"That shot was fired by my brother," he answered. "I know the sound of my brother's rifle."
"Where are we going?" asked Jim.
The half-caste shrugged his shoulders.
"The Black Dog chooses the way," said he.
"He goes to his home?" asked Harry.
"His home!" repeated Fernando. "Has the wild dog a home? Does the hare burrow in the ground? The Black Dog sleeps where he finds himself. All the world is his home. He may go into Nigeria; he may cut back to the coast; he may pass through the mountains to the great Sahara Desert. But, wherever he goes, Cortes will follow him; he will be followed to the ends of the earth. And now and again Cortes will fire his rifle to guide us on our way, to let us know that he still holds the Black Dog in view."
Throughout the days that followed, the mountains witnessed the almost superhuman efforts of two men: Sheikh Bayram, the Black Dog of the Cameroons, and Cortes, the half-caste Spaniard of the Coast.
The one fled from justice, clutching the Sunstone in his hand, and the other followed, until miles grew into leagues, until they reached the rolling grasslands to the west of Lake Chad, where cattle grazed in herds.
It was a struggle of Titans, a race for life or death between men who were well versed in the craft of the hunter, who knew each bridle-path and mountain-spring and solitary oasis between the bend of the Congo and the Atlas Mountains.
Day and night they raced onward, under the march of the southern stars. And Cortes clung to the heels of Black Dog like a leech. As often as the sheikh halted, he was obliged to push on again in greater haste.