It was not until my second season's hunting with Koenraad du Plessis
that I heard of Verloren Vlei, a place I am never likely to forget. Du
Plessis was a Transvaal Boer, descended, as his name implies, from that
good Huguenot stock which, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
made its way to the Cape to replenish the Dutch settlers. The French
language quickly died out in South Africa, mainly from a stern
repression; yet here and there, all over that vast land, you may see at
this day, in the strong and stubborn Boer breed, plain traces of the
French admixture. Du Plessis bore about him very certain indications of
his ancestry. He was shortish for a Boer, very dark of complexion,
keen-eyed, merry, alert, vigorous and active as a cat.
Nineteen years ago, the north and east of the Transvaal, and the
countries just across the border, were wild and little-known lands,
still teeming with game. I was wandering through this region, hunting
and exploring. The gold-fever had recently broken out, and as I
understood something of mining and geology, I put in a good deal of
prospecting as well. It was a vagrant, delightful existence, and I
thoroughly enjoyed it.
Du Plessis and I met first in the north of Waterberg. I found him an
excellent good fellow; he took to me; and we quickly became great
friends. We trekked along the Crocodile River together, crossed it
before it takes its southerly bend, and, for the whole of the dry winter
season, hunted in a glorious veldt abounding in game. So excellent a
comrade had I found the Boer, and so well had we enjoyed one another's
company, that we engaged to meet again the following season. Thus, at
the end of July, 1876, we were once more hunting together in that wild
and distant region north-east of the Crocodile.
One evening--I remember it well--we were outspanned in a delightful
valley between low hills, through which a pleasant stream ran--a rare
thing in the prevailing drought. We had had a good hunt that day, and
the flesh of a fat buffalo cow filled our stew-pot. Our oxen lay
peacefully in a strong thorn kraal close at hand--for there were lions
about--and our horses were tied up to the wagon-wheels; the fires blazed
ruddily against the outer darkness. At one of these fires were gathered
our native boys, feasting and chattering, and laughing in high good
humour; at the other, Du Plessis and I sat in our wagon-chairs. We had
finished our meal, and were smoking our fragrant Rustenburg tobacco and
drinking our coffee; for the day had been hot, and our hunt a long and
exciting one, and our thirst was still unassuaged. We were talking
about gold and prospecting. The Dutchman was not over-keen about it,
but he was anxious to help me.
"There's a kloof somewhere about here, Fairmount," (that's my name), he
said, "in which I shot a white rhinoceros five years ago. I should like
you to see it; I remember some natives brought me a quill of gold which
they had collected up there. I think you would find it worth looking
at; but this country is so broken, that I can't for the life of me make
out the exact spot. We shall hit it off presently, no doubt; but just
now it's almost as hard to find as poor Tobias Steenkamp's `Verloren
Vlei.'"
"Verloren Vlei," I replied in Cape Dutch, in which we habitually spoke.
"I never heard of the place. Where's that?"
"Allemaghte! that's a very queer story," answered Du Plessis. "Tobias
Steenkamp was a cousin of mine. One day four years ago he came to our
farm and outspanned. He had had a hard trek, and lost some oxen, and
was himself smitten with fever. He stayed a week, and he was for ever
talking of a wonderful _vlei_ [Pronounced _flay_, A vlei is the Dutch
name for a shallow lake.] he had discovered somewhere in an inaccessible
mountain range in this direction, on the shores of which he had found
much gold. He showed us some fine nuggets; and, indeed, he excited my
brother Hans and myself so much, that we half promised to go back with
him and have a look at the place.
"Well, Tobias got over his fever, obtained fresh oxen, refitted his
wagon, and started off again for his wonderful vlei. Hans and I could
not get away at that moment; but we meant to hunt in that direction, and
we promised to follow him up in a little time. He left a boy with us to
show us the road. In two months' time we had trekked up to the
neighbourhood of Tobias's great discovery, and then we received a shock.
We met his driver and servants returning with the wagon, and no master.
They told us that they had outspanned near the vlei--which they
themselves had never seen; that their master had started off alone up
the mountain next morning--he would never permit any of his boys to go
with him; and that he had never returned. They had waited and waited,
and had then searched for him in every direction without result. For a
fortnight this had gone on; and now they had given up the search, and
believed their master dead. Well, Hans and I took the men back with us
to the mountain again, and made a thorough search, and sent out parties
in every direction into the country round. We might as well have looked
for the Fiend himself; we never again found a trace of Tobias Steenkamp.
