Before we enter this strange, mysterious country, it must be placed on record that there befell a certain tragedy. In a word, Peter Klein, having contracted a fever in the jungle, and, being much weakened in constitution by the nerve-strain and the hardships he had undergone, fell into a rapid decline—and died, as he had lived, pleading to be spared.
His companions buried him one evening among the rock-strewn, lonely mountains, and he goes out of this story as he came into it—a poor, mean object, a man of no account.
As for our four adventurers, daylight the next morning found them once more upon the hill-tops, shrouded in the mists. For fear of the Maziris the guides led the party by a roundabout way, giving the valleys, and even the lower mountain slopes, a wide berth; for there they were more likely to fall in with parties of the inhabitants.
On the next day, from the far south, there came a noise like thunder that continued until the afternoon. Hour by hour the British guns spoke in the distance. The Germans were being hounded from the Cameroons.
Day by day, as they continued their journey, the firing was repeated, growing fainter and more distant as they advanced. On the fifth day after Klein's death, they turned towards the north-west, and that evening crossed a valley. Beyond was a grass-covered plateau where wild asses grazed. The plateau dropped suddenly in a sheer wall of cliff, and they were obliged to walk many miles to find a place where they could descend.
At length they reached a mountain-top. Immediately opposite was another mountain, up which there was a path leading to a flight of steps. The steps ended suddenly in a black, yawning hole in the mountain-side. So far as the inhabitants were concerned the country appeared absolutely deserted. It was a barren inhospitable waste.
"Have we much farther to go?" asked Harry, turning to the elder guide. "Tell me, in which direction are the caves?"
"Yonder," said Fernando, pointing to the black hole in the mountain slope. "Yonder are the Caves of Zoroaster. There lies the treasure which the Black Dog and von Hardenberg have come all these thousands of miles to gain."
In single file, Cortes leading the way, they descended towards the valley.