
send the bearers on the morrow to chop away the tusks.

Shortly after we re-passed the spot where Good had wounded the
patriarchal bull we came across a herd of eland, but did not shoot at
them, as we had plenty of meat. They trotted past us, and then stopped
behind a little patch of bush about a hundred yards away, wheeling
round to look at us. As Good was anxious to get a near view of them,
never having seen an eland close, he handed his rifle to Umbopa, and,
followed by Khiva, strolled up to the patch of bush. We sat down and
waited for him, not sorry of the excuse for a little rest.

The sun was just going down in its reddest glory, and Sir Henry and I
were admiring the lovely scene, when suddenly we heard an elephant
scream, and saw its huge and rushing form with uplifted trunk and tail
silhouetted against the great fiery globe of the sun. Next second we
saw something else, and that was Good and Khiva tearing back towards
us with the wounded bull—for it was he—charging after them. For a
moment we did not dare to fire—though at that distance it would have
been of little use if we had done so—for fear of hitting one of them,
and the next a dreadful thing happened—Good fell a victim to his
passion for civilised dress. Had he consented to discard his trousers
and gaiters like the rest of us, and to hunt in a flannel shirt and a
pair of veldt-schoons, it would have been all right. But as it was,
his trousers cumbered him in that desperate race, and presently, when
he was about sixty yards from us, his boot, polished by the dry grass,
slipped, and down he went on his face right in front of the elephant.

We gave a gasp, for we knew that he must die, and ran as hard as we
could towards him. In three seconds it had ended, but not as we
thought. Khiva, the Zulu boy, saw his master fall, and brave lad as he
was, turned and flung his assegai straight into the elephant’s face.
It stuck in his trunk.

With a scream of pain, the brute seized the poor Zulu, hurled him to
the earth, and placing one huge foot on to his body about the middle,
twined its trunk round his upper part and /tore him in two/.

We rushed up mad with horror, and fired again and again, till
presently the elephant fell upon the fragments of the Zulu.

As for Good, he rose and wrung his hands over the brave man who had
given his life to save him, and, though I am an old hand, I felt a
lump grow in my throat. Umbopa stood contemplating the huge dead
elephant and the mangled remains of poor Khiva.

«Ah, well,» he said presently, «he is dead, but he died like a man!»

CHAPTER V

OUR MARCH INTO THE DESERT

We had killed nine elephants, and it took us two days to cut out the
tusks, and having brought them into camp, to bury them carefully in
the sand under a large tree, which made a conspicuous mark for miles
round. It was a wonderfully fine lot of ivory. I never saw a better,
averaging as it did between forty and fifty pounds a tusk. The tusks
of the great bull that killed poor Khiva scaled one hundred and
seventy pounds the pair, so nearly as we could judge.

As for Khiva himself, we buried what remained of him in an ant-bear
hole, together with an assegai to protect himself with on his journey
to a better world. On the third day we marched again, hoping that we
might live to return to dig up our buried ivory, and in due course,
after a long and wearisome tramp, and many adventures which I have not
space to detail, we reached Sitanda’s Kraal, near the Lukanga River,
the real starting-point of our expedition. Very well do I recollect
our arrival at that place. To the right was a scattered native
settlement with a few stone cattle kraals and some cultivated lands
down by the water, where these savages grew their scanty supply of
grain, and beyond it stretched great tracts of waving «veld» covered
with tall grass, over which herds of the smaller game were wandering.
To the left lay the vast desert. This spot appears to be the outpost
of the fertile country, and it would be difficult to say to what
natural causes such an abrupt change in the character of the soil is
due. But so it is.

Just below our encampment flowed a little stream, on the farther side
of which is a stony slope, the same down which, twenty years before, I
had seen poor Silvestre creeping back after his attempt to reach
Solomon’s Mines, and beyond that slope begins the waterless desert,
covered with a species of karoo shrub.

It was evening when we pitched our camp, and the great ball of the sun
was sinking into the desert, sending glorious rays of many-coloured
light flying all over its vast expanse. Leaving Good to superintend
the arrangement of our little camp, I took Sir Henry with me, and
walking to the top of the slope opposite, we gazed across the desert.
The air was very clear, and far, far away I could distinguish the
faint blue outlines, here and there capped with white, of the Suliman
Berg.

«There,» I said, «there is the wall round Solomon’s Mines, but God
knows if we shall ever climb it.»

«My brother should be there, and if he is, I shall reach him somehow,»
said Sir Henry, in that tone of quiet confidence which marked the man.

«I hope so,» I answered, and turned to go back to the camp, when I saw
that we were not alone. Behind us, also gazing earnestly towards the
far-off mountains, stood the great Kafir Umbopa.

The Zulu spoke when he saw that I had observed him, addressing Sir
Henry, to whom he had attached himself.

«Is it to that land that thou wouldst journey, Incubu?» (a native word
meaning, I believe, an elephant, and the name given to Sir Henry by
the Kafirs), he said, pointing towards the mountain with his broad
assegai.

I asked him sharply what he meant by addressing his master in that
familiar way. It is very well for natives to have a name for one among
themselves, but it is not decent that they should call a white man by
their heathenish appellations to his face. The Zulu laughed a quiet
little laugh which angered me.

«How dost thou know that I am not the equal of the Inkosi whom I
serve?» he said. «He is of a royal house, no doubt; one can see it in
his size and by his mien; so, mayhap, am I. At least, I am as great a
man. Be my mouth, O Macumazahn, and say my words to the Inkoos Incubu,
my master, for I would speak to him and to thee.»

I was angry with the man, for I am not accustomed to be talked to in
that way by Kafirs, but somehow he impressed me, and besides I was
curious to know what he had to say. So I translated, expressing my
opinion at the same time that he was an impudent fellow, and that his
swagger was outrageous.

«Yes, Umbopa,» answered Sir Henry, «I would journey there.»

«The desert is wide and there is no water in it, the mountains are
high and covered with snow, and man cannot say what lies beyond them
behind the place where the sun sets; how shalt thou come thither,
Incubu, and wherefore dost thou go?»

I translated again.

«Tell him,» answered Sir Henry, «that I go because I believe that a
man of my blood, my brother, has gone there before me, and I journey
to seek him.»

«That is so, Incubu; a Hottentot I met on the road told me that a
white man went out into the desert two years ago towards those
mountains with one servant, a hunter. They never came back.»

«How do you know it was my brother?» asked Sir Henry.

«Nay, I know not. But the Hottentot, when I asked what the white man
was like, said that he had thine eyes and a black beard. He said, too,
that the name of the hunter with him was Jim; that he was a Bechuana
hunter and wore clothes.»

«There is no doubt about it,» said I; «I knew Jim well.»

Sir Henry nodded. «I was sure of it,» he said. «If George set his mind
upon a thing he generally did it. It was always so from his boyhood.
If he meant to cross the Suliman Berg he has crossed it, unless some
accident overtook him, and we must look for him on the other side.»

Umbopa understood English, though he rarely spoke it.

«It is a far journey, Incubu,» he put in, and I translated his remark.

«Yes,» answered Sir Henry, «it is far. But there is no journey upon
this earth that a man may not make if he sets his heart to it. There
is nothing, Umbopa, that he cannot do, there are no mountains he may
not climb, there are no deserts he cannot cross, save a mountain and a
desert of which you are spared the knowledge, if love leads him and he
holds his life in his hands counting it as nothing, ready to keep it
or lose it as Heaven above may order.»

I translated.

«Great words, my father,» answered the Zulu—I always called him a
Zulu, though he was not really one—«great swelling words fit to fill
the mouth of a man. Thou art right, my father Incubu. Listen! what is
life? It is a feather, it is the seed of the grass, blown hither and
thither, sometimes multiplying itself and dying in the act, sometimes
carried away into the heavens. But if that seed be good and heavy it
may perchance travel a little way on the road it wills. It is well to
try and journey one’s road and to fight with the air. Man must die. At
the worst he can but die a little sooner. I will go with thee across
the desert and over the mountains, unless perchance I fall to the
ground on the way, my father.»

He paused awhile, and then went on with one of those strange bursts of
rhetorical eloquence that Zulus sometimes indulge in, which to my
mind, full though they are of vain repetitions, show that the race is
by no means devoid of poetic instinct and of intellectual power.

«What is life? Tell me, O white men, who are wise, who know the
secrets of the world, and of the world of stars, and the world that
lies above and around the stars; who flash your words from afar
without a voice; tell me, white men, the secret of our life—whither
it goes and whence it comes!

«You cannot answer me; you know not. Listen, I will answer. Out of the
dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night
we fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the
light of the fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere. Life
is nothing. Life is all. It is the Hand with which we hold off Death.
It is the glow-worm that shines in the night-time and is black in the
morning; it is the white breath of the oxen in winter; it is the
little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself at sunset.»

«You are a strange man,» said Sir Henry, when he had ceased.

Umbopa laughed. «It seems to me that we are much alike, Incubu.
Perhaps /I/ seek a brother over the mountains.»

I looked at him suspiciously. «What dost thou mean?» I asked; «what
dost thou know of those mountains?»

«A little; a very little. There is a strange land yonder, a land of
witchcraft and beautiful things; a land of brave people, and of trees,
and streams, and snowy peaks, and of a great white road. I have heard
of it. But what is the good of talking? It grows dark. Those who live
to see will see.»

Again I looked at him doubtfully. The man knew too much.

«You need not fear me, Macumazahn,» he said, interpreting my look. «I
dig no holes for you to fall in. I make no plots. If ever we cross
those mountains behind the sun I will tell what I know. But Death sits
upon them. Be wise and turn back. Go and hunt elephants, my masters. I
have spoken.»

And without another word he lifted his spear in salutation, and
returned towards the camp, where shortly afterwards we found him
cleaning a gun like any other Kafir.

«That is an odd man,» said Sir Henry.