He is dead, undoubtedly, and his fate is wrapped in black mystery. How
he disappeared, where he went, I cannot say. We did find _spoor_ of a
man and donkey to the north-east. The man had disappeared, and the
donkey had been eaten by a lion. What _their_ mystery was, I know not
either. We found no trace of a passage up the grim mountain-walls where
poor Tobias had vanished; and as for the vlei itself, well, Hans and I
could make nothing of it. We never set eyes on it, and half doubted its
existence. We have always called it since `Verloren Vlei,' and by that
name we and our friends still know it. And yet Tobias was no fool; he
described the vlei very plainly to us more than once; and he firmly
believed in it. Allemaghte! yes, of that I am quite certain; and what's
more, he showed me the gold he had found there. It's incomprehensible."
"That's a queer story of yours, Koenraad," said I. "I wonder I never
heard you mention it before. How far away is this place you speak of?"
"About six days' journey from here, I suppose," replied Du Plessis; "and
it's a rough trek."
"Has any one else ever tried to discover this secret?" I went on.
"Two or three people only," rejoined the Dutchman. "Tobias's brother
and three other Boers who knew him went on two different occasions; but
they came away no wiser than ourselves. Neither Tobias nor his bones
have ever come to light."
We went on chatting by the fire that night, and presently turned into
our wagons.
I am bound to confess that the Dutchman's grim story grew upon and
fascinated me. Mystery has always a curious attraction. Here was
hidden away some dark episode, in which this simple, unfortunate Boer
had lost his life. I determined to try to unravel the clew; and the
gold, too, lent an additional motive to the search.
I had small difficulty in persuading Koenraad du Plessis next morning to
lead me to the place of misfortune. We settled to trek thither, hunting
on our way; and in six days' time we found ourselves outspanned for the
night beneath the loom of the great rock fortress which held so securely
the Dutchman's secret. It was the hour of sunset as we neared the
mountain range, which lay between us and the north-west. The sky was a
sheet of red and gold, against which the rugged mass stood out in a
wonderful relief. Up above the mountain tops, long skeins of great
birds, all following one another slowly and majestically in an endless
maze of evolutions, were silhouetted black against the flaming heavens.
We were a good mile away from the nearest string, but there was a
wonderful stillness of the atmosphere; all nature seemed hushed, except
for the birds--and the faint notes of their peculiar plaintive whistle
told me instantly what they were.
"Why, Koenraad," I said, "those are pelicans, and they're just going
down to water somewhere in the mountains! See, there they go!"
As I spoke the lower skein sank gently into the mountains, and presently
chain after chain of the singular evolutionaries disappeared softly
within the range, until the last bird had vanished, and the now fading
sky lay clear and unflecked.
"Allemaghte!" ejaculated Du Plessis in his deepest tones; "those are
pelicans surely, and they have gone down to water. Strange that I have
never seen them there before. There is the vlei, sure enough! We will
never rest now till we find it."
We were up at dawn next morning, and as we breakfasted we saw with
intense interest the pelicans rise from the heart of the mountain,
slowly circle about the sky, and then stretch their flight, in their
leisurely and majestic fashion, in our direction. As they quitted the
mountain, they sank lower towards the flat country, and some of them
were evidently about to pass right overhead.
"They'll come over the wagons," said Du Plessis; "they're off for that
big salt pan we passed yesterday morning."
I dived into my wagon, and took down my rifle. An idea had struck me.
I pushed a cartridge into the breech, and, as the great birds passed
slowly a hundred yards overhead, took aim at one and fired. The target
was a big and an easy one: the stricken bird toppled downwards, turning
over and over in its fall, and presently hit the earth with a tremendous
thud. One of the boys ran and brought it to me. I opened its bill.
The pouch contained seven fresh fish--six smallish and carp-like,
well-known to the Boers as _karpers_, the seventh a "yellow fish," a
barbel-like fish of a pound and a half.
"Here, Koenraad," I said to my companion, "is proof positive that your
mysterious vlei lies in the mountain and holds water. These fish are
fresh--they were caught early this morning; and the birds are away to
the salt pan for the day to eat and digest them."
