Chapter Seventeen.

Chapter Seventeen.At last I learn the Truth.Profoundly perplexed, and quite unable to decide which of these two, Bimbane or Anuti, was telling me the truth, I rode slowly and thoughtfully back to the palace, and, surrendering Prince to the care of ’Mfuni, sought the privacy of my own apartments, anxious to think over quietly and free from all distraction what I had heard, in the hope of being able to arrive at some definite conclusion with regard to the matter. Also, I was anxious to learn whether there was any foundation for Anuti’s suggestion that Bimbane was probably aware of his meeting with me, and of what had passed between us, believing that if such were indeed the case the queen would assuredly betray her knowledge either by her speech or in her manner. But although I had scarcely been back long enough to bathe and change into the garments which I usually wore indoors when I was invited to join the queen in her apartments, I could detect nothing in either her manner of greeting me or in her subsequent speech to indicate that she had the least suspicion that I had spent nearly two hours in her husband’s company. There was not the slightest shade of difference in her cordiality of manner toward me, not the faintest suggestion of uneasiness or anxiety; and as for her conversation, after informing me that she had received information from the mine to the effect that a large consignment of the shining stones might be expected shortly, she proceeded to question me with regard to the details of my past life—of which she appeared to possess a quite extraordinary general knowledge—and finally referred, in a perfectly natural manner, to little Nell Lestrange, asking whether I still adhered to my original intention of endeavouring to find the child. And upon my assuring her that I certainly did, she asserted that she possessed the power to help me very materially in my search, and was perfectly willing to afford me that help, if I cared to avail myself of it; to which I replied that I would gladly do so, and would feel infinitely obliged and grateful for it. Whereupon she offered to show me, there and then, the road which I must follow, upon leaving Masakisale, in order to reach the place where the lost child might be found.To one who thought somewhat slowly, as I generally do, this seemed to be rather rushing matters, and, with Anuti’s warning fresh in my mind, I hesitated for just the fraction of a second, wondering whether perchance this might not be some subtle scheme on Bimbane’s part to get me into her power; but the friendly, ingenuous look in her eyes, as I glanced into them, disarmed my momentary suspicion, and a few seconds later, animated by the intensity of my desire to learn what I might regarding poor Nell’s whereabouts, I found myself stretched at full length upon the divan, with the little, shrivelled, decrepit figure of the queen bending over me as, in obedience to her command, I stared intently at the jewel on her right thumb, which she held within a few inches of my eyes.For perhaps a minute I gazed at the wonderful flashing and changing colours of the stone, which seemed to be something between a diamond and an opal; and then, suddenly, I seemed to be mounted on Prince and journeying back along the road by which we had reached Masakisale, with Piet and ’Mfuni beside me and the wagon in the rear. We seemed to be passing the spot where I had buried the remains of the unhappy Siluce, and in my dream we turned aside to examine the grave, and assured ourselves that it had not been disturbed. Back, mile after mile, we travelled until we reached a certain mountain that I remembered perfectly well, and here we abandoned the route by which we had formerly travelled, striking eastward round the southern side of the mountain, and following for several days a stream that led south-eastward. Then, abandoning that stream, and still journeying south-eastward, we “struck” another stream that finally led us to a broad river which I somehow knew to be the Zambezi. Along the left bank of this great river we seemed to journey for several days, carefully noting the natural features of the country as we went, and especially some very fine falls—which were not, however, the famous Victoria Falls, discovered by Livingstone—and shortly afterward we reached a drift which enabled us to cross the river; and here we turned our backs upon it and followed upstream a smaller river discharging into it. And thus we seemed to go, day after day and week after week, until two months were past, when suddenly, toward the close of a certain day, I seemed to find myself in the midst of surroundings that I dimly remembered having seen before; and presently it dawned upon me that I was looking upon the plain which Mafuta, the Basuto nyanga, had shown me in the vision wherein I had been permitted a brief glimpse of Nell Lestrange. Yes, that was the place, without a doubt; and as I stood gazing in wonder at it a Kafir at my side, who had come from I know not where, informed me, in reply to a question, that the place was named Umgungundhlovu, and that it was the Great Place of Dingaan, the king of the Zulu nation. And therewith, as the man’s words fixed themselves in my memory, the vision faded; and, opening my eyes, I found myself staring into those of Bimbane, who was still bending over me.“Well, Chia’gnosi,” said she, with a smile that, even on her withered features, I somehow thought very sweet and engaging, “you have slept long. Have you seen aught?”