To the Herr Professor the officials were politeness itself, and thanks

to his good offices even Dick was treated with civility Englishman

though he was.

As they left the station they met the company's Luderitzbucht agent, a

most important gentleman, who was looking both flushed and perturbed.

It was evident that news travelled quickly in Luderitzbucht, for he had

already as his first words clearly proved heard of the arrests.

"Herr Professor," he blurted out, "what a calamity! Most unfortunate.

Gilderman and the others all arrested. Surely most tactless! Could it

not have been avoided? It might have been explained, but to arrest them

all! The company is as good as floated."

"Not all," said the professor grimly, looking the excited agent up and

down. "Not all, Herr Hauptmann, two are dead. We caught them Salting,

Herr Sydney here and myself, surely it was 'tactless' of them? A

calamity! Truly yes, for them! And, Herr Hauptmann, if the new

'company' has been floated without waiting for my report, so much the

worse for them."

The agent glared from the professor to Dick, as though he would have

liked to eat both of them, but he saw he had made a mistake, also saw

that the thousand shares Gilderman had promised him would never

materialize, and changed his tactics.

"My dear Herr Professor," he said, "of course you were right. I was so

upset for a moment that I did not quite know how to look at it, but of

course you are right. And the ground then is worthless, is it not so?"

"I would not go so far as to say that," said the professor, cautiously;

"there has been no real test these rascals started their salting at

once. I leave immediately for Johannesburg to-night. I hear there is a

steamer leaving then and there I shall report thoroughly on what has

happened. Possibly the company will send up a more carefully chosen

expedition again, they have the option for another three months. In

that case, and if they wish me to return, the Herr Sydney here will

take charge of the prospecting."

The agent looked sourly at Dick. "You know, professor, the company like

to engage their own prospectors," he demurred.

"Yes, and I believe last time you recommended one of them," replied the

professor blandly. "Last time the company made a colossal mistake,

prospectors, experts, representatives, all were rogues! Two lie dead

back there in the dunes and four lie in gaol! I want no more of that

kind. And, Herr Hauptmann, if I go, this man goes, if there is a man in

the country who can find diamonds there, it is he."

"That's a fact," said Dick to himself, as he realized all the professor

was doing for him.

"And now, Herr Hauptmann," continued the old man, as they reached the

agent's office, "pay Sydney his cheque and double it, I will answer to

the company."

So Dick got his cheque, and his discharge, and making a straight line

for the bank he changed the former, without loss of time. He had seen

cheques stopped before, and trusted Hauptmann just about as much as he

had trusted the Gilderman outfit.

Then he went to the hotel, where the professor's belongings had been

dumped in the biggest room the building boasted.

Here the scientist called him in, and locking the door, sat down on the

bed and looked at him.

"Young and strong, and honest, you should become rich in this country,

where honest men are so scarce," he said kindly. "Herr Sydney, or

rather do I call you Dick, for you are young enough to be my son, you

heard what I told the agent? Well, I go to Johannesburg in a few hours,

but I shall come back, I am sure, though whether the company sends me

straight back, or whether they await the expiration of the syndicate's

lease, I cannot say, financiers do strange things, and who knows what

they will do?"

"But when I come, you go too, and there will be an opportunity for you

such as few men have. You will know for certain beforehand where the

stones lie rich, you can purchase shares as soon as flotation is

effected, knowing well they will become valuable, you can make your

fortune."

"But I have no money," said Dick, "my cheque won't last long."

"You see that box," asked the professor, pointing to a certain black,

padlocked trunk amongst his baggage.

"I haven't forgotten it," said Dick feelingly.

"Well, the wherewithal to pave your way to fortune lies in that."

"Snakes!" exclaimed Dick, with a lively recollection of the last time

that box had been opened.

The professor moved towards it. Dick moved towards the door.

"Wait, man, wait!" said the professor. "But they are harmless."

"Oh, yes! I know," said Dick, edging still nearer the door. "Pretty

little things, some people call them, like that scorpion you raved

about, before! Here, I say, professor, play the game; I don't want

fortunes of that kind here, I'm off!"

"The door is locked," said the old man calmly; "Wunderbahr! here is a

man I thought feared nothing, a fighter of the best, afraid of a few

harmless snakes!"

"Professor," pleaded Dick, as the old man bent over the padlock, "don't

do it; I don't want any fortune. Oh, Lord! I shall have two fits! Yow!

Help! there he goes!" and as the box opened Dick sprang on to the bed.

"Quite harmless," said the professor, as he flung back the lid; "and

but how splendid, wunderschoen, hein? Three new specimens among them of

varieties quite unknown, and the fame will be mine. And the scorpion

you discovered, and so generously gave me! Ach, meine freund, now I can

indeed repay you for your so great generosity. See, then!" And with a

dramatic gesture he plunged his hand down among the wriggling snakes,

and groping among them in a manner that made every hair on Dick's head

stand up till he felt like a porcupine, he drew forth a small bundle,

and tossed it on the bed.

"Open it," he ordered. "No! dummkopf! there are no snakes in it open!"

Dick's fingers trembled as he undid the knots, he knew by the feel what

to expect.

Yes, there they were, the thousand carats of diamonds that had caused

two violent deaths and a heap of trouble already, a double handful of

beautiful little sparkling gems; the very facsimile of those others

that Dick had found and that now lay locked up and confiscated at the

police-station.

"They are yours," said the professor. "Whose, if not? Gilderman's or

those other scoundrels in gaol? The company's? It has no rights on the

fields yet! The Government's? It has those others you found in place of

these, and to attempt to explain now would bring complications, and

maybe, who knows, place us both in gaol!"

Dick was tempted, but demurred.

"You see, professor," he said reluctantly, "these are not my stones. It

isn't as if they were the stones I really found!"

"The police will scarcely give you those, I repeat," answered the

other. "Lieber Gott, man, say what you mean! I stole them, is that it?

Of course I did, as I had a perfect right to, to bring about what I

did, the confession of these knaves; and but that Brandt annoyed me

with his insistence to search my tent I should have told him then. As

it was, I let that fool Brietmann search, knowing that he would be

frightened when he opened the box. Ach, you brave men! And then, Dick,

Herr Sydney, if you wish? Well, Dick then, what would have happened to

you if they had found the diamonds you had? Just was I in time to make

up the tale I did when I saw you righting on the ground with the

wachtmeister's pistol at your head! Soh if you will, I stole them. Will

you not take them from me? They had yours in place of them; take them,

they are yours. And the one big director of the company in

Johannesburg, to whom I shall the truth tell, he will applaud what I

have done."

The professor's arguments were far from flawless, but Dick yielded; for

it had seemed more than hard to see the diamonds he had himself found

handed over to the police and after all, it did not seem right to let a

thousand carats of diamonds go begging for an owner!

And whatever qualms he had vanished at the delight of the old

professor, as he made up the parcel again and stowed it carefully away

in his pocket.

An hour later the professor went on board, and Dick beat up a few

friends, most of whom were dead broke, and proceeded to the Europatia

Hof, the leading hotel, where he ordered such a feast as made the

manager promptly ask for payment in advance.

Satisfied on that point, he proceeded to surpass himself, in so far as

the limited capabilities of Luderitzbucht were concerned, and that

night Dick and four other hungry men made up for lost time. The food

was good, and the champagne that washed it down excellent, and Dick, as

he bade the other men "Good-night," and turned away from the hotel

towards his old diggings, felt at peace with all mankind. He had still

twenty pounds in his pocket, he had the professor's promise of leading

another trip to the north-east; and above all, he had a thousand carats

of diamonds tied tightly in a bundle made fast inside his shirt.

Fortune was smiling again, and full of happy dreams for the future he

sauntered down the pitch dark street towards his room, whistling, and

without a care. And as he reached the door something struck him with a

dull, heavy thud at the back of the head, and he fell like a log on his

own door-step.

When he came to himself it was still dark, and for a moment he could

scarce remember what had happened. Then it all came back to him in a

flash; he had been sandbagged. His money was gone to the last penny,

and so were the diamonds.

Faint and sick, he dragged himself into his room and bathed his aching

head; and now he saw, too, that all his belongings had been ransacked.

"They waited for me, here," he thought, and he groaned in bitterness of

spirit as he realized that as far as the diamonds were concerned it was

useless to try and obtain redress legally, he had had no right to their

possession!

The professor had gone, there was no one he could turn to, yes, there

was Solly.

And as soon as it was light he went and found him of course still in

bed!

"Ah," he said, "I heard you was having a thick night, and you look like

it. Blued your cheque, I suppose?"

"Not all," said Dick, "but it's gone!" And he told him everything.

"Blazes!" exclaimed the little man, leaping from his bed and beginning

to dress in mad haste. "You fathead, you've done a fine thing. Why, you

let me believe the fields were salted!"

"They were," said Dick, "but the real stones were there all the same!"

"But, you loony, I should have known this at once! Why, I went straight

and wired to the people who must know these things; the people who make

or break all diamond ventures! My people!"

"The Johannesburg Company that sent the professor?" asked Dick, in his

innocence.

"Johannesburg, the professor! I don't think!" said Solly with the

greatest scorn. "No, the people that control diamonds are . . . a

little firm of tobacconists in Kimberley!"

THE FOLLOWER

In a desolate and lonely spot near the wide expanse of mud-flats which

form the mouth of the Orange River there stands the roofless ruin of an

old farm-house. Its stone walls, of huge thickness, and the high stone

kraal with huge iron hinges only remaining where once swung a

formidable door, speak eloquently of the time when this remote part of

Klein Namaqualand, in common with the islands and lower reaches of the

Orange River, was infested with bands of Hottentot outlaws and robbers,

and when the daring white man who had ventured among them kept his

scant flocks and herds under lock and key, and guarded them with a

strong hand.

To the south, towards Port Nolloth, stretches seventy-odd miles of

desolate, waterless sand-scrub; eastward lie vast expanses of similarly

dreary, featureless, undulating scrub, beyond which rise the unknown

and mysterious mountains of the Richtersfeld and hundreds of miles of

uninhabited country; westward is the wide lonely ocean; and to the

north, across the Orange River, lie the dreaded sand-dunes of German

South-West Africa.

It was in the direction of the dunes, gleaming vague and silver-white

in the clear moonlight, that the eyes of the three white men

prospectors who had forgathered in this lonely spot were turned as they

sat, finishing their evening meal, beside a bright fire that lit up the

broken and roofless walls. They had met after months of lonely

wanderings: Sidney and Ransford amongst the mountains of the

Richtersfeld, Jason from long and arduous expeditions along the Great

Fish River and amongst the trackless sands across the river. The talk

had been of the dunes; of men lost and dying of thirst a few miles from

camp; of terrific storms that lifted the sand in huge masses, and

whirled it across the land, overwhelming all it encountered; of whole

dunes that were shifted by the wind, leaving gruesome things disclosed

in the hollows where once they had stood; of diamonds, danger and

death.

