Chapter 5

THE PANS AND THE POISON FLOWERS

By this time the sun was high in the heavens, and I realized that if I would make a bid for life I must do it soon. Buffeted and almost choked with the battle of the past night, I was parched with thirst, and had perforce to encroach upon the scanty store left to me a bare quart at the outside; barely sufficient to keep life in me another day in the terrible heat. The horses, too, were suffering and would scarcely last that time, and I was now faced with the terrible problem as to whether I should attempt to return or to penetrate farther into the desert. To return would be difficult, for the storm had passed that way and all our spoors would be obliterated; moreover, we had gone out of our path so far when following the fire that I was by no means certain as to the absolute direction. Moreover, a glance that way showed me heavy, dun- colored clouds on the far horizon: there the storm was raging still, and I shuddered to think of what my fate might be in the loose bare dunes we had passed through with such difficulty. Besides, though Inyati's awful fate appeared but too certain, I felt impelled to follow the direction he had gone for there might, after all, be a faint hope that he had lived through the storm. But this alternative was a terrible one, for even if water had existed in the pans for which he was searching, it was all too probable that the storm would have filled up every pit with sand, and to penetrate so far would make return impossible. However, I could not remain where I was and die without a struggle; so, dividing the load as well as possible among the almost exhausted animals, I again entered the maze of dunes and struck due east, full of forebodings as to my own possible fate, and of sorrow for that of poor Inyati. For hours I stumbled through the bewildering mass of broken and barren dunes, finding no trace of vegetation, and full of apprehension lest the wind should rise before I reached the pan; in which case I was doomed. At long length, and when the afternoon was well advanced, a flat dark space showed between two dunes some distance ahead, and an hour later I stood upon the pan. No salt pan this time, but a flat, circular floor of dry mud, hard and entirely free from the surrounding sand. Here and there a few stunted bushes grew, and in the centre of the circle which was about a mile across stood a huge herd of gemsbok. They made off at a canter as I rode wearily across to the depression in the centre where I hoped to find water. But the shallow, hoof-trampled hollow was bone-dry; there was no sign of Inyati either, and my heart sank as I realized that my struggle had been in vain. Anyway, here I must rest and eat, and drink a little of my tiny stock of water, and on the morrow make my last struggle on foot, for it was evident that the horses could go no further, and were dying of thirst. I threw off their light loads, and they stood with drooping heads and ears, the picture of dejection. A mouthful of water was all I dare drink, and there remained less than a pint in the water-skin. Almost stupefied, exhausted, and despondent, I lay down beside a tiny bush, at whose dry twigs the famished horses were now trying to nibble, and sank into a state of half sleep, half stupor.

The sound of a shot aroused me from my lethargy had I been dreaming? No there it was again; and now across the pan came streaming back the herd of gemsbok, and after them ran and stumbled a nude black figure, that now and again paused to single out an animal and shoot.

"Inyati! Inyati! Thank God!" I cried out, for it could be no other; and as fast as my aching limbs allowed I hastened towards him. Now he was down beside one of the fallen animals, and his knife was at work; and now I realized why he had picked his victims, and had shot so many. It was not food he wanted, but drink, and he had shot only the cows, whose udders were full of rich sweet milk. It was time, too, that he drank, for he could not speak, and his cracked and swollen lips and blood-shot eyes told a tale of awful suffering.

Soon, however, he was able to talk. "The storm, master," he said; "near was I to being buried alive and I thought thee dead! Yet, could I not return before, for I have found no water. The other pan is dry also, but now I have seen from far off a spot where water is, and so I hastened back to find my master. It is far, but we shall win through." Caught by the storm between the two pans he had been hours staggering through the raging chaos, and had reached the pan only after the sun had risen and the storm had ceased to find it without a vestige of water.

Casting about in the dunes, he had searched for t'samma without avail, and filled with anxiety for me had been torn between a desire to return at once, and the absolute necessity of finding water. Hurrying from one prominent dune to another he had scanned the desert in all directions, and had even found one or two more pans, but again waterless. One, however, showed that it had held water recently for it was still moist, and there he had found a flock of the tiny Namaqua partridge, so plentiful in certain parts of the desert. These little birds are swift of flight, and fly long distances in search of water; and Inyati, as they rose in a cloud from their old drinking place, had marked the direction of their flight. North-east they went, and his keen eyes had followed them till they were no longer visible, and as he watched he saw many other flocks, and all flying in the same direction. "There is the water," thought Inyati, and he had toiled on in their wake, but the way was far, and it was hours before, from a high dune, he had seen a large pan in the distance, to which all the birds were converging. "A big pan, master," he said, "with thick bush and big trees an oasis or perhaps who knows? a river bed." And frantic with thirst as he was, he had not gone on, but turned back hoping to find me alive.

