Renshaw Fanning's Quest: A Tale of the High Veldt

Once more they turned to look back, as though unwilling to go out of sight of the marvel, lest it should elude them altogether. Opposite, the misty loom of cliffs was now discernible, and between it and them, down in the shadowy depths, that flashing star still shone clear in its green scintillations.

Dawn rose, chill and clear, upon the endless tossing mountain waste. But before the night silvered into that pearly shade which should preface the golden flush of the sunrise, our two adventurers, loaded with all the implements of their enterprise, stood waiting on the spot where Renshaw had left his mark on first making the discovery.

Then as the lightening earth began to unfold its mysteries, they took in the whole situation at a glance. Standing with their backs to the precipitous cock’s-comb ridge, they looked down upon the terraced second summit of the mountain. But between this and where they stood yawned a crater-like rift. An ejaculation escaped Renshaw.

“By Jove! Just look. Why, the crater itself is the exact shape of an eye!”

It was. Widening outward at the centre and terminating in an acute angle at each extremity, it was indeed a wonderful formation. Shaped like an eye-socket, and shut in on every side by precipitous rock walls, the gulf looked at first sight inaccessible. It seemed about half a mile in length, by four hundred yards at the widest point, and although this extraordinary hollow extended nearly the whole width of the mountain, dividing the flat table summit from the sheering ridge – yet there was no outlet at either end. Both stood gazing in amazement upon this marvellous freak of Nature.

“What did I tell you, old chap?” cried Sellon, triumphantly. “There’s more room on the top of this old berg than you’d think. Who’d have thought of finding a place like that up here? I believe it’s an extinct volcano, when all’s said and done.”

“Likely. Now let’s get to work.”

They descended the steep slope to the spot whence the arrow experiment had been made, and where Sellon had so narrowly escaped a grisly death. It was near the widest part of the rift. As they had expected, the cliff fell away in a sheer, unbroken wall at least two hundred feet. Nor did the opposite sides seem to offer any greater facility. Whichever way they looked, the rock fell sheer, or nearly so.

“We can do nothing here!” said Renshaw, surveying every point with a fairly powerful field-glass. “There are our chalk-marks all right – flags and all. We had better make a cast round to the right. According to Greenway’s story, the krantzes must be in a sort of terrace formation somewhere. That will be at the point where he was dodging the Bushmen.”

Skirting the edge of the gulf, they soon rounded the spur. It was even as Renshaw had conjectured. The ground became more broken. By dint of a not very difficult climb, they soon descended about a hundred feet. But here they were pulled up by a cliff – not sheer indeed, but apparently unnegotiable. It dropped a matter of thirty feet on to a grassy ledge some six yards wide, thence without a break about twice that depth to the bottom of the crater.

“We can negotiate that, I guess!” cried Renshaw, joyously, as he unwound a long coil of raw-hide rope. “I came prepared for a far greater drop, but we can do it well here. I don’t see any other place that seems more promising. And now I look at it, this must be the very point Greenway himself tried from. Look! That must be the identical rock he squatted under while the Bushmen were peppering him. Yes, by Jove, it must!” pointing to a great overhanging mass of stone which rose behind them. “Why, he had already found a diamond or two even here. What shan’t we find down yonder?”

There was a boyish light-heartedness about Renshaw now, even surpassing the spirits of his companion. The latter stared. But the consciousness of being within touch of fabulous wealth is a wonderful incentive to light-heartedness.

He measured off a length of the rope for the shorter drop. Then they drove in a crowbar, and, securing the rope, a very few minutes sufficed to let themselves down to the grassy ledge.

“Pheugh! that’s something of a job!” cried Sellon, panting with the exertion of the descent. “Something of a job, with all this gear to carry as well. I could have sworn once the whole thing was giving way with me. I say, couldn’t we leave our shooting irons here, and pick them up on the way back?”

“H’m! Better not. Never get a yard away from your arms in an enemy’s country!”

The reply was unpleasantly suggestive. To Sellon it recalled all his former apprehensions. What a trap they would be in, by the way, in the event of a hostile appearance on the scene.

“You’re right,” he said. “Let’s get on.”

