and my heart
sank as I thought of it; then leapt as it had not leapt since the day I
found the diamond by the pool in the crater. For there in the misty
depths, far away towards the farther cliffs, twinkled a fire!

A fire! Yes; and I had seen no fire except of my own kindling since the
night that Inyati had died . . . months months surely it must have been
years ago? . . .

Here at last must be human beings: savages maybe, but still flesh and
blood like myself; and if they were in the crater there must be a way
down.

That night I walked as I had never walked before, following the brink
of the chasm, and scarcely taking my eyes from the tiny flame that
meant so much to me. A way out, a way back to civilization, to life
among beings like myself, all this it would mean to me, even if I found
but savages by the fire for they could put me in the right path . . .
and it never occurred to me to fear them.

Now as the broad moon rose higher I could see into the crater's depths,
and this, besides being more vast, was not as the others I had seen.
Its floor appeared to be quite level, and looked to be of pure white
sand; but everywhere it sparkled in the bright moonlight. Diamonds
surely?

I was near the fire now, though far above it, and now I could see there
was a path, a broad white path, down a steep slope, it must be broad to
show so plainly, for I was still a mile or more away!

In my eagerness I forgot my fatigue, and hastened panting towards this
first blessed sign of man's handiwork that I had seen for so long.

Here it was at last; a broad white road, running straight as an arrow
away across the sands in the one direction and leading down into the
pit on the other a road paved apparently with round white stones all of
one size.

Something in their appearance struck me: a loose one lay beside the
path, and I stooped to examine it.

It was a skull a human skull, the whole road was paved with them as far
as the eye could reach, there were thousands upon thousands myriads of
them.

And as I realized what they were, fear seized me, and I turned away
from this terrible pathway.

At last I threw myself down in the black shadow of some rocks, still
trembling and agitated, and tried to compose myself to think. What
manner of men were these I had found at last, and who watched there
below by the fire: what race was this that thus made grim mockery of
their dead?

At length I overcame my fears sufficiently to re