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"Inyati," I stammered, coming back to my senses, and ignoring his extremely doubtful compliments, "speak, man; where did you get this?" "In my own land, master; a far land, many moons' trek from here, and where there are many. But few dare touch them except indeed the devil- men and they are not men at all, but devils!
I don't know how long I gazed in fascination at the wonderful stone, but at length a low chuckle from Inyati brought me back to reality. He stood looking at me, with a whimsical smile on his face. "Magic," said he, "magic, my master! Did I not say there was magic in these 'bright stones'? And who shall say it is not so?
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.
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.
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.
Then I came back to the scherm, my mad fit of rage over, and nothing but grief, and a sorrow too deep for words to express, left in my heart. The huge lion lay right across the poor boy's body, still gripping his crushed shoulder in its mighty jaws; but now I saw that in spite of his terrible injuries Inyati was not dead, though he was dying even as I came back to him.
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.
For when I awoke, although my heart was heavy, my brain was clear, and I knew what lay before me, and no longer shirked the task. The lion's head I hewed from its body, for I could not tear its huge jaws asunder to release Inyati, and there I buried victim and victor together. And so, I was alone, in the heart of the desert, with return an impossibility.
"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.
Hour after hour I waited, and still it raged; the time for moonrise was long since past, though no gleam of its waning light could break through the whirling pall around me. Moonrise! That had been the time Inyati had hoped to return by, should he find water in the first pan; but where was he now, battling for his life among the dunes, or dead beneath them?
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