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Page 27
Shortly afterwards a little incident occurred which, though it
startled us at the time, gave rise to a laugh. Good was leading, as
the holder of the compass, which, being a sailor, of course he
understood thoroughly, and we were toiling along in single file behind
him, when suddenly we heard the sound of an exclamation, and he
vanished. Next second there arose all around us a most extraordinary
hubbub, snorts, groans, and wild sounds of rushing feet. In the faint
light, too, we could descry dim galloping forms half hidden by wreaths
of sand. The natives threw down their loads and prepared to bolt, but
remembering that there was nowhere to run to, they cast themselves
upon the ground and howled out that it was ghosts. As for Sir Henry
and myself, we stood amazed; nor was our amazement lessened when we
perceived the form of Good careering off in the direction of the
mountains, apparently mounted on the back of a horse and halloaing
wildly. In another second he threw up his arms, and we heard him come
to the earth with a thud.
Then I saw what had happened; we had stumbled upon a herd of sleeping
quagga, on to the back of one of which Good actually had fallen, and
the brute naturally enough got up and made off with him. Calling out
to the others that it was all right, I ran towards Good, much afraid
lest he should be hurt, but to my great relief I found him sitting in
the sand, his eye-glass still fixed firmly in his eye, rather shaken
and very much frightened, but not in any way injured.
After this we travelled on without any further misadventure till about
one o'clock, when we called a halt, and having drunk a little water,
not much, for water was precious, and rested for half an hour, we
started again.
On, on we went, till at last the east began to blush like the cheek of
a girl. Then there came faint rays of primrose light, that changed
presently to golden bars, through which the dawn glided out across the
desert. The stars grew pale and paler still, till at last they
vanished; the golden moon waxed wan, and her mountain ridges stood out
against her sickly face like the bones on the cheek of a dying man.
Then came spear upon spear of light flashing far away across the
boundless wilderness, piercing and firing the veils of mist, till the
desert was draped in a tremulous golden glow, and it was day.
Still we did not halt, though by this time we should have been glad
enough to do so, for we knew that when once the sun was fully up it
would be almost impossible for us to travel. At length, about an hour
later, we spied a little pile of boulders rising out of the plain, and
to this we dragged ourselves. As luck would have it, here we found an
overhanging slab of rock carpeted beneath with smooth sand, which
afforded a most grateful shelter from the heat. Underneath this we
crept, and each of us having drunk some water and eaten a bit of
biltong, we lay down and soon were sound asleep.
It was three o'clock in the afternoon before we woke, to find our
bearers preparing to return. They had seen enough of the desert
already, and no number of knives would have tempted them to come a
step farther. So we took a hearty drink, and having emptied our water-
bottles, filled them up again from the gourds that they had brought
with them, and then watched them depart on their twenty miles' tramp
home.
At half-past four we also started. It was lonely and desolate work,
for with the exception of a few ostriches there was not a single
living creature to be seen on all the vast expanse of sandy plain.
Evidently it was too dry for game, and with the exception of a deadly-
looking cobra or two we saw no reptiles. One insect, however, we found
abundant, and that was the common or house fly. There they came, "not
as single spies, but in battalions," as I think the Old Testament[*]
says somewhere. He is an extraordinary insect is the house fly. Go
where you will you find him, and so it must have been always. I have
seen him enclosed in amber, which is, I was told, quite half a million
years old, looking exactly like his descendant of to-day, and I have
little doubt but that when the last man lies dying on the earth he
will be buzzing round--if this event happens to occur in summer--
watching for an opportunity to settle on his nose.
[*] Readers must beware of accepting Mr. Quatermain's references as
accurate, as, it has been found, some are prone to do. Although
his reading evidently was limited, the impression produced by it
upon his mind was mixed. Thus to him the Old Testament and
Shakespeare were interchangeable authorities.--Editor.
At sunset we halted, waiting for the moon to rise. At last she came
up, beautiful and serene as ever, and, with one halt about two o'clock
in the morning, we trudged on wearily through the night, till at last
the welcome sun put a period to our labours. We drank a little and
flung ourselves down on the sand, thoroughly tired out, and soon were
all asleep. There was no need to set a watch, for we had nothing to
fear from anybody or anything in that vast untenanted plain. Our only
enemies were heat, thirst, and flies, but far rather would I have
faced any danger from man or beast than that awful trinity. This time
we were not so lucky as to find a sheltering rock to guard us from the
glare of the sun, with the result that about seven o'clock we woke up
experiencing the exact sensations one would attribute to a beefsteak
on a gridiron. We were literally being baked through and through. The
burning sun seemed to be sucking our very blood out of us. We sat up
and gasped.
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