«Yes,» answered I, «too odd by half. I don’t like his little ways. He
knows something, and will not speak out. But I suppose it is no use
quarrelling with him. We are in for a curious trip, and a mysterious
Zulu won’t make much difference one way or another.»

Next day we made our arrangements for starting. Of course it was
impossible to drag our heavy elephant rifles and other kit with us
across the desert, so, dismissing our bearers, we made an arrangement
with an old native who had a kraal close by to take care of them till
we returned. It went to my heart to leave such things as those sweet
tools to the tender mercies of an old thief of a savage whose greedy
eyes I could see gloating over them. But I took some precautions.

First of all I loaded all the rifles, placing them at full cock, and
informed him that if he touched them they would go off. He tried the
experiment instantly with my eight-bore, and it did go off, and blew a
hole right through one of his oxen, which were just then being driven
up to the kraal, to say nothing of knocking him head over heels with
the recoil. He got up considerably startled, and not at all pleased at
the loss of the ox, which he had the impudence to ask me to pay for,
and nothing would induce him to touch the guns again.

«Put the live devils out of the way up there in the thatch,» he said,
«or they will murder us all.»

Then I told him that, when we came back, if one of those things was
missing I would kill him and his people by witchcraft; and if we died
and he tried to steal the rifles I would come and haunt him and turn
his cattle mad and his milk sour till life was a weariness, and would
make the devils in the guns come out and talk to him in a way he did
not like, and generally gave him a good idea of judgment to come.
After that he promised to look after them as though they were his
father’s spirit. He was a very superstitious old Kafir and a great
villain.

Having thus disposed of our superfluous gear we arranged the kit we
five—Sir Henry, Good, myself, Umbopa, and the Hottentot Ventvoegel—
were to take with us on our journey. It was small enough, but do what
we would we could not get its weight down under about forty pounds a
man. This is what it consisted of:—

The three express rifles and two hundred rounds of ammunition.

The two Winchester repeating rifles (for Umbopa and Ventvoegel), with
two hundred rounds of cartridge.

Five Cochrane’s water-bottles, each holding four pints.

Five blankets.

Twenty-five pounds’ weight of biltong—i.e. sun-dried game flesh.

Ten pounds’ weight of best mixed beads for gifts.

A selection of medicine, including an ounce of quinine, and one or two
small surgical instruments.

Our knives, a few sundries, such as a compass, matches, a pocket
filter, tobacco, a trowel, a bottle of brandy, and the clothes we
stood in.

This was our total equipment, a small one indeed for such a venture,
but we dared not attempt to carry more. Indeed, that load was a heavy
one per man with which to travel across the burning desert, for in
such places every additional ounce tells. But we could not see our way
to reducing the weight. There was nothing taken but what was
absolutely necessary.

With great difficulty, and by the promise of a present of a good
hunting-knife each, I succeeded in persuading three wretched natives
from the village to come with us for the first stage, twenty miles,
and to carry a large gourd holding a gallon of water apiece. My object
was to enable us to refill our water-bottles after the first night’s
march, for we determined to start in the cool of the evening. I gave
out to these natives that we were going to shoot ostriches, with which
the desert abounded. They jabbered and shrugged their shoulders,
saying that we were mad and should perish of thirst, which I must say
seemed probable; but being desirous of obtaining the knives, which
were almost unknown treasures up there, they consented to come, having
probably reflected that, after all, our subsequent extinction would be
no affair of theirs.

All next day we rested and slept, and at sunset ate a hearty meal of
fresh beef washed down with tea, the last, as Good remarked sadly, we
were likely to drink for many a long day. Then, having made our final
preparations, we lay down and waited for the moon to rise. At last,
about nine o’clock, up she came in all her glory, flooding the wild
country with light, and throwing a silver sheen on the expanse of
rolling desert before us, which looked as solemn and quiet and as
alien to man as the star-studded firmament above. We rose up, and in a
few minutes were ready, and yet we hesitated a little, as human nature
is prone to hesitate on the threshold of an irrevocable step. We three
white men stood by ourselves. Umbopa, assegai in hand and a rifle
across his shoulders, looked out fixedly across the desert a few paces
ahead of us; while the hired natives, with the gourds of water, and
Ventvoegel, were gathered in a little knot behind.

«Gentlemen,» said Sir Henry presently, in his deep voice, «we are
going on about as strange a journey as men can make in this world. It
is very doubtful if we can succeed in it. But we are three men who
will stand together for good or for evil to the last. Now before we
start let us for a moment pray to the Power who shapes the destinies
of men, and who ages since has marked out our paths, that it may
please Him to direct our steps in accordance with His will.»

Taking off his hat, for the space of a minute or so, he covered his
face with his hands, and Good and I did likewise.

I do not say that I am a first-rate praying man, few hunters are, and
as for Sir Henry, I never heard him speak like that before, and only
once since, though deep down in his heart I believe that he is very
religious. Good too is pious, though apt to swear. Anyhow I do not
remember, excepting on one single occasion, ever putting up a better
prayer in my life than I did during that minute, and somehow I felt
the happier for it. Our future was so completely unknown, and I think
that the unknown and the awful always bring a man nearer to his Maker.

«And now,» said Sir Henry, «/trek/!»

So we started.

We had nothing to guide ourselves by except the distant mountains and
old Jose da Silvestre’s chart, which, considering that it was drawn by
a dying and half-distraught man on a fragment of linen three centuries
ago, was not a very satisfactory sort of thing with work with. Still,
our sole hope of success depended upon it, such as it was. If we
failed in finding that pool of bad water which the old Dom marked as
being situated in the middle of the desert, about sixty miles from our
starting-point, and as far from the mountains, in all probability we
must perish miserably of thirst. But to my mind the chances of our
finding it in that great sea of sand and karoo scrub seemed almost
infinitesimal. Even supposing that da Silvestra had marked the pool
correctly, what was there to prevent its having been dried up by the
sun generations ago, or trampled in by game, or filled with the
drifting sand?

On we tramped silently as shades through the night and in the heavy
sand. The karoo bushes caught our feet and retarded us, and the sand
worked into our veldtschoons and Good’s shooting-boots, so that every
few miles we had to stop and empty them; but still the night kept
fairly cool, though the atmosphere was thick and heavy, giving a sort
of creamy feel to the air, and we made fair progress. It was very
silent and lonely there in the desert, oppressively so indeed. Good
felt this, and once began to whistle «The Girl I left behind me,» but
the notes sounded lugubrious in that vast place, and he gave it up.

Shortly afterwards a little incident occurred which, though it
startled us at the time, gave rise to a laugh. Good was leading, as
the holder of the compass, which, being a sailor, of course he
understood thoroughly, and we were toiling along in single file behind
him, when suddenly we heard the sound of an exclamation, and he
vanished. Next second there arose all around us a most extraordinary
hubbub, snorts, groans, and wild sounds of rushing feet. In the faint
light, too, we could descry dim galloping forms half hidden by wreaths
of sand. The natives threw down their loads and prepared to bolt, but
remembering that there was nowhere to run to, they cast themselves
upon the ground and howled out that it was ghosts. As for Sir Henry
and myself, we stood amazed; nor was our amazement lessened when we
perceived the form of Good careering off in the direction of the
mountains, apparently mounted on the back of a horse and halloaing
wildly. In another second he threw up his arms, and we heard him come
to the earth with a thud.

Then I saw what had happened; we had stumbled upon a herd of sleeping
quagga, on to the back of one of which Good actually had fallen, and
the brute naturally enough got up and made off with him. Calling out
to the others that it was all right, I ran towards Good, much afraid
lest he should be hurt, but to my great relief I found him sitting in
the sand, his eye-glass still fixed firmly in his eye, rather shaken
and very much frightened, but not in any way injured.

After this we travelled on without any further misadventure till about
one o’clock, when we called a halt, and having drunk a little water,
not much, for water was precious, and rested for half an hour, we
started again.

On, on we went, till at last the east began to blush like the cheek of
a girl. Then there came faint rays of primrose light, that changed
presently to golden bars, through which the dawn glided out across the
desert. The stars grew pale and paler still, till at last they
vanished; the golden moon waxed wan, and her mountain ridges stood out
against her sickly face like the bones on the cheek of a dying man.
Then came spear upon spear of light flashing far away across the
boundless wilderness, piercing and firing the veils of mist, till the
desert was draped in a tremulous golden glow, and it was day.

Still we did not halt, though by this time we should have been glad
enough to do so, for we knew that when once the sun was fully up it
would be almost impossible for us to travel. At length, about an hour
later, we spied a little pile of boulders rising out of the plain, and
to this we dragged ourselves. As luck would have it, here we found an
overhanging slab of rock carpeted beneath with smooth sand, which
afforded a most grateful shelter from the heat. Underneath this we
crept, and each of us having drunk some water and eaten a bit of
biltong, we lay down and soon were sound asleep.

It was three o’clock in the afternoon before we woke, to find our
bearers preparing to return. They had seen enough of the desert
already, and no number of knives would have tempted them to come a
step farther. So we took a hearty drink, and having emptied our water-
bottles, filled them up again from the gourds that they had brought
with them, and then watched them depart on their twenty miles’ tramp
home.

At half-past four we also started. It was lonely and desolate work,
for with the exception of a few ostriches there was not a single
living creature to be seen on all the vast expanse of sandy plain.
Evidently it was too dry for game, and with the exception of a deadly-
looking cobra or two we saw no reptiles. One insect, however, we found
abundant, and that was the common or house fly. There they came, «not
as single spies, but in battalions,» as I think the Old Testament[*]
says somewhere. He is an extraordinary insect is the house fly. Go
where you will you find him, and so it must have been always. I have
seen him enclosed in amber, which is, I was told, quite half a million
years old, looking exactly like his descendant of to-day, and I have
little doubt but that when the last man lies dying on the earth he
will be buzzing round—if this event happens to occur in summer—
watching for an opportunity to settle on his nose.

