“I should like to see where they lead to—yes, we must see where they lead to,” he added, in a more determined voice. “It would never do to go back and say we were checked by a few rocks. As long as the road lies open and our supplies last, I’ll go on, if you will back me up.”
“Right you are. We won’t leave you to go forward by yourself,” replied both Fred and Clarence, while Cocoeni and the Kaffirs nodded grimly their willingness to go also wherever they were led.
For the first time since leaving Rhodesia the sense of his responsibility pressed heavily upon Ned. As he lay that night and looked over towards the shadowy outlines of those barren rocks, he felt his resolution waver somewhat. He had many lives under his charge, men who were prepared to follow him wherever he chose to go. Where was he about to lead them now?
Death by thirst and want seemed to lurk within those desolate craigs, which revealed no speck of gnus upon their tawny and red breasts, and only the arid shelter of shadow within their stony flanks.
He curiously began to think what must have been the feelings of Moses when he looked at the naked peaks of Attika, after he had seen the pursuing hosts of Pharaoh overwhelmed. These rocks in front of him could not be more inhospitable than were the red mountains of Attika. Yet they had been the entrances to the promised land.
The rank forest had not appalled him as those stern, dry cliffs now did. Yet the forest held as many dangers—indeed, it hid more varied forms of horrors than these chasms could: death in the shape of fever, and submerging in loathsome and treacherous morasses; from venomous snake-bites, and crocodiles, lions, tigers, and the poisoned arrows of lurking savages. There was nearly every kind of peril to be encountered in the forest except one, and here it waited for them—at least, so it seemed to Ned and his companions—the peril of thirst, the most dreaded of dooms, next to fire, which humanity shrinks back from encountering. Would he go on with those dauntless fellows, and dare that terrible risk, or turn back before it was too late?
The half-moon silvered the ground with cool lustre. A little way off he saw several soft-footed, slouching forms prowling about, with swinging tails and luminous, emerald-green eyes, that betrayed them. While he watched their restless motions, and the rolling heave of their lean hips, he became conscious of the musical ripple of that ever-flowing, if diminished, brooklet.
“It comes from those sterile mountains,” he murmured. “And while it still flows, we are in no danger of perishing from thirst.”
Braced up with this comforting solace, his momentary timidity and irresolution passed away, and he felt once more cheerful. Moses and Aaron had faith. So had the other explorers, both in Africa and on the frightful waterless deserts of Australia, and many of these daring, purposeful heroes had endured all and returned to tell the tale. With manly pride he crushed out all recollections of those who had never returned, and dwelt only on the lives of those who had come back.
“Nothing venture, nothing win. If I bring down that nearest lion with the first shot, I’ll take that as a sign that we will be successful.”