Hair-Breadth Escapes Part 18

"You're right, Ernest," said Frank; "we ought not to take it in that way. Indeed, I am sure I am thankful enough for the mercy shown us, and should be sorry if you thought otherwise. And so does Nick, too, I'll answer for it."

"Of course I'm thankful," said Gilbert. "And I dare say I am too apt to turn things into jest. Well, we'll drop the matter now, at all events.

And by the same token, here comes the doctor. Now, I suppose, we shall hear whether this place will do for our halt for the night or not.

Well, doctor, is the rascal really gone?"

"Yes, I am satisfied he is. I doubted, at first, whether Omatoko really believed in the beetle. He has lived so long among the Dutch, that I thought he might have learned better. But he hasn't, I am persuaded.

Yes, he has really gone back. He daren't follow us."

"That is well, at all events. Well, what do you think of this as a halting-place? It's an abandoned kraal, I suppose, only it must have belonged to some tribe of savages, who took more pains with their house-building than those Namaquas."

"Kraal, Nick? Do you suppose these houses, for such they may certainly be called; do you suppose these houses to be the handiwork of men?"

"To be sure I do," returned Nick; "who but men could have built them?"

"They are nests of white ants," said Lavie, "and if we were to stay here all night, our clothes, our knapsacks, our belts, and everything that could be devoured by them, would be gnawed to pieces!"

"Ants, doctor! You are joking, surely. What--that hut there, or whatever it is, is a good twenty feet high, and thirty, I'll go bail for it, in diameter? Ants make that! It isn't possible."

"It's true, anyhow," said Lavie. "I know they have been found more than a hundred feet in circ.u.mference. It is the enormous number of the ants that enables them to construct such huge dwellings. And, after all, their work is nothing compared with that of the coral insect of the Pacific."

"Don't they sometimes build in the trunks of trees?" asked Warley.

"Very frequently," answered the surgeon. "Their mode of going to work, when they do, is very much like their house-building. In the latter case, they heap together an immense ma.s.s of earth, which they form into innumerable galleries, all leading, inwards, to the central chamber of the structure. When they choose a tree, and they generally pitch upon one of the largest trees they can find--a baobab, perhaps, or a giant fig--they simply eat these galleries out of the wood, taking care never to disturb the outer bark. In this manner they will sometimes destroy the whole inside of a vast fruit tree so completely, that it crumbles to dust as soon as touched."

"Well, it is very wonderful," said Frank, "I wonder how it happens that we have seen nothing of them during the two hours or so that we have been here."

"That is because they work only by night. It is supposed, I believe, that they are torpid by day."

"Well, then, I suppose we must shift our quarters," remarked Nick. "It would not be pleasant to have the clothes eaten off one's back, certainly. We had better start, hadn't we, or it will be late?"

"Stop a moment," said Lavie, who had been carefully noting one particular ant-hill for some minutes. "Ay, I thought so," he added presently, "there is a bees' nest in yonder mound, and most likely a large acc.u.mulation of honey. If you are fond of honey, you may sup off it without difficulty."

"I am very particularly fond of honey," answered Nick, "but I don't know about there being no difficulty. The last time I a.s.sisted at the taking of a hive, there was a very considerable 'difficulty.' I was stung, in fact, so badly, that I vowed never to go near bees again. However, if _you_ don't mind--"

"None of us need mind," said the surgeon; "these bees are different from our English bees. They never sting people. There isn't even any necessity to smoke them."

"Really!" returned Nick. "Now that I call the height of amiability.

But are you sure, doctor? It seems too good to be possible."

"You'll soon see," said Lavie, walking up to the mound he had marked.

"Ay, there is the hole where the bee went in. Just hand me the knife, Ernest." He cleared away the earth, avoiding, as much as possible, any injury to the work of the bees, and presently laid bare a great ma.s.s of comb, full of honey and pollen; of this he cut off several large pieces, as much as they could conveniently carry; the bees, in complete justification of his a.s.surances, offering no kind of interference--a fact which drew forth a second eulogium from Nick, who only deplored, he said, that they couldn't be conveyed to England, to instruct their brethren there.

