How astonished and delighted she had been at the blazing diamond I had given her, in memory of that old adventurer, of whom we said we had heard in far-off Africa; and how I feared as she looked in my eyes, that she would know. For as she gazed tearfully at me, and stammered her protests and thanks for she was poor, and it meant wealth to her I saw her eyes widen as they looked into my own, and she stammered: "You! . . . who are you? . . . You have his very eyes, are you his son?"
Almost was I tempted to tell her all, but the Consul's warning glance stayed me; and why, indeed, should I change her sweet memory of me as I had been, into the horror and dismay she must feel if she knew all?
And so I left her happy, and she blessed me as I went; blessed me as a mother might do for indeed I was apparently young enough to be her son and to her amongst all the women of my own land my disfigurements were as nothing, for she was of those wise and sweet beings that see deeper than the surface.
And then I came back, for I was as a lost man there in the rush and worry of a civilization I knew nothing of moreover, never could I rest, for the eyes of that other being were haunting me and calling me . . . calling me. . . . Well she had known spirit, woman, witch, or what she may have been that once I had looked in her eyes I might forget all else, but her I should forget never.
And so I have sought for years . . . and I cannot find the path.
Again and again I have tried from all sides. West, where Inyati led me, the dunes have altered; storm after storm has swept them till many of the pans are filled and covered, and others laid bare; and from the south it is the same.
Eastward I have tried in vain, for Khama's men are jealous guardians of the desert border there, and twice I have been turned back, in spite of my gold.
From the north and through it I must have found a path back I have struggled long, and there fever has killed my men, and pathless forests have kept me back.
There I left Gerard in a lonely grave; for after he knew that my story had been true nothing could keep him from joining me. Life in Loanda was far too tame, with such an adventure in hand. "Hang the diamonds," he had said, "I've money enough for my simple needs. But those berries they are what I want, for I am getting old, and would be young again. And this woman you dream and rave of perhaps I would see her too!"
Poor friend, he lies there in the thick forest where the fever took him he had not my strength.