Henry thought it policy to accept the explanation but jerked his head towards the rising sun. ‘I should have thought there was plenty of light to see by—anyhow, why aren’t the others about yet? It’s time we were moving.’
‘We’re not moving,’ Philbeach announced abruptly. ‘I talked it over with Darkie and Ginger last night and we don’t mean to go any farther.’
‘Why?’ Henry suddenly thrust out his jaw in a stony curve, ‘Another two days now and we should be there.’
Philbeach waved a lumpish, grimy hand towards the towering mountain range, broken here and there by gaps and gorges. ‘That’s why!’ he said with a sudden grin. ‘The heat’s bad enough here on the plain but it will be fifty times worse once we enter those damnable valleys.’
‘I’ve come for those diamonds and I mean to get them,’ Henry muttered thickly.
‘All right—but the other lot’s ahead of us—isn’t it?’ The grin broadened on Philbeach’s heavy face. ‘I mean to let them do the dirty work. If the stuff is there they’ll find it and be back here inside five days. All we’ve got to do is to sit pretty here and take it off them when they turn up again. Then you’ll have a chance to loose off that pop-gun to some purpose, or you can watch me and the boys if you prefer to see some really pretty shooting.’
19
The Underground River
Michael meanwhile was plodding on. The going now was more difficult than ever and he was compelled to lead his horse. The wagon creaked and groaned as, with a lop-sided motion, it lurched along, first one wheel and then another mounting the small boulders which were so numerous that it was impossible to circumvent them all. Every ten or fifteen minutes it got stuck completely and the whole party had to turn to with long poles which they thrust under the axles. Then, levering with all their might, while the sweat streamed down their bitten and swollen faces, they heaved it bodily over the obstruction and proceeded once more.
George was at the whisky now and drinking to such an extent that he was of little use although he caused endless bother to the others by his continual whining complaints. Even Ernest, who was devoted to his brother, rounded on him savagely on the second night after they had entered the mountainous region, and with blazing eyes wrenched a bottle out of his hands. The quarrel developed until both were snarling at each other in furious animosity and Michael, sitting nearby, a silent spectator of the scene learned, from the mud which they slung at each other, enough of their past transactions to realise that at least there was some foundation for what his uncle had told him in Johannesburg of George’s dubious commercial beginnings. That night, when both the brothers were tossing in a fitful sleep, he climbed into the wagon and, securing the remaining five bottles of whisky, deliberately smashed them against a rock.
The following morning, when George discovered what he had done, there was another angry scene and the elder Bennett began to revile their mother for having deserted Ernest and himself to run away with Michael’s father. Michael, now livid with rage at these insults to a mother whom he adored, snatched up his riding whip and would have used it relentlessly upon the podgy, swollen body of his tormentor had not Ernest intervened, first physically, and then with a recurrence of his quick Cockney humour which neither of them had heard for days.
This outburst seemed to ease the feelings of them all, and during that morning George was certainly better for having been deprived of the chance to drug himself with alcohol.
They halted at midday half-way along one of those endless rocky valleys and Ombulike came up to Michael who, despite his youth, all the natives had come to regard naturally as the leader of the party. He pointed with his stick to the end of the depression. In the blue, dancing heat it seemed to merge into the further mountains. He said one word: ‘Water!’
The thought of water—not the meagre ration of lukewarm, unsatisfying liquid with which they had to content themselves four times a day, but cold, fresh, spring-water to drink without stint and perhaps even enough in which to bathe their sore parched bodies, filled them with such excitement that they determined to curtail the noonday halt. At two o’clock they set off again along the great boulder-strewn valley, where every stone reflected the torrid heat of that vast naked sun, and by a little after four they rounded a great mass of rock to find a swift, broad channel of water rushing in swirling eddies below them.
