Adventure stories; Gold -- Juvenile fiction; South Africa -- Juvenile fiction; Young men -- Fiction
They trekked once more, and after steady travelling for some days
further, through a wild and remote wilderness, came at length to that
goal of their desires, the Gold Kloof. One magnificent evening they
outspanned under the shadow of a great mass of towering mountain, the
highest peak of which must have been full seven thousand feet high.
Within this range lay their secret. As the white men looked up at the
peaked and serrated crests of the berg before them--now glowing with
crimson and rose under the magic of the African sunset--they could not
help being sensible of the spell of mystery and expectation cast over
them by the witchery of that wonderful hour and the sight of this
magnificent mountain land, which had lain here during ages of the past,
remote and unknown, hugging within its solitudes the wealth that all
civilized men covet so greatly. The fires of evening passed, and the
mountains sank into more sober colouring. Puces and mauves and brown,
contrasted in the deeper shadows with cobalt and indigo, were succeeded
by yet darker and more sombre hues. Finally night sank, and only the
faint looming of the great berg could be perceived. A thin silver
crescent of a moon swam in the palest green sky; the stars pricked forth
in amazing brilliancy; and the whole firmament became arrayed in its
night robe of the deepest and most velvety blue-black.
They spent a most cheery evening by the camp fire, and turned in to
sleep with all sorts of anticipations for the morrow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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