“We are fortunate to have fallen in with you. I will go and arrange everything for starting.”
They were soon on their way, Frank stepping bravely along, and declaring that the motion and the morning air had driven out whatever megrims the euphorbia water might have left behind. They soon came into a different character of country from that which they had recently been traversing. Hitherto they had been moving to and fro on the skirts of the great Kalahari; they were now about to pass through its central solitudes. As they advanced, the groups of trees and shrubs grew scantier, and at length almost wholly disappeared. Interminable flats of sand, varied only by heaps of stone scattered about in the wildest disorder, succeeded each other as far as the eye could reach. For miles together there was no sign of animal or vegetable life—not the cry of an insect, not the track of a beast, not the pinion of a bird. The red light of daybreak, the hot and loaded vapours of noontide, the gorgeous hues of sunset, the moon and stars hanging like globes of fire in the dark purple of the sky, succeeded each other with wearying monotony. There was no difference between day and day. They depended for their subsistence almost entirely on the roots, which De Walden knew where to search for, and which relieved the parched lips and burning throat as nothing else could have done. Their resting-place at mid-day, and at night alike, was either the shadow cast by some huge stone, or a natural hollow in its side, or more rarely a patch of scrub and grass, growing round some spring, either visible or underground. The cool sunset breeze every evening restored something of vigour to their exhausted frames, and enabled them to toil onward for another, and yet another, day.
After nearly three weeks of this travel, they found the landscape begin once more to change. The kameel-doorn and the euphorbia again made their appearance, at first in a few comparatively shaded spots; then the aloe and the mimosa began to mingle with them; and in the course of a day’s journey afterwards, birds chirped among the boughs, the secretary was seen stalking over the plain, and the frequent spoor of wild animals showed that they had again reached the world of living beings.
Their guide now told them that they were within two days’ journey or so of the Gariep; which he proposed to pass at some point immediately below one of the great cataracts. The river at this spot ran always, he said, with a rapidity which rendered it almost impossible to ford; but at the times when it was at the lowest, after long drought, as was the case now, it might be crossed by climbing along trunks of trees which had been lodged among the rocks and left there by the subsiding waters of a flood. This required nothing of the traveller beyond a steady foot and a cool head. Where there were several to help one another, the risk was reduced almost to zero.
The party woke up gladly enough on the morning of the last day of their desert travel. The country was now thickly covered with wood. Immediately before them was a plain very curiously dotted with patches of thorns, growing at regular intervals about fifty paces apart from one another, enclosing a large tract of ground with a kind of rude fence. Nick was so struck with its singular appearance, that he stopped behind his companions to examine it more closely. While thus engaged, his attention was attracted by a grunting noise in the bush near him, and peering cautiously through the bushes, saw what he supposed to be a large black hog, unwieldy from its fat, lying in a bed of thick grass. Here was a discovery! The party had not tasted the flesh of animals for weeks past, and had not tasted pork since they left the Hooghly. He shouted as loud as he could, to attract the attention of Lavie and the others. Failing to do this, he discharged his gun at the hog, intending at once to kill the animal and induce his fellow-travellers to return. He waited for some minutes, but without hearing anything but a distant halloo. Resolving not to lose so valuable a booty, he took the creature, heavy as it was, on his shoulders and set out, as fast as he could walk, under the burden, in the direction which they had gone.
He staggered along until he had cleared the thicket, and was moving on towards the thorn patches, when he heard a voice at some distance shouting to him. He looked up and saw Lavie running towards him at his utmost speed. Presently the voice came again.
“Drop that, and run for your life. There’s a rhinoceros chasing you.”
Nick did drop his load, as if it had been red hot iron, and glanced instinctively round. On the edge of the thicket which he had quitted, a large black rhinoceros was just breaking cover, snorting with fury, and evidently making straight for him. Nick’s gun was empty, and even if it had been loaded, he would hardly have ventured to risk his life on the accuracy of his aim. He threw the gun away, and took to his heels, as he had never done since he left Dr Staines’s school. He was swift of foot, and had perhaps a hundred yards start. But the rhinoceros is one of the fleetest quadrupeds in existence. Notwithstanding the lad’s most desperate exertions, it continued to gain rapidly on him. Nick felt that his only chance was to get within gun-shot of his companions, when a fortunate bullet might arrest the course of his enemy. He tore blindly along, until he found himself within twenty yards of the thorn bushes, which had so excited his curiosity shortly before. The next minute he felt himself passing between two of the bushes, the rhinoceros scarcely thrice its own length behind him, its head bent down, and its long horn ready to impale him.
He gave himself over for lost, and only continued to dash along from the instinct of deadly terror. As he rushed between the bushes, he suddenly felt the earth shake and give way under him. Staggering forward a few paces, he fell flat on his face, tearing up the ground from the force of the fall. At the same moment a tremendous crash was heard behind him, followed a minute afterwards by a dull heavy shock. Nick sprung up again, notwithstanding the cuts and bruises he had received, and glanced hastily round him, expecting to see his terrible antagonist close on his flank. But, to his amazement, the creature had disappeared! There was the open space between the thorn bushes, through which he had just passed, and there was the long grass through which he had rushed, but where was the fierce pursuer, who was scarcely four yards behind him?