With frantic haste they scrambled down to a ricky ledge and, flinging themselves upon it, plunged their faces into the cool refreshing stream, gulping up great mouthfuls of that heaven-sent draught. Then, throwing off their clothes, they slipped from the ledge and, with infinite contentment, felt it gurgle over their red, dust encrusted bodies.
When they had dressed again an utterly new spirit seemed to have descended upon the party. Their quarrel of the morning was forgotten and they found themselves laughing together just as they had in that other, brighter world before they had ever started out into the desert. All three agreed to press on, keeping as close to the river bank as they were able and, after an hour of following its course through a stony defile, they came to a place where it ended suddenly. A vast wall of rock, several hundred feet in height, towered above their heads. It shut out the sun, and at its base the rushing waters poured into a great dark cleft where they disappeared from view.
Ombulike came forward and pointed with his stick to the entrance of that gloomy cavern into which the tossing waters surged. ‘That way,’ he said, ‘is the way great master went—I wait for him here.’
Michael nodded, looking towards the Bennetts. ‘He’s right,’ he agreed slowly. ‘This is the place, I’ve not a doubt. Look! It is exactly as it is described in Hedley Chilver’s book, “The Seven Lost Trails of Africa”.’
‘Well, I don’t like it,’ said Ernest frankly.
‘Nor do I.’ All the renewed cheerfulness which had brightened George’s fat face for the last hour had drained from it as he went on: ‘Surely there must be some other way except by risking our necks going into that beastly hole.’
‘There is.’ Michael lifted his face to the beetling crags which cut sharply into the blue sky above their heads. ‘Once they have reached the valley people have managed to climb out somehow. They couldn’t swim or steer a raft against this current, anyhow, but we might wander for months among all these desolate cañons before we could ever find a way into the one beyond.’
All three stood for a few moments watching the roaring current as it frothed and eddied against the rocks before disappearing into the great hole. The time had come when they must risk their lives unless they meant to turn back emptyhanded, and it was Ernest who first gave them a lead. ‘Well, chaps,’ he jerked out, fingering that prominent Adam’s apple, ‘nothing venture, nothing have—so I suppose we’ve got to risk it.’
‘All right—I’m game,’ Michael agreed, although he paled a little under his brick-red tan at the thought of venturing into those dark, fearsome waters. ‘I should think the best thing we can do is construct a raft from all the gear that we have got in the wagon. The current will carry us along but we can check the speed and fend ourselves off from the rocks and corners if we take long sweeps. It may not be so bad in there if we’re able to light our way with the torches. Come on, let’s get busy.’
They still had several hours’ daylight before them, so it was decided to make the attempt that afternoon rather than wait until the following morning. They set to work at once to make as solid a raft as they could of packing-cases, tent poles and all the odds and ends of timber which they had with them.
When it was completed George looked at those evil, rushing waters and then at the others. ‘Is it necessary that we all should go?’ he muttered a little thickly. ‘Someone ought to stay here to keep an eye on the niggers and the wagon. At least, I think so.’
Michael nodded. ‘Yes, that’s sound enough. Two of us should be able to gather enough stones for the three of us to live in comfort for the rest of our lives, so there’s no need for us all to risk our li
ves. The third can stay here and if the others aren’t back in forty-eight hours he can make up his own mind whether to take a chance and come after them or beat it back to civilisation.’
Ernest strolled over to the wagon and, taking a Lett’s Diary from the pocket of his coat, tore a leaf from it at random. Then he divided it into three, and twisting the slips of paper, threw them in a hat. ‘There’s three dates there,’ he announced, ‘so let’s make it odd man out. There’ll be two evens and an odd or vice-versa. I don’t know which, myself, but Michael is the youngest so he can have first pick.’
Michael drew a paper and, unfolding it, saw that he had drawn the eighth of August. Ernest took another and drew the seventh.
