treasure-hunting was an enterprise accursed of God,
and that I should most likely die. That Laputa and Henriques would die
I was fully certain. The three of us would leave our bones to bleach
among the diamonds, and in a little the Prester's collar would glow
amid a little heap of human dust. I was quite convinced of all this,
and quite apathetic. It really did not matter so long as I came up
with Laputa and Henriques, and settled scores with them. That mattered
everything in the world, for it was my destiny.

I had no means of knowing how long I took, but it was after midnight
before I passed Umvelos', and ere I got to the Rooirand there was a
fluttering of dawn in the east. I must have passed east of Arcoll's
men, who were driving the bush towards Majinje's. I had ridden the
night down and did not feel so very tired. My horse was stumbling, but
my own limbs scarcely pained me. To be sure I was stiff and nerveless
as if hewn out of wood, but I had been as bad when I left Bruderstroom.
I felt as if I could go on riding to the end of the world.

At the brink of the bush I dismounted and turned the Schimmel loose. I
had brought no halter, and I left him to graze and roll. The light was
sufficient to let me see the great rock face rising in a tower of dim
purple. The sky was still picked out with stars, but the moon had long
gone down, and the east was flushing. I marched up the path to the
cave, very different from the timid being who had walked the same road
three nights before. Then my terrors were all to come: now I had
conquered terror and seen the other side of fear. I was centuries
older.

But beside the path lay something which made me pause. It was a dead
body, and the head was turned away from me. I did not need to see the
face to know who it was. There had been only two men in my vision, and
one of them was immortal.

I stopped and turned the body over. There was no joy in my heart, none
of the lust of satisfied vengeance or slaked hate. I had forgotten
about the killing of my dog and all the rest of Henriques' doings. It
was only with curiosity that I looked down on the dead face, swollen
and livid in the first light of morning.

The man had been strangled. His neck, as we say in Scotland, was
'thrawn', and that was why he had lain on his back yet with his face
turned away from me. He had been dead probably since before midnight.
I looked closer, and saw that there was blood on his shir