CHAPTER XX.

FOUND

And now I come to perhaps the strangest adventure that happened to us

in all this strange business, and one which shows how wonderfully

things are brought about.

I was walking along quietly, some way in front of the other two, down

the banks of the stream which runs from the oasis till it is swallowed

up in the hungry desert sands, when suddenly I stopped and rubbed my

eyes, as well I might. There, not twenty yards in front of me, placed

in a charming situation, under the shade of a species of fig-tree, and

facing to the stream, was a cosy hut, built more or less on the Kafir

principle with grass and withes, but having a full-length door instead

of a bee-hole.

“What the dickens,” said I to myself, “can a hut be doing here?” Even

as I said it the door of the hut opened, and there limped out of it a

_white man_ clothed in skins, and with an enormous black beard. I

thought that I must have got a touch of the sun. It was impossible. No

hunter ever came to such a place as this. Certainly no hunter would

ever settle in it. I stared and stared, and so did the other man, and

just at that juncture Sir Henry and Good walked up.

“Look here, you fellows,” I said, “is that a white man, or am I mad?”

Sir Henry looked, and Good looked, and then all of a sudden the lame

white man with a black beard uttered a great cry, and began hobbling

towards us. When he was close he fell down in a sort of faint.

With a spring Sir Henry was by his side.

“Great Powers!” he cried, “_it is my brother George!_”

At the sound of this disturbance, another figure, also clad in skins,

emerged from the hut, a gun in his hand, and ran towards us. On seeing

me he too gave a cry.

“Macumazahn,” he halloed, “don’t you know me, Baas? I’m Jim the hunter.

I lost the note you gave me to give to the Baas, and we have been here

nearly two years.” And the fellow fell at my feet, and rolled over and

over, weeping for joy.

“You careless scoundrel!” I said; “you ought to be well

_sjambocked_”—that is, hided.

Meanwhile the man with the black beard had recovered and risen, and he

and Sir Henry were pump-handling away at each other, apparently without

a word to say. But whatever they had quarrelled about in the past—I

suspect it was a lady, though I never asked—it was evidently forgotten

now.

“My dear old fellow,” burst out Sir Henry at last, “I thought you were

dead. I have been over Solomon’s Mountains to find you. I had given up

all hope of ever seeing you again, and now I come across you perched in

the desert, like an old _aasvögel_.”[14]

[14] Vulture.

“I tried to cross Solomon’s Mountains nearly two years ago,” was the

answer, spoken in the hesitating voice of a man who has had little

recent opportunity of using his tongue, “but when I reached here a

boulder fell on my leg and crushed it, and I have been able to go

neither forward nor back.”

Then I came up. “How do you do, Mr. Neville?” I said; “do you remember

me?”

“Why,” he said, “isn’t it Hunter Quatermain, eh, and Good too? Hold on

a minute, you fellows, I am getting dizzy again. It is all so very

strange, and, when a man has ceased to hope, so very happy!”

That evening, over the camp fire, George Curtis told us his story,

which, in its way, was almost as eventful as our own, and, put shortly,

amounted to this. A little less than two years before, he had started

from Sitanda’s Kraal, to try to reach Suliman’s Berg. As for the note I

had sent him by Jim, that worthy lost it, and he had never heard of it

till to-day. But, acting upon information he had received from the

natives, he headed not for Sheba’s Breasts, but for the ladder-like

descent of the mountains down which we had just come, which is clearly

a better route than that marked out in old Dom Silvestra’s plan. In the

desert he and Jim had suffered great hardships, but finally they

reached this oasis, where a terrible accident befell George Curtis. On

the day of their arrival he was sitting by the stream, and Jim was

extracting the honey from the nest of a stingless bee which is to be

found in the desert, on the top of a bank immediately above him. In so

doing he loosened a great boulder of rock, which fell upon George

Curtis’s right leg, crushing it frightfully. From that day he had been

so lame that he found it impossible to go either forward or back, and

had preferred to take the chances of dying in the oasis to the

certainty of perishing in the desert.

As for food, however, they got on pretty well, for they had a good

supply of ammunition, and the oasis was frequented, especially at

night, by large quantities of game, which came thither for water. These

they shot, or trapped in pitfalls, using the flesh for food, and, after

their clothes wore out, the hides for clothing.

“And so,” George Curtis ended, “we have lived for nearly two years,

like a second Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday, hoping against hope

that some natives might come here to help us away, but none have come.

Only last night we settled that Jim should leave me, and try to reach

Sitanda’s Kraal to get assistance. He was to go to-morrow, but I had

little hope of ever seeing him back again. And now _you_, of all people

in the world, _you_, who, as I fancied, had long ago forgotten all

about me, and were living comfortably in old England, turn up in a

promiscuous way and find me where you least expected. It is the most

wonderful thing that I have ever heard of, and the most merciful too.”

