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speak broken English, and I understood a little Portugee, and he told
me that his name was Jose Silvestre, and that he had a place near
Delagoa Bay. When he went on next day with his half-breed companion,
he said 'Good-bye,' taking off his hat quite in the old style.

"'Good-bye, senoer,' he said; 'if ever we meet again I shall be the
richest man in the world, and I will remember you.' I laughed a little
--I was too weak to laugh much--and watched him strike out for the
great desert to the west, wondering if he was mad, or what he thought
he was going to find there.

"A week passed, and I got the better of my fever. One evening I was
sitting on the ground in front of the little tent I had with me,
chewing the last leg of a miserable fowl I had bought from a native
for a bit of cloth worth twenty fowls, and staring at the hot red sun
sinking down over the desert, when suddenly I saw a figure, apparently
that of a European, for it wore a coat, on the slope of the rising
ground opposite to me, about three hundred yards away. The figure
crept along on its hands and knees, then it got up and staggered
forward a few yards on its legs, only to fall and crawl again. Seeing
that it must be somebody in distress, I sent one of my hunters to help
him, and presently he arrived, and who do you suppose it turned out to
be?"

"Jose Silvestre, of course," said Captain Good.

"Yes, Jose Silvestre, or rather his skeleton and a little skin. His
face was a bright yellow with bilious fever, and his large dark eyes
stood nearly out of his head, for all the flesh had gone. There was
nothing but yellow parchment-like skin, white hair, and the gaunt
bones sticking up beneath.

"'Water! for the sake of Christ, water!' he moaned and I saw that his
lips were cracked, and his tongue, which protruded between them, was
swollen and blackish.

"I gave him water with a little milk in it, and he drank it in great
gulps, two quarts or so, without stopping. I would not let him have
any more. Then the fever took him again, and he fell down and began to
rave about Suliman's Mountains, and the diamonds, and the desert. I
carried him into the tent and did what I could for him, which was
little enough; but I saw how it must end. About eleven o'clock he grew
quieter, and I lay down for a little rest and went to sleep. At dawn I
woke again, and in the half light saw Silvestre sitting up, a strange,
gaunt form, and gazing out towards the desert. Presently the first ray
of the sun shot right across the wide plain before us till it reached
the faraway crest of one of the tallest of the Suliman Mountains more
than a hundred miles away.

"'There it is!' cried the dying man in Portuguese, and pointing with
his long, thin arm, 'but I shall never reach it, never. No one will
ever reach it!'

"Suddenly, he paused, and seemed to take a resolution. 'Friend,' he
said, turning towards me, 'are you there? My eyes grow dark.

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