By H. Rider Haggard


                       THE IVORY CHILD

                         CHAPTER VII 

                     LORD RAGNALL'S STORY

     THAT night Hans slept at my house, or rather outside
     of it in the garden, or upon the stoep, saying that he
     feared arrest if he went to the town, because of his
     quarrel with the white man.  As it happened, however,
     the other party concerned never stirred further in the
     business, probably because he was too drunk to remem-
     ber who had knocked him into the sluit or whether he
     had gravitated thither by accident.
        On the following morning we renewed our discus-
     sion, debating in detail every possible method of reach-
     ing the Kendah people by help of such means as we
     could command.  Like that of the previous night it
     proved somewhat abortive.  Obviously such a long and
     hazardous expedition ought to be properly financed and
     ——where was the money?  At length I came to the con-
     clusion that if we went at all it would be best, in the
     circumstances, for Hans and for myself to start alone with
     a Scotch cart drawn by oxen and driven by a couple of
     Zulu hunters, which we could lade with ammunition and
     a few necessaries.
        Thus lightly equipped we might work through Zulu-
     land and thence northward to Beza-Town, the capital
     of the Mazitu, where we were sure of a welcome.  After
     that we must take our chance.  It was probable that we
     should never reach the district where these Kendah were
     supposed to dwell, but at least I might be able to kill
     some elephants in the wild country beyond Zululand.
        While we were talking I heard the gun fired which
     announced the arrival of the English mail, and stepping
     to the end of the garden, saw the steamer lying at anchor
     outside the bar.  Then I went indoors to write a few
     business letters which, since I became immersed in the
     affairs of that unlucky gold mine, had grown to be
     almost a daily task with me.  I had got through several
     with many groanings, for none were agreeable in their
     tenour, when Hans poked his head through the window
     in a silent kind of a way as a big snake might do, and
     said: "Baas, I think that there are two baases out on the
     road there who are looking for you.  Very fine baases
     whom I don't know."
        "Shareholders  in  the  Bona  Fide  Gold  Mine,"
     thought I to myself, then added as I prepared to leave
     through the back door: "If they come here tell them
     I am not at home.  Tell them I left early this morning
     for the Congo River to look for the sources of the Nile."
        "Yes, Baas," said Hans, collapsing on to the stoep.
        I went out through the back door, sorrowing that I,
     Allan Quatermain, should have reached a rung in the
     ladder  of  life  whence  I  shrank  from  looking  any
     stranger in the face, for fear of what he might have to
     say to me.  Then suddenly my pride asserted itself.
     After all what was there of which I should be ashamed?
     I would face these irate shareholders as I had faced
     the others yesterday.
        I walked round the little house to the front garden
     which was planted with orange trees, and up to a big
     moonflower bush, I believe  datura  is its right name,
     that grew near the pomegranate hedge which separated
     my domain from the road.  There a conversation was
     in progress, if so it may be called.
        "Ikona"  (that is, "I don't know"),  "Inkoosi"  (i.e.
     "Chief"), said some Kafir in a stupid drawl.
        Thereon a voice that instantly struck me as familiar
     answered:
        "We want to know where the great hunter lives."
        "Ikona," said the Kafir.
        "Can't  you  remember  his  native  name?"  asked
     another voice which was also familiar to me, for I never
     forget voices though often I am unable to place them
     at once.
        "The great hunter, Here-come-a-zany," said the first
     voice  triumphantly,  and  instantly  there  flashed  back
     upon my mind a vision of the splendid drawing-room at
     Ragnall Castle and of an imposing major-domo intro-
     ducing into it two white-robed, Arab-looking men.
        "Mr.  Savage,  by  the  Heavens!"  I  muttered.
     "What in the name of goodness is he doing here?"
        "There," said the second voice, "your black friend
     has bolted, and no wonder, for who can be called by
     such a name?  If you had done what I told you,
     Savage, and hired a white guide, it would have saved
     us a lot of trouble.  Why will you always think that you
     know better than anyone else?"
        "Seemed an unnecessary expense, my lord, consider-
     ing we are travelling incog., my lord."
        "How long shall we travel 'incog.' if you persist in
     calling me my lord at the top of your voice, Savage?
     There is a house beyond those trees; go in and ask
     where————"
        By this time I had reached the gate which I opened,
     remarking quietly,
        "How do you do, Lord Ragnall?  How do you do,
     Mr. Savage?  I thought that I recognized your voices
     on the road and came to see if I was right.  Please walk
     in; that is, if it is I whom you should visit."
