“No,” answered Sir Henry, “I accept them gladly.  I am bent upon this project, and would pay more than that for your help, considering the peculiar and exclusive knowledge which you possess.”

“Pity I did not ask it, then, but I won’t go back on my word.  And now that I have got my terms I will tell you my reasons for making up my mind to go.  First of all, gentlemen, I have been observing you both for the last few days, and if you will not think me impertinent I may say that I like you, and believe that we shall come up well to the yoke together.  That is something, let me tell you, when one has a long journey like this before one.

“And now as to the journey itself, I tell you flatly, Sir Henry and Captain Good, that I do not think it probable we can come out of it alive, that is, if we attempt to cross the Suliman Mountains.  What was the fate of the old Dom da Silvestra three hundred years ago?  What was the fate of his descendant twenty years ago?  What has been your brother’s fate?  I tell you frankly, gentlemen, that as their fates were so I believe ours will be.”

I paused to watch the effect of my words.  Captain Good looked a little uncomfortable, but Sir Henry’s face did not change.  “We must take our chance,” he said.

“You may perhaps wonder,” I went on, “why, if I think this, I, who am, as I told you, a timid man, should undertake such a journey.  It is for two reasons.  First I am a fatalist, and believe that my time is appointed to come quite without reference to my own movements and will, and that if I am to go to Suliman’s Mountains to be killed, I shall go there and shall be killed.  God Almighty, no doubt, knows His mind about me, so I need not trouble on that point.  Secondly, I am a poor man.  For nearly forty years I have hunted and traded, but I have never made more than a living.  Well, gentlemen, I don’t know if you are aware that the average life of an elephant hunter from the time he takes to the trade is between four and five years.  So you see I have lived through about seven generations of my class, and I should think that my time cannot be far off, anyway.  Now, if anything were to happen to me in the ordinary course of business, by the time my debts are paid there would be nothing left to support my son Harry whilst he was getting in the way of earning a living, whereas now he will be set up for five years.  There is the whole affair in a nutshell.”

“Mr. Quatermain,” said Sir Henry, who had been giving me his most serious attention, “your motives for undertaking an enterprise which you believe can only end in disaster reflect a great deal of credit on you.  Whether or not you are right, of course time and the event alone can show.  But whether you are right or wrong, I may as well tell you at once that I am going through with it to the end, sweet or bitter.  If we are to be knocked on the head, all I have to say is, that I hope we get a little shooting first, eh, Good?”