“Yes,” said I, rising to my feet. “I have seen the way from this place to the spot where my friend’s little daughter may be found; and I thank you most heartily for granting me the vision. It is very wonderful, and I wish that I possessed the power to gain such information by means of self-induced dreams. I suppose the power lies in that ring, does it not?”“Nay,” answered Bimbane, quickly placing her right hand behind her, “the power is in myself; the ring is but a means, and any bright thing would do as well.” (And then I suddenly remembered the bright disk by means of which Mafuta, the Basuto nyanga, had produced the vision that I had witnessed in his hut.)“And wish not for any such power, my friend,” continued the queen, seating herself upon the divan from which I had risen; “for while the information so gained is sometimes useful, it is more often of a distressing nature, and many times have I thus learned that those whom I deemed my stanch friends were really secret enemies, industriously plotting evil against me. One is far happier without such knowledge, therefore I make use of my gift as seldom as possible. And now, go, Chia’gnosi, for the exercise of my power has rendered me very weary, and I must rest. But come to me again to-morrow; for although my magic has enabled me to learn much of what happens in the world outside Bandokolo, there are many things which I have never been able to understand until now, when you have explained them to me, and I wish to learn all I can while you are here to teach me.”I retreated to my own apartments more puzzled than ever as to the true character of the queen; for while I could not help feeling that Anuti was perfectly sincere in his denunciation of her, the more I saw of her the more convinced did I become that there was some frightful misunderstanding somewhere, and that she was in reality a true, tender-hearted, generously disposed woman. Finally, I called for Prince, and took a long ride up the valley, seeking for light; but none came, and when about sunset I returned to the palace, I was as much befogged as ever.When on the following day I was again summoned to the queen’s apartments, I found her full of schemes for the better government of the Bandokolo and the improvement in general of the condition of the people; and upon these schemes she expressed herself anxious to have my opinion, as well as any suggestions which I might see fit to offer. Now, I felt that I was altogether top young to set myself up as an authority upon so abstruse a subject as statesmanship; yet I was not quite destitute of ideas, or the inclination to express them when they happened to be strong and well-defined, consequently it was not long before we were so deeply engrossed in conversation as to be practically oblivious of everything else. Hence I was greatly astonished, not to say chagrined, when after about an hour’s animated and exceedingly interesting conversation I suddenly became conscious that I had been asleep—for a second or two only, it seemed to me, for when wakefulness returned the queen was still speaking, and I gathered from her speech that I could not have missed more than, at the most, half a dozen unimportant words. I was profoundly annoyed with myself, for if there is one thing upon which I especially pride myself it is my courtesy to women, let them be young or old, rich or poor, and I felt that in permitting myself to lose consciousness, even though it were but for a second, I had been guilty of a piece of gross discourtesy to a woman whom I was daily growing to respect and esteem more profoundly. Respect and esteem! Nay, those were cold words in which to express the feeling with which I was rapidly coming to regard this much vilified, much misunderstood woman; admiration was a word much nearer the truth: and I sincerely hoped that my momentary involuntary lapse of attention had escaped her notice. I presently believed that it had, for when I ventured to look at her I perceived that she was staring into vacancy, as people are apt to do sometimes when they are expressing their views on a subject upon which they feel very deeply.We conversed together for nearly three hours that morning, and when at length the queen dismissed me the last shred of suspicion raised in my mind against her by Anuti had vanished, and in its stead I was conscious of a feeling of exalted, romantic devotion, such as the knights errant of old must have felt when they went forth to perform some deed of desperate gallantry in honour of the women who had won their admiration.When I rode out from the palace that afternoon, I was animated by a fervent hope that I might encounter Anuti; for I longed for the opportunity to convince him that the ideas which he had somehow formed with regard to his royal wife were as far from the truth as darkness is from light, or as the east is from the west. And, as sometimes happens, my desire was gratified; for as I rode down the valley to pay my daily visit to the wagon, I found the man obviously waiting for me at the spot where we had previously met.Upon seeing me he pressed his heels to his zebra’s sides, and galloped forward to meet me, greeting me with the same frank friendliness as before.“Well met, Anuti,” said I. “I have been hoping that I might see you, for I have several matters of moment that I wish to discuss with you. Will you ride with me to the end of the valley, or shall I accompany you to your house?”“Let us ride to the end of the valley first, Chia’gnosi,” said he; “then, afterwards, if you will accompany me to my house, I shall feel myself very deeply honoured.”“Right!” I said. “Forward, then! Now, Anuti, I wonder whether you can guess why I am so anxious to have an opportunity to converse with you?”