Dead Man's Land Part 47

"Yes," said Bob, laughing. "Peter Dance and me have been talking him over. We should like to take him home with us. They would give anything we liked to ask for him in London, to put in a circus or a show."

"Indeed!" said Mark, with a snort. "Thank you! But you had better not let your master hear you talk like that, Bob. He'd begin making your ears warm by telling you what the slave trade was. This little fellow's a visitor, and my cousin and I want you men to treat him well. No nonsense, sir. He has only come to stay till we start, and then he is going back to the forest."

But nothing seemed farther from the pigmy's thoughts, for when a fresh start was made, with the distant kopjes and piles of stone now hidden by the heated haze, the little chief shouldered his spear, crossed to the Illaka's side, and marching beside him, two steps to his one, kept abreast.

"I do like that, Mr Mark, sir," said Dan. "Look at old Brown going along yonder with his foreloping. Why, it would take three of that little chap to make one of he, and I don't know how many of him to weigh down Buck Denham in a pair of scales. But is the little one coming along with us?"

"I suppose so," said Mark: "eh, Dean?" he continued, and signing to him to follow he dropped back a few paces and continued to his cousin, "I have only just thought of it; he is coming with us to show where they find the gold."

"Why, of course!" cried Dean. "I might have thought of that."

"Yes, but you didn't. Here, let's go and tell father and the doctor.

Come on! And then I'll give you your chance. You tell them just as if it had occurred to you."

"No, thank you," said Dean quietly. "I don't like borrowed plumes."

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

FINDING AN ANTIQUITY.

The kopjes with their supposed buildings proved to be farther away than was expected, and a halt was made at night at the first of the outlying piles of tree overgrown stones, while it was the middle of the next day before their goal was reached. A regular halt was made at a very chaos of stones, some being evidently artificially built up after the fas.h.i.+on of walls huge in size, but so overwhelmed, as it were, by a wave of ancient verdure, and dragged down by the wonderfully abundant growth of vines and creepers, that it was difficult to tell which were the stones that had been piled together and which formed part of the nature-erected kopje.

"Well, doctor," said Sir James, later on, "what do you think of this?"

"Grand," was the reply. "Even if there were nothing more than we can see now, this place would be full of interest."

"Do you really think that this is the place of which we have heard?"

"It must be," said the doctor; "and it is proved by what we can gather from these two blacks."

"Yes," cried Mark excitedly; "and it is there the pigmy obtained his gold."

"Yes, boy. Those ornaments were never made by people in such a savage state as he is. Well, the first thing to do is to settle down here and make as strong a camp as we can."

"Just here?" said Sir James.

"Certainly, for the present. We may no doubt find later on some old temple or other building that we can add to, but for the time being we must contrive a kraal where we can set dangerous visitors to our cattle quite at defiance."

"But you talk about temples," said Sir James. "Do you really think there are more buildings here than we can see?"

"My dear sir," cried the doctor, "I just climbed up fifty or sixty feet amongst the ma.s.ses of rock, and as far as I can see in three directions there seems to be quite a wilderness of natural and artificial ruins."

"Then what do you propose?" said Sir James.

"To have the waggons drawn up across that opening that lies between those two walls."

"Walls!" said Mark. "You mean that ravine of old stones that looks like a split made by an earthquake."

"My dear boy," said the doctor enthusiastically, "that earthquake, as you call it, I am sure was caused by men. What we see across there are two walls."

"Well, they don't look like it," said Dean.

"Not as they are, boy," said the doctor, "crumbled, grown over, and in utter ruins; but I have had a look long enough to satisfy me that all this was built up--perhaps thousands of years ago. We can prove all that by-and-by. I want to see everyone at work making what will be an easy task--a strongly fortified little camp into which no lions can break and we can sleep in peace."

"Yes," said Sir James; "those are the words of wisdom, boys, and we shan't have to go far for our materials. But I don't see any water."

"We did, father," cried Mark. "Mak took us over those piles--oh, not above fifty yards--and in what seemed to be a gully there was a beautiful river of water running along at the foot of a precipice."

"Well, it wasn't a precipice," said Dean. "We were looking down upon it from the top of what if it had been built up we should call a wall; but I think it's the side of a kopje."

"Never mind what it was," said the doctor, "so long as the water was there. We might have known that the black would not select a place without a supply. Now then, I think we can make a very good temporary shelter before it grows dark in the place I have pointed out, for it is one that we can go on improving by degrees."

Under the doctor's instructions everyone set to work with a will; a shot or two was fired to scare away any undesirable lurking beasts, with the result that the reports went echoing away amongst the rocks with many a strange reverberation, and then the ponies and bullocks were driven into the undergrowth to browse, while the men set to hacking and chopping with axe and billhook, Dan proving himself an adept at twisting up tough willow-like wands to form bands which the two keepers utilised for securing the f.a.ggots; till Buck cried "Hold! enough!" Then Dan started a fire in the shelter of a pile of stones, and when that was blazing well and heating water and cooking meat, the rest blocked up an opening here, heaped up thorns there, and by means of sharp pegs and a cloth or two contrived a covered-in shed for the men against what might have been an old wall, but looked like an almost perpendicular bank of rock.

The evening closed in upon them with its threats of total darkness, their surroundings making their position the more secure from the numbers of towering trees that sheltered them in almost every direction.

The cattle were driven in near to where the fire was blazing, every branch that was thrown upon it having been selected with the idea of clearing a wider s.p.a.ce where progress was literally choked up by the wealth of growth everywhere around.

"For I never see such a place, Mr Mark, sir," said Bob. "Seems to me as if this is where the world was finished, and where all as warn't wanted was chucked in a heap."

"I know what I should like," said Peter Dance.

"What, mate?" asked Bob.

"Why, to set our Mak making a lot of basket coops."

"What for?" cried Mark.

"What for, sir? Why, if you stopped here and give me the chance and a few dozen sittings of eggs I could show you some pheasant shooting in a year's time. But I suppose I shan't have the chance to make that big chap a bit useful. He arn't got a mossel of work in him."

"What, Mak?" cried Mark merrily. "But see what a splendid fellow he is to look on."

"Oh, yes, he can look on, sir. But I could do that, easy."

"And guide?" said Mark. "But you couldn't do that, Peter."

"Well, but I arn't had no practice, sir."

"And find water for camping by," continued Mark.

"Yes, sir, he can do that."

"And you said yourself the other day that he could track the bucks splendidly."

"Yes, sir. You see, he's used to it."