“My boy,” he went on, “with all the roughs and tumbles of this life—and it’s a glorious life while it lasts, and where the game’s plentiful there’s none better in this world—one can’t help thinking sometimes what it all means and where it ends. No man, I take it, can live with Nature as we do, and look up at that sky,”—here Bill turned his gaze upward, and with his short pipe indicated the glittering array of stars,—“with its myriads of systems, and deny some great Power behind it all. And yet—and yet, in all these tens of thousands of years, with all the millions upon millions of souls that have come and gone, we know absolutely nothing of the hereafter. That’s what beats me. No true or certain message has ever yet come from the dead to tell us what happens when the last plunge is made. Chaldeans, Egyptians, Assyrians, Romans, Greeks, Buddhists, Confucians, Hebrews, Christians, all have tried their level best to get at the secret; none—no, not one—have solved it. They all have their theories, of course. I suppose they always will. But to any real solution of the great secret, to the real truth, we are no nearer than we were ten thousand years ago. The wisest of them all are dumb and mute, and, I suppose, always will be. Look at the Spiritualists. What do they tell us? A lot of piffling rubbish—knockings, rappings, and contemptible nonsense of that sort—but of serious truth, of what we want to know, not one little bit.
“Religions, and creeds, and beliefs never help us to pierce the big veil yonder. Ethics are all right enough; but even ethics can’t solve that immense mystery. One can only long and wonder, and wonder and long again. Don’t laugh, old chap. I don’t often inflict you with this sort of thing; but out here in the desert, face to face with Nature, with time to think, one can’t help puzzling over this world-worn problem. One finds so much wrong in what one hears in the world. You know that as well as I. Why, look at the dream of universal peace—swords turned into ploughshares, lions and lambs lying down together, and all that sort of thing. What rot it is! One comes out here in the veldt and looks at Nature, and one finds everywhere the most ghastly war, and murder, and suffering incessantly around one. Birds, beasts, insects, reptiles, fish—all hard at it. You can never have peace in this world. Battle, and murder, and sudden death will, I believe, last as long as the earth lasts. You may have epochs of civilisation and calm, but only for a time. Nature tells us that plainly, and you can’t get away from Nature.”
“I’m not laughing, Bill,” returned his comrade. “Sometimes, but not very often, I have the same thoughts. Everybody, I suppose, has at times. Your puzzle has puzzled the world always, and always will. And the more one gets away from the din and struggle of the beastly towns, the bigger seems the mystery of life and the beyond. But it’s no use worrying about it. The baby that dies every day somewhere in the world, I suppose knows more than we shall ever do till the end comes. After all, one can only try and play the game, and do one’s poor little best according to one’s lights and ethics.”
“I suppose so,” answered Bill. “But it’s a secret worth knowing, old chap, isn’t it? It must be, if one only knew.”
The two friends sat smoking and talking for half an hour longer upon different topics, mainly to do with hunting, and then climbed into the wagon, tucked themselves beneath their karosses, and slept the refreshing sleep of the veldt.
A fortnight later they were camped on a tributary stream north of the Okavango. They had left their wagon standing on the southern bank of the big river, and the Bayeiye had ferried them across in their dug-outs. Here buffalo were in plenty—the vast reed-beds were full of them—and they had already secured plenty of meat and some good heads.
It was early dawn, and they were drinking a cup of coffee by the remains of the overnight camp-fire. The sky was just paling in the east, and already the world was astir in this remote wilderness. The hippos were blowing in the river a little below them; long flights of storks were winding through the clear air; multitudes of duck, geese, and other wildfowl were raising their clamour upon the waters. Presently their native hunter crept in from a tour of inspection. “Sieur,” he said, a grin of pleasure upon his keen face, “there’s a big troop of buffalo down there by the water now. They are not far from some bush, and you can get a good shot before they make for the reeds again. And there are some big bulls among them—old fellows with horns so thick!”—spreading out his arms with perhaps a trifle of exaggeration.
“That’s all right, Cobus,” responded Bill Vincent. “We’ll come along at once. How far are they off?”
“Less than a quarter of a mile, Sieur. You can hear them a little way on, trampling and splashing in the shallows. They’re feeding all round there.”
“Capital!” exclaimed Ralph, picking up his double eight-bore and looking through the barrels. “Here, you, Tatenyan, lay hold of that,” handing another native his second rifle. “Be careful, you beggar; it’s loaded.”