“I think I can,” he answered, with that frank, genial smile of his which had so favourably impressed me at our former meeting. “You want to prove to me that my ideas concerning Bimbane are all wrong, and that I, and those who regard her as I do, are doing her the utmost injustice. Is not that it?”“Heavens, man, you must be a thought-reader!” I ejaculated in astonishment. “How did you come to guess that?”“Oh,” he replied laughingly, “it was quite easy! I knew that by the time you next met me Bimbane would have fully convinced you that she is a wronged and grossly maligned woman; and, having thoroughly read your character at our last meeting, I was sure that no sooner would she have done that than your chivalry of feeling would urge you to espouse her cause and undertake the task of proving to me and the rest of her enemies that, in regarding her as we do, we are doing her a hideous injustice. Well, now is your opportunity to convince me—if you can. She has convinced you. Tell me, how did she do it?”By way of reply I related in detail everything that had happened since I had last met him, repeated our conversations word for word, so far as I could recall them, and dwelt at length upon the many exalted sentiments and lofty aspirations to which the queen had given expression; asking him finally how he could possibly associate those sentiments and aspirations with a woman of such a character as he believed that of Bimbane to be.“Quite impossible, Chia’gnosi,” he answered, “if she were sincere in their expression.”“And how do you know that she is not?” I demanded hotly.“How do you know that she is?” he retorted. “You have only her word for it; she has not furnished you with a shadow of proof. It is easy for a woman—or a man—to express exalted sentiments and lofty aspirations, even though she—or he—may not feel them. As a matter of fact, I entertain the precise sentiments and have the same aspirations with which you credit Bimbane; but I suppose you will require something more than my bare assertion before you will believe me. Yet why should you doubt me, and believe her? I will tell you. It is because she has thrown the spell of her magic over you! You tell me that yesterday she cast you into a trance wherein you saw the way which you must follow in order to find the captive child of your friend. By allowing her to do that, you afforded her an opportunity to get you under her influence and into her power; and to-day, when you fell asleep while she was conversing with you, she was simply testing and strengthening her power over you. You believed that your sleep lasted but a second or two; I believe that it may have lasted half an hour or longer, during which she was getting more complete control over you: and when at length she aroused you from your trance she simply resumed her conversation at the point where it had broken off at the moment when you lost consciousness; hence you imagined—as she intended you should—that you had been asleep but for a moment.”“I will not believe it,” I exclaimed hotly. “Nothing shall convince me that any woman could be so base as to take such dastardly advantage of a man as you suggest.”“Has the mischief indeed gone so far as that?” demanded Anuti, soberly enough now. “Then I am very sorry for you, Chia’gnosi; very sorry for us all. For in that case you will never be permitted to leave Bandokolo, never have the opportunity to rescue the captive daughter of your friend; while as for the rest of us, we shall inevitably be plunged into a disastrous civil war, in which many of Bandokolo’s highest and best will be slain. Probably Bimbane, aided by you, will triumph; but, believe me, when it is too late and the evil has been wrought, you will discover that you have made a disastrous mistake—or, rather, have been hideously deceived. Ah, do not shake your head in unbelief, my friend, for remember that I am speaking from experience. I know that what I say is true, because it was through the influence which Bimbane gained over me that she constrained me to become her spouse, although I loved Siluce. You look incredulous; you doubtless think that I might have resisted, had I chosen: but I swear to you that so complete was her power over me that I was absolutely helpless, and although I fully understood the enormity of the crime which she was committing, and which she was compelling me to commit, I was powerless to resist, because I could not escape from her. But afterward, when the foul wrong was done, when I was irrevocably bound to her, and my poor Siluce had been driven forth to perish miserably, Bimbane foolishly relaxed her hold upon me, thinking, I suppose, that, the knot being tied, I should not attempt to escape, but should accept the ignoble fate which she had designed for me. Also I think she was indifferent, because the event proved that I was not the man through whom she believes she is to recover her long-lost youth and beauty. And I took advantage of this relaxation of vigilance on her part to escape from the palace and from her influence, and, despite her entreaties and commands, have steadfastly refused to return: hence I have been able gradually to shake off her influence until now I am quite free from it; and I tell you that never again shall she have an opportunity to recover her power over me, if I can help it. Now, if you are not so completely bewitched as to be incapable of distinguishing between truth and falsehood, come with me, for I am prepared to submit to you ample and convincing proof of the truth of all my charges against Bimbane.”