A Twist of Sand

I looked up the gorge and my heart froze. The river bed had narrowed until it had cut its way through solid rock. There must have been another sharp bend a little higher up, for the water had swathed away the rock on our left until it looked for all the world like the last lap of the Cresta run, smooth, polished rock instead of snow, with a shallow runnel above extending for maybe three hundred yards. If a toboggan can touch ninety miles an hour on the Cresta, my guess was that the Cunene in flood came round this bed with the speed of Nautilus. Above the gigantic furrow of rock was a ledge running the whole length of the bed. I thought it was in black shadow.

The shadows were gigantic black lions.

Stein drew back in amazement and fear.

"A lion!" he exclaimed. "But it cannot be! There is no living lion as big as that!"

The sentry beast got to its feet from a crouching position and looked over at us, measuring the distance. For the first time I saw the tawny coat as well as the enormous black mane which enveloped not only its head and shoulders, but its back and chest. It was the size of an ox, though not as tall.

"Not one lion, Stein," I said. "Look, the whole ledge is crawling with them!"

I laughed in his face.

"Now find the ace," I sneered at him. "Remember what I said -- ' famous last words.' You'll have to go back. Stein."

"Never!" he shouted. "I'll shoot every one. . . ."

"Don't be a bloody fool," I said. "How many do you think you'd get before they'd get you? Look at that, man!"

There were stirrings on the ledge and a whole troop of eyes swivelled on to us. The great brute at the mouth of the rock tunnel opened his mouth and purred softly. It was the most frightening noise I have ever heard. The great black heads, majestic, contemptuous, watched lazily, vigilantly, every muscle at the ready.

"It's the Cape lion!" screamed Stein. A quiver ran through the beast when he heard the noise of the human voice. "My God! It's been extinct for over a century. The old Cape hunters said it was the most dangerous animal in Africa! They shot it out on the plains. Now -- the Skeleton Coast is its last retreat."

I gazed in fascinated awe at the huge beast poised on the ledge. Stein's was the only explanation. I was looking at history, looking at antiquity. Deadly, hellishly dangerous antiquity! The Skeleton Coast guarded its gateway with the world's oldest and deadliest animal! I felt weak at the knees. I also knew that Stein and his crazy expedition was at an end.

I said so.

"This is the point of no return, Stein," I said roughly. "You couldn't get past that lot, even with a tommy-gun. I doubt whether a high velocity two-two would even halt one of those brutes."

Stein rounded on me so savagely that I thought he would use the Luger.

"You capitulate, Captain Peace, but I don't! We go on, even if we have to go round the mountains."

"What is it you're so keen to find there in the Otjihipo mountains?" I said bluntly. "Not some piddling beetle. Is it a cache of diamonds?"

He looked surprised.  He wasn't lying.

"No, Captain Peace, not a cache of diamonds. Something much more valuable. The Onymacris beetle. Found only in the Gobi Desert and North Borneo once. No longer."

He must be mad, I decided.

"Let us go back and talk this over with the others," he said, and there was nothing irrational in the way he said it. "But understand, we are going on -- at whatever cost."

We retreated cautiously again, with a careful eye on the huge black-covered face.

We were starting to emerge when I heard the noise at our backs.

"Listen!" I rapped out.  I heard it again.

"Sounds like thunder," he said uncertainly. "But there's no cloud about ----"

"Run!" I yelled. "It's the river coming down! The highest trees farthest up the bank -- quick!"

I grabbed his shoulder as he stood hesitantly. The narrow gorge funneled the sound. Anne and Johann saw us come sprinting towards them in amazement.

"Quick!" I yelled. "The river's coming down! Listen! It's like distant thunder! Those trees over there!"

We scrambled up the steep bank, slipping and scrabbling. The noise sounded like an approaching Underground train. We hoisted each other wildly into the branches, praying that the water would not reach as high.

The flood broke through the narrow tunnel and spread into the sand.

It wasn't water.  It was thousands of zebra.

They came through the rock-lined gap at full gallop, packed so close together that they sprayed out like water as the river bed widened. The thunder of thousands, tens of thousands, of hoofs on the rock, was deafening.

"It's a mass migration," I yelled above the uproar. "It happens once in a lifetime. They'll tear on for scores of miles. Fifty years ago a magistrate in South West Africa saw the same thing happen with springbok. They threw themselves into the sea and drowned by the thousand. Mass suicide----"

Look!" screamed Anne.