"Any alligators in this river, Fanning?"
"Plenty. They won't interfere with us, though."
Splash! splash! The horses plunged on, deeper and deeper into the wide
drift. Soon the water was up to the saddle-girths.
Renshaw, leading the way--and a pack-horse--tucked up his feet over the
saddle behind, an example his companion was not slow to follow. An
expanse of yellow, turgid water, at least a hundred and fifty yards
wide, lay before them. Below, a labyrinth of green eyots picturesquely
studded the surface of the stream. Above, the river flowed round an
abrupt bend of red rock wall, sweeping silently and majestically down to
the drift which our two adventurers were fording. In front, a high
craggy ridge, sheering up in a steep slope, dotted with aloes and a
sparse growth of mimosa bush. Behind, a similar ridge, down whose
rugged face the two had spent the best part of the afternoon finding a
practicable path.
And now it was evening. The setting sun dipped nearer and nearer to the
same rocky heights in the west, shedding a scarlet glow upon the smooth
surface of the great river, tingeing with fiery effulgence many a bold
krantz whose smooth walls rose sheer to the heavens. An indescribably
wild and desolate spot, redeemed from absolute savagery by the soft
cooing of innumerable doves flitting among the fringe of trees which
skirted the bank of the stream.
The drift, though wide, was shallow, and the water came no higher than
the saddle-girths. A few minutes more of splashing, and they emerged
upon a hard, firm sand-bank.
"The river's low now, and has been some time," said Renshaw, looking
around. "The time before last I crossed this way, I lost a good horse
in a quicksand a little lower down. I dare say it's a firm bank now,
like this one."
"By Jove! did you really?" said Sellon. "Were you alone, then?" His
respect for the other had already gone up fifty per cent. They were in
a seldom-trodden wilderness now, a forbidding, horrible-looking
solitude, at that, shut in as it was by great, grim mountain walls, and
the eternal silence of a desert world. Yet this man, whom he, Sellon,
in all the superiority of his old-world knowledge, had held in light
account, was perfectly at home here. There was no doubt as to which was
the better man, here, at any rate.
"Yes; I was alone," answered Renshaw. "I've always come on this
undertaking alone. And I came mighty near losing my life, as well as
the horse."
"By Jove, what a fellow you are, Fanning! I believe if I were to knock
around here in this infernal desert by myself for a week it would about
drive me mad."
The other smiled slightly.
"Would it? Well, I suppose I'm used to it. But, wait a bit. You call
this an infernal desert. It's nothing to what we shall find ourselves
in further on. And now, I think we'll camp here. You don't want to go
out shooting, I suppose? We have enough to last us for a day or two; in
fact, as much as will keep."
Three guinea-fowl and a brace of red koorhaan, also three brace of
partridges, were slung across the pack-horse. Sellon replied with an
emphatic negative. The heat of the day's journey had knocked the bottom
out of even his sportsmanlike tendencies, he said.
They offsaddled the horses, and having led them down to the river to
drink, knee-haltered them more closely than usual, and turned them loose
to graze. Then, taking a hatchet, Renshaw proceeded to cut a number of
mimosa boughs--large, spreading, and thorny. These, in an incredibly
short space of time, he had beaten up into a most effective kraal.
"What's all that about, old man?" said Sellon, who, characteristically,
was taking it easy, and lay on the ground at full length, blowing out
clouds of tobacco. "There are no lions here, surely!"
"There used to be one or two. I've heard them on former occasions. But
they're mighty scarce--almost extinct. Still, it's as well to be on the
safe side."
As the last faint kiss of after-glow faded from the iron-bound peaks,
merging into the pearly grey of night, the horses were driven in and
securely picketed within the impromptu enclosure. Then blazed forth the
ruddy flames of a cheery camp-fire, over which some of the birds were
promptly hissing and sputtering. The small keg of Cango brandy which
they had brought with them was broached, and under the influence of a
good supper, washed down with good liquor, Sellon's mercurial spirits
revived.
"By Jove, but this is what I call real jolly!" he cried, throwing
himself back on a rug, and proceeding to fill and light his pipe.
