"No," said the savage, rubbing his head, "it was a good, honest rap, so I must take you at your word. If you are indeed man, and hungry, it will be a charity to feed you;if you are a spirit, it will at least be interesting to watch you eat; so sit down, and let's see what I have in my wallet."So cross-legged we squatted opposite each other on the table rock, and, feeling like another Sindbad the Sailor, Iwatched my new friend fumble in his bag and lay out at his side all sorts of odds and ends of string, fish-hooks, chew-ing-gum, material for making a fire, and so on, until at last he came to a package (done up, I noted with delight, in a broad, green leaf which had certainly been growing that morning), and unrolling it, displayed a lump of dried meat, a few biscuits, much thicker and heavier than the honey-cakes of the Hither folk, and something that looked and smelt like strong, white cheese.
He signed to me to eat, and you may depend upon it Iwas not slow in accepting the invitation. That tough biltong tasted to me like the tenderest steak that ever came from a grill; the biscuits were ambrosial; the cheese melted in my mouth as butter melts in that of the virtuous; but when the old man finished the quaint picnic by inviting me to accompany him down to the waterside for a drink, I shook my head. I had a great respect for dead queens and kings, I said, but there were too many of them up above to make me thirsty this morning; my respect did not go to making me desire to imbibe them in solution!
Afterwards I chanced to ask him what he had been pick-ing up just now along the margin, and after looking at me suspiciously for a minute he asked--"You are not a thief?" On being reassured on that point he continued: "And you will not attempt to rob me of the harvest for which I venture into this ghost-haunted glen, which you and I alone of living men have seen?""No." Whatever they were, I said, I would respect his earnings.
"Very well, then," said the old man, "look here! I come hither to pick up those pretty trifles which yonder lords and ladies have done with," and plunging his hand into an-other bag he brought out a perfect fistful of splendid gems and jewels, some set and some unset. "They wash from the hands and wrists of those who have lodgings in the crevices of the falls above," he explained. "After a time the beach here will be thick with them. Could I get up whence you came down, they might be gathered by the sackful. Come!
there is an eddy still unsearched, and I will show you how they lie."It was very fascinating, and I and that old man set to work amongst the gravels, and, to be brief, in half an hour found enough glittering stuff to set up a Fifth Avenue jewel-ler's shop. But to tell the truth, now that I had breakfasted, and felt manhood in my veins again, I was eager to be off, and out of the close, death-tainted atmosphere of that valley. Consequently I presently stood up and said--"Look here, old man, this is fine sport no doubt, but just at present I have a big job on hand--one which will not wait, and I must be going. See, luck and young eyes have favoured me; here is twice as much gold and stones as you have got together--it is all yours without a question if you will show me the way out of this den and afterwards put me on the road to your big city, for thither I am bound with an errand to your king, Ar-hap."The sight of my gems, backed, perhaps, with the men-tion of Ar-hap's name, appealed to the old fellow; and af-ter a grunt or two about "losing a tide" just when spoil was so abundant, he accepted the bargain, shouldered his be-longings, and led me towards the far corner of the beach.
It looked as if we were walking right against the tower-ing ice wall, but when we were within a yard or two of it a narrow cleft, only eighteen inches wide, and wonderfully masked by an ice column, showed to the left, and into this we squeezed ourselves, the entrance by which we had come appearing to close up instantly we had gone a pace or two, so perfectly did the ice walls match each other.
It was the most uncanny thoroughfare conceivable--a sheer, sharp crack in the blue ice cliffs extending from where the sunlight shone in a dazzling golden band five hundred feet overhead to where bottom was touched in blue ob-scurity of the ice-foot. It was so narrow we had to travel sideways for the most part, a fact which brought my face close against the clear blue glass walls, and enabled me from time to time to see, far back in those translucent depths, more and more and evermore frozen Martians waiting in stony silence for their release.
But the fact of facts was that slowly the floor of the cleft trended upwards, whilst the sky strip appeared to come downwards to meet it. A mile, perhaps, we growled and squeezed up that wonderful gully; then with a feeling of incredible joy I felt the clear, outer air smiting upon me.
In my hurry and delight I put my head into the small of the back of the puffing old man who blocked the way in front and forced him forward, until at last--before we expected it--the cleft suddenly ended, and he and Itumbled headlong over each other on to a glittering, frozen snowslope; the sky azure overhead, the sunshine warm as a tepid bath, and a wide prospect of mountain and plain extending all around.
So delightful was the sudden change of circumstances that I became quite boyish, and seizing the old man in my exub-erance by the hands, dragged him to his feet, and danced him round and round in a circle, while his ancient hair flapped about his head, his skin cloak waved from his shoulders like a pair of dusky wings and half-eaten cakes, dried flesh, glittering jewels, broken diadems, and golden finger-rings were flung in an arc about us. We capered till fairly out of breath, and then, slapping him on the back shoulder, I asked whose land all this was about us.
He replied that it was no one's, all waste from verge to verge.
"What!" was my exclamation. "All ownerless, and with so much treasure hidden hereabout! Why, I shall annex it to my country, and you and I will peg out original settlers'
claims!" And, still excited by the mountain air, I whipped out my sword, and in default of a star-spangled banner to plant on the newly-acquired territory, traced in gigantic letters on the snow-crust--U.S.A.
"And now," I added, wiping the rime off my blade with the lappet of my coat, "let us stop capering about here and get to business. You have promised to put me on the way to your big city.""Come on then," said the little man, gathering up his property. "This white hillside leads to nowhere; we must get into the valley first, and then you shall see your road."And right well that quaint barbarian kept his promise.
