Meanwhile Alan was suffering torments, being convinced
that Barbara was dead and buried in that new-made
grave beneath the trees. He could not speak,
he could scarcely stand, and yet a picture began to
form in his numb mind. He saw himself seated
in the dark in the Treasure-house at Bonsa-Town; he
saw a vision in the air before him.
Lo! the tent door opened and that vision reappeared.
There was the pale Barbara seated, weeping. There
again, as he entered she sprang up and snatching the
pistol that lay beside her, turned it to her breast.
Then she perceived him and the pistol sank downwards
till from her relaxed hand it dropped to the ground.
She threw up her arms and without a sound fell backwards,
or would have fallen, had he not caught her.
THE LAST OF THE ASIKI
Barbara had recovered. She sat upon her bed in
the tent and by her sat Alan, holding her hand, while
before them stood Aylward like a prisoner in the dock,
and behind him the armed Jeekie.
“Tell me the story, Barbara,” said Alan,
“and tell it briefly, for I cannot bear much
more of this.”
She looked at him and began in a slow, even voice:
“After you had gone, dear, things went on as
usual for a month or two. Then came the great
Sahara Company trouble. First there were rumours
and the shares began to go down. My uncle bought
them in by tens and hundreds of thousands, to hold
up the market, because he was being threatened, but
of course he did not know then that Lord Aylward—for
I forgot to tell you, he had become a lord somehow—was
secretly one of the principal sellers, let him deny
it if he can. At last the Ottoman Government,
through the English ambassador, published its repudiation
of the concession, which it seems was a forgery, actually
executed or obtained in Constantinople by my uncle.
Well, there was a fearful smash. Writs were taken
out against my uncle, but before they could be served,
he died suddenly of heart disease. I was with
him at the time and he kept saying he saw that gold
mask which Jeekie calls Bonsa, the thing you took
back to Africa. He had a fine funeral, for what
he had done was not publicly known, and when his will
was opened I found that he had left me his fortune,
but made Lord Aylward there my trustee until I came
to the full age of twenty-five under my father’s
will. Alan, don’t force me to tell you
what sort of a guardian he was to me; also there was
no fortune, it had all gone; also I had very, very
little left, for almost all my own money had gone
too. In his despair he had forged papers to get
it in order to support those Sahara Syndicate shares.
Still I managed to borrow about L2000 from that little
lawyer out of the L5000 that remain to me, an independent
sum which he was unable to touch, and, Alan, with
it I came to find you.
