"It is a longish trek yet," said Poeskop. "We have to go winding through the hills, and it will be late afternoon before we reach the poort."
They moved steadily up the lovely kloof until midday, when they outspanned for a couple of hours to rest and feed the oxen. The work had been heavy. Many small trees had to be cut down to admit the passage of the wagon, boulders had to be pushed and levered aside, and all were glad of rest and refreshment. At two o'clock they inspanned and trekked again. Two valleys lay before them. Poeskop led them up that lying on the right hand. More tree-cutting and hard travel lay before them. The gorge was in places so littered with monstrous boulders that progress at times seemed almost impossible.
"I don't quite understand it, baas," said the Bushman, as he walked by Mr. Blakeney's side in front of the wagon. "The mountain seems to have been falling about here. When I last came this way there was nothing like the quantity of rocks that there now are about the valley."
"Perhaps there has been a bit of an earthquake in these parts," rejoined Mr. Blakeney. "I don't quite understand such a litter of boulders myself. The natural work of time and weather would hardly suffice to account for this valley of rocks. The mountains seem to have been in labour hereabouts."
At four o'clock they came at length to a mighty angle of mountain, where the face of the cliff, jutting out from the main mass of rock wall, ought, according to Poeskop's notion, to bear some faint resemblance to the profile of a man. But much of the cliff had fallen, and, as Poeskop confessed, the likeness had vanished.
"Now, my baases," said the Bushman, his bleared eyes gleaming with suppressed excitement, "after we turn that hoek you will see a narrow poort, and beyond that lies the kloof where the gold is. Come!"
Leaving the wagon, the four pressed on. The mountains encircling them had here, at the farther end of the valley, narrowed greatly. The precipices that frowned above them seemed almost menacing in their proximity. The place was wondrously silent. They turned the angle of the cliff, and then Poeskop suddenly halted in his tracks and stared about him. He seemed utterly bewildered.
"Where, where is the poort?" he stammered, glaring wildly in front and upon either side. "Where?" He rubbed his eyes and looked again. "The poort is gone!" he said solemnly. "What has happened?--Poeskop knows not!"
"What do you mean, Poeskop?" demanded Mr. Blakeney, somewhat sternly. "Don't play the fool."
"I am not playing the fool, baas," answered the little yellow man, a strange quiver of anguish in his voice. "The poort has gone. Look!"