Across the Cameroons: A Story of War and Adventure

by Charles Gilson

Captain von Hardenberg was not himself. It was plain to see that it was all that he could do to control within him a feeling that was akin to terror. He looked about him with widely opened eyes—at the vast pillars, at the darkened corners of the aisles, at the shafts of sunlight that pierced the darkness like the blades of swords.

With trembling hands he attempted to unbutton his coat. His nerves were so shaken, and he in such feverish haste, that he could not at first succeed. In the end, as if grown desperate, he took a knife from his pocket, opened the largest blade, and cut off the buttons one by one. Then he ripped open his waistcoat, and, a moment after, drew forth the Sunstone and placed it on the altar by the side of the burning lamp.

And next he did a strange thing indeed. He burst suddenly into loud laughter—laughter that was hysterical, delirious.

He had gone through so much; he had faced so many dangers; he had been guilty of a score of crimes; he had lost everything—good name and honour and position—in order to possess himself of the treasure that lay beyond the red granite rock.

And now that all this wealth was as good as his, he could do little else but laugh, in a kind of wild delirium, whilst tear-drops in quick succession coursed down his cheeks.

After a while he mastered himself a little, but not completely. He went to the nine wheels and turned them all ways in a fever of excitement.

Then he remembered what he had to do. He studied the wheels and took notice of the cuneiform writing on the "tyres". At that he returned for the Sunstone and brought it to the Bramah lock.

But, since it was too dark there to see the writing on the stone, he took it back to the altar, and laid it down once more before the lamp. Then he studied the character in the first segment, and, having committed it to memory, he went back to the wheels.

Slowly he turned the first wheel, noting each character as it appeared above the golden bar. At last he appeared satisfied. The cuneiform figure, or character, which lay immediately above the golden bar corresponded to that upon the Sunstone.

Then, in a like manner, he turned the second wheel. Always when he got the wheel in the correct position he compared the two characters—that upon the Sunstone and that upon the wheel—to make sure they were the same.