"LIKE A STAR."
"Like a star!"
The two men stood gazing in silence not untinged with awe, upon this
wonderful, this beautiful phenomenon. For how many ages--for how many
generations of the human race had that marvellous Eye shone forth in the
gloom of its untrodden solitude. The heart of the earth was unfolding a
glimpse of its treasure-house.
Like a star! Yet that Eye, flashing, scintillating in its mysterious
bed--was it not in a measure diabolical, luring men to destruction? Of
the two who had sought to meddle with it, one had returned only to die;
the other--had they not but a few days since handled his bleached and
unburied skull?
These thoughts passing through Renshaw's mind could not but temper the
degree of wild exultation which he felt now that he had conquered at
last. Sellon, on the other hand, could hardly restrain the wild hurrahs
wherewith, but for the consciousness of probable peril, he would fain
have given vent to his feelings.
"How far down is it, old chap?" said the latter, eagerly.
"Impossible to say. We can go forward a little now, and explore. It's
not much of a moon, but there's light enough. But, for Heaven's sake,
Sellon, restrain that excitable temperament of yours, or we shall have
you plunging over one of these krantzes before you know where you are."
"All right, old boss. I'll keep cool. You can take the lead, if you
like."
The light was misty and uncertain. The ground here took an abrupt fall.
Proceeding cautiously for a little distance down, they halted. The Eye
had disappeared.
"Come on. We shall see it again directly," said Sellon, starting
forward again.
But the other's hand dropped on his shoulder like a vice.
"Stop--for your life!"
"Eh? What's up?--Oh, Lord!"
He stood still enough then. Three or four steps further and he would
have plunged into space. In the faint illusive light of the spent moon,
the treacherous cliff brow was well-nigh indistinguishable even to
Renshaw's tried vision. But the unerring instincts of the latter were
quick to interpret the sudden puff of cold air sweeping upwards, and
well for the other that it was so.
"Pheugh!" shuddered Sellon, turning pale as he awoke to the awful peril
he had escaped. "What a blundering ass I am, to be sure. But--look!
There's the Eye again--larger--brighter than ever--by Jove!"
"Yes; and I don't believe it's a couple of hundred feet below us either.
Let's see what sort of a drop there is here."
Lying full length on the edge of the cliff, he peered over. Then
loosening two or three stones, he let them fall--one after the other. A
single clink as each struck the bottom.
"We can't get down this side, Sellon. It's sheer--as I thought, even if
it doesn't overhang. The stones never hit the side once. But now, to
mark the Eye. It won't shine in the daylight."
He proceeded to untie what looked like a bundle of sticks. In reality
it contained a short bow and several arrows. Next he produced some
lumps of chalk rolled up in rags.
"What an ingenious dodger you are, Fanning!" cried Sellon, admiringly,
watching his companion carefully fitting the lumps of chalk on the heads
of several of the arrows. "So that's what you brought along that bundle
of sticks for. I thought you had an eye to the possibility of our
ammunition giving out."
Renshaw smiled. Then stringing the bow, he bent it once or twice,
tentatively.
"That'll do, I think. It's pretty strong is this little weapon of war.
Old Dirk made it for me after the most approved method of his people.
You know Korannas and Bushmen are archers in contra-distinction to the
assegai-throwing Kafir tribes. Now for a shot."
Drawing out one of the chalk-tipped arrows to its head, he took a
careful aim and let fly. The bow twanged, and immediately a faint thud
told the expectant listeners that the shaft had struck very near the
mark.
"That'll make a good splash of chalk wherever it has struck," said the
marksman approvingly, fitting another arrow. But on the twang of the
bow there followed a metallic clink instead of the softer thud of the
first missile.
"That bit of chalk's come off," said Renshaw. "However, let's try
again."
This time the result seemed satisfactory. Again and again was it
repeated until half a dozen arrows had been shot away.
"That'll put half a dozen chalk splashes round the Eye, or as near it as
possible, for our guidance at daybreak," said Renshaw, approvingly.
"Now we'll drop a white flag or two about."
Fixing small strips of rag, well chalked, to the butt-ends of several
more arrows, he shot them away, one after another, in the direction of
the first.
"We'll go back now, and get out our gear. We can't do anything before
daybreak. The place may be easy to get down into on one side, or it may
be well-nigh impossible. But, hang it all, Sellon, there ought to be no
such word for us as impossible with _that_ in front of us."
Once more they turned to look back, as though unwilling to go out of
sight of the marvel, lest it should elude them altogether. Opposite,
the misty loom of cliffs was now discernible, and between it and them,
down in the shadowy depths, that flashing star still shone clear in its
green scintillations.
Dawn rose, chill and clear, upon the endless tossing mountain waste.
But before the night silvered into that pearly shade which should
preface the golden flush of the sunrise, our two adventurers, loaded
with all the implements of their enterprise, stood waiting on the spot
where Renshaw had left his mark on first making the discovery.
Then as the lightening earth began to unfold its mysteries, they took in
the whole situation at a glance. Standing with their backs to the
precipitous cock's-comb ridge, they looked down upon the terraced second
summit of the mountain. But between this and where they stood yawned a
crater-like rift. An ejaculation escaped Renshaw.
"By Jove! Just look. Why, the crater itself is the exact shape of an
eye!"
