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Page 28
"Phew," said I, grabbing at the halo of flies which buzzed cheerfully
round my head. The heat did not affect /them/.
"My word!" said Sir Henry.
"It is hot!" echoed Good.
It was hot, indeed, and there was not a bit of shelter to be found.
Look where we would there was no rock or tree, nothing but an unending
glare, rendered dazzling by the heated air that danced over the
surface of the desert as it dances over a red-hot stove.
"What is to be done?" asked Sir Henry; "we can't stand this for long."
We looked at each other blankly.
"I have it," said Good, "we must dig a hole, get in it, and cover
ourselves with the karoo bushes."
It did not seem a very promising suggestion, but at least it was
better than nothing, so we set to work, and, with the trowel we had
brought with us and the help of our hands, in about an hour we
succeeded in delving out a patch of ground some ten feet long by
twelve wide to the depth of two feet. Then we cut a quantity of low
scrub with our hunting-knives, and creeping into the hole, pulled it
over us all, with the exception of Ventv�gel, on whom, being a
Hottentot, the heat had no particular effect. This gave us some slight
shelter from the burning rays of the sun, but the atmosphere in that
amateur grave can be better imagined than described. The Black Hole of
Calcutta must have been a fool to it; indeed, to this moment I do not
know how we lived through the day. There we lay panting, and every now
and again moistening our lips from our scanty supply of water. Had we
followed our inclinations we should have finished all we possessed in
the first two hours, but we were forced to exercise the most rigid
care, for if our water failed us we knew that very soon we must perish
miserably.
But everything has an end, if only you live long enough to see it, and
somehow that miserable day wore on towards evening. About three
o'clock in the afternoon we determined that we could bear it no
longer. It would be better to die walking that to be killed slowly by
heat and thirst in this dreadful hole. So taking each of us a little
drink from our fast diminishing supply of water, now warmed to about
the same temperature as a man's blood, we staggered forward.
We had then covered some fifty miles of wilderness. If the reader will
refer to the rough copy and translation of old da Silvestra's map, he
will see that the desert is marked as measuring forty leagues across,
and the "pan bad water" is set down as being about in the middle of
it. Now forty leagues is one hundred and twenty miles, consequently we
ought at the most to be within twelve or fifteen miles of the water if
any should really exist.
Through the afternoon we crept slowly and painfully along, scarcely
doing more than a mile and a half in an hour. At sunset we rested
again, waiting for the moon, and after drinking a little managed to
get some sleep.
Before we lay down, Umbopa pointed out to us a slight and indistinct
hillock on the flat surface of the plain about eight miles away. At
the distance it looked like an ant-hill, and as I was dropping off to
sleep I fell to wondering what it could be.
With the moon we marched again, feeling dreadfully exhausted, and
suffering tortures from thirst and prickly heat. Nobody who has not
felt it can know what we went through. We walked no longer, we
staggered, now and again falling from exhaustion, and being obliged to
call a halt every hour or so. We had scarcely energy left in us to
speak. Up to this Good had chatted and joked, for he is a merry
fellow; but now he had not a joke in him.
At last, about two o'clock, utterly worn out in body and mind, we came
to the foot of the queer hill, or sand koppie, which at first sight
resembled a gigantic ant-heap about a hundred feet high, and covering
at the base nearly two acres of ground.
Here we halted, and driven to it by our desperate thirst, sucked down
our last drops of water. We had but half a pint a head, and each of us
could have drunk a gallon.
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