Renshaw Fanning's Quest Part 23

"A blank draw this time," growled the latter, wearily. "And what an awful business it has been to get here! I wouldn't go through it again for a thousand pounds. And then, just think what a brace of fools we shall look to the people at Sunningdale."

Then as if the thought of Sunningdale--and what he had left there--put the crowning stone upon his misery, Sellon proceeded to curse most vehemently.

With weariness and disappointment, misfortune had overtaken our two friends since we saw them last. While riding along the burning sandy bottom of a dreary defile towards evening, the led horse had inadvertently trodden on a puff-adder--which, sluggish brute that it is, rarely gets out of the way. Blowing himself out with rage, this hideous reptile had flung up his squat bloated length, fastening his fangs in the leg of the unfortunate horse. The animal was doomed, and, indeed, in less than an hour was in its expiring throes.

Now, this was a terrible misfortune, for not only was the climbing and digging gear among the pack-load, but also the water-skin, and by far the greater part of their provisions; nearly the whole of the latter had to be abandoned, and loading up all that was indispensable upon their riding horses--already fast losing their former freshness--the two adventurers had pushed on. But by now the contents of the water-skin had run very low indeed; were it not for the lucky find of a tiny pool of slimy fetid water standing in a cavity of a rock, the horses would have given out already. As it was, they drank it up every drop, and felt the better for it.

"I doubt whether that bag of bones will carry me back, as it is," said Sellon, gloomily, eyeing his dejected steed, now too weary to graze.

"Sellon," said Renshaw, earnestly, still gazing around and completely ignoring his companion's last remark--"Sellon, I can't make it out now any more than the first time I was here. We have followed out the clue most minutely: 'Straight from the smaller turret-head, facing the setting sun. Within a day's ride.' Now, we have explored and surveyed every point westerly between north and south, and within a good deal more than a day's ride, thoroughly and exhaustively. There isn't the shadow of a trace of any such valley, or rather crater, as old Greenway describes. But let's go over the thing carefully again."

Suddenly Maurice sat up from his weary lounging att.i.tude.

"By Jove, Fanning, but you've given me an idea," he said, speaking eagerly and quickly.

"One moment," said Renshaw, holding up his hand. "I have an idea, too, and indeed it's astonishing it should never have struck me before. You must remember old Greenway was talking very disjointedly at the end of his yarn--poor old chap. He was nearly played out. Well, I tried to take down his words exactly as he uttered them. Look at this 'Straight from--the smaller one--facing the setting sun. Within--day's ride.'

Does nothing strike you now?"

"Can't say it does," growled Sellon, "except that the old sinner must have been telling a most infernal lie. We've spent the last four days fossicking around within a day's ride of his turret-top mountain, and devil a valley of the kind he describes exists."

"Well, what strikes me is this. He may have meant to say 'Within two days', or three days', or four days' ride.' See?"

"Yes. If that's so he might as well have told us there was plenty of gold to be found between this and Morocco. It would have helped us about as much. But now I'll give you my idea. It sounds 'tall,' and I dare say you'll laugh."

"Never mind. Drive on," rejoined Renshaw, looking up from the paper which he had been studying intently.

"Well, you mentioned the word 'crater' just now. If this 'valley' of old Stick-in-the-mud's really exists, it is, as you say, a crater-shaped concern. Now we've fooled away days in hunting for this place at the bottom of each and every mountain around. What if, after all, we ought to be looking for it at the top?"

An eager flash leaped from the other's eyes.

"By Jove! That is an idea!" he burst forth.

"Eh! Not a bad one, I think?" said Sellon, complacently.

"No. It just isn't."

For a few moments both sat staring at each other. Sellon was the first to speak.

"How about that queer c.o.c.k's-comb-looking peak we came round this morning?" he said. But Renshaw shook his head.

"Not that. There's no room for any such place on top of it."

"Not, eh? Look here, Fanning. Have you ever been up it?"

"No. But I've been to the top of every blessed berg of any considerable height around. I never went up that because it commands no range of ground that the others don't."

"Very well. My theory is that the best thing we can do is to make the ascent forthwith. Let me look at the yarn for a moment. Ah, here it is," he went on, pointing out a place on the soiled and weather-beaten doc.u.ment. "'We were looking about for a hole in a cave to sleep in, for it was coldish up there of nights.' 'Up there' you notice. Now, from its conformation, that c.o.c.k's-comb is about the only mountain top around here where they would be likely to find 'a hole or a cave,' for 'up there' points to the top of the mountain or near it. Do you follow?"

Renshaw nodded.

"All right. 'I saw we were skirting a deep valley--though it was more like a hole than a valley, for there was no way in or out,'" quoted Sellon again. "Now, you would hardly find such a formation at the bottom of a mountain--though you very conceivably might at the top."

"But I tell you there can't be room for such a thing at the top of that c.o.c.k's-comb," objected Renshaw, dubiously. "I've been all round the mountain more than once, and it's narrow at the top."