The second crowbar was driven in. This time they had some difficulty in fixing it. The turf covering the ledge was only a few inches thick. Then came the hard rock. At length a crevice was struck, and the staunch iron firmly wedged to within a few inches of its head.

“Our string is more than long enough,” said Renshaw, flinging the raw-hide rope down the face of the rock. The end trailed on the ground more than a dozen feet. “This krantz is on a greater slant than the smaller one. Don’t throw more of your weight on the reim than you can help. More climbing than hanging, you understand. I’ll go down first.”

Slant or no slant, however, this descent was a ticklish business. To find yourself hanging by a single rope against the smooth face of a precipice with a fifty-foot drop or so beneath is not a delightful sensation, whatever way you look at it. The crowbar might give. There might be a flaw in the iron – all sorts of things might happen. Besides, to go down a sixty-foot rope almost hand under hand is something of a feat even for a man in good training. However, taking advantage of every excrescence in the rock likely to afford passing foothold, Renshaw accomplished the descent in safety.

Then came Sellon’s turn. Of powerful and athletic build, he was a heavy man, and in no particular training withal. It was a serious ordeal for him, and once launched in mid-air the chances were about even in favour of a quicker and more disastrous descent than either cared to think of. The rope jammed his unwary knuckles against the hard rock, excoriating them and causing him most excruciating agony, nearly forcing him to let go in his pain and bewilderment. The instinct of self-preservation prevailed, however, and eventually he landed safely beside his companion – where the first thing he did on recovering his breath was to break forth into a tremendous imprecation. Then, forgetting his pain and exertion, he, following the latter’s example, glanced round curiously and a little awed, upon the remarkable place wherein they found themselves – a place whose soil had probably never before been trodden by human foot.

And the situation had its awesome side. The great rock walls sheering up around had shut in this place for ages and ages, even from the degraded and superstitious barbarians whose fears invested it and its guardian Eye with all the terrors of the dread unknown. While the history of civilisation – possibly of the world itself – was in its infancy, this gulf had yawned there unexplored, and now they two were the first to tread its virgin soil. The man who could accept such a situation without some feeling of awe must be strangely devoid of imagination – strangely deficient in ideas.

Chapter Thirty One.

The “Valley of the Eye.”

The floor of the crater was nearly level, though somewhat depressed in the centre. Great masses of rock spar protruded here and there from the soil, which latter was gravelly. On turning up the surface, however, a formation of whitey-blue clay lay revealed.

“This is the place for the ‘stones,’” said Renshaw, exultantly, making a tentative dig or two with his pick. “The Eye apart, we ought to find something here worth having. Ah, I thought so.”

He picked up a small, dingy-looking crystal about the size of a pea. It was of perfect symmetry even in the rough, the facets being wonderfully even.

“You’d better put that aside, Sellon, and stick to it as the first stone – apart from our division of the swag. Knock it into a pin or something.”

It was a small act. But it was thoroughly characteristic of the man’s open-souled unselfishness. The first instalment of the treasure, attained at the cost of so much anxious thought – of so much hardship and lonely peril – he offered to his companion. And the latter accepted it without hesitation – equally characteristically.

“We’d better get on to the big thing now, though,” he continued, “and leave the fossicking until afterwards.”

In a few minutes they crossed the crater. Then carefully scanning the opposite cliff they made their way along the base of the same.

“There’s one of our ‘flags,’” cried Renshaw, suddenly. “And by Jove – there are our chalk splashes! Not bad archery in the dark, eh? Look. They are all within half a dozen yards of each other.”

A great boulder some dozen feet in height and in shape like a tooth, rose out of the soil about twenty yards from the base of the cliff. It was riven obliquely from top to bottom as if split by a wedge; a curious boulder, banded with strata of quartz like the stripes of an agate.

On the face of it were four white marks – all, as the speaker had said, within a few yards of each other, and bearing the relative formation of the stars composing the Southern Cross. Two of the arrows with the strips of rag attached, lay a little further off, while the shafts which had so faithfully left their mark lay at the foot of the boulder, the chalk shattered to pieces.

