Fred C. Cornell

“ We had had a very successful trip, and I felt at peace with all mankind, as I sat smoking, and watching the setting sun turn the tall rocks from gold to crimson, and thence through a whole gamut of purples, violets and mauves to the cold grey of twilight.
"Pritty, 'aint it?" said a voice at my elbow. It was old Blake. His mahogany face shone with the effects of the first soap and water he had been able to use for weeks, for we had been very short of water; and even his arms showed the tattoo-marks that were usually hidden by the grime inseparable to life in the desert. ”

“ They were the 'bright stones' of the Spanisher they were diamonds! Here was wealth beyond conception wealth beside which the fabled Golconda would be as nought, wealth untold for us all. But on the floor among the flashing gems there lay many white bones the bones of dead men. . . . Wealth, vast wealth for us all, and yet we quarreled there as to the division of the stones, and as to how we were to get them away. 'Get all we can at once and flee this very night!' urged the shipmen. 'And die of thirst in the desert places!' said Alvaro for it was the season of drought! ”

“ At length, footsore, weary, with eyes scorched by the blinding glare of the sun on the bare sand, and with lips cracked and tongues swollen with thirst, we staggered out of the dunes into a wide pan covered with bush and sprinkled with big trees huge cameel-doorn of thick verdant foliage, which gave the whole expanse a park-like appearance. They were full of gay-plumaged birds, butterflies were flitting everywhere, here and there were fine stretches of thick grass, in fact, after all we had suffered in the furnace of shade-less sand behind us, the place was a veritable paradise. ”

“ For from an absolutely barren dune, we suddenly looked down upon a thick garden of beautiful flowers; tall, and like a slender foxglove in appearance, they filled the wide hollows between the dunes in all directions. They were of endless variety in color, white, mauve, and an endless gamut of pinks, down to the deepest purple; and a more beautiful sight it would be impossible to imagine. But thickly as they grew for mile after mile, there was nothing else, no t'samma or any other refreshing plant or fruit, and the hungry horses would not look at them. ”

“ Each yard I crawled was agony to me, but at last I came to a rock-encircled pool in which lay water clear and deep, and into which a tiny stream splashed and gurgled from an overhanging cliff. Sweet and pure the water was, and in great abundance. I peered into its dark depths and could see the white sand glimmering at the bottom, full ten or twelve feet below me as I judged. ”

“ Who shall say it is not magic?"
"Inyati," I stammered, coming back to my senses, and ignoring his extremely doubtful compliments, "speak, man; where did you get this?"
"In my own land, master; a far land, many moons' trek from here, and where there are many. But few dare touch them except indeed the devil- men and they are not men at all, but devils! Though I feared them little even then . . . and now, now that I have a gun (for surely my master will give me the little gun that speaks many times for this magic stone?) I fear them not at all! ”

“ Poor chap, it was the first he had ever had, for his shin-bone had served him hitherto, and his delight was unmistakable. An hour later I saw him still at his everlasting polishing, and with the new pipe in full blast; and now he was crooning not only its praises, but my own. Half his improvised song was unintelligible to me, but I understood enough to learn that when the "dogs of Bushmen" had failed, he, Inyati "The Snake" would lead me to a land where there were magic stones in abundance, and by means of which, I gathered, we should both obtain wives galore! ”

“ Brietmann, you schwein-hund! . . . never have I seen such a dummkopf! . . . Secure him, I say!"
"Hold!" roared the professor, "touch him not till I hear what all this is about. Besides, the man will kill you! Never have I seen a better fighter or a better fight! And fair play he shall have. And explain I saw not the beginning of all this, what has the Herr Sydney done?"
"Done," snarled Gilderman, sidling near, his face bruised and discolored from Dick's first uppercut, "done! why don't you see the thieving hound has stolen the diamonds there they lay they fell from his shirt, the dirty thief!" ”

“ And all this time I saw no sign of life, not even a spoor in the sand to show that mankind had ever trod there. There was no animal life even; a few birds, and a few snakes, nothing more indeed so deserted and dead was this weird land that it appeared unreal, and often I imagined that by some strange chance I had been transported to some other and long-dead planet, so little was this maze of craters like Mother Earth. ”