We finished breakfast hastily, and sallied forth on our search. First,
we followed the tiny stream near which we were camped. This led us to
the westerly side of the mountain, and manifestly took its rise in some
marshy ground immediately beneath the rock walls. A careful examination
convinced me that the marsh itself owed its origin to some subterraneous
escape--very probably from the vlei itself--from within the mountains.
But there was no hope of ingress in that direction. Pursuing our
investigations, we rode carefully round the whole western and southern
face of the mountain-wall, scanning closely every yard of its surface.
This mountain-wall ran in a great semicircle; its dark-red, rampart-like
cliffs were sheer, and wonderfully free from projections and
undergrowth. We spent the whole day searching for any trace of path or
ingress, and retired to our wagons for the evening completely
discomfited. There was not foothold for the hardiest cliff climber that
ever risked his life in search of wildfowl eggs.
Next morning, we followed this cliff face along the southerly aspect.
Here, after a little way, it was met by another mass of mountains, into
which it ran, terminating in a chimney-like _cul-de-sac_ at the end of a
short narrow gorge. Here, too, apparently, there was no possible
approach upward or inward.
"It was here," said Du Plessis, "that the spoor of my cousin was last
seen. His servants tracked him to this spot, and from there no trace of
him could be found. It's a mystery I cannot fathom. He could not
possibly have climbed this way."
We looked up at the dark grim rock walls above us, narrowing so that a
foot or two of pale blue sky could alone be seen, and the thing seemed
an impossibility. No living man could have made his way up that
terrible chimney.
Retracing our steps from this dark ravine, we tried in another
direction. All the remainder of that day, and for four long days
thereafter, we explored with infinite care and toil the mass of mountain
on the south-east, east, and northern side of the place where, from the
movements of the pelicans, the lost vlei apparently lay. We had to
leave our horses behind on these expeditions; we toiled, climbed,
descended, struggled, and fell, often at the risk of our necks and
limbs, but were met everywhere by precipices and ravines which
absolutely barred us in these directions. The mass of mountain, which
trended away to the north-east for some miles, was, although much broken
up, accessible with great labour, until we had approached within less
than half a mile, as we reckoned, of the mysterious place we sought.
Here, sheer and perfectly hopeless precipices shut us out, exactly as
had been the case on the open part of the mountain we had first
examined. It seemed clear that Verloren Vlei lay within a ring-fence of
utterly inaccessible cliff wall.
On the fifth evening after our arrival, we lay wrapped in our sheepskin
karosses by the fire, stiffened, sore, and thoroughly disheartened; and
yet, evening after evening, just at the glorious time of sunset, the
pelicans had come swinging over in their majestic hundreds from the
south-east, had skeined and circled in the glowing sky, and had sunk
into the heart of the mountain, and at dawn of day as regularly had they
departed. The vlei _must_ be there; it was heart-breaking to be baffled
in this way.
I lay long that night in my wagon, thinking out some solution of the
puzzle, until sleep at last overcame me. While I lay asleep, I had a
very singular dream. I dreamed that I sat upon a high cliff of rock,
looking down upon a fair lake of water, which lay girt in part by a
sandy shore, and surrounded by a ring of mountains. It was sunset, and
one end of this lake was white with pelicans. At other parts were
gathered flocks of wild-duck, and round about flew bands of the swift
desert sand-grouse--Namaqua partridge, as the colonists call them. And
occasionally the flights of sand-grouse stooped in their pretty way and
drank at the margin of the water. But I saw yet another sight in that
singular valley. I saw a tall figure walking by the edge of the lake.
Its back was towards me, and, for the life of me, I could not see its
face. I gazed and gazed; but the face never turned; and then suddenly
the scene vanished, and my dream was over. Again I dreamed, and again I
saw the spreading water beneath me, and the wildfowl; but there were no
pelicans and no sand-grouse. I saw, too, a figure walking along the
shore. This time the figure was different. It was shorter, and the
walk was brisker; but again the man's back was towards me, and his face
was hidden. And then, again, the dream faded, and I saw no more.