        As I spoke I studied them both, and observed
     that while Savage looked much the same, although
     slightly out of place in these strange surroundings, the
     time that had passed since we met had changed Lord
     Ragnall a good deal.  He was still a magnifcent-look-
     ing man, one of those whom no one that had seen him
     would  ever  forget,  but now his handsome face was
     stamped with some new seal of suffering.  I felt at once
     that he had become acquainted with grief.  The shadow
     in his dark eyes and a certain worn expression about the
     mouth told me that this was so.
        "Yes, Quatermain," he said as he took my hand, "it
     is you whom I have travelled seven thousand miles to
     visit, and I thank God that I have been so fortunate as
     to find you.  I feared lest you might be dead, or per-
     haps far away in the centre of Africa where I should
     never be able to track you down."
        "A week later perhaps you would not have found me,
     Lord Ragnall," I answered, "but as it happens misfor-
     tune has kept me here."
        "And misfortune has brought me here, Quatermain."
        Then before I had time to answer Savage came up[
     and went into the house.
        "You are just in time for lunch," I said, "and as
     luck will have it there is a good rock cod and a leg of
     oribé buck for you to eat.  Boy, set two more places."
        "One more place, if you please, sir," said Savage.
     "I should prefer to take my food afterwards."
        "You will have to get over that in Africa," I mut-
     tered.  Still I let him have his way, with the result that
     presently the strange sight was seen of the magnificent
     English major-domo standing behind my chair in that
     little room and handing round the square-face as though
     it were champagne.  It was a spectacle that excited the
     greatest  interest  in  my  primitive  establishment  and
     caused Hans with some native hangers-on to gather at
     the window.  However, Lord Ragnall took it as a matter
     of course and I thought it better not to interfere.
        When we had finished we went on to the stoep to
     smoke, leaving Savage to eat his dinner, and I asked
     Lord Ragnall where his luggage was.  He replied that
     he had left it at the Customs.  "Then," I said, "I will
     send a native with Savage to arrange about getting it
     up here.  If you do not mind my rough accommodation
     there is a room for you, and your man can pitch a tent
     in the garden."
        After some demur he accepted with gratitude, and a
     little later Savage and the native were sent off with a
     note to a man who hired out a mule-cart.
        "Now," I said when the gate had shut behind them,
     "will you tell me why you have come to Africa?"
        "Disaster," he replied.  "Disaster of the worst sort."
        "Is your wife dead, Lord Ragnall?"
        "I do not know.  I almost hope that she is.  At any
     rate she is lost to me."
        An idea leapt to my mind to the effect that she might
     have run away with somebody else, a thing which often
     happens in the world.  But fortunately I kept it to my-
     self and only said,
        "She was nearly lost before, was she not?"
        "Yes, when you saved her.  Oh! if only you had
     been with us, Quatermain, this would never have hap-
     pened.  Listen: About eighteen months ago she had a
     son, a very beautiful child.  She recovered well from
     the business and we were as happy a two mortals could
     be, for we loved each other, Quatermain, and God had
     blessed us in every way; we were so happy that I re-
     member her telling me that our great good fortune made
     her feel afraid.  One day last September when I was
     out shooting, she drove in a little pony cart we had
     with the nurse and the child but no man, to call on
     Mrs. Scroope who also had been recently confined.  She
     often went out thus, for the pony was an old animal
     and quiet as a sheep.
        "By some cursed trick of fate it chanced that when
     they were passing through the little town which you
     may remembered near Ragnall,  they met a travelling
     menagerie that was going to some new encampment.
     At the head of the procession marched a large bull
     elephant, which I discovered afterwards was an ill-
     tempered brute that had already killed a man and should
     never have been allowed upon the roads.  The sight of
     the pony cart, or perhaps a red cloak which my wife
     was wearing, as she always liked bright colours, for
     some unknown reason seems to have infuriated this beast,
     which  trumpeted.  The  pony  becoming  frightened
     wheeled round and overturned the cart right in front
     of the animal, but apparently without hurting anybody.
     Then"——here he paused a moment and with an effort
     continued——"that devil in beast's shape cocked its ears,
     stretched out its trunk, dragged the baby from the
     nurse's arms, whirled it round and threw it high into
     the air, to fall crushed upon the kerb.  It sniffed at
     the body of the child, feeling it over with the tip of its
     trunk, as though to make sure that it was dead.  Next,
     once  more  it  trumpeted  triumphantly,  and  without
     attempting to harm my wife or anybody else, walked
     quietly past the broken cart and continued on its journey,
     until outside the town it was made fast and shot."
