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

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.

“This is awful,” he growled, for the fiftieth time, mopping his steaming face. “Is it going to be like this all the way?”

“It may be. But we shall have to do most of our moving about at night. We can take it easy now and off-saddle, and trek on again towards sundown. Until we actually begin our search, I know the ground by heart. Come now, Sellon, you must keep up your determination. It’s beastly trying, I know, for an unseasoned chap; but think of the end.”

“I believe I’ll get a sunstroke first,” was the dejected reply, as the speaker flung himself wearily on the ground.

“Not a bit of it. Here, have a drop of liquor – but you’d better take it weak, or it’ll do more harm than good.” And getting out a pannikin Renshaw poured in a little of the contents of his flask, judiciously diluting it from the water-skin slung across the pack-horse.

This water-skin, by the way, was an ingenious contrivance of his own, and of which he was not a little proud. Like its Eastern prototype – upon which it was modelled – it consisted of the dressed skin of a good-sized Angora kid – one of the legs serving for the spout.

“Not a bad dodge, eh?” acquiesced Renshaw, in response to his companion’s remark. “The water has a leathery taste, I admit, but it’s better than none at all. I hit upon the idea when I first began these expeditions. Something of the kind was absolutely essential. Trekking with waggons you carry the ordinary vaatje– a small drum-shaped keg – slung between the wheels, but it’s an inconvenient thing to load up on a horse – in fact, the second attempt I made the concern got loose and rolled the whole way down a mountain-side – of course, splintering to atoms. Besides, this thing holds more and keeps the water cooler. I came near dying of thirst that time, being three nights and two days without a drop of anything; for this is a mighty dry country, I needn’t tell you.”

“What if the whole yarn should turn out moonshine after all?” said Sellon, with the despondency of a thoroughly exhausted man. “There’s one thing about it that looks fishy. How could what’s his name – Greenway – wounded as he was, fetch your place in two or three days? Why, it’ll take us nearly a week to do it – if not quite.”

“That very thing struck me at first,” said Renshaw, quietly, shredding up a piece of Boer tobacco. “My impression is, he didn’t come back the same way he went. You see, he knew the country thoroughly. He may have taken a short cut and come straight over the mountains. For I’m pretty sure the way we are taking is an altogether roundabout one.”

“Then why couldn’t the fellow have told you the shorter one, instead of sending us round three sides of a square?”

“That’s soon explained. In the first place, this way is easier to find, the landmarks more unmistakable, and the travelling better. In the second, you must remember the poor old chap was at his last gasp. It’s a good thing for you, Sellon, that he was, for if he had only lived half an hour longer – even a quarter – he’d have given fuller details and I should have found the place long ago. Look how disjointed the last part of his story is, just the main outlines, trusting to me to fill in detail. I tell you, it was quite pitiable to see the manful effort he made to keep up until he had said his say.”

Later in the afternoon, the heat having somewhat abated, they resumed their way, which grew at every mile more rough and toilsome, between those lofty walls, winding round a spur, only to find a succession of similar spurs further on. Then the sun went off the defile, and a coolness truly refreshing succeeded. Renshaw, leading the way, held steadily on, for there was light enough from the great sparkling canopy above to enable them to more than distinguish outline. At length the moon rose.

“Look ahead, Sellon, and tell me if you see anything,” said Renshaw at last.

“See anything? Why, no. Stop a bit, though” – shading his eyes. “Yes. This infernal valley has come to an end. There’s a big precipice bang ahead of us. We can’t get any further.”

“Not, eh? Well, now, look to the left.”

Sellon obeyed. At right angles to the valley they had been ascending, and which here opened out into a wide basin barred in front by the cliff referred to, ran another similar defile.

“There it is,” continued Renshaw, in a satisfied tone. “That’s the ‘long poort’ mentioned by Greenway – and” – pointing to the right – “there are the ‘two kloofs.’”

It was even as he said. The situation corresponded exactly.

“We’ll go into camp now,” said Renshaw. “Let’s see what you’ll think of my ‘hotel.’”

Turning off the track they had been pursuing, Renshaw led the way up a slight acclivity. A number of boulders lay strewn around in a kind of natural Stonehenge. In the midst was a circular depression, containing a little water, the remnant of the last rainfall.

“Look there,” he went on, pointing out a smoke-blackened patch against the rock. “That’s my old fireplace. Our blaze will be quite hidden, as much as it can be anywhere, that is. So now we’ll set to work and make ourselves snug.”

Until he became too fatigued to suffer his mind to dwell upon anything but his own discomfort, Sellon had been cudgelling his brains to solve the mystery of the resuscitated document, but in vain. He was almost inclined at last to attribute its abstraction and recovery to the agency of the dead adventurer’s ghost.

But the solution of the mystery was a very simple one, and if Sellon deserves to be left in the darkness of perplexity by reason of the part he played in the matter, the reader does not. So we may briefly refer to an incident which, unknown to the former, had occurred on the evening of Renshaw’s return to his most uninviting home.

He had been very vexed over the French leave taken by his retainer, as we have seen. But, when his anger against old Dirk was at its highest, the latter’s consort, reckoning the time had come for playing the trump card, produced a dirty roll of paper. Handing it to her master, she recommended him to take care of it in future.

Renshaw’s surprise as he recognised its identity was something to witness – almost as great as Sellon’s. He had been going about all these weeks, thinking the record of his precious secret as secure as ever, and all the while it was in the dubious care of a slovenly old Koranna woman.

But on the subject of how it came into her possession old Kaatje was reticent. She had taken care of it while the Baas was sick – and, but for her, it might have been lost beyond recovery. More than this he could not extract – except an earnest recommendation to look after it better in the future. However, its propitiatory object was accomplished, and he could not do otherwise than pardon the defaulting Dirk, on the spot.

The fact was, she had witnessed the stranger’s doubtful proceedings, and having her suspicions had determined to watch him. When she saw him deliberately steal her master’s cherished “charm,” she thought it was time to interfere. She had accordingly crept up to the open window and reft the paper out of Sellon’s hand – as we have seen.

So poor old Greenway’s ghost may rest absolved in the matter, likewise the Enemy of mankind and the preternaturally accomplished baboon. And, although she did not state as much, the fact was that the Koranna woman had intended to return the document upon Renshaw’s recovery, but had refrained, on seeing him about to take his departure in company with the strange Baas, whom she distrusted, and not without good reason.

Chapter Twenty Four.
The Two Turret-Heads

“Hurrah! The scent is getting warm,” cried Sellon, as winding round a spur they came into full view of a huge coffee-canister-shaped mountain.

It was the end of the third day’s trek. Making an early start from the snug camping-place where we last saw them they had pushed steadily on until the heat of the day became too oppressive. Then after a long rest they had resumed their march, and now it was evening.

“Yes, but it’ll have to get warmer still to be of much use,” replied Renshaw. “Look! There’s the other turret-head.”

High aloft, rising from behind the slope of the first, a great “elbow” of cliff started into view. Then a turn of their road once more hid it from sight.

“There are the two referred to by poor old Greenway,” said Renshaw. “The third, the smaller one, lies beyond them to the north-west.”

“Eh? Then why on earth are we going in slap the opposite direction?”

For the “poort” they had been threading here came to an abrupt termination, splitting off into a gradually ascending kloof on each side of the first of the two great mountains. Without a moment’s hesitation Renshaw had taken the left-hand one – heading indeed south-westerly.

“You can’t get anywhere by the other way, Sellon. Nothing but blind alleys ending in a krantz.”

Half an hour or so of rough uphill travelling, and they halted on a grassy nek. And now the two great mountains stood forth right against their line of march. Rising up, each in a steep, unbroken grassy slope, they could not have been less than three thousand feet from the valley which girdled their base like the trench of an old Roman encampment. The crest of each was belted around by a smooth perpendicular wall of cliff of about a third of the height of the mountain itself, gleaming bronze red in the shimmering glow, barred here and there with livid perpendicular streaks, showing where a colony of aasvogels had found a nesting-place, possibly from time immemorial, among the ledges and crannies upon its inaccessible face.

“By Jove!” cried Sellon, as, after a few minutes’ halt, they rode along the hillside opposite to and beneath the two majestic giants. “By Jove, but I never saw such an extraordinary formation! Some of those turret-heads we passed on our way down to Selwood’s were quaint enough – but these beat anything. Why, they’re as like as two peas. And – the size of them. I say, though, what a view of the country we should get from the top.”

“Should! Yes, if we could only reach it. But we can’t. The krantz is just as impracticable all round as on this side. I tried the only place that looked like a way, once. It’s round at the back of the second one. There’s a narrow rocky fissure all trailing with maidenhair-fern – masses and masses of it. Well, I suppose I climbed a couple of hundred feet, and had to give up. Moreover, it took me the best part of the day to come down again, for if I hadn’t called all my nerve into play, and patience too, it would only have taken a fraction of a second – and – the fraction of every bone in my anatomy. No. Those summits will never be trodden by mortal foot – unless some fellow lands there in a balloon, that is.”

An hour of further riding and they had reached the extreme end of the second gigantic turret. Here again was a grassy nek, connecting the base of the latter with the rugged and broken ridges on the left. Hitherto they had been ascending by an easy gradient. Now Renshaw, striking off abruptly to the right, led the way obliquely down a steep rocky declivity. Steeper and steeper it became, till the riders deemed it advisable to dismount and lead. Slipping, scrambling, sliding among the loose stones, the staunch steeds stumbled on. Even the pack-horse, a game little Basuto pony, appointed to that office by reason of his extra sure-footedness, was within an ace of coming to grief more than once, while Sellon’s larger steed actually did turn a complete somersault, luckily without sustaining any injury, but causing his owner to bless his stars he was on his own feet at the time. The second great turret-head, foreshortened against the sky, now disappeared, shut back from view by the steep fall of the ground.

“We have touched bottom at last,” said Renshaw, as, to the unspeakable relief of the residue of the party – equine no less than human – comparatively level ground was reached. But the place they were now in looked like nothing so much as a dry stony river-bed. Barely a hundred yards in width, it was shut in on either side by gloomy krantzes, sheering up almost from the level itself.

“What a ghastly hole!” said Maurice, whom the dismal aspect of the gorge depressed. “How much further are these tunnel-like infernos going to last, Fanning? I swear it felt like a glimpse of daylight again, when we were riding up there past the two canister-headed gentry just now.”

“I shouldn’t have thought you were such an imaginative chap, Sellon.”

“Well, you see, this everlasting feeling of being shut in is dismal work. Beastly depressing, don’t you know.”

“You must make up your mind to it a little longer. There’s a water-hole about an hour from here, and there we’ll off-saddle and lie by for a snooze. By the way, it’s dry here, isn’t it?”

“Ghastly! It looks like a place where a stream should be running, too.”

“Well, I’ve seen such a roaring, racing, mountainous torrent galloping down here, that there wasn’t foothold for man or beast anywhere between these krantzes. By-the-by, you may devoutly pray that there’s no rain during the next few days. A thunder-storm in the mountains higher up would set the whole of this place humming with water.”

The sun had left them, and the grey dead silence of the savage defile seemed to echo back the tones of their voices and the clink of the horses’ hoofs, with abnormal clearness. Sellon eyed the grim rock walls towering over their heads, and growled.

“Well, it’s a beastly place, as I said before. And talking about water, that’s the worst of this country – you always have either not enough or else too much of it. All the same, I’m glad to hear we shall soon have some to dilute our grog with tonight. This rattling over stones is dry and throaty work, and the water in your leathern thing must have touched boiling point by now. What’s the row?”

The last came in a quick, startled tone. Renshaw had suddenly slid from his saddle, and was picking up some of the large stones which lay in such plentiful profusion. As he arose from this occupation a great rolling, writhing shape became apparent upon a sandspit barely a dozen yards off. Up went the hideous head into the air, waving to and fro above the great heaving coil, and the cruel eyes scintillated with a baleful fire. The horses backed and shied in alarm, snorting violently. Shorter and shorter became the movements of the head, and the forking tongue protruded as the formidable reptile emitted a bloodcurdling hiss. Maurice Sellon felt himself shuddering with horror and repulsion as he gazed for the first time upon the glistening, check-patterned coils of a large python.

Whizz! Whack! The stone launched from Renshaw’s practised hand just grazed the waving neck, knocking splinters from the rock behind. With another appalling hiss, the creature, its head still aloft, began to uncoil, as if with the object of rushing upon its antagonist.

Whack! With unerring aim, with the velocity of a catapult, the second stone came full in contact with the muscular writhing neck. The frightful head dropped as if by magic, and the great scaly coils heaved and sprawled about on the sand in a dying agony.

“Broken his neck,” said Renshaw, cautiously approaching the expiring reptile, and letting into him with the remaining stones he held in his left hand. “Python. Twelve feet if he’s an inch.”

“Good old shot! First-rate!” cried Maurice, enthusiastically. “I say, old chap, I envy you. A great wriggling brute like that makes me sick only to look at him. Pah!” he added, with a shudder.

“Look out for his mate,” said Renshaw, remounting. “Pythons often go in couples. And I am sorry to say there are a good many snakes about here.”

“Baugh! Bau – augh!”

The loud sonorous bark echoed forth in startling suddenness among the overhanging cliffs. But it didn’t seem to come from high overhead. It sounded almost in their path.

“Baboons!” said Renshaw. “They must be all round our water-hole. There they are. No – on no account fire.”

The poort here widened out. Grassy slopes arose to the base of the cliffs. In the centre lay a rocky pool, whose placid surface glittered mirror-like in the gloaming. But between this and the horsemen was a crowd of dark, uncouth shapes. Again that loud warning bark sounded forth – this time overhead, but so near that it struck upon the human ear as almost menacing.

“Baboons, eh?” said Sellon, catching sight of the brutes. “I’m going to charge them.”

Renshaw smiled quietly to himself.

“Charge away,” he said. “But whatever you do, don’t fire a shot. It may bring down upon us a very different sort of obstructive than a clompje of baviaans, and then this undertaking is one more added to the list of failures, even if we get out with whole skins.”

But Maurice hardly heard him to the end, as, spurring up his horse, he dashed straight at the troop of baboons. The latter, for their kind, were abnormally large. There might have been about threescore of the great ungainly brutes, squatting around on the rocks which overhung the pool.

As the horseman galloped up they could be seen baring their great tusks, grinning angrily. But they did not move.

Sellon had not bargained for this. The great apes, squatted together, showing an unmoved front to the aggressor, looked sufficiently formidable, not to say threatening. Sellon’s pace slowed down to a walk before he got within sixty yards of them. Then he halted and sat staring irresolutely at the hideous beasts. Still they showed no sort of disposition to give way. For a few moments both parties stood thus eyeing each other.

All of a sudden, led by about a dozen of the largest, the whole troop of hairy monsters came shambling forward – gibbering and gnashing their great tusks in unpleasantly suggestive fashion. A second more, and Sellon would have turned tail and fled ignominiously, when —

Whizz! Whack-whack! whack! A perfect shower of sharp stones came pelting into the thick of the ugly crowd with the swiftness and accuracy of a Winchester rifle, knocking out eyes, battering hairy limbs, playing havoc among them, like a charge of grape-shot. With yells of pain and terror, the brutes turned and fled, scampering up the rocks in all directions.

Renshaw, guessing the turn events were likely to take, had quietly dismounted, and, filling his hands and pockets with stones, had advanced to the support of his now discomfited friend.

“Those brutes don’t understand us quite,” he said, after the roar of laughter evoked by this sudden turn in the tide of affairs had subsided. “One shot would have sent them scampering, but we dared not fire it. They are not used to the human form divine in this wilderness, but they won’t forget that bombardment in a hurry.”

“By Jingo! no. Fancy being obstructed by a herd of monkeys. All the same, old chap, they did look ugly sitting there champing their tusks at one like that.”

“So they did. Now we’ll let our horses drink, and then adjourn to our sleeping-place. We mustn’t camp too near the water, because the krantzes swarm with tigers (leopards), to say nothing of worse cattle, who might interfere with us if we kept them from their nightly drink. And we can’t light a fire to-night.”