Next morning, Du Plessis and I sat at breakfast, still stiff and sore,
yet in better heart. Our night's sleep had restored our flagging
spirits. We had agreed to rest after our five days of hard work, and
have a quiet day at our camp. We were later this morning, and the last
of the pelicans were vanishing for their day's excursion as we sat down
to breakfast I was surprised, therefore, as I looked towards the
mountain, to see a string of wildfowl--evidently duck--circle a few
times in the clear morning sky, and then drop down into the mountains
again, exactly from where the pelicans sank and rose. I nudged Du
Plessis, whose nose was in his coffee, and pointed. "Wild-duck!" he
ejaculated--"the first time we have seen them, too. There is the vlei,
truly enough."
Half an hour later, about nine o'clock, flights of sand-grouse came
overhead, and made straight for the heart of the mountain. More and
more followed; there must have been many scores of them. They were the
first we had seen at this camp.
My dream instantly came into my mind. I attached little importance to
such things, yet the coincidence of the wildfowl and the sand-grouse was
remarkable, and I told Du Plessis what I had dreamed. Quite in a
chaffing way, I said: "We're going to discover your vlei and its secret
after all, Koenraad. Dreams do sometimes come true. I wonder, though,
what on earth the two men's figures could mean?"
Du Plessis was much more serious, and said with a solemn face: "It is
not right to laugh at dreams, my friend; the Heer God sends them for
some good reason, undoubtedly. I had nearly given this search up as
hopeless. We must; yes, allemaghte! we must try again."
We strolled after breakfast, taking our pipes with us, to the
chimney-like _cul-de-sac_ where Tobias Steenkamp's footprints had been
last seen, four years before. The place looked more than ever dark,
narrow, and forbidding; and as we stood upon the sandy floor of the
ravine and gazed upward to the faint patch of sky showing between the
cliffs, two hundred feet above, the sharp contrast made it yet more
awesome. For half an hour we looked about us, examining carefully every
cranny and projection within our vision. Suddenly a boyish expedient of
mine flashed into my mind. I had in my young days in Derbyshire
ascended a steep and very narrow fissure in a cliff among my native
dales, by copying faithfully the example of a sweep's boy, whom I had
watched climbing the great kitchen chimney. Why not make the attempt
here? It looked a tremendous risk, but still it might be accomplished
up in the far corner where the cliff-walls ran but a foot or two apart.
I had hazarded my limbs many a time as a boy in search of birds' nests:
why not here in pursuit of this mystery which so strangely baffled us?
I told my plan to Du Plessis; he evidently thought very little of it.
However, as we strolled back to camp, I thought out and discussed my
scheme, and, so far as I could, prepared for it in the afternoon. We
had at the wagons a long coil of stout rope some one hundred and fifty
feet in length. It seemed too short for my purpose, and I fastened to
it, therefore, with the greatest care, another seventy feet of strong ox
_riems_--halters of raw hide--carefully lashed one to the other. I thus
had over two hundred feet of rope.
Next morning, after a long night's rest, Du Plessis and I set off for
the ravine, taking with us our most useful native servant, Andries, one
of the drivers. I carried about my person some _billtong_ (dried meat),
matches, a revolver, hunting-knife, and a flask of brandy. Du Plessis
was equipped (save for the revolver) in the same manner. Arrived at the
extremity of the ravine, we threw down the rope, one end of which I
attached to my waist I wore, as usual, only my flannel shirt and a pair
of moleskin trousers, and upon my feet I had a pair of _velschoens_--
Boer field-shoes, made of strong yet soft leather of home-tanned hide.
These shoes were close-fitting, light, and pliable, and exactly suited
my purpose.
