"My name is Amos Greenway," it began. "It was some years ago now--no
matter how many--since I first saw what I am going to tell you. That
time I'd been up with a hunting and trading party into the Kalihari.
I'd split off from the rest--no matter why--perhaps we'd fallen out.
"What I didn't know about the country in those days didn't seem much
worth knowing--at least, so I thought. Well, I got down into the
Bechuana country, and after a bit of a rest struck off alone in a
southerly direction. I counted on hitting off the big river that way,
and at the same time I'd often longed to do a little prospecting on the
ground I was going to cross. But this time, as it happened, I got out
of my reckoning. I'd got into a waterless desert--and foodless too. I
had biltong enough to last for any time, but water is a thing you can't
carry much of--and if you could it would all turn bad in that awful
heat. First my pack-horse gave out--then the nag I was riding--and
there I was dying of thirst in the middle of the most awful dried-up
country you can imagine. There were mountains far away on the
sky-line--must have been at least a hundred miles away, for they were
hull down on the horizon. There might or might not be water there; but
if so I should never reach it, because I couldn't crawl ten miles in a
day, and was about played out even then. Nothing to kill either--no
game of any kind--or the blood might have quenched thirst. Nothing
except aasvogels, and they were too slim to come within shot. You see,
they knew I was booked for them sooner or later, and whenever I looked
up there was a crowd of the great white carrion birds wheeling overhead
ever so high up, waiting for me.
"Well, at last I was for giving in; was looking for a place to sit down
comfortably, and put the muzzle of my piece to my ear and finish off;
for I couldn't stand the idea of being eaten alive by those filthy
devils, as would have happened when I got too weak to beat them off--
when I came plump into a gang of wandering Bushmen. They were resting
at the foot of a stony kopje, and as soon as I hove in sight they
started up it like monkeys, screeching and jabbering all the time.
They'd never seen a white man nor yet a gun, and when I fired a shot I
reckon they thought the devil had got among them. I managed to make
friends with them at last, and it was the saving of my life. They'd got
some kind of liquid, which must have come out of a plant or root, but it
did for drink at a pinch until we found water.
"Well, after some days we reached the mountains I had seen. Awful part
it was too; seemed to consist of nothing but great iron-bound krantzes
and holes and caves--sort of place where nothing in the world could live
but aasvogels and Bushmen and baboons. Some of the caves had skulls and
bones in them, and were covered with Bushmen drawings, and I tell you I
saw queer things done while I was with those fellows--things you'd never
believe. But I feel like getting near the end of my tether, so I must
hurry up.
"Well, one day we'd been out collecting grasshoppers and lizards and all
that kind of beastliness which those fellows eat, and stayed out too
late. We were looking about for a hole or a cave to sleep in--for it
was coldish up there of nights--and it was already dusk. I noticed my
Bushman friends were getting mighty uneasy, and supposed they were
afraid of bogies or something of that kind. There was a half-moon
shining brightly overhead, and I saw we were skirting a deep valley--
though it was more like a hole than a valley, for there seemed no way in
or out. All of a sudden one of the chaps grabbed me by the arm and
pointed downwards. I shan't forget that moment in a hurry. There, ever
so far down it seemed, glowering up through the darkness, shone an Eye.
Yes, an Eye; greenish, but brilliant as a star. I rubbed my eyes and
looked again and again. There it was, each time brighter than ever.
What could the thing be? I own I was puzzled.
"The Bushmen were getting more and more scared, and began to lug me
away. But I took one more look round first. The thing was gone.
"There was no staying to investigate further. They began to threaten me
then--I gathered at last that I was committing a sort of sacrilege, that
it was a demon-haunted place to them, and that it was a devil's eye that
would scorch up whoever looked at it too long--in fact, they called it
the Valley of the Eye--that if I bothered about it I should be killed
for raising their devil. But I puzzled over the thing to myself day and
night, and determined to look into it further.
