“You are a fool,” I said angrily to Ventvoegel; “there is no water.”

But still he lifted his ugly snub nose sniffed.

“I smell it, Baas,” he answered; “it is somewhere in the air.”

“Yes,” I said, “no doubt it is in the clouds, and about two months hence it will fall and wash our bones.”

Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard thoughtfully.  “Perhaps it is on the top of the hill,” he suggested.

“Rot,” said Good; “whoever heard of water being found at the top of a hill!”

“Let us go and look,” I put in, and hopelessly enough we scrambled up the sandy sides of the hillock, Umbopa leading.  Presently he stopped as though he was petrified.

“Nanzia manzie!” that is, “Here is water!” he cried with a loud voice.

We rushed up to him, and there, sure enough, in a deep cut or indentation on the very top of the sand koppie, was an undoubted pool of water.  How it came to be in such a strange place we did not stop to inquire, nor did we hesitate at its black and unpleasant appearance.  It was water, or a good imitation of it, and that was enough for us.  We gave a bound and a rush, and in another second we were all down on our stomachs sucking up the uninviting fluid as though it were nectar fit for the gods.  Heavens, how we did drink!  Then when we had done drinking we tore off our clothes and sat down in the pool, absorbing the moisture through our parched skins.  You, Harry, my boy, who have only to turn on a couple of taps to summon “hot” and “cold” from an unseen, vasty cistern, can have little idea of the luxury of that muddy wallow in brackish tepid water.

After a while we rose from it, refreshed indeed, and fell to on our “biltong,” of which we had scarcely been able to touch a mouthful for twenty-four hours, and ate our fill.  Then we smoked a pipe, and lay down by the side of that blessed pool, under the overhanging shadow of its bank, and slept till noon.

All that day we rested there by the water, thanking our stars that we had been lucky enough to find it, bad as it was, and not forgetting to render a due share of gratitude to the shade of the long-departed da Silvestra, who had set its position down so accurately on the tail of his shirt.  The wonderful thing to us was that the pan should have lasted so long, and the only way in which I can account for this is on the supposition that it is fed by some spring deep down in the sand.

Having filled both ourselves and our water-bottles as full as possible, in far better spirits we started off again with the moon.  That night we covered nearly five-and-twenty miles; but, needless to say, found no more water, though we were lucky enough the following day to get a little shade behind some ant-heaps.  When the sun rose, and, for awhile, cleared away the mysterious mists, Suliman’s Berg with the two majestic Breasts, now only about twenty miles off, seemed to be towering right above us, and looked grander