I looked at him, and then of a sudden his name flashed back into my mind.  I took his hand.

“How do you do, Mr. Carson?” I said.

He started as though he had been stung.

“Who told you that name?” he cried.  “It is a dead name.  Stella, is it you?  I forbade you to let it pass your lips.”

“I did not speak it, father.  I have never spoken it,” she answered.

“Sir,” I broke in, “if you will allow me I will show you how I came to know your name.  Do you remember many years ago coming into the study of a clergyman in Oxfordshire and telling him that you were going to leave England for ever?”

He bowed his head.

“And do you remember a little boy who sat upon the hearthrug writing with a pencil?”

“I do,” he said.

“Sir, I was that boy, and my name is Allan Quatermain.  Those children who lay sick are all dead, their mother is dead, and my father, your old friend, is dead also.  Like you he emigrated, and last year he died in the Cape.  But that is not all the story.  After many adventures, I, one Kaffir, and a little girl, lay senseless and dying in the Bad Lands, where we had wandered for days without water, and there we should have perished, but your daughter, Miss——­”

“Call her Stella,” he broke in, hastily.  “I cannot bear to hear that name.  I have forsworn it.”

“Miss Stella found us by chance and saved our lives.”

“By chance, did you say, Allan Quatermain?” he answered.  “There is little chance in all this; such chances spring from another will than ours.  Welcome, Allan, son of my old friend.  Here we live as it were in a hermitage, with Nature as our only friend, but such as we have is yours, and for as long as you will take it.  But you must be starving; talk no more now.  Stella, it is time to eat.  To-morrow we will talk.”

To tell the truth I can recall very little of the events of that evening.  A kind of dizzy weariness overmastered me.  I remember sitting at a table next to Stella, and eating heartily, and then I remember nothing more.

I awoke to find myself lying on a comfortable bed in a hut built and fashioned on the same model as the centre one.  While I was wondering what time it was, a native came bringing some clean clothes on his arm, and, luxury of luxuries, produced a bath hollowed from wood.  I rose, feeling a very different man, my strength had come back again to me; I dressed, and following a covered passage found myself in the centre hut.  Here the table was set for breakfast with all manner of good things, such as I had not seen for many a month, which I contemplated with healthy satisfaction.  Presently I looked up, and there before me was a more delightful sight, for standing in one of the doorways which led to the sleeping huts was Stella, leading little Tota by the hand.