“ And so one evening as the last flaming rays of the setting sun were being vanquished by the soft moonlight, the venturesome party waved farewell to the watchers on the little tug and started on their journey over the seemingly illimitable sand-dunes. They trekked in single file and by the aid of the stars and a compass easily kept their eastward course. The murmur of the surf grew fainter and fainter until not a sound broke the stillness, the soft footfall of the camels being inaudible even to the men who led them. ”

“ Dick, blazing with fury at the indignity, wrenched himself free of the wachtmeister, as though that big man had been a child, struck Gilderman a terrific smash on the nose that flattened it and him instantly, and seizing Jelder, who had tried to trip him, he threw that unfortunate Israelite on the top of his colleague. But now the other men flung themselves upon Dick simultaneously, and for a short but crowded period a most memorable scrap took place in and round that little prospecting camp. ”

“ The moon was with us now again, and we trekked at night, seldom riding, but plodding doggedly through the endless succession of dunes, with the spiritless horses strung out behind us. Their hooves were splayed to an enormous size through this incessant trekking through the sand; yet, though broken and enfeebled, they had become more inured to the conditions, and the few t'samma, or tubers dug from the sand for them, sufficed to keep them alive. ”

“ And that ridiculous lie of Junes' about salting! Come, man, tell me where the diamonds are, and tell these people that Junes made up that yarn as you know he did and I'll try to save you from the police. Come now own up where are the stones?"
"You cannot save him from death and the Maker who will judge him," said the professor sternly as he came from his tent with his medicine chest. "Man, think shame to pester the man so; men do not lie on their deathbed"; and as Gilderman did not move he swung him aside by the collar as though he had been a child. ”

“ Then one afternoon, as I lay in a sort of semi-stupor beneath one of the bushes that had yielded me a fair number of berries, a sharp gust of wind aroused me, and looking around me I saw, whirling across the bare dunes towards me, a huge cloud of thick opaque dust, gathering up the loose sand as it sped, whirling high in the air and blotting out the whole sky with its dense volume, snatching up, carrying away, and burying deep again, all that came in its path. It was a sandstorm, and I was in its path, here amongst the loose dunes, where escape seemed impossible. I must fly or be buried! ”

“ We must cross, master; there on the other side I see thick bush in the dunes, there may be t'samma there, and the way across is easy. Come!"
He led the way down the steep slope, dragging his jaded animals after him. At the edge, where sand ended and salt began, lay many bones, bleached and white almost as the salt itself, and amongst them were the bones of men. Snorting and afraid, the animals stepped gingerly on the smooth, snow-like surface, which yielded but an inch or two to their tread, and was pleasantly cool to their hooves, parched and cracking from their long trek in the burning sand. ”

“ I had seen no human being for so long: dead Inyati's face had been the last that I had gazed upon; then, after long I had seen the skeleton in the pool the road of skulls and now at last I gazed upon a human form again, it was again that of the dead. ”

“ The glare from the crimson sunset turned it into a sea of blood, and each moment the forms of the drowned multitude showed more and more distinctly; clasping and clinging to each other in the awful contortions of death, as they had struggled with each other in their frantic fight against that awful cataclysm; heap upon heap, line after line, thousands upon thousands of them a multitude a whole nation overwhelmed and destroyed.
Not white men such as the priests, who alone had been saved upon the pyramid, but brown men of Inyati's type, their bodies nude except for a loincloth. ”

“ And the tribe of dwarfs one by one died of thirst, for it was a year of fearful heat, and they knew of no other water. Day by day they came shrieking and praying to the spirits of the black shaft to give them back the water. Day by day they flung living men into the pit as sacrifice to join the spirits below, till all, all were dead. ”

“ Out of the long defiles and valleys we threaded our way into the open country, past the huge flat-topped mountains of Ombokoro, the fastness of the Berg Damaras, thence following the dry river-bed of the Om- Mafako north-east to the confines of the Omaheke desert that great north-western outlier of the true Kalahari not far, indeed, from this very spot! So far the trek had been slow and tedious, but without untoward incident. We were well armed, and those natives who did not avoid us were only too eager to bring in food, or show us water in return for our trade goods. ”

“ For I have been a fool, and I have been also to blame. Look you, Herr Sydney, now can I see but too clearly that I have neglected my work, and looked but little to the fields themselves but to the diamonds and the gravel they brought with them. Numskull! dummkopf! That I have been it is but now that I see also how they have advantage taken of this hobby of mine. Each day they have brought me spiders, and scorpions, and snakes to examine even now I have almost a hundred specimens alive! And so they have thrown sand in my eyes, and would have made a criminal of me even as they are themselves. ”

