King Solomon’s Mines

Sir Henry laid his large hand on my shoulder. ‘Sit down, Mr Quatermain,’ he said, ‘I beg your pardon; I see very well you do not wish to deceive us, but the story sounded so strange that I could hardly believe it.’

‘You shall see the original map and writing when we reach Durban,’ I answered, somewhat mollified, for really when I came to consider the question it was scarcely wonderful that he should doubt my good faith.

‘But,’ I went on, ‘I have not told you about your brother. I knew the man Jim who was with him. He was a Bechuana by birth, a good hunter, and for a native a very clever man. That morning on which Mr Neville was starting I saw Jim standing by my wagon and cutting up tobacco on the disselboom.

‘“Jim,” said I, “where are you off to this trip? Is it elephants?”

‘“No, Baas,” he answered, “we are after something worth much more than ivory.”

‘“And what might that be?” I said, for I was curious. “Is it gold?”

‘“No, Baas, something worth more than gold,” and he grinned.

‘I asked no more questions, for I did not like to lower my dignity by seeming inquisitive, but I was puzzled. Presently Jim finished cutting his tobacco.

‘“Baas,” said he.

‘I took no notice.

‘“Baas,” said he again.

‘“Eh, boy, what is it?” I asked.

‘“Baas, we are going after diamonds.”

‘“Diamonds! why, then, you are steering in the wrong direction; you should head for the Fields.”

‘“Baas, have you ever heard of Suliman’s Berg?” – that is, Solomon’s Mountains, Sir Henry.

‘“Ay!”

‘“Have you ever heard of the diamonds there?”

‘“I have heard a foolish story, Jim.”

‘“It is no story, Baas. Once I knew a woman who came from there, and reached Natal with her child, she told me: – she is dead now.”

‘“Your master will feed the aasvögels” – that is, vultures – “Jim, if he tries to reach Suliman’s country, and so will you if they can get any pickings off your worthless old carcass,” said I.

‘He grinned. “Mayhap, Baas. Man must die; I’d rather like to try a new country myself; the elephants are getting worked out about here.”

‘“Ah! my boy,” I said, “you wait till the ‘pale old man’ gets a grip of your yellow throat, and then we shall hear what sort of a tune you sing.”

‘Half an hour after that I saw Neville’s wagon move off. Presently Jim came back running. “Good-bye, Baas,” he said. ‘I didn’t like to start without bidding you good-bye, for I daresay you are right, and that we shall never trek south again.’

‘“Is your master really going to Suliman’s Berg, Jim, or are you lying?”

‘“No,” he answered, “he is going. He told me he was bound to make his fortune somehow, or try to; so he might as well have a fling for the diamonds.”

‘Oh!’ I said; “wait a bit, Jim; will you take a note to your master, Jim, and promise not to give it to him till you reach Inyati?” which was some hundred miles off.

‘“Yes, Baas.”

‘So I took a scrap of paper, and wrote on it, “Let him who comes…climb the snow of Sheba’s left breast, till he reaches the nipple, on the north side of which is Solomon’s great road.”

‘“Now, Jim,” I said, “when you give this to your master, tell him he had better follow the advice on it implicitly. You are not to give it to him now, because I don’t want him back asking me questions which I won’t answer. Now be off, you idle fellow, the wagon is nearly out of sight.”

‘Jim took the note and went, and that is all I know about your brother, Sir Henry; but I am much afraid—’

‘Mr Quatermain,’ said Sir Henry, ‘I am going to look for my brother; I am going to trace him to Suliman’s Mountains, and over them if necessary, till I find him, or until I know that he is dead. Will you come with me?’

I am, as I think I have said, a cautious man, indeed a timid one, and this suggestion frightened me. It seemed to me that to undertake such a journey would be to go to certain death, and putting other considerations aside, as I had a son to support, I could not afford to die just then.

‘No, thank you, Sir Henry, I think I had rather not,’ I answered. ‘I am too old for wild-goose chases of that sort, and we should only end up like my poor friend Silvestre. I have a son dependent on me, so I cannot afford to risk my life foolishly.’

Both Sir Henry and Captain Good looked very disappointed.

‘Mr Quatermain,’ said the former, ‘I am well off, and I am bent upon this business. You may put the remuneration for your services at whatever figure you like in reason, and it shall be paid over to you before we start. Moreover, I will arrange in the event of anything untoward happening to us or to you, that your son shall be suitably provided for. You will see from this offer how necessary I think your presence. Also, if by chance we should reach this place and find diamonds, they shall belong to you and Good equally. I do not want them. But of course that promise is worth nothing at all, though the same thing would apply to any ivory we may get. You may pretty well make your own terms with me, Mr Quatermain; and of course I shall pay all expenses.’

‘Sir Henry,’ said I, ‘this is about the most liberal proposal I ever had; one not to be sneezed at by a poor hunter and trader. But the job is the biggest I have come across, and I must take time to think it over. I will give you my answer before we get to Durban.’