[*] Readers must beware of accepting Mr. Quatermain’s references as
accurate, as, it has been found, some are prone to do. Although
his reading evidently was limited, the impression produced by it
upon his mind was mixed. Thus to him the Old Testament and
Shakespeare were interchangeable authorities.—Editor.

At sunset we halted, waiting for the moon to rise. At last she came
up, beautiful and serene as ever, and, with one halt about two o’clock
in the morning, we trudged on wearily through the night, till at last
the welcome sun put a period to our labours. We drank a little and
flung ourselves down on the sand, thoroughly tired out, and soon were
all asleep. There was no need to set a watch, for we had nothing to
fear from anybody or anything in that vast untenanted plain. Our only
enemies were heat, thirst, and flies, but far rather would I have
faced any danger from man or beast than that awful trinity. This time
we were not so lucky as to find a sheltering rock to guard us from the
glare of the sun, with the result that about seven o’clock we woke up
experiencing the exact sensations one would attribute to a beefsteak
on a gridiron. We were literally being baked through and through. The
burning sun seemed to be sucking our very blood out of us. We sat up
and gasped.

«Phew,» said I, grabbing at the halo of flies which buzzed cheerfully
round my head. The heat did not affect /them/.

«My word!» said Sir Henry.

«It is hot!» echoed Good.

It was hot, indeed, and there was not a bit of shelter to be found.
Look where we would there was no rock or tree, nothing but an unending
glare, rendered dazzling by the heated air that danced over the
surface of the desert as it dances over a red-hot stove.

«What is to be done?» asked Sir Henry; «we can’t stand this for long.»

We looked at each other blankly.

«I have it,» said Good, «we must dig a hole, get in it, and cover
ourselves with the karoo bushes.»

It did not seem a very promising suggestion, but at least it was
better than nothing, so we set to work, and, with the trowel we had
brought with us and the help of our hands, in about an hour we
succeeded in delving out a patch of ground some ten feet long by
twelve wide to the depth of two feet. Then we cut a quantity of low
scrub with our hunting-knives, and creeping into the hole, pulled it
over us all, with the exception of Ventvoegel, on whom, being a
Hottentot, the heat had no particular effect. This gave us some slight
shelter from the burning rays of the sun, but the atmosphere in that
amateur grave can be better imagined than described. The Black Hole of
Calcutta must have been a fool to it; indeed, to this moment I do not
know how we lived through the day. There we lay panting, and every now
and again moistening our lips from our scanty supply of water. Had we
followed our inclinations we should have finished all we possessed in
the first two hours, but we were forced to exercise the most rigid
care, for if our water failed us we knew that very soon we must perish
miserably.

But everything has an end, if only you live long enough to see it, and
somehow that miserable day wore on towards evening. About three
o’clock in the afternoon we determined that we could bear it no
longer. It would be better to die walking that to be killed slowly by
heat and thirst in this dreadful hole. So taking each of us a little
drink from our fast diminishing supply of water, now warmed to about
the same temperature as a man’s blood, we staggered forward.

We had then covered some fifty miles of wilderness. If the reader will
refer to the rough copy and translation of old da Silvestra’s map, he
will see that the desert is marked as measuring forty leagues across,
and the «pan bad water» is set down as being about in the middle of
it. Now forty leagues is one hundred and twenty miles, consequently we
ought at the most to be within twelve or fifteen miles of the water if
any should really exist.

Through the afternoon we crept slowly and painfully along, scarcely
doing more than a mile and a half in an hour. At sunset we rested
again, waiting for the moon, and after drinking a little managed to
get some sleep.

Before we lay down, Umbopa pointed out to us a slight and indistinct
hillock on the flat surface of the plain about eight miles away. At
the distance it looked like an ant-hill, and as I was dropping off to
sleep I fell to wondering what it could be.

With the moon we marched again, feeling dreadfully exhausted, and
suffering tortures from thirst and prickly heat. Nobody who has not
felt it can know what we went through. We walked no longer, we
staggered, now and again falling from exhaustion, and being obliged to
call a halt every hour or so. We had scarcely energy left in us to
speak. Up to this Good had chatted and joked, for he is a merry
fellow; but now he had not a joke in him.

At last, about two o’clock, utterly worn out in body and mind, we came
to the foot of the queer hill, or sand koppie, which at first sight
resembled a gigantic ant-heap about a hundred feet high, and covering
at the base nearly two acres of ground.

Here we halted, and driven to it by our desperate thirst, sucked down
our last drops of water. We had but half a pint a head, and each of us
could have drunk a gallon.

Then we lay down. Just as I was dropping off to sleep I heard Umbopa
remark to himself in Zulu—

«If we cannot find water we shall all be dead before the moon rises
to-morrow.»

I shuddered, hot as it was. The near prospect of such an awful death
is not pleasant, but even the thought of it could not keep me from
sleeping.

CHAPTER VI

WATER! WATER!

Two hours later, that is, about four o’clock, I woke up, for so soon
as the first heavy demand of bodily fatigue had been satisfied, the
torturing thirst from which I was suffering asserted itself. I could
sleep no more. I had been dreaming that I was bathing in a running
stream, with green banks and trees upon them, and I awoke to find
myself in this arid wilderness, and to remember, as Umbopa had said,
that if we did not find water this day we must perish miserably. No
human creature could live long without water in that heat. I sat up
and rubbed my grimy face with my dry and horny hands, as my lips and
eyelids were stuck together, and it was only after some friction and
with an effort that I was able to open them. It was not far from dawn,
but there was none of the bright feel of dawn in the air, which was
thick with a hot murkiness that I cannot describe. The others were
still sleeping.

Presently it began to grow light enough to read, so I drew out a
little pocket copy of the «Ingoldsby Legends» which I had brought with
me, and read «The Jackdaw of Rheims.» When I got to where

«A nice little boy held a golden ewer,
Embossed, and filled with water as pure
As any that flows between Rheims and Namur,»

literally I smacked my cracking lips, or rather tried to smack them.
The mere thought of that pure water made me mad. If the Cardinal had
been there with his bell, book, and candle, I would have whipped in
and drunk his water up; yes, even if he had filled it already with the
suds of soap «worthy of washing the hands of the Pope,» and I knew
that the whole consecrated curse of the Catholic Church should fall
upon me for so doing. I almost think that I must have been a little
light-headed with thirst, weariness and the want of food; for I fell
to thinking how astonished the Cardinal and his nice little boy and
the jackdaw would have looked to see a burnt up, brown-eyed, grizzly-
haired little elephant hunter suddenly bound between them, put his
dirty face into the basin, and swallow every drop of the precious
water. The idea amused me so much that I laughed or rather cackled
aloud, which woke the others, and they began to rub /their/ dirty
faces and drag /their/ gummed-up lips and eyelids apart.

As soon as we were all well awake we began to discuss the situation,
which was serious enough. Not a drop of water was left. We turned the
bottles upside down, and licked their tops, but it was a failure; they
were dry as a bone. Good, who had charge of the flask of brandy, got
it out and looked at it longingly; but Sir Henry promptly took it away
from him, for to drink raw spirit would only have been to precipitate
the end.

«If we do not find water we shall die,» he said.

«If we can trust to the old Dom’s map there should be some about,» I
said; but nobody seemed to derive much satisfaction from this remark.
It was so evident that no great faith could be put in the map. Now it
was gradually growing light, and as we sat staring blankly at each
other, I observed the Hottentot Ventvoegel rise and begin to walk about
with his eyes on the ground. Presently he stopped short, and uttering
a guttural exclamation, pointed to the earth.

«What is it?» we exclaimed; and rising simultaneously we went to where
he was standing staring at the sand.

«Well,» I said, «it is fresh Springbok spoor; what of it?»

«Springbucks do not go far from water,» he answered in Dutch.

«No,» I answered, «I forgot; and thank God for it.»

This little discovery put new life into us; for it is wonderful, when
a man is in a desperate position, how he catches at the slightest
hope, and feels almost happy. On a dark night a single star is better
than nothing.

Meanwhile Ventvoegel was lifting his snub nose, and sniffing the hot
air for all the world like an old Impala ram who scents danger.
Presently he spoke again.

«I /smell/ water,» he said.

Then we felt quite jubilant, for we knew what a wonderful instinct
these wild-bred men possess.

Just at that moment the sun came up gloriously, and revealed so grand
a sight to our astonished eyes that for a moment or two we even forgot
our thirst.

There, not more than forty or fifty miles from us, glittering like
silver in the early rays of the morning sun, soared Sheba’s Breasts;
and stretching away for hundreds of miles on either side of them ran
the great Suliman Berg. Now that, sitting here, I attempt to describe
the extraordinary grandeur and beauty of that sight, language seems to
fail me. I am impotent even before its memory. Straight before us,
rose two enormous mountains, the like of which are not, I believe, to
be seen in Africa, if indeed there are any other such in the world,
measuring each of them at least fifteen thousand feet in height,
standing not more than a dozen miles apart, linked together by a
precipitous cliff of rock, and towering in awful white solemnity
straight into the sky. These mountains placed thus, like the pillars
of a gigantic gateway, are shaped after the fashion of a woman’s
breasts, and at times the mists and shadows beneath them take the form
of a recumbent woman, veiled mysteriously in sleep. Their bases swell
gently from the plain, looking at that distance perfectly round and
smooth; and upon the top of each is a vast hillock covered with snow,
exactly corresponding to the nipple on the female breast. The stretch
of cliff that connects them appears to be some thousands of feet in
height, and perfectly precipitous, and on each flank of them, so far
as the eye can reach, extent similar lines of cliff, broken only here
and there by flat table-topped mountains, something like the world-
famed one at Cape Town; a formation, by the way, that is very common
in Africa.