"Yes!" said Jason, "there's many a man been lost since the diamond rush

first started: gone away from camp and never turned up again died of

thirst most of them, of course, though I daresay the Bushmen accounted

for some. Sometimes the sand has overwhelmed them and buried their

bodies for ever. Sometimes after a big storm it gives up its dead as

the sea does. I've seen some queer things there myself. Once near

Easter Cliffs, after a terrific storm had shifted all the dunes, I came

across the bodies of a dozen white men, all together and mummified and

wonderfully preserved. God knows how they died and how long they'd been

there!

"But the weirdest thing that ever happened to me up there was when

Carfax disappeared. You remember Carfax? A tall, bony, powerful chap he

was, quiet and dour, and with a strong vein of superstition in him.

Anyhow, he was a good prospector and a reliable man, and when the rush

for the northern fields took place about two years ago. He was one of a

party of four of us who had been landed with a few kegs of water and

bare necessities on the waterless coast opposite Hollams Bird Island.

Here we searched in vain for diamonds, the dunes being exceptionally

difficult and the wind that came up every afternoon converting the

whole country into a whirling chaos that it was impossible to see in,

or work in next to impossible to exist in.

"On the third evening, after an exceptionally strong gale had nearly

choked, blinded, and overwhelmed us, Carfax did not turn up in camp,

and though we searched all the following day we found no trace of him

not a vestige; for one of the worst things about the dunes is that when

the wind is blowing the spoor is filled up almost immediately with

drifting sand; though peculiarly enough a day or two later the spoor

will show again, when the light sand has again been blown out. He had

only a small water-bottle with him, the heat was like Hades itself, and

we all thought he was dead.

"But on the second night of his absence I shall never forget it the

wind had gone down completely, and the long stretches of white dunes

lay clear and bright in the white moonlight. The other fellows lay

asleep on the sand, exhausted, for we had had a terrible day, but I

couldn't sleep I never can in bright moonlight.' And after tossing

around for some time I got up, lit a pipe, and walked over to the

water-barrel to get a drink. Poor Carfax was still in my mind, and I

stood thinking of him and gazing out in the direction in which he had

gone, straining my eyes in the forlorn hope of seeing something moving;

but the dead silver-white of the sand dunes was unbroken by a single

speck.

"I stood thus for some time, and was turning once more towards the

others when a faint movement in the vague distance caught my eye. Yes!

something or some one was crossing the ridge of a big dune in my

direction! A jackal maybe! No, it was too big for that; the faint form

was certainly that of a man or were there two? I didn't wait longer,

but, running back and grabbing a water bottle, I started off at a run

towards whoever it was.

"Moonlight is puzzling sometimes, and I could scarcely make out if

there was one figure or two: one seemed to follow the other at a little

distance. But as I got nearer I could see it was Carfax alone. 'Carfax!

Carfax!' I called out, 'thank God you're alive we'd given you up!' He

made no answer, but came on slowly and falteringly, turning repeatedly

as though to gaze behind. Now I saw that he was in the last stage of

exhaustion: his face was drawn and ghastly, and his cracked and swollen

lips were moving rapidly in broken, incoherent words; his sufferings

had plainly driven him out of his mind. He snatched at the water bottle

and drained it at a draught; then, clutching me by the arm, he pointed

back across the dunes.

"'There! there! see! he follows me always, since I found the diamonds!

Look! look!'

"As he pointed his face was ghastly with fear, and I too looked back,

expecting to see I knew not what. Was he followed, and by whom? I had

thought at first there had been one following; but no, there was

nothing to be seen. Who could be following him in this desolate place?

But still he clutched my arm, and gibbered, and pointed back, and now

my eyes were playing tricks again: surely there was a shadow! No, there

was nothing there no human being at any rate. Possibly it had been a

jackal. So, soothing him as best I could, I helped the poor demented

fellow back to camp, he with many a backward look of fear, and I myself

with an uncanny feeling that we were being followed.

"Well, he was delirious for days; and when the cutter came back to pick

us up and take us to another spot farther up the coast he was too ill

to be moved, so we rigged up a bit of a tent and I was left to nurse

him till the boat returned again. It was a weird experience, alone in

that desolate spot with a madman for company; for though he quieted

down after the others had gone he still had the hallucination of being

followed and watched; and especially in the night, when I wanted to

sleep, he would seize me by the arm and point through the tent door to

the bright moonlight outside. 'There! there!' he would mutter, 'don't

you see him? look at his square-toed boots and brass buckles. See how

his ghastly dead eyes glare! Keep him from me, Jason; keep him from me;

he shall not have them back; he has been dead hundreds of years; keep

him from me they are mine!' And in my overstrung, nervous state I could

have sworn on one or two occasions that I too saw such a figure.

"He gradually got calmer and more himself, and then he told me a

strange tale of what had happened to him in the dunes.

"He had been overtaken by a sandstorm many miles from the camp, and had

struggled on till absolutely exhausted, not daring to lie down to rest

lest the fast whirling sand should overwhelm him; and when late at

night the wind had fallen he was hopelessly and utterly lost, and had

thrown himself down in a sheltered spot deep hollowed out by the wind

between two gigantic dunes, and had at once fallen into the deep sleep

of exhaustion.

"Then he had dreamed a startling and vivid dream that had seemed half

reality. He saw three men come down over the big dune to close beside

where he lay rough-looking men in a costume of long ago, with cocked

hats, broad breeches, and buckled shoes; and the moonlight shone on the

brass hilts of their cutlasses and pistols. They took no notice of him,

but, stooping, began to pick up the bright diamonds that Carfax now saw

covered the sand before them. Soon the bag they held was full and a

quarrel arose; for he saw two of the men draw their swords and fight

fiercely, whilst the other, a tall hawk-faced man, stood by and

watched, holding the bag. At length one fell, pierced through by the

other's broad blade; and as the victor stood over him the hawk-faced

man cut him down from behind, and stood, laughing horribly and holding

the bag of diamonds before their dying eyes. And as he laughed one of

them, with a last effort, drew a pistol from his belt and shot him

dead.

"At the report the scene vanished, and Carfax awoke with a start. The

dream had been so vivid that the pistol-shot seemed still to be ringing

in his ears, and he sprang to his feet, scarcely knowing what he should

see. The air was clear of dust now, and the moon shone brightly; and by

its light he saw a few paces from him a prostrate form partly covered

in sand. He bent over it: it was the body of a man, a man dressed in a

strange old-world costume a dead man, dead hundreds of years, and

mummified and wonderfully preserved by the sands that had covered him

deep through the centuries, until the big gale of yesterday had lifted

the heavy pall. Huddled near by lay two other indistinct forms; and

Carfax, his dream still vividly before him, knew well what they were.

"Yes! there too lay the leather bag at his feet! And trembling with

excitement he knelt and plunged his hand into it, and drew out a

handful of big, dully gleaming diamonds. And as he gazed at the

treasure his wrist was clutched in an icy grasp, and turning in terror

he found the horrible eyes of the dead man glaring close into his own.

"With a scream of horror he wrenched away his wrist, and, still

clutching the stones, fled madly across the dunes, pursued by the

fearful figure of the long-dead man. Stumbling, falling, on and on he

fled, till the moon paled and the stars faded and the bright sun rose

and gave the hunted man a gleam of courage; but his fearful glance

behind him still showed the grim figure of he who followed.

"He could not tell what instinct had guided him back to camp; but all

through that awful day he had stumbled on through the roasting heat of

the dunes, till late at night when I had seen him and gone to meet him

as I described.

"All this he told me that night in the tent, now and again starting and

glancing fearfully out and across the sands to point out the dread

watcher he believed hovered near him. I tried to soothe him, to laugh

away his fears, to tell him it was all a dream. And then? Well, he

fumbled in his shirt and drew forth a little package tied up in a rag,

and with many a fearful glance his trembling fingers undid it, and

there poured forth a little cascade of magnificent diamonds far finer

than anything I had ever seen before or since in German West: a fortune

in fact! I sat astounded, for I had not dreamed of this. Where they

came from there must be more a fortune for us all! Then I found my

tongue. 'Carfax, man,' I said, 'this is wonderful! Can you find your

way back? It will make us all rich.' He shuddered. 'No! no!' he said,

his hand pressed to his eyes as though to shut out a scene of horror;

'he is there! No, he cannot be; he is watching here for me he will

follow me always! Oh! Jason, don't leave me alone, old man; don't leave

me; we'll get away together when the boat comes! there's enough for us

both! don't leave me!'

"After a time he sank into a troubled sleep; but to me sleep was now

out of the question. Where on earth had he found the diamonds? They, at

least, were real. Had he really found a spot where the terrific gale

had shifted the sand and laid bare a treasure and tragedy of long ago?

Such things might be. I had seen dead men in the dunes myself, and the

overwrought state of Carfax, due to his sufferings, would account for

the rest. If only he could find his way back when he came to his proper

senses again.

"Thus musing I paced up and down outside the tent in the bright

moonlight. Carfax was still sleeping, but uneasily, and muttering a lot

in his sleep. There across the dunes the diamonds must be there

somewhere. He had come from yonder towards the big dune. And almost

mechanically my footsteps wandered away from the tent towards where I

had met Carfax. Here was the spot, here was the place where he had half

scared me with his weird story of being followed, and where I had half

believed myself that I had seen the follower. Here, for the wind had

once more blown the sand from out the filled-in footprints, were our

spoors mine meeting his; here we turned back; but what was this? Whose

spoor was this, that followed upon our own, back towards where the tent

stood!

"My hair rose on my head as I looked. The ghastly white moonlight

showed the other spoor quite plainly the print of a broad, square-toed,

low-heeled shoe.

"Every man of us wore veldtschoens: there was not a heel among the four

of us, and as I marveled and superstitious fear crept upon me there

came scream after scream of terror from the direction of the tent; and

as I looked, Carfax, barefoot as he had slept, came flying from the

tent, his ghastly face contorted with horror, glancing behind him as he

ran, and holding out his arms as though to ward off a pursuer.

"Past me he flew, straight across the sand towards the dunes from which

he had lately come, his shrieks getting fainter and fainter as he sped

until they ceased, and the faint breeze that heralded the dawn brought

back the sound of mocking laughter.

"Fear held possession of me, for something had passed me in pursuit of

the haunted man, and with terror gripping my faculties, I scarce dared

turn my eyes to where the fresh spoor of Carfax's naked feet showed in

the sand. Yes! It was there: a heavy, broad, square-toed print

following and treading over Carfax's own and showing the signs of a mad

pursuit.

"Did I follow them? No! I'm not ashamed to say I did not at any rate

not then. Instead, I walked down to the shore, where the solemn

breakers offered some sort of companionship, and prayed for morning to

come and blot out the ghastly moon and all it had shown me, and save my

reason.

"The sun came at last, and with it an awful hurricane that equaled that

of the previous week, and I was hard put to it to save our few

belongings from being swept away and from being myself overwhelmed. In

the evening came the calm, and with it the boat; and, thank God! I had

not to face the moonlight again alone.

"Yes, we searched; but the storm had changed the whole aspect of the

dunes, and the spoors lay buried under many feet of sand, and well,

Carfax was never seen again!"