“Very well,” said I, “I will go with you, for although the matter is really no concern of mine I am anxious to get at the truth, if only in order that I may be of some assistance in adjusting this most unhappy misunderstanding between the queen and the nobles. For I am convinced that it is nothing more serious than a misunderstanding, and that a little explanation on either side will suffice to clear it up completely. But I warn you, Anuti, not to indulge in any false hopes of your ability to persuade me of the queen’s guilt, for I shall need something far more convincing than unsupported assertions to satisfy me.”“Yet Bimbane’s unsupported assertions have thus far completely satisfied you; do not forget that, Chia’gnosi,” retorted Anuti. “However,” he continued, “if you can persuade yourself to regard the question of the queen’s guilt or innocence as an open one for a little while, I have no doubt of my ability to make you recognise the truth.”Much more was said by Anuti to the same effect, but as it was in the main but a reiteration and amplification of his previous statements, it need not be repeated here; suffice it to say that by the time we reached his house he had brought me to a state of mind which enabled me to recognise that, after all, it was just possible that I might be mistaken, that Bimbane might not be the sort of person I had allowed her to persuade me she was, and that Anuti and his friends were at least entitled to a dispassionate hearing.And then, when at length we reached Anuti’s dwelling, that individual introduced me to some thirty of the most important and influential nobles and chiefs of Bandokolo, among whom was Mindula, the father of the unhappy Siluce; and, one after the other, these men arose and related the wrongs, the cruelties, and the injustices which they and theirs had suffered at the hands of Bimbane, accompanying their statements with proofs of so convincing a character that I no longer found it possible to disbelieve. And when at length the session was over I arose, stunned, astounded, horrified, and furious at the thought of the danger which I had so narrowly escaped, of falling into the hands of a vile, unscrupulous woman, and becoming her willing, deluded tool.“And now,” I demanded, as the nobles rose to depart, “what am I to do? It is impossible that I can continue to reside in the palace and remain the guest of the queen; yet, having come so far, I do not like the idea of quitting the country without at least enough of the gold and shining stones to repay me for the toil and peril of my adventure. And I suppose that when I announce my intention of quitting the palace the queen will at once conjecture that I have been in communication with you, and have learned the truth concerning her. Will she attempt to detain me by force, think you?”“It is impossible to surmise what she may do,” answered Anuti. “It is, however, not force so much as persuasion that you have to fear, for I do not believe that there is a man in Bandokolo who would be willing to face your fire weapons, even at Bimbane’s command: but if you venture to return to the palace and see her again, rest assured that she will bring the whole power of her influence to bear upon you in the effort to persuade you that we have deceived you, and that your original opinion of her was the correct one. And you best know whether you have now the strength of will to resist her beguilements. It would be safer, perhaps, not to risk it, but to take up your abode here with me. I will send a messenger to your servant, if you like, telling him—”“No,” said I decisively, as the thought that ’Mfuni was still in the queen’s power came to me for the first time, “I must return to the palace, face the queen, inform her that I now know the truth concerning her and refuse any longer to remain her guest, and see what comes of it. As to her seeking to influence me, I have no doubt that she will do that, but I must take the risk; and now that I am fully convinced of the truth of all your assertions, I do not greatly dread the result. I will go at once, and get the interview over; after which I can either return here or ride to the wagon and make it my abode, as I have already done for so many months.”“Nay,” said Anuti, “you shall certainly not do that. There is ample room in this house for you, and so long as you remain in Masakisale you must consent to be my most welcome and honoured guest.”So it was arranged; and then, after a little further conversation, and reiterated warnings to be on my guard against every possible description of machination on the part of the queen, I mounted and rode back to the palace at a hand gallop, determined to get through what was certain to be a very unpleasant business forthwith. As ’Mfuni came out, at my approach, to receive my horse, I bade him walk the animal to and fro, instead of unsaddling him, and hold himself ready to accompany me to new quarters upon my reappearance. Then, entering the palace, I made my way straight to the queen’s apartments, and sent in a message craving an immediate interview.I was admitted at once, and found Her Majesty occupying her usual seat upon the divan. At my entrance she dismissed her attendants; and, as soon as we were alone, invited me by a gesture to seat myself at her side. But I declined, saying that, as my interview would be but brief, I preferred to stand.“Nay, Chia’gnosi,” she returned, “it will not be so brief as you appear to think; therefore sit, I pray you, if not by my side, then opposite me, for it wearies me to see you standing. That is well!”