“Well, I know that is the general creed about niggers, as we comprehensively call all men a few shades darker than ourselves; but when we annex this kingdom of Raak I will certainly try the experiment. In the meanwhile, when shall we get to it? I feel most impatient to gaze on this land of the Amalekites. They have no walled cities at any rate.”
“If we have luck we may get there to-morrow,” said Jack, “and camp on our own run, or runs, for we shall have plenty to sell as well as to keep.”
Steering precisely by the directions given, and a rough chart manufactured for them, they found themselves quartered for the first night in a barren and unpromising scrub. However, this was the description of country described, being, indeed, the occasion of Mick Mahoney losing his tracks and eventually blundering into the astonishing land of Raak.
Next morning they were all on the alert, and for the greater part of the day toiled through a most hopeless and apparently endless scrub. Evening approached and found them still in the jungle. Guy began to think that they had missed their course; or that Mick Mahoney had lied; or that they were going deeper and deeper into one of the endless waterless thickets which occur “down there.” Doorival, who by no means relished this description of travelling, and who had found his pack-horse most vexatious and hard to manage, suddenly ascended a high tree, and soon as he reached the top began to gesticulate and call out.
“All right, Misser Redgrave,” he cried out, as soon as he had deposited himself, with some breathlessness, on the ground; “me see ’um that one new country, big waterhole, and big hill, like’t Mick tell you. Plenty black fellow sit down; I believe me see ’um smoke all about.”
“They be hanged!” said Guy, throwing up his hat; “let us push on and camp on the edge of it. I don’t want to stop another night in the wilderness.”
Fired with new hope, they redoubled their exertions, and as the sun fell in broad banners—“white and golden, crimson, blue”—he lighted up the welcome panorama of a vast pyramidal mass of granite, throwing its shadows across a silver-mirrored lake, while, far as eye could see, stretched apparently endless plains.
The comrades looked at each other for a moment, and then Guy burst into a wild hurrah, and, taking Jack’s hand, shook it with unacted fervour.
“By Jove, old fellow,” said he, “this is a moment worth living for, worth a whole long life in Oxfordshire, with all the partridge and pheasant shooting, fishing and hunting, dressing for dinner, and all the other shams and routine of recreation. This is life! pure and unadulterated; travel, adventure, anxiety, and now Success! Triumph! Fortune!”
“Don’t make such a row, my dear fellow,” said Jack, more philosophical, but inwardly exultant, “or else we shall have the whole standing army of Raak upon our backs. You may depend upon it the fellows are pretty well fed in this locality; and when that is the case they are apt to become very ugly customers in a skirmish. We may as well take off the packs.”