The sinking sun is turning the golden roof of the
great Temple to a fiery flame, and my fingers tire.
So to all who have known me, or known of me, to all
who can think one kindly thought of the old hunter,
I stretch out my hand from the far-off shore and bid
a long farewell.
And now into the hands of Almighty God, who sent it,
do I commit my spirit.
‘I have spoken,’ as the Zulus say.
BY ANOTHER HAND
A year has elapsed since our most dear friend Allan
Quatermain wrote the words ‘I have spoken’
at the end of his record of our adventures.
Nor should I have ventured to make any additions to
the record had it not happened that by a most strange
accident a chance has arisen of its being conveyed
to England. The chance is but a faint one, it
is true; but, as it is not probable that another will
arise in our lifetimes, Good and myself think that
we may as well avail ourselves of it, such as it is.
During the last six months several Frontier Commissions
have been at work on the various boundaries of Zu-Vendis,
with a view of discovering whether there exists any
possible means of ingress or egress from the country,
with the result that a channel of communication with
the outer world hitherto overlooked has been discovered.
This channel, apparently the only one (for I have discovered
that it was by it that the native who ultimately reached
Mr Mackenzie’s mission station, and whose arrival
in the country, together with the fact of his expulsion
— for he did arrive about three
years before ourselves — was for reasons
of their own kept a dead secret by the priests to
whom he was brought), is about to be effectually closed.
But before this is done, a messenger is to be despatched
bearing with him this manuscript, and also one or
two letters from Good to his friends, and from myself
to my brother George, whom it deeply grieves me to
think I shall never see again, informing them, as
our next heirs, that they are welcome to our effects
in England, if the Court of Probate will allow them
to take them {Endnote 22}, inasmuchas we have made
up our minds never to return to Europe. Indeed,
it would be impossible for us to leave Zu-Vendis even
if we wished to do so.
The messenger who is to go — and I wish
him joy of his journey — is Alphonse.
For a long while he has been wearied to death of
Zu-Vendis and its inhabitants. ‘Oh, oui,
c’est beau,’ he says, with an expressive
shrug; ’mais je m’ennuie; ce n’est
pas chic.’ Again, he complains dreadfully
of the absence of cafes and theatres, and moans continually
for his lost Annette, of whom he says he dreams three
times a week. But I fancy his secret cause of
disgust at the country, putting aside the homesickness
to which every Frenchman is subject, is that the people
here laugh at him so dreadfully about his conduct
on the occasion of the great battle of the Pass about
