described.

"All this he told me that night in the tent, now and again starting and
glancing fearfully out and across the sands to point out the dread
watcher he believed hovered near him. I tried to soothe him, to laugh
away his fears, to tell him it was all a dream. And then? Well, he
fumbled in his shirt and drew forth a little package tied up in a rag,
and with many a fearful glance his trembling fingers undid it, and
there poured forth a little cascade of magnificent diamonds far finer
than anything I had ever seen before or since in German West: a fortune
in fact! I sat astounded, for I had not dreamed of this. Where they
came from there must be more a fortune for us all! Then I found my
tongue. 'Carfax, man,' I said, 'this is wonderful! Can you find your
way back? It will make us all rich.' He shuddered. 'No! no!' he said,
his hand pressed to his eyes as though to shut out a scene of horror;
'he is there! No, he cannot be; he is watching here for me he will
follow me always! Oh! Jason, don't leave me alone, old man; don't leave
me; we'll get away together when the boat comes! there's enough for us
both! don't leave me!'

"After a time he sank into a troubled sleep; but to me sleep was now
out of the question. Where on earth had he found the diamonds? They, at
least, were real. Had he really found a spot where the terrific gale
had shifted the sand and laid bare a treasure and tragedy of long ago?
Such things might be. I had seen dead men in the dunes myself, and the
overwrought state of Carfax, due to his sufferings, would account for
the rest. If only he could find his way back when he came to his proper
senses again.

"Thus musing I paced up and down outside the tent in the bright
moonlight. Carfax was still sleeping, but uneasily, and muttering a lot
in his sleep. There across the dunes the diamonds must be there
somewhere. He had come from yonder towards the big dune. And almost
mechanically my footsteps wandered away from the tent towards where I
had met Carfax. Here was the spot, here was the place where he had half
scared me with his weird story of being followed, and where I had half
believed myself that I had seen the follower. Here, for the wind had
once more blown the sand from out the filled-in footprints, were our
spoors mine meeting his; here we turned back; but what was this? Whose
spoor was this, that followed upon our own, back towards where the tent
stood!

"My hair rose on my head as I lo