My heart leapt with joy at the news, for with the knowledge that water awaited us we could struggle on but the horses? Inyati shook his head as he examined them. "That one will die before morning," said he, "but maybe we can save the others, though they cannot carry us. We must eat, drink, and sleep, for the way is long and we are weak. And now, master, if all the tobacco is not there under the big dune with the other packs, I will smoke, for I have missed my tobacco sadly."

How he enjoyed himself, this lighthearted philosopher of the desert! Long steaks of tender gemsbok he cut and grilled on the wood ashes of the tiny fire, treating in a like manner the juicy udders after he had squeezed out most of the milk. The water he would not touch, but his appetite seemed unappeasable; steak after steak disappeared and still he carved and cooked, smoking between whiles, and singing some never- ending song of all the fine wives he would buy, and what he would do to certain priests, if he got his "little gun" safe to his own country. His cheery presence, and the reliance I placed in him cheered me enormously, and I realized that I, too, was hungry. And so we ate, and smoked, and slept, till nearly midnight; and then, keeping the Southern Cross low down on the horizon on our right, we once more entered the dunes.

The horse that Inyati had referred to was obviously dying, and a merciful bullet put an end to the poor brute's sufferings. The others trudged wearily after us, making but slow progress, but doing better than I had conceived possible of animals that had not eaten or drank for thirty-six hours. But morning found them dead beat; they stood stock still as the sun rose, and neither coaxing nor flogging could get the poor brutes a step farther. According to Inyati's reckoning we were still four hours from the water, and it was obvious that once we left them we could never hope to save them, for we could never bring back enough water to keep them alive.

"There is but one thing," said Inyati, as he slipped their loads off. "Water we cannot bring them, nor would it be in time, for once the sun is hot they will die. But stay here, and I will search for a certain thing. Nay, master," he continued, for I had made a gesture of dissent; "this time I go not far. But here I see rain has fallen of late, and though there is no t'samma, there may be another thing that will save the horses."

"Then I will seek it with you, Inyati," I said, for I was determined not to lose sight of him again.

"Better rest, master," he urged, "there will be no more sandstorms. And there is still far to go."

But go I would, and so we left the poor horses standing in a forlorn little group, gazing with sad lack-luster eyes at the masters who had brought them to such a plight. Inyati took with him a canvas bag that had been used as a saddlecloth, and I wondered what he hoped to find to fill it, for there was no vestige of vegetation to be seen, except some tiny seeds just sprouting here and there in the hollows between the dunes.

I could see no other evidence of the rain that Inyati spoke of, but soon, in a deeper depression than usual, we found signs that water had recently accumulated there, though the spot was now as dry as the surrounding dunes. But here Inyati, who had been keenly examining the ground, uttered a grunt of satisfaction, and pointed to a spot close to his feet. There was no trace of a plant, but a slight swelling, as it were, of the soil, which showed, too, some small cracks as though something was trying to burst its way to the surface.

"Cameel-brod," said he, and kneeling down he commenced scooping away the sand with his hands, and from a few inches below the surface he soon drew a whitish tuber the size of a large turnip. It was full of thin watery juice, acrid and sharp to the taste, but as I afterwards found, extremely acceptable to the horses.

Soon we had the bag nearly full, and cutting them up on our waterproof ground-sheet, we quickly had a quantity of watery pulp, at which the animals nuzzled greedily, and which revived them to a remarkable extent almost at once; so much so indeed, that we had very little difficulty in hurrying them forward again. The last drop of water had long since gone, and I was now consumed with thirst, and sick with misgiving as to what might be found at the pan Inyati had seen. Now we could see it, and, as yesterday, the flocks of partridges were all flying in that direction. How I envied them their wings, and how I grudged them the precious water they would be drinking! At length, footsore, weary, with eyes scorched by the blinding glare of the sun on the bare sand, and with lips cracked and tongues swollen with thirst, we staggered out of the dunes into a wide pan covered with bush and sprinkled with big trees huge cameel-doorn of thick verdant foliage, which gave the whole expanse a park-like appearance. They were full of gay-plumaged birds, butterflies were flitting everywhere, here and there were fine stretches of thick grass, in fact, after all we had suffered in the furnace of shade-less sand behind us, the place was a veritable paradise. And at length, where the trees were thickest, we espied tall green reeds growing thickly, and a few minutes later our fears were at an end, for here was water in plenty.

It was thick and muddy, and fouled by wild animals, whose spoors showed thick all around it; but to us it was absolute nectar, and it needed all Inyati's persuasion to prevent me from drinking to excess and probably dying on the spot.

We had to control the horses too, and let them drink but little at a time, or they too would probably have drank till they dropped dead in their tracks.

