“Why, you must have the ‘rats,’ Koos. Go to bed.”
Koos begged humbly to be allowed to lie down on the floor in Nathan’s room until morning. Nathan grumbled a bit, but at last consented to grant his request.
Chapter Thirteen.
“Whoso Diggeth a Pit...”
Next morning, just as day was breaking, Nathan and Koos Bester took their departure from Namies. Koos had not slept at all during the previous night. His face looked pinched and haggard, his hands trembled so that he was hardly capable of buckling the straps of the harness.
The morning was as pellucid as a dew-drop and the dunes looked preternaturally clear and distinct, the hollows being filled with amber-tinted shadow. The track lay like a narrow, coiling ribbon over the waste of plumy grass. The weird form of Bantom Berg arose gradually before the travellers like a warning finger, indicating the vast death-trap of which it is the centre, when, as the sun appeared above the horizon, its shafts smote suddenly as though a furnace-door had been suddenly opened. A short, hushing breath, as it were a gasp of apprehension of the fiery terrors of the day, seemed to pass westward over the Desert.
They reached a place called “Inkruip,” and here it was decided to outspan and rest the team. The name is a literal translation into Dutch of a word in the Bushman tongue which means “creep in.” A small stone kopje stands here, and in its side is a narrow passage through which an ordinary-sized man may just manage to force himself. A small chamber is then reached, and from this another passage leads. Into this one can only pass upon hands and knees. It rapidly gets narrower, and at length dips suddenly at an angle of about forty-five degrees for some ten feet. At the bottom is a little hollow, in which is always to be found a few pannikinfuls of beautifully clear, fresh water, which is icy cold. It takes, however, two people to obtain water at Inkruip, for the man who descends the sloping shaft cannot get out again unless he is assisted by some one who pulls him back by means of a reim tied round his feet.
The rocks on the western side of the little kopje still afforded a slight protection from the blazing sunlight. The two men crept close against a low, perpendicular ledge of rock, over which the rays of the terrible sun were slowly encroaching. The sand was so hot that the horses were unable to stand still, so they moved uneasily about in the vain hope of easing their scorching feet.