To describe the comprehensive grandeur of that view is beyond my
powers. There was something so inexpressibly solemn and overpowering
about those huge volcanoes—for doubtless they are extinct volcanoes—
that it quite awed us. For a while the morning lights played upon the
snow and the brown and swelling masses beneath, and then, as though to
veil the majestic sight from our curious eyes, strange vapours and
clouds gathered and increased around the mountains, till presently we
could only trace their pure and gigantic outlines, showing ghostlike
through the fleecy envelope. Indeed, as we afterwards discovered,
usually they were wrapped in this gauze-like mist, which doubtless
accounted for our not having seen them more clearly before.

Sheba’s Breasts had scarcely vanished into cloud-clad privacy, before
our thirst—literally a burning question—reasserted itself.

It was all very well for Ventvoegel to say that he smelt water, but we
could see no signs of it, look which way we would. So far as the eye
might reach there was nothing but arid sweltering sand and karoo
scrub. We walked round the hillock and gazed about anxiously on the
other side, but it was the same story, not a drop of water could be
found; there was no indication of a pan, a pool, or a spring.

«You are a fool,» I said angrily to Ventvoegel; «there is no water.»

But still he lifted his ugly snub nose sniffed.

«I smell it, Baas,» he answered; «it is somewhere in the air.»

«Yes,» I said, «no doubt it is in the clouds, and about two months
hence it will fall and wash our bones.»

Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard thoughtfully. «Perhaps it is on the
top of the hill,» he suggested.

«Rot,» said Good; «whoever heard of water being found at the top of a
hill!»

«Let us go and look,» I put in, and hopelessly enough we scrambled up
the sandy sides of the hillock, Umbopa leading. Presently he stopped
as though he was petrified.

«/Nanzia manzie/!» that is, «Here is water!» he cried with a loud
voice.

We rushed up to him, and there, sure enough, in a deep cut or
indentation on the very top of the sand koppie, was an undoubted pool
of water. How it came to be in such a strange place we did not stop to
inquire, nor did we hesitate at its black and unpleasant appearance.
It was water, or a good imitation of it, and that was enough for us.
We gave a bound and a rush, and in another second we were all down on
our stomachs sucking up the uninviting fluid as though it were nectar
fit for the gods. Heavens, how we did drink! Then when we had done
drinking we tore off our clothes and sat down in the pool, absorbing
the moisture through our parched skins. You, Harry, my boy, who have
only to turn on a couple of taps to summon «hot» and «cold» from an
unseen, vasty cistern, can have little idea of the luxury of that
muddy wallow in brackish tepid water.

After a while we rose from it, refreshed indeed, and fell to on our
«biltong,» of which we had scarcely been able to touch a mouthful for
twenty-four hours, and ate our fill. Then we smoked a pipe, and lay
down by the side of that blessed pool, under the overhanging shadow of
its bank, and slept till noon.

All that day we rested there by the water, thanking our stars that we
had been lucky enough to find it, bad as it was, and not forgetting to
render a due share of gratitude to the shade of the long-departed da
Silvestra, who had set its position down so accurately on the tail of
his shirt. The wonderful thing to us was that the pan should have
lasted so long, and the only way in which I can account for this is on
the supposition that it is fed by some spring deep down in the sand.

Having filled both ourselves and our water-bottles as full as
possible, in far better spirits we started off again with the moon.
That night we covered nearly five-and-twenty miles; but, needless to
say, found no more water, though we were lucky enough the following
day to get a little shade behind some ant-heaps. When the sun rose,
and, for awhile, cleared away the mysterious mists, Suliman’s Berg
with the two majestic Breasts, now only about twenty miles off, seemed
to be towering right above us, and looked grander than ever. At the
approach of evening we marched again, and, to cut a long story short,
by daylight next morning found ourselves upon the lowest slopes of
Sheba’s left breast, for which we had been steadily steering. By this
time our water was exhausted once more, and we were suffering severely
from thirst, nor indeed could we see any chance of relieving it till
we reached the snow line far, far above us. After resting an hour or
two, driven to it by our torturing thirst, we went on, toiling
painfully in the burning heat up the lava slopes, for we found that
the huge base of the mountain was composed entirely of lava beds
belched from the bowels of the earth in some far past age.

By eleven o’clock we were utterly exhausted, and, generally speaking,
in a very bad state indeed. The lava clinker, over which we must drag
ourselves, though smooth compared with some clinker I have heard of,
such as that on the Island of Ascension, for instance, was yet rough
enough to make our feet very sore, and this, together with our other
miseries, had pretty well finished us. A few hundred yards above us
were some large lumps of lava, and towards these we steered with the
intention of lying down beneath their shade. We reached them, and to
our surprise, so far as we had a capacity for surprise left in us, on
a little plateau or ridge close by we saw that the clinker was covered
with a dense green growth. Evidently soil formed of decomposed lava
had rested there, and in due course had become the receptacle of seeds
deposited by birds. But we did not take much further interest in the
green growth, for one cannot live on grass like Nebuchadnezzar. That
requires a special dispensation of Providence and peculiar digestive
organs.

So we sat down under the rocks and groaned, and for one I wished
heartily that we had never started on this fool’s errand. As we were
sitting there I saw Umbopa get up and hobble towards the patch of
green, and a few minutes afterwards, to my great astonishment, I
perceived that usually very dignified individual dancing and shouting
like a maniac, and waving something green. Off we all scrambled
towards him as fast as our wearied limbs would carry us, hoping that
he had found water.

«What is it, Umbopa, son of a fool?» I shouted in Zulu.

«It is food and water, Macumazahn,» and again he waved the green
thing.

Then I saw what he had found. It was a melon. We had hit upon a patch
of wild melons, thousands of them, and dead ripe.

«Melons!» I yelled to Good, who was next me; and in another minute his
false teeth were fixed in one of them.

I think we ate about six each before we had done, and poor fruit as
they were, I doubt if I ever thought anything nicer.

But melons are not very nutritious, and when we had satisfied our
thirst with their pulpy substance, and put a stock to cool by the
simple process of cutting them in two and setting them end on in the
hot sun to grow cold by evaporation, we began to feel exceedingly
hungry. We had still some biltong left, but our stomachs turned from
biltong, and besides, we were obliged to be very sparing of it, for we
could not say when we should find more food. Just at this moment a
lucky thing chanced. Looking across the desert I saw a flock of about
ten large birds flying straight towards us.

«/Skit, Baas, skit!/» «Shoot, master, shoot!» whispered the Hottentot,
throwing himself on his face, an example which we all followed.

Then I saw that the birds were a flock of /pauw/ or bustards, and that
they would pass within fifty yards of my head. Taking one of the
repeating Winchesters, I waited till they were nearly over us, and
then jumped to my feet. On seeing me the /pauw/ bunched up together,
as I expected that they would, and I fired two shots straight into the
thick of them, and, as luck would have it, brought one down, a fine
fellow, that weighed about twenty pounds. In half an hour we had a
fire made of dry melon stalks, and he was toasting over it, and we
made such a feed as we had not tasted for a week. We ate that /pauw/;
nothing was left of him but his leg-bones and his beak, and we felt
not a little the better afterwards.

That night we went on again with the moon, carrying as many melons as
we could with us. As we ascended we found the air grew cooler and
cooler, which was a great relief to us, and at dawn, so far as we
could judge, we were not more than about a dozen miles from the snow
line. Here we discovered more melons, and so had no longer any anxiety
about water, for we knew that we should soon get plenty of snow. But
the ascent had now become very precipitous, and we made but slow
progress, not more than a mile an hour. Also that night we ate our
last morsel of biltong. As yet, with the exception of the /pauw/, we
had seen no living thing on the mountain, nor had we come across a
single spring or stream of water, which struck us as very odd,
considering the expanse of snow above us, which must, we thought, melt
sometimes. But as we afterwards discovered, owing to a cause which it
is quite beyond my power to explain, all the streams flowed down upon
the north side of the mountains.

Now we began to grow very anxious about food. We had escaped death by
thirst, but it seemed probable that it was only to die of hunger. The
events of the next three miserable days are best described by copying
the entries made at the time in my note-book.

«21st May.—Started 11 a.m., finding the atmosphere quite cold enough
to travel by day, and carrying some water-melons with us. Struggled on
all day, but found no more melons, having evidently passed out of
their district. Saw no game of any sort. Halted for the night at
sundown, having had no food for many hours. Suffered much during the
night from cold.

«22nd.—Started at sunrise again, feeling very faint and weak. Only
made about five miles all day; found some patches of snow, of which we
ate, but nothing else. Camped at night under the edge of a great
plateau. Cold bitter. Drank a little brandy each, and huddled
ourselves together, each wrapped up in his blanket, to keep ourselves
alive. Are now suffering frightfully from starvation and weariness.
Thought that Ventvoegel would have died during the night.

«23rd.—Struggled forward once more as soon as the sun was well up,
and had thawed our limbs a little. We are now in a dreadful plight,
and I fear that unless we get food this will be our last day’s
journey. But little brandy left. Good, Sir Henry, and Umbopa bear up
wonderfully, but Ventvoegel is in a very bad way. Like most Hottentots,
he cannot stand cold. Pangs of hunger not so bad, but have a sort of
numb feeling about the stomach. Others say the same. We are now on a
level with the precipitous chain, or wall of lava, linking the two
Breasts, and the view is glorious. Behind us the glowing desert rolls
away to the horizon, and before us lie mile upon mile of smooth hard
snow almost level, but swelling gently upwards, out of the centre of
which the nipple of the mountain, that appears to be some miles in
circumference, rises about four thousand feet into the sky. Not a
living thing is to be seen. God help us; I fear that our time has
come.»

And now I will drop the journal, partly because it is not very
interesting reading; also what follows requires telling rather more
fully.

