Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 January 1889 — KING SOLOMON’S MINES. [ARTICLE]

KING SOLOMON’S MINES.

BY H. RIDER HAGGARD.

* CHAPTER V.— Contiki ed. THK.DBSKKT. We had nothing to guide ourselves by except the distant mountains and old Jose da Silveetra’s chart, which, considering that it was drawn by a dying and half distraught man on a fragment of linen three centuries ago, was not a very satisfactory sort of thing to work on. Stall, such as it was, our sole hope of success depended on it. If we failed to find that pool of had water which the old Don marked as being situated in the middled! the desert, about sixty miles from our starting-point, and as far from the mountains, we must in all probability perish miserably of tbist. And to my mind the chances of our finding it in that great sea of sand and karoo scrub seemed almost infinitesimal. Even supposing da Silvestra had marked it right, what was there to prevent its having been generations ago dried up by the sun, or trampled in by game, or filled by the drifting sand? On we tramped silently as shades through the night and in the heavy sand. The karoo bushes caught our shins and retarded us, and the sand got into our veldtschoons and Good’s shoots ing boots, so that every few miles we had to stop and empty them; but still the night was fairly cool, though the atmosphere was thick and heavy, giving a sort of creamy feeling to the air, we made fair progress. It was very still and lonely there in the desert, oppressively so indeed. * Good felt this, and at once began to whistle the “Girl I left behind me,” but the notes sounded lugubrious in that .vast place, and he gave it up Shortly afterward a little incident occurred which, though 4t made us jump at the time, gave rise to a laugh. Good, as the holder of the compass, which, being a sailor, of course he thoroughlv understood, was leading, and we were toiling along in single file behind him, when suddenly we heard the sound of an exclamation, and he vanished. Next second there arose all around us a most extraordinary hubbub, snorts, groans, wild sounds of rushing feet In the faint light too we could descry dim galloping forms half hidden by wreaths of sand. The natives threw down their loads and prepared to bolt, bat remembering that there was nowhere to bolt cast themseves upon the ground and howled out that it was the devil. As for Sir Henry and myself we stood there amazed; nor was our amaaement lessened when we perceived the form of Good careering off in the direction of the mountains, apparently mounted on the back of .a horse and holloaing like mad* In another second he threw up his arms, and we heard him come to the earth with a thud. Then I saw what had happened; we had stumbled right on to a herd of sleeping quagga, on to the back of one of which Good had actually fallen, and the brute had naturally enough got up and made off with him. Singing out to the others that it was all right I ran oward Good, much afraid lest he should be hurt, but to my great relief found him mtting in the sand, his eyeglass still fixed firmly on his eye, rather shaken and very much startled, but not in any way injured. After this we traveled on without any further misadventure till after one o’clock, when we called a halt, and having drunk a little water, not much, for water was precious, and rested for half an hour, started on again. On, on we went, till at last the east began to blush like the cheek of a girl. Then there came faint rays of primrose tight, that changed presently to golden bars, through which the dawn glided out across toe desert. The stare grew pale and paler still, till at last they vanished, the golden moon waxed wan, and her mountain ridges stood out clear against her sickly face like the bones on the face of a dying man; then came spear upon spear of glorious light flashing far away across the boundless wilderness, piercing and firing the veils of mist, till the desert was draped in a tremulous golden glow, and it was day. btill we did not halt, though by the time we should have been glad enough to do so, for we knew that when the sun was fully up it would be almost impassible for us to travel in it. At length, about six o’clock, we spied a little pile of rocks rising out of the plain, and to this we dragged ourselves. As luck would haye it here we found an overhanging slab sf rock carpeted beneath with a smooth sand, which afforded a most grateful shelter from the heat. Underneath this we crept, and having drunk some water each and having eaten a bit of biltfmg, we lay down and were soon sound asleep' It was three o’clock in the afternoon before we woke, to find our three bearrere peparing to return. They had already had enough of the desert and no nnmberof knives would have tempted them to come a step further. So we had a hearty drink, and having emptied our water bottles, filled them up again from the gourds they had brought with them and then watched them depart on their wenly miles’ tramp home. , At hall-past four we also started on. It was lonely and desolate work, for with the exception of a few ostriches there was not a single living creature to be seen on all the vast expanse of sandy plain. It waß evidently too dry for game and with the exception of adeadly-loOk-•cobra or two we saw no reptiles. One insect, however, was abundant, and that was the common or heuse-fly. There they came, “not as single spies, but in battalions,’’ as I think the Old Testament says somewhere. He is an extraordinary animal. Go where yoa will you find him. and so it must always have been. I have seen turn in■closed in amber, which must, I was told, have been a half, a million years old, looking exactly his descendant of to-day, and I have little doubt but that when the last man lies dying on the earth he iFili bebazzmg round—-if that event should happen to occur in the summer —watching for an opportunity tc settle on his nose.