Jason ended his narrative abruptly, and, rising, lit his pipe with an

ember from the dying fire and stood gazing across the river to where

the vague mysterious dunes of German West showed silver-white beyond

the farther bank. "Good country to be out of!" he said with a shiver.

"Come, boys, you'd better turn in. I can't sleep when there's a moon."

THE PROOF

The chance was too good to be missed. For days past the baboons had

been extremely troublesome killing and mutilating the pick of our milch

goats, which had strayed afield in search of food; tearing to pieces

the poor mongrel puppy that had been unwise enough to follow them; and

even ransacking our tent during the few hours we had left it without a

guard. The troop was a large one, and included some of the biggest

baboons I had ever seen; but though daring at times, they were

exceedingly wary, and amidst the labyrinth of broken country which at

the spot hemmed in the Orange River they had hitherto evaded our

attempts at retaliation. And now by sheer luck we had stumbled upon

them. Jason and I, following up some copper indications amongst the

mountain peaks, had turned an abrupt corner and found ourselves within

a hundred yards of their big leader a huge grey monster that stood

sentinel-wise upon a high rock watching us. The tiny black head of my

foresight showed plainly against the wide grey chest of the big brute;

I pressed the trigger; and the soft-nosed "303 sped true to the mark.

The long hairy arms were flung aloft in a gesture too human to be

pleasant, and with a spasmodic spring in the air the baboon fell head-

long from the rock, whilst at the report the whole troop, with a chorus

of angry, sharp, staccato barks, fled round the shoulder of the

mountain and disappeared.

"I hate shooting them," I said, turning to Jason for the first time

since we had sighted them; "they're too human altogether, still Hullo,

Jason, what's the matter?"

Jason's usually calm, inscrutable face was absolutely convulsed with

strong feeling: fear, hatred, loathing what was it? He started as

though from a dream.

"God! How I hate them!" he muttered hoarsely. "It was not far from

here."

He shouldered his rifle and turned back abruptly towards the camp. I

did not attempt to stop him; for though the staunchest friend and

comrade, he was of a peculiar disposition; and I knew that he would, if

he wanted to do so, tell me his story when the mood suited him. I

walked over to the fallen baboon, which lay dead, grim, and hideous,

with its chest shattered by my bullet and its formidable fangs bared in

a ghastly grin.

That night by the camp-fire, Jason, who had scarcely uttered a syllable

in the meanwhile, told me his weird story; but let him tell it in his

own words.

"The first chapter of my story began twenty years ago. I had just

returned from a shooting and trading trip in Damaraland which had ended

in a stiff bout of fever, and was kicking my heels in Cape Town, when

one day I received a note from the Curator of the Museum asking me if I

would care to act as guide to two gentlemen who wished to follow up the

Orange River from its mouth and possibly proceed up the then almost

unknown Fish River into Damaraland. I did not care about going back,

for my recent trip had been a very rough one; but I was heartily sick

of Cape Town, and so I went round to the hotel where the two men were

staying, taking the note which the Curator had sent me. 'They don't

want to trade or prospect,' he had written me, 'the trip is simply for

scientific purposes. Hector Montrose is an ethnologist of wide repute,

and he wishes to study the race characteristics of the Hottentots and

Bushmen. He is a brilliant disciple of Darwin, too, and has spent a lot

of time and money on several trips to the interior of Borneo and other

remote spots in search of the so-called "missing link;" and he is, I

know, extremely anxious to get near some of those huge baboons that are

said to exist along the Orange River. His brother John is quite

different, and as long as he is with his brother and there's plenty to

shoot he's happy anywhere.'

"I rather expected to meet a couple of old fossils, but to my agreeable

surprise I found John and Hector Montrose both younger men than myself

and I was under thirty then. Fine young fellows they were too, nearly

of an age, and as much alike as two peas. Of medium size, well-knit,

and muscular, they were exactly the type of man for a rough trip such

as that which we were soon planning. For all my scruples went by the

board within ten minutes of our first meeting, and I fell absolutely

under the spell and charm of their virile personalities. Splendid

chaps, both of them: I never met their like. I can see them now as they

sat listening to me. I discussed the trip, and described the kind of

country we should have to cover. Their dark, keen, eager faces were so

absolutely alike that, except when they laughed, I could scarce tell

which was which. Hector, the elder, had had the whole of his front

teeth so stopped and plated with gold dentistry that there was but

little ivory to be seen, and when he laughed this gave him a strange

and rather unpleasing appearance.

"Within a week we were on the veld, and two months later were within

fifty miles of where we are sitting now farther up the Orange, where

the Great Fish River runs into the larger stream. It is a wild and

desolate spot to-day, and there are hippo still on the islands, but

twenty years back scarce a white man had ever seen it! We had followed

the Orange from its mouth in a leisurely, dawdling manner, spending a

few days, or perhaps a week, at those few spots where we found

Hottentots or Bushmen. The elder brother seemed to comprehend these

wild men by intuition, and the extraordinary 'click' language which I

had long since despaired of ever learning seemed to him the simplest

thing on earth. Day after day he conversed with them more and more,

until his mastery of both tongues was complete. The natives looked up

to him as a sort of god, and if he had allowed it would have worshipped

him. Hour after hour he would sit conversing with them and questioning

them, taking copious notes all the time and gathering from their

folklore, legends, traditions, and beliefs; and every day, as he became

more engrossed, his brother and I saw less of him. John and I had

plenty of sport, for the country teemed with game in those days; but

after a time, as Hector grew more and more engrossed in the natives,

until he rarely spoke to us, John became anxious, and at last spoke to

me. 'Look here, Jason,' he said one day when we were miles from camp

after klipbok for the pot, 'I don't like the way Hector's going at all!

He scarcely ever speaks now, and he's so queer when he does talk. He

wanders in his sleep a lot, and last night he kept on all night talking

the most abject nonsense about proving to the world that Darwin was

right in his theory of evolution. It's some yarn these infernal Bushmen

have told him, I suppose. I wish something would crop up to divert his

thoughts in another direction.'

"Well, something happened only too soon. One day, in passing through a

narrow ravine, we came suddenly at close quarters with a troop of the

biggest baboons I have ever seen. They looked and grunted a few times

to each other, and made off in a leisurely manner, evidently in no

fear. They were the first we had seen, and Hector was all excitement.

He spoke rapidly to the two Bushmen who were with us, and then shouted

some clicking, unintelligible gibberish after the retreating animals.

At the call the whole troop halted, and their hoarse barks came back in

reply. Again Hector shouted, and once again the baboons voiced a

grunting mocking answer that John and I looked at each other in

amazement! 'Look at Klaas!' he whispered.

"Klaas was a Hottentot who had been with the missionaries at Bethany,

and spoke English. He spoke the Bushman 'click' too, but seldom had

anything to do with the 'wild men,' as he called them. Now he stood

listening to Hector's shouts to the baboons, and as he listened a look

of the most abject terror came into his face, and he stood livid and

trembling, staring in the direction of the beasts. Again Hector called;

and then a shrill scream burst from the Hottentot's lips: 'No! no!' he

shrieked. 'He is calling them back!' he gibbered, turning to us; 'they

will tear us to pieces!!'

"The Bushmen were cowering in fear too; and still Hector, heedless of

us all, called to the baboons; and their grunts came back in reply. And

now the brutes were turning back towards us, and a thrill of fear came

to me too, for there were at least a hundred of them, and a combined

attack would have made short work of us, notwithstanding our

Winchesters. I unslung mine; but John was before me a shot rang out,

and the big leader flung up its long arms and fell dead. The troop

halted, and then, before I could shoot, Hector sprang to where we knelt

aiming and ordered us imperiously and passionately to stop. 'You

fools!' he shrieked, 'you have spoiled all! How can I ever gain their

confidence, how can I ever learn their speech and gain the proof of all

that Darwin taught, if you murder them? Already from these Bushmen I

have learnt much, and can make these wild men [he used the native

expression quite naturally] understand, but much more is needed. Put up

your guns: they shall come back!' Whilst we paused irresolute the

baboons, picking up their fallen leader, made off across the mountain,

in silence and with never a response to Hector's calls.

"From that time our leader's conduct became even stranger in fact he

was as a man obsessed. He rarely spoke to us, but spent his whole time

with the Bushmen, wandering away into the mountains and the thick

jungle bordering the river, refusing our company, and no longer even

carrying a rifle in a country at that time teeming with wild animals.

His sole desire was to come into contact with the baboons, but for some

days we saw nothing of them. He offered the Bushmen all sorts of

rewards if they could capture and bring in a young one, but they had

wild tales of raids by these strange beasts; of native women and

children carried off by them, and becoming wild like their captors. At

length, however, Hector's promises had effect: one evening the two

Bushmen returned to camp dragging between them a half-grown baboon. It

was surly, vicious, and so strong that they could scarce master it, but

within twenty-four hours Hector had the animal subject to his will, and

now the Bushmen were neglected for this strange new companion. That he

could make himself understood to it was perfectly obvious; and they

would wander away together, grunting and clicking all the time.

"The heat all this time was terrific, and the thought often came to me

that possibly Hector had had a touch of sunstroke. Even his craze for

finding a proof of Darwin's theory could, I thought, scarcely explain

his half-mad conduct! He ate but little; his habits, once so precise,

became careless and in fact almost brutal; and his brother's pained

remonstrance with him only made matters worse. 'The Proof! the Proof!'

he would answer us, fiercely and angrily; 'I am getting nearer to it

every day. What matters what you think or care! But this one is too

young. I must have an old one. He will tell me!' John and I had serious

thoughts of taking him out of the wilderness by force; but whilst we

hesitated the end came.

"One night, after a day of terrific heat, we were lying under a thorn

tree on the hot sand, and hoping for the rain that had been threatening

but would not fall. There was a moon; but its light was fitful, and the

dark thunder-clouds occasionally obscured it. Away over the Tatas Berg

Mountains the lightning was flickering, and John and I lay watching it,

and wishing the storm would break for us too. Suddenly we heard the

bark of a baboon from a peak near us. It was answered from the other

side, and soon a harsh chorus resounded on either hand. We listened.

They seemed to be narrowing in upon us. Klaas crept near us. 'Master,'

he whispered in a frightened voice, 'they will kill us all or worse!'

We looked at each other in the gloom. It might well be, and we had

better be prepared. Without a word we rose and hurried to the tent, and

there made ready our rifles. Then the same thought came simultaneously

to us. Should we speak to Hector? He had of late used the smaller tent,

a short distance away from our own his companion, the cursed baboon! We

hurried towards it. It was empty. 'Hector! Hector!' John called out,

softly at first, then loudly, frantically. But no answer came, except

that now the mocking din of the baboons seemed to jeer at us. They

appeared to be gathered near us, all together. As we ran towards the

sound the moon burst through a rift in the clouds. There ahead of us,

stark naked, and running swiftly towards the baboons, we saw the figure

of Hector, his body gleaming white in the moonbeams, and by his side

the grey figure of his baboon companion.

