"IT IS A WHITE MAN'S SKULL."
It was, as Renshaw had put it, "rough on the horses." But the colonial
horse, in contrast to his English brother, is pre-eminently an animal
for use, and not for show and the primary object of supporting a crowd
of stable hands. So puffing and panting, stumbling a little here and
there, the poor beasts gallantly breasted the grassy steep in the wake
of their masters, who had elected to spare their steeds by leading
instead of riding them.
"The mountain certainly is built on a larger scale than one would think
from below," pronounced Renshaw, as he surveyed the summit which they
were now very near. "We shall have to make a cast round to the left and
look for a gully. The horses will never be able to climb over these
rocks."
The said rocks lay strewn thickly around; remnants of a cliff at one
time guarding this side of the summit, but which in past ages must have
fallen away into fragments. From below they had seemed mere pebbles.
"Right you are," acquiesced Sellon, "Lead on."
A detour of a couple of hundred yards and they rounded the spur, which
had ended abruptly in a precipice. They were now on the western angle
of the mountain. Immediately above rose a lofty wall of rock, the
nearer end of the cock's-comb ridge. It continued in unbroken fall some
hundreds of feet from where they stood. They had reached the extremity
of the slope, and halting for a moment paused in admiration of the
stately grandeur of the great cliff sweeping down into giddy depths.
"Let's take a look over," said Maurice, advancing cautiously to the
angle formed by the projection whereon they stood, and lying flat to
peer over the brink.
"Yes; only be careful," warned his companion.
As he peered over there was a "flap--flap--flap" echoing from the face
of the cliff, like so many pistol-shots, as a cloud of great aasvogels,
startled from their roosting places beneath, soared away over the abyss.
So near were the gigantic birds that the spectator could see the
glitter of their eyes.
"By Jove, but I'd like to go down and have a look at the beggars'
nests," said Sellon, trying to peer still further over the brink, but in
vain, for the aasvogel is among the most suspicious of birds, and,
wherever possible, selects his home beneath a jutting projection, and
thus out of eyeshot from above.
"They don't make any, only lay one egg apiece on the bare rock," said
Renshaw, impatiently. "But come on. Man alive, we've no time for
bird's-nesting. In half an hour it'll be dark."
The sun had gone off the lower world, though here, on high, he still
touched with a golden splendour the red burnished face of the giant
cliff. And now from their lofty elevation they were able to gaze forth
upon a scene of unsurpassable wildness and grandeur. Mountains upon
mountains, the embattled walls of a cliff-girdled summit standing in
contrast beside a smooth, hog-backed hump; here and there a lofty peak
sheering up defiant above its fellows, but everywhere a billowy sea of
giant heads towering over the darkling grey of desolate valleys and
gloomy rifts now merging into night. But all is utter lifelessness in
the complete silence of its desolation--not a sound breaks upon the now
fresh and cooling air--not a sight to tell of life and animation--save
the ghostly wings of the great vultures floating away into space. Then
the sun sinks down behind the further ridge in ruddy sea, leaving the
impression that, the whole world is on fire, until the lustrous
afterglow fades into the grey shades of gloaming.
"No time for the beauties of Nature," went on Renshaw, as his companion,
rising from his prostrate posture, rejoined him. "Look. There is our
way up, if we are to get up at all. And a precious cranky staircase it
is, too."
It was. A steep, stony gully, looking as if, in past ages, it had
served for a water-shoot round the extremity of the razor-backed ridge.
It ran right down to the brink of the projection whereon they were
standing, and, in fact, to reach it, at any rate with the horses, was a
very risky feat indeed. Sellon suggested leaving them below--but this
his companion would not hear of.
"Stick to the horses, wherever possible," he said. "Once lose them, we
are like a man in mid-ocean with oars but no sail. Besides, we may find
another way down--a much better one than this."
A dozen yards of steep slope, right on the brink of the abyss, covered
with loose shingle, had to be crossed prior to gaining the secure
foothold of the gully itself. A false step, a jerk back of the bridle
on the part of the led horse, might send steed, or rider, or both, into
space.
"Up, old horse!" said Renshaw, encouragingly, as he took the lead. His
steady old roadster, however, fully took in the situation. He gave one
snort, a scramble or two, and he was safe within the gully.
But Sellon's steed was disposed to show less gumption. At first he
refused to try the place at all; then nearly hurled his master over the
brink by rucking at the bridle when half-way across; and the hideously
suggestive sound of a shower of loosened rubble sliding into the abyss
fairly made his said master's blood curdle. However, with much snorting
and scrambling, he ultimately suffered himself to be led into safety.
The ascent was now comparatively easy, though with horses it was a
tedious and tiresome business. The gully itself formed a huge natural
staircase, seemingly about a couple of hundred feet in height. Up they
went, stumbling, scrambling--the ring of the horses' hoofs upon the
stones waking the echoes in the dead silence of the spot. The grey
shades of briefest twilight had already enshrouded the passage in
gathering gloom.
