King Solomon's Mines
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 Ventvögel—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 Ventvögel), 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
Ventvögel, 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 José da Silvestra’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 to 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[6]
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.
[6] 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,