I now made my way back to where a sort of ledge ran sloping upwards a
little way towards the narrowest part of the ravine--at the end. I
carefully climbed this, and found myself, as I had expected, some thirty
feet on my way up, and now right in the narrowest extremity of the
narrow gorge. At my back was the cliff wall; in front of me was the
opposing wall, less than two feet away; on my right was the mass of rock
ending the gorge, sometimes uneven and projecting a little, sometimes
almost smooth; on my left hand was open space, where the gorge slowly
widened out I looked upward in doubt, almost in dismay; I looked down
upon Du Plessis' serious face: it was no use waiting; I took one long
breath and began the task. My plan was this: pressing my feet against
the wall of rock in front, and planting my back hard against the cliff
behind me, I gradually levered my way upwards. I made use of every
inequality and jutting rock that could aid me, and occasionally obtained
an excellent rest from bits of rock on my right, upon which I could
lean, and thus relieve the tension. I worked my way as rapidly as
possible, knowing how the strain must tell upon my legs, and, as far as
half-way, or a little beyond, progressed better and more speedily than I
could have hoped. Now, the labour began to tell more hardly as every
ten seconds passed. I was in good sound fettle; I had always been a
"stayer"; and my wind was in capital order; but my breath now began to
come with difficulty, the sweat was pouring from me, my shirt was
ripping off my back, and, worst of all, my legs were failing me. At
three-fourths of the distance--about one hundred and fifty feet up--I
noticed a projecting rock on the right. I worked up to this with
infinite difficulty, and then, leaning my right arm and as much of my
body over as possible, I rested for full three minutes. I was now, as I
well recognised, in a very serious plight. There were yet fifty more
feet of cliff to climb. I had already undergone what seemed superhuman
labour, and my muscles were relaxing, my strength and wind were ebbing.
To return was as perilous as to go on; to fall meant a shocking death I
took out my brandy flask, drained it to the last drop, uttered within
myself a half-prayer to a God I had long neglected, hitched up my belt
and trousers, and struggled on. If I live to a hundred, I never can
forget the terrible nightmare of that last fifty feet. But for the
brandy, that put new if fleeting energy into me--it was Three Star,
luckily, and I believe it saved my life--I should never have succeeded.
I most heartily wished I had never seen Du Plessis, never started on
this accursed trip, never offered to risk my life. I struggled on,
growing weaker and slower. Once I slipped three or four good feet, and
only saved myself by some miraculous luck! The sharp wall behind me
laid a deep furrow into my back as I did so, and I felt the warm blood
issuing forth and mingling with the sweat that ran from me.
Once more I set my teeth for the last twenty feet. I recovered my
ground, and foot by foot fought my way on. The muscles of my legs
quivered like aspen leaves; I feared they would give way each moment.
At last--I hardly know how--I found my face above the cliff; the sweet
outer air met me; I gave a last struggle, got foothold on the right,
flung myself forward, and lay upon the cliff top with my feet still
projecting over the edge. I remember hearing a faint shout from far
beneath me, and then all swam.
When I came to, I suppose I had lain senseless for a quarter of an hour.
I was in sorry plight indeed. I was stiff, sore, bleeding from my
back, and the poor remnant of my shirt hung in front of me. I staggered
to my feet and looked about me. A glance showed me that there were yet
difficulties to be overcome before we could descend to the vlei, yet
they were not insuperable. The chiefest of them lay in a sharp
saddle-back of rock, sheer on either side, which had to be crossed
somehow before the main mass of the inner ring of mountain could be
attained. But my strength was coming back to me; a sense of triumph and
elation over the dreadful task I had conquered rose in my breast; and my
determination to pierce the secret of the valley was stronger than ever.
Here and there upon the cliff top grew some wild olive trees, stunted
and dwarfed, but strong. To one of these I fastened the end of the rope
I had brought up with me. I now approached the edge, lay down, and
looked over. Du Plessis was there, gazing anxiously upward. I shook
the rope and shouted to him to come up. We had agreed upon this plan,
if I succeeded; and he now fastened the lower end of the rope round his
waist and began his climb. With the help of the rope it was
comparatively easy work. The Dutchman was strong in the arms and
active, and came steadily on. Occasionally he unbound the rope, and
refastened it at a higher point to his waist, as an insurance against
falls. In fifteen minutes he was up beside me. Even his journey had
been no light one. He, too, streamed with perspiration; his limbs
trembled, and he flung himself to the ground to gather breath and rest.
"Maghte! Fairmount," he gasped as soon as he had recovered a little
breath, "you must have got up by a miracle. Even with that rope, I
don't think I would care to climb the cliff again. 'Tis a job only fit
for a klipspringer [a small and very active mountain antelope], not a
man!"
We rested full twenty minutes, smoked a pipe of tobacco, and then set
about completing the rest of our task. The sharp saddle-back, a bridge
of rock which crossed another deep ravine between us and the inner
mountain, looked excessively nasty. In some places it was as much as
four feet wide; in others it narrowed to as little as two. There were
about forty yards of it; and in portions the surface was rugged and
sharp.
