Chapter XVII Lost!
As for Jack and me, since we had in our pockets the map of the spot in which the treasure lay awaiting our pleasure to come and dig it up, and since James Strong could not possibly know to what quarter of the world we had been directed, or, indeed, any part of the purport of the miser’s eccentric letter, we determined to enjoy a week or two of real sport before returning to civilisation and the digging of treasures in high latitudes.
We had given Strong no weapons, since we could not trust him; but to Clutterbuck, who was nervous of travelling unarmed, we presented my old revolver, choked as it was with lead, together with a handful of cartridges, Clutterbuck vowing by all his gods never to give the weapon to Strong, or even to let that untrustworthy person know that he had it.
After he had made us this solemn promise, I revealed to Clutterbuck a plan I had thought of for clearing the barrel. It was simple enough. All he would have to do would be to heat the jammed portion of the barrel in the fire, when the lead would quickly melt and come out.
James Strong’s face was a study as he rode away with his companion, and Jack made the remark that he would not for a good sum be in Clutterbuck’s shoes and have to ride back all the way to Vryburg, if not to Cape Town, with such a murderous-looking, scowling ruffian as James Strong in his present temper.
“Oh, well,” I said; “Clutterbuck’s the grey mare this time. It’s he that has the pistol, and therefore the last word.”
“Yes, if he can keep it,” said Jack sagaciously. “But I should be surprised to hear that the poor chap reaches Cape Town in company with his share of the two hundred pounds or the revolver either. However, that’s not our affair. I hope we’ve seen the last of both of them for many a long day, or for ever; and the latter for choice.”
After this, for a space, we gave my co-heirs no further attention, but devoted ourselves entirely to the delights of sport.
We first rode back to the village of Ngami in order to see whether our ox-waggon and hunters had arrived, but did not find them waiting for us, as we had hoped might be the case. We therefore decided to employ the hours or days of waiting in a little impromptu sport in the neighbourhood.
We had no guide, and were without any very large stock of ammunition for the light rifles which we had brought with us; therefore, we agreed, it would be foolish to venture too far into the bush. It would be well too, if possible, to keep our conical hill in sight as a landmark in our guideless wanderings.
So away we rode into the jungle, with our rifles slung over our shoulders, half a hundred cartridges apiece disposed about our persons, a blanket each, plenty of matches, very little food of any kind,—for we would shoot our dinner day by day,—and, lastly, with old Clutterbuck’s absurd but invaluable “message from the tomb” buttoned up safely within the inner pocket of my Norfolk jacket, and a copy thereof in Jack’s secret waistcoat lining in case of accidents.
It was a somewhat unfortunate circumstance that we went astray at the very outset. A herd of beautiful elands crossed the open before our very eyes, and we did the most natural thing for Englishmen of our age: we tally-ho’d and galloped away in pursuit; and a fine chase those elands led us, heading straight for the jungle a couple of miles farther away.
Up to this point our conduct had been that of fairly sane men; but no sooner did the big antelopes disappear, at a distance of some two hundred yards in front of us, into the dense forest, than without a thought we plunged in after them, gaining rapidly upon the hindermost, at which we had fired three shots as we rode, and which—with rare bad luck for the eland, for we were not accustomed to firing at full gallop—we had wounded.
We rode madly into the thick cover, straining every nerve to overtake our prey. We could hear them crashing their way through the trees, very close at hand, and this excited us to even greater exertion.
The result was a foregone conclusion. When, a quarter of an hour later, we succeeded in overtaking the wounded beast and administering the coup de grâce, and had admired to the full the splendid proportions of the beautiful dead animal at our feet, it struck us that we had perhaps done a rash thing in venturing into this jungle.
“I wonder where we are?” one of us remarked laughingly.
“Do you remember the way out of this place?” asked Jack of me, looking around him.
The tangled growths on every side were of such density that it was impossible to see fifty yards in any direction.
“We must follow our tracks back, I suppose,” I said. “That won’t be difficult, will it, as the elands crashed through the same way?”
Jack did not think it would be very difficult, neither did I. Yet, after we had ridden back for a few hundred yards we came to a place where the right way might be any one of three ways; for either our herd had dispersed at this spot, or other companies of deer or other wild animals had passed, making several trampled tracks which our inexperienced eyes could not distinguish from our own, and any one of which might, as I say, be the right one.
“This is the way, I believe,” said Jack, showing one trampled path.
But I was almost sure that the right course was not this, but another. We argued; we laughed; we grew serious; we argued again; but all that we said and adduced in support of our respective contentions only tended to puzzle us both the more. In the end we were no nearer a solution of the difficulty, but rather, if possible, further away; for I believe it is a fact that we were both so muddled by the arguments, and by the general sameness of the look of the place in every direction, that we neither of us knew at last which trampled path we had selected in the first instance to swear by. I daresay I changed over to Jack’s and he to mine.
At all events, we eventually agreed to one thing, and that was that we were most distinctly and decidedly lost.
We climbed a tall tree or two in the hope of thus seeing, over the heads of the rest, our old friend the conical hill; but not a thing could we detect near or far but the waving tops of other trees in apparently endless lines of hopelessly innumerable and impenetrable leaf-screens.
We inspected every apology for a track until it branched off into two or more other paths. We rode for several hours, absolutely ignorant whether we went deeper into the forest or towards the open out of which we had entered it, until at last Jack pulled up, tied his horse to a tree, and threw himself down on the ground, rolling from side to side in a paroxysm of laughter, which I found very contagious and in which I joined immediately.
Of course, there was nothing to laugh at that I knew of; on the contrary, our position was somewhat serious. Nevertheless, I laughed simply because Jack did, until he suddenly looked up and pointed, and then at last I saw the reason of his mirth. Our dead eland lay about fifteen paces from us. We had ridden for four or five hours, and had returned to the spot from which we had started!—at which discovery I laughed again until I nearly cried.