"We shouted, as over rocks and through scrub and thorns we ran and

scrambled, gaining upon the fugitive. When he was but fifty yards

ahead, he paused and turned, and the moonlight gleamed upon his gilded

teeth as he laughed at us in maniac mockery. Then, even as we sprang

towards him, a grey circle surged round him, and together they came

towards us. For a time we were hard set to beat them off. When our

Winchesters were empty a ring of dead lay around us, and then the moon

was blotted out and dense darkness fell as the thunderstorm burst over

us. Between the peals of thunder we could hear the hoarse barks of the

main troop getting farther and farther away, but to follow was

impossible. We expected to find the mangled body of Hector in the

morning. Daylight showed no trace of him, however, and though we spent

months searching the locality we never saw him again."

Jason stopped, and knocked his pipe out on his boot. I thought his tale

was finished. "Horrible! horrible!" I said. "Little wonder you hate

baboons! What became of his brother?"

"Wait!" said Jason, "that is only the first chapter of my story. John

went back to England a morose, sad man. The incident had deeply

affected me also, and we had become the closest of friends. Old Klaas

came to Cape Town with us, and as we saw John waving to us from the

fast receding mailboat the Hottentot said something I never forgot.

'Master,' he said, 'his brother I do not think he is dead! Something

worse has happened to him: Klaas believes he is there in that strange

place the Hottentots have all heard of there in the Tatas Berg, in the

baboons' secret place.'

"Well, ten more, fifteen years passed, and I often heard from John. He

had thrown up sport, and strangely enough had devoted himself entirely

to the same scientific research that had been his brother's bane. Then

his letters became fewer and fewer, and I heard nothing for many months

when one day he walked into my room in Cape Town. He had just arrived

from England, and after our first warm greeting he asked me eagerly if

I were free to accompany him again to the scene of our awful

experience. I was free enough, but reluctant. Why revive the horrors of

that awful night! But he persuaded me, and a month later we were in the

same region, and moreover had found old Klaas alive and hearty. John

had become proficient in the Bushman and Hottentot tongues, as his

brother had been; though where and how he had studied them I never

knew. Would he, too, I wondered, try to obtain the Proof, as his poor

mad brother had done? And when we first came in contact with the

baboons I watched him closely. But he betrayed no madness only an

intense interest in and hatred of them. Peculiarly enough, I thought at

the time, although he shot the smaller ones mercilessly I never saw him

shoot at the huge beasts we often saw watching us from the peaks. He

must have noticed me watching him, for one day he turned and looked me

full in the face, sadly and wistfully, as though reading my thoughts:

'No, no, Jason; never fear, old friend; I shall never seek the proof as

Hector did. And yet, and yet, it is there!' I soon found that all his

inquiries among the natives tended in one direction: he sought the

whereabouts of the secret place of the baboons in which they all

believed. But none could tell him, till one day in the wild and remote

region between the Great Fish River and the Tatas Mountains we came

upon Jantje, an old Hottentot, who told us that he had seen the place.

He had been hunting for honey in the almost inaccessible mountains of

that wild spot, and had one day found himself in a narrow gorge,

looking down into what appeared to be a large crater. The sides were

precipitous except at one spot where a narrow and tortuous canon made

it possible to enter. And here, he assured us, was the stronghold of

the baboons. Huge ones bigger than men, he told us and hundreds of

them. And for a new gun and some powder and shot he would take us to

the place. But he would not enter!

"Jantje got his gun; and three days later John, myself, and Klaas stood

upon a mountain-top and looked into the spot he had described. It was

at least five hundred feet deep, and perhaps a hundred yards across the

bottom, which was flat and sandy. Even as we first looked into the

place the baboons, several hundred strong, were surging through the

gorge of which Jantje had spoken, away towards their feeding-ground by

the Groot River. We watched them through our glasses. Many of them were

of a man's size, and they were not like the ordinary baboon.

"John was all excitement. 'We will wait till they are clear away, and

then we'll go down,' he said. I warned him that there were sure to be

some left behind. But he was insistent. We were well armed, he urged,

and he could see none. He badly wanted to see the place, and at last I

consented. We each had a hundred rounds of ammunition, and if it came

to a fight the three of us Klaas was also well armed could almost

exterminate them. So, leaving the old man behind, we ventured down the

narrow cleft clinging, scrambling, and occasionally using the rope. At

length we stood in the open arena.

"At the bottom there was nothing living to be seen. A trickling stream

issued from the rock on one side, and we drank before starting to

explore the place. We found a piece of tattered clothing, and paused

and looked at each other in dismay. There had been men there! But we

discovered nothing else of importance as we continued our circuit of

the crater. We had been engrossed in our investigations, however, and

when we had finished it became clear that we had started our descent

too late. The rapidly failing light showed us that the day was nearly

at an end. The baboons might return at any time, and to fight them in

the narrow ravine, without proper light, would be madness. Then came a

warning shot fired by Jantje on the height above: the beasts were

returning. To find some kind of hiding-place and lie there until the

morrow was our only hope of safety. Luckily we discovered a sort of

shallow cave that hid us well, with a huge boulder at the entrance that

would if need be form a barrier. The cave might be the sleeping-place

of one of the baboons; but it was our only chance, and we had barely

taken possession before the advance guard of the baboons came hooting

down the ravine and made for the drinking-place. Night was now falling

fast, and it was dark before the main troop entered the crater. We

could only dimly make out their forms, but their harsh barks were

continuous. They did not come near us, and we sat and watched, and

whispered to each other, and waited for the moon, which seemed long in

coming. At last its bright light struck full into the crater, and we

could see the baboons sitting together in a mass at the farther side.

But not for long; for as we waited there was a movement among the

animals, and two long files of them left the main body and came slowly

towards the part in which we lay hidden. Tense with apprehension we sat

and gazed, expecting that they would make a dash for us. They kept

steadily on, however: two long lines of huge beasts a few yards apart,

and between them a bigger one that walked almost erect. Within twenty

yards of our cave they formed into a circle, the big one in the centre.

He was as big as a man! Was he a man? But no, the clicking, grunting

sound that issued from his throat was that of a baboon, though of a

species different to the others. When the moonlight struck more fully

on the shaggy head and face, they looked almost human! How the fangs

glistened in the moonlight!

"The gestures of this strange animal became more excited, and the

guttural speech if speech it was more passionate. I heard Klaas

muttering he was praying. 'God have mercy!' I heard him say, 'they know

we are here, they Oh! master, master, hold him, hold him!' But it was

too late: John, with a wild scream of 'Hector! Hector!' sprang from the

shelter of the cave, and, casting aside his rifle, ran straight at the

strange figure in the middle of the circle. Had he gone mad? Who could

save him now? Fast and furious Klaas's rifle and my own rang out, and

in the dense group of animals the execution was so terrible that in a

few minutes the bulk fled back to the farther end, and I ran to where

John lay crushed in the arms of the baboon leader. The vile beast had

its fangs fixed in his throat when I reached them. I fired a bullet

through its head, and released my poor dead friend; and as the

monster's shaggy head rolled back, and the moon's bright rays struck

upon its glistening teeth, I saw with horror that they were of gold!"

BUSHMAN'S PARADISE

Author's note: The principal incident in the first part of this story,

the shooting of the German soldier who found diamonds in German South-

West Africa before they were heard of in Luderitzbucht, actually

occurred, and the pocket-book containing the route to the oasis, now

known as "Bush-man's Paradise," is still in existence. Names and

localities have been altered, naturally, and the second part of the

story is pure fiction.

Jim Halloran was bored to death. With a natural curiosity he had

drifted into Walfisch Bay, bitten as it were out of the huge expanse of

German South-West Africa, vaguely expecting something out of the

ordinary from such a queer locality. But he had found literally nothing

to do. A few white officials and storekeepers, too slack even to be

sick of their surroundings, and a few degraded families of Bushmen of

uninteresting habits and extremely filthy, constituted the inhabitants.

There was but little game in the small strip of British territory, and

Halloran had made one or two abortive attempts to arrange a shooting

and exploring trip into the German hinterland. Every one had warned him

of the extreme peril from the shifting sand-dunes. Moreover, the war

between the Germans and the Hereros was at its height, and the

lieutenant in charge of the small garrison at Swakopmund had cautioned

him not to venture beyond the limit of their patrols. There was no

steamer for ten days, so that it was a veritable godsend to him when

late one evening he received a message from the same friendly

lieutenant to the effect that if he cared, he was welcome to accompany

a patrol party which was to leave early the following morning in the

direction of the little-known Geiesib Mountains. He might bring his

rifle, as there was a chance of some buck.

Daylight found Halloran in the saddle on his way to the German

quarters. The patrol consisted of ten troopers in addition to his

friend the lieutenant, who explained that two of his men who had been

sent on patrol in that direction a few days previously had not

returned, and that he hoped to find traces of them. "What do you think

has happened to them?" Halloran asked. The German shrugged his

shoulders. "A hundred things may have happened," he said "the Hereros

or the Bushmen they may be under one of the shifting dunes or they are

lost and may be dying of thirst who knows?"

The heat was terrific: the vibrant atmosphere over the red-hot sand

looked as though it had become molten, and the glare to the eye was

almost insufferable. There was not a breath of air stirring. Indeed, it

was due solely to this fact that the patrol had ventured to cross the

shifting dunes. Later, when the wind blew, it would be courting death

to attempt it.

A few hours' sharp trot brought them to the nearest spurs of the

mountain, where water had been found, by digging in the sand, bitter

brak, but still drinkable, and here they had hoped to have found the

lost troopers. But no trace of the missing men was to be seen. And over

a hasty lunch Haussmann, the lieutenant, expressed his fear that they

might never be found, but would go to swell the list of men who from

time to time had disappeared from their little garrison. "In two

years," he said, "I have lost nine men. First there were Schmidt,

Muller, and Brandhof, who were lost in the colossal and never-to-be-

forgotten storm soon after I arrived; then my orderly Goertz went, and

with him another. Then Kramer yes but Kramer, that was different!"

Halloran was curious. "What happened to Kramer?" he asked. And the

German told him a strange story. Kramer was a queer mountebank sort of

a chap who before conscription claimed him had been clown in a circus,

and his antics and gymnastic feats had made him very popular with his

fellow-troopers. He had been a good soldier too; and when he had become

separated from his fellow-trooper in a sandstorm a day or more south of

Swakopmund, and his companion had struggled through without him, no

effort had been spared in searching for the missing man. But to no

purpose; months passed and he had been almost forgotten. And then, to

every one's surprise, he had one day turned up, safe and sound, at the

camp. He was nearly naked, and bore traces of having lived like a

savage, and the lieutenant believed that he had become affected by his

privations and was slightly mad. At any rate, he had told a strange and

improbable story. Lost in the drifting sands, he had struggled on he

knew not whither until his horse dropped, then on foot, and, with all

sense of direction utterly lost, he had staggered on till tired nature

gave out and he sank to the ground in a dead faint. The storm must have

abated shortly after, for he woke to find himself nearly buried but

with the air clearer, and, somewhat refreshed, he had again moved on,

until, water gone and nearly dead, he had eventually staggered clear of

the sands and right into the arms of a number of Bushmen. For some

reason they had spared his life. Later his acrobatic feats had made him

even popular with them. His story went on to tell of a well-wooded

oasis where the Bushmen lived, with water and game in plenty.