The intense excitement of the moment was apparent in both men, and it took widely different phases. Sellon advanced hurriedly to the face of the boulder, and began scrutinising it, eagerly, fiercely, from top to base. Renshaw, on the other hand, deliberately sat down, and, producing his pipe, proceeded leisurely to fill and light it.

“It isn’t on the face of the rock we’ve got to look, Sellon,” he said, when this operation was completed. “It’s here.”

He rose, advanced to the cleft, and gazed eagerly inside. It was just wide enough to admit a man’s body. Just then the first arrowy gleams of the risen sun shot over the frowning rock walls, glowing athwart the grey chill atmosphere of the crater. They swept round the searcher’s head, darting into the shaded cleft.

And then one swift reflected beam from the shadow of that rocky recess, one dart of fire into his eyes, and Renshaw started back. There, not two yards in front of his face, protruded from the rough surface of the quartz, a dull hard pyramid; but from the point of that pyramid darted the ray which had for the moment blinded him.

“HERE IT IS! THE EYE!”

The other was at his side in a moment. And thus they stood side by side, speechless, gazing upon a truly magnificent diamond.

Well might they be struck speechless. To one the retrospect of a hard, lonely life, sacrificed in detail to the good of others, a struggling against wind and tide, a constant battle against the very stars in their courses – rose up and passed before his eyes in a lightning flash at that moment. To the other what experience of soured hopes, of reckless shifts, of a so far marred life, of failure, and confidence misplaced and unrequited – of gradual cutting loose from all principle – a confusion between the sense of right and wrong, and, following immediately upon all, a golden glow of hope no longer deferred, a sunny ideal of abundant consolation; of love and happiness! But to both comfort, ease, wealth.

Wealth. The riches lying waste for ages in this remote solitude must at length yield to the grasping hand of their predestined owner – Man. With the first human footfall in this solemn untrodden recess rushed in the jarring cares and considerations of the busy world in all its whirling haste – its feverish strivings. Wealth!

With the point of his geological hammer Renshaw next proceeded to chip a circle around the great diamond. Clink, clink! The hammer bit its way slowly but surely into the face of the hard rock. Clink, clink! The circle deepened. The chips flew into their eager faces. No thought of pausing to rest.

It was a long job and a tedious one. At length the quartz cracked, then split. The superb stone rolled into Renshaw’s hand.

“Seven or eight hundred carats, if it’s one,” he said, holding it up to the light, and then passing it to his companion. “Look what a shine it has, even in the rough. It must have been partially ‘cut’ by the splitting of the quartz, even as old Greenway conjectured. Directly I saw this boulder, split in half like that, I knew that it was in the cleft that we had to search. Yet the thing is a perfect marvel, well-nigh outside all experience.”

“I wonder what the schelm Bushmen will think when they find that their ‘devil’s eye’ has knocked off shining,” said Sellon. “By Jove, we should look precious fools if they were to drop down and quietly sneak our rope!”

“We should,” assented Renshaw, gravely. “We should be pinned in a trap for all time.”

“Pho! The very thought of it makes one’s blood run cold. But, I say, let’s hunt for some more stones, and then clear out as soon as possible.”

A careful search having convinced Renshaw that such a freak of Nature was not likely to repeat itself, and that neither the cleft nor the sides of the great boulder offered any more of its marvellous treasures to be had for the taking, they turned away to search the gravelly soil of the crater, with what intensity of eagerness only those who have experienced the truly gambling passion involved in treasure-seeking can form an idea. No food had passed their lips since the previous evening, yet not a moment could be spared from the fierce, feverish quest for wealth. They ate their dry and scanty rations with one hand while wielding pick and shovel with the other. Even the torments of thirst, for the contents of their pocket flasks were as a mere drop to the ocean in the torrid, focussed heat now pouring down into this iron-bound hollow, they hardly felt. Each and every energy was merged in that intense and craving treasure hunt.

“Well, this can’t go on for ever,” said Renshaw at last, pausing to wipe his streaming brow. “What do you say to knocking off now, and leaving this for another day? Remember, we are not out of the wood yet. There is such a thing as leaving well alone. And we have done more than well.”