‘Very good,’ answered Sir Henry.

Then I said good night and turned in, and dreamt about poor long-dead Silvestre and the diamonds.

CHAPTER 3 Umbopa Enters our Service (#ulink_ffb5bfcf-9368-59c5-a0ba-270db8151301)

It takes from four to five days, according to the speed of the vessel and the state of the weather, to run up from the Cape to Durban. Sometimes, if the landing is bad at East London, where they have not yet made that wonderful harbour they talk so much of, and sink such a mint of money in, a ship is delayed for twenty-four hours before the cargo boats can get out to take off the goods. But on this occasion we had not to wait at all, for there were no breakers on the Bar to speak of, and the tugs came out at once with the long strings of ugly flat-bottomed boats behind them, into which the packages were bundled with a crash. It did not matter what they might be, over they went slapbang; whether they contained china or woollen goods they met with the same treatment. I saw one case holding four dozen of champagne smashed all to bits, and there was the champagne fizzing and boiling about in the bottom of the dirty cargo boat. It was a wicked waste, and evidently so the Kafirs in the boat thought, for they found a couple of unbroken bottles, and knocking off the necks drank the contents. But they had not allowed for the expansion caused by the fizz in the wine, and, feeling themselves swelling, rolled about in the bottom of the boat, calling out that the good liquor was ‘tagati’ – that is, bewitched. I spoke to them from the vessel, and told them it was the white man’s strongest medicine, and that they were as good as dead men. Those Kafirs went to the shore in a very great fright, and I do not think that they will touch champagne again.

Well, all the time that we were steaming up to Natal I was thinking over Sir Henry Curtis’s offer. We did not speak any more on the subject for a day or two, though I told them many hunting yarns, all true ones. There is no need to tell lies about hunting, for so many curious things happen within the knowledge of a man whose business it is to hunt; but this is by the way.

At last, one beautiful evening in January, which is our hottest month, we steamed past the coast of Natal expecting to make Durban Point by sunset. It is a lovely coast all along from East London, with its red sandhills and wide sweeps of vivid green, dotted here and there, with Kafir kraals, and bordered by a ribbon of white surf, which spouts up in pillars of foam where it hits the rocks. But just before you come to Durban there is a peculiar richness about the landscape. There are the sheer kloofs cut in the hills by the rushing rains of centuries, down which the rivers sparkle; there are the deep green of the bush, growing as God planted it, and the other greens of the mealie gardens and the sugar patches, while now and again a white house, smiling out at the placid sea, puts a finish and gives an air of homeliness to the scene. For to my mind, however beautiful a view may be, it requires the presence of man to make it complete, but perhaps that is because I have lived so much in the wilderness, and therefore know the value of civilisation, though to be sure it drives away the game. The Garden of Eden, no doubt, looked fair before man was, but I always think that it must have been fairer when Eve adorned it.

To return, we had miscalculated a little, and the sun was well down before we dropped anchor off the Point, and heard the gun which told the good folks of Durban that the English mail was in. It was too late to think of getting over the bar that night, so we went comfortably to dinner, after seeing the mails carried off in the lifeboat.

When we came up again the moon was out, and shining so brightly over sea and shore that she almost paled the quick, large flashes from the lighthouse. From the shore floated sweet spicy odours that always remind me of hymns and missionaries, and in the windows of the houses on the Berea sparkled a hundred lights. From a large brig lying near also came the music of the sailors as they worked at getting the anchor up in order to be ready for the wind. Altogether it was a perfect night, such a night as you sometimes get in Southern Africa, and it threw a garment of peace over everybody as the moon threw a garment of silver over everything. Even the great bulldog, belonging to a sporting passenger, seemed to yield to its gentle influences, and forgetting his yearning to come to close quarters with a baboon in its cage of the fo’c’sle, snored heavily at the door of the cabin, dreaming no doubt that he had finished it, and happy in his dream.

We three – that is, Sir Henry Curtis, Captain Good, and myself – went and sat by the wheel, and were quiet for a while.

‘Well, Mr Quatermain,’ said Sir Henry presently, ‘have you been thinking about my proposals?’

‘Ay,’ echoed Captain Good, ‘what do you think of them, Mr Quatermain? I hope that you are going to give us the pleasure of your company so far as Solomon’s Mines, or wherever the gentleman you knew as Neville may have got to.’

I rose and knocked out my pipe before I answered. I had not made up my mind, and wanted an additional moment to decide. Before the burning tobacco had fallen into the sea I had decided; just that little extra second did the trick. It is often the way when you have been bothering a long time over a thing.

‘Yes, gentlemen,’ I said, sitting down again, ‘I will go, and by your leave I will tell you why, and on what conditions. First for the terms which I ask.

‘1. You are to pay all expenses, and any ivory or other valuables we may get is to be divided between Captain Good and myself.