Renshaw Fanning's Quest Part 25

He stood as one turned to stone, holding his very breath. He rubbed his eyes, and looked again. There it was still. Again he averted his gaze, and again he looked. The distant spark was glittering more brilliantly than ever. It seemed to gain in size and power as he looked. It held him spellbound with its green incandescence flashing forth from the darkness down there in the far depths.

He tore out the white lining of his soft hat, and bending down, nailed it to the ground with his pocket knife. Then he walked away a few yards and looked again. The spark had disappeared.

Feverishly he returned to the mark which he had set, now almost fearing to look. He need not have feared. There shone the "Eye"--more dazzling than ever.

Maurice Sellon, sleeping the dreamless slumber of a thoroughly exhausted man, started up with a smothered imprecation, as a hand gently shook him by the shoulder. But his deadened faculties sprang into quick life at the low impressive voice.

"At last! Come and look. The 'Eye' is shining like a star."

CHAPTER THIRTY.

"LIKE A STAR."

"Like a star!"

The two men stood gazing in silence not untinged with awe, upon this wonderful, this beautiful phenomenon. For how many ages--for how many generations of the human race had that marvellous Eye shone forth in the gloom of its untrodden solitude. The heart of the earth was unfolding a glimpse of its treasure-house.

Like a star! Yet that Eye, flashing, scintillating in its mysterious bed--was it not in a measure diabolical, luring men to destruction? Of the two who had sought to meddle with it, one had returned only to die; the other--had they not but a few days since handled his bleached and unburied skull?

These thoughts pa.s.sing through Renshaw's mind could not but temper the degree of wild exultation which he felt now that he had conquered at last. Sellon, on the other hand, could hardly restrain the wild hurrahs wherewith, but for the consciousness of probable peril, he would fain have given vent to his feelings.

"How far down is it, old chap?" said the latter, eagerly.

"Impossible to say. We can go forward a little now, and explore. It's not much of a moon, but there's light enough. But, for Heaven's sake, Sellon, restrain that excitable temperament of yours, or we shall have you plunging over one of these krantzes before you know where you are."

"All right, old boss. I'll keep cool. You can take the lead, if you like."

The light was misty and uncertain. The ground here took an abrupt fall.

Proceeding cautiously for a little distance down, they halted. The Eye had disappeared.

"Come on. We shall see it again directly," said Sellon, starting forward again.

But the other's hand dropped on his shoulder like a vice.

"Stop--for your life!"

"Eh? What's up?--Oh, Lord!"

He stood still enough then. Three or four steps further and he would have plunged into s.p.a.ce. In the faint illusive light of the spent moon, the treacherous cliff brow was well-nigh indistinguishable even to Renshaw's tried vision. But the unerring instincts of the latter were quick to interpret the sudden puff of cold air sweeping upwards, and well for the other that it was so.

"Pheugh!" shuddered Sellon, turning pale as he awoke to the awful peril he had escaped. "What a blundering a.s.s I am, to be sure. But--look!

There's the Eye again--larger--brighter than ever--by Jove!"

"Yes; and I don't believe it's a couple of hundred feet below us either.

Let's see what sort of a drop there is here."

Lying full length on the edge of the cliff, he peered over. Then loosening two or three stones, he let them fall--one after the other. A single clink as each struck the bottom.

"We can't get down this side, Sellon. It's sheer--as I thought, even if it doesn't overhang. The stones never hit the side once. But now, to mark the Eye. It won't shine in the daylight."

He proceeded to untie what looked like a bundle of sticks. In reality it contained a short bow and several arrows. Next he produced some lumps of chalk rolled up in rags.

"What an ingenious dodger you are, Fanning!" cried Sellon, admiringly, watching his companion carefully fitting the lumps of chalk on the heads of several of the arrows. "So that's what you brought along that bundle of sticks for. I thought you had an eye to the possibility of our ammunition giving out."

Renshaw smiled. Then stringing the bow, he bent it once or twice, tentatively.

"That'll do, I think. It's pretty strong is this little weapon of war.

Old Dirk made it for me after the most approved method of his people.

You know Korannas and Bushmen are archers in contra-distinction to the a.s.segai-throwing Kafir tribes. Now for a shot."

Drawing out one of the chalk-tipped arrows to its head, he took a careful aim and let fly. The bow tw.a.n.ged, and immediately a faint thud told the expectant listeners that the shaft had struck very near the mark.

"That'll make a good splash of chalk wherever it has struck," said the marksman approvingly, fitting another arrow. But on the tw.a.n.g of the bow there followed a metallic clink instead of the softer thud of the first missile.

"That bit of chalk's come off," said Renshaw. "However, let's try again."

This time the result seemed satisfactory. Again and again was it repeated until half a dozen arrows had been shot away.

"That'll put half a dozen chalk splashes round the Eye, or as near it as possible, for our guidance at daybreak," said Renshaw, approvingly.

"Now we'll drop a white flag or two about."

Fixing small strips of rag, well chalked, to the b.u.t.t-ends of several more arrows, he shot them away, one after another, in the direction of the first.

"We'll go back now, and get out our gear. We can't do anything before daybreak. The place may be easy to get down into on one side, or it may be well-nigh impossible. But, hang it all, Sellon, there ought to be no such word for us as impossible with _that_ in front of us."

Once more they turned to look back, as though unwilling to go out of sight of the marvel, lest it should elude them altogether. Opposite, the misty loom of cliffs was now discernible, and between it and them, down in the shadowy depths, that flashing star still shone clear in its green scintillations.

Dawn rose, chill and clear, upon the endless tossing mountain waste.

But before the night silvered into that pearly shade which should preface the golden flush of the sunrise, our two adventurers, loaded with all the implements of their enterprise, stood waiting on the spot where Renshaw had left his mark on first making the discovery.

Then as the lightening earth began to unfold its mysteries, they took in the whole situation at a glance. Standing with their backs to the precipitous c.o.c.k's-comb ridge, they looked down upon the terraced second summit of the mountain. But between this and where they stood yawned a crater-like rift. An e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n escaped Renshaw.

"By Jove! Just look. Why, the crater itself is the exact shape of an eye!"

It was. Widening outward at the centre and terminating in an acute angle at each extremity, it was indeed a wonderful formation. Shaped like an eye-socket, and shut in on every side by precipitous rock walls, the gulf looked at first sight inaccessible. It seemed about half a mile in length, by four hundred yards at the widest point, and although this extraordinary hollow extended nearly the whole width of the mountain, dividing the flat table summit from the sheering ridge--yet there was no outlet at either end. Both stood gazing in amazement upon this marvellous freak of Nature.

"What did I tell you, old chap?" cried Sellon, triumphantly. "There's more room on the top of this old berg than you'd think. Who'd have thought of finding a place like that up here? I believe it's an extinct volcano, when all's said and done."

"Likely. Now let's get to work."

They descended the steep slope to the spot whence the arrow experiment had been made, and where Sellon had so narrowly escaped a grisly death.

It was near the widest part of the rift. As they had expected, the cliff fell away in a sheer, unbroken wall at least two hundred feet.

Nor did the opposite sides seem to offer any greater facility.

Whichever way they looked, the rock fell sheer, or nearly so.