So entranced was I by that feeling of awe which comes to almost every one in the presence of death, that I did not hear the shouting of the hammock-boy outside, or the footsteps of a white man coming into the room; and not until he touched me on the shoulder did I turn and recognise the sallow face of the Portuguese doctor whom I had sent for, and who had thus arrived too late.  However, he served to help me to bury the mortal part of Jackson in the little graveyard beside the body of his wife and that of the man who had come between them when alive.  And such was without doubt the fact; for when the doctor had gone, and I was alone again, I collected and made an inventory of the dead men’s effects, and in Jackson’s desk I found his diary, or, as he himself would have called it, his log; and in that log was noted, on the very day that Bransome had arrived on the Point, his suspicion of the man, and later on his conviction that Bransome was indeed he who had injured him.

Sooka was never found; but when the mail-steamer returned from the south coast, I discovered that the younger patrao had made his crew row away suddenly from the steamer’s side, while Mr. Bransome had been engaged below, and was out of sight.  So it was evident that the pair had been in league together to insure Sooka his revenge.  What share Jackson had had in the murder of his enemy I did not care to think of, but feared the worst.

For myself, I had to remain on the Point for many months, until the factory was finally closed—­for no purchaser was ever found for it; and doubtless, by this time, the buildings are in ruins, and long grass hides the graves of those who sleep upon King Bemba’s Point.

GHAMBA, By William Charles Scully

The darksome cave they enter, where they find That cursed man, low sitting on the ground, Musing full sadly in his sullen mind. The Faerie Queene.

When Corporal Francis Dollond and Trooper James Franks, of the Natal Mounted Police, overstayed their ten days’ leave of absence from the camp on the Upper Tugela, in the early part of 1883, everybody was much surprised; they being two of the best conducted and most methodical men in the force.  But the weeks and then the months went by without anything whatever being heard of them, so they were officially recorded as deserters.  Nevertheless none of their comrades really believed that these men had deserted; each one felt there was something mysterious about the circumstances of their disappearance.  They had applied for leave for the alleged purpose of visiting Pietermaritzburg.  They started on foot, stating their intention of walking to Estcourt, hiring horses from natives there, and proceeding on horseback.  They had evidently never reached Estcourt, as nothing could be heard of them at that village.  They were both young men—­colonists by birth.  Dollond had an especially youthful appearance.  Franks was older.  He had joined the force later in life.  He and Dollond, who had only very recently before his disappearance been promoted, were chums.