Both of them watched George covertly but with burning interest. If he drew the sixth, Ernie would have a prolonged chance of life but, if he drew the ninth, it was Michael who would remain behind. George unfolded the paper and handed it over with a little grunt. Printed upon it in clear blue lettering was August sixth. So Michael was destined to take his life in his hands with George for a companion, while Ernest stayed behind and waited the result of their desperate undertaking.
Filled with the urge to get this wretched business over rather than sleep upon it, Michael led the way down to the raft which was already floating in a little bay sheltered from the rushing current, with Ombulike keeping a watchful eye upon it.
While Michael and George gingerly balanced themselves upon the raft, Ernest carried down sufficient stores to last them for two days on the far side of the mountain—Michael’s gun, with a supply of ammunition wrapped in a waterproof sheet, and their electric torches. They would have to go without bedding since the structure was barely buoyant enough to carry their own weight and that of their supplies. In the evening light the Kaffirs stood round, grinning a little to each other at the complete madness of men who would venture into such a place. Ernest, with unusual soberness, bade them good-bye and good luck—then they pushed off.
The instant they left the shelter of the little backwater the flood caught them, and, whirling them about, carried them rapidly along the fast-flowing stream. In a moment Ernest’s figure was hidden by a jutting rock at one side of the opening, and the next the evening light, bright upon the red verdureless boulders, had been cut out and only a semicircular glimpse of the landscape remained as the rushing torrent bore the frail raft into the darkness.
With astonishing speed the opening appeared to decrease in size, then, as they passed a bend in the tunnel, it was completely blotted out and they were left racing along on the bosom of the underground river in Stygian blackness.
When they started they had been carried away so swiftly that neither had thought to use their torches, but now, as he crouched beside George on the raft, Michael produced his and shone the beam before them.
At its opening the arch of the cave had been at least twenty feet above the water’s edge but now he saw with sudden anxiety that it was no more than a few feet above their heads and every moment, as the raft rushed on, it seemed to become lower. With an awful misgiving the thought flashed into his mind that they had no knowledge of the time of year at which old John had preceded them into this fearsome place. Perhaps at that season the river had been lower, and now, if it was in spate, there might come a point in the tunnel where the waters actually met the roof, in which case their fate was sealed. It was impossible to turn back, for the sides of the cave were sheer and glassy. No projecting crag offered the least hand-hold at which they might catch to stop the wild progress of their rickety float. With a sudden cry George lurched against Michael, who sprawled forward, dropping his torch with a splash into the hissing water, but George still held his. In its beam Michael guessed, with a horrible feeling of repulsion, the thing which had caused his half-brother to cry out. It must have been another of those huge blind vampire bats which, with spread wings, was fluttering towards them. As George ducked to dodge the brute the beam of his torch jerked upwards to the low roof above them and to his horror Michael saw that there were scores and scores of the loathsome creatures hanging head downward from it within a few inches of his hair. The roof was lower now and it would have been impossible for them to stand upright since it was no more than four feet above the seething water. Both had slipped down to their full length on the raft and, while George gripped the remaining torch with both his hands, Michael staved their frail craft off from the solid walls of rock as they were raced round corner after corner. In the bright shaft of light to the front of them a flat head with gaping jaws suddenly appeared. The raft caught it as it swept past and the water-serpent disappeared from view.
A hanging bat struck Michael’s head, another fluttered between them, and a third brushed George’s shoulder. The roof was shelving still more steeply towards the stream and although they were lying flat upon their stomachs they were knocking the loathsome creatures from their resting places as they shot past. The air was fetid with the smell of them. In the few moments that followed both went nearly mad as they fought off a whole flight of those monstrous blind inhabitants of the subterranean cave which squeaked and fluttered as they dashed into their faces.
The end came suddenly. Only a few seconds after they had passed out of the bat-infested area the roof took so sharp a dip that there was no longer hanging space enough for them between the stone and the rushing waters. With bulging, terror-stricken eyes George peered ahead of him to where, in the clear-cut arc of the torchlight, the rock and river seemed to meet. Michael buried his head in his arms with the awful feeling that, whatever he did, there was no hope of his seeing daylight any more.