All that day—the 23rd May—we struggled slowly up the incline of
snow, lying down from time to time to rest. A strange gaunt crew we
must have looked, while, laden as we were, we dragged our weary feet
over the dazzling plain, glaring round us with hungry eyes. Not that
there was much use in glaring, for we could see nothing to eat. We did
not accomplish more than seven miles that day. Just before sunset we
found ourselves exactly under the nipple of Sheba’s left Breast, which
towered thousands of feet into the air, a vast smooth hillock of
frozen snow. Weak as we were, we could not but appreciate the
wonderful scene, made even more splendid by the flying rays of light
from the setting sun, which here and there stained the snow blood-red,
and crowned the great dome above us with a diadem of glory.

«I say,» gasped Good, presently, «we ought to be somewhere near that
cave the old gentleman wrote about.»

«Yes,» said I, «if there is a cave.»

«Come, Quatermain,» groaned Sir Henry, «don’t talk like that; I have
every faith in the Dom; remember the water! We shall find the place
soon.»

«If we don’t find it before dark we are dead men, that is all about
it,» was my consolatory reply.

For the next ten minutes we trudged in silence, when suddenly Umbopa,
who was marching along beside me, wrapped in his blanket, and with a
leather belt strapped so tightly round his stomach, to «make his
hunger small,» as he said, that his waist looked like a girl’s, caught
me by the arm.

«Look!» he said, pointing towards the springing slope of the nipple.

I followed his glance, and some two hundred yards from us perceived
what appeared to be a hole in the snow.

«It is the cave,» said Umbopa.

We made the best of our way to the spot, and found sure enough that
the hole was the mouth of a cavern, no doubt the same as that of which
da Silvestra wrote. We were not too soon, for just as we reached
shelter the sun went down with startling rapidity, leaving the world
nearly dark, for in these latitudes there is but little twilight. So
we crept into the cave, which did not appear to be very big, and
huddling ourselves together for warmth, swallowed what remained of our
brandy—barely a mouthful each—and tried to forget our miseries in
sleep. But the cold was too intense to allow us to do so, for I am
convinced that at this great altitude the thermometer cannot have
marked less than fourteen or fifteen degrees below freezing point.
What such a temperature meant to us, enervated as we were by hardship,
want of food, and the great heat of the desert, the reader may imagine
better than I can describe. Suffice it to say that it was something as
near death from exposure as I have ever felt. There we sat hour after
hour through the still and bitter night, feeling the frost wander
round and nip us now in the finger, now in the foot, now in the face.
In vain did we huddle up closer and closer; there was no warmth in our
miserable starved carcases. Sometimes one of us would drop into an
uneasy slumber for a few minutes, but we could not sleep much, and
perhaps this was fortunate, for if we had I doubt if we should have
ever woke again. Indeed, I believe that it was only by force of will
that we kept ourselves alive at all.

Not very long before dawn I heard the Hottentot Ventvoegel, whose teeth
had been chattering all night like castanets, give a deep sigh. Then
his teeth stopped chattering. I did not think anything of it at the
time, concluding that he had gone to sleep. His back was resting
against mine, and it seemed to grow colder and colder, till at last it
felt like ice.

At length the air began to grow grey with light, then golden arrows
sped across the snow, and at last the glorious sun peeped above the
lava wall and looked in upon our half-frozen forms. Also it looked
upon Ventvoegel, sitting there amongst us, /stone dead/. No wonder his
back felt cold, poor fellow. He had died when I heard him sigh, and
was now frozen almost stiff. Shocked beyond measure, we dragged
ourselves from the corpse—how strange is that horror we mortals have
of the companionship of a dead body—and left it sitting there, its
arms clasped about its knees.

By this time the sunlight was pouring its cold rays, for here they
were cold, straight into the mouth of the cave. Suddenly I heard an
exclamation of fear from someone, and turned my head.

And this is what I saw: Sitting at the end of the cavern—it was not
more than twenty feet long—was another form, of which the head rested
on its chest and the long arms hung down. I stared at it, and saw that
this too was a /dead man/, and, what was more, a white man.

The others saw also, and the sight proved too much for our shattered
nerves. One and all we scrambled out of the cave as fast as our half-
frozen limbs would carry us.

CHAPTER VII

SOLOMON’S ROAD

Outside the cavern we halted, feeling rather foolish.

«I am going back,» said Sir Henry.

«Why?» asked Good.

«Because it has struck me that—what we saw—may be my brother.»

This was a new idea, and we re-entered the place to put it to the
proof. After the bright light outside, our eyes, weak as they were
with staring at the snow, could not pierce the gloom of the cave for a
while. Presently, however, they grew accustomed to the semi-darkness,
and we advanced towards the dead man.

Sir Henry knelt down and peered into his face.

«Thank God,» he said, with a sigh of relief, «it is /not/ my brother.»

Then I drew near and looked. The body was that of a tall man in middle
life with aquiline features, grizzled hair, and a long black
moustache. The skin was perfectly yellow, and stretched tightly over
the bones. Its clothing, with the exception of what seemed to be the
remains of a woollen pair of hose, had been removed, leaving the
skeleton-like frame naked. Round the neck of the corpse, which was
frozen perfectly stiff, hung a yellow ivory crucifix.

«Who on earth can it be?» said I.

«Can’t you guess?» asked Good.

I shook my head.

«Why, the old Dom, Jose da Silvestra, of course—who else?»

«Impossible,» I gasped; «he died three hundred years ago.»

«And what is there to prevent him from lasting for three thousand
years in this atmosphere, I should like to know?» asked Good. «If only
the temperature is sufficiently low, flesh and blood will keep fresh
as New Zealand mutton for ever, and Heaven knows it is cold enough
here. The sun never gets in here; no animal comes here to tear or
destroy. No doubt his slave, of whom he speaks on the writing, took
off his clothes and left him. He could not have buried him alone.
Look!» he went on, stooping down to pick up a queerly-shaped bone
scraped at the end into a sharp point, «here is the ‘cleft bone’ that
Silvestra used to draw the map with.»

We gazed for a moment astonished, forgetting our own miseries in this
extraordinary and, as it seemed to us, semi-miraculous sight.

«Ay,» said Sir Henry, «and this is where he got his ink from,» and he
pointed to a small wound on the Dom’s left arm. «Did ever man see such
a thing before?»

There was no longer any doubt about the matter, which for my own part
I confess perfectly appalled me. There he sat, the dead man, whose
directions, written some ten generations ago, had led us to this spot.
Here in my own hand was the rude pen with which he had written them,
and about his neck hung the crucifix that his dying lips had kissed.
Gazing at him, my imagination could reconstruct the last scene of the
drama, the traveller dying of cold and starvation, yet striving to
convey to the world the great secret which he had discovered:—the
awful loneliness of his death, of which the evidence sat before us. It
even seemed to me that I could trace in his strongly-marked features a
likeness to those of my poor friend Silvestre his descendant, who had
died twenty years before in my arms, but perhaps that was fancy. At
any rate, there he sat, a sad memento of the fate that so often
overtakes those who would penetrate into the unknown; and there
doubtless he will still sit, crowned with the dread majesty of death,
for centuries yet unborn, to startle the eyes of wanderers like
ourselves, if ever any such should come again to invade his
loneliness. The thing overpowered us, already almost perished as we
were with cold and hunger.

«Let us go,» said Sir Henry in a low voice; «stay, we will give him a
companion,» and lifting up the dead body of the Hottentot Ventvoegel,
he placed it near to that of the old Dom. Then he stooped, and with a
jerk broke the rotten string of the crucifix which hung round da
Silvestra’s neck, for his fingers were too cold to attempt to unfasten
it. I believe that he has it still. I took the bone pen, and it is
before me as I write—sometimes I use it to sign my name.

Then leaving these two, the proud white man of a past age, and the
poor Hottentot, to keep their eternal vigil in the midst of the
eternal snows, we crept out of the cave into the welcome sunshine and
resumed our path, wondering in our hearts how many hours it would be
before we were even as they are.

When we had walked about half a mile we came to the edge of the
plateau, for the nipple of the mountain does not rise out of its exact
centre, though from the desert side it had seemed to do so. What lay
below us we could not see, for the landscape was wreathed in billows
of morning fog. Presently, however, the higher layers of mist cleared
a little, and revealed, at the end of a long slope of snow, a patch of
green grass, some five hundred yards beneath us, through which a
stream was running. Nor was this all. By the stream, basking in the
bright sun, stood and lay a group of from ten to fifteen /large
antelopes/—at that distance we could not see of what species.

The sight filled us with an unreasoning joy. If only we could get it,
there was food in plenty. But the question was how to do so. The
beasts were fully six hundred yards off, a very long shot, and one not
to be depended on when our lives hung on the results.

Rapidly we discussed the advisability of trying to stalk the game, but
in the end dismissed it reluctantly. To begin with, the wind was not
favourable, and further, we must certainly be perceived, however
careful we were, against the blinding background of snow, which we
should be obliged to traverse.

«Well, we must have a try from where we are,» said Sir Henry. «Which
shall it be, Quatermain, the repeating rifles or the expresses?»

Here again was a question. The Winchester repeaters—of which we had
two, Umbopa carrying poor Ventvoegel’s as well as his own—were sighted
up to a thousand yards, whereas the expresses were only sighted to
three hundred and fifty, beyond which distance shooting with them was
more or less guess-work. On the other hand, if they did hit, the
express bullets, being «expanding,» were much more likely to bring the
game down. It was a knotty point, but I made up my mind that we must
risk it and use the expresses.

«Let each of us take the buck opposite to him. Aim well at the point
of the shoulder and high up,» said I; «and Umbopa, do you give the
word, so that we may all fire together.»

Then came a pause, each of us aiming his level best, as indeed a man
is likely to do when he knows that life itself depends upon the shot.

