“Then if we can pass the cave we shall be welcome at the feast?”

“You will be very welcome.  None shall hurt you there, going or returning.  I swear it by the Child.  Oh!  Macumazana,” he added, smiling a little, “why do you talk folly, who know well that one lives in yonder cave whom none may look upon and love, as Bena learned not long ago?  You are thinking that perhaps you might kill this Dweller in the cave with your weapons.  Put away that dream, seeing that henceforth those who watch you have orders to see that none of you leave this house carrying so much as a knife.  Indeed, unless you promise me that this shall be so you will not be suffered to set foot outside its garden until I return again.  Now do you promise?”

I thought a while and, drawing the two others aside out of hearing, asked them their opinion.

Ragnall was at first unwilling to give any such promise, but Hans said: 

“Baas, it is better to go free and unhurt without guns and knives than to become a prisoner once, as you were among the Black Kendah.  Often there is but a short step between the prison and the grave.”

Both Ragnall and I acknowledged the force of this argument and in the end we gave the promise, speaking one by one.

“It is enough,” said Harut; “moreover, know, Lord, that among us White Kendah he who breaks an oath is put across the River Tava unarmed to make report thereof to Jana, Father of Lies.  Now farewell.  If we do not meet at the Feast of the First-fruits on the day of the new moon, whither once more I invite you, we can talk together here after I have heard the voice of the Oracle.”

Then he mounted a camel which awaited him outside the gate and departed with an escort of twelve men, also riding camels.

“There is some other road up that mountain, Quatermain,” said Ragnall.  “A camel could sooner pass through the eye of a needle than through that dreadful cave, even if it were empty.”

“Probably,” I answered, “but as we don’t know where it is and I dare say it lies miles from here, we need not trouble our heads on the matter.  The cave is our only road, which means that there is no road.”

That evening at supper we discovered that Hans was missing; also that he had got possession of my keys and broken into a box containing liquor, for there it stood open in the cooking-hut with the keys in the lock.

“He has gone on the drink,” I said to Ragnall, “and upon my soul I don’t wonder at it; for sixpence I would follow his example.”

Then we went to bed.  Next morning we breakfasted rather late, since when one has nothing to do there is no object in getting up early.  As I was preparing to go to the cook-house to boil some eggs, to our astonishment Hans appeared with a kettle of coffee.

“Hans,” I said, “you are a thief.”

“Yes, Baas,” answered Hans.

“You have been at the gin box and taking that poison.”