Chapter 4 Into the Desert

Next day we made our arrangements.

We took with us five rifles, three revolvers, five water-bottles, six pounds of sun-dried meat, our knives, some medicine, some matches and a few other things.

Three men from the village agreed to come with us for the first eighteen miles, carrying large pots of water. Then we could fill our water-bottles again after the first night's march.

We started in the cool of the evening. Our only guides were the mountains and old Jose da Silvestra's map. If we failed to find the 'pool of bad water' that his map showed in the middle of the desert, we would probably die of thirst.

We marched as silently as shadows through the night and in the heavy sand. It was very quiet and we felt alone.

At last daylight came and about an hour later we saw some rocks. The large shadow of one big piece of rock hung over the sand, and it allowed us to escape from the heat of the sun. We drank some water and ate a piece of dried meat. Then we lay down and were soon asleep.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon before we woke. The water-carriers were preparing to return home; they had seen enough of the desert already. So we drank, filled our water-bottles and then watched them leave. At half-past four we also started.

At sunset we stopped and waited for the moon. Then we marched through the night until the sun came up. We drank a little, and lay down on the sand to sleep. There was no escape from the heat of the sun. I do not know how we lived through the day. At three we began to move forward again.

At sunset we rested and got more sleep. When the moon came up, we marched again. We were suffering terribly from thirst. We did not have the strength to speak.

At two o'clock we stopped near a little hill and drank our last water. Then we lay down.

I heard Umbopa say to himself,' If we cannot find water, we will all be dead before the moon appears tomorrow.'

After two hours, I woke up. The others were just beginning to wake.

' If we can believe Silvestra's map, there must be some water near here,' I said. No one seemed interested in this. It was clear that we could not be very sure of the map.

I saw Ventvogel walking about. Then he lifted his nose and seemed to smell the air.

' I smell water,' he said.

Just then, the sun came up. There, not more than fifty miles away, we saw Sheba's Breasts. The great Suliman Mountains stretched away for hundreds of miles on each side of them.

Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard thoughtfully. 'Perhaps there's water on the top of the hill,' he said.

' Rubbish,' said Good.' When have you ever found water on the top of a hill ?'

' Let's go and look,' I said.

We climbed up the sandy sides of the little hill - and there, in a deep hole, was water! It was black and did not look very clean, but it was water. We drank and drank, then we took off our clothes and sat down in it.

We stayed on the hill all day, waiting for the sun to go down. Then we drank again, filled our water-bottles, and started to walk.

Our water was finished again when we reached the foot of the mountain, but by good fortune we found some fruit. As we climbed, we suffered terribly during the nights from cold. We had little strength now, and no food.

On 23rd May, we climbed slowly up through the snow, lying down sometimes to rest. At sunset we were just below Sheba's left breast.

' We must be somewhere near the cave that the old gentleman wrote about,' said Good.

'Yes,' I said,' if there is a cave. And if we do not find it before dark, we are dead men.'

We marched in silence. Then Umbopa stopped.

' Look!' he said. He pointed at a hole in the snow.' It is the cave.'

We crept inside the cave, and sat close together. We could not sleep; the cold was too terrible.

At last the air began to grow grey with light. The sun looked in on our half-frozen bodies — and also on Ventvogel, who was sitting there dead among us.

Shocked, we stood up and moved away from his dead body. Then I heard a cry of fear from somebody, and turned my head. Sitting at the end of the cave, there was another body. The head rested on its chest, and the long arms hung down. I stared at it. It too was a dead man — and a white man. The body was completely frozen.

'Jose da Silvestra, of course,' said Good.

' Impossible!' I cried.' He died 300 years ago.'

'Why not? He is frozen hard. Look, here is the piece of bone that he drew the map with.'

' Yes,' said Sir Henry,' and here is the place where he took his blood to draw it with.' He pointed to a small cut on the left arm of the body.

We left those two, da Silvestra and poor Ventvogel, and crept out of the cave into the sunshine. How many hours would it be before we were like them?

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 804