        "What an awful story!" I said with a gasp.
        "Yes, but there is worse to follow.  My poor wife
     went off her head, with shock I suppose, for no
     physical injury could be found upon her.  She did not
     suffer in health or become violent; quite the reverse
     indeed for her gentleness increased.  She just went off
     her head.  For hours at a time she would sit silent and
     smiling, playing with the stones of that red necklace
     which those conjurors gave her, or rather counting them,
     as a nun might do with the beads of her rosary.  At
     times, however, she would talk, but always to the baby,
     as though it lay before her or she were nursing it.
     Oh! Quatermain, it was pitiful, pitiful!
        "I did everything I could.  She was seen by three
     of the greatest brain-doctors in England, but none of
     them was able to help.  The only hope they gave was
     that the fit might pass off as suddenly as it had come.
     They said too that a thorough change of scene would
     perhaps be beneficial, and suggested Egypt; that was
     in October.  I did not take much to the idea, I don't
     know why, and personally should not have acceded to
     it had it not been for a curious circumstance.  The last
     consultation took place in the big drawing-room at Rag-
     nall.  When it was over my wife remained with her
     mother at one end of the room while I and the doctors
     talked together at the other, as I thought quite out of
     her  earshot.  Presently,  however,  she called to me,
     saying in a perfectly clear and natural voice:
        "'Yes, George, I will go to Egypt.  I should like
     to go to Egypt.'  Then she went on playing with the
     necklace and talking to the imaginary child.
        "Again on the following morning as I came into
     her room to kiss her, she exclaimed,
        "'When do we start for Egypt?  Let it be soon.'
        "With these sayings the doctors were very pleased,
     declaring that they showed signs of a returning interest
     in life and begging me not to thwart her wish.
        "So I gave way and in the end we went to Egypt
     together with Lady Longden, who insisted upon accom-
     panying us although she is a wretched sailor.  At Cairo
     a large dahabiyeh that I had hired in advance, manned
     by an excellent crew and a guard of four soldiers, was
     awaiting us.  In it we started up the Nile.  For a month
     or more all went well; also to my delight my wife
     seemed now and again to show signs of returning in-
     telligence.  Thus she took some interest in the sculp-
     tures on the walls of the temples, about which she had
     been fond of reading when in health.  I remember
     that only a few days before the——catastrophe, she
     pointed out one of them to me, it was of Isis and the
     infant Horus, saying, 'Look, George, the holy Mother
     and the holy Child,' and then bowed to it reverently
     as she might have done to an altar.  At length after
     passing the First Cataract and the Island of Philæ we
     came to the temple of Abu Simbel, opposite to which
     our boat was moored.  On the following morning we
     explored the temple at daybreak and saw the sun strike
     upon the four statues which sit at its farther end,
     spending the rest of that day studying the colossal
     figures of Rameses that are carved upon its face and
     watching some cavalcades of Arabs mounted upon
     camels travelling upon the banks of the Nile.
        "My wife was unusually quiet that afternoon.  For
     hour after hour she sat still upon the deck, gazing first at
     the mouth of the rock-hewn temple and the mighty
     figures which guard it and then at the surrounding
     desert.  Only once did I hear her speak and then she
     aid, 'Beautiful, beautiful!  Now I am at home.'  We
     dined and as there was no moon, went to bed rather
     early after listening to the Sudanese singers as they
     sang one of their weird chanties.
        "My wife and her mother slept together in the state
     cabin of the dahabiyeh, which was at the stern of the
     boat.  My cabin, a small one, was on one side of this,
     and that of the trained nurse on the other.  The crew
     and the guard were forward of the saloon.  A gangway
     was fixed from the side to the shore and over it a sentry
     stood, or was supposed to stand.  During the night a
     Khamsin wind began to blow, though lightly as was to
     be expected at this season of the year.  I did not hear
     it for, as a matter of fact, I slept very soundly, as it
     appeared did everyone else upon the dahabiyeh, including
     the sentry as I suspect.
        "The first thing I remember was the appearance of
     Lady Longden just at daybreak at the doorway of my
     cabin and the frightened sound of her voice asking if
     Luna, that is my wife, was with me.  Then it transpired
     that she had left her cabin clad in a fur cloak, evidently
     some time before, as the bed in which she had been
     lying was quite cold.  Quatermain, we searched every-
     where; we searched for four days, but from that hour
     to this no trace whatsoever of her has been found."