They had. It wanted about two hours to sunset. In the course of this long day’s work they had found upwards of sixty diamonds – besides the superb Eye. All were good stones, some of them indeed really magnificent. This long-sealed-up treasure-house of the earth, now that its doors were opened, yielded its riches in no niggardly fashion.

“Perhaps we had better clear out while we can,” assented Sellon, looking around regretfully, and making a final dig with his pick. There hung the good rope, safe and sound. A stiff climb – then away to spend their lives in the enjoyment of the fruits of their enterprise.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll go first. I am so cursedly heavy,” said Sellon. “And just steady it, like a good chap, while I swarm up.”

A good deal of plunging, and gasping, and kicking – and we are sorry to add – a little “cussing,” and Sellon landed safely upon the grassy ledge. Renshaw was not long in following.

There remained the upper cliff, which was, it will be remembered, nearer the perpendicular than the other one, though not so high. Up this Sellon proceeded to climb, his companion steadying the rope for him as before. Pausing a few moments to draw up and coil the longer line, Renshaw turned to follow. But – the rope was not there. Looking up, he saw the end of it rapidly disappearing over the brow of the cliff above. What did it mean?

It could not be! He rubbed his eyes and looked again. The rope was gone. What idiotic practical joke could his companion be playing at such a time? Then, with a shock, the blood flowed back to his heart, and he turned deadly cold all over.

Alas and alas! It could mean but one thing. Renshaw’s feelings at that moment were indescribable. Amazement, dismay, burning indignation, were all compressed within it, and following upon these the warning words of Marian Selwood, spoken that sunny morning under the cool verandah, flashed through his brain.

“He is not a man I should trust. He doesn’t seem to ring true.”

Heavens and earth – it could not be! No man living, however base, could be guilty of such an act of black and bitter treachery. But in Maurice Sellon’s possession was the great diamond – the superb “Eye.”

Even then it could not be. Surely, surely, this man whose life had been saved twice now; whom he had been the means of enriching for the remainder of that life – could not be capable of requiting him in such a manner as this. It must be a mere senseless practical joke.

“Anything gone wrong with the rope?” he called up, striving to suppress the ring of anxiety in his voice.

No answer.

Again he called.

No answer. But this time, he fancied he heard receding footsteps clambering up the steep hillside beyond.

Renshaw Fanning’s life had not held many moments more bitter than those which followed. The hideous treachery of his false friend, the terrible fate which stared him in the face – pent up within that deathtrap, and – hollow mockery – wealth untold lying at his feet. And the cold-bloodedness which had planned and carried out so consummate a scheme! Why had not the villain drawn up the longest rope, and left him below in the crater instead of up here on the ledge? Why, because he knew that he himself could be shot dead from below while climbing the upper rope, whereas now he was safe. The whole thing was as clear daylight. There was no room for doubt.

Chapter Thirty Two.

Judas Impromptu

One of those inexplicable problems which now and again crop up to puzzle the student of human nature and to delight the cynic is the readiness wherewith a man, who on the whole is rather a good fellow, will suddenly, and at a moment’s notice, plunge into the lowest depths of base and abject villainy.

When Maurice Sellon first laid his hand upon the lower rope to ascend out of the crater, he had no more idea of committing this act of blackest treachery than his generous and all too trusting friend had. It came to him, so to speak, in mid-air – begotten of a consciousness of the priceless treasure now in his possession – of the ease wherewith he could draw up the rope.

The temptation became too strong. That splendid stone, worth a fortune, would be all his. Renshaw might eventually work his way out by some other point – but not until he himself had got a long start to the good. He remembered his friend’s words earlier in their expedition. “Do you think you could find your way back alone?” Strangely prophetic! Yes, he thought he could do that. At any rate, with the fabulous wealth about him, it was worth while making the trial.

We think we have hitherto made it clear that Sellon was not without some good impulses. Equally we seem to have made it clear that he was at the same time what is commonly, and expressively, known as a “slippery character.” From a slip to a downright – a heavy – fall is the work of an instant. So, too, had been the dastardly resolve which he had formed and carried out.

