Zouga stared at it numbly, twisting the lump of quartz to catch the light and make it twinkle. There was a sense of unreality about the moment, as there always is when something sought for and longed for is at last held in the hand.
He found his voice at last, a hoarse croak through his swollen, blistered, powder-scorched lips, and Jan Cheroot came almost immediately. The grave, he whispered urgently, 'Matthew's grave, it was dug so swiftly in such rocky soil. 'No, Jan Cheroot shook his head. 'It was there. There are other holes like it along the ridge.'
Zouga stared at him for a long moment, his face lopsided with the scabbed and stitched wound, his one eye a mere slit in the puffed and bruised flesh. He had let himself sink low from the wound. It had been under his nose and he had almost missed it. He started to drag himself out of his blanket. Help me! ' he ordered. 'I must see them.
Show me these holes.'
Leaning on Jan Cheroot's shoulder, stooped to favour his shoulder, he dragged himself along the ridge in the rain, and when at last he was satisfied, he limped back to the hut and used the last feeble light of that day to scrawl in his journal, holding it in his lap and bowing over it to protect the pages from the drip of rain through the rough thatching, using his left hand so the writing was barely decipherable. I have named it the Harkness Mine, for this must be very similar to the ancient workings that old Tom described. The reef is white sugar quartz and runs along the back of the ridge. It would appear to be very narrow but rich, for there is visible gold in many of the samples.
My injury prevents me crushing and panning these, but I would estimate values well in excess of two ounces of fine gold to the ton of quartz. The ancient miners have driven four shafts into the hillside. There may be more that I overlooked, for they are heavily overgrown and an attempt has been made to refill the shafts, possibly to conceal them. The shafts are large-enough to admit a small man crawling on hands and knees. Probably they used childslaves in the diggings and the conditions of labour in these rabbit warrens must have been infernal. In any event they were only able to go down as far as the water table, and without sophisticated machinery to pump the flooded working, they would have been abandoned. This is probably what happened here at the Harkness Mine and there is almost certainly a great amount of goldbearing ore to be recovered by modern methods. The rock dump on which stands my rude hut is composed almost entirely of the gold matrix, awaiting crushing and refining, and the miners were probably driven away by an enemy before they could complete their labours. I am couched upon a mattress of gold, and like King Midas all around me is the precious metal. Like that unfortunate King. there seems to be little profit in it for me that I can perceive at this moment-, Zouga. paused, and laid his pen aside, warming his icy hands at the smoky fire. He should have felt wildly elated. He picked up his pen once again. He sighed and then wrote tortuously, I have a huge store of ivory, but it is spread across this land, buried in small caches. I have fifty pounds and more of native gold in ingot and nugget, and I have discovered the mother lode of untold fortune, but it cannot buy me a pound flask of gunpowder nor an unguent for my grievous injuries. I will not know until tomorrow if I have the strength remaining to me to continue the march to the south, or if I am destined to remain here with Matthew and the great elephant as my only companions Jan Cheroot shook him awake. It took a long time.
Zouga seemed to be swimming up from great depths through cold and murky water, and when at last he Surfaced, he knew immediately that his gloomy prophecy written in the journal the previous evening had become reality. There was no feeling or strength in his legs. His shoulder and arm were bound rock hard with spasmed muscle. Leave me here, he said to Jan Cheroot, and the Hottentot heaved him to a sitting position, snarling at him when Zouga cried out at the agony of each movement, and forced him to drink the steaming hot soup made from elephant marrowbones.
Leave one gun with me, Zouga whispered. Here. ' Jan Cheroot ignored the order and instead made him take the bitter white powder. Zouga gagged on the quinine.
it took two porters to get him on his feet. I am leaving that stone.
' Jan Cheroot pointed to the packaged statue. 'We cannot carry both of you. 'NO! Zouga whispered fiercely. 'if I go, the bird must go with me. 'How? '
Zouga shrugged off their hands.
I will walk, he said. 'Carry the bird.'
They made less than five miles that day, but the following day the sun emerged again to cheer them on. Once it warmed Zouga's abused muscles, he could increase thee pace.
That night he logged ten miles in his journal when they camped in open grassland. In the dawn Zoga was able to crawl from his blankets and gain his feet unaided.
His injuries still stiff, he used the staff to leave the thorn scherm by its single gate and limp to the periphery of the camp. When he urinated his water was a dark amber colour from the fever and the quinine, but he knew now that he was going to be able to continue the march.
He looked up at the sky. It would rain again soon. They should start at once. He was about to turn back to the camp and rouse the porters when movement in the tall grass caught his attention.
For a moment he thought it might be a troop of wild ostrich passing the camp, then suddenly he realized that the whole plain was alive with swift but stealthy movement, the fluffy grass tops rustling and nodding with the passage of many bodies, only now and again there was a brief glimpse of ruffled plumes above the grass. The movement spread swiftly around both sides of the small camp, where Zouga's men still slept.
Zouga stared uncomprehendingly, leaning on his staff, still muzzy with sleep and fever and anchored by his injuries, he did not move until the swift encircling movement had been completed, and then the stillness and silence descended again so for a moment he believed he had been imagining phantoms.
Then there was a soft fluting whistle, like a blast on Pan's pipe, sweet and hauntingly melodious in the dawn, and immediately there was movement again, an encroaching movement, like a strangler's hand upon the throat. Zouga saw the ostrich plumes clearly now, snowy white and dead black they swayed and danced above the grass tops, and immediately afterwards he saw the war shields, long oval shields of dappled black and white cowhide. The long shields, the Matabele.
Dread was a cold, heavy lump under his ribs, yet instinct warned him that to show it would mean death, just when he had once again believed in life.
There were a hundred, he calculated swiftly as he glanced around the closing ring of warriors. No, there were more than that, at least two hundred Matabele amadoda in full war plumage, only the plumes and their eyes showing above the tops of the long dappled shields.
The grey dawn light glinted on the broad-bladed stabbing spears, held underhand so the points protruded beyond the ring of shields. The ring was unbroken, shield overlapped shield, the encircling horns of the bull, the
