“I began to run, but something in the taste of that sweet caused me to drop it from my lips.  Then all grew misty, and the next thing I remember was finding myself in the arms of the younger Eastern, with the nurse and her ‘cousin,’ a stalwart person like a soldier, standing in front of us.

“‘Little girl go ill,’ said the elder Arab.  ‘We seek policeman.’

“‘You drop that child,’ answered the ‘cousin,’ doubling his fists.  Then I grew faint again, and when I came to myself the two white-robed men had gone.  All the way home my governess scolded me for accepting sweets from strangers, saying that if my parents came to know of it, I should be whipped and sent to bed.  Of course, I begged her not to tell them, and at last she consented.  Do you know, I think you are the first to whom I have ever mentioned the matter, of which I am sure the governess never breathed a word, though after that, whenever we walked in the gardens, her ‘cousin’ always came to look after us.  In the end I think she married him.”

“You believe the sweet was drugged?” I asked.

She nodded.  “There was something very strange in it.  It was a night or two after I had tasted it that I had what just now I called my awakening, and began to think about Africa.”

“Have you ever seen these men again, Miss Holmes?”

“No, never.”

At this moment I heard Lady Longden say, in a severe voice: 

“My dear Luna, I am sorry to interrupt your absorbing conversation, but we are all waiting for you.”

So they were, for to my horror I saw that everyone was standing up except ourselves.

Miss Holmes departed in a hurry, while Scroope whispered in my ear with a snigger: 

“I say, Allan, if you carry on like that with his young lady, his lordship will be growing jealous of you.”

“Don’t be a fool,” I said sharply.  But there was something in his remark, for as Lord Ragnall passed on his way to the other end of the table, he said in a low voice and with rather a forced smile: 

“Well, Quatermain, I hope your dinner has not been as dull as mine, although your appetite seemed so poor.”

Then I reflected that I could not remember having eaten a thing since the first entree.  So overcome was I that, rejecting all Scroope’s attempts at conversation, I sat silent, drinking port and filling up with dates, until not long afterwards we went into the drawing-room, where I sat down as far from Miss Holmes as possible, and looked at a book of views of Jerusalem.

While I was thus engaged, Lord Ragnall, pitying my lonely condition, or being instigated thereto by Miss Holmes, I know not which, came up and began to chat with me about African big-game shooting.  Also he asked me what was my permanent address in that country.  I told him Durban, and in my turn asked why he wanted to know.

“Because Miss Holmes seems quite crazy about the place, and I expect I shall be dragged out there one day,” he replied, quite gloomily.  It was a prophetic remark.