He could not have lifted a hand against his friend – his nature was too weak for any such aggressive act of villainy. But to leave him to perish miserably of starvation, shut up there in the crater, involved the playing of a comparatively inactive part. And again, it did not look so bad. Renshaw was a man of infinite resource. He might eventually succeed in finding a way out – probably would. Thus was conscience seared.

Sellon climbed up to where the horses were grazing, closely knee-haltered. He untied the reims, and led them back to the place where they had camped. It was a short distance, but it gave him time to think.

He saddled up his own horse. Then he took out the great diamond. How it flashed in the sinking sunlight. It must be worth a fabulous sum. All his own – all, not half.

His foot was in the stirrup. He took one more look around. There was their resting-place, just as it had been left in the small hours of the morning. His friend’s blanket still lay there, as it had been thrown aside. His friend’s saddle and bridle – a few reims and other gear. The sight of these objects set him thinking.

The sweet golden sunshine slanted down into the hollow, its course nearly run. Opposite, the great cliffs flushed redly at its touch; below, the crater was already in shade. And upon that lonely ledge stood the man who was thus treacherously left to die a lingering death – never again to look upon a human face, never again to hear the sound of a human voice.

Why had he been so blindly, so besottedly confiding? Had he not by the very fact placed temptation in the other’s way? Marian was right. “He does not seem to ring true,” had been her words. Her quick woman’s instinct had gauged the risk, while he, in his superior knowledge, had suffered himself to be led blindfold into the trap. Ah, well, these considerations came just a trifle too late. He must make up his mind to meet his end, and that soon, for even to his resourceful brain no glimmer of a way out of the difficulty presented itself.

“Hallo! Fanning!”

The blood tingled in his veins at the call. He paused a moment before replying to the treacherous scoundrel – and then it was in one single stern monosyllable.

“Well?”

“Look here, old chap. I want to talk to you.”

“Why don’t you show yourself?”

For although the voice came from the cliff’s brow above, not even the speaker’s head was visible.

“Look here, old boss,” went on the latter, ignoring the question. “I’m a pretty desperate sort of a chap just now – because I’m desperately in want of the needful – all of it that I can lay hands on, in fact. Now, with you it’s different; for you went out of your way to tell me as much. Remember?”

“Go on.”

“Well, you said you’d be content with moderate riches. Now you’ve got them. With me it’s different. I want a good deal more than anything moderate.”

He paused, but no answer came from below.

“Well, what I want to propose is this. You hold on to what you’ve got, and I’ll stick to what I’ve got. Is that a bargain?”

“No.”

“Now, Fanning, do be reasonable. By-the-by, you remember when we first talked about this place. I told you I had an object in trying to make a pile, and rather chaffed you on having one too. Said I believed our object was the same. Remember?”

“Well?”

“Well, I little thought how I was hitting the right nail on the head. Now, by agreeing to my suggestion, you can benefit us both – benefit all three of us, in fact. For you behaved devilish well over that other business, mind, devilish well. Look here now. Agree that we shall start quits from this moment – that we each stick to what we’ve got on us – mind you, we’ve had no division yet, and you may have as many stones as I have – or nearly so – for all I – for all either of us – know. Give me your straight word of honour that you agree to this, and – I’ll let down the rope again.”

Here again the speaker fell unconsciously into an inconsistency so paradoxical as to be almost grotesque. Had the position been reversed, would he have scrupled at passing his own “word of honour” a score of times, if necessary, in order to get out of the present quandary. And once out of it would he have hesitated to break his pledged word equally a score of times, and to pursue his claim to the uttermost. Not for a moment would he have so scrupled. Yet he was prepared to accept this other man’s word in perfect good faith. Wherein is indeed a paradox, and, as we have said, a grotesque one.

“And if I refuse?” said Renshaw.

“If – ? In that case I shall not let down the rope again.”

“I do refuse, then.”

The stern determined tone left no room for doubt. That, once it was formed, there was no shaking this man’s resolution Maurice was well aware.

“Then you are committing suicide,” he said.

“And you murder – murder in the blackest and most diabolical form in which it has ever been committed. And – believe me or not, as you please – I would rather be myself here, than be you, at large with the results of your villainy. And those results – mark my last words – you will never benefit by.”