—as I drew up an ottoman and seated myself upon it.Bimbane kept silence for a short time, resting her chin upon her clasped hands and regarding me with an inexpressibly mournful expression; and as I returned her gaze I felt my anger against her dying away, and a great pity for her taking its place in my heart. She looked so small, so frail, so utterly helpless and lonely and miserable that all the innate chivalry of my nature arose and clamoured that it was impossible she could be guilty of the crimes imputed to her; that I had judged her hastily and unfairly; that I had wronged her by lending a too ready ear to her declared enemies; and that in deciding to forsake her I had been guilty of a base and cowardly thing. Then a faint smile of dawning triumph, which lighted up her eyes and irradiated her face, warned me of my danger, warned me that again she was exercising her evil influence upon me, and that I was fast succumbing to it; it reminded me of the dreadful state of helplessness to which Anuti had been reduced by that influence; and I pulled myself together and braced my mental powers to meet and resist it. And as I did so the smile of triumph vanished from her eyes, and was replaced by a gleam of malice and hatred so deadly that although it was but momentary I recoiled in something that, if it was not fear, was very closely akin to it. Yet I was glad that I had caught that fleeting expression, for it reassured me; it afforded me a transitory glimpse of the woman’s true character, and taught me more thoroughly, perhaps, than anything else could that Anuti and his friends were right and justified in their denunciation of her character. And I think she must have realised in that moment that she had betrayed herself and lost her hold upon me, for when she spoke her voice was harsh and bitter, and full of scornful anger.“So, Chia’gnosi,” she said, “you, to whom I extended a cordial welcome to my kingdom, whom I made a general of my army, upon whom I heaped benefits innumerable, even to the bestowal upon you of all the shining stones I possess, and which you have so greatly craved—you whom I deemed the very soul and embodiment of chivalry and honour and truth—you have stooped so low as to clandestinely consort with my enemies, to hearken to their slanderous tongues, to credit the base falsehoods about me which they have poured into your ears; and now you have the assurance to come to me with the purpose of telling me that I am so utterly vile that even you, false and craven that you are, will no longer remain my guest, from fear of contamination!”“I don’t quite know how you came by your information, unless it was by means of your accursed magic,” I said, “but in the main you are right. There are one or two errors with regard to detail, such, for example, as your reference to the ‘falsehoods’ told me about you by Anuti and his friends, and also with regard to my reason for quitting the palace. But, after all, these discrepancies are really of no moment, and may be allowed to pass. That which is of moment is the fact that I cannot possibly remain any longer the guest of a woman who has been guilty of such crimes as you have perpetrated, nor can I submit to the degradation of retaining any of the gifts which I have accepted from you. I shall leave them all in my rooms when I presently quit them; and my regret at abandoning them will be much less than that which I shall always feel since it has been my misfortune to have been brought into contact with yourself, and thus to have learned beyond question that such women sometimes actually exist.”“Oh, Chia’gnosi, you are cruel, bitterly cruel and unjust to say such things to me!” she cried; and then, to my utter consternation, she burst into a perfect passion of weeping, and again I felt my heart insidiously softening and warming toward her, she looked so utterly woebegone, so terribly helpless and friendless. But the moment that I became conscious of the feeling I brought my will power to bear and determinedly repressed it; although I confess that I never in my life had a more difficult task than that which I battled with while Bimbane proceeded to explain tearfully that although she had undoubtedly done those deeds with which Anuti and his friends charged; her, she had been compelled to do them in the interests of good government and for reasons of state, and that if I would only listen to her explanation I would see that theywere capable of a very different interpretation from that put upon them by her enemies.And I listened—I will do myself the justice to say that I listened patiently to the woman’s attempt to exculpate herself by proving that her crimes were really not crimes at all, but grim necessities of the peculiar position which she occupied as ruler of a turbulent and restive people. But, having steeled myself against the effect of her tears and her pathetic assumption of helplessness, I was able instantly to detect and draw her attention to the weak points of her defence; with the result that at last, realising, I suppose, that she had lost her power over me and that I was no longer to be cajoled, she suddenly abandoned her efforts and flew into a furious passion, abusing me most abominably, and heaping upon my head every opprobrious epithet that she could think of—and she was able to think of a good many.