to the deed, and the thing was finished.
Laughing again at the comicality of the transaction, which indeed he had
carried out more by way of joke than for any other reason, Leonard put
the prayer-book in his pocket and the great ruby into a division of
his belt. The old woman watched the stone vanish with an expression of
triumph on her face, then she cried exultingly:

"Ah! White Man, you have taken my pay, and now you are my servant to the
end. He who swears upon the blood of Aca swears an oath indeed, and woe
be to him if he should break it."

"Quite so," answered Leonard; "I have taken your pay and I mean to earn
it, so we need not enter into the matter of the blood of Aca. It seems
to me more probable that our own blood will be in question before all is
said and done. And now we had better make ready to start."

CHAPTER VIII

THE START

Food was their first consideration, and to provide it Leonard bade Otter
cut the lump of raw meat into strips and set them upon the rocks to dry
in the broiling sun. Then they sorted their goods and selected such of
them as they could carry.

Alas! they were but few. A blanket apiece--a spare pair of boots
apiece--some calomel and sundries from the medicine-chest--a shot gun
and the two best rifles and ammunition--a compass, a water bottle,
three knives, a comb, and a small iron cooking-pot made up the total--a
considerable weight for two men and a woman to drag across mountains,
untravelled plains, and swamps. This baggage was divided into three
loads, of which Soa's was the lightest, and that of Otter weighed as
much as the other two put together.

"It was nothing," he said, "he could carry the three if need were;" and
so great was the dwarf's strength that Leonard knew this to be no idle
boast.

At length all was prepared, and the articles that remained were buried
in the cave together with the mining tools. It was not likely that they
would ever return to seek them; more probably they will lie there till,
thousands of years hence, they are dug up and become priceless relics
of the Anglo-African age. Still they hid them on the chance. Leonard had
melted the fruits of their mining into little ingots. In all there were
about a hundred ounces of almost pure gold--the price of three men's
lives! Half of these ingots he placed with the ruby in the belt about
his middle, and half he gave to Otter, who hid them in his bundle.
Leonard's first idea was to leave the bullion,