Then Sir Henry set to work, and told him the main facts of our

adventures, sitting till late into the night to do it.

“By Jove!” said George Curtis, when I showed him some of the diamonds:

“well, at least you have got something for your pains, besides my

worthless self.”

Sir Henry laughed. “They belong to Quatermain and Good. It was a part

of the bargain that they should divide any spoils there might be.”

This remark set me thinking, and having spoken to Good, I told Sir

Henry that it was our joint wish that he should take a third portion of

the diamonds, or, if he would not, that his share should be handed to

his brother, who had suffered even more than ourselves on the chance of

getting them. Finally, we prevailed upon him to consent to this

arrangement, but George Curtis did not know of it until some time

afterwards.

Here, at this point, I think that I shall end my history. Our journey

across the desert back to Sitanda’s Kraal was most arduous, especially

as we had to support George Curtis, whose right leg was very weak

indeed, and continually threw out splinters of bone. But we did

accomplish it somehow, and to give its details would only be to

reproduce much of what happened to us on the former occasion.

Six months from the date of our re-arrival at Sitanda’s, where we found

our guns and other goods quite safe, though the old rascal in charge

was much disgusted at our surviving to claim them, saw us all once more

safe and sound at my little place on the Berea, near Durban, where I am

now writing. Thence I bid farewell to all who have accompanied me

through the strangest trip I ever made in the course of a long and

varied experience.

P.S.—Just as I had written the last word, a Kafir came up my avenue of

orange trees, carrying a letter in a cleft stick, which he had brought

from the post. It turned out to be from Sir Henry, and as it speaks for

itself I give it in full.

October 1, 1884.

Brayley Hall, Yorkshire.

My Dear Quatermain,

I send you a line a few mails back to say that the three of us,

George, Good, and myself, fetched up all right in England. We got

off the boat at Southampton, and went up to town. You should have

seen what a swell Good turned out the very next day, beautifully

shaved, frock coat fitting like a glove, brand new eye-glass, etc.,

etc. I went and walked in the park with him, where I met some

people I know, and at once told them the story of his “beautiful

white legs.”

He is furious, especially as some ill-natured person has printed it

in a Society paper.

To come to business, Good and I took the diamonds to Streeter’s to

be valued, as we arranged, and really I am afraid to tell you what

they put them at, it seems so enormous. They say that of course it

is more or less guess-work, as such stones have never to their

knowledge been put on the market in anything like such quantities.

It appears that (with the exception of one or two of the largest)

they are of the finest water, and equal in every way to the best

Brazilian stones. I asked them if they would buy them, but they

said that it was beyond their power to do so, and recommended us to

sell by degrees, over a period of years indeed, for fear lest we

should flood the market. They offer, however, a hundred and eighty

thousand for a very small portion of them.

You must come home, Quatermain, and see about these things,

especially if you insist upon making the magnificent present of the

third share, which does _not_ belong to me, to my brother George.

As for Good, he is _no good_. His time is too much occupied in

shaving, and other matters connected with the vain adorning of the

body. But I think he is still down on his luck about Foulata. He

told me that since he had been home he hadn’t seen a woman to touch

her, either as regards her figure or the sweetness of her

expression.

I want you to come home, my dear old comrade, and to buy a house

near here. You have done your day’s work, and have lots of money

now, and there is a place for sale quite close which would suit you

admirably. Do come; the sooner the better; you can finish writing

the story of our adventures on board ship. We have refused to tell

the tale till it is written by you, for fear lest we shall not be

believed. If you start on receipt of this you will reach here by

Christmas, and I book you to stay with me for that. Good is coming,

and George; and so, by the way, is your boy Harry (there’s a bribe

for you). I have had him down for a week’s shooting, and like him.

He is a cool young hand; he shot me in the leg, cut out the

pellets, and then remarked upon the advantages of having a medical

student with every shooting party!

Good-bye, old boy; I can’t say any more, but I know that you will

come, if it is only to oblige

Your sincere friend,

HENRY CURTIS.

P.S.—The tusks of the great bull that killed poor Khiva have now been

put up in the hall here, over the pair of buffalo horns you gave me,

and look magnificent; and the axe with which I chopped off Twala’s head

is fixed above my writing-table. I wish that we could have managed to

bring away the coats of chain armour. Don’t lose poor Foulata’s basket

in which you brought away the diamonds.

H.C.

To-day is Tuesday. There is a steamer going on Friday, and I really

think that I must take Curtis at his word, and sail by her for England,

if it is only to see you, Harry, my boy, and to look after the printing

of this history, which is a task that I do not like to trust to anybody

else.

ALLAN QUATERMAIN.