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Page 107
"I tried to cross Solomon's Mountains nearly two years ago," was the
answer, spoken in the hesitating voice of a man who has had little
recent opportunity of using his tongue, "but when I reached here a
boulder fell on my leg and crushed it, and I have been able to go
neither forward nor back."
Then I came up. "How do you do, Mr. Neville?" I said; "do you remember
me?"
"Why," he said, "isn't it Hunter Quatermain, eh, and Good too? Hold on
a minute, you fellows, I am getting dizzy again. It is all so very
strange, and, when a man has ceased to hope, so very happy!"
That evening, over the camp fire, George Curtis told us his story,
which, in its way, was almost as eventful as our own, and, put
shortly, amounted to this. A little less than two years before, he had
started from Sitanda's Kraal, to try to reach Suliman's Berg. As for
the note I had sent him by Jim, that worthy lost it, and he had never
heard of it till to-day. But, acting upon information he had received
from the natives, he headed not for Sheba's Breasts, but for the
ladder-like descent of the mountains down which we had just come,
which is clearly a better route than that marked out in old Dom
Silvestra's plan. In the desert he and Jim had suffered great
hardships, but finally they reached this oasis, where a terrible
accident befell George Curtis. On the day of their arrival he was
sitting by the stream, and Jim was extracting the honey from the nest
of a stingless bee which is to be found in the desert, on the top of a
bank immediately above him. In so doing he loosened a great boulder of
rock, which fell upon George Curtis's right leg, crushing it
frightfully. From that day he had been so lame that he found it
impossible to go either forward or back, and had preferred to take the
chances of dying in the oasis to the certainty of perishing in the
desert.
As for food, however, they got on pretty well, for they had a good
supply of ammunition, and the oasis was frequented, especially at
night, by large quantities of game, which came thither for water.
These they shot, or trapped in pitfalls, using the flesh for food,
and, after their clothes wore out, the hides for clothing.
"And so," George Curtis ended, "we have lived for nearly two years,
like a second Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday, hoping against hope
that some natives might come here to help us away, but none have come.
Only last night we settled that Jim should leave me, and try to reach
Sitanda's Kraal to get assistance. He was to go to-morrow, but I had
little hope of ever seeing him back again. And now /you/, of all
people in the world, /you/, who, as I fancied, had long ago forgotten
all about me, and were living comfortably in old England, turn up in a
promiscuous way and find me where you least expected. It is the most
wonderful thing that I have ever heard of, and the most merciful too."
Then Sir Henry set to work, and told him the main facts of our
adventures, sitting till late into the night to do it.
"By Jove!" said George Curtis, when I showed him some of the diamonds:
"well, at least you have got something for your pains, besides my
worthless self."
Sir Henry laughed. "They belong to Quatermain and Good. It was a part
of the bargain that they should divide any spoils there might be."
This remark set me thinking, and having spoken to Good, I told Sir
Henry that it was our joint wish that he should take a third portion
of the diamonds, or, if he would not, that his share should be handed
to his brother, who had suffered even more than ourselves on the
chance of getting them. Finally, we prevailed upon him to consent to
this arrangement, but George Curtis did not know of it until some time
afterwards.
*****
Here, at this point, I think that I shall end my history. Our journey
across the desert back to Sitanda's Kraal was most arduous, especially
as we had to support George Curtis, whose right leg was very weak
indeed, and continually threw out splinters of bone. But we did
accomplish it somehow, and to give its details would only be to
reproduce much of what happened to us on the former occasion.
Six months from the date of our re-arrival at Sitanda's, where we
found our guns and other goods quite safe, though the old rascal in
charge was much disgusted at our surviving to claim them, saw us all
once more safe and sound at my little place on the Berea, near Durban,
where I am now writing. Thence I bid farewell to all who have
accompanied me through the strangest trip I ever made in the course of
a long and varied experience.
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