«Fire,» said Umbopa in Zulu, and at almost the same instant the three
rifles rang out loudly; three clouds of smoke hung for a moment before
us, and a hundred echoes went flying over the silent snow. Presently
the smoke cleared, and revealed—oh, joy!—a great buck lying on its
back and kicking furiously in its death agony. We gave a yell of
triumph—we were saved—we should not starve. Weak as we were, we
rushed down the intervening slope of snow, and in ten minutes from the
time of shooting, that animal’s heart and liver were lying before us.
But now a new difficulty arose, we had no fuel, and therefore could
make no fire to cook them. We gazed at each other in dismay.

«Starving men should not be fanciful,» said Good; «we must eat raw
meat.»

There was no other way out of the dilemma, and our gnawing hunger made
the proposition less distasteful than it would otherwise have been. So
we took the heart and liver and buried them for a few minutes in a
patch of snow to cool them. Then we washed them in the ice-cold water
of the stream, and lastly ate them greedily. It sounds horrible
enough, but honestly, I never tasted anything so good as that raw
meat. In a quarter of an hour we were changed men. Our life and vigour
came back to us, our feeble pulses grew strong again, and the blood
went coursing through our veins. But mindful of the results of over-
feeding on starved stomachs, we were careful not to eat too much,
stopping whilst we were still hungry.

«Thank Heaven!» said Sir Henry; «that brute has saved our lives. What
is it, Quatermain?»

I rose and went to look at the antelope, for I was not certain. It was
about the size of a donkey, with large curved horns. I had never seen
one like it before; the species was new to me. It was brown in colour,
with faint red stripes, and grew a thick coat. I afterwards discovered
that the natives of that wonderful country call these bucks «/inco/.»
They are very rare, and only found at a great altitude where no other
game will live. This animal was fairly hit high up in the shoulder,
though whose bullet brought it down we could not, of course, discover.
I believe that Good, mindful of his marvellous shot at the giraffe,
secretly set it down to his own prowess, and we did not contradict
him.

We had been so busy satisfying our hunger that hitherto we had not
found time to look about us. But now, having set Umbopa to cut off as
much of the best meat as we were likely to be able to carry, we began
to inspect our surroundings. The mist had cleared away, for it was
eight o’clock, and the sun had sucked it up, so we were able to take
in all the country before us at a glance. I know not how to describe
the glorious panorama which unfolded itself to our gaze. I have never
seen anything like it before, nor shall, I suppose, again.

Behind and over us towered Sheba’s snowy Breasts, and below, some five
thousand feet beneath where we stood, lay league on league of the most
lovely champaign country. Here were dense patches of lofty forest,
there a great river wound its silvery way. To the left stretched a
vast expanse of rich, undulating veld or grass land, whereon we could
just make out countless herds of game or cattle, at that distance we
could not tell which. This expanse appeared to be ringed in by a wall
of distant mountains. To the right the country was more or less
mountainous; that is, solitary hills stood up from its level, with
stretches of cultivated land between, amongst which we could see
groups of dome-shaped huts. The landscape lay before us as a map,
wherein rivers flashed like silver snakes, and Alp-like peaks crowned
with wildly twisted snow wreaths rose in grandeur, whilst over all was
the glad sunlight and the breath of Nature’s happy life.

Two curious things struck us as we gazed. First, that the country
before us must lie at least three thousand feet higher than the desert
we had crossed, and secondly, that all the rivers flowed from south to
north. As we had painful reason to know, there was no water upon the
southern side of the vast range on which we stood, but on the northern
face were many streams, most of which appeared to unite with the great
river we could see winding away farther than our eyes could follow.

We sat down for a while and gazed in silence at this wonderful view.
Presently Sir Henry spoke.

«Isn’t there something on the map about Solomon’s Great Road?» he
said.

I nodded, for I was still gazing out over the far country.

«Well, look; there it is!» and he pointed a little to our right.

Good and I looked accordingly, and there, winding away towards the
plain, was what appeared to be a wide turnpike road. We had not seen
it at first because, on reaching the plain, it turned behind some
broken country. We did not say anything, at least, not much; we were
beginning to lose the sense of wonder. Somehow it did not seem
particularly unnatural that we should find a sort of Roman road in
this strange land. We accepted the fact, that was all.

«Well,» said Good, «it must be quite near us if we cut off to the
right. Hadn’t we better be making a start?»

This was sound advice, and so soon as we had washed our faces and
hands in the stream we acted on it. For a mile or more we made our way
over boulders and across patches of snow, till suddenly, on reaching
the top of the little rise, we found the road at our feet. It was a
splendid road cut out of the solid rock, at least fifty feet wide, and
apparently well kept; though the odd thing was that it seemed to begin
there. We walked down and stood on it, but one single hundred paces
behind us, in the direction of Sheba’s Breasts, it vanished, the
entire surface of the mountain being strewn with boulders interspersed
with patches of snow.

«What do you make of this, Quatermain?» asked Sir Henry.

I shook my head, I could make nothing of the thing.

«I have it!» said Good; «the road no doubt ran right over the range
and across the desert on the other side, but the sand there has
covered it up, and above us it has been obliterated by some volcanic
eruption of molten lava.»

This seemed a good suggestion; at any rate, we accepted it, and
proceeded down the mountain. It proved a very different business
travelling along down hill on that magnificent pathway with full
stomachs from what it was travelling uphill over the snow quite
starved and almost frozen. Indeed, had it not been for melancholy
recollections of poor Ventvoegel’s sad fate, and of that grim cave
where he kept company with the old Dom, we should have felt positively
cheerful, notwithstanding the sense of unknown dangers before us.
Every mile we walked the atmosphere grew softer and balmier, and the
country before us shone with a yet more luminous beauty. As for the
road itself, I never saw such an engineering work, though Sir Henry
said that the great road over the St. Gothard in Switzerland is very
similar. No difficulty had been too great for the Old World engineer
who laid it out. At one place we came to a ravine three hundred feet
broad and at least a hundred feet deep. This vast gulf was actually
filled in with huge blocks of dressed stone, having arches pierced
through them at the bottom for a waterway, over which the road went on
sublimely. At another place it was cut in zigzags out of the side of a
precipice five hundred feet deep, and in a third it tunnelled through
the base of an intervening ridge, a space of thirty yards or more.

Here we noticed that the sides of the tunnel were covered with quaint
sculptures, mostly of mailed figures driving in chariots. One, which
was exceedingly beautiful, represented a whole battle scene with a
convoy of captives being marched off in the distance.

«Well,» said Sir Henry, after inspecting this ancient work of art, «it
is very well to call this Solomon’s Road, but my humble opinion is
that the Egyptians had been here before Solomon’s people ever set a
foot on it. If this isn’t Egyptian or Phoenician handiwork, I must say
that it is very like it.»

By midday we had advanced sufficiently down the mountain to search the
region where wood was to be met with. First we came to scattered
bushes which grew more and more frequent, till at last we found the
road winding through a vast grove of silver trees similar to those
which are to be seen on the slopes of Table Mountain at Cape Town. I
had never before met with them in all my wanderings, except at the
Cape, and their appearance here astonished me greatly.

«Ah!» said Good, surveying these shining-leaved trees with evident
enthusiasm, «here is lots of wood, let us stop and cook some dinner; I
have about digested that raw heart.»

Nobody objected to this, so leaving the road we made our way to a
stream which was babbling away not far off, and soon had a goodly fire
of dry boughs blazing. Cutting off some substantial hunks from the
flesh of the /inco/ which we had brought with us, we proceeded to
toast them on the end of sharp sticks, as one sees the Kafirs do, and
ate them with relish. After filling ourselves, we lit our pipes and
gave ourselves up to enjoyment that, compared with the hardships we
had recently undergone, seemed almost heavenly.

The brook, of which the banks were clothed with dense masses of a
gigantic species of maidenhair fern interspersed with feathery tufts
of wild asparagus, sung merrily at our side, the soft air murmured
through the leaves of the silver trees, doves cooed around, and
bright-winged birds flashed like living gems from bough to bough. It
was a Paradise.

The magic of the place combined with an overwhelming sense of dangers
left behind, and of the promised land reached at last, seemed to charm
us into silence. Sir Henry and Umbopa sat conversing in a mixture of
broken English and Kitchen Zulu in a low voice, but earnestly enough,
and I lay, with my eyes half shut, upon that fragrant bed of fern and
watched them.

Presently I missed Good, and I looked to see what had become of him.
Soon I observed him sitting by the bank of the stream, in which he had
been bathing. He had nothing on but his flannel shirt, and his natural
habits of extreme neatness having reasserted themselves, he was
actively employed in making a most elaborate toilet. He had washed his
gutta-percha collar, had thoroughly shaken out his trousers, coat and
waistcoat, and was now folding them up neatly till he was ready to put
them on, shaking his head sadly as he scanned the numerous rents and
tears in them, which naturally had resulted from our frightful
journey. Then he took his boots, scrubbed them with a handful of fern,
and finally rubbed them over with a piece of fat, which he had
carefully saved from the /inco/ meat, till they looked, comparatively
speaking, respectable. Having inspected them judiciously through his
eye-glass, he put the boots on and began a fresh operation. From a
little bag that he carried he produced a pocket-comb in which was
fixed a tiny looking-glass, and in this he surveyed himself.
Apparently he was not satisfied, for he proceeded to do his hair with
great care. Then came a pause whilst he again contemplated the effect;
still it was not satisfactory. He felt his chin, on which the
accumulated scrub of a ten days’ beard was flourishing.

«Surely,» thought I, «he is not going to try to shave.» But so it was.
Taking the piece of fat with which he had greased his boots, Good
washed it thoroughly in the stream. Then diving again into the bag he
brought out a little pocket razor with a guard to it, such as are
bought by people who are afraid of cutting themselves, or by those
about to undertake a sea voyage. Then he rubbed his face and chin
vigorously with the fat and began. Evidently it proved a painful
process, for he groaned very much over it, and I was convulsed with
inward laughter as I watched him struggling with that stubbly beard.
It seemed so very odd that a man should take the trouble to shave
himself with a piece of fat in such a place and in our circumstances.
At last he succeeded in getting the hair off the right side of his
face and chin, when suddenly I, who was watching, became conscious of
a flash of light that passed just by his head.