Next second his elbow was caught on a projecting snag of the slimy ceiling. The raft was going at such a pace that he was torn bodily from it. The icy waters of the subterranean river closed over his head and when he came up gasping from the freezing shock of his immersion, George—the raft—and the light, had disappeared. All about him hung a stifling black-velvet blackness. He struck out wildly, grabbing frantically at the rocky side of the cavern in search of a handhold. It was damp and slippery and the current was sweeping him along at such, a pace that even when he managed to clutch at a protrusion in the surface he was torn from it and hurried once more along the nightmare waterway.
For hours, it seemed, he fought and struggled without success. Then, when his strength was ebbing from him, he glimpsed a lightening of the pervading murk. Where before it had been solid black it now seemed to have taken on a faint tinge of greyness. No sooner had he realised that than he was swept round a corner and saw full daylight entering from an opening at the far end of the tunnel. With incredible rapidity he was carried towards it until the scene framed in the arch of light stood out clearly, revealing the tops of a blue range of mountains in the far distance. A thunderous roar filled his ears and that sound warned him of a new peril. The underground river did not flow on into the valley beyond but descended from the mountainside in a great cataract. Next moment he might be hurtled hundreds of feet down some uncharted waterfall into the depths below.
The roar increased to a deafening thunder as he battled to reach the side of the cave. Where the wall split into fragments at the entrance his desperate fingers fastened upon a jagged rock. At his side the torrent curved and fell in a foaming cascade to pitch and break into flying spray and seething whirlpools a hundred feet below. For a second his life hung in the balance, then he got a foothold and with a final effort dragged himself free of the clutching waters to throw himself exhausted upon a ledge of rock.
How long he lay there he did not know, but when he recovered sufficiently to scramble farther from the danger, the sun was setting. By its fading light he managed to pick his way from ledge to ledge down into the valley, to the side of the great pool into which the spate of that terrifying river crashed and roared unceasingly. In the still waters beyond the raging whirlpool and white hissing foam a portion of the raft lay becalmed, resting upon a slight projection in the river’s bank. There was no sign of George and as
Michael looked around him in the evening light he knew that he would never see that confident, self-assertive smile again.
He searched the shelving shore of the small inland lake into which the waters tumbled but could see no trace of that fat, cheerful half-brother who during these last days had shown another side to his nature and been such a curse to their party. Then he rescued the remaining timbers of the raft and to his surprise found that the store of provisions which they had tied upon it in their waterproof ground-sheets were damp but safe. Carrying them ashore, he sat down beside the lake to make a solitary and miserable meal.
While he ate he glanced about him. This must surely be the place he had come so far to find. It was like a giant oval pit some two miles long and half a mile wide hollowed out of the solid mountain. At the end he had entered, the lake filled its bottom, then, gradually narrowing into a foaming spate, rushed headlong down a short slope to disappear underground once more in the base of the cliff face. The sides of the great crater were sheer and precipitious, so that while he felt that he would at least be safe from wild beasts there, he doubted his ability to scale those towering walls of rock which hemmed him in.
That this was the place for which they had been seeking he had no shadow of doubt, but where were the diamonds? To all appearances it differed in no way from those barren valleys through which they had made their way on previous days. Munching a bunch of grapes he strolled about disconsolately, kicking up the pebbles on the foreshore of the lake.
With a sudden surge of fury it came to him that old John must have obtained his fine fortune somewhere else and left the letter only with the idea of intriguing his avaricious brother Henry. He recalled the taunting challenge in the last paragraph. Yes, that was it. John’s impish humour had turned to malice at the last and he had tried to tempt Henry into spending some of that fortune which he had hoarded penny by penny, knowing full well the bitter days of scorching heat and nights of suffering he would go through, yet find nothing for all his pains in the end.
The Fabulous Valley Page 17