I was walking along quietly, some way in front of the other two, down the banks of the stream which runs from the oasis1 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 cosy2 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 juncture3 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 lame4 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 disturbance5, 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, apparently6 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 assv?gel.”14
“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 boulder7 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 worthy8 lost it, and he had never heard of it till today. But, acting9 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 ammunition10, and the oasis was frequented, especially at night, by large quantities of game, which came thither11 for water. These they shot, or trapped in pitfalls12, 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 tomorrow, 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 promiscuous13 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 joint14 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 arduous15, 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 rascal16 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 varied17 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 cleft18 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 swell19 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 adorning20 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 Harry21 (there’s a bribe22 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 tusks23 of the great bull that killed poor Khiva have now been put up in the hall here, over the pair of buffalo24 horns you gave me, and look magnificent; and the axe25 with which I chopped off Twala’s head is fixed26 above my writing-table. I wish that we could have managed to bring away the coats of chain armour27. 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.
The End
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1
oasis
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| n.（沙漠中的）绿洲，宜人的地方 | |
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2
cosy
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| adj.温暖而舒适的，安逸的 | |
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3
juncture
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| n.时刻，关键时刻，紧要关头 | |
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lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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6
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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7
boulder
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| n.巨砾；卵石，圆石 | |
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8
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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9
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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ammunition
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| n.军火，弹药 | |
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11
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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12
pitfalls
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| （捕猎野兽用的）陷阱( pitfall的名词复数 )； 意想不到的困难，易犯的错误 | |
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promiscuous
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| adj.杂乱的，随便的 | |
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joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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15
arduous
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| adj.艰苦的，费力的，陡峭的 | |
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16
rascal
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| n.流氓；不诚实的人 | |
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17
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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adorning
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| 修饰，装饰物 | |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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22
bribe
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| n.贿赂；v.向…行贿，买通 | |
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23
tusks
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| n.（象等动物的）长牙( tusk的名词复数 )；獠牙；尖形物；尖头 | |
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24
buffalo
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| n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛 | |
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25
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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