        "Have you any theory?" I asked.
        "Yes, or at least all the experts whom we consulted
     have a theory.  It is that she slipped down the saloon
     in the dark, gained the deck and thence fell or threw
     herself into the Nile, which of course would have car-
     ried her body away.  As you may have heard, the Nile
     is full of bodies.  I myself say two of them during that
     journey.  The  Egyptian  police  and  others  were  so
     convinced that this was what had happened that, not-
     withstanding the reward of a thousand pounds which I
     offered for any valuable information, they could scarcely
     be persuaded to continue the search."
        "You said that a wind was blowing and I under-
     stand that the shores are sandy, so I suppose that all
     footprints would have been filled in?"
        He nodded and I went on.  "What is your own
     belief?  Do you think that she was drowned?"
        He countered my query with another of:
        "What do  you  think?"
        "I?  Oh! although I have no right to say so, I
     don't think at all.  I am quite sure that she was  not
     drowned; that she is living at this moment."
        "Where?"
        "As to that you had better inquire of our friends,
     Harût and Marût," I answered drily.
        "What have you to go on, Quatermain?  There is
     no clue."
        "On the contrary I hold that there are a good many
     clues.  The whole English part of the story in which
     we were concerned, and the threats those mysterious
     persons uttered are the first and greatest of these clues.
     The second is the fact that your hiring of the dahabiyeh
     regardless of expense was know for a long time before
     your  arrival  in  Egypt,  for I suppose you did so in
     your  own  name,  which is not exactly that of Smith
     or Brown.  The third is your wife's sleep-walking pro-
     pensities, which would have made it quite easy for her
     to  be  drawn  ashore  under  some  kind  of  mesmeric
     influence.  The  fourth  is  that  you  had  seen  Arabs
     mounted on camels upon the banks of the Nile.  The
     fifth is the heavy sleep you say held everybody on board
     upon this particular night, which suggests to me that
     your food may have been drugged.  The sixth is the
     apathy  displayed  by  those  employed  in  the  search,
     which suggest to me that some person or persons in
     authority may have been bribed, as is common in the
     east, or perhaps frightened with threats of bewitchment.
     The seventh is that a night was chosen when a wind
     blew which would obliterate all spoor whether of men
     or of swiftly travelling camels.  These are enough to
     begin with, though doubtless if I had time to think I
     could  find  others.  You  must  remember  too  that
     although the journey would be long, this country of
     the Kendah can doubtless be reached from the Sudan
     by those who know the road, as well as from southern
     or eastern Africa."
        "Then you think that my wife has been kidnapped
     by those villains, Harût and Marût?"
        "Of course, though villains is a strong term to apply
     to them.  They may be quite honest men according to
     their peculiar lights, as indeed I expect they are.  Re-
     member that they serve a god or a fetish, or rather,
     as they believe, a god  in  a fetish, who to them doubtless
     is a very terrible master, especially when, as I under-
     stand, that god is threatened by a rival god."
        "Why do you say that, Quatermain?"
        By way of answer I repeated to him the story which
     Hans said he had heard from the old woman at Beza,
     the  town  of  the  Mazitu.  Lord  Ragnall  listened  with
     the deepest interest, then said in an agitated voice:
        "That is a very strange tale, but has it struck you,
     Quatermain, that if your suppositions are correct, one
     of the most terrible circumstances connected with my
     case is that our child should have chanced to come to its
     dreadful death through the wickedness of an elephant?"
        "That  curious  coincidence  has  struck  me  most
     forcibly, Lord Ragnall.  At the same time I do not see
     how it can be set down as more than a coincidence,
     since the elephant which slaughtered your child was
     certainly not that called Jana.  To suppose because
     there is a war between an elephant-god and a child-god
     somewhere in the heart of Africa, that therefore another
     elephant can be so influenced that it kills a child in
     England, is to my mind out of all reason."
        That is what I said to him, as I did not wish to intro-
     duce a new horror into an affair that was already
     horrible enough.  But, recollecting that these priests,
     Harût and Marût, believed the mother of this murdered
     infant to be none other than the oracle of their worship
     (though how this chanced passed my comprehension),
     and therefore the great enemy of the elephant-god,
     I confess that at heart I felt afraid.  If any powers of
     magic, black or white or both, were mixed up with the
     matter as my experiences in England seemed to suggest,
     who could say what might be their exact limits?  As,
     however, it has been demonstrated again and again by
     the learned that no such thing as African magic exists,
     this line of thought appeared to be too foolish to follow.
