s its
threshold. Standing at the door, he raps it, somewhat impatiently, with
the handle of his whip. No answer.

Cautiously, and with hand on his pistol, he enters. There is no
passage; the door opens straight into the sitting-room. At the sight
which meets his eyes he starts, and involuntarily falls back.

In a corner of the room stands a tall figure. Leaning with one shoulder
against the wall, its eyes are fixed upon the intruder, great hollow
eyes, which seem to glitter strangely, and the deathly pallor of the
face is enhanced by its framing of dark hair and beard. Though
otherwise motionless, both hands and lips are working slightly, but no
sound escapes the latter. The wayfarer, though not by any means a man
of weak nerves, is conscious of something horribly uncanny about this
ghostlike figure, so silent and immovable, glowering at him in the
shades of the fast-gathering twilight.

But at the same time he recognises his recent assailant. No ghost this,
but--a madman.

For a moment both stand staring at each other. Then the strange-looking
figure speaks.

"Welcome, friend--welcome. Come in, come in. Make yourself at home.
Have you brought any locusts with you? Lots of them--swarms, to eat up
what little grass the drought has left. Have you brought them, I say?
Aha--fine things, locusts! Don't know how we should get on without
them. Grand things for this Country! Fine country this! Green as an
emerald. Emeralds, no, diamonds. But there isn't a `stone' on the
place, devil a `stone.'"

"Locusts! Emeralds! Diamonds!" echoes the stranger in amazement.
"Scott, but the poor chap's clean off his chump--clean off it! What on
earth am I to do with him, or with myself either for the matter of
that?"

"Not a `stone' on the place!" goes on the speaker, in a mournful tone.
"I've fossicked high and low, and there isn't one--not one. Ah, but--
the Valley of the Eye! Come, friend. We will start at once. You shall
make your fortune. Dirk! Dirk!" he shouts, passing the wondering
stranger, and gaining the doorway.

A withered old Koranna, clad in a mangy sheep-skin kaross, who has just
finished penning a flock of Angora goats in one of the kraals, comes
running up at the summons. At sight of his master his parchment visage
assumes a look of deep concern.

"_Die Baas is reegte zick_!" ["The master is properly ill."] he says,
turning to the stranger.

"I should rather think he was," assents th