It was. Widening outward at the centre and terminating in an acute
angle at each extremity, it was indeed a wonderful formation. Shaped
like an eye-socket, and shut in on every side by precipitous rock walls,
the gulf looked at first sight inaccessible. It seemed about half a
mile in length, by four hundred yards at the widest point, and although
this extraordinary hollow extended nearly the whole width of the
mountain, dividing the flat table summit from the sheering ridge--yet
there was no outlet at either end. Both stood gazing in amazement upon
this marvellous freak of Nature.
"What did I tell you, old chap?" cried Sellon, triumphantly. "There's
more room on the top of this old berg than you'd think. Who'd have
thought of finding a place like that up here? I believe it's an extinct
volcano, when all's said and done."
"Likely. Now let's get to work."
They descended the steep slope to the spot whence the arrow experiment
had been made, and where Sellon had so narrowly escaped a grisly death.
It was near the widest part of the rift. As they had expected, the
cliff fell away in a sheer, unbroken wall at least two hundred feet.
Nor did the opposite sides seem to offer any greater facility.
Whichever way they looked, the rock fell sheer, or nearly so.
"We can do nothing here!" said Renshaw, surveying every point with a
fairly powerful field-glass. "There are our chalk-marks all right--
flags and all. We had better make a cast round to the right. According
to Greenway's story, the krantzes must be in a sort of terrace formation
somewhere. That will be at the point where he was dodging the Bushmen."
Skirting the edge of the gulf, they soon rounded the spur. It was even
as Renshaw had conjectured. The ground became more broken. By dint of
a not very difficult climb, they soon descended about a hundred feet.
But here they were pulled up by a cliff--not sheer indeed, but
apparently unnegotiable. It dropped a matter of thirty feet on to a
grassy ledge some six yards wide, thence without a break about twice
that depth to the bottom of the crater.
"We can negotiate that, I guess!" cried Renshaw, joyously, as he unwound
a long coil of raw-hide rope. "I came prepared for a far greater drop,
but we can do it well here. I don't see any other place that seems more
promising. And now I look at it, this must be the very point Greenway
himself tried from. Look! That must be the identical rock he squatted
under while the Bushmen were peppering him. Yes, by Jove, it must!"
pointing to a great overhanging mass of stone which rose behind them.
"Why, he had already found a diamond or two even here. What shan't we
find down yonder?"
There was a boyish light-heartedness about Renshaw now, even surpassing
the spirits of his companion. The latter stared. But the consciousness
of being within touch of fabulous wealth is a wonderful incentive to
light-heartedness.
He measured off a length of the rope for the shorter drop. Then they
drove in a crowbar, and, securing the rope, a very few minutes sufficed
to let themselves down to the grassy ledge.
"Pheugh! that's something of a job!" cried Sellon, panting with the
exertion of the descent. "Something of a job, with all this gear to
carry as well. I could have sworn once the whole thing was giving way
with me. I say, couldn't we leave our shooting irons here, and pick
them up on the way back?"
"H'm! Better not. Never get a yard away from your arms in an enemy's
country!"
The reply was unpleasantly suggestive. To Sellon it recalled all his
former apprehensions. What a trap they would be in, by the way, in the
event of a hostile appearance on the scene.
"You're right," he said. "Let's get on."
The second crowbar was driven in. This time they had some difficulty in
fixing it. The turf covering the ledge was only a few inches thick.
Then came the hard rock. At length a crevice was struck, and the
staunch iron firmly wedged to within a few inches of its head.
"Our string is more than long enough," said Renshaw, flinging the
raw-hide rope down the face of the rock. The end trailed on the ground
more than a dozen feet. "This krantz is on a greater slant than the
smaller one. Don't throw more of your weight on the _reim_ than you can
help. More climbing than hanging, you understand. I'll go down first."
Slant or no slant, however, this descent was a ticklish business. To
find yourself hanging by a single rope against the smooth face of a
precipice with a fifty-foot drop or so beneath is not a delightful
sensation, whatever way you look at it. The crowbar might give. There
might be a flaw in the iron--all sorts of things might happen. Besides,
to go down a sixty-foot rope almost hand under hand is something of a
feat even for a man in good training. However, taking advantage of
every excrescence in the rock likely to afford passing foothold, Renshaw
accomplished the descent in safety.
Then came Sellon's turn. Of powerful and athletic build, he was a heavy
man, and in no particular training withal. It was a serious ordeal for
him, and once launched in mid-air the chances were about even in favour
of a quicker and more disastrous descent than either cared to think of.
The rope jammed his unwary knuckles against the hard rock, excoriating
them and causing him most excruciating agony, nearly forcing him to let
go in his pain and bewilderment. The instinct of self-preservation
prevailed, however, and eventually he landed safely beside his
companion--where the first thing he did on recovering his breath was to
break forth into a tremendous imprecation. Then, forgetting his pain
and exertion, he, following the latter's example, glanced round
curiously and a little awed, upon the remarkable place wherein they
found themselves--a place whose soil had probably never before been
trodden by human foot.
And the situation had its awesome side. The great rock walls sheering
up around had shut in this place for ages and ages, even from the
degraded and superstitious barbarians whose fears invested it and its
guardian Eye with all the terrors of the dread unknown. While the
history of civilisation--possibly of the world itself--was in its
infancy, this gulf had yawned there unexplored, and now they two were
the first to tread its virgin soil. The man who could accept such a
situation without some feeling of awe must be strangely devoid of
imagination--strangely deficient in ideas.