At sunset we halted, waiting for the moon to rise. At ten she came up beautiful and serene as ever, and with one halt aboutdwo o’clock in the morning, we trudged wearily on through the night, till at last the welcome sun put a period to our labors, We drank a little and flung ourselves down, thoroughly tired out, on the Sand, and were soon all asleep. There was no need to set a . watch, for we had nothing to fear from anybody or anything in that vast unten-

anted plain. Our onlv enemies were heat, thirst and flies, but far rather would I have faced any danger from man or beast than that awful trinity. This time we were not so lucky as to find a sheltering rock to guard us from glare of the sun with the result that gbout seven o’clock we woke, up experiencing the exact sensations one would attribute to * breakfast on a gridiron. W e were literally being baked through and through. The burning sun seemed to he slicking the very life blood out of us. We Bat up and groaned. “Phew,” said I, grabbing at the halo of flies, which bussed cheerfully round my Head. The heat did not affect them. “Mv word! said Sir Henry. ' T t"is hot!’ said Good. It was hot, ludn-ed, and thereiWas not a bit of shelter to be had. Look where we would there was no rock or tree, nothing but an tinending glare, rendered dazzling by the hot air which danced over the surface of the desert as it does over a red hot stove. “What is to be done?” asked Sir Henrv; “we can’t stand this for long.” We looked at each other blankly. “I have it,” said Good, “we must dig a hole and get in it and cover ourselves with the karoo bushes.” It did not seem a very promising suggestion, but at least it was better than nothing, so we set to work, and with the trowei we naa brought with; us and our hands succeeded in aboutan hour in delving out a patch of ground about ten foot loDg by twelve wide to the depth of two feet. Then we cut a quantity of low scrub with our hunting-knives, and creeping into the hole pulled it over us all, with the excep'ion of Ventvogel, on whom, being a Hottentot, the sun had no particular effect. This gave us some slight shelter from the burning ray sos the sun, but the heat in that amateur grave can be better imagined than described. The Black Hole of Calcutta must have been a fool to it; indeed, to this moment I do not know how we lived through the day. There we lay panting, and every now and again moistening our lips from our scanty supply of water. Had we followed our inclinations we should have finished all we had off in the first two hours, but we had to exercise the most rigid care, for if our water failed us we knew that we must quickly perish miserably. ■ But everything has an end, if only you live long enough to see it, and somehow that miserable day wore on toward evening. About three o’clock in the afternoon we determined that we could stand it no longer. It would be better to die walking than to be slowly killed by heat and thirst in that dreadful hole. So taking each of us a little drink from our fast diminishing supply of water, now healed to about the same temperature as a man’s blood, we staggered on. We nad now covered some fifty miles of desert If mv reader will refer to the rough copy and translation of old Da Silvestra's map, ne will see that the desert is marked as being forty leagues across, and the “pan bad water” is set down as being in the middle of it. Now ■forty leagues is one hundred and twenty miles, consequently we ought at the most to be within twelve or fifteen miles of the water if any should really exist. Through the aiternoon we crept slowly and painfully along, scarcely doing more than a mile and a half an hour. Through the afternooh we crept slowly and painfully along, scarcely doing more than a mile and a half an hour. At sunset we again rested, waiting for the moon, and after drinking a little managed to get Borne sleep. Before we lay down Urnbopo pointed out to us a slight and indistinct hillock on the flat surface of the desert about eight miles away. At that distance it looked like an ant hill, and as I was dropping off to sleep I fell to wondering what it could be.

' With the moon we started on again, feeling dreadfully exhausted, and suffering tortures from thirst and prickly heat Nobody who has not felt it can know what we went through. We no longer walked, we staggered, now and again (ailing from exhaustion being obliged to call a halt every/bour or so. We had scarcely energy left in us to speak. Up to now Good had chatted and joked, for he was a merry fellow; but now he had not a joke left in him. At last, about two o’clock, utterly worn out in body and mind, we came to the foot of this queer hill, or sand koppie, which did at fij st sight reeemole a gigantic ant-heap about a hundred feet high, and covering at the base nearly a morgen (two acres) of ground. Here we halted, and driven by our desperate thirst sucked down our last drops of water. We hid but half a pint a head, arid we could have drunk a gallon. Then we lay down. Just as I vtfas dropping offto sleep I heard Umbopa remark to himself in Zulu—“lf we cannot find water we shall all be dead before the moon rises to-mor-row.” I shuddered, hot as it was. The near prospect of such an awful death is not pleasant, but even tne thought of it could not keep me from sleeping. CHAPTER VI. WATXft! watxr! In two hours’ time, about four o’clock I woke up. As soon as the first heavy demand of bodily fatigue had been satisfied, the torturing thirst from which I was suffering asserted itself. I could sleep no more. I had been dreaming that I was bathing in a running stream, with green banks and trees upon them, and I awoke to find myself in that arid wilderness, and to remember that, as Umbopa had said, if we did not find water that dav we must certainly* perish miserably.' Nq human creature could live long"without water in that heat I sat up and rubbed my grimy rface with my dry and horny hands. My lips and e/elids were stuck together, and it was only after rubbing and with an effort that I was able, to open them. It was not far off the dawn, but there was none of the bright feel of dawn in the air, which was thick with a hot murkiness I can not describe. The others were still sleeping. Presently it began to grow light encugh to read, so I drew out a little pocket copy of the “Ingoldsby Legends” I had brought with me, and read the “Jackdaw of Rheims.” When I got to where “A nice little bov held • golden ewer, Em basted, end filled with water as pare as guy that flows between Rheims and Namur,” I literally smacked my cracked lips, or rather tried to smack them. The mere

thought of that pure water made me mad. If the cardinal had been there with his bell, book and candle, I would have Whipped in and drank hia water up, yea, even if he had already filled it with the suds of soap worthy of washing the hands of the Pope, and i knew that the whole concentrated curse of the Catholic Church should fall upon me for so doing. I almost think .1 must have been a little light headed with thirst and weariness and want of’food; for I fell to thinking how astonished the cardinal and his nice little bov And the jackdaw would have looked to we a burned up, brown-eyed, grizsle-haired little elephant hunter suddenly bound in and put his dirty face into the basin* and swallow every drop of the precious water. The idea amused me so that l laughed, or rather cackled aloud, which woke the others up, and they began to rub their dirty faces and get their gummed-up lips and eyelids apart. As soon as we were all well awake we fell to discussing the situation, which was serious enough. Not a drop of water was left. We turned the water bottles upside down, and licked the tops, but it was a failure, they were as dry as a bone. Good, who had charge of the bottle of brandy, got it out and looked at it longingly; but Sir Hen»*y promptly took it away from him, for to drink raw spirit would only have been to precipitate the end. “If we do not find water we shall die,” he said. »‘lf we can trust to the old Don’s map there should be some about,” I said; but nobody seemed to derive much satisfaction from that remark. It was so evident that no great faith could ,be put in the map. It was now gradually growing light, and as we sat blankly staring at each other, I observed the Hottfentot Ventvogel rise and .begin to walk about with his eyes on the ground. Presently-he stopped short, and uttering a guttural exclamation, pointed to the earth, t “What is it?” we exclaimed, and simultaneously rose and went to where he was standing pointing at the ground. “Well,” I said, “it is pretty fresh Springbok spoor; what of it?” “Sprigbucks do not go far from water,” he answered in Dutch.

“No,” I answered,“l forgot; and thank God for it.” This little discovery put new life into us; it is wonderful how, when one is in a desperate position, one catches at the slightest hope, and feels almost happy in it. On a dark night a single star is better than nothing. Meanwhile Ventvogel was lifting liis snub nose, and sniffing the hot air for all the world like an old Impala ram who scents danger. Presently he spoke again. “I smell water,” he said. Then we felt iubilant, for we knew what a wonderful instinct these wildbred men possess. „ Just at that moment the sun came up gloriously, and revealed so grand a sight to our astonished eyes that for a moment or two we even forgot our thirst. For there, not more than forty or fifty miles from us, glittering like silver in the early rays of the morning sun, were Sheba’s breasts; and stretching away for hundreds of miles on each side of them was the great Suliman Berg Now that I, sitting here, attempt ‘to describe the extraordinary grandeur and beauty of that sight, language seems to fail me. I am impotent even before its memory. There, straight before us, were two enormous mountains, the like of which are not, I believe, to be seen in Africa, if, indeed, there are any other such in the world, measuring each at least fifteen thousand feet in height, standing not more than a dozen miles apart, connected by a precipitous cliff of rock.and towering up in awful white solemnity straight into the sky. These mountains standing thus, like tfee pillars of a gigantic gateway, are Bhaped exactly like a woman’s breasts. Their bases swelled gently up from the plain, locking, at that distance, perfectly round and smooth, and on the top of each was a vast round hillock covered with snow exactly corresponding to the nipple on the female breast. The stretch of cliff which connected them appeared to be some thousand feet in height, and perfectly precipitous, and on each side of them, as far as the eye could reach, extended similar lines of cliff, broken only here and there by flat, table-topped monntains, something like the worldfamed one at Gape Town; a formation, by the way, very common in Africa. To describe the grandeur of the whole view is beyond my powers. There was something so inexpressibly solemn and overpowering about those huge yolcanoes —for doubtless they are extinct volcanoes—that it fairly took our breath away. For awfiile the morning lights played upon the snow and the brown and swelling masses beneath, and then, as though to veil the majestic sight from our curious eyes, strange mists and clouds gathered "and increased around them, till presently we could, only trace their pure and gigantic outlines swelling f host-like through the fleecy envelope, ndeed, as we afterwards discovered, they were normally wrapped in this curious, gauzy mißt, which doubtless accounted for our not haying made them out more clearly before. Scarcely had the mountains vanished into cloud-dad privacy before our thirst —literally a burning question —reasserted itself.

It was all very well for Ventvogel to say he smelled water, bat look which way we would we could see no signs of it So far as the eye could reach there was nothing bat arid sweltering sand and karoo scrub. We walked round the hillock and gazed abohf anxiously on the other side but it was the same story, not a drop of water was to be seen; there was no indication of a pan, a pool, or a spring! “You are a fool,” I said, angrily, to Ventvogel; “there is no water ” But still he lifted his ugly snub and sniffed. “I-smell it, Bass’’ (master), he answered; “it is somewhere in the air.” “Yes,*’ I said, “no doubt it is in the clouds, and about two months he nce it will fall and wash our bones.” Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard thoughtfully. “Perhaps it is on the top of the MU,” he suggested. . “Rot,”laud Good; “whoever heard of water being found on the the top ©i a hill!” “Let us go and look,” I put in, and hopelessly enough we scrambled np the sandy sides of the hillock, Umbopa leading. Presently he stopped as though he was petrified. “Nanzia manzie!” (here is water), he criei with aloud voice.

Con tinned next week.