A shadow came between him and the light, then another. Wyvern looked up. Great white vultures were wheeling and soaring between him and the sun. What did it mean? Something must be dead or dying within this grim, untrodden wilderness tract; and that hard by, yet of such there was no perceptible sign. A strange, boding uneasiness settled upon him. What could it mean? He was the only living thing moving at that time. Again he looked up. The great white birds had multiplied to a very cloud, and they were right above him, floating round and round at some height.
Just there the holes and caves were formed by large boulders which had fallen together rather than by cracks in the solid cliff face. The opening of one of these formed a complete triangle, and towards this some mysterious instinct impelled Wyvern’s footsteps.
He paused a moment before the entrance. A damp, earthy smell came from within, and again the detail as to the earth which Hlabulana had seen sticking to the knives of the adventurers came back to his mind. Yet, the connection of ideas proved nothing. The same earthy smell would probably have greeted his nostrils had he entered any other of the caves which here opened in all directions. Still, there was no harm in just looking into this one.
A man of medium height could have entered it erect, but Wyvern had to stoop. Once inside however, the fissure widened. At the further end chinks of light penetrated where the boulders forming the hole had fallen together, and these formed dim shafts of sunlight upon the floor.
The latter was soft and earthy. Could it be here that the stuff was buried? Wyvern stamped upon the ground here and there, but it gave forth the same sound everywhere. Carefully, eagerly, he peered around—again and again. There was nothing. He was about to leave the place when—
Something shone.
On the ground, right under one of the shafts of light, it lay. Wyvern picked it up, and hurried to the daylight. Yet his instincts of precaution moved him to examine it while still within the shadow of the cave.
A yellowish, cut stone lay within his hand. Looking at it he felt sure that it was an opal. And then he had to call up all his self-control to steady his nerves. Hlabulana’s story was no myth. Clearly this was where the stuff was buried. He would go back and rouse up Fleetwoods—the good news alone was bound to effect a cure—and they would return together to dig it up. This rich secret which the Lebombo had held for so long within its grim fastnesses had been unfathomed at last. Its treasures would make them wealthy for life, and, above all, would bring him Lalanté.
Would they? He had not found them yet—and with the thought came another. Opals, according to popular superstition, were unlucky, and the first sign he had found of the existence and propinquity of the treasure was an opal. The next moment he laughed at himself for giving even a thought to such nonsense, and stepped forth once more into the open day.
Unlucky! Why the whole world seemed to open up in a paradise of delight. Unlucky! He would return and re-purchase Seven Kloofs, the place which he loved; and this time old Sanna would not have to complain that the place needed a “Missis.” Le Sage’s objection was not to himself but to his impecuniosity, and that obstacle removed, why then— Unlucky!