Adventure, June 1911 — page 123: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

~_ Prester John Down in the cave it had seemed light enough, but in the clear sunshine of the top the gorge looked a very pit of shade. For the first and last time in my life I had ver- tigo. Fear of falling back and a mad craze to do it made me actually sick. I managed to stumble a few steps forward on the moun- tain turf, and then flung myself'on my face. WHEN I raised my head I was amazed to find it still early morning. “The dew was yet on the grass, and the sun was not far up. the sky. I had thought that my entry into the cave, my time in it, and my escape had taken many hours, whereas at the most they had occu- pied two. It was little more than dawn— such a dawn as walks only on the hilltops. Before me was the shallow vale with its bracken and sweet grass, and the shining links of the stream, and the loch still gray in the shadow of the beleaguering hills. Here was a fresh, clean land, a land of home- steads and orchards and children. All of a sudden I realized that at last I hadcome out of savagery. The burden of the past days slipped from my shoulders. I felt young again, and cheerful and brave. black night and the horrid secrets of dark- ness. Before me was my own country, for that loch and that bracken might have been on a Scotch moor. The fresh scent of the air and the whole morning mystery put song - “jiito my blood. I remembered that I was not yet twenty. My first care was to kneel there among the bracken and give thanks to my Maker, Who in very truth had shown me “ His good- ness in the land of the living.” ~ After a little I went back to the edge of the cliff. There, where the road came out of the bush, was the sprawled body of Henriques, with two dismounted riders looking hard at it. I gave a great shout, for in the men I recognized Aitken and the schoolmaster Wardlaw. CHAPTER XXXI I GO AGAIN TO INANDA’S KRAAL ] MUST now take up some of the rag-’ . ged ends that I have left behind me. « It is not my task, as I have said; to” write the history of the great Rising. That has been done by abler men, who Behind me were the 399 were at the center of the business and had some knowledge of strategy and tactics; whereas I was only a raw lad who was privileged by fate to see the start. If I could, I would fain make an epic of it, and show how the Plains found at all points the Plateau guarded, how wits over- came numbers, and at every pass which the natives tried the great guns spoke and the tide rolled back. Yet I fear it would be an epic without a hero. There was no leader left when Laputa had gone. There were months of guerrilla fighting, and then months of re- prisals, when chief after chief was hunted down and brought to trial. Then the am- nesty came and a clean sheet, and white Africa drew breath again with certain grave reflections left in her head. On the whole I am not sorry that the his- tory is no business of mine. Romance died with ‘‘the Heir of John,” and the crusade became a sorry mutiny. I can fancy how differently Laputa would have managed it all, had he lived; how swift and sudden his plans would have been; how under him the fighting would not have been in the moun- tain glens but far into the high-veld among the dorps and townships. With the Inkulu alive we warred against odds; with the In- kulu dead the balance sank heavily in our favor. I leave to others the marches and strategy of the thing and hasten to clear up the obscure parts in my own fortunes. Arcoll received my message from Um- velos’ by Colin, or rather Wardlaw received it and sent it on to the post on the Berg where the leader had gone. Close on its heels came the message from Henriques by a Shangaan in his pay. It must have been sent off before the Portuguese got to the Rooirand, from which it would appear that he had his own men in the bush near the store and that I was lucky to get off as I did. Arcoll might have disregarded Henriques’ news as a trap if it had come alone, but my corroboration impressed and perplexed him. He began to credit the Portuguese with treachery, but he had no inclination to act on his message, since it conflicted with his plans. He knew that Laputa must come into the Berg sooner or later, and he had resolved that his strategy must be to await - him there. - But there was the question of my life. He had every reason to believe that I was in the greatest danger, and he felt a certain GomicdooksEeo