Part 14 (1/2)
”What have you to go on, Quatermain? There is no clue”
”On the contrary I hold that there are a good lish part of the story in which ere concerned, and the threats those reatest of these clues The second is the fact that your hiring of the dahabeeyah regardless of expense was known a long tiypt, for I suppose you did so in your own name, which is not exactly that of S propensities, 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 that particular night, which suggests to ed The sixth is the apathy displayed by those eests to me that some person or persons in authority may have been bribed, as is cohtened with threats of bewitchht was chosen when a wind blehich would obliterate all spoor whether of h to begin with, though doubtless if I had time to think I could find others You , 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, Hart and Mart?”
”Of course, though villains is a strong ter to their peculiar lights, as indeed I expect they are Remember 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 understand, 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 fronall 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 coh the wickedness of an elephant?”
”That curious coincidence has struck nall
At the same time I do not see how it can be set down as htered 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 introduce a new horror into an affair that was already horrible enough But, recollecting that these priests, Hart and Mart, believed the mother of this murdered infant to be none other than the oracle of their worshi+p (though how this chanced passed reat enemy of the evil elephant-God, I confess that at heart I felt afraid If any powers of ic, black or white or both, were land seeht be their exact liain by the learned that no such thing as African ht appeared to be too foolish to follow So passing it by I asked Lord Ragnall to continue
”For over atill 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 wo in the co sold as a slave Also through the Khedive, on who influence to bear by help of the British Governypt to be visited, entirely without result After this, leaving the inquiry in the hands of the British Consul and a firone, I returned to England whither I had already sent Lady Longden, broken-hearted, for it occurred to ht 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 ave 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 prayed upon me soto me, that, I will tell you the truth, my brain became affected and like Job I cursed God in my heart and determined to die Indeed I should have died by e I had procured the laudanum and loaded the pistol hich I proposed to shoot ht be no o, Quaternall, with the doors locked as I thought, writing a few final letters before I did the deed The last of the a noise, I looked up and saw Savage standing before rily how he came there (I suppose he must have had another key to one of the other doors) and what he wanted Ignoring the first part of the question he replied:
”'My lord, I have been thinking over our trouble'--he ith us in Egypt--'I have been thinking so ht 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 ere once o, 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 ladyshi+p Then in o back to bed and that beastly snake which we found lying under the parcel in the road seeain, all in the drea on its tail at the end of the bed, hissing till it woke ht have been expected
”'”Savage,” it said, ”get up and dress yourself and go at once and tell his lordshi+p to travel to Natal and find Mr Allan Quaterentle in this great house, I had quite forgotten, until I had the dream) ”Find Mr Allan Quater itsa speech, ”for he will have so 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 shi+rt or your tie”--I have not, my lord, as you et into it If he will not listen to you let hi which will tell him that this is a true dreale 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 alony has brought him I told him that all his dream of snakes seemed ridiculous, which obviously it was, and was about to send hiestion 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 interpolated
”To tell the truth,” went on Lord Ragnall, ”I had already thought of doing the sarief 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 e, I rose froan to walk up and down the roo what I would do I anall, but it is a large rooh 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 Noeen these fireplaces, in a kind of niche in the wall, and a little in the shadow because none of the la a portrait of my hich I had caused to be painted by a fashi+onable artist when first we becaed”
”I remember it,” I said ”Or rather, I re 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 hi wo 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 h the brass rod on which it hung was left by soland after my loss, however, I found that I could not bear to look upon this lifeless likeness of one who had been taken from me so cruelly, and I caused it to be replaced I didhousemaid, I myself made it fast with three or four tin-tacks which I re, using a fireiron as a hah by accident I struck the nail of the third finger of my left hand so hard that it caain,” 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 the picture To h 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 laht made an exa fastened in its place clear of the little alcove by e 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