"Come along, Du Plessis," I said; "the sooner we're over the better.
The rest seems easy enough."
The broader part of the bridge came first, and admitted of walking for
ten yards. Then it narrowed. I went down upon all-fours, and crawled.
It was nerve-shaking work; for the bridge fell away sheer on either
side, and the drop of nearly two hundred feet meant a horrible death.
In the middle of the bridge the space was too narrow even for crawling;
it was necessary to sit astride, and so fudge one's way along for ten or
twelve yards. At last the broader part came again, and in five yards
more the solid mountain top and safety were achieved. Du Plessis had
followed close behind, imitating carefully my tactics. As we stood up
upon safe ground again, I noticed that he was deadly pale. He shook his
head, as he looked at me ruefully, and wrung the sweat from his brow.
"Man!" he said, "if I had not been _shamed_ into following you, I never
would have come across that place, no, not for a thousand Verloren
Vleis. You are unmarried and a little foolhardy. I am married, and
have a wife and six children pulling at my jacket. I didn't bargain for
these adventures; they are only fit for baboons."
"Come on, Koenraad," I replied, laughing. "It's a nasty crossing, I
own; but it's all plain sailing now, apparently."
We went on over the mountain for twenty minutes; then came a shallow
kloof, thickly bushed at bottom; then another ascent, a rough walk of
another half-hour; and then, clearing some more bush and low scrub that
grew here upon the mountain top, we came suddenly upon an enchanting
scene. "The vlei!" we exclaimed in a burst together, then stood and
gasped in very pleasure and bewilderment.
Right below us, ringed in by a perfect amphitheatre of mountain, lay an
oval sheet of water, its smooth surface, unruffled by a flaw of wind,
shining beneath the ardent sunlight like the mirror of a giantess. This
vlei--the long-lost vlei, undoubtedly--was about half a mile long by
three hundred yards in breadth. Here and there upon the placid water
floated troops of wildfowl; and high in the air hung a fishing-eagle or
two, keenly intent upon sport beneath. Immediately below us, the lake
seemed deep; but towards the far end, it evidently shallowed, and upon
one side of that end grew dense masses of reeds. The shores, save where
the reed-beds grew, were in places sandy; elsewhere, of rock. Between
the water and the mountain sides, which sloped easily downward, and were
well bushed, was an outer ring of reddish soil, masked by a park-like
growth of scattered acacia thorns. It was now the month of August, and
getting towards African spring-time, and, favoured doubtless by the
neighbourhood of the vlei, the acacias were already putting forth a
pleasant bravery of green leafage. Birds--many of them of brilliant
plumage--were in plenty about this gem-like spot. It seemed that here
in this secret place Nature had done her utmost to atone for much of the
drought and hardship that at this season lay in the wilderness outside.
For five minutes we stood gazing with a sense of rapture at this goodly
scene. We looked keenly hither and thither, but could discern no trace
of human existence. Then we descended. We reached the water without
great difficulty; upon its margin we lay down and drank long and
eagerly. Having thus refreshed ourselves, and eaten some of the little
store of food we had brought with us, we set out to explore the vlei
thoroughly. The chief thing in our minds was to ascertain the fate of
Tobias Steenkamp, whether living or dead. And first we settled to
search systematically the side upon which we stood. We looked carefully
for traces of spoor, yard by yard along the sand fringing the water.
Not a footprint could we discover. Once or twice we came across the
tracks of klipspringers and leopards, but no sign of human life was
there. We turned back, and searched among the groves of thorny acacia,
now fragrant with the strong scent of the rich sweet blossoms, but with
the same ill success. It was now late in the afternoon; we passed round
the end of the vlei, skirted the reed-bed, and then came upon more rocky
formation. It was here that I first convinced myself of the
gold-bearing richness of the valley. In a crevice of rock, time-worn by
long ages of water-wear and decay, I picked up three smallish nuggets.
I am afraid this success rather threw us off the search for Tobias
Steenkamp, of which we had already begun to despair. Several times
during the day we had raised our voices and hallooed loudly, in faint
hopes of an answer. The cliffs eagerly returned us echo after echo, but
there was nought else. For the rest of the short afternoon time we
scrambled about the rocks, peering into crannies and basins. We had
fair success, and by evening had between us gathered some fourteen
ounces of gold, all in nuggets.