"Maybe. On the other hand, it may not be so narrow as you think. A mountain is the devil for changing its shape from whatever point you look at it--almost in whatever light or shade. Then, again, Greenway may have exaggerated the size of the hole. I tell you what it is, Fanning old chap. I believe I've solved the riddle that has been besting you all these years. As you said when we first talked the affair over, 'two heads are better than one--even donkeys' heads,'

There's a third head, and that's the head of the 'right nail,' and I believe we've hit it. Saddle up."

"Don't be too sanguine, Sellon. You'll be doubly sold if your idea ends in smoke."

They were not long in reaching the mountain referred to. It was of conical formation and flat-topped. But from one end of its table-like summit rose a precipitous, razor-backed ridge--serrated and on its broader side taking the shape of a c.o.c.k's-comb.

Though steep and in parts rugged, the ascent was easy; indeed, it seemed likely they could ride to the very summit. Renshaw eyeing the towering slope, shook his head.

"It's rough on the horses," he said. "They haven't got any superfluous energy at this stage of the proceedings, and that berg can't stand much under three thousand feet. Still they've got to go with us. If we left them down here they might be jumped; and then, again, if your idea should be the right one, we might be days up there. I only hope we shall find water, anyhow."

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

"IT IS A WHITE MAN'S SKULL."

It was, as Renshaw had put it, "rough on the horses." But the colonial horse, in contrast to his English brother, is pre-eminently an animal for use, and not for show and the primary object of supporting a crowd of stable hands. So puffing and panting, stumbling a little here and there, the poor beasts gallantly breasted the gra.s.sy steep in the wake of their masters, who had elected to spare their steeds by leading instead of riding them.

"The mountain certainly is built on a larger scale than one would think from below," p.r.o.nounced Renshaw, as he surveyed the summit which they were now very near. "We shall have to make a cast round to the left and look for a gully. The horses will never be able to climb over these rocks."

The said rocks lay strewn thickly around; remnants of a cliff at one time guarding this side of the summit, but which in past ages must have fallen away into fragments. From below they had seemed mere pebbles.

"Right you are," acquiesced Sellon, "Lead on."

A detour of a couple of hundred yards and they rounded the spur, which had ended abruptly in a precipice. They were now on the western angle of the mountain. Immediately above rose a lofty wall of rock, the nearer end of the c.o.c.k's-comb ridge. It continued in unbroken fall some hundreds of feet from where they stood. They had reached the extremity of the slope, and halting for a moment paused in admiration of the stately grandeur of the great cliff sweeping down into giddy depths.

"Let's take a look over," said Maurice, advancing cautiously to the angle formed by the projection whereon they stood, and lying flat to peer over the brink.

"Yes; only be careful," warned his companion.

As he peered over there was a "flap--flap--flap" echoing from the face of the cliff, like so many pistol-shots, as a cloud of great aasvogels, startled from their roosting places beneath, soared away over the abyss.

So near were the gigantic birds that the spectator could see the glitter of their eyes.

"By Jove, but I'd like to go down and have a look at the beggars'

nests," said Sellon, trying to peer still further over the brink, but in vain, for the aasvogel is among the most suspicious of birds, and, wherever possible, selects his home beneath a jutting projection, and thus out of eyeshot from above.

"They don't make any, only lay one egg apiece on the bare rock," said Renshaw, impatiently. "But come on. Man alive, we've no time for bird's-nesting. In half an hour it'll be dark."

The sun had gone off the lower world, though here, on high, he still touched with a golden splendour the red burnished face of the giant cliff. And now from their lofty elevation they were able to gaze forth upon a scene of unsurpa.s.sable wildness and grandeur. Mountains upon mountains, the embattled walls of a cliff-girdled summit standing in contrast beside a smooth, hog-backed hump; here and there a lofty peak sheering up defiant above its fellows, but everywhere a billowy sea of giant heads towering over the darkling grey of desolate valleys and gloomy rifts now merging into night. But all is utter lifelessness in the complete silence of its desolation--not a sound breaks upon the now fresh and cooling air--not a sight to tell of life and animation--save the ghostly wings of the great vultures floating away into s.p.a.ce. Then the sun sinks down behind the further ridge in ruddy sea, leaving the impression that, the whole world is on fire, until the l.u.s.trous afterglow fades into the grey shades of gloaming.

"No time for the beauties of Nature," went on Renshaw, as his companion, rising from his prostrate posture, rejoined him. "Look. There is our way up, if we are to get up at all. And a precious cranky staircase it is, too."

It was. A steep, stony gully, looking as if, in past ages, it had served for a water-shoot round the extremity of the razor-backed ridge.

It ran right down to the brink of the projection whereon they were standing, and, in fact, to reach it, at any rate with the horses, was a very risky feat indeed. Sellon suggested leaving them below--but this his companion would not hear of.