Allan Quatermain

that I have seen in Africa. We then returned to the veranda, where we found Umslopogaas taking advantage of this favourable opportunity to clean all the rifles thoroughly.

tell one word from another'; the six Martinis were 'the common people'; and so on with them all. It was very curious to hear him addressing each gun as he cleaned it, as though it were an individual, and in a vein of the quaintest humour. He did the same with his battle-axe, which he seemed to look upon as an intimate friend, and to which he would at times talk by the hour, going over all his old adventures with it-and dreadful enough some of them were. By a piece of grim humour, he had named this axe 'Inkosi-kaas', which is the Zulu word for chie

ach nick representing a man killed in battle with the weapon. The axe itself was made of the most beautiful steel, and apparently of European manufacture, though Umslopogaas did not know where it came from, having taken it from the hand of a chief he had killed in battle many years before. It was not very heavy, the head weighing two and a half pounds, as nearly as I could judge. The cutting part was slightly concave in shape-not convex, as it generally the case with savage battleaxes-and sharp as a razor, measuring five and three-quarter inches across the widest part. From the back of the axe sprang a stout spike four inches long, for the last two of which it

on that I ever saw, and one which he cherished as much as his own life. It scarcely eve

r itself (which I afterwards saw under circumstances likely to impress its appearance fixedly in my mind), I know not how to describe its beauty and splendour, or the indescribable sweetness of its perfume. The flower-for it has only one bloom-rises from the crown of the bulb on a thick fleshy and flat-sided stem, the specimen that I saw measured fourteen inches in diameter, and is somewhat trumpet-shaped like the bloom of an ordinary 'longiflorum' set vertically. First there is the green sheath, which in its early stage is not unlike that of a water-lily, but which as the bloom opens splits into four portions and curls back gracefully towards the stem. Then comes the bloom itsel

ot lonely up here among all these savage peo

ence! Here,' she said, giving her head a little toss, 'I am I; and every native for miles around knows the "Water-lily",-for that is what they call me-and is ready to do what I want, but in the books that I have read about

t like to lea

teaches me Latin and

r afraid among al

uble-barrelled nickel-plated Derringer, 'I always carry that loaded, and if anybody tried to touch me I should shoot him. Once I shot a leopard that jumped upon my donkey as I was riding along. It frightened me very much, but I shot

ging between earth and heaven, and based upon the clouds. The solemn majesty and beauty of this white peak are together beyond the power of my poor pen to describe. There it rose straight and sheer-a glittering white glory, its crest piercing the very blue of heaven. As I gazed at it with that little girl I felt my whole heart lifted up with an indescribable emotion

eauty is a j

the years-and not feel his own utter insignificance, and, by whatever name he calls Him, worship God in his heart. Such sights are like visions of the spirit; they throw wide the windows of the chamber

n the glittering air: 'A man might look thereon for a thousand years and yet be hungry to see.' But he gave rather another colour to his poetical idea when he added in a sort of chant, and with a touch of that weird imagination for which the m

ou old bloodh

ed him, but at le

ther s

nue thy murdering even

ot are slaves. I say I kill in fair fight; and when I am "in the shadow", as you white men say, I hope to go on killing in fair fight. May my shadow be accursed an

being seen, and that they believed that those gentry had given up the pursuit and returned whence they came. Mr Mackenzie gave a sigh of relief when he heard this, and so indeed did we, for we had had quite enough of the Masai to las

man, came out, and Sir Henry, who is a very good French scholar, got him to tell us how he came to visit Centr

retreat from Moscow, and lived for ten days on his own leggings and a pair he stole from a comra

e might skip his ancestr

ary principle is not hereditary. My grandfather was a splendid man, six feet two high, broad in proportion, a swallow

mire all the roses in a garden, but we pluck one. I plucked one, and alas, messieurs, it pricked my finger. She was a chambermaid, her name Annette, her figure ravishing, her face an angel's, her heart-alas, messieurs, that I should have to own it!-black and slippery as a patent leather boot. I loved to desper

he back. 'There's no knowing what may happen, you know. To judge from

in each other's love. The birds in their little nest could not be happier than Alphonse and his Annette. Then came the blow-sapristi!-when I think of it. Messieurs

led with pain. I had a cousin a linen-draper, well-to-do, but very ugly. He had drawn a good number, and sympathized when they thumped me. "To thee, my cousin," I s

said he; "I will." As

and I suffered tortures from the coarse horror of my surroundings. There was a drill

about Tonquin. They were not satisfactory. In Tonquin are savage Chinese who rip you open. My artistic tastes-for I am also an artist-recoiled

e. I rushed into the kitchen. I struck my cousin with the old man's crutch. He fell-I had slain him. Alas, I believe that I did slay him. Annette screamed. The gendarmes came. I fled. I reached the harbour. I hid aboard a vessel. The vessel put to sea. The captain found me and beat me. He took an opportunity. He posted a letter from a foreign port to the police. He did not put me ashore because I cooked so well. I cooked for him all the way to Zanzibar. When I asked for payment he kicked me. The blood o

choked with laughter, hav

rs,' he said. 'No wond

ll; perhaps you will still be great. At any rate we shall see. And now I vote we go t

idy rooms and clean white sheets seem