It was now sundown; already the pelicans had arrived, and were sailing
about the sky in marvellous intricacies; the light was going fast, and
we must prepare to camp for the night. We had told our men at the
wagons not to expect us till next day; they would be therefore under no
anxiety. We picked a place not far from the water, where the view was
open, and danger from the approach of night _ferae_ minimised. We chose
a smooth sandy spot under a wall of rock. In front we made two good
fires, and then, having eaten a scant supper, we sat smoking and talking
beneath the warm starlight. It was about nine o'clock; we were both
becoming drowsy, when Du Plessis suddenly sat bolt upright and listened
breathlessly. "Did you hear that?" he whispered in a low, intense
voice. "No," I said, sinking my voice too, for the man's strange
demeanour rather awed me.
"I heard a man groan--or a _spook_," he said.
Now, I am not a believer in spooks at any time; yet it was a wild, eerie
place, and the senses of these Boer hunters are so preternaturally
quickened by long acquaintance with savage life, that I knew Koenraad
must have heard something.
I listened intently, and again we both heard a faint groan, as of a man
in pain.
"Allemaghte!" whispered Du Plessis, "what, in the name of the Heer God,
can it be?" A moment later he clutched me by the arm, and pointing with
his right hand, whispered fiercely: "Look! look!"
The moon was now up and shining brightly, and the valley had passed from
the dimness of the starlight. I looked where the Boer was pointing, and
saw something that sent a shiver down my back. Certainly there _was_ a
shapeless _something_ crawling slowly towards the water on our left
front, one hundred and fifty yards away. Again came the faint groan we
had heard.
"This is bosh," I said. "It's a man, undoubtedly, and he's in pain. It
may be your cousin. Come and look." I sprang to my feet, picked up my
revolver, and started off. Du Plessis pulled himself together--he had
need, for he was a firm believer in spooks--and followed closely. We
approached the creeping thing--it looked more like a man. I hailed it,
and again a low groan came. We reached the dark object. It was a man,
or the remains of one, emaciated, half-clad in tattered rags; and it
crawled upon all-fours, dragging one leg. It was not a Boer--not Tobias
Steenkamp. In a flash it came into my mind that here was the second
figure, of my strange dream.
"Who are you?" I said.
"Water, for God's sake!" was all the poor wretch could utter. I ran to
the water, filled the top of my felt hat, and came back. The tattered
figure drank eagerly.
"Come, Du Plessis," I said; "let's carry him up to the camp-fire."
We picked the poor framework up, and carried it to the fire; it weighed,
I suppose, about five stone. Then we got out Du Plessis' flask, poured
out some brandy, mashed up some biscuit and water with it, and
administered the mess out of the flask cup. The brandy seemed to revive
the poor creature. We gave him a piece of _billtong_ to suck, and at
last he spoke.
"I know your face," he said, looking at me; "don't you remember Spanish
Jack?"
Of course I remembered Spanish Jack, a well-known prospector in the
Eastern Transvaal some few years before. Three parts English, one part
Spanish, he was one of those restless pioneers who move, Uhlan-like,
before the main body of the gold-diggers, always on the hunt for new
finds. Looking at the poor death's-head before me, I could only
recognise, in the dark, cavernous eyes and the mass of tangled black
hair, the faintest traces of the strong, restless, dare-devil prospector
known as Spanish Jack.
"How did you come here?" I queried, and in the same instant, "What's
become of Tobias Steenkamp?" asked Du Plessis in Dutch.
"Give me a drop more brandy," answered the man in a hoarse whisper, "and
I'll tell you."
We gave him part of our small remaining stock, with some water, and he
went on, speaking, however, with great difficulty.