"At last the opportunity came. I was out on the berg with one of the
fellows one day, trying to get a shot at something, and gradually worked
round to the place. Directly I got near it, he began to show the same
signs of scare, but I paid no heed to him and just began to clamber
down. It was an awful place to get at, though. After a good deal of
dangerous climbing I got to a kind of sloping terrace, all stones and
dry dusty earth. While I was resting I stooped down to pick up a stone,
and at the same time lifted a little bit of carbonised-looking stuff.
Heavens, how I jumped! It was a diamond.
"Didn't I look about for more! I only found one, though; and after a
lot of fossicking round I began to think of going further down, when a
most infernal row overhead altered my mind. There were all my Bushmen
friends, the whole lot of them, jabbering in the most threatening
manner; and, worse still, they'd all got their bows and were about to
take pot shots at me. Sore enough, I had only just time to get under a
rock when a perfect shower of their little poison sticks came rattling
about my ears.
"Things now looked desperate. I daren't go up among them, and I
couldn't move out of my shelter. They seemed afraid to come down and
that was my only chance. I must wait until night.
"All at once, as I lay crouching there, under cover from their deadly
little arrows, a thought struck across my brain that made every drop of
blood in my body tingle. That green, staring Eye which I had seen
shining down there in the depths was nothing less than a diamond, and a
diamond of enormous size. If only I could get at it.
"But this is just what I couldn't do. To cut the tale short I waited
until night and then descended further. There gleamed the Eye,
brighter, more dazzling than ever. But between it and me was a big
krantz, and I pulled up on the very brink, just in time to escape going
over. And the place seemed edged in all round by krantzes.
"My mind was made up. I'd come again. No use staying on now to be
starved out and killed by those miserable little yellow devils. So I
crept up to the top again, and, as I expected, the coast was clear. It
doesn't matter how long I took to work my way down into civilised parts
again.
"No rest for me after that. The idea of that huge stone--worth, maybe,
tens of thousands of pounds, lying there to be had for the picking up--
left me no rest night or day. In six months I was back there again, me
and a mate. But when we reached the spot where I first sighted the Eye
it was not there. Nothing but pitch darkness. We felt pretty blank
then, I can tell you. We waited t ll nearly dawn. Suddenly Jim gave a
shout.
"There it is!
"There it was, too, glittering as before. Then it faded. And at that
moment we had to `fade' too, for a volley of arrows came whistling among
us, and poor Jim fell with a dozen in him.
"I don't know how I got away, but I did, and that's all about it. The
furious little devils came swarming from rock to rock, and I couldn't
get in a fair shot at them. I had to run for my life, and if I hadn't
known those awful mountains almost as well as they did I shouldn't have
escaped either. I'm getting mortal weak, friend--stay--another drink of
brandy.
"What were you saying? The thing couldn't have been a diamond 'cause a
diamond can't shine till it's cut? I know that. But I believe this one
is cut--split by some convulsion of Nature, polished, so to say, on one
side. And there are `stones' there, for we found two or three more, but
of no size.
"This last time--never mind it, I'm getting weaker. I'd better tell you
how to get there while I can. Ride a full day due north beyond the
great river where you cross it from here--thirty miles maybe--two
kloofs--one long poort. [A poort is a pass or defile as distinct from a
kloof, which is a mere terminable ravine.] Take the long poort, and
follow it to the end. There are--two mountains--turret-headed--and a
smaller one. Straight from--the smaller one--facing the setting sun--
within--day's ride--and--beware--the _schelm_ Bushmen. How dark--it
is--good night, friend. Don't forget--The Valley of the Eye--you're a
rich man--"
Thus closed the record of the dying adventurer. Commencing with all the
verve of a darling topic, it ended in disjointed, fragmentary sentences,
as the flickering life-spark burned fainter and fainter. Yet there was
something pathetic in the generosity of this man, a mere rough
adventurer, gasping forth in the stupor of approaching death the history
of, and clue to, his alluring, if somewhat dangerous, secret--his last
breaths husbanded and strained, that he might benefit one who was a
perfect stranger to himself, but under whose roof he had found a
refuge--a place wherein he might die in peace, tended by kindly and
sympathetic hands.