"All this is probably true," said the lieutenant, "but his brain must

have been somewhat turned, for he declared that in this oasis the

Bushmen's children made playthings of big rough diamonds the size of

walnuts!" Kramer had watched for an opportunity to escape, but when it

came he had had no chance of bringing away any of the stones, as the

Bushmen had a vague idea that the white men valued them highly and that

if they knew of their presence in the oasis their refuge would soon be

lost to them. "He stuck to his tale," said the lieutenant, "and his

great idea was that I should help him to go back with a strong

expedition as soon as his time of service expired, and he would make me

a rich man. Of course," he continued dogmatically, "there are no

diamonds in this country, worse luck! so Kramer was laughed at by

everybody." He became madder than ever, sullen and morose. He thought

of nothing but his mad dream of diamonds. A few months previously his

discharge had come, and within a few days he had again disappeared into

the unknown. He had bought a mule, and had gone away laden with water-

bags, laughed and jeered at by his late comrades. He had never been

heard of in the interval. "But," said the lieutenant abruptly, "we must

be off, as we must go on at least two or three hours further east, and

I should suggest, Mr. Halloran, that if you care to do so you could

stay here till our return. You are likely to get a shot here by the

water."

Halloran agreed, and the patrol trotted away over the thick sand that

skirted the mountains eastward. The tale told by Haussmann had a

strange fascination for him. Himself something of a prospector, the

story of the diamonds did not appear so wild and improbable to him as

it did to the matter-of-fact Teuton. He had often wished for a chance

to prospect the slopes of these very mountains, which looked very

promising for gold but diamonds! Was it possible? Choosing a spot among

the rocks where he was somewhat sheltered from the sun and could

command a view of the little pool and its approaches, he sat down to

muse over the story and to await the chance of a possible shot. A

couple of hours passed. The stillness and intense heat combined to make

him drowsy, and he woke with a start to find he had been dreaming of

diamonds as big as tennis balls. "Bad sportsman," he yawned. "I shall

never get a shot this way," and, rubbing his eyes, he peered cautiously

round in search of game. Not a thing in sight in any direction. Stop!

was that a speck moving on a distant spur of the mountain? The

atmosphere was deceptive, but surely it was some animal approaching in

his direction. He had up till then forgotten his binoculars, but he was

now wide awake and, looking first to his rifle, he got out his glasses

and twisted them into focus upon the moving object in the distance. A

startled exclamation rose to his lips as the field-glasses covered the

moving spot; it was a man. Yes running, stumbling, crouching and at

times almost crawling the object which he saw was a white man, naked

except for a few rags. His desperate haste and the glances he threw

back continually showed that he was being pursued. Even as Halloran

gazed, figure after figure came running into view over the slope behind

the forlorn and desperate-looking fugitive blacks these, and by their

diminutive size he knew them for Bushmen. There were seven or eight of

them in sight. How many more were behind he could not of course guess,

nor did he stop to look, for every manly instinct in his body sent him

flying out of his shelter towards the hunted man. He must shoot quick,

for it was plain the Bushmen were gaining on their quarry. So, shouting

with all his might, Halloran ran forward. A couple of hundred yards'

sprint and they were within range. Down he went on one knee, and crack,

crack went the sporting Mauser. The vibration of the hot air was

sufficient excuse for bad shooting, and it was not until he had emptied

his magazine that he had the satisfaction of sending the leading

Bushman sprawling. But the others did not pause, and as Halloran thrust

another clip into the magazine and ran forward again, shouting and

using some very bad language in his excitement, he saw the leading

figure throw up his hands and fall forward upon his face. He had the

range better now, and was getting near. A second and a third Bushman

fell dead, but the others made no attempt to retreat, and appeared to

be rifling the body in frantic haste. Again Halloran paused, and sent a

bullet into the bunch. Now they were flying away, leaving four of their

number behind them. Shot after shot was sent after them till they were

out of range, beyond the ridge, by which time Halloran had reached the

fallen white man. There he lay, stone dead, with a Bushman's poisoned

arrow between his shoulders and his body already swollen and horrible

from the deadly poison. A white man without doubt, his feet bare and

bleeding from his awful flight, his few poor rags almost torn from his

body by the Bushmen. Though tanned almost black he had been a fair man,

and his blue eyes stared horribly. He was beyond all succour, whoever

he was, and Halloran turned savagely to the remnants of the murderous

band. They had paid dearly. Three were stone dead. A fourth lay dying

where Halloran had brought him down in his flight, and near him lay a

tattered pocketbook. Halloran picked this up. He knew what name he

should find in it before he glanced at the contents. Yes, there was the

name: "Heinrich Kramer." It was the man who had gone back for the

diamonds. This, then, was why the Bushmen had followed and killed him

and rifled the body. Halloran searched also, but the natives had done

their work well. Nothing was to be found. However, as he turned to look

at the wounded Bushman, who was in his death-agony, there fell from the

stunted black fingers a pure and flawless diamond, lustrous and

dazzling in the burning sunshine, and so perfect that it might just

have left the hands of the cutter. . . . So it was true, after all!

Half an hour later the patrol came back at a gallop, having heard the

continuous firing. A few words explained all. It was Kramer right

enough. As it was useless following the Bushmen, poor Kramer was buried

and the patrol returned to Swakopmund, having found no trace of the men

for whom they had been searching. In the presence of the men Halloran

had not mentioned the pocketbook or diamond, but that night he told

Haussmann all. The pocket-book contained many details, and although

much was in cypher, the route taken by Kramer in reaching the oasis the

second time was clearly noted. And between them a plan was formed.

Six months later Halloran arrived in Cape Town, having spent the

interim in Europe, where he had made certain arrangements. He was met

by his friend (and partner in the venture) the lieutenant on three

months' sick leave and between them the expedition was organised which

was to make both their fortunes. From Europe, Halloran had shipped half

a dozen camels, and these ungainly beasts, in charge of two Arab

drivers, formed an important item in his scheme. A small tug was

chartered for three months, and a week after sailing from Cape Town the

party landed on a wild and desolate part of the coast a hundred and

fifty miles south of Walfisch Bay. The reason for choosing this spot

was that, according to the directions in the pocket-book, it appeared

clear that by striking inland due east from thereabouts they would

reach the oasis much quicker than by the actual route followed by

Kramer. But they knew it to be a waterless waste for at least four

days' journey how much more it was impossible to say hence the camels,

and hence also the numerous small barrels of water which formed an

equally important part of the tug's cargo. There were four white men in

the party Halloran, his younger brother Frank, Haussmann the German

lieutenant, and a friend of the latter named Haupt. From Swakopmund,

Haussmann had brought two Hottentots who could speak the extraordinary

Bushman "click" language. These, with the Arab camel-men, made the

actual number up to eight. Each was well armed, for Halloran, though he

hoped to get the diamonds without violence, had a notion that in an

extreme case a good deal could be done by eight determined men armed

with Mausers and with plenty of ammunition. The tug with its crew of

six men was to remain anchored in the little cove, keeping a sharp

look-out shorewards. Halloran had chosen his time well. The windy

season was at an end and there was no great probability of the much-

dreaded sandstorms arising. The moon was nearly at its full and they

would thus be able to keep a sharp look-out at night, and travel if

they wished to. Five of the camels were laden with water casks, which

were to be buried at intervals along the route, accurate bearings of

each spot to be taken, and thus a safe line of retreat would be

provided should such prove necessary. Speed was unnecessary on the

outward journey, and the party walked, the sixth camel carrying their

stores, ammunition, and a large assortment of Manchester trading goods

likely to appeal to the aesthetic taste of the Bushmen. And so one

evening as the last flaming rays of the setting sun were being

vanquished by the soft moonlight, the venturesome party waved farewell

to the watchers on the little tug and started on their journey over the

seemingly illimitable sand-dunes. They trekked in single file and by

the aid of the stars and a compass easily kept their eastward course.

The murmur of the surf grew fainter and fainter until not a sound broke

the stillness, the soft footfall of the camels being inaudible even to

the men who led them. Halloran had enjoined silence for some reason,

and he stopped his brother irritably when that usually irrepressible

youth started to whistle feebly. With an occasional rest the expedition

made slow but certain headway during the night, halting for the day

when the rapidly brightening east warned them that old Sol would soon

have to be reckoned with. A barrel of water was buried in the sand, a

bamboo brought for the purpose being planted upright near the spot, and

after a hasty breakfast the tired men were soon asleep under a light

awning carried for the purpose; one man, however, being constantly on

watch. By noon the heat had become intolerable. Roasting in the sun

seemed preferable to stewing under the canvas, and by three o'clock the

party were on their way again. They rested at midnight, and rested

better. The fourth night found them still on the sand-dunes, and by

this time the weird journey was beginning to tell upon the white men.

The silence and mystery of the night, the vast expanse of sand shown so

vaguely in the moonlight, the soft-treading, grotesquely-shaped camels,

which seemed far less real and tangible than the black shadows thrown

by them across the sand, and by day the blinding glare of the sun

thrown back from the all-surrounding sand so fiercely that in spite of

their sun-goggles they were nearly blinded, combined to make them high-

strung and irritable. On the fourth night it fell to young Frank

Halloran to take first watch. He had grumbled at it as unnecessary, for

so far they had seen no living creature not even a bird. But though he

grumbled he kept a sharp look-out, for he was conscious of a queer

uneasy feeling that someone or something was watching him in turn. The

moon was bright, but a slight haze seemed to hang over the sand, making

objects a short distance away look vague and indistinct. He could see

nothing, peer as he would into the soft, dim distance, but he could not

shake off the uneasy feeling. Time wore on, half his watch was over.

What was that? Surely something moving? His rifle came to his shoulder,

the report rang out, and his comrades were awake instantly. Nothing

could be found. His brother rated him for shooting at what was probably

a jackal, if, indeed, it had not been pure imagination. But daylight,

though it showed nothing to the white men, showed something to the

wonderfully trained eyes of the Hottentots. "Bushman!" said Gert, the

elder of the two. The spoor came from the east and led back in the same

direction. Halloran was quite elated. He took it for proof that they

were on the right track. . . .

All this can be gathered from the notes in Halloran's handwriting,

which are to be found in the pocket-book that had belonged to Kramer.

The book had had a strange fascination for him, and he had used it for

his own diary. Indeed, these short and sometimes disconnected sentences

are the only real record of the grim tragedy that followed.

The little caravan got through the sand-belt safely in six days, and

without further alarms from the Bushmen. Then came stony kopjes with

stunted bush, and here and there traces of game and lions. Water could

not be far off. On the tenth day they had found the oasis, and by

sending the Hottentots on ahead with presents they had met with no open

hostility from the Bushmen. There was plenty of water. Halloran seems

to have tried to get the diamonds by bartering goods for them, but for

some days the Bushmen had kept up the pretence that there were no

diamonds there. Then force was threatened and a demonstration made as

to what could be done with eight repeating rifles. Finally Halloran

seems to have laid violent hands on the chief and to have held him to

ransom against the production of the stones. But from this time the

pocket-book speaks best for itself.

