CHAPTER XX
FOUND
And now I come to perhaps the strangest adventure that happened to usin all this strange business, and one which shows how wonderfullythings are brought about.
I was walking along quietly, some way in front of the other two, downthe banks of the stream which runs from the oasis till it is swallowedup in the hungry desert sands, when suddenly I stopped and rubbed myeyes, as well I might. There, not twenty yards in front of me, placedin a charming situation, under the shade of a species of fig-tree, andfacing to the stream, was a cosy hut, built more or less on the Kafirprinciple with grass and withes, but having a full-length door insteadof a bee-hole.
"What the dickens," said I to myself, "can a hut be doing here?" Evenas I said it the door of the hut opened, and there limped out of it a_white man_ clothed in skins, and with an enormous black beard. Ithought that I must have got a touch of the sun. It was impossible. Nohunter ever came to such a place as this. Certainly no hunter wouldever settle in it. I stared and stared, and so did the other man, andjust at that juncture Sir Henry and Good walked up.
"Look here, you fellows," I said, "is that a white man, or am I mad?"
Sir Henry looked, and Good looked, and then all of a sudden the lamewhite man with a black beard uttered a great cry, and began hobblingtowards us. When he was close he fell down in a sort of faint.
With a spring Sir Henry was by his side.
"Great Powers!" he cried, "_it is my brother George!_"
At the sound of this disturbance, another figure, also clad in skins,emerged from the hut, a gun in his hand, and ran towards us. On seeingme he too gave a cry.
"Macumazahn," he halloed, "don't you know me, Baas? I'm Jim the hunter.I lost the note you gave me to give to the Baas, and we have been herenearly two years." And the fellow fell at my feet, and rolled over andover, weeping for joy.
"You careless scoundrel!" I said; "you ought to be well_sjambocked_"--that is, hided.
Meanwhile the man with the black beard had recovered and risen, and heand Sir Henry were pump-handling away at each other, apparently withouta word to say. But whatever they had quarrelled about in the past--Isuspect it was a lady, though I never asked--it was evidently forgottennow.
"My dear old fellow," burst out Sir Henry at last, "I thought you weredead. I have been over Solomon's Mountains to find you. I had given upall hope of ever seeing you again, and now I come across you perched inthe desert, like an old _assvoegel_."[1]
"I tried to cross Solomon's Mountains nearly two years ago," was theanswer, spoken in the hesitating voice of a man who has had littlerecent opportunity of using his tongue, "but when I reached here aboulder fell on my leg and crushed it, and I have been able to goneither forward nor back."
Then I came up. "How do you do, Mr. Neville?" I said; "do you rememberme?"
"Why," he said, "isn't it Hunter Quatermain, eh, and Good too? Hold ona minute, you fellows, I am getting dizzy again. It is all so verystrange, and, when a man has ceased to hope, so very happy!"
That evening, over the camp fire, George Curtis told us his story,which, in its way, was almost as eventful as our own, and, put shortly,amounted to this. A little less than two years before, he had startedfrom Sitanda's Kraal, to try to reach Suliman's Berg. As for the note Ihad sent him by Jim, that worthy lost it, and he had never heard of ittill to-day. But, acting upon information he had received from thenatives, he headed not for Sheba's Breasts, but for the ladder-likedescent of the mountains down which we had just come, which is clearlya better route than that marked out in old Dom Silvestra's plan. In thedesert he and Jim had suffered great hardships, but finally theyreached this oasis, where a terrible accident befell George Curtis. Onthe day of their arrival he was sitting by the stream, and Jim wasextracting the honey from the nest of a stingless bee which is to befound in the desert, on the top of a bank immediately above him. In sodoing he loosened a great boulder of rock, which fell upon GeorgeCurtis's right leg, crushing it frightfully. From that day he had beenso lame that he found it impossible to go either forward or back, andhad preferred to take the chances of dying in the oasis to thecertainty of perishing in the desert.
As for food, however, they got on pretty well, for they had a goodsupply of ammunition, and the oasis was frequented, especially atnight, by large quantities of game, which came thither for water. Thesethey shot, or trapped in pitfalls, using the flesh for food, and, aftertheir clothes wore out, the hides for clothing.
"And so," George Curtis ended, "we have lived for nearly two years,like a second Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday, hoping against hopethat some natives might come here to help us away, but none have come.Only last night we settled that Jim should leave me, and try to reachSitanda's Kraal to get assistance. He was to go to-morrow, but I hadlittle hope of ever seeing him back again. And now _you_, of all peoplein the world, _you_, who, as I fancied, had long ago forgotten allabout me, and were living comfortably in old England, turn up in apromiscuous way and find me where you least expected. It is the mostwonderful thing that I have ever heard of, and the most merciful too."
