There the lions seemed to be making a combined attack, and judging by the sounds they were also fighting among themselves. As soon as it was daylight we hurried anxiously in that direction, keeping our rifles ready, although, as a rule, lions are little to be feared by daylight, unless disturbed at their meal. They were even more numerous than we had imagined, for huge dun-colored forms slunk off in all directions through the bush as we neared the water. "Water!" did I say? There was no water now, for Inyati's fears had been well-founded. The little pool had been trampled into black mud by countless gemsbok, and the various half-eaten carcasses strewn about showed that the lions had taken heavy toll of them.
Not without cost to themselves, however; for there in the centre of what had been the pool lay a huge lion, dead, transfixed and impaled upon the long, sharp, straight horns of the magnificent gemsbok bull, that lay, with broken neck, almost hidden beneath the lion's formidable bulk.
"Wow!" said Inyati; "I have heard of the like before. He was a strong bull, that old one, and held his horns straight to meet the lion's spring. And, as I feared, master, the water is gone."
It was obvious that nothing could be done with the black mud before us, for where it still remained moist it was full of blood and filth; and a decision thus forced upon us, we but waited till the power of the sun had somewhat abated before striking once more into the desert, due east. Our horses were rested and refreshed, and we pushed on throughout the night, till just before dawn we stumbled through a small patch of t'samma, and immediately decided to give our horses the benefit of them. Unfortunately, daylight showed the patch to be but a tiny one, where an arbitrary shower had fallen at the right season, and it barely sufficed for the day.
And so for days we pushed on incessantly, often going many miles out of our course to visit one of the many pans we now came across frequently, but failing in every case to find enough water to even replenish our water-skin. T'samma we found occasionally, sufficient, at any rate, to keep us and our animals alive, but barely; and the horrible anxiety of constant fear of a death by thirst had began to tell upon me badly. Not so Inyati, who, thirsty or satisfied, was always cheerful, always optimistic that we should eventually find a way through to his country of many diamonds and many wives! Many a weary trek that had landed us waterless and still further involved in the vast wilderness of dunes, had seen me sink despondent on the sand, caring but little whether I ever tried to struggle farther; to be roused from my lethargy by the cheery whimsicalities of this Micawber of the desert.
He would bring out the blue diamond and pretend to consult it as an oracle, and it would always promise him wonderful things! Sometimes for game was now scarce it would be a fat buck for breakfast; sometimes a vast plain of t'samma, or a big pool of water; and his prophecies always ended in unlimited diamonds and unlimited wives! And cheered by this nonsense, I would shake off the fit of despondency, and struggle on; though as time went on I often thought of Van der Decken, the "Flying Dutchman," and his endless effort to weather the Cape of Storms.
For our endless zigzagging in search of the wherewithal to live, though it had brought us to the very heart of the vast desert, had taken us far from the true direction of what we were in search of, nor could all our efforts find us a way through.
The moon was with us now again, and we trekked at night, seldom riding, but plodding doggedly through the endless succession of dunes, with the spiritless horses strung out behind us. Their hooves were splayed to an enormous size through this incessant trekking through the sand; yet, though broken and enfeebled, they had become more inured to the conditions, and the few t'samma, or tubers dug from the sand for them, sufficed to keep them alive.
I had ceased to take account of the time, but there came a day when we came upon a tract where rain had fallen in abundance some time before. For from an absolutely barren dune, we suddenly looked down upon a thick garden of beautiful flowers; tall, and like a slender foxglove in appearance, they filled the wide hollows between the dunes in all directions. They were of endless variety in color, white, mauve, and an endless gamut of pinks, down to the deepest purple; and a more beautiful sight it would be impossible to imagine. But thickly as they grew for mile after mile, there was nothing else, no t'samma or any other refreshing plant or fruit, and the hungry horses would not look at them. I noticed, too, that Inyati seemed none too pleased at finding this gorgeous garden, and climbed dune after dune to peer in all directions as the sun rose on the morning we found it.
"We must cross it quickly, or go round," he said, as I stood beside him on the top of a high dune. "It is a poison flower, and makes one sleep and to sleep among it is to die. But I see no way round!" Far on the horizon we could see the clouds rising from a pan in the right direction.