"August 13th. They have given in. Gert has taken the chief's message,

and they have brought us a skin-bag full of the stones. These are

diamonds right enough fine big stones of eight or nine carats, nearly

all the same size and we are rich men. The sight of them made us

greedy, and we told the chief they were not enough. He told us through

Gert that we had broken our word. Have we? Of course we did not tell

him for how many diamonds we would let him go. Besides, we will give

him all the trading goods in return. He said something to his wives

which even the Hottentots could not understand, but they came again

with a dozen very large diamonds, and we let him go.

"I do not like the look of things. Every Bushman has disappeared. Do

they intend to attack us later? We shall water the camels as soon as it

is cool enough, fill our water-bags and start on our return journey.

Luckily we have buried water all the way back, we can travel lightly

and rapidly.

"What shall we do? They have poisoned the water-pools. One of the

Arabs, the younger Hottentot, and three of our camels are dead.

Lucidly, the poison was swift, and they fell dead before Gert and the

other camels could get to the pool. We must fly as best we may, our

nearest cask is only twelve hours away.

"14th. We are resting the camels for a short spell about three hours

from the first cask. We have neglected the camels in our anxiety for

the diamonds. They have had no water for three days. We must give them

most of the first cask. It is awful work riding two on a camel, but we

can get through in four or five days, and then---

"I am almost too stunned to write. We found the cask. We had not

thought of its being tampered with. My poor brother Frank drank the

first pannikin greedily, and fell dying at our feet as he drank. The

fiends had found the water and poisoned it. As the poor boy lay dying

in my arms the water ran unheeded into the sands. A camel sucked it up

eagerly. It is dead also. We must on again. Surely they cannot have

found the other casks.

"17th. I am alone. The others are all dead all. We tried the water in

the other casks by giving some first to the camels. It had all been

poisoned. They are following us too, but too far off to shoot them.

Gert went mad and drank the water it was so bright and clear. Each time

we hoped they might not have found the next cask; but so far they have

found them all. There are three more. The young German turned back to

die fighting the black devils. We heard him shooting for a long time,

but he must be dead too. The Arab was missing in the night. He too had

gone back. . . . We have dragged on till within eighteen hours of the

coast, but I can go no further. When the lieutenant and I dug up the

last cask we cast lots as to who should try it. It fell to him. I

wished him to sip it only, but once his lips were wet I could not tear

him away. . . . He cursed me as he died. ... I have all the diamonds

now and would give them all for a drink of pure water. . . . Surely

they cannot have found the other casks. I will win through yet. It is

but six hours to the next cask.

"Another cask but I dare not. It is bright and cool and clear; but so

were the others! And yet I am dying of thirst. I can go no further. . . .

They are creeping nearer. They know my rifle has gone, and I know

that if I do not drink they will shoot me as they did that other man

through the back with a poisoned arrow. But I will not wait for that.

This water looks so cool and clear, surely . . ."

The diary ends abruptly, A week later the engineer and skipper of the

little tug, venturing across the sands in the hope of meeting the party

returning, found Halloran's body by the side of the water-cask. Near by

lay the fatal pocket-book. But the diamonds had gone.

"THE DRINK OF THE DEAD"

A LEGEND OF BUSHMANLAND

This tale was told me over a camp-fire in lonely Bushmanland.

A wild and desolate land it is, but little known except to the

occasional nomad "trek-boer," who in the seasons when rain has made it

possible wanders from water-hole to water-hole with his scanty flocks

and herds; or to the mounted trooper on his long and lonely patrol; or

the even more infrequent prospector in his search for the mineral

wealth that abounds in the district, but which scarcity of water and

cost of transport have so far rendered useless. A land with a character

all its own of wide stretches of low grey bush, intermingled with the

vivid-green patches of luxuriant "melkbosch," giving deceptive promise

of non-existent moisture; of level plains, gay with brilliant flowers,

from which long humped ranges of granite rise in serried lines.

A common necessity had drawn two of us white men to a distant and

isolated water-hole, which to our dismay we had found dry and empty.

Neither of us knew of other water within twelve hours' trek, our beasts

were tired, and it was a great relief when Karelse, my Hottentot

driver, declared he knew of good water only about four hours away. I

wondered I had never heard of it before, but Karelse, who knew every

inch of the country, was confident that though he had never been to the

spot we should find plenty of water there; and, sure enough, nightfall

brought us to the place, and there was water in abundance. Here we

shared coffee and biltong, and afterwards sat smoking and yarning by

the cheerful blaze of the dry fire-bush.

The night was wild and stormy, and a cold wind blew in sharp gusts

round the fantastic pile of rocks that rose abruptly from the small

deep pool of black-looking water, sending the sparks swirling upwards

and causing the flames to leap fiercely, whilst the flicker of the fire

shone on the glittering "baviaan-spel" of the rocks, and the black

shadows danced to the whistle of the wind.

Overhead the sky seemed charged with rain the heavy, hurrying clouds

lowered and trailed and seemed as though at any moment they might

launch a deluge upon the parched and yearning veldt; but the promise

was ever an empty one, for not a drop fell, and the rain-charged

phalanxes sped onward and ever onward, to shed their precious burthen

upon distant and more-favored fields. . . .

Jason I had met before. Like myself he was a prospector, and had known

many lands. He was a reserved, reliable man, who possessed a habit of

silence rare amongst men of our fraternity. Our talk had been of

Brazil, where we had both spent many years of our youth, and almost

unconsciously we had fallen into Portuguese a language we both spoke

fluently.

It was then that the Other Man appeared. Suddenly, silently, and alone

he stepped from among the flickering shadows of the rocks, so abruptly

as to cause both Jason and I to start up with an exclamation. By the

uncertain light of the fire he appeared to be an elderly man of medium

size, swarthy, weather-beaten, and bearded to the eyes. He strode to

the fire, extended a limp, cold hand to Jason and I in turn with an

almost inaudible greeting, and crouched down by the dying blaze, his

dark eyes bent upon the glowing embers. Naturally expecting him to be

Dutch, both Jason and I had greeted him in the usual manner by giving

our own names in self-introduction. He had made no reply; but though

our hearth was but a campfire in a wild country, we felt that whoever

he was he was in a measure our guest, and therefore we made no

immediate attempt to find out who or what he was. Still he did not

speak. He put aside our proffered coffee, gently but without a word,

and sat glowering and gazing into the fire.

At last Jason spoke to him direct first in Dutch, and, getting no

reply, in English.

"Come far?" he queried.

There was no sign that the man had heard. Jason looked at me with a

lift of the eyebrow. Then I tried.

"Farming?" I asked.

No answer.

"Trading?"

Still no answer.

"Man's dumb!" grunted Jason.

But he was muttering now. Gradually his words became clearer, and to

our amazement he was speaking Portuguese!

"Pesquisadores pesquisadores," he murmured, "como nos outras dos tempos

antigos." (Prospectors searchers for wealth, like we others of the

olden days.) "... Searching for that which is not yours, but mine, mine

by every right. . . . But you will never find it or if you do your

bones will lie beside those others beneath the black water, where the

dead drink . . .!"

His mutterings became again inarticulate. I looked at Jason. He sat

staring open-mouthed at our strange visitor. For my own part I confess

I was puzzled and somewhat startled. Jason's eyes left the stranger

abruptly, and met my own, and mutually and silently our lips framed the

word "Mad!" Yes, surely he must be mad, this strange man who spoke of

the "ancient days" in a tongue rarely heard in this part of Africa; but

what was he doing here, here, alone, in this desolate spot, full fifty

miles from human habitation.

And as we looked at each other in doubt and hesitation the stranger

began again to speak, first in broken, disconnected sentences. But

gradually the strange, far-away tone like that of a man talking in his

sleep became clearer and more connected, and soon Jason and I were

gazing at him as though spellbound, and drinking in every word of the

queer archaic-sounding Portuguese in which he told his weird story

fragment, delirium, wanderings of a madman, call it what you will.

"... There were Bushmen, then wild dwarf men who shot with poisoned

arrows, and had seen no white man before . . . .

"Alvaro Nunes had still five charges for his arquebus, and I as many

for my hand petronel. . . . When they heard the thunder of the powder

they cast aside their weapons and crawled to us on their knees, taking

us for gods. . . . And bearing in mind all that the shipwrecked

Castilian we had found at Cabo Tormentoso had told us of the mine of

precious stones, we hastened to propitiate them in every way. . . . The

gauds we had brought, gay beads, bright kerchiefs, and the like with

these we won our way to their goodwill. They hunted for us; of buck and

of wild game they brought us abundance; but though months passed we

were no nearer that which we sought the mine of bright stones such as

the Spanisher had shown us and the whereabouts of which these strange

black, dwarfish people alone knew. Never could we master their strange

tongue like to the creaking and rustling of dry bones upon a gibbet

more than the speech of humans and time and patience alone showed us a

way. Their man of magic held great power over them. He was of another

race, of our own stature, and with a yellow skin. He had another tongue

than these dwarf men of the bush, and this Alvaro and I learnt when his

suspicion of us gave way and he found that we wished not to alienate

the tribe from his authority. . . . For the Spanisher had said: 'Their

magician, because of his black magic, he alone hath the secret of the

mine of stones like unto those of Golconda.' . . . Little did we fear

his magic we who feared nothing in heaven or earth or in the waters

beneath Alvaro and I, old freebooters of the Spanish Main; but they

others Luiz Fonseca, Jose Albuquerque, and Antonio Mendez brave men,

but ignorant shipmen, they were fearful of the witch-doctor and his

black art.

"Then when N'buqu, the witch, had heard all of the wonders of our land

across the great water, he would fain plot to come with us and see all

these wondrous things of which we spake. And cunningly Alvaro led him

on day by day until he was all impatient to leave this tribe of dwarfs,

who were not even his own kinsmen. Then when all was ripe he told him

that with us there were no wild lands full of buck for those who cared

to shoot them, that our wealth was in red gold and shining stones! And

at long last he showed the stone taken from the Spanisher at the Cape

of Storms. . . .

"At night when the moon was full N'buqu took us to the black water-pit

lying deep and dark at the foot of the rocky hill. Ten fathoms deep was

it and full to the brim with icy water. Many times had we drank from

it, for though all around the land lay parched in the torrid heat the

black water-pit was always full to the brim. . . .

"But what magic was this? Here was no water, but a yawning shaft gaped

black and dismal where the pool had been. The shipmen shrank back in

dismay. 'Here is magic!' they muttered fearfully, crossing themselves.

N'buqu laughed. He also had learnt something of our tongue, and

understood. 'No magic is here,' said he, ''tis but a spring from yonder

hill that fills this pool, and it needs but to turn the stream aside

and the water will all drain away. Later I will show!'

"From a fire-stick he had brought he lit a torch of dry wood. By its

glare we saw that a hide ladder dangled from an overhanging rock into

the deep pit. Down it N'buqu led the way, followed by us all in turn

the shipmen with many muttered prayers and misgivings. . . . Slimy and

dank was the fearsome place, but the bottom was firm and rocky, and

from it there branched a cavern wide enough for us all to walk abreast.