"Hallo! What the deuce was that?"
"Not a lion this time," said the other, tranquilly, as a long-drawn howl
arose upon the night. It echoed weirdly among the great cliffs, dying
away in a wild wail. "Only a wolf [Hyaena]. Plenty of them around
here."
"They make a most infernal row, at all events. How the deuce is a
fellow going to sleep?" said Sellon, as the sound was taken up in a
sudden chorus of dismal howls, whose gruesome echoes, floating among the
krantzes, seemed to deepen the surrounding darkness, to enhance the
utter wildness of this desolate valley.
The camp was pitched in the entrance of a narrow gorge which wound right
up into the heart of the great ridge overhanging the river. It lay in a
grassy hollow, snugly sheltered on all sides. In the background some
hundred yards distant, and about eighty feet in height, rose a
perpendicular wall of rock, being one of the spurs of the main ridge.
"Oh, you'll sleep soundly enough once you're off, never fear," laughed
Renshaw. "And now, as we are fairly embarked upon our undertaking, we
may as well go over old Greenway's yarn together. Two heads are better
than one, they say, and a fresh mind brought to bear upon the story may
bring into it a fresh idea or two."
Putting his hand inside his shirt, he produced the buckskin pouch. At
last had come the moment Sellon had long dreaded. How he wished he had
refrained from meddling with the thing. Certainly he believed that his
friend could get along almost, if not quite as well without the paper,
as with it. Its contents must be stamped indelibly in his memory. Yet
how would he take the discovery of its loss?
"I've never gone into it with you before, Sellon," went on Renshaw,
holding the pouch in his hand, little thinking what tantalising suspense
his friend was undergoing. "You see, when a man holds a secret of this
kind--has been treasuring it up for years--he's apt to keep it mighty
close. But now that we are fairly in the swim together things are
different."
He undid the outer bag, then leisurely unrolled the waterproof wrapper,
Sellon meanwhile staring at the proceeding with a nervous fascination,
which, had his friend noticed, he would have put down to intense
excitement due to the importance of the disclosure. Still deliberately,
Renshaw unrolled the last fold of the wrapper, and produced--a scroll of
frayed and yellow paper.
Heavens and earth! It was the identical document! In his wild
amazement Sellon could not refrain from a violent start.
"What's the row?" said the other, quietly. "Keep cool. We want steady
nerves over this undertaking."
"You're right, old man. I own that mine are a little too high-strung,"
answered Maurice, with something of a stammer. "By Jove, what if we
should go back practically millionaires! Only think of it, old chap!
Isn't it enough to turn any man's head? And when you got out that bit
of paper, it seemed almost like producing the key of the bullion safe
itself."
But this was said in a hurried, random fashion. How in the name of all
that was wonderful had the missing paper come to light? Again Sellon
dismissed the idea of the Koranna servants having any agency in the
matter, and no other theory was compatible with its almost miraculous
reappearance. Stay! Had Fanning a duplicate, perhaps, which he had
quietly replaced in the receptacle for the lost document? No, by Jove;
that was the identical paper itself. He could swear to it a hundred
times over, there in the red light of the camp-fire, even to the
pear-shaped blot near the right-hand corner. There it was; no mistake
about that. Then he wondered when it had been recovered--when Fanning
had discovered its loss--and whether he had entertained any suspicion of
himself. If so, it was marvellous that all this time he should have let
drop no word, no hint, either of the incident or his suspicions
regarding it. The enhanced respect which his tranquil, self-contained
companion had begun to inspire in Sellon, now turned to something like
awe. "You'll never make an adventurer, Sellon," said Renshaw, with his
quiet smile, "until you chuck overboard such inconvenient luggage as
nerves. And I'm afraid you're too old to learn that trick now."
"You're right there, old chap. I wish I had some of your
long-headedness, I know. But now, I'm all impatience. Supposing you
read out old stick-in-the-mud, what's-his-name's, queer legacy."
"All right. Now listen attentively, and see how it strikes you."
And by the red light of the camp fire Renshaw began to read the dying
adventurer's last statement.