“And you are fool enough to think that after such treatment as I have received at your hands I will let you go?” she shrieked in a perfect frenzy of fury. “No, Chia’gnosi; you have humiliated me as I believe no woman was ever before humiliated by a man, and since you have scorned my friendship you shall learn what it means to incur my hate. See!” and she flashed the ring on her thumb before my eyes. “By the power which the possession of this stone confers upon me I slay all your cattle. So! they are dead!” and she dashed her clenched right fist toward me. “Now it is impossible for you to leave the country, unless you choose to adventure into the wilderness without your wagon. But even that you shall not do. You shall leave this palace, as you have determined, at once, but it shall be to lodge in the cage next that occupied by the captive man-monkeys; and as soon as I have disposed of Anuti and his friends I will proclaim a festival, at which you and those of my enemies who survive shall do battle with an equal number of the monkeys, for the delectation and amusement of the people! Aha, Chia’gnosi, it will be a rare sight to watch you, unarmed, fighting for your life against the biggest and most savage man-monkey that my hunters can capture! Ha, release me, brute! What would you do to me? Help—!”Although I had not the smallest belief in the woman’s power to destroy my cattle by any alleged occult virtue pertaining to her wonderful ring, the sight of it flashed before my eyes in so provocative a manner reminded me of my almost forgotten promise to Siluce to take the jewel from Bimbane, if I could; and, exasperated at last beyond endurance by her abuse and threats, I sprang to my feet, seized her right hand in mine, and, while I stifled her cries for help with my left, drew the ring from her thumb and thrust it upon my own little finger, animated by some sudden impulse for which I could not in the least account.And as the ring passed from her possession into mine, the change that occurred in us both was startling in the extreme, particularly so as regarded Bimbane. For a few seconds after I released her she remained absolutely silent and motionless, as though scarcely able to realise what had happened; then, instead of summoning her guards and handing me over to their custody, she instantly became abjectly apologetic and pleading, entreating me to restore her ring in exchange for anything and everything that I might choose to demand. She offered me gold and diamonds without limit, perfect liberty to remain in the country as its honoured guest as long as I pleased, and all the help I might need in the transport of my spoils when it should please me to start upon my return journey; in short, she gave me clearly to understand that I need set no limits upon my demands if I would but restore the ring to her. But as for me, the moment that I slipped the jewel upon my finger I became conscious of a strange, new, exhilarating sense of power, of ability to do things, of being generally complete master of the situation; and I determined that I would keep the ring, if for no other reason than that Bimbane seemed to attach such an extraordinary value to it, and to require its restoration so badly. I therefore left her at last, quite exhausted with her fruitless entreaties, and doubled up in a little, shapeless, miserably sobbing heap on the divan; and as I went forth from the apartment I summoned her waiting women and directed them to go in and attend to the queen, as I feared that Her Majesty was unwell.

Profoundly perplexed, and quite unable to decide which of these two, Bimbane or Anuti, was telling me the truth, I rode slowly and thoughtfully back to the palace, and, surrendering Prince to the care of ’Mfuni, sought the privacy of my own apartments, anxious to think over quietly and free from all distraction what I had heard, in the hope of being able to arrive at some definite conclusion with regard to the matter. Also, I was anxious to learn whether there was any foundation for Anuti’s suggestion that Bimbane was probably aware of his meeting with me, and of what had passed between us, believing that if such were indeed the case the queen would assuredly betray her knowledge either by her speech or in her manner. But although I had scarcely been back long enough to bathe and change into the garments which I usually wore indoors when I was invited to join the queen in her apartments, I could detect nothing in either her manner of greeting me or in her subsequent speech to indicate that she had the least suspicion that I had spent nearly two hours in her husband’s company. There was not the slightest shade of difference in her cordiality of manner toward me, not the faintest suggestion of uneasiness or anxiety; and as for her conversation, after informing me that she had received information from the mine to the effect that a large consignment of the shining stones might be expected shortly, she proceeded to question me with regard to the details of my past life—of which she appeared to possess a quite extraordinary general knowledge—and finally referred, in a perfectly natural manner, to little Nell Lestrange, asking whether I still adhered to my original intention of endeavouring to find the child. And upon my assuring her that I certainly did, she asserted that she possessed the power to help me very materially in my search, and was perfectly willing to afford me that help, if I cared to avail myself of it; to which I replied that I would gladly do so, and would feel infinitely obliged and grateful for it. Whereupon she offered to show me, there and then, the road which I must follow, upon leaving Masakisale, in order to reach the place where the lost child might be found.

To one who thought somewhat slowly, as I generally do, this seemed to be rather rushing matters, and, with Anuti’s warