Allan Quatermain eBook

And so in my trouble, as I walked up and down the oak-panelled vestibule of my house there in Yorkshire, I longed once more to throw myself into the arms of Nature.  Not the Nature which you know, the Nature that waves in well-kept woods and smiles out in corn-fields, but Nature as she was in the age when creation was complete, undefiled as yet by any human sinks of sweltering humanity.  I would go again where the wild game was, back to the land whereof none know the history, back to the savages, whom I love, although some of them are almost as merciless as Political Economy.  There, perhaps, I should be able to learn to think of poor Harry lying in the churchyard, without feeling as though my heart would break in two.

And now there is an end of this egotistical talk, and there shall be no more of it.  But if you whose eyes may perchance one day fall upon my written thoughts have got so far as this, I ask you to persevere, since what I have to tell you is not without its interest, and it has never been told before, nor will again.

CHAPTER I

THE CONSUL’S YARN

A week had passed since the funeral of my poor boy Harry, and one evening I was in my room walking up and down and thinking, when there was a ring at the outer door.  Going down the steps I opened it myself, and in came my old friends Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good, RN.  They entered the vestibule and sat themselves down before the wide hearth, where, I remember, a particularly good fire of logs was burning.

‘It is very kind of you to come round,’ I said by way of making a remark; ‘it must have been heavy walking in the snow.’

They said nothing, but Sir Henry slowly filled his pipe and lit it with a burning ember.  As he leant forward to do so the fire got hold of a gassy bit of pine and flared up brightly, throwing the whole scene into strong relief, and I thought, What a splendid-looking man he is!  Calm, powerful face, clear-cut features, large grey eyes, yellow beard and hair —­ altogether a magnificent specimen of the higher type of humanity.  Nor did his form belie his face.  I have never seen wider shoulders or a deeper chest.  Indeed, Sir Henry’s girth is so great that, though he is six feet two high, he does not strike one as a tall man.  As I looked at him I could not help thinking what a curious contrast my little dried-up self presented to his grand face and form.  Imagine to yourself a small, withered, yellow-faced man of sixty-three, with thin hands, large brown eyes, a head of grizzled hair cut short and standing up like a half-worn scrubbing-brush —­ total weight in my clothes, nine stone six —­ and you will get a very fair idea of Allan Quatermain, commonly called Hunter Quatermain, or by the natives ‘Macumazahn’ —­ Anglic/Char:  e grave/, he who keeps a bright look-out at night, or, in vulgar English, a sharp fellow who is not to be taken in.