is that which is most desired by all white men, _Nkose_?"

"Gold."

"_Yeh-bo, Nkose_, and by black ones, too, if with it they can buy cattle
and wives. _Hau_! In the abode of the mighty dead there is much of
it."

Blachland didn't start, but his nerves were all a thrill. The man's
words were plain enough. A quantity of treasure had been buried with
the dead King. That was the interpretation.

"Is the gold like this, Hlangulu?" he said, producing a sovereign.

"_Eh-he, Nkose_!" assented the Matabele. "It is in a bag, so high,"--
holding his hand about a couple of feet from the ground.

Then they talked, the white man and the savage,--talked long and
earnestly. The superstitions of the latter precluded him from going
near the dreaded sepulchre, let alone entering it. But for the former
no such barrier existed. Hlangulu knew a way of getting him through the
pickets: then he could accomplish a double purpose, explore the interior
of the King's grave, and bring away the concealed wealth which lay
there; and this they would share equally.

It was quite dark when they separated: Blachland all braced up by the
prospect of a new and interesting adventure, which, coming when it did,
was peculiarly welcome; Hlangulu to dream of an idyllic existence, in
some far-away land where Lo Bengula's arm could not reach, where he
could sit in his kraal and count his vast herds of cattle, and buy
wives, young and new, whenever inclined.

CHAPTER NINE.

A WEIRD QUEST.

Away among the masses of the wonderful Matopo range.

Huge granite piles rearing up skyward in every varied form of bizarre
delineation, like the mighty waves of an angry sea suddenly petrified,
the great flow of fallen stones covering the entire slope like the
inflow of surf upon a slanting shore; the scanty trees, and tall,
knife-edged tambuti grass in the valley bottoms, like seaweed in the
rainy moisture of the dusking evening. Then a blue gleam of lightning
along the grim granite faces; and a dull boom, re-echoed again and again
as the thunder-peal is tossed from crag to crag in a hundred deep-toned
reverberations.

Standing just within their ample shelter--which is formed by the
overhang of a great boulder--Blachland gazes forth upon the weird and
awe-inspiring solitude. Opposite, a huge castellated rock, many
hundreds of feet in height, balances on its summit a mighty slab, which
it seems would need but the touch of a finger to send crashing