“ These, since I had now an abundance of water, I did not attempt to eat; taking only the pips from the ripe ones, drying them in the sun, and pounding them between two stones, as I had often seen the Bushmen do. From the coarse meal thus obtained I made little cakes, roasting them on hot stones or the embers of my fire. Matches I had none, but my burning glass served me just as well, for every day the sun shone; indeed seldom did a cloud cross the sky, and whatever storms may have raged outside nothing but the gentlest breeze ever reached the deep hollow that held me a willing prisoner. ”

“ He saw three men come down over the big dune to close beside where he lay rough-looking men in a costume of long ago, with cocked hats, broad breeches, and buckled shoes; and the moonlight shone on the brass hilts of their cutlasses and pistols. They took no notice of him, but, stooping, began to pick up the bright diamonds that Carfax now saw covered the sand before them. Soon the bag they held was full and a quarrel arose; for he saw two of the men draw their swords and fight fiercely, whilst the other, a tall hawk-faced man, stood by and watched, holding the bag. ”

“ All this flashed through my mind as I stood and gazed at the stone; then, righting my inclination for the berries, I plunged into the pool, and found new strength and resolution in its refreshing coolness. Then I searched eagerly amongst the other pebbles and found three more diamonds, all fine big stones; yet not to be compared with the blue stone Inyati had given me. Where was it? My pack had been scattered by that terrific fall, but now I remembered the diamond had been sewn securely into the cartridge belt I had always worn. It must be here now with my clothes. ”

“ I know," said Dick, edging still nearer the door. "Pretty little things, some people call them, like that scorpion you raved about, before! Here, I say, professor, play the game; I don't want fortunes of that kind here, I'm off!"
"The door is locked," said the old man calmly; "Wunderbahr! here is a man I thought feared nothing, a fighter of the best, afraid of a few harmless snakes!"
"Professor," pleaded Dick, as the old man bent over the padlock, "don't do it; I don't want any fortune. Oh, Lord! I shall have two fits! Yow! Help! there he goes!" and as the box opened Dick sprang on to the bed. ”

“ A short distance away a fair-sized bush offered a modicum of shade, and here we rested for the day for we had planned to travel only in the cool of the night as long as the moon served. And here Inyati showed me how to make water from the young green t'samma, taking those the size of an orange only, and roasting them in the ashes, and thus turning their pulp into a clear liquid like water. Seldom though did we trouble to do this, eating the insipid cucumber-like fruit as we found it, but though refreshing and capable of supporting life, the longing for water is always present in the desert. ”

“ On the third evening, after an exceptionally strong gale had nearly choked, blinded, and overwhelmed us, Carfax did not turn up in camp, and though we searched all the following day we found no trace of him not a vestige; for one of the worst things about the dunes is that when the wind is blowing the spoor is filled up almost immediately with drifting sand; though peculiarly enough a day or two later the spoor will show again, when the light sand has again been blown out. He had only a small water-bottle with him, the heat was like Hades itself, and we all thought he was dead. ”

“ Choosing a spot among the rocks where he was somewhat sheltered from the sun and could command a view of the little pool and its approaches, he sat down to muse over the story and to await the chance of a possible shot. A couple of hours passed. The stillness and intense heat combined to make him drowsy, and he woke with a start to find he had been dreaming of diamonds as big as tennis balls. "Bad sportsman," he yawned. "I shall never get a shot this way," and, rubbing his eyes, he peered cautiously round in search of game. Not a thing in sight in any direction. Stop! ”

“ The silence and mystery of the night, the vast expanse of sand shown so vaguely in the moonlight, the soft-treading, grotesquely-shaped camels, which seemed far less real and tangible than the black shadows thrown by them across the sand, and by day the blinding glare of the sun thrown back from the all-surrounding sand so fiercely that in spite of their sun-goggles they were nearly blinded, combined to make them high- strung and irritable. ”

“ Dick felt him gasp and subside, and at that very moment his hand came in contact with the heavy steel handcuffs. Here was a weapon worth having, and with such odds against him Dick had no hesitation in using it, and swinging them round blindly at the arms clutching at him, he felt them meet flesh and bone with a soul-satisfying crunch. A sharp yelp followed, and Dick felt the scrum above him lighten, as Zweiter retired from the fray, spitting blood and curses in a polyglot and highly satisfactory manner. ”