-never. Didn't I tell you I had searched for it
four times, and even with the key hadn't managed to find it, and I've
spent my life on the veldt, knocking about the Country on and off? But
this time I believe I shall find it."

"Do you? Now, why?"

"Look around. Whether the drought lasts or not, I'm practically a
ruined man. Now it is time my luck turned. This will be, I repeat, the
fifth search, and five is a lucky number. Like many fellows who have
led a wandering and solitary life, I am a trifle superstitious in some
things. This time we shall be successful."

"Well, you seem to take the thing mighty coolly," said Sellon, refilling
his pipe. "I should be for starting at once. But what do you propose
doing meanwhile?"

"Take my word for it, it's a mistake to rush a thing of this sort,"
answered Renshaw. "It'll bear any amount of thinking out--the more the
better."

"Well, but you seem to have given it its full share of the last, anyhow.
There's one thing, though, that you haven't mentioned all this time.
If it is a fair question, how the deuce did you come to know of the
existence of the place?"

"From the only man who has ever seen it. The only white man, that is."

"Oh! But--he may have been lying."

"A man doesn't tell lies on his death-bed," replied Renshaw. "My
informant turned up here one night in a bad way. He was mortally
wounded by a couple of Bushman arrows, which, I suppose you know, are
steeped in the most deadly and virulent poison. The mystery is how he
had managed to travel so far with it in his system, and the only
explanation I can find is that the poison was stale, and therefore less
operative. He died barely an hour after he got here, but not before he
had left me the secret, with all necessary particulars. He had
discovered it by chance, and had made three expeditions to the place,
but had been obliged to give it up. There was a clan of Bushmen living
in the krantzes there who seemed to watch the place as though it
contained something sacred. They attacked him each time, the third with
fatal effect, as I told you."

"By Jove!" cried Sellon, ruefully, his treasure-seeking ardour
considerably damped by the probability of having to run the gauntlet of
a flight of poisoned arrows. "And did they ever attack you?"

"Once only--the attempt before last I made," replied the other,
tranquilly. "That made me think I was nearer hitting upon it than I had
ever been."

"By Jo