Renshaw, leading the way—and a pack-horse—tucked up his feet over the saddle behind, an example his companion was not slow to follow. An expanse of yellow, turgid water, at least a hundred and fifty yards wide, lay before them. Below, a labyrinth of green eyots picturesquely studded the surface of the stream. Above, the river flowed round an abrupt bend of red rock wall, sweeping silently and majestically down to the drift which our two adventurers were fording. In front, a high craggy ridge, sheering up in a steep slope, dotted with aloes and a sparse growth of mimosa bush. Behind, a similar ridge, down whose rugged face the two had spent the best part of the afternoon finding a practicable path.
And now it was evening. The setting sun dipped nearer and nearer to the same rocky heights in the west, shedding a scarlet glow upon the smooth surface of the great river, tingeing with fiery effulgence many a bold krantz whose smooth walls rose sheer to the heavens. An indescribably wild and desolate spot, redeemed from absolute savagery by the soft cooing of innumerable doves flitting among the fringe of trees which skirted the bank of the stream.
The drift, though wide, was shallow, and the water came no higher than the saddle-girths. A few minutes more of splashing, and they emerged upon a hard, firm sand-bank.
“The river’s low now, and has been some time,” said Renshaw, looking around. “The time before last I crossed this way, I lost a good horse in a quicksand a little lower down. I dare say it’s a firm bank now, like this one.”
“By Jove! did you really?” said Sellon. “Were you alone, then?” His respect for the other had already gone up fifty per cent. They were in a seldom-trodden wilderness now, a forbidding, horrible-looking solitude, at that, shut in as it was by great, grim mountain walls, and the eternal silence of a desert world. Yet this man, whom he, Sellon, in all the superiority of his old-world knowledge, had held in light account, was perfectly at home here. There was no doubt as to which was the better man, here, at any rate.
“Yes; I was alone,” answered Renshaw. “I’ve always come on this undertaking alone. And I came mighty near losing my life, as well as the horse.”
“By Jove, what a fellow you are, Fanning! I believe if I were to knock around here in this infernal desert by myself for a week it would about drive me mad.”
The other smiled slightly.
“Would it? Well, I suppose I’m used to it. But, wait a bit. You call this an infernal desert. It’s nothing to what we shall find ourselves in further on. And now, I think we’ll camp here. You don’t want to go out shooting, I suppose? We have enough to last us for a day or two; in fact, as much as will keep.”
Three guinea-fowl and a brace of red koorhaan, also three brace of partridges, were slung across the pack-horse. Sellon replied with an emphatic negative. The heat of the day’s journey had knocked the bottom out of even his sportsmanlike tendencies, he said.