Gently it led upward . . . and then we stood in a broader cavern, where

the light from the torch in every direction flashed back from a myriad

dazzling points: ceiling, walls, every rock protuberance, even the very

floor gleamed and scintillated till the whole place blazed as though on

fire. N'buqu thrust the torch into Alvaro's hand. 'Look!' he cried, and

smote with a spear he carried at the wall of the cavern. At the light

blow a handful of the flashing points fell to the floor. We picked them

up. They were the 'bright stones' of the Spanisher they were diamonds!

Here was wealth beyond conception wealth beside which the fabled

Golconda would be as nought, wealth untold for us all. But on the floor

among the flashing gems there lay many white bones the bones of dead

men. . . . Wealth, vast wealth for us all, and yet we quarreled there

as to the division of the stones, and as to how we were to get them

away. 'Get all we can at once and flee this very night!' urged the

shipmen. 'And die of thirst in the desert places!' said Alvaro for it

was the season of drought! 'Stay only until we can fill our water-

skins,' they counseled. But Alvaro and myself we were wiser.

"N'buqu his must be the plan. He knew the best paths back to the Cape

of Tempests, he knew the water-holes; we must be guided by his counsel.

And we forced them to listen. Yes, he had a plan. Three nights hence we

must flee. He would have water ready in skins. Meanwhile each night he

would divert the water, and we must descend and collect the stones so

that we should have enough for all. At night the tribe believed that

the spirits of the dead came to the black water to drink, and always

avoided the spot. . . . And by the light of the flickering torch we

broke down showers of the glittering stones from the soft blue rock in

which they were embedded till our pouches were full and the torch had

burned out. Then we stumbled and groped our way over slime and bones

till we came to the shaft, and one by one we climbed up and out into

the fair white moonlight. . . .

"Fools! fools! The shipmen quarreled over the stones the first day.

Alvaro lent them dice and they gambled with each other for their new-

found wealth. And as Alvaro wished, they quarreled; and Albuquerque and

Fonseca drew steel upon each other, and there in the sunshine stabbed

each other to death. 'The more for us,' said Alvaro, and we divided the

stones they fought for.

"That night we four went again to the black water. Once more we loaded

our pouches and climbed out one by one. I the first, for I was faint

with the air of the cavern. Then came N'buqu. But Alvaro came not, nor

Mendez the shipman. Impatiently I shook the ladder: it was near dawn.

Then at length came Alvaro. He was ghastly in the moonlight. And at the

top he began to pull up the ladder he had climbed by. 'But Mendez?' I

muttered. He answered not, but still hauled the hide rope. Then I

seized him by the shoulder and looked in his face. There was blood upon

him. 'He struck me from behind,' he said; 'my vest of mail saved me; he

is dead. The more for us!' I liked not Alvaro's face, and looked to my

dagger lest to-morrow he should say 'The more for me.' . . .

"That third night Alvaro and I for the last time descended the black

shaft. Well watched we each the other. He had both dagger and arquebus,

and I my hand petronel and dagger too. N'buqu came not down with us,

feigning that he must prepare all things that we might flee as soon as

we had loaded our pouches for the last time. . . . There he left us in

the black shaft my life-long comrade and I; and by reason of the lust

of wealth that came upon me and because of the fear of that which I saw

in Alvaro's eye I struck him unawares as he knelt for the last gem.

Deep behind the neck my dagger drank his blood. His vest of mail did

not save him from me! ... And turning to flee hastily with all the

stones, I found the ladder drawn up and N'buqu laughing at me from

above. "'Ho! ho! white man, white wizard!' he called. 'Ye who would

show me the wondrous things of thine own land. How fares it with ye

now? Surely thou hast enough of the bright stones now thy dead

comrade's share and all he had taken; thou hast them all! Handle them,

gaze on them, eat of them, drink of them; for of a surety naught else

will there be for thee to eat and drink! Ho! ho! surely the black man's

magic is vain against the wisdom of the white!'

"And thus he taunted me, whilst vainly I strove by means of my dagger

to cut footholds in the slimy walls of the shaft and thus climb to

freedom. But the holes crumbled as soon as my weight bore on them, and

after falling again and again I desisted in despair. . . . And ever the

yellow fiend above taunted me, and it was abundantly clear that he had

but feigned to fall in with our scheme the more fully to encompass our

destruction. . . . Dawn found me raving in terror of my coming fate

alone with the bodies of the friend whom I had slain and the shipman

who had been by him slain. Terror had helped to parch my tongue with

thirst, and both shaft and cavern, though moist, were drained too dry

to afford one mouthful of the precious fluid. Yet though longing for

water I knew well that when N'buqu should choose again to direct the

stream I should drown like any rat. The day passed. I heard the

frightened mutterings of the dwarf men as they crowded round the mouth

of the shaft seeking the black water that had vanished; but at my first

hoarse shout they fled, yelling in alarm. Day turned to night, and I

had become as one dead. The ghosts of dead Alvaro and Mendez and a

thousand others crowded round me, gibing, and mouthing, and seeking too

for the black water. Again day, and again night came and went. Still

the water I longed for and yet feared came not. I suffered the tortures

of the damned, and fain would I have scattered my throbbing brains with

that last charge of my hand petronel; but ever as I raised it dead

Alvaro caught my hand in an icy grip and I could not die. . . .

"Then again I heard N'buqu, and with him certain men of the dwarfs he

ruled. And in their whistling, creaking tongue I heard him hold forth:

'Lo! ye who doubted me, thus do I show my power. These other white gods

that came from afar, ye thought them stronger than I, yet have I caused

their utter destruction. But because of the little faith ye had in me,

and as a sign of my power and displeasure, have I also caused the

spirits that dwell in the black pool to take away the water that is

life to ye all!'

"Then I heard them moaning and begging for the water, and the voice of

the witch-doctor ordering them to lie flat on their faces and look not

up whilst he forced the spirits to bring back that which they had

taken. Then he called to me in my own tongue loudly: 'Ho! thou white

god! eat thou thy fill of the bright stones; of water thou shalt soon

drink plenty!' And I knew that he would soon move that rock whereby the

water could be diverted back to the pit. But even as he gibed at me,

leaning over the brink, dead Alvaro's ice-cold hand guided my petronel

till it covered the black fiend's body, and the iron ball struck full

and true below his throat. Down at my feet hurtled the body, and at the

report I could hear the dwarfs shriek and fly away from the spot in

fear.

"Not dead, but dying was he, for his magic was naught against the

weapons of the white man. Yet magic had he, and as he died so did he

curse me and cast over me a spell of terror: 'Thou shalt guard well thy

bright stones, oh, slayer of thy friend!' he shrieked. 'Water shalt

thou have, and yet shall never quench thine awful thirst; hunger shall

consume thee and thou shalt not eat; thou shalt long for death, yet

shalt thou not die!' And cursing thus he died; and his ghost joined the

band of weird watchers in the cavern of bright stones. . . .

"And the tribe of dwarfs one by one died of thirst, for it was a year

of fearful heat, and they knew of no other water. Day by day they came

shrieking and praying to the spirits of the black shaft to give them

back the water. Day by day they flung living men into the pit as

sacrifice to join the spirits below, till all, all were dead. Yet could

I not die! . . .

"Over their bleached bones the black water again runs. Below, guarded

by the dread watchers, lie the bright stones. Seek not the spot, ye

white men who speak the old tongue, lest ye too watch for ever; for the

place is accursed! . . ."

The strange narration ended as it began, not abruptly, but in

indistinct mutterings.

Half fascinated, Jason and I had followed every word of the strange

archaic Portuguese. The rhythmic sentences seemed to have had an almost

hypnotic effect upon us, for neither of us afterwards remembered how

and when we fell asleep.

I was awakened by Karelse shaking me. It was just break of day. I felt

heavy, sleepy, and confused, and for a moment remembered nothing.

"Coffee, baas," said the Hottentot; and as I sipped it I remembered. I

looked round. Jason was sleeping like a log. Our strange visitor had

gone. "Where is the other baas?" I inquired of Karelse. He stared at

me, and then looked over at Jason. "No, no," I said impatiently, "the

old baas that came in the night?" Karelse's face was a study. He had

evidently seen no one, though the boy's fire had been not twenty yards

from our own. Had I dreamt the whole thing? I strode over and roused

Jason. He woke with a startled exclamation. His first words assured me

the old man had been there. "Damn that mad chap," he said. "His

horrible old yarn made me dream badly. Where is he?" Karelse stared

from one to the other, his yellow face a queer ashen grey. He was

plainly frightened. "Come," said I to Jason, "let us go and have a

sluice: there is water in plenty." I led the way to the pool. It had

been too dark for us to see it properly when we had arrived the evening

before. We bent over the dark, clear water. Sheer and black the pit

went down, and it was plainly of great depth. And from the brink the

granite kopje rose abruptly. Jason and I looked at each other, then at

Karelse.

"Karelse," I asked, "have you ever been here before?"

"No, baas," he faltered; "there is always plenty of good water here,

they say, but the place has a bad name and no one comes here. They say

it is haunted."

"What do they call the place?" I asked.

"Dood Drenk," he said "the Drink of the Dead!"

THE WATERS OF ERONGO

North-East of Swakopmund, and somewhere where the line that runs the

copper ore down from Otari has a station called Omaruru, there stands a

mass of huge table-topped mountains. At the time of which I write they

were known as the Erongos, so named after a famous chief of the Gainin

Bushmen, who had made something of a stand there against the invading

Damaras that eventually "ate up" both him and his tribe.

Even in that land, where most mountains are table-topped, and where the

flat plateau above and the plain beneath represent geological epochs

that are divided by aeons of years, these Erongo Mountains are

remarkable; for they have never been climbed. From their base thick

vegetation can be seen crowning the inaccessible summit, and in several

places water flows in gushing cataracts down the steep cliffs that

frown upon the plain on every side.

This mountain had always had a great fascination for me; and once or

twice, in the old days, before the railway came, and when we used to

water our transport animals at these same streams, I attempted to climb

its steep sides, full of curiosity to see what the top might be like.

But I never got within a thousand feet of it, for the crowning bastions

are almost sheer, and would need a better cragsman than myself to

negotiate.

Isolated, and rising straight from the plain to a height of about 3,000

feet, it formed a prominent landmark for those few traders or

prospectors who, in the old days, returned from their trips to the

north to Walfisch Bay by this route; and I was glad indeed to see its

huge bulk towering up one day more years ago than I care to remember

when trekking in from a long expedition in the Kaokoveld for it meant

that my long journey was nearly finished.

With my wagon I had as cook and roust-about an old Englishman named Jim

Blake, who had ran away from his ship at Walfisch Bay many years

before, and who had traversed the country in all directions, since

then, as few men had. In spite of the many years he had spent there,

and the fact that he spoke many of the native dialects well, his

Cockney accent was as pronounced as ever it could have been when he

first shipped at Limehouse; and he had, apparently, a wholesale

contempt for everything, and everybody, but himself.

As his employer, he tolerated me, and as he was invaluable in many

ways, I tolerated him in return, but he had one habit that always

annoyed me immensely. In season and out of season he would say: "Yer

don't know heverythink if yer thinks yer does!"; and I could never

break him of it.

