The Triangle and The Mountain: A Bermuda Triangle Adventure Read Online Free Page B

the
stream?”
    The young one squinted his eyes.
    “Yes I see them now,” he said. “Maybe four or five. Reedbuck
for sure. They’ve gone down there for the green grass and the water.
    “That is where we will take one of them,” said the master. “Before
they turn to come up the mountain. We will have to start now.”
    They took up their spears. The old man was an acknowledged
expert at throwing the spear when he was younger and he could still do it on
occasion. The apprentice often missed but he was improving. They also had
poison tipped arrows in their quivers but they did not want to take the chance
of an animal running up the mountain and dying there.
    Gone was the leisurely pace that they used to bring the
water. They took the straightest way down, hopping from rock to rock and
jogging in between where they could. The old man knew every foothold and the
youngster watched him carefully. They joined up with the path that led to the
col between the two peaks, the same one they had followed earlier. Only, now
they went the opposite way, which was down. The vegetation became dense. Large
bushes bloomed with red, orange and yellow flowers that looked like balls of
fluff with colourful pins stuck into them. Sunbirds, both large and small,
flitted between the flowers and chirped happy songs.
    The beauty was not lost on the runners. “These flowers,”
said the old man, who was not breathing hard at all, “are more beautiful here
on this mountain than anywhere else in the world.”
    “I saw these others when it was winter,” said his companion,
who was breathing hard. He pointed to a bush with broad blue-green leaves. “I
could not get my arms around a flower.”
    “That is why the Dutch come here all the way from Cape Town.
You don’t find flowers like this on Sea Mountain. He used the word Hoeri Quagga, which was the how the KhoiKhoi called Table Mountain.  “They have to
come and pick them from our mountain. They even come for the red ones.”
    They turned their heads around. From this vantage point,
three quarters down the mountain, one had a view of the red flowers on ledges
high and unreachable. As they both knew, in spring time it was even more
impressive, with flowers often spilling like waterfalls down the cracks in the
rocks.
    “There are two kinds,” said the old one. The young one knew
that but then he had to listen to a lot of things that he had heard before or
was aware of anyway.
    “You get the one that clings to the rocks wherever there is
a bit of moisture, without needing a lot of soil. That one does not want to
grow at the houses of the Dutch when they take them down. Then there is another
one with bulbs that grow best wherever it finds a lot of soil on the ledges,
especially in dung from the rock hyraxes. That one grows at the houses of the
Dutch. How do I know this? I have been talking to the young Goringhaikona that they bring here to climb up where even a baboon will not go. I can show
you a few places here where one can still see their bones.”
    “I am Goringhaikona ,” said the young one.
    “Yes you are,” said the old one. “You were named after a
famous king of the Goringhaikona , Hadah.”
    “Tell me about him,” said Hadah.
    Just then the master lifted his hand and turned into the
bushes at right angles. At Hadah’s enquiring look he waved him down impatiently
and motioned to his ear. Hadah listened. He could hear the sunbirds and the redwing
starlings and the wind in the bushes. Then he heard something else. There was
the sound of heavy breathing and footfalls. Somebody, more than one person in
fact, was coming up the steep path and they were in a hurry. They were running.
Master and learner positioned themselves so that they had a glimpse of the path
through the leaves. Three large black men ran by.
    “Runaway slaves,” said the master.
    Hadah wanted to continue on the way down for the hunt but
the master snatched his arm in that grip that was so surprisingly