CHAPTER VI
WATER! WATER!
Two hours later, that is, about four o'clock, I woke up, for so soon asthe first heavy demand of bodily fatigue had been satisfied, thetorturing thirst from which I was suffering asserted itself. I couldsleep no more. I had been dreaming that I was bathing in a runningstream, with green banks and trees upon them, and I awoke to findmyself in this arid wilderness, and to remember, as Umbopa had said,that if we did not find water this day we must perish miserably. Nohuman creature could live long without water in that heat. I sat up andrubbed my grimy face with my dry and horny hands, as my lips andeyelids were stuck together, and it was only after some friction andwith an effort that I was able to open them. It was not far from dawn,but there was none of the bright feel of dawn in the air, which wasthick with a hot murkiness that I cannot describe. The others werestill sleeping.
Presently it began to grow light enough to read, so I drew out a littlepocket copy of the "Ingoldsby Legends" which I had brought with me, andread "The Jackdaw of Rheims." When I got to where
"A nice little boy held a golden ewer, Embossed, and filled with water as pure As any that flows between Rheims and Namur,"
literally I smacked my cracking lips, or rather tried to smack them.The mere thought of that pure water made me mad. If the Cardinal hadbeen there with his bell, book, and candle, I would have whipped in anddrunk his water up; yes, even if he had filled it already with the sudsof soap "worthy of washing the hands of the Pope," and I knew that thewhole consecrated curse of the Catholic Church should fall upon me forso doing. I almost think that I must have been a little light-headedwith thirst, weariness and the want of food; for I fell to thinking howastonished the Cardinal and his nice little boy and the jackdaw wouldhave looked to see a burnt up, brown-eyed, grizzly-haired littleelephant hunter suddenly bound between them, put his dirty face intothe basin, and swallow every drop of the precious water. The ideaamused me so much that I laughed or rather cackled aloud, which wokethe others, and they began to rub _their_ dirty faces and drag _their_gummed-up lips and eyelids apart.
As soon as we were all well awake we began to discuss the situation,which was serious enough. Not a drop of water was left. We turned thebottles upside down, and licked their tops, but it was a failure; theywere dry as a bone. Good, who had charge of the flask of brandy, got itout and looked at it longingly; but Sir Henry promptly took it awayfrom him, for to drink raw spirit would only have been to precipitatethe end.
"If we do not find water we shall die," he said.
"If we can trust to the old Dom's map there should be some about," Isaid; but nobody seemed to derive much satisfaction from this remark.It was so evident that no great faith could be put in the map. Now itwas gradually growing light, and as we sat staring blankly at eachother, I observed the Hottentot Ventvoegel rise and begin to walk aboutwith his eyes on the ground. Presently he stopped short, and uttering aguttural exclamation, pointed to the earth.
"What is it?" we exclaimed; and rising simultaneously we went to wherehe was standing staring at the sand.
"Well," I said, "it is fresh Springbok spoor; what of it?"
"Springbucks do not go far from water," he answered in Dutch.
"No," I answered, "I forgot; and thank God for it."
This little discovery put new life into us; for it is wonderful, when aman is in a desperate position, how he catches at the slightest hope,and feels almost happy. On a dark night a single star is better thannothing.
Meanwhile Ventvoegel was lifting his snub nose, and sniffing the hot airfor all the world like an old Impala ram who scents danger. Presentlyhe spoke again.
"I _smell_ water," he said.
Then we felt quite jubilant, for we knew what a wonderful instinctthese wild-bred men possess.
Just at that moment the sun came up gloriously, and revealed so grand asight to our astonished eyes that for a moment or two we even forgotour thirst.
There, not more than forty or fifty miles from us, glittering likesilver in the early rays of the morning sun, soared Sheba's Breasts;and stretching away for hundreds of miles on either side of them ranthe great Suliman Berg. Now that, sitting here, I attempt to describethe extraordinary grandeur and beauty of that sight, language seems tofail me. I am impotent even before its memory. Straight before us, rosetwo enormous mountains, the like of which are not, I believe, to beseen in Africa, if indeed there are any other such in the world,measuring each of them at least fifteen thousand feet in height,standing not more than a dozen miles apart, linked together by aprecipitous cliff of rock, and towering in awful white solemnitystraight into the sky. These mountains placed thus, like the pillars ofa gigantic gateway, are shaped after the fashion of a woman's breasts,and at times the mists and shadows beneath them take the form of arecumbent woman, veiled mysteriously in sleep. Their bases swell gentlyfrom the plain, looking at that distance perfectly round and smooth;and upon the top of each is a vast hillock covered with snow, exactlycorresponding to the nipple on the female breast. The stretch of cliffthat connects them appears to be some thousands of feet in height, andperfectly precipitous, and on each flank of them, so far as the eye canreach, extent similar lines of cliff, broken only here and there byflat table-topped mountains, something like the world-famed one at CapeTown; a formation, by the way, that is very common in Africa.
To describe the comprehensive grandeur of that view is beyond mypowers. There was something so inexpressibly solemn and overpoweringabout those huge volcanoes--for doubtless they are extinctvolcanoes--that it quite awed us. For a while the morning lights playedupon the snow and the brown and swelling masses beneath, and then, asthough to veil the majestic sight from our curious eyes, strangevapours and clouds gathered and increased around the mountains, tillpresently we could only trace their pure and gigantic outlines, showingghostlike through the fleecy envelope. Indeed, as we afterwardsdiscovered, usually they were wrapped in this gauze-like mist, whichdoubtless accounted for our not having seen them more clearly before.
Sheba's Breasts had scarcely vanished into cloud-clad privacy, beforeour thirst--literally a burning question--reasserted itself.
It was all very well for Ventvoegel to say that he smelt water, but wecould see no signs of it, look which way we would. So far as the eyemight reach there was nothing but arid sweltering sand and karoo scrub.We walked round the hillock and gazed about anxiously on the otherside, but it was the same story, not a drop of water could be found;there was no indication of a pan, a pool, or a spring.
"You are a fool," I said angrily to Ventvoegel; "there is no water."
But still he lifted his ugly snub nose and sniffed.
"I smell it, Baas," he answered; "it is somewhere in the air."
"Yes," I said, "no doubt it is in the clouds, and about two monthshence it will fall and wash our bones."
Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard thoughtfully. "Perhaps it is on thetop of the hill," he suggested.
"Rot," said Good; "whoever heard of water being found at the top of ahill!"
"Let us go and look," I put in, and hopelessly enough we scrambled upthe sandy sides of the hillock, Umbopa leading. Presently he stopped asthough he was petrified.
"_Nanzia manzie_!" that is, "Here is water!" he cried with a loud voice.
We rushed up to him, and there, sure enough, in a deep cut orindentation on the very top of the sand koppie, was an undoubted poolof water. How it came to be in such a strange place we did not stop toinquire, nor did we hesitate at its black and unpleasant appearance. Itwas water, or a good imitation of it, and that was enough for us. Wegave a bound and a rush, and in another second we were all down on ourstomachs sucking up the uninviting fluid as though it were nectar fitfor the gods. Heavens, how we did drink! Then when we had done drinkingwe tore off our clothes and sat down in the pool, absorbing themoisture through our parched skins. You, Harry, my boy, who have onlyto turn on a couple of taps to summon "hot" and "cold" from an unseen,vasty cistern, can have little idea of th
e luxury of that muddy wallowin brackish tepid water.
After a while we rose from it, refreshed indeed, and fell to on our"biltong," of which we had scarcely been able to touch a mouthful fortwenty-four hours, and ate our fill. Then we smoked a pipe, and laydown by the side of that blessed pool, under the overhanging shadow ofits bank, and slept till noon.
All that day we rested there by the water, thanking our stars that wehad been lucky enough to find it, bad as it was, and not forgetting torender a due share of gratitude to the shade of the long-departed daSilvestra, who had set its position down so accurately on the tail ofhis shirt. The wonderful thing to us was that the pan should havelasted so long, and the only way in which I can account for this is onthe supposition that it is fed by some spring deep down in the sand.
Having filled both ourselves and our water-bottles as full as possible,in far better spirits we started off again with the moon. That night wecovered nearly five-and-twenty miles; but, needless to say, found nomore water, though we were lucky enough the following day to get alittle shade behind some ant-heaps. When the sun rose, and, for awhile,cleared away the mysterious mists, Suliman's Berg with the two majesticBreasts, now only about twenty miles off, seemed to be towering rightabove us, and looked grander than ever. At the approach of evening wemarched again, and, to cut a long story short, by daylight next morningfound ourselves upon the lowest slopes of Sheba's left breast, forwhich we had been steadily steering. By this time our water wasexhausted once more, and we were suffering severely from thirst, norindeed could we see any chance of relieving it till we reached the snowline far, far above us. After resting an hour or two, driven to it byour torturing thirst, we went on, toiling painfully in the burning heatup the lava slopes, for we found that the huge base of the mountain wascomposed entirely of lava beds belched from the bowels of the earth insome far past age.
By eleven o'clock we were utterly exhausted, and, generally speaking,in a very bad state indeed. The lava clinker, over which we must dragourselves, though smooth compared with some clinker I have heard of,such as that on the Island of Ascension, for instance, was yet roughenough to make our feet very sore, and this, together with our othermiseries, had pretty well finished us. A few hundred yards above uswere some large lumps of lava, and towards these we steered with theintention of lying down beneath their shade. We reached them, and toour surprise, so far as we had a capacity for surprise left in us, on alittle plateau or ridge close by we saw that the clinker was coveredwith a dense green growth. Evidently soil formed of decomposed lava hadrested there, and in due course had become the receptacle of seedsdeposited by birds. But we did not take much further interest in thegreen growth, for one cannot live on grass like Nebuchadnezzar. Thatrequires a special dispensation of Providence and peculiar digestiveorgans.
So we sat down under the rocks and groaned, and for one I wishedheartily that we had never started on this fool's errand. As we weresitting there I saw Umbopa get up and hobble towards the patch ofgreen, and a few minutes afterwards, to my great astonishment, Iperceived that usually very dignified individual dancing and shoutinglike a maniac, and waving something green. Off we all scrambled towardshim as fast as our wearied limbs would carry us, hoping that he hadfound water.
"What is it, Umbopa, son of a fool?" I shouted in Zulu.
"It is food and water, Macumazahn," and again he waved the green thing.
Then I saw what he had found. It was a melon. We had hit upon a patchof wild melons, thousands of them, and dead ripe.
"Melons!" I yelled to Good, who was next me; and in another minute hisfalse teeth were fixed in one of them.
I think we ate about six each before we had done, and poor fruit asthey were, I doubt if I ever thought anything nicer.
But melons are not very nutritious, and when we had satisfied ourthirst with their pulpy substance, and put a stock to cool by thesimple process of cutting them in two and setting them end on in thehot sun to grow cold by evaporation, we began to feel exceedinglyhungry. We had still some biltong left, but our stomachs turned frombiltong, and besides, we were obliged to be very sparing of it, for wecould not say when we should find more food. Just at this moment alucky thing chanced. Looking across the desert I saw a flock of aboutten large birds flying straight towards us.
"_Skit, Baas, skit!_" "Shoot, master, shoot!" whispered the Hottentot,throwing himself on his face, an example which we all followed.
Then I saw that the birds were a flock of _pauw_ or bustards, and thatthey would pass within fifty yards of my head. Taking one of therepeating Winchesters, I waited till they were nearly over us, and thenjumped to my feet. On seeing me the _pauw_ bunched up together, as Iexpected that they would, and I fired two shots straight into the thickof them, and, as luck would have it, brought one down, a fine fellow,that weighed about twenty pounds. In half an hour we had a fire made ofdry melon stalks, and he was toasting over it, and we made such a feedas we had not tasted for a week. We ate that _pauw_; nothing was leftof him but his leg-bones and his beak, and we felt not a little thebetter afterwards.
That night we went on again with the moon, carrying as many melons aswe could with us. As we ascended we found the air grew cooler andcooler, which was a great relief to us, and at dawn, so far as we couldjudge, we were not more than about a dozen miles from the snow line.Here we discovered more melons, and so had no longer any anxiety aboutwater, for we knew that we should soon get plenty of snow. But theascent had now become very precipitous, and we made but slow progress,not more than a mile an hour. Also that night we ate our last morsel ofbiltong. As yet, with the exception of the _pauw_, we had seen noliving thing on the mountain, nor had we come across a single spring orstream of water, which struck us as very odd, considering the expanseof snow above us, which must, we thought, melt sometimes. But as weafterwards discovered, owing to a cause which it is quite beyond mypower to explain, all the streams flowed down upon the north side ofthe mountains.
Now we began to grow very anxious about food. We had escaped death bythirst, but it seemed probable that it was only to die of hunger. Theevents of the next three miserable days are best described by copyingthe entries made at the time in my note-book.
"21st May.--Started 11 a.m., finding the atmosphere quite cold enoughto travel by day, and carrying some water-melons with us. Struggled onall day, but found no more melons, having evidently passed out of theirdistrict. Saw no game of any sort. Halted for the night at sundown,having had no food for many hours. Suffered much during the night fromcold.
"22nd.--Started at sunrise again, feeling very faint and weak. Onlymade about five miles all day; found some patches of snow, of which weate, but nothing else. Camped at night under the edge of a greatplateau. Cold bitter. Drank a little brandy each, and huddled ourselvestogether, each wrapped up in his blanket, to keep ourselves alive. Arenow suffering frightfully from starvation and weariness. Thought thatVentvoegel would have died during the night.
"23rd.--Struggled forward once more as soon as the sun was well up, andhad thawed our limbs a little. We are now in a dreadful plight, and Ifear that unless we get food this will be our last day's journey. Butlittle brandy left. Good, Sir Henry, and Umbopa bear up wonderfully,but Ventvoegel is in a very bad way. Like most Hottentots, he cannotstand cold. Pangs of hunger not so bad, but have a sort of numb feelingabout the stomach. Others say the same. We are now on a level with theprecipitous chain, or wall of lava, linking the two Breasts, and theview is glorious. Behind us the glowing desert rolls away to thehorizon, and before us lie mile upon mile of smooth hard snow almostlevel, but swelling gently upwards, out of the centre of which thenipple of the mountain, that appears to be some miles in circumference,rises about four thousand feet into the sky. Not a living thing is tobe seen. God help us; I fear that our time has come."
And now I will drop the journal, partly because it is not veryinteresting reading; also what follows requires telling rather morefully.
All that day--the 23rd May--we struggled slowly up the inc
line of snow,lying down from time to time to rest. A strange gaunt crew we must havelooked, while, laden as we were, we dragged our weary feet over thedazzling plain, glaring round us with hungry eyes. Not that there wasmuch use in glaring, for we could see nothing to eat. We did notaccomplish more than seven miles that day. Just before sunset we foundourselves exactly under the nipple of Sheba's left Breast, whichtowered thousands of feet into the air, a vast smooth hillock of frozensnow. Weak as we were, we could not but appreciate the wonderful scene,made even more splendid by the flying rays of light from the settingsun, which here and there stained the snow blood-red, and crowned thegreat dome above us with a diadem of glory.
"I say," gasped Good, presently, "we ought to be somewhere near thatcave the old gentleman wrote about."
"Yes," said I, "if there is a cave."
"Come, Quatermain," groaned Sir Henry, "don't talk like that; I haveevery faith in the Dom; remember the water! We shall find the placesoon."
"If we don't find it before dark we are dead men, that is all aboutit," was my consolatory reply.
For the next ten minutes we trudged in silence, when suddenly Umbopa,who was marching along beside me, wrapped in his blanket, and with aleather belt strapped so tightly round his stomach, to "make his hungersmall," as he said, that his waist looked like a girl's, caught me bythe arm.
"Look!" he said, pointing towards the springing slope of the nipple.
I followed his glance, and some two hundred yards from us perceivedwhat appeared to be a hole in the snow.
"It is the cave," said Umbopa.
We made the best of our way to the spot, and found sure enough that thehole was the mouth of a cavern, no doubt the same as that of which daSilvestra wrote. We were not too soon, for just as we reached shelterthe sun went down with startling rapidity, leaving the world nearlydark, for in these latitudes there is but little twilight. So we creptinto the cave, which did not appear to be very big, and huddlingourselves together for warmth, swallowed what remained of ourbrandy--barely a mouthful each--and tried to forget our miseries insleep. But the cold was too intense to allow us to do so, for I amconvinced that at this great altitude the thermometer cannot havemarked less than fourteen or fifteen degrees below freezing point. Whatsuch a temperature meant to us, enervated as we were by hardship, wantof food, and the great heat of the desert, the reader may imaginebetter than I can describe. Suffice it to say that it was something asnear death from exposure as I have ever felt. There we sat hour afterhour through the still and bitter night, feeling the frost wander roundand nip us now in the finger, now in the foot, now in the face. In vaindid we huddle up closer and closer; there was no warmth in ourmiserable starved carcases. Sometimes one of us would drop into anuneasy slumber for a few minutes, but we could not sleep much, andperhaps this was fortunate, for if we had I doubt if we should haveever woke again. Indeed, I believe that it was only by force of willthat we kept ourselves alive at all.
Not very long before dawn I heard the Hottentot Ventvoegel, whose teethhad been chattering all night like castanets, give a deep sigh. Thenhis teeth stopped chattering. I did not think anything of it at thetime, concluding that he had gone to sleep. His back was restingagainst mine, and it seemed to grow colder and colder, till at last itfelt like ice.
At length the air began to grow grey with light, then golden arrowssped across the snow, and at last the glorious sun peeped above thelava wall and looked in upon our half-frozen forms. Also it looked uponVentvoegel, sitting there amongst us, _stone dead_. No wonder his backfelt cold, poor fellow. He had died when I heard him sigh, and was nowfrozen almost stiff. Shocked beyond measure, we dragged ourselves fromthe corpse--how strange is that horror we mortals have of thecompanionship of a dead body--and left it sitting there, its armsclasped about its knees.
By this time the sunlight was pouring its cold rays, for here they werecold, straight into the mouth of the cave. Suddenly I heard anexclamation of fear from someone, and turned my head.
And this is what I saw: Sitting at the end of the cavern--it was notmore than twenty feet long--was another form, of which the head restedon its chest and the long arms hung down. I stared at it, and saw thatthis too was a _dead man_, and, what was more, a white man.
The others saw also, and the sight proved too much for our shatterednerves. One and all we scrambled out of the cave as fast as ourhalf-frozen limbs would carry us.
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