At times I roused myself sufficiently to search for other food, of which there was plenty. Partridges and other fowl swarmed at the water, and were easily killed or trapped, and there was plenty of t'samma growing quite close to the spot where I had fallen.
These, since I had now an abundance of water, I did not attempt to eat; taking only the pips from the ripe ones, drying them in the sun, and pounding them between two stones, as I had often seen the Bushmen do. From the coarse meal thus obtained I made little cakes, roasting them on hot stones or the embers of my fire. Matches I had none, but my burning glass served me just as well, for every day the sun shone; indeed seldom did a cloud cross the sky, and whatever storms may have raged outside nothing but the gentlest breeze ever reached the deep hollow that held me a willing prisoner. Willing? Well, at least apathetic; for all hope, all ambition, all interest in life had left me. I had forgotten the reason of my quest, forgotten the girl who had sent me on it, forgotten that I was once an erect and vigorous man with other interests than to crawl round for berries like an ape, and lie all day and sleep when once hunger was appeased. And thus I led an invertebrate, purposeless existence. I had warmth, food, and water, and the berries that gave me pleasant dreams, and I wanted nothing more. I took no note of the passing of time weeks, months God knows? even years! may have passed nay must have passed as in a dream, and I might well have died there beside the long-bleached skeletons of my horses, but that one day chance or fate led me back to the path of reason. I had been sleeping off the effects of the berries, and lay, beneath the shade of a rock close to the pool, idly tossing about the tiny pebbles of the little patch of shingle close to its brink playing with them as a child might. And suddenly a glint on the corner of one of these little stones arrested my wandering attention; there was something familiar about it, something that stirred memories in my sluggish brain. What was it? I groped in vain for some clue. The pebble worried me, and I made a peevish gesture to throw it away. No! Whatever it was, I must not do that, rather wash it, wash it. Yes! that was what we used to do. But where was the batea, for now by some strange freak I was back in Brazil, and must have my batea. We washed our gravel for diamonds in that wooden prospecting pan—diamonds?
My mind was stirring troubling me now, and with a trembling hand I thrust the pebble into a handful of others and worked them between my palms in the water. Yes, there it was, a good stone of ten carats— slightly encrusted with oxide—a good find. And I? Where was I?
I stood gazing alternately at the stone, and at my surroundings: the pool, the circle of towering cliffs that hemmed me in, and gradually the flood-gates of my clouded memory broke loose and I remembered all.
The girl in England, old Anderson, Inyati, and the blue diamond; my ride and fall; all these came back to me almost in a flash, stunning and amazing me; but for long the incidents of my life here in the hollow were vague and misty. The berries! Surely they had been the cause of my lethargy, and even as I thought of them the desire for them came upon me. But for the first time I fought it, for in my reawakened brain other desires were now surging.
Diamonds! Inyati had told me there were plenty in his land; had Fate with a cruel irony led me into this land of wealth only to maim me and keep me a lonely prisoner here in this pit till I died!
All this flashed through my mind as I stood and gazed at the stone; then, righting my inclination for the berries, I plunged into the pool, and found new strength and resolution in its refreshing coolness. Then I searched eagerly amongst the other pebbles and found three more diamonds, all fine big stones; yet not to be compared with the blue stone Inyati had given me. Where was it? My pack had been scattered by that terrific fall, but now I remembered the diamond had been sewn securely into the cartridge belt I had always worn. It must be here now with my clothes.
For now I realized that I was naked as a savage clothed but in the long tangled hair on head and chin scarred, blistered and burnt till I looked like a wild man, as I had indeed become.
And then I remembered my face, the vultures! and looking into the clear waters of the pool, I saw, for the first time with sane eyes, my terrible disfigurement, and cried aloud in anguish as I saw what manner of man I had become, and realized that even if I could escape life was for me a closed book. Scarred, grotesque, and horrible; what future was there for me among my fellow beings . . . even though I could return to them? Again I was sorely tempted to seek the berries that would give me oblivion from all this agony of regret; but I struggled, and as night came I slept a natural, refreshing sleep, and awoke with a new-born hope and determination strong in me. I would not die here as a wild beast; somehow I would scale the cliffs and escape, or die in the attempt a better death than to perish like a rat in a trap without a struggle for liberty.
My head was clearer now than it had been for I know not how long, and I could reason. And Inyati's diamond was my first thought. I could find but little trace of my pack; the white bones of my horses were half buried in sand; a rusty tin here and a few shreds of clothing there being all that I could find near them. My rifle I found; or rather the remnants of it, for it had been broken to pieces in the fall, and no trace of the stock remained. At length in a crevice near the pool I found my revolver with a number of cartridges, my hunting knife, and a few odds and ends of clothing, all in a canvas haversack that still remained strong and sound, and at the bottom my belt and the diamond tied up with Inyati's bracelet. But the leather belt had perished to a remarkable degree; it was hard, black, cracked and twisted, and broke at my first touch; and I found too upon searching for the saddles that nothing remained of them but some dried fragments. I realized then that months must have passed since my fall; but even then I had no conception of the terrible truth! Cheered by the discovery of the blue diamond, I now determined to look closely for others in the vicinity of the pool, but days of laborious searching brought no reward except that the work helped more and more to clear my foggy brain and bring me back to full sanity. I felt convinced that diamonds were there, not far off, however, and one day as I vainly sorted over the gravel where I had found the others, the solution came to me. In the pool, in the white sand that shone so at the bottom, there I should find them! It was deep and narrow, this pool, and a difficult task even for a good diver; and I determined to wait till midday, when the sun shone full on the bottom. When the time came I plunged in, and a rapid stroke or two took me to the bottom.