"I was up in these parts with a donkey and a bit of an outfit four years
ago, and I heard from a nigger that a Dutchman had got into this place;
and, after a lot of trouble, I found my way in too, from another
direction, nor'-east there. I had some grub, and I meant to camp for a
week, as alluvial gold was wonderfully plentiful. On the fifth day
after I got here, Tobias Steenkamp turned up. It was the second and
last trip he made. He was mad to find me here, and told me it was his
place, and I was to clear. We quarrelled; he struck me, and in my rage
I out with my knife and stabbed him in the chest. He died within an
hour. You will find his bones along there under a bit of a cairn near
the water. Well, after that I only wanted to get out of the place. I
took what gold I had picked up, and started up the mountain again. In
my hurry I was careless; I fell, broke my right thigh, and here I have
been ever since. My leg healed in a rough sort of way; but there's a
false joint; the bone kept coming away, and I could never walk properly
again. I managed to pick up food by snaring fowl and catching fish; but
latterly I've been too weak to do that. For the last month I've been
slowly starving. Lizards and roots are what I've lived on--that's God's
truth. My leg's been getting worse, and I've had to crawl, mostly,
these last three months. I never expected to reach the water again
after to-night, and then I think I should have pinched out. Time
enough, too. This place has been worse than hell itself."
There was a hunted terror in the man's eye that implied more than his
words. I doubted somehow whether I had heard the plain truth. The poor
wretch was by this time exhausted, and could say no more. I gave him,
at his request, a piece of tobacco; he clapped it into his cheek, and
thought he could doze a bit.
I turned to Du Plessis, who had meanwhile, with very grim looks, edged
away from the man who, he understood from me (I had translated the gist
of the prospector's story), had slain his cousin. His feeling of
vengeance was strong--remember, he was but a primitive Transvaal Boer;
but what could even he say, as we looked at this poor travesty of a man,
this living skeleton, with its broken, deformed leg, that now slept,
huddled up to the fire as closely as the starved Bushman of the
Kalahari?
It was now late, and Du Plessis and I, too, lay down and slept; the day
had been long and hard, and we were dog-tired. The dawn was cold; and
coatless, almost shirtless, as I was, I awoke early, very stiff and
sore. Du Plessis had a cord coat on; he yet slept soundly, and even
snored. But the figure across the fire seemed very still. I moved
quietly to it, touched it gently. It was stiff and cold. Spanish
Jack's troubles and agonies were over; his prospecting was done; and for
the blood upon his hands he would never answer upon this earth. Whether
he died from the excitement of the meeting; whether that last agonising
journey to the water had spent the remaining flicker of strength left
within him; whether the story he had told us of Tobias Steenkamp's death
was the true one, I cannot tell.
I roused Du Plessis. Together we went down towards the vlei and found
the pile of stones, where, surely enough, the bones of a tall man--
undoubtedly Tobias Steenkamp--lay. These we carefully replaced; then,
exploring up-hill from where we had come upon the prospector, we found a
cave or hollow in which the poor wretch had evidently made a home. Here
were Steenkamp's hat and hunting-knife, among other remnants; and here,
too, a pile of nuggets, no doubt collected by Spanish Jack. These
nuggets, with a small skin bag partly full of gold-dust, washed, no
doubt, from the sands of the vlei--a small tin digger's pan of Spanish
Jack's showed us that--we took with us. After that, we buried the dead
prospector as well as we could, piled big stones above his rude grave,
and quitted the place.
We had no wish to tarry there, fair as was the spot. Rather the grim
associations of the vlei, the deed of blood enacted there, and the
melancholy death we had been witnesses of, impelled us away from it.
After much toil, we safely reached our wagons late that afternoon, worn
and famished. We had, somehow, no wish to bequeath to others the secret
of the vlei. Having safely descended by the rope, therefore, we set
about destroying our traces. Two of our boys were waiting for us at the
bottom of the ravine. With these we took a united haul at the rope.
The strain was great; the rope parted, as we had expected, far up the
cliff, where the hide riems joined the rope itself, and no vestige of
our means of descent remained to searchers from below. Next day we
trekked from the neighbourhood. The gold we had found realised, some
months later, seven hundred pounds, which Du Plessis and I divided
between us.
Verloren Vlei, with its smiling face, its dark history, and its wealth
of gold--for gold must be there in abundance--lies, I believe, to this
day still a secret and an unknown place. No doubt the pelicans and the
sand-grouse that first revealed its mysteries to Tobias Steenkamp and
ourselves, still visit it in time of drought--towards the driest period
of African winter. Some day, I suppose, its recesses will be made
accessible and its wealth laid bare. For others that day may come; but
for ourselves, neither Koenraad du Plessis nor I have any wish--having
prospered in other directions--to tempt fortune there again.