They now resumed their journey, resolving to camp for the night at the first spot where shade and water were to be found. But their quest was not fortunate. The afternoon was unusually scorching and dry; and though they came to several patches of trees and shrubs, they could find neither fount nor pool. At length the sun had declined so low in the horizon, that it was plain that scarcely more than an hour of daylight remained; and they would have to pa.s.s the night without having quenched their thirst, unless water should very speedily be discovered.

Under these circ.u.mstances they were greatly rejoiced to see Lion, who had been trotting along soberly by Frank's side ever since they left the ant-hills, suddenly throw up his head and snuff the air, which were his modes of indicating that there was a spring at no great distance.

"Hurrah! old fellow," shouted Frank; "off then, and find it. We'll have a race, Nick, which shall reach it first."

They started off, the other two following at a somewhat slower pace.

Lion soon went ahead, directing the course of the boys towards a small kloof, visible about a mile off, containing a grove of palms and date trees, with a thick belt of underwood surrounding it. Heedless of the heat, which by this time, however, was a little tempered by the cool breeze that had sprung up at sunset, they bounded gaily along, and presently reached the kloof. It appeared to Frank--who, closely following Lion, was the first of the four to enter it--quite a little Paradise. Under the shade of the palms, surrounded by delicious verdure, was a large spring bubbling up from the ground, and stealing away in a brook, which ran babbling through the thicket, until lost to sight.

"Hurrah!" he shouted. "Now for a jolly drink! What is the matter, old boy?" he added a moment afterwards, as Lion instead of plunging into the cool water, as was his ordinary habit, stood still on the brink, looking up into Frank's face, with a perplexed and wistful look. "What's the matter, Lion, why don't you drink? I suppose, poor beast," he added, "he hasn't quite recovered even yet. Get out of the way, Lion; what are you about? If you are not thirsty, at all events I am!"

He pushed the mastiff out of the way as he spoke, and throwing himself on his hands and knees, took a long and delicious draught. "You don't know what is good, Lion," he said. "It's a rum colour, and there is an odd sort of taste about the water; but it is beautifully cool and refreshing. Come, drink, old chap; it will do you a heap of good."

The dog, however, persistently refused to touch the water; and Nick, who by this time had reached the grove, was so struck by the animal's demeanour, that he paused before stooping to the waterside, and eyed it with mingled doubt and curiosity. The next minute Lavie's voice was heard--

"Don't any of you touch the water till I come."

"I am afraid that warning comes rather late in the day for me," said Frank, laughing, though he felt, nevertheless, a little uneasy. "I've had a delicious draught already. Why isn't one to touch it, Charles?"

he continued, as the doctor approached.

"I came upon a gnu, a minute or two ago, lying dead in the thicket. It had no wound, and I suspected it had been poisoned. I know it is very often the practice of the Bushmen to mix poisons of one kind or another with the wells, and so kill the animals that drink at them. But very likely the water is all right; only I had better examine it before-- stay, what is this? Won't Lion drink it?"

"No, he won't," said Frank; "and, Charles, I am sorry to say, I have drunk a good deal of it before you called out I am afraid there is something wrong. I feel very queer, anyhow."

"How do you feel?" asked Lavie, taking his pulse.

"I feel a giddiness in my head, and a singing in the ears, and am very shaky on my legs. I had better lie down. I dare say it will go off presently." He sank, as he spoke, rather than lay down, on the bank.

"Put your fingers down your throat, and try if you can't bring the water off again," said the doctor. "Unluckily, I have no emetic in my knapsacks. The Hottentots emptied out all the drugs, while they had possession of our things."

Frank obeyed his directions, but with very little effect. He became presently very drowsy, and Lavie, making a bed for him under a mimosa, covered him up with all the spare garments of the rest of the party, and some heaps of long dry gra.s.s. In a few minutes Frank seemed to be asleep.

"Do you think he is very bad?" inquired Warley earnestly.

"I don't like the look of things, I must say," was the answer; "we don't know what the poison is which the Bushmen have mixed with the water, and therefore it would be difficult to apply the antidote, even if it could be found here. Generally these poisons work very slow in the instance of men, whatever they may do in animals. The best chance, I think, would be to give him large draughts of fresh wholesome water, if we could find it. It would probably dilute the poison and carry it off, and it would anyway be good for him, as his pulse shows him to be very feverish."

"We'll go and hunt for water," said Warley, "Nick and I; you stay with Frank."

They took their guns, and went off in different directions. Warley directed his steps towards another kloof, about two miles off, between two high and stony hills. Trees and gra.s.s seemed to be growing in it almost as abundantly as in that which he had just left, and if so, there was probably either a brook, or water underground, which might be obtained by digging. He hurried on as fast as he could, for the darkness was fast coming on, and was within a hundred yards of the kloof, when a fine gemsbok, with its tall upright horns, came bounding down the narrow path at its utmost speed. The creature checked itself the moment it saw Ernest. The hills on either side were too steep to be mounted, unless at a foot-pace, and the gemsbok's instinct taught it that this would place it at the mercy of an enemy. As soon therefore as it could stop itself, it turned short round and galloped back into the kloof. Warley fired after it, but his nerves were discomposed, and the light was so bad that he could hardly have hoped to hit. He could hear the bok rushing along with unabated speed, the sound of its feet dying off in the gorge of the mountain; but two minutes afterwards there came another sound, which seemed like the crack of a ride, though at a considerable distance.

If this was so, there must be some person, beside their own party, somewhere about; for the shot could not have been fired by either Lavie or Nick. At another time, Warley would have hesitated before going in search of a stranger in so wild a region as that of the Kalahari. The shot might have come from a party of Bushmen or Bechuanas; some few of whom, he knew, had possessed themselves of European firearms. In that case, himself and his whole party would run a very imminent risk of being seized and murdered for the sake of their rifles. And even if the person should prove to be a European, it was as likely as not, that he was an escaped convict from the Cape prisons, who might be even more dangerous to encounter than the savages of the desert. But Frank's situation forbade any considerations of this kind. To secure even the chance of obtaining help for him, was enough to overpower all other calculations.

He hurried on accordingly in the direction whence the sound had come as fast as possible, and after half an hour's exertion, was rewarded by seeing a long way off the figure of a man carrying a gun over his shoulder. Even at that distance, and in spite of the uncertain light, Ernest could perceive that he was a European. Somewhat a.s.sured by this, he shouted at the top of his voice, and presently saw the stranger stop, and look behind him. The sight of Ernest seemed to surprise him, for after looking fixedly at him for a few moments, he walked rapidly down the glen to meet him. As they approached nearer, Warley could distinguish that the new comer was a man advanced in life, but of a hardy frame, and his features showed traces of long exposure to the extremes of cold and heat His dress was peculiar. It consisted of a hunting-coat of some dark woollen material, with breeches and gaiters to match, and a broad leather belt, in which were stuck a variety of articles, which might be needed in crossing the desert:--a drinking-cup of horn, a flint and steel, a case containing apparently small articles of value, together with a powder-flask and shot-case. His long gun he carried slung over his shoulder; and a large broad brimmed hat, the roof of which was thick enough to resist the fiery rays of even an African sun, completed his attire. He was not a hunter, that was plain. He could hardly be a farmer or an itinerant trader, and tourists in those days were persons very rarely to be met with. Moreover, his first address showed him to be a man of superior education to any of these.

"I wish you good day, sir," he said in correct English, though with something of a foreign accent. "I did not know that there was any other traveller in this neighbourhood, or I should have sought his society.

May I ask your name, and whether you are alone, or one of a party?"

"There are four of us," answered Warley, "we are Englishmen, who have been wrecked on the western coast, and are now trying to make our way to Cape Town."

"Indeed," returned the stranger, "but you are aware, I presume, that this is not the nearest way from the west coast to the town you name.

You have come a long distance out of your way and chosen a very undesirable route."

"No doubt," said Ernest, "but we could not help ourselves. We fell in with a Hottentot tribe, and have had a narrow escape from their hands.

But we are in a great strait now. One of our party has incautiously drunk a quant.i.ty of water at a fountain near here, which we have since discovered to be poisoned; and none of us--"

"What the spring in the kloof, about two miles back, I suppose,"

interrupted the stranger. "I pa.s.sed it two or three hours ago. I noticed that it had been poisoned--poisoned by euphorbia juice. Your friend cannot have had much experience of the Kalahari, or he would have detected it at once. You may always know water poisoned in that manner by its clay-like appearance. How much did he drink?"