Bertram Mitford - Renshaw Fanning's Quest - A Tale of the High Veldt

“ We ?” he said. “Do you want me to help you to hunt for this Golconda, then, old chap?”

“I do. You have saved my life, Sellon, and you may possibly find that it was the best day’s work you ever did in yours. You shall share the knowledge that will make rich men of us. We will search for the ‘Valley’ together.”

“I’m your man, Fanning. That sort of thing will suit me down to the ground. Now, look sharp and get strong on your pins again, and we’ll start.”

The other smiled.

“What a mercurial fellow you are, Sellon! No; that isn’t how to go to work. How, I ask you, are we going to set out expedition on foot, now? Look at that, for instance,” – pointing through the open door to the bare veldt. Shimmering in the fiery forenoon, “And it’s worse country over there than here. We must wait until the drought breaks up.”

“Must we? And, meanwhile, somebody else may hit upon the place.”

“Make your mind easy on that point. But for the clue I possess, it would never be found – never. Didn’t I tell you I had searched for it four times, and even with the key hadn’t managed to find it, and I’ve spent my life on the veldt, knocking about the Country on and off? But this time I believe I shall find it.”

“Do you? Now, why?”

“Look around. Whether the drought lasts or not, I’m practically a ruined man. Now it is time my luck turned. This will be, I repeat, the fifth search, and five is a lucky number. Like many fellows who have led a wandering and solitary life, I am a trifle superstitious in some things. This time we shall be successful.”

“Well, you seem to take the thing mighty coolly,” said Sellon, refilling his pipe. “I should be for starting at once. But what do you propose doing meanwhile?”

“Take my word for it, it’s a mistake to rush a thing of this sort,” answered Renshaw. “It’ll bear any amount of thinking out – the more the better.”

“Well, but you seem to have given it its full share of the last, anyhow. There’s one thing, though, that you haven’t mentioned all this time. If it is a fair question, how the deuce did you come to know of the existence of the place?”

“From the only man who has ever seen it. The only white man, that is.”

“Oh! But – he may have been lying.”

“A man doesn’t tell lies on his death-bed,” replied Renshaw. “My informant turned up here one night in a bad way. He was mortally wounded by a couple of Bushman arrows, which, I suppose you know, are steeped in the most deadly and virulent poison. The mystery is how he had managed to travel so far with it in his system, and the only explanation I can find is that the poison was stale, and therefore less operative. He died barely an hour after he got here, but not before he had left me the secret, with all necessary particulars. He had discovered it by chance, and had made three expeditions to the place, but had been obliged to give it up. There was a clan of Bushmen living in the krantzes there who seemed to watch the place as though it contained something sacred. They attacked him each time, the third with fatal effect, as I told you.”

“By Jove!” cried Sellon, ruefully, his treasure-seeking ardour considerably damped by the probability of having to run the gauntlet of a flight of poisoned arrows. “And did they ever attack you?”

“Once only – the attempt before last I made,” replied the other, tranquilly. “That made me think I was nearer hitting upon it than I had ever been.”

“By Jove!” cried Sellon again. “That’s just about enough to choke one off the whole thing. A fellow doesn’t mind a fair and square fight, even against long odds. But when it comes to poisoned arrows, certain death coming at you in the shape of a dirty little bit of stick, that otherwise couldn’t hurt a cat – faugh! I suppose these little devils sneak up behind, and let you have it before you so much as know they’re there?”

“Generally; yes. Well, you know, every prize worth winning involves a proportionate amount of risk. And there may be some about this business, it’s only fair to warn you, though, on the other hand, there may not.”

“All serene, old chap. I’ll chance it.”

“Right,” said Renshaw. “Now, my plan is this. It’s of no use sticking on here. I can do no good at present, or I’m afraid for some time to come. I propose that we go and look up some friends of mine who live down Kafirland way. They’ve a lovely place in the Umtirara Mountains – a perfect paradise after this inferno. We’ll go and have a good time – it’ll set me on my legs again, and enable you to see an entirely different part of the country. Afterwards, we’ll come back here, and start on our search.”

“That’s not half a bad plan of yours, Fanning. But, see here! old chap. These friends of yours don’t know me. Isn’t it slightly calm my rolling in upon them unasked?”

“Pooh! not at all. Chris Selwood’s the best fellow in the world – except, perhaps, his wife, I was going to say. We were boys together. If we were brothers, I couldn’t be more at home anywhere than at his place – and any friend of mine will be as welcome as a heavy rain would have been here a month ago.”

“That’s a good note, anyhow. But – to come back for a minute to the ‘Valley of the Eye’ – what are we going to find when we get there? You didn’t happen to mention just now.”

“There are only two things to be picked up in this country – and plenty of both, if only one knew exactly where to look for them – gold and ‘stones.’ And we shan’t find gold.”

“Diamonds! By Jove! Millionaires indeed – if we only find enough of them. Well, I don’t mind telling you, Fanning, that I stand uncommonly in need of something realisable – and plenty of it. At present there exists a powerful reason for that necessity. And, I say, Fanning, I believe the same thing holds good as regards yourself.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, when fellows get a bit off their chump, they are apt to talk. Eh, you dog? Own up, now. Who is she?”

“And that’s your reason for wanting to make a pile, is it, Sellon?” said Renshaw, tranquilly.

“I didn’t say so,” laughed the other. “Perhaps our object is the same, for all that.”

“Perhaps it is,” was the good-humoured reply; “as you are bent on thinking so.”

The days went by, and Renshaw steadily gained in health and strength. He was now able to walk about at will, to take short rides in the early morning, and towards sundown, carefully avoiding the heat of the day, and to begin looking after his stock again. Not that the state of the latter afforded him much encouragement, poor fellow, for each day witnessed an alarming decrease in the few hundred starving animals the drought had left him. Meanwhile, the burning, brassy heavens were without a cloud, save an occasional one springing suddenly from the horizon, as though to mock at the terrible anxiety of the dwellers in this desert waste, and as suddenly melting away, together with many an eager, unspoken hope for the longed-for rain. Not a breath of air, save now and again one of those strange whirlwinds which, heaving up bits of dried stick and dust from the baked and gasping earth, and spinning them round in its gyrating course, moves in a waterspoutlike column along the plain, to vanish into empty air as suddenly as it arose – sure sign of drought, or the continuance of the same, say the stock-growers, out of the plenitude of their experience. The veldt was studded with the shrivelled, rotting carcases of dead animals, scattered about here and there in little clumps of tens and twenties, to the advantage of clouds of great white vultures wheeling aloft ere settling down upon the plentiful repast. Even the very lizards peering forth from the cracks and crannies of the walls, or basking on the clay summit of old Kaatje’s outdoor oven, seemed gasping for air, for moisture.