Chapter Twenty Two.
A Voice from the Dead.
“My name is Amos Greenway,” it began. “It was some years ago now—no matter how many—since I first saw what I am going to tell you. That time I’d been up with a hunting and trading party into the Kalihari. I’d split off from the rest—no matter why—perhaps we’d fallen out.
“What I didn’t know about the country in those days didn’t seem much worth knowing—at least, so I thought. Well, I got down into the Bechuana country, and after a bit of a rest struck off alone in a southerly direction. I counted on hitting off the big river that way, and at the same time I’d often longed to do a little prospecting on the ground I was going to cross. But this time, as it happened, I got out of my reckoning. I’d got into a waterless desert—and foodless too. I had biltong enough to last for any time, but water is a thing you can’t carry much of—and if you could it would all turn bad in that awful heat. First my pack-horse gave out—then the nag I was riding—and there I was dying of thirst in the middle of the most awful dried-up country you can imagine. There were mountains far away on the sky-line—must have been at least a hundred miles away, for they were hull down on the horizon. There might or might not be water there; but if so I should never reach it, because I couldn’t crawl ten miles in a day, and was about played out even then. Nothing to kill either—no game of any kind—or the blood might have quenched thirst. Nothing except aasvogels, and they were too slim to come within shot. You see, they knew I was booked for them sooner or later, and whenever I looked up there was a crowd of the great white carrion birds wheeling overhead ever so high up, waiting for me.
“Well, at last I was for giving in; was looking for a place to sit down comfortably, and put the muzzle of my piece to my ear and finish off; for I couldn’t stand the idea of being eaten alive by those filthy devils, as would have happened when I got too weak to beat them off—when I came plump into a gang of wandering Bushmen. They were resting at the foot of a stony kopje, and as soon as I hove in sight they started up it like monkeys, screeching and jabbering all the time. They’d never seen a white man nor yet a gun, and when I fired a shot I reckon they thought the devil had got among them. I managed to make friends with them at last, and it was the saving of my life. They’d got some kind of liquid, which must have come out of a plant or root, but it did for drink at a pinch until we found water.
“Well, after some days we reached the mountains I had seen. Awful part it was too; seemed to consist of nothing but great iron-bound krantzes and holes and caves—sort of place where nothing in the world could live but aasvogels and Bushmen and baboons. Some of the caves had skulls and bones in them, and were covered with Bushmen drawings, and I tell you I saw queer things done while I was with those fellows—things you’d never believe. But I feel like getting near the end of my tether, so I must hurry up.
“Well, one day we’d been out collecting grasshoppers and lizards and all that kind of beastliness which those fellows eat, and stayed out too late. We were looking about for a hole or a cave to sleep in—for it was coldish up there of nights—and it was already dusk. I noticed my Bushman friends were getting mighty uneasy, and supposed they were afraid of bogies or something of that kind. There was a half-moon shining brightly overhead, and I saw we were skirting a deep valley—though it was more like a hole than a valley, for there seemed no way in or out. All of a sudden one of the chaps grabbed me by the arm and pointed downwards. I shan’t forget that moment in a hurry. There, ever so far down it seemed, glowering up through the darkness, shone an Eye. Yes, an Eye; greenish, but brilliant as a star. I rubbed my eyes and looked again and again. There it was, each time brighter than ever. What could the thing be? I own I was puzzled.
“The Bushmen were getting more and more scared, and began to lug me away. But I took one more look round first. The thing was gone.
“There was no staying to investigate further. They began to threaten me then—I gathered at last that I was committing a sort of sacrilege, that it was a demon-haunted place to them, and that it was a devil’s eye that would scorch up whoever looked at it too long—in fact, they called it the Valley of the Eye—that if I bothered about it I should be killed for raising their devil. But I puzzled over the thing to myself day and night, and determined to look into it further.