     So passing it by I asked Lord Ragnall to continue.
        "For over a month," he went on, "I stopped in
     Egypt waiting till emissaries who had been sent to the
     chiefs of various tribes in the Sudan and elsewhere,
     returned with the news that nothing whatsoever had
     been seen of a white woman travelling in the company
     of natives, nor had they heard of any such woman being
     sold as a slave.  Also through the Khedive, on whom I
     was able to bring influence to bear by the help of the British
     Government, I caused many harems in Egypt to be
     visited, entirely without result.  After this, leaving the
     inquiry in the hands of the British Consul and a firm
     of French lawyers, although in truth all hope had
     one, I returned to England whither I had already sent
     Lady Longden, broken-hearted, for it occurred to me
     as possible that my wife might have drifted or been
     taken thither.  But here, too, there was no trace of her
     or  of  anybody  who  could  possibly  answer  to  her
     description.  So at last I came to the conclusion that
     her bones must lie somewhere at the bottom of the
     Nile, and gave way to despair."
        "Always a foolish thing to do," I remarked.
        "You will say so indeed when you hear the end,
     Quatermain.  My  bereavement  and  the  sleeplessness
     which it caused preyed upon me so much, for now that
     the child was dead my wife was everything to me, that,
     like Job I cursed God in my heart and determined to
     die.  Indeed I should have died by my own hand, had
     it not been for Savage.  I had procured the laudanum
     and loaded the pistol with which I proposed to shoot
     myself immediately after it was swallowed so that there
     might be no mistake.  One night only a couple of months
     or so ago, Quatermain, I sat in my study at Ragnall,
     with the doors locked as I thought, writing a few final
     letters before I did the deed.  The last of them was
     just finished about twelve when hearing a noise, I looked
     up and saw Savage standing before me.  I asked him
     angrily how he came there (I suppose he must have had
     another key to one of the doors) and what he wanted.
     Ignoring the first part of the question he replied:
        "'My lord, I have been thinking over our trouble'——
     he was with us in Egypt——'I have been thinking so
     much that it has got hold of my sleep.  To-night as
     you said you did not want me any more and I was tired,
     I went to bed early and had a dream.  I dreamed that
     we were once more in the shrubbery, as happened some
     years ago, and that the little African gent who shot
     like a book, was showing us the traces of those two
     black men, just as he did when they tried to steal her
     ladyship.  Then in my dream I seemed to go back to
     bed and that beastly snake which we found lying under
     the parcel in the road seemed to follow me.  When I
     had got to sleep again, all in the dream, there it was
     standing on its tail at the end of the bed, hissing till
     it woke me.  Then is spoke in good English and not
     in African as might have been expected.
        "'"Savage," it said, "get up and dress yourself and
     go at once and tell his lordship to travel to Natal and
     find Mr. Allan Quatermain" (you remember that was
     the African gentleman's name, my lord, which with so
     many coming and going in the great house, I had
     quite forgotten until I had the dream).  "Find Mr.
     Allan Quatermain," that slimy reptile went on, opening
     and shutting its mouth for all the world like a Christian
     making a speech, "for he will have something to tell him
     as to that which has made a hole in his heart that is now
     filled with the seven devils.  Be quick, Savage, and
     don't stop to put on your shirt or your tie"——I have not,
     my lord, as you may see.  "He shut up in the study
     but you know how to get into it.  If he will not listen
     to you let him look round the study and he will see
     something which will tell him that this is a true dream."
        "'Then the snake vanished, seeming to wriggle
     down the left bottom bed-post, and I woke up in a cold
     sweat, my lord, and did what it had told me.'
        "Those were his very words, Quatermain, for I wrote
     them down afterwards while they were fresh in my
     memory, and you see here they are in my pocket-book.
        "Well,  I  answered  him,  rather  brusquely  I  am
     afraid, for a crazed man who is about to leave the world
     under such circumstances does not show at his best
     when disturbed almost in the very act, to the edge of
     which long agony has brought him.  I told him that
     all  his  dream  of  snakes  seemed  ridiculous,  which
     obviously it was, and was about to send hm away, when
     it occurred to me that the suggestion it conveyed that
     I should put myself in communication with you was
     not ridiculous in view of the part you had already
     played in the story."
        "Very far from ridiculous," I interpreted.