In this pleasant oasis we stayed for three days, resting, recuperating, and living on the fat of the land. Game there was in abundance, so much so, indeed, that they were a cause of anxiety, for the water in the vlei was decreasing rapidly from the number of animals that drank there nightly, and it was obvious that it would not last for very long unless rain fell. Signs were not wanting that the season had been exceptionally dry, for the vlei had at one time been of large extent, and now nothing but the one small pool remained. At it also drank myriads of partridges, the air being literally thick with the huge swarms of them that came in the early morning and again at night, so tame and fearless that they scarcely troubled to get out of our way, and we kept our pot going by simply knocking them over with a stick.

We soon explored the pan or oasis which was almost circular in shape and about a mile in diameter, and completely encircled by dunes; most of them as barren and forbidding as those we had already passed through, though to the south there was a certain amount of vegetation. This, however, was useless to us, as our way was east or north-east, and in this direction all Inyati's reconnoitering failed to discover anything but bare dunes, as far as the eye could reach.

Pleasant as the shade and greenery of the oasis was, it was evident that our stay could not be a lengthy one; moreover, lions were increasingly numerous, and for the first time in our trip began to cause us serious anxiety. So bold were they that fires had to be lit at nightfall and kept going all night; and their roars made sleep impossible.

The nights were now dark and moonless, and on the third of our stay the lions were exceptionally troublesome. We could see little beyond the light of the fires, but roars and growls came from all quarters, and there were evidences that a large herd of some kind of buck was passing through the oasis, and these the lions were attacking.

Inyati was nervous and uneasy, not, as he explained, on account of the lions, his "little gun" would see to them, but as to what was happening at the water-hole, from which we had removed our camp some distance on account of the lions.

"Gemsbok, master, a big herd of them, that is what it is," he said, as we listened to the terrific roars in the direction of the water. "They seek not water, for they seldom drink, but if it comes in their way they may do so; moreover, they will be likely to trample the pool into mud to cool their hooves. Luckily our water-skin is full, and the horses have drunk well; but I fear what the morning will show."

All night we could hear the buck moving about and passing through there must have been thousands of them. All night, too, the roaring continued, culminating shortly before daybreak with the most terrific uproar in the direction of the pool it was possible to imagine.

There the lions seemed to be making a combined attack, and judging by the sounds they were also fighting among themselves. As soon as it was daylight we hurried anxiously in that direction, keeping our rifles ready, although, as a rule, lions are little to be feared by daylight, unless disturbed at their meal. They were even more numerous than we had imagined, for huge dun-colored forms slunk off in all directions through the bush as we neared the water. "Water!" did I say? There was no water now, for Inyati's fears had been well-founded. The little pool had been trampled into black mud by countless gemsbok, and the various half-eaten carcasses strewn about showed that the lions had taken heavy toll of them.

Not without cost to themselves, however; for there in the centre of what had been the pool lay a huge lion, dead, transfixed and impaled upon the long, sharp, straight horns of the magnificent gemsbok bull, that lay, with broken neck, almost hidden beneath the lion's formidable bulk.

"Wow!" said Inyati; "I have heard of the like before. He was a strong bull, that old one, and held his horns straight to meet the lion's spring. And, as I feared, master, the water is gone."

It was obvious that nothing could be done with the black mud before us, for where it still remained moist it was full of blood and filth; and a decision thus forced upon us, we but waited till the power of the sun had somewhat abated before striking once more into the desert, due east. Our horses were rested and refreshed, and we pushed on throughout the night, till just before dawn we stumbled through a small patch of t'samma, and immediately decided to give our horses the benefit of them. Unfortunately, daylight showed the patch to be but a tiny one, where an arbitrary shower had fallen at the right season, and it barely sufficed for the day.

And so for days we pushed on incessantly, often going many miles out of our course to visit one of the many pans we now came across frequently, but failing in every case to find enough water to even replenish our water-skin. T'samma we found occasionally, sufficient, at any rate, to keep us and our animals alive, but barely; and the horrible anxiety of constant fear of a death by thirst had began to tell upon me badly. Not so Inyati, who, thirsty or satisfied, was always cheerful, always optimistic that we should eventually find a way through to his country of many diamonds and many wives! Many a weary trek that had landed us waterless and still further involved in the vast wilderness of dunes, had seen me sink despondent on the sand, caring but little whether I ever tried to struggle farther; to be roused from my lethargy by the cheery whimsicalities of this Micawber of the desert.

He would bring out the blue diamond and pretend to consult it as an oracle, and it would always promise him wonderful things! Sometimes for game was now scarce it would be a fat buck for breakfast; sometimes a vast plain of t'samma, or a big pool of water; and his prophecies always ended in unlimited diamonds and unlimited wives! And cheered by this nonsense, I would shake off the fit of despondency, and struggle on; though as time went on I often thought of Van der Decken, the "Flying Dutchman," and his endless effort to weather the Cape of Storms.

For our endless zigzagging in search of the wherewithal to live, though it had brought us to the very heart of the vast desert, had taken us far from the true direction of what we were in search of, nor could all our efforts find us a way through.

The moon was with us now again, and we trekked at night, seldom riding, but plodding doggedly through the endless succession of dunes, with the spiritless horses strung out behind us. Their hooves were splayed to an enormous size through this incessant trekking through the sand; yet, though broken and enfeebled, they had become more inured to the conditions, and the few t'samma, or tubers dug from the sand for them, sufficed to keep them alive.

I had ceased to take account of the time, but there came a day when we came upon a tract where rain had fallen in abundance some time before. For from an absolutely barren dune, we suddenly looked down upon a thick garden of beautiful flowers; tall, and like a slender foxglove in appearance, they filled the wide hollows between the dunes in all directions. They were of endless variety in color, white, mauve, and an endless gamut of pinks, down to the deepest purple; and a more beautiful sight it would be impossible to imagine. But thickly as they grew for mile after mile, there was nothing else, no t'samma or any other refreshing plant or fruit, and the hungry horses would not look at them. I noticed, too, that Inyati seemed none too pleased at finding this gorgeous garden, and climbed dune after dune to peer in all directions as the sun rose on the morning we found it.

"We must cross it quickly, or go round," he said, as I stood beside him on the top of a high dune. "It is a poison flower, and makes one sleep and to sleep among it is to die. But I see no way round!" Far on the horizon we could see the clouds rising from a pan in the right direction.

"We must go on," said Inyati, "and cross this belt of poison flower by day, when it will harm us but little; to be among it after sundown is to sleep and to sleep among it is to die."

I had heard of this poison flower before, but had never heard of its being found in such abundance as to be a danger to life. It looked too beautiful to be harmful, and its perfume was but faint. But Inyati knew it well, and I could see that he was anxious, as after a short rest we trekked on through the never-ending stretches of gorgeous coloring, through them, as through a cornfield. And soon I found that even now in the glaring sunshine when they were considered innocuous, their perfume had a peculiar effect upon me, and long before we had half crossed to the pan I was seized with an overpowering desire to sleep. I nodded as I stumbled along nothing seemed to matter why should we worry to go farther, why not lie down and rest, and sleep?

I must have stumbled and fallen, drugged with the insidious poison of the faint perfume, for I came to myself lying upon the ground among the flowers, and with Inyati shaking me violently and shouting in my ear. I was drunk with sleep, and it was with the utmost difficulty that he induced me to mount the only horse still capable of carrying me. We were parched with thirst, and our plight was perhaps worse than it had ever been, for all around stretched the fatal flowers, and it might well be that we could not clear them before night fell, and their poison became overpowering in its strength. On the horse, my head cleared somewhat, probably because I was higher from the ground, where the perfume hung heavily, although I could not rid myself of the drowsiness. At midday we were forced to halt for a rest forced, too, to take it in the glaring sun, on the top of a bare dune, for we dare not even cover ourselves with a bundle of the plants for fear of the poison. An hour or two we sat and grilled, and then forced ourselves onward once more, for the pan was still distant, and we feared we should not reach it before dark which would mean we would never reach it at all! But struggle as we would, we could make but little progress, and it was with mortal fear that I beheld the sun sink, and saw from a high dune that there was fully a mile of thick flowers between us and the pan, where dark bush and big trees showed plainly, and where the flowers ended abruptly.

"Let us stay here," I urged Inyati, "surely we are safe here on the top of the dune?" for we were fully fifty feet above the sea of flowers.

"No, master, no!" he answered emphatically; "if it were twice the height we should die before the night is out. Push through we must, even if we leave all our pack here and return for it tomorrow; and the horses must come too, or we shall lose them. Nothing could live here through the night." Hastily, as he spoke, he threw off the horses' already light loads, leaving everything but his beloved "little gun" on the top of the dune, and dragging the halter of the leading beast, he started down the slope. Instantly on entering the dense growth I felt the effect of the scent, which was now, although the sun had barely disappeared, ten times stronger than it had been in the sunlight. No faint sweetness now, but an overpowering scent similar to that of the well-known "moon-lilies" but infinitely stronger, and stupefying to a degree. Before fifty yards were traversed my head was spinning, and I was staggering like a drunken man. I remember Inyati half dragging me on to the horse again and feeling him lashing me to girth and saddle, remember his hoarse shouts to the horse and myself becoming fainter, remember dimly that the sjambok he flogged the horse with fell frequently across my back and legs, but nothing could keep me from the overwhelming desire to sleep And then all was a blank.