Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon

“Damn you to hell,” Burton whispered.

“On the contrary, I have chosen to transcend. Goodbye, Sir Richard Francis Burton.”

K'k'thyima became silent.

For a few moments, the king's agent sat and did nothing, while Speke watched and fidgeted nervously; then the explorer stood and detached the clockwork man's speaking device. He pulled seven black diamonds out of the exposed babbage and put them into his pocket.

The brass device walked to the other side of the altar, saluted, and stopped moving.

Burton picked up his rifle and said to Speke: “Help me carry William outside. I want to bury him in the open.

It was night when they emerged into the cliff-ringed arena, both weary to the bone after manoeuvring Trounce's corpse through the narrow subterranean passages. To Burton, the bowl-shaped space felt strangely empty. He peered around it, remembered where he'd seen flowers growing on a mound, and, with Speke's help, laid Trounce to rest there, piling rocks onto him by the starlight.

Chwezi warriors stepped out of the shadows. Silently, they escorted the two men through the gorges on either side of the mountain, leading them each by the arm in utter darkness.

When they reached the spot where Sidi Bombay had fallen, Burton found his friend's corpse undisturbed, and a second burial mound was built before they continued on.

The king's agent, asleep on his feet, lost all awareness of the environment and his own actions until, suddenly, they emerged from the Mountains of the Moon and found the Wanyambo sitting around a small crackling fire. The warriors stared in superstitious dread at the Chwezi and backed away. The mountain tribe broke its silence. Words of reassurance were spoken. An oath was sworn. Obedience was demanded. Agreement was reached. The groups banded together-thirty men in all-and continued on eastward toward the Ukerewe Lake.

It was mid-morning by the time they reached the first village. Its inhabitants, fearing the Chwezi, immediately offered shelter and sustenance. Burton, not knowing what he was doing, crawled into a beehive hut and slept.

When he awoke, he was being borne along on a litter with Speke walking at his side. The lieutenant looked down and said, “You've been in a fever for three days. How are you feeling?”

“Weak. Thirsty. Hungry. Where's my rifle?”

“One of the Africans is carrying it.”

“Get it. Don't take it from me again.”

Another day. Another village. They stopped. They ate and drank.

Later, the king's agent sat with Speke in the settlement's bandaniand watched the sun oozing into the horizon.

“Where are we, John?”

“I'm not certain. About a day's march from the northwestern shore of the lake, I hope. I didn't know what to do. Without this damned thing to help me-” he tapped the babbage embedded in the left side of his skull, “-I find it almost impossible to make decisions, so I'm following what it had originally intended me to do upon gaining the diamond, which is to circumnavigate the water to its northernmost point, then march northward. I think the Chwezi understood my intentions, though I've only been able to communicate through sign language.”

Burton checked his pockets. The fourteen stones were still there.

“It seems as good a plan as any,” he said. “As long as the Chwezi remain with us, the locals will supply what we need and we'll avoid demands for hongo.”

Speke nodded and glanced at the other man. There was a disturbing lifelessness to Burton's voice, as if a large part of him had simply switched off.

The next afternoon, after mindlessly slogging over hill after hill, they caught sight of the great lake, stretching all the way to the horizon.

In a voice still devoid of emotion, Burton said, “I apologise, John. Had I seen this with my own eyes during our initial expedition, I would never have doubted your claims.”

“It was my fault you didn't see it,” Speke answered. “I became obsessed with the idea that my name alone should be forever associated with the solving of the Nile problem.”

“The diamond influenced your judgement as soon as we were within range of it.”

“Perhaps. Do you think we'll make it home?”

Burton looked down at himself. His tick-infested 1918 army fatigues were torn and rotting. His boots were cracked.

“I have reason to believe we will.”

“And what then?”

Burton shook his head and shrugged.

Just before sunrise, they set out again. For a short time, Burton walked, then his legs gave way and he collapsed onto the litter. He drifted in and out of consciousness. Fever raged through him like a forest fire.

Sometimes he opened his eyes and there was blue sky; other times, the Milky Way. On one occasion, he rolled his head to the right and saw a mirror-smooth expanse of water covered by thousands of pelicans.

For a long time, he saw nothing.

A hand shook his shoulder.

“Isabel,” he muttered.

“Dick! Wake up! Wake up!”

He opened his eyes and looked upon John Speke's lined, heavily bearded features, and his own reflected in the other's black, brass-ringed left-eye lens. He pushed himself up and found that a little strength had returned to him.

“What is it?”

“Listen!”

Burton looked around. They were on a slope. It concealed the landscape ahead and to the right, but on the left jungled hills rolled away before climbing to faraway mountains.

In front, from beyond the crest of the incline, mist was clouding into the sky.

A constant roar filled his ears.

“That sounds like-”

“Falling water!” Speke enthused. “Can you walk?”

“Yes.”

The lieutenant took Burton's arm and helped him to his feet. With a gesture to the Chwezi and Wanyambo warriors, he indicated that they should stay put.

The two Britishers walked slowly toward the summit, Burton leaning heavily on his companion. The sun burned their faces. Mosquitoes darted around them. The air was heavy and humid.

They reached the top.

Below them, the earth was cut by a wide and deep rift into which, from the edge of the Ukerewe, a great mass of water hurtled. Thundering beneath billowing vapour, it crashed and splashed and frothed over rounded rocks, and cascaded through the arch of a permanent rainbow. Fish leaped from it, flashing in the sunlight, and birds darted in and out of the rolling cloud.

There could be no doubt.

It was the source of the River Nile.

Burton thought: Here it begins. Here it ends. Not the source, but just another part of a circle.

They stood silently for a long while, deafened by the sound of the falling water, then Speke roused himself, leaned close to Burton, put his mouth to the explorer's ear, and shouted: “We've done it, Dick! We've discovered it at last!” He clutched his companion's elbow. “And we did it together!”

Burton tore himself away and Speke took a step back, shocked by the ferocious expression on the other man's face.

“You can have it! I want nothing more to do with it! It's yours, Speke! The whole damned thing is yours!”

Over the next few days, they followed the river north, struggled across an extensive quagmire, pushed through thickets of water hyacinth, and found themselves on the shore of a second lake, smaller and much shallower than the Ukerewe. It was completely covered with water lilies and smelled of rotting vegetation.

“What shall we name it?” Speke asked.

“Why name it at all?” Burton growled. “It is what it is. A bloody lake.”

The lieutenant shook his head despairingly and walked away. He couldn't understand the other's mood at all. Burton had hardly spoken since their discovery of the falls. He wasn't even bothering to acquire the Chwezi language, which was entirely out of character, for in Speke's experience Burton was driven by a mania to conquer every foreign tongue he encountered.