To the two men, there in their lonely camp, it was as a voice from the
dead speaking to them. Even Maurice Sellon, hard, reckless, selfish as
he was, felt something of this among the varied emotions evolved by the
almost miraculous reappearance of the lost document.
Overhead, in the dark vault, myriads of stars twinkled and burned, one
every now and again falling in a silent, ghostly streak. The creatures
of the night, now fairly abroad, sent forth their wild voices far and
near, and ever and anon the horses picketed close at hand would prick up
their ears and snort, as they snuffed inquiringly the cool breaths of
the darkness.
"And you think that near enough, eh, Fanning?"
"I do. This time we shall find it--that is, if we are given half a
show. We may have to fight, and we may have to run--in which case we
must try again another time. But the great thing is to find it. I have
never been able to do so yet. Find it. The fighting is a secondary
consideration."
"Then you really think these Bushmen are still knocking about the spot?"
said Sellon, uneasily, with a furtive glance around, as if he expected a
flight of poisoned arrows to come pouring into the camp then and there.
"Undoubtedly. But they are a wandering crew. They may be there, or
they may be a hundred miles off. However, the fact that they have only
interfered with me once out of the four attempts I have made is proof
that the chances in our favour are three to one. That's pretty fair
odds, isn't it?"
"Yes; I suppose so. But, I say, Fanning, humbug apart, do you really
mean to say you've made four trips all by yourself into that infernal
country? All by yourself, too?"
"Certainly. It's odd, by the way, what money will do--or the want of
it. If I had a comfortable sufficiency, even, I'd let the thing go
hang--make it over to you or any other fellow, and welcome. But here I
am, desperately hard up--stone-broke, in fact. And I have a good few
years more to live in this world, and one can't live on air. So one
must risk something. But, mind you, I don't care for inordinate wealth.
I only want enough to be able to steer clear of pinching--perhaps help
other fellows along a bit--at any rate, to move on equal terms with the
rest of mankind."
"Well, you're moderate enough, anyhow," said Sellon. "Now, I could
never have too much. By Jove! if we do succeed, eh? Only think of it!"
"I've thought of it so often, Sellon. I must be used to the idea. But,
as I said, it's only a case of rolling on tranquilly--no more pinching
or scraping, with the ghastly alternative of borrowing. That's all I
care about."
The quiet, unimpassioned tone, so different to the suppressed excitement
which he had brought to bear on the subject when it was first mentioned,
struck the other all of a sudden. But for himself and his own presence,
Fanning would likely enough have been as keen on this treasure hunt as
he used to be--keener perhaps. And like a glimmer upon Maurice Sellon's
selfish soul came the idea. What if Fanning were trying to enrich him
for Violet's sake? Yet could it be? Such a stupendous act of
self-abnegation was clean outside his own experience of the world and
human nature--which experience was not small.
The night was wearing on. Suddenly a loud and frightful sound--so near
that it caused both men to raise themselves on their elbows, Renshaw
leisurely, Sellon quickly and with a start--echoed forth upon the night.
The horses pricked up their ears and snorted and tugged violently at
their (luckily for themselves) restraining _reims_, trembling in every
limb.
A dull red glow threw forward the razor-like edge of the cliff
overhanging the camp. Silhouetted against this, looming blackly as
though sculptured in bronze, stood the mighty form of a huge lion.
Again that terrible roar pealed forth, booming and rumbling away in
sullen echoes among the krantzes. Then the red moon arose over the head
of the majestic beast, the grim Monarch of the Night roaring defiance
against those who dared invade his desert domain. For a moment he stood
there fully outlined, then vanished as though melting into empty air.
"Lucky, I took the precaution of building a _schanz_--eh?" said Renshaw,
quietly heaping fresh logs on to the fire.
"By Jove! it is," acquiesced Sellon, a little overawed.