"Well, Fanning, what's the betting on my shot being the right one?"
cried Sellon, whose mercurial spirits had gone up sky-high under the
influence of a new excitement. "We must be more than halfway up this
beastly water-pipe. A few minutes more will decide it. What's the
betting?"
"I still say, don't make too sure, Sellon. I'm sorry to say it occurs
to me that the expression `up there,' on which this new idea of yours
turns, may mean nothing more than when a man talks of `up country'. It
may not mean on top of a mountain, don't you know."
"The devil it mayn't! What an old wet blanket you are, Fanning. Well,
we shall soon see now. Hallo! What have you got there?"
For the other was gazing attentively at something. Then without a word
he dropped the end of his bridle, and clambering over a couple of
boulders, was stooping over the object which had caught his eye.
It was something round and white. Maurice could see that much before
following his companion, which, however, he hastened to do. Then both
men stood staring down at the object.
The latter was embedded in a hole in the ground, firmly wedged between
two rocks, half of it projecting. At first sight it might have been
mistaken for an ostrich egg.
Renshaw bent down and picked up the object. Something of a tug was
necessary to loosen it from the imprisoning rock. He held in his hand a
human skull.
"What's the matter, old chap?" said Sellon, wonderingly, noticing his
companion's face go deadly white, while the hand that held the skull
trembled violently. "You seem rather knocked out of time, eh? A thing
like that is a queerish sort of find in this God-forsaken corner; but
surely your nerves are proof against such a trifle."
"Trifle, do you call it?" replied Renshaw, speaking quickly and eagerly.
"Look at the thing, man--look at it."
"Well, I see it. What then?" said Maurice, wondering if his friend had
gone clean off his head, and uncomfortably speculating on the extreme
awkwardness of such an occurrence away here in the wilds.
"What then? Why, it is a white man's skull."
"How do you know that?" said Sellon, more curiously, bending down to
examine the poor relic which seemed to grin piteously at them in the
falling gloom. One side of the lower part was battered in--giving to
the bony face and eyeless sockets a most grisly and leering expression.
"By the formation, of course. But, man alive, don't you see what this
find means--don't you see what it means?"
"I suppose it means that some other fellow has been fool enough to
scramble up here before us, and has come to mortal grief for his pains.
Wait, though--hold on--by Jove, yes--I do see! Greenway's mate; what
does he call him? Jim. That's it, of course. It means that we are on
the right track, Fanning, old man. Hooroosh!"
"That's just what it does mean. Observe. This skull is alone--no bones
or remnants of bones--no relics of clothing. Now, the absence of
anything of the kind points to the fact that the poor chap wasn't killed
here. He must have been killed up top, and the skull eventually have
been brought here by some wild animal--or possibly lugged to the edge
and rolled down of its own accord. Greenway's story points that way
too. He says they were attacked while looking down into the valley, for
if you remember they had just watched the `Eye' fade away. Yes, `Jim,'
poor chap, was killed on top of the mountain, and there lies the `Valley
of the Eye.' How does that pan out, eh?"
"Five ounces to the ton at least," replied Sellon. "Well, we've, as you
say, panned out the whole thing to a nicety. There's one ingredient
left, though. How about `the schelm Bushmen'?"
"Oh, we must take our chances of them. The great thing is to have found
the place at all. And now, excelsior! It'll be pitch dark directly."
Replacing the skull where he had found it, Renshaw led the way back to
the horses, and the upward climb was resumed. But Sellon, following in
his wake, was conscious of an unaccountable reaction from his eager
burst of spirits, and not all the dazzling prospects of wealth untold to
be had for the mere picking up--which awaited him up yonder--could
altogether avail to dispel the fit of apprehensive depression which had
seized upon him. The discovery of that grisly relic of poor humanity in
that savage spot, there amid the gathering shades of night--eloquent of
the miserable fate of the unfortunate adventurer done to death on the
lonely mountain top, his very bones scattered to the four winds of
heaven--inspired in Sellon a brooding apprehension which he could not
shake off. What if they themselves were walking straight into an
ambush? In the shadowy gloom his imagination, run riot, peopled every
rock with lurking stealthy enemies--in every sound he seemed to hear the
hiss of the deadly missiles. Then there came upon him a strange
consciousness of having been over that spot before. The turret-like
craggy gorge, the beetling rocks high overhead in the gloom, all seemed
familiar. Ha! His dream! He remembered it now, and shivered. Was it
prophetic? It was frightful at the time, and now the horror of it all
came back upon him, as, leading his horse, he scrambled on in the track
of his companion. He could have sworn that something brushed past him
in the darkness. Could it be the spirit of the dead adventurer,
destined to haunt this grisly place, this remote cleft on the wild
mountainside? A weird wailing cry rang out overhead. Sellon's hair
seemed to rise, and a profuse perspiration, not the result of his
climbing exertions, started coldly from every pore. What a fool he was!
he decided. It could only be a bird.
"Up at last!" cried the cheery voice of his companion, a score of yards
distant, through the darkness. "Up at last. Come along!"
The voice seemed to break the spell which was upon him. It was
something, too, to be out of that dismal gully. A final scramble, and
Sellon stood beside his companion on the level, grassy summit of the
mountain.