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Updated: May 14, 2025
Again day, and again night came and went. Still the water I longed for and yet feared came not. I suffered the tortures of the damned, and fain would I have scattered my throbbing brains with that last charge of my hand petronel; but ever as I raised it dead Alvaro caught my hand in an icy grip and I could not die. . . . "Then again I heard N'buqu, and with him certain men of the dwarfs he ruled.
'Stay only until we can fill our water- skins, they counseled. But Alvaro and myself we were wiser. "N'buqu his must be the plan. He knew the best paths back to the Cape of Tempests, he knew the water-holes; we must be guided by his counsel. And we forced them to listen. Yes, he had a plan. Three nights hence we must flee. He would have water ready in skins.
Then when all was ripe he told him that with us there were no wild lands full of buck for those who cared to shoot them, that our wealth was in red gold and shining stones! And at long last he showed the stone taken from the Spanisher at the Cape of Storms. . . . "At night when the moon was full N'buqu took us to the black water-pit lying deep and dark at the foot of the rocky hill.
Gently it led upward . . . and then we stood in a broader cavern, where the light from the torch in every direction flashed back from a myriad dazzling points: ceiling, walls, every rock protuberance, even the very floor gleamed and scintillated till the whole place blazed as though on fire. N'buqu thrust the torch into Alvaro's hand.
'Here is magic! they muttered fearfully, crossing themselves. N'buqu laughed. He also had learnt something of our tongue, and understood. 'No magic is here, said he, ''tis but a spring from yonder hill that fills this pool, and it needs but to turn the stream aside and the water will all drain away. Later I will show! "From a fire-stick he had brought he lit a torch of dry wood.
N'buqu came not down with us, feigning that he must prepare all things that we might flee as soon as we had loaded our pouches for the last time. . . . There he left us in the black shaft my life-long comrade and I; and by reason of the lust of wealth that came upon me and because of the fear of that which I saw in Alvaro's eye I struck him unawares as he knelt for the last gem.
"Then when N'buqu, the witch, had heard all of the wonders of our land across the great water, he would fain plot to come with us and see all these wondrous things of which we spake. And cunningly Alvaro led him on day by day until he was all impatient to leave this tribe of dwarfs, who were not even his own kinsmen.
By its glare we saw that a hide ladder dangled from an overhanging rock into the deep pit. Down it N'buqu led the way, followed by us all in turn the shipmen with many muttered prayers and misgivings. . . . Slimy and dank was the fearsome place, but the bottom was firm and rocky, and from it there branched a cavern wide enough for us all to walk abreast.
Terror had helped to parch my tongue with thirst, and both shaft and cavern, though moist, were drained too dry to afford one mouthful of the precious fluid. Yet though longing for water I knew well that when N'buqu should choose again to direct the stream I should drown like any rat. The day passed.
Deep behind the neck my dagger drank his blood. His vest of mail did not save him from me! ... And turning to flee hastily with all the stones, I found the ladder drawn up and N'buqu laughing at me from above. "'Ho! ho! white man, white wizard! he called. 'Ye who would show me the wondrous things of thine own land. How fares it with ye now?
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