Now there appeared a valley walled in on either side with sloping cliffs of granite; a desolate place, sandy and, save for a single spring, without water, strewn with boulders of rock, some of them piled fantastically one upon the other.

At a certain spot this valley widened out, and in the mouth of the space thus formed, midway between the curved lines of the receding cliffs, stood a little hill or koppie, also built up of boulders.

It was a place of death; for all around the hill, and piled in hundreds between the crevices of its stones, lay the white bones of men.
Nor was this all.

Its summit was flat, and in the midst of it stood a huge tree.

Even had it not been for the fruit which hung from its branches, the aspect of that tree must have struck the beholder as uncanny, even as horrible.