Allan Quatermain

a ring at the outer door. Going down the steps I opened it myself, and in came my old friends Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good, RN.

I said by way of making a remark; 'it mu

ype of humanity. Nor did his form belie his face. I have never seen wider shoulders or a deeper chest. Indeed, Sir Henry's girth is so great that, though he is six feet two high, he does not strike one as a tall man. As I looked at him I could not help thinking what a curious contrast my little dried-up self presented to his grand face and form. Imagine to yourself a small, withered, yellow-faced man of

s is everlastingly fixed. I say stout, but it is a mild term; I regret to state that of late years Good has been running to fat in a most di

e to do these things for myself: it is irritating to me to have somebody continually at my elbow, as though I were an eighteen-month-old baby. All this while Curtis and Good had been silent, feeling, I suppose, that they had nothing to say that could do me any good, and content to give me the comfort of their presence and u

y and water, and I stood by the fir

' I said, 'how long is it sinc

said Good. 'W

had a long enough spell of civiliza

-chair and laughed one of his deep laug

ly through his eyeglass and

id I, looking from one to the

ry; 'then I will explain. As Good and

in sarcastically, for Good is a great hand a

think?' ask

I should know what Good might be talki

-namely, that if you were willing we should pack up

his words. 'You don

and so does Good;

said that

become the victim of an almost unaccountable craving. I am sick of shooting pheasants and partridges, and want to have a go at some large game again. There, you know the feeling-when one has once tasted brandy and water, milk becomes insipid to the palate. That year we spent together up in Kukuanaland seems to me worth all the other years of my life put together. I dare say tha

t sooner or later. And now, Good, what is your

o anything without a reason; and it isn't

is so overpoweringly frivo

ather not speak of a delicate and strictly pers

. 'And now, Quatermain, tell us

ich had gone out,

ever heard of M

the place,

of the Island of La

it a place about 300 m

nia; from Mt Kenia on inland to Mt Lekakisera, another 200 miles, or thereabouts, beyond which no white man has to the best

r,' said Sir Hen

s, and I mean to do it before I die. My poor boy's death has broken the last link between me and civilization, and I'm off to my native wilds. And now I'll tell you another thing, and that is, that for years and years I have

our white race,' said Sir Henry Curtis, ri

let's go to Mt Kenia and the other place with an unpronounceable name

pose to start?'

don't you be so certain that things have no existence because you d

date of this conversation, and this history g

nzibar. This conclusion we arrived at from information given to us by a German trader whom we met upon the steamer at Aden. I think that he was the dirtiest German I ever knew; but he was a good fellow, and gave us a great

ll our goods and chattels, and, not knowing where to go, marched boldly up

that the women come to bury coconuts in the mud, leaving them there till the outer husk is quite rotten, when they dig them up again and use the fibres to make mats with, and for various other purposes. As this process has been going on for generations, the condition of the shore can be better imagined than described. I have smelt many evil odours in the course of my life, but the concentra

for?' asked our friend the hospitable Co

nswered Sir Henry. 'Quatermain has got hold of some yarn about

, and answered that he had h

you heard

ackenzie, the Scotch missionary, whose station, "The Highlands", is placed at the

the letter

month's journey, over desert and thorn veldt and great mountains, till he came to a country where the people are white and live in stone houses. Here he was hospitably entertained for a while, till at last the priests of the country set it about that he was a devil, and the people dro

at each other. Here w

will go to Mr Mac

are not pleasant customers. Your best plan will be to choose a few picked men for personal servants and hunters, and to hire bearers from village to village. It will give

on a long trip with an Englishman named Jutson, who had started from Mombasa, a port about 150 miles below Lamu, and journeyed right round Kilimanjaro, one of the highest known mountains in Africa. Poor fellow, he had died of fever when on his return journey, and within a day's march of Mombasa. It does seem hard that he should have gone off

at they could not entertain any such idea, that they were worn and weary with long travelling, and that their hearts were sore at the loss of their master. They meant to go back to their homes and rest awhile. This did not sound very promising, so by way of effecting a diversion I asked where the remainder

ng limbs. My first glance at him told me that he was no Wakwafi: he was a pure bred Zulu. He came out with his thin aristocratic-looking hand placed before his face to hide a yawn, so I could only see that he was a 'Keshla' or ringed man {Endnote 1}, and that he had a great three-cornered hole in his forehea

rted, and almost let the long-handled battleaxe he held in his hand fall in his astonishment. Next second he had

(i.e. is a true friend) Koos! Baba! Wise is the voice of our people that says, "Mountain never meets with mountain, but at daybreak or at even man shall meet again with man." Behold! a messenger came up from Natal, "Macumazahn is dead!" cried he. "The land knows Macumazahn no more." That is years ago. And now, behold,

a stop to it, for there is nothing that I hate so much as this Zulu system of extravagant praising-'bongering' as they call it. 'Silence!' I said. 'Has all thy noisy talk been stopped up since last I saw the

axe (which was nothing else but a pole-axe, with a beautif

knows, even now that I am old my feet are as the feet of the Sassaby {Endnote 2}, and there breathes not the man who, by running, can touch me again when once I have bounded from his side. On I sped, and after me came the messengers of death, and their voice was as the voice of dogs that hunt. From my own kraal I flew, and, as I passed, she who had betrayed me was drawing water from the spring. I fleeted by her like the shadow of Death, and as I went I smote with mine axe, and lo! her head fell: it fell into the water pan. Then I fled north. Day after day I journeyed on; for three moons I journeyed, resting not, stopping not, but running on toward

d against Cetywayo, son of Panda, I warned thee, and thou didst listen. But now, when I was not by thee to stay thy hand, thou hast dug a pit for thine own feet to fall in. Is it not so? But what is done is don

rength and deeds. Hear me now. Thou seest this great man, my friend'-and I pointed to Sir Henry; 'he also is a warrior as great as thou, and, strong as thou art, he could throw thee over his shoulder. Incubu is his name. And thou seest

me old things around us. Wilt thou come with us? To thee shall be given command of all our servants; but what shall befall thee, that I know not. Once before we three journeyed thus, in search of adventure, and we took with us a man such as thou-one Umbopa; and, behold,

ath, what care I, so that the blows fall fast and the blood runs red? I grow old, I grow old, and I have not fought enough! And yet am I a warrior among warriors; see my scars'-and he pointed to countless cicatrices, stabs and cuts, that marked the skin of his chest and legs and arms. 'See the hole in my head; the brains gushed out therefrom, yet did I slay him who smote, and

would not hear of thy deeds of blood. Remember, if thou comest with us, we fight not save in self-defence. Listen, we need serva

I had first spoken, and, seizing him by the arm, dragged him towards us. 'Thou dog!' he said, giving the terrified man a shake, 'didst thou say that thou wouldst not go with my F

with the white ma

y, which a very little provocation would have made

go with the

s he suddenly released his hold, so that th

ious moral ascendency over his companions