Renshaw Fanning's Quest: A Tale of the High Veldt

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.

Chapter Twenty Two.

A Voice from the Dead

“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.

Chapter Twenty Three.

Following the Clue

It takes a little time to get used to sleeping out in the open, and on the hard ground. The latter the novice is apt to find hard indeed. There is always that refractory lump or stone just under his hip-bone, and by the time he has removed this, or shifted his position, he only settles down to find two similar sources of affliction where there was but one before. If timid, he will think of snakes; if nervous, he will be momentarily imagining some cold creeping thing crawling over his ear or sneaking inside the legs of his trousers. Add to this the novelty of the situation and the hundred and one varying voices of the night, which combine to keep him awake, and it follows that however alluring to the embryo traveller may be the prospect of “camping out,” the reality is less pleasant – till he gets used to it.

Renshaw, remarking that their late formidable visitant needn’t have wished them good night quite so loudly, rolled himself in a blanket, and in ten minutes was fast asleep. But Sellon, being new to this kind of thing, speedily fell a victim to each and all of the little inconveniences above detailed, and passed a most uncomfortable and restless night. The howling of the hyaenas, mingling with the shriller “yap” of the hunting jackal, sounded continuous – then just as he was dropping off into a doze, the loud “baugh! baugh!” of a troop of baboons on the mountain-side started him wide awake again, his first impression being that their late visitor was prowling around, intent on cultivating a closer acquaintance. Twice, indeed, he did hear that thundrous, muffled roar, which once heard is so unmistakable, but it was in the far distance. On the whole, therefore, all unrested as he was, he felt anything but sorry when his companion, looking out from under his blanket, stared at the stars, then leisurely sat up.

“By Jove! I’ve been envying you,” growled Sellon. “You’ve been sleeping like a log, and I’ve hardly closed my eyes all night.”

“Not, eh? Ah, I forgot you’re not used to this sort of thing. You soon will be, though. Turn in again a little longer, while I brew the coffee.”

“Coffee! Why, man, it isn’t daylight yet!”

“No, but in a few minutes it will be. However, you lie still. Try and snatch another hour’s snooze. I’ll see to everything.”

He was as good as his word. When Sellon awoke – not in another hour, but rather more than two – the sun was already up, but his comrade was nowhere to be seen, nor were the horses. There was the coffee-kettle, however, handy by the fire, and some biscuit. Having absorbed a steaming cup or two, Sellon lighted his pipe and felt better.

A double report sounded from some way along the river-bank then and there. In about twenty minutes Renshaw returned.

“I’ve been marketing,” he said, turning half a dozen ring-doves out of his pocket. “These little jokers are not half bad when grilled on the coals, and they don’t take long to cook. To-night will be the last time we can make a fire, until we find ourselves here again – that is, if we come back this way.”

“Well, I shall go and get a swim,” said Maurice, jumping up and stretching himself.

“A swim? Hold hard. Where will you get it?”

“In the river, of course,” was the astonished answer. But Renshaw shook his head.

“You’d better not try it, Sellon. It isn’t safe.”

“Why? Alligators?”

“Yes. You can’t go into deep water. But there’s a shallow a little way up, where you can have a good splash. It’s only a matter of a few inches if you keep close to the bank – and you must keep close to it too. I’ve been in myself this morning – and by the same token it’s the last chance of tubbing we shall get. I’ll go as far as the rise and point you out the place.”

Half an hour later Sellon returned, reinvigorated by his bath and clamouring for breakfast.

The birds had been plucked and spread upon the embers, split open, spatchcock fashion, and when ready afforded our travellers a toothsome breakfast. Then they saddled up.

“We shan’t do our thirty miles to-day,” said Renshaw, as they rode along. “We started too late. But that won’t greatly matter. We have plenty of time, and it’s better to keep the horses fresh than to rush them through.”

“So it is. But, I say, this place is like the Umtirara Valley, minus the bush and the greenness.”

It was. As they rode on, the desolate wildness of the defile increased. Rocky slopes sparsely grown with stunted bush, the usual cliff formation cleaving the sky-line. Boulders large and small studded the valley, lying like so many houses on the hillsides or piled up in unpleasantly obstructive profusion, right along the line of march. Of animal life there was little enough. Here and there an armour-plated tortoise stalking solemnly among the stones, or a large bird of prey circling overhead – but of game, no sign. As the sun mounted higher and higher, pouring his rays into the defile as though focussed through a burning glass, the heat tried Sellon severely.