Well, the evening that I speak of, we outspanned under the cliffs of

Erongo, and the oxen drank deep.

We had had a very successful trip, and I felt at peace with all

mankind, as I sat smoking, and watching the setting sun turn the tall

rocks from gold to crimson, and thence through a whole gamut of

purples, violets and mauves to the cold grey of twilight.

"Pritty, 'aint it?" said a voice at my elbow. It was old Blake. His

mahogany face shone with the effects of the first soap and water he had

been able to use for weeks, for we had been very short of water; and

even his arms showed the tattoo-marks that were usually hidden by the

grime inseparable to life in the desert.

"Yes," I answered, "it's beautiful, the most beautiful mountain I know

in Africa. I wonder what's on top? I've had a go at climbing it myself

several times but, of course, it can't be done. The Bushmen couldn't,

Erongo himself only had his werf half-way up when he fought the

Damaras. No one has ever climbed it!"

"You don't know heverythink if yer thinks yer does," sniffed old Jim;

"you're wrong. I've bin up it meself!"

"Rubbish, Jim!" I said; "don't talk rot. How far have you been up,

anyway? As far as the bottom of the big fall, I suppose?"

"To the top and all over it," said old Jim. "Oh, I knows yer don't

believe. But it's gospel. You don't know heverythink!"

"No, that's true, Jim," said I meekly, for I wanted his yarn. "I know

you sailormen can climb better than I ever shall but how did you do it?

Ropes? Ladders? . . . How?"

"No," he answered slowly, turning his quid in his cheek, and spitting

with great precision at a blue-headed lizard that had emerged from a

crack in the rock and sat eyeing us. "Got yer!" he went on as the small

reptile retired in considerable discomfiture.

"No, neether ladders nor ropes. If yer reely wants ter know, I were

carried up!"

"Oh, you can chuckle, but so it were! Twenty year or more agone I came

here fust. There was four of us white men; me as cook, two prospectors,

and the perfesser.

"He was a queer bloke, that perfesser, clever, too, but bless yer he

didn't know heverythink! I'd bin with him a long time, and he used ter

tell me more'n he tole the other fellers . . . a clever sort of

chap . . . but he didn't know heverythink. And he 'ad one great

pecooliarity: he was everlastingly afeard of getting old! He must ha'

bin well over fifty, but he used ter get himself up outrageous young:

and when I docked his shavingwater he cussed most wonderful!

"'Cleanliness, and stric' observance of rules of life that is the only

way ter keep young, Blake,' he would say ter me.

"Well, in them days, bein' young, I didn't see much in what he said,

and if I got a wash once a month I was werry well satisfied; and arter

a while this 'ere washing business of his got on my nerves. 'Cause, as

yer know, when water's been used fer a bath, yer can't werry well use

it fer anything but washing up, or biling pertaters, or sich like, and

he was the wastefullest man I ever had to cook for. Well, we comes up

here on our way to the Koaka Velt on some kind of scientific trip er

other I dunno, and it didn't matter as long as I was paid and the two

prospectors they brings in gold, and tin, and copper, and all sorts of

muck, and the perfesser was busy 'blow-piping' and 'classifying' and

what not, and every day he gets more 'centrick. Then he gets sick only

a bit of fever, but it laid him out bad for a time: and he couldn't

shave, and he couldn't bath, and that hurt him wuss'n the fever. We was

here, then; jist in this same camp. And when he got well enough to talk

again I took him his cawfee one morning, and sees him a-looking at

himself in a little glass: and he looked fair frightened! He'd got a

week's bristles on, and they was grey, o' course he weren't no chicken,

anyway! And he says to me pitiful like 'Blake, I surely don't look as

old as all that?'

"'You've bin ill, perfesser,' I says, 'and it don't make a man look

younger. You'll be all right when you've had a bath there's plenty o'

water now.'

"Well, I could see 'e weren't satisfied, because he gives a bit of a

groan, and looks at hisself in the glass agin. But a day or two

arterwards he was well enough to get up, and when he sees Erongo for

the fust time, with the water a-pouring down that big fall, he

brightens up at once.

"'Just the very place the very place. Who knows but it may be true?

Never to be old! . . . Never to be old!' I hears him a-saying, over and

over again; but nat'rally, I on'y thought he was a bit off his napper,

same as half these 'ere perfessers is, wot think they know heverythink!

Anyhow, as soon as ever he was able, oft he goes and bathes in the

stream, farther up, a goodish way from the camp, and a power o' good it

seemed to do him, for he comes back a-looking ten years younger. Next

day he sends the two prospectors out fer a long trip and then he calls

me.

"'Jim,' says he, ''ow do you think I look?'

"'Look?' I says for I was fair mazed at the look of him, 'why ten years

younger than ever I seed yer!'

"'Just so,' says 'e. . . . 'It's true then!'

"'Wot's true,' I says.

"'The water of life,' says he; 'I have searched for it fer years!'

"'Take some quinine,' says I, 'and back yer goes to bed,' for I'd seen

fever patients that way afore.

"'You don't know heverythink, Blake,' he says he 'ad a nasty way o'

using that there expression; 'it isn't fever it's joy. For if the

stream below has such an effect, wot will the source be like?'

"Well, it wasn't much good taking notice of what he said, but anyhow,

next day 'e'd gone!

"The boys said he'd gone upstream towards the big fall, and arter a

while I follered him. As you know, that there waterfall takes a lot of

reaching, but I gets there at last, and there he was a-sitting in the

stream. Lord, I 'ardly knew 'im, he looked so young and vigorous, and

full o' life. He wanted me to bathe, but I'd had a wash on'y a day or

two before, and I wouldn't. But, my word, he seemed to keep getting

younger; and as fer strength, why on our way back he jumped over rocks

like a klipbok I never seen the like! Next mornin' he'd gone agin, and

this time he stays away fer two days, and I gets scared. The

prospectors was away, and there was on'y me and the boys and I couldn't

get 'em to go far up Erongo, for they said it was full of devils.

P'raps they was right them there boys knows a lot though they don't

know heverythink! Third day I gets up early and goes right up the side

o' the stream, till I gets to the waterfall, but no sign did I find.

And I sits there a-pondering, till all of a sudden I 'ears a voice a-

calling 'Jim!'

"I turns round, and there 'e was at least I s'posed it was him! He

hadn't a stitch o' clothes on, and his skin shone like a babby's. Look

young? Why the only thing I knew about 'im was his voice! And he came

a-bounding over the rocks as if he was made of injy-rubber. And his

face was all a-shinin' it made me think o' pictures o' hangels to see

him.

"'Jim! Jim!' he sings out; half a-laughing and 'alf sobbing, 'it's

true! it's true! look at me I'm young agin! I'm immortal!'

"'You're naked,' I says, 'and you ought to know better at your time o'

life and in this 'ere 'ot sun too!'

"He laughs like a madman.

"'Ye old fool,' he says (nice it was, and on'y yesterday he'd bin a lot

older than me!). 'Don't you see it's true? I've been to the top, man,

and bathed in the source there, and I'm immortal!'

"'You're barmy,' I says, though I was a bit scared, for never have I

seen such a difference!

"'Come with me to the top and bathe,' says he, 'and see fer yerself!'

"'Who's to take me?' I says. 'I ain't a bird!'

"'I will!' he shouts; and before you could 'a' said 'Jack Robinson,' he

grabs 'old of me in a clove hitch!

"I was strong and a bit useful in them days, but I was like a babby in

the arms of a giant, and he tucked me under one arm and 'eld me like a

parcel. And then well! I know yer don't believe it, but yer don't know

he very think. He jist went up the side of that there cliff like a

klip-springer, catching on to little points of rock, and a-springing

from place to place, as if I didn't weigh more'n a feather; with me

under his arm a-hollering blue murder, and a-lookin' down sick and

dizzy, and a-praying for him not to let me fall! Right up that there

cliff as you can see from here we went, and almost afore I knew what

had happened, I was on top. There was thick grass, and bush, and

flowers, and tall trees and fruit I'd never seen afore, and butterflies

everywhere, and he sat me down jist close to the brink, and there I sat

a-gasping. And then he laughed and what a laugh it was jist like a

trumpet ringing out, and he says again: 'Come and bathe, man, and be

immortal, like me!'

"And then he hustles me off into the wood, flustered and frightened,

and a wondering when I should get down to terra-cotta agin. That there

mountain ain't flat on top, its cup-shaped, and it's only the rim you

can see from here; and there's trees and water everywhere, and birds a-

singing, and flowers a-blooming and butterflies a-flitting, and if

there'd o'ny bin a nice little pub up there, like wot I knows of there

at 'ome in Lime'ouse, it would 'a' bin Parrydise and I'd 'a' stayed. We

sees no animals and no snakes, and we goes along the banks of the

stream, and at last we conies to a deep pool that bubbled and fizzed up

like soda water, all over.

"'The Source!' he says; 'the Source!' an' you could ha' 'eard 'is voice

a mile off; 'the Water of Life! I bathed here this morning look at me!

Come, bathe, old fool, and be young, and a companion fer me, and we'll

stay here fer ever!'

"'Course, I knew he must be barmy though 'ow he got me up that cliff

certainly is a mystery! Any'ow, I thought I'd better 'umour 'im a bit.

So I starts to undress; and then I pauses.

"'Any beer here?' I asks.

"'Beer, what do you want vile beer for, when there's necktie fit fer

the gords to drink?' says 'e.

"'Baccy?' I asks agin knowin' he 'ated it.

"'Phaw,' he says, 'your filthy smoke what need is there of it?'

"'Wimmen!' I says, thinkin' that would be a clincher fer him.

"'Yes,' he shouts; 'beautiful nymphs, spirits as immortal as myself!'

"'I don't see 'em!' says I.

"'They are in the water,' says he; 'beautiful water nymphs and wood

nymphs lurks there among the trees! Bathe, fool, and your eyes will be

opened!'

"That settled it. I'd got an argyment fer 'im now.

"'Not me,' I says, putting my shirt on agin. 'No beer; no baccy; no

wimmen but a lot o' shameless huzzies a-hiding and a-waiting to watch a

feller bathe! Not me. I go back besides, I 'ad a bath on'y a few days

ago.'

"Well, 'e was that wild I thought 'e'd chuck me in, but I 'umored and

coaxed 'im for I had to get 'im to take me down again; and at last 'e

did. How he did it I don't know, for when he took me up, like a kid, I

shut me eyes, and never opened 'em agin till he put me down at the foot

of the waterfall.

"'Good-bye, fool,' he said; 'some day you'll be sorry!'

"Well, we never seen 'im agin, and when I told the prospectors wot I'd

seen, they told me to put more water in my grog. And at last the whole

outfit went back and reported the perfesser lost or dead.

"But I knows better: he's up there yet! Look! see that smoke on the

top? Well, who's a-goin' to make a fire on Erongo if it ain't 'im? You

don't know heverythink, if yer thinks yer does."

Printed in Great Britain by Wyman & Sons Ltd., London and Reading