Then Sir Henry set to work, and told him the main facts of ouradventures, sitting till late into the night to do it.
"By Jove!" said George Curtis, when I showed him some of the diamonds:"well, at least you have got something for your pains, besides myworthless self."
Sir Henry laughed. "They belong to Quatermain and Good. It was a partof the bargain that they should divide any spoils there might be."
This remark set me thinking, and having spoken to Good, I told SirHenry that it was our joint wish that he should take a third portion ofthe diamonds, or, if he would not, that his share should be handed tohis brother, who had suffered even more than ourselves on the chance ofgetting them. Finally, we prevailed upon him to consent to thisarrangement, but George Curtis did not know of it until some timeafterwards.
* * * * *
Here, at this point, I think that I shall end my history. Our journeyacross the desert back to Sitanda's Kraal was most arduous, especiallyas we had to support George Curtis, whose right leg was very weakindeed, and continually threw out splinters of bone. But we didaccomplish it somehow, and to give its details would only be toreproduce much of what happened to us on the former occasion.
Six months from the date of our re-arrival at Sitanda's, where we foundour guns and other goods quite safe, though the old rascal in chargewas much disgusted at our surviving to claim them, saw us all once moresafe and sound at my little place on the Berea, near Durban, where I amnow writing. Thence I bid farewell to all who have accompanied methrough the strangest trip I ever made in the course of a long andvaried experience.
P.S.--Just as I had written the last word, a Kafir came up my avenue oforange trees, carrying a letter in a cleft stick, which he had broughtfrom the post. It turned out to be from Sir Henry, and as it speaks foritself I give it in full.
October 1, 1884. Brayley Hall, Yorkshire.
My Dear Quatermain,
I send you a line a few mails back to say that the three of us, George, Good, and myself, fetched up all right in England. We got off the boat at Southampton, and went up to town. You should have seen what a swell Good turned out the very next day, beautifully shaved, frock coat fitting like a glove, brand new eye-glass, etc., etc. I went and walked in the park with him, where I met some people I know, and at once told them the story of his "beautiful white legs."
He is furious, especially as some ill-natured person has printed it in a Society paper.
To come to business, Good and I took the diamonds to Streeter's to be valued, as we arranged, and really I am afraid to tell you what they put them at, it seems so enormous. They say that of course it is more or less guess-work, as such stones have never to their knowledge been put on the market in anything like such quantities. It appears that (with the exception of one or two of the largest) they are of the finest water, and equal in every way to th
e best Brazilian stones. I asked them if they would buy them, but they said that it was beyond their power to do so, and recommended us to sell by degrees, over a period of years indeed, for fear lest we should flood the market. They offer, however, a hundred and eighty thousand for a very small portion of them.
You must come home, Quatermain, and see about these things, especially if you insist upon making the magnificent present of the third share, which does _not_ belong to me, to my brother George. As for Good, he is _no good_. His time is too much occupied in shaving, and other matters connected with the vain adorning of the body. But I think he is still down on his luck about Foulata. He told me that since he had been home he hadn't seen a woman to touch her, either as regards her figure or the sweetness of her expression.
I want you to come home, my dear old comrade, and to buy a house near here. You have done your day's work, and have lots of money now, and there is a place for sale quite close which would suit you admirably. Do come; the sooner the better; you can finish writing the story of our adventures on board ship. We have refused to tell the tale till it is written by you, for fear lest we shall not be believed. If you start on receipt of this you will reach here by Christmas, and I book you to stay with me for that. Good is coming, and George; and so, by the way, is your boy Harry (there's a bribe for you). I have had him down for a week's shooting, and like him. He is a cool young hand; he shot me in the leg, cut out the pellets, and then remarked upon the advantages of having a medical student with every shooting party!
Good-bye, old boy; I can't say any more, but I know that you will come, if it is only to oblige
Your sincere friend, Henry Curtis.
P.S.--The tusks of the great bull that killed poor Khiva have now been put up in the hall here, over the pair of buffalo horns you gave me, and look magnificent; and the axe with which I chopped off Twala's head is fixed above my writing-table. I wish that we could have managed to bring away the coats of chain armour. Don't lose poor Foulata's basket in which you brought away the diamonds.
H.C.
To-day is Tuesday. There is a steamer going on Friday, and I reallythink that I must take Curtis at his word, and sail by her for England,if it is only to see you, Harry, my boy, and to look after the printingof this history, which is a task that I do not like to trust to anybodyelse.
ALLAN QUATERMAIN.
[1] Vulture.
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