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Page 106
"I almost wish I were back," said Good, with a sigh.
As for myself, I reflected that all's well that ends well; but in the
course of a long life of shaves, I never had such shaves as those
which I had recently experienced. The thought of that battle makes me
feel cold all over, and as for our experience in the treasure
chamber--!
Next morning we started on a toilsome trudge across the desert, having
with us a good supply of water carried by our five guides, and camped
that night in the open, marching again at dawn on the morrow.
By noon of the third day's journey we could see the trees of the oasis
of which the guides spoke, and within an hour of sundown we were
walking once more upon grass and listening to the sound of running
water.
CHAPTER XX
FOUND
And now I come to perhaps the strangest adventure that happened to us
in all this strange business, and one which shows how wonderfully
things are brought about.
I was walking along quietly, some way in front of the other two, down
the banks of the stream which runs from the oasis till it is swallowed
up in the hungry desert sands, when suddenly I stopped and rubbed my
eyes, as well I might. There, not twenty yards in front of me, placed
in a charming situation, under the shade of a species of fig-tree, and
facing to the stream, was a cosy hut, built more or less on the Kafir
principle with grass and withes, but having a full-length door instead
of a bee-hole.
"What the dickens," said I to myself, "can a hut be doing here?" Even
as I said it the door of the hut opened, and there limped out of it a
/white man/ clothed in skins, and with an enormous black beard. I
thought that I must have got a touch of the sun. It was impossible. No
hunter ever came to such a place as this. Certainly no hunter would
ever settle in it. I stared and stared, and so did the other man, and
just at that juncture Sir Henry and Good walked up.
"Look here, you fellows," I said, "is that a white man, or am I mad?"
Sir Henry looked, and Good looked, and then all of a sudden the lame
white man with a black beard uttered a great cry, and began hobbling
towards us. When he was close he fell down in a sort of faint.
With a spring Sir Henry was by his side.
"Great Powers!" he cried, "/it is my brother George!/"
At the sound of this disturbance, another figure, also clad in skins,
emerged from the hut, a gun in his hand, and ran towards us. On seeing
me he too gave a cry.
"Macumazahn," he halloed, "don't you know me, Baas? I'm Jim the
hunter. I lost the note you gave me to give to the Baas, and we have
been here nearly two years." And the fellow fell at my feet, and
rolled over and over, weeping for joy.
"You careless scoundrel!" I said; "you ought to be well /sjambocked/"
--that is, hided.
Meanwhile the man with the black beard had recovered and risen, and he
and Sir Henry were pump-handling away at each other, apparently
without a word to say. But whatever they had quarrelled about in the
past--I suspect it was a lady, though I never asked--it was evidently
forgotten now.
"My dear old fellow," burst out Sir Henry at last, "I thought you were
dead. I have been over Solomon's Mountains to find you. I had given up
all hope of ever seeing you again, and now I come across you perched
in the desert, like an old /assv�gel/."[*]
[*] Vulture.
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