Good sprang up with a profane exclamation (if it had not been a safety
razor he would certainly have cut his throat), and so did I, without
the exclamation, and this was what I saw. Standing not more than
twenty paces from where I was, and ten from Good, were a group of men.
They were very tall and copper-coloured, and some of them wore great
plumes of black feathers and short cloaks of leopard skins; this was
all I noticed at the moment. In front of them stood a youth of about
seventeen, his hand still raised and his body bent forward in the
attitude of a Grecian statue of a spear-thrower. Evidently the flash
of light had been caused by a weapon which he had hurled.

As I looked an old soldier-like man stepped forward out of the group,
and catching the youth by the arm said something to him. Then they
advanced upon us.

Sir Henry, Good, and Umbopa by this time had seized their rifles and
lifted them threateningly. The party of natives still came on. It
struck me that they could not know what rifles were, or they would not
have treated them with such contempt.

«Put down your guns!» I halloed to the others, seeing that our only
chance of safety lay in conciliation. They obeyed, and walking to the
front I addressed the elderly man who had checked the youth.

«Greeting,» I said in Zulu, not knowing what language to use. To my
surprise I was understood.

«Greeting,» answered the old man, not, indeed, in the same tongue, but
in a dialect so closely allied to it that neither Umbopa nor myself
had any difficulty in understanding him. Indeed, as we afterwards
found out, the language spoken by this people is an old-fashioned form
of the Zulu tongue, bearing about the same relationship to it that the
English of Chaucer does to the English of the nineteenth century.

«Whence come you?» he went on, «who are you? and why are the faces of
three of you white, and the face of the fourth as the face of our
mother’s sons?» and he pointed to Umbopa. I looked at Umbopa as he
said it, and it flashed across me that he was right. The face of
Umbopa was like the faces of the men before me, and so was his great
form like their forms. But I had not time to reflect on this
coincidence.

«We are strangers, and come in peace,» I answered, speaking very
slowly, so that he might understand me, «and this man is our servant.»

«You lie,» he answered; «no strangers can cross the mountains where
all things perish. But what do your lies matter?—if ye are strangers
then ye must die, for no strangers may live in the land of the
Kukuanas. It is the king’s law. Prepare then to die, O strangers!»

I was slightly staggered at this, more especially as I saw the hands
of some of the men steal down to their sides, where hung on each what
looked to me like a large and heavy knife.

«What does that beggar say?» asked Good.

«He says we are going to be killed,» I answered grimly.

«Oh, Lord!» groaned Good; and, as was his way when perplexed, he put
his hand to his false teeth, dragging the top set down and allowing
them to fly back to his jaw with a snap. It was a most fortunate move,
for next second the dignified crowd of Kukuanas uttered a simultaneous
yell of horror, and bolted back some yards.

«What’s up?» said I.

«It’s his teeth,» whispered Sir Henry excitedly. «He moved them. Take
them out, Good, take them out!»

He obeyed, slipping the set into the sleeve of his flannel shirt.

In another second curiosity had overcome fear, and the men advanced
slowly. Apparently they had now forgotten their amiable intention of
killing us.

«How is it, O strangers,» asked the old man solemnly, «that this fat
man (pointing to Good, who was clad in nothing but boots and a flannel
shirt, and had only half finished his shaving), whose body is clothed,
and whose legs are bare, who grows hair on one side of his sickly face
and not on the other, and who wears one shining and transparent eye—
how is it, I ask, that he has teeth which move of themselves, coming
away from the jaws and returning of their own will?»

«Open your mouth,» I said to Good, who promptly curled up his lips and
grinned at the old gentleman like an angry dog, revealing to his
astonished gaze two thin red lines of gum as utterly innocent of
ivories as a new-born elephant. The audience gasped.

«Where are his teeth?» they shouted; «with our eyes we saw them.»

Turning his head slowly and with a gesture of ineffable contempt, Good
swept his hand across his mouth. Then he grinned again, and lo, there
were two rows of lovely teeth.

Now the young man who had flung the knife threw himself down on the
grass and gave vent to a prolonged howl of terror; and as for the old
gentleman, his knees knocked together with fear.

«I see that ye are spirits,» he said falteringly; «did ever man born
of woman have hair on one side of his face and not on the other, or a
round and transparent eye, or teeth which moved and melted away and
grew again? Pardon us, O my lords.»

Here was luck indeed, and, needless to say, I jumped at the chance.

«It is granted,» I said with an imperial smile. «Nay, ye shall know
the truth. We come from another world, though we are men such as ye;
we come,» I went on, «from the biggest star that shines at night.»

«Oh! oh!» groaned the chorus of astonished aborigines.

«Yes,» I went on, «we do, indeed»; and again I smiled benignly, as I
uttered that amazing lie. «We come to stay with you a little while,
and to bless you by our sojourn. Ye will see, O friends, that I have
prepared myself for this visit by the learning of your language.»

«It is so, it is so,» said the chorus.

«Only, my lord,» put in the old gentleman, «thou hast learnt it very
badly.»

I cast an indignant glance at him, and he quailed.

«Now friends,» I continued, «ye might think that after so long a
journey we should find it in our hearts to avenge such a reception,
mayhap to strike cold in death the imperious hand that—that, in short
—threw a knife at the head of him whose teeth come and go.»

«Spare him, my lords,» said the old man in supplication; «he is the
king’s son, and I am his uncle. If anything befalls him his blood will
be required at my hands.»

«Yes, that is certainly so,» put in the young man with great emphasis.

«Ye may perhaps doubt our power to avenge,» I went on, heedless of
this by-play. «Stay, I will show you. Here, thou dog and slave
(addressing Umbopa in a savage tone), give me the magic tube that
speaks»; and I tipped a wink towards my express rifle.

Umbopa rose to the occasion, and with something as nearly resembling a
grin as I have ever seen on his dignified face he handed me the gun.

«It is here, O Lord of Lords,» he said with a deep obeisance.

Now just before I had asked for the rifle I had perceived a little
/klipspringer/ antelope standing on a mass of rock about seventy yards
away, and determined to risk the shot.

«Ye see that buck,» I said, pointing the animal out to the party
before me. «Tell me, is it possible for man born of woman to kill it
from here with a noise?»

«It is not possible, my lord,» answered the old man.

«Yet shall I kill it,» I said quietly.

The old man smiled. «That my lord cannot do,» he answered.

I raised the rifle and covered the buck. It was a small animal, and
one which a man might well be excused for missing, but I knew that it
would not do to miss.

I drew a deep breath, and slowly pressed on the trigger. The buck
stood still as a stone.

«Bang! thud!» The antelope sprang into the air and fell on the rock
dead as a door nail.

A groan of simultaneous terror burst from the group before us.

«If you want meat,» I remarked coolly, «go fetch that buck.»

The old man made a sign, and one of his followers departed, and
presently returned bearing the /klipspringer/. I noticed with
satisfaction that I had hit it fairly behind the shoulder. They
gathered round the poor creature’s body, gazing at the bullet-hole in
consternation.

«Ye see,» I said, «I do not speak empty words.»

There was no answer.

«If ye yet doubt our power,» I went on, «let one of you go stand upon
that rock that I may make him as this buck.»

None of them seemed at all inclined to take the hint, till at last the
king’s son spoke.

«It is well said. Do thou, my uncle, go stand upon the rock. It is but
a buck that the magic has killed. Surely it cannot kill a man.»

The old gentleman did not take the suggestion in good part. Indeed, he
seemed hurt.

«No! no!» he ejaculated hastily, «my old eyes have seen enough. These
are wizards, indeed. Let us bring them to the king. Yet if any should
wish a further proof, let /him/ stand upon the rock, that the magic
tube may speak with him.»

There was a most general and hasty expression of dissent.

«Let not good magic be wasted on our poor bodies,» said one; «we are
satisfied. All the witchcraft of our people cannot show the like of
this.»

«It is so,» remarked the old gentleman, in a tone of intense relief;
«without any doubt it is so. Listen, children of the Stars, children
of the shining Eye and the movable Teeth, who roar out in thunder, and
slay from afar. I am Infadoos, son of Kafa, once king of the Kukuana
people. This youth is Scragga.»

«He nearly scragged me,» murmured Good.

«Scragga, son of Twala, the great king—Twala, husband of a thousand
wives, chief and lord paramount of the Kukuanas, keeper of the great
Road, terror of his enemies, student of the Black Arts, leader of a
hundred thousand warriors, Twala the One-eyed, the Black, the
Terrible.»

«So,» said I superciliously, «lead us then to Twala. We do not talk
with low people and underlings.»

«It is well, my lords, we will lead you; but the way is long. We are
hunting three days’ journey from the place of the king. But let my
lords have patience, and we will lead them.»

«So be it,» I said carelessly; «all time is before us, for we do not
die. We are ready, lead on. But Infadoos, and thou Scragga, beware!
Play us no monkey tricks, set for us no foxes’ snares, for before your
brains of mud have thought of them we shall know and avenge. The light
of the transparent eye of him with the bare legs and the half-haired
face shall destroy you, and go through your land; his vanishing teeth
shall affix themselves fast in you and eat you up, you and your wives
and children; the magic tubes shall argue with you loudly, and make
you as sieves. Beware!»

This magnificent address did not fail of its effect; indeed, it might
almost have been spared, so deeply were our friends already impressed
with our powers.

The old man made a deep obeisance, and murmured the words, «/Koom
Koom/,» which I afterwards discovered was their royal salute,
corresponding to the /Bayete/ of the Zulus, and turning, addressed his
followers. These at once proceeded to lay hold of all our goods and
chattels, in order to bear them for us, excepting only the guns, which
they would on no account touch. They even seized Good’s clothes, that,
as the reader may remember, were neatly folded up beside him.

He saw and made a dive for them, and a loud altercation ensued.

«Let not my lord of the transparent Eye and the melting Teeth touch
them,» said the old man. «Surely his slave shall carry the things.»

«But I want to put ’em on!» roared Good, in nervous English.

Umbopa translated.

«Nay, my lord,» answered Infadoos, «would my lord cover up his
beautiful white legs (although he is so dark Good has a singularly
white skin) from the eyes of his servants? Have we offended my lord
that he should do such a thing?»

Here I nearly exploded with laughing; and meanwhile one of the men
started on with the garments.

«Damn it!» roared Good, «that black villain has got my trousers.»

«Look here, Good,» said Sir Henry; «you have appeared in this country
in a certain character, and you must live up to it. It will never do
for you to put on trousers again. Henceforth you must exist in a
flannel shirt, a pair of boots, and an eye-glass.»

«Yes,» I said, «and with whiskers on one side of your face and not on
the other. If you change any of these things the people will think
that we are impostors. I am very sorry for you, but, seriously, you
must. If once they begin to suspect us our lives will not be worth a
brass farthing.»

«Do you really think so?» said Good gloomily.

«I do, indeed. Your ‘beautiful white legs’ and your eye-glass are now
/the/ features of our party, and as Sir Henry says, you must live up
to them. Be thankful that you have got your boots on, and that the air
is warm.»

Good sighed, and said no more, but it took him a fortnight to become
accustomed to his new and scant attire.

CHAPTER VIII

WE ENTER KUKUANALAND

All that afternoon we travelled along the magnificent roadway, which
trended steadily in a north-westerly direction. Infadoos and Scragga
walked with us, but their followers marched about one hundred paces
ahead.

«Infadoos,» I said at length, «who made this road?»

«It was made, my lord, of old time, none know how or when, not even
the wise woman Gagool, who has lived for generations. We are not old
enough to remember its making. None can fashion such roads now, but
the king suffers no grass to grow upon it.»

«And whose are the writings on the wall of the caves through which we
have passed on the road?» I asked, referring to the Egyptian-like
sculptures that we had seen.

«My lord, the hands that made the road wrote the wonderful writings.
We know not who wrote them.»

«When did the Kukuana people come into this country?»

«My lord, the race came down here like the breath of a storm ten
thousand thousand moons ago, from the great lands which lie there
beyond,» and he pointed to the north. «They could travel no further
because of the high mountains which ring in the land, so say the old
voices of our fathers that have descended to us the children, and so
says Gagool, the wise woman, the smeller out of witches,» and again he
pointed to the snow-clad peaks. «The country, too, was good, so they
settled here and grew strong and powerful, and now our numbers are
like the sea sand, and when Twala the king calls up his regiments
their plumes cover the plain so far as the eye of man can reach.»

«And if the land is walled in with mountains, who is there for the
regiments to fight with?»

«Nay, my lord, the country is open there towards the north, and now
and again warriors sweep down upon us in clouds from a land we know
not, and we slay them. It is the third part of the life of a man since
there was a war. Many thousands died in it, but we destroyed those who
came to eat us up. So since then there has been no war.»

«Your warriors must grow weary of resting on their spears, Infadoos.»

«My lord, there was one war, just after we destroyed the people that
came down upon us, but it was a civil war; dog ate dog.»

«How was that?»

«My lord the king, my half-brother, had a brother born at the same
birth, and of the same woman. It is not our custom, my lord, to suffer
twins to live; the weaker must always die. But the mother of the king
hid away the feebler child, which was born the last, for her heart
yearned over it, and that child is Twala the king. I am his younger
brother, born of another wife.»

«Well?»

«My lord, Kafa, our father, died when we came to manhood, and my
brother Imotu was made king in his place, and for a space reigned and
had a son by his favourite wife. When the babe was three years old,
just after the great war, during which no man could sow or reap, a
famine came upon the land, and the people murmured because of the
famine, and looked round like a starved lion for something to rend.
Then it was that Gagool, the wise and terrible woman, who does not
die, made a proclamation to the people, saying, ‘The king Imotu is no
king.’ And at the time Imotu was sick with a wound, and lay in his
kraal not able to move.

«Then Gagool went into a hut and led out Twala, my half-brother, and
twin brother to the king, whom she had hidden among the caves and
rocks since he was born, and stripping the ‘/moocha/’ (waist-cloth)
off his loins, showed the people of the Kukuanas the mark of the
sacred snake coiled round his middle, wherewith the eldest son of the
king is marked at birth, and cried out loud, ‘Behold your king whom I
have saved for you even to this day!’

«Now the people being mad with hunger, and altogether bereft of reason
and the knowledge of truth, cried out—‘/The king! The king!/’ but I
knew that it was not so, for Imotu my brother was the elder of the
twins, and our lawful king. Then just as the tumult was at its height
Imotu the king, though he was very sick, crawled from his hut holding
his wife by the hand, and followed by his little son Ignosi—that is,
by interpretation, the Lightning.

«‘What is this noise?’ he asked. ‘Why cry ye /The king! The king!/’

«Then Twala, his twin brother, born of the same woman, and in the same
hour, ran to him, and taking him by the hair, stabbed him through the
heart with his knife. And the people being fickle, and ever ready to
worship the rising sun, clapped their hands and cried, ‘/Twala is
king!/ Now we know that Twala is king!'»

«And what became of Imotu’s wife and her son Ignosi? Did Twala kill
them too?»

«Nay, my lord. When she saw that her lord was dead the queen seized
the child with a cry and ran away. Two days afterward she came to a
kraal very hungry, and none would give her milk or food, now that her
lord the king was dead, for all men hate the unfortunate. But at
nightfall a little child, a girl, crept out and brought her corn to
eat, and she blessed the child, and went on towards the mountains with
her boy before the sun rose again, and there she must have perished,
for none have seen her since, nor the child Ignosi.»

«Then if this child Ignosi had lived he would be the true king of the
Kukuana people?»

«That is so, my lord; the sacred snake is round his middle. If he
lives he is king; but, alas! he is long dead.»

«See, my lord,» and Infadoos pointed to a vast collection of huts
surrounded by a fence, which was in its turn encircled by a great
ditch, that lay on the plain beneath us. «That is the kraal where the
wife of Imotu was last seen with the child Ignosi. It is there that we
shall sleep to-night, if, indeed,» he added doubtfully, «my lords
sleep at all upon this earth.»

«When we are among the Kukuanas, my good friend Infadoos, we do as the
Kukuanas do,» I said majestically, and turned round quickly to address
Good, who was tramping along sullenly behind, his mind fully occupied
with unsatisfactory attempts to prevent his flannel shirt from
flapping in the evening breeze. To my astonishment I butted into
Umbopa, who was walking along immediately behind me, and very
evidently had been listening with the greatest interest to my
conversation with Infadoos. The expression on his face was most
curious, and gave me the idea of a man who was struggling with partial
success to bring something long ago forgotten back into his mind.

All this while we had been pressing on at a good rate towards the
undulating plain beneath us. The mountains we had crossed now loomed
high above our heads, and Sheba’s Breasts were veiled modestly in
diaphanous wreaths of mist. As we went the country grew more and more
lovely. The vegetation was luxuriant, without being tropical; the sun
was bright and warm, but not burning; and a gracious breeze blew
softly along the odorous slopes of the mountains. Indeed, this new
land was little less than an earthly paradise; in beauty, in natural
wealth, and in climate I have never seen its like. The Transvaal is a
fine country, but it is nothing to Kukuanaland.

So soon as we started Infadoos had despatched a runner to warn the
people of the kraal, which, by the way, was in his military command,
of our arrival. This man had departed at an extraordinary speed, which
Infadoos informed me he would keep up all the way, as running was an
exercise much practised among his people.

The result of this message now became apparent. When we arrived within
two miles of the kraal we could see that company after company of men
were issuing from its gates and marching towards us.

Sir Henry laid his hand upon my arm, and remarked that it looked as
though we were going to meet with a warm reception. Something in his
tone attracted Infadoos’ attention.

«Let not my lords be afraid,» he said hastily, «for in my breast there
dwells no guile. This regiment is one under my command, and comes out
by my orders to greet you.»

I nodded easily, though I was not quite easy in my mind.

About half a mile from the gates of this kraal is a long stretch of
rising ground sloping gently upwards from the road, and here the
companies formed. It was a splendid sight to see them, each company
about three hundred strong, charging swiftly up the rise, with
flashing spears and waving plumes, to take their appointed place. By
the time we reached the slope twelve such companies, or in all three
thousand six hundred men, had passed out and taken up their positions
along the road.

Presently we came to the first company, and were able to gaze in
astonishment on the most magnificent set of warriors that I have ever
seen. They were all men of mature age, mostly veterans of about forty,
and not one of them was under six feet in height, whilst many stood
six feet three or four. They wore upon their heads heavy black plumes
of Sakaboola feathers, like those which adorned our guides. About
their waists and beneath the right knees were bound circlets of white
ox tails, while in their left hands they carried round shields
measuring about twenty inches across. These shields are very curious.
The framework is made of an iron plate beaten out thin, over which is
stretched milk-white ox-hide.

The weapons that each man bore were simple, but most effective,
consisting of a short and very heavy two-edged spear with a wooden
shaft, the blade being about six inches across at the widest part.
These spears are not used for throwing but like the Zulu «/bangwan/,»
or stabbing assegai, are for close quarters only, when the wound
inflicted by them is terrible. In addition to his /bangwan/ every man
carried three large and heavy knives, each knife weighing about two
pounds. One knife was fixed in the ox-tail girdle, and the other two
at the back of the round shield. These knives, which are called
«/tollas/» by the Kukuanas, take the place of the throwing assegai of
the Zulus. The Kukuana warriors can cast them with great accuracy to a
distance of fifty yards, and it is their custom on charging to hurl a
volley of them at the enemy as they come to close quarters.

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