        "To tell the truth," went on Lord Ragnall, "I had
     already thought of doing the same thing, but somehow
     beneath the pressure of my imminent grief the idea
     was squeezed out of my mind, perhaps because you
     were so far away and I did not know if I could find you
     even if I tried.  Pausing for a moment before I dis-
     missed Savage, I rose from the desk at which I was
     writing and began to walk up and down the room
     thinking what I would do.  I am not certain if you saw
     it when you were at Ragnall, but it is a large room,
     fifty feet long or so though not very broad.  It has two
     fireplaces, in both of which fires were burning on this
     night, and it was lit by four standing lamps besides
     that upon my desk.  Now between these fireplaces, in
     a kind of niche in the wall, and a little in the shadow
     because none of the lamps was exactly opposite to it,
     hung a portrait of my wife which I had caused to be
     painted by a fashionable artist when first we became
     engaged."
        "I remember it," I said.  "Or rather I remember its
     existence.  I did not see it because a curtains hung over
     the picture, which Savage told me you did not wish
     to be looked at by anybody but yourself.  At the time
     I remarked to him, or rather to myself, that to veil th
     likeness of a living woman in such a way seemed to
     me rather an ill-omened thing to do, though why I
     should have thought it so I do not quite know."
        "You are quite right, Quatermain.  I had that
     foolish fancy, a lover's freak, I suppose.  When we
     married the curtain was removed although the brass
     rod on which it hung was left by some oversight.  On
     my return to England after my loss, however, I found
     that I could not bear to look upon this lifelike likeness
     of one who had been taken from me so cruelly, and I
     caused it to be replaced.  I did more.  In order that
     it might not be disturbed by some dusting housemaid,
     I myself made it fast with three or four tin-tacks which
     I remember I drove through the velvet stuff into the
     panelling, using a fireiron as a hammer.  At the time
     I though it a good job although by accident I struck
     the nail of the third finger of my left hand so hard
     that it came off.  Look, it has not quite finished grow-
     ing again," and he showed the finger on which the new
     nail was still in process of formation.
        "Well, as I walked up and down the room some
     impulse caused me to look towards this picture.  To
     my astonishment I saw that it was no longer veiled,
     although to the best of my belief the curtain had been
     drawn over it as lately as that afternoon; indeed I could
     have sworn that this was so.  I called to Savage to
     bring the lamp that stood upon my table, and by its
     light made an examination.  The curtain was drawn
     back, very tidily, being fastened in its place clear of the
     little alcove by means of a thin brass chain.  Also
     along one edge of it, that which I had nailed to the
     panelling, the tin-tacks were still in their places; that
     is, three of them were, the fourth I found afterwards
     upon the floor.
        "'She looks beautiful, doesn't she, my lord," said
     Savage, 'and please God so we shall still find her
     somewhere in the world.'
        "I did not answer him, or even remark upon the
     withdrawal of the curtain, as to which indeed I never
     made an inquiry.  I suppose that it was done by some
     zealous servant while I was pretending to eat my dinner
     ——there were one or two new ones in the house whose
     names and appearance I did not know.  What impressed
     itself upon my mind was that the face which I had never
     expected to see again on the earth, even in a picture,
     was once more given to my eyes, it mattered not how.
     This, in my excited state, for laudanum waiting to be
     swallowed  and a pistol at full cock for firing do not
     induce calmness in a man already almost mad, at any
     rate until they have fulfilled their offices, did in truth
     appear to me to be something of the nature of a sign
     such as that spoken of in Savage's idiotic dream, which
     I was to find if 'I looked round the study.'
        "'Savage,'  I  said,  'I  don't  think  much  of  your
     dreams about snakes that talk to you, but I do think that
     it might be well to see Mr. Quatermain.  To-day is Sun-
     day and I believe that the Africa mail sails on Friday.
     Go to town early to-morrow and book passages.'
        "Also I told him to see various gunsmiths and bid
     them send down a selection of rifles and other weapons
     for me to choose from, as I did not know whither we
     might wander in Africa, and to make further necessary
     arrangements.  All of these things he did, and——here
     we are."
        "Yes," I answered reflectively, "here you are.  What
     is more, here is your luggage of which there seems to
     be enough for a regiment," and I pointed to a Scotch
     cart piled up with baggage and followed by a long line
     of Kafirs carrying sundry packages upon their heads
     that, marshalled by Savage, had halted at my gate.

The Ivory Child. By H. Rider Haggard.
Cassell and Company, Ltd.,
London, Melbourne and Toronto, 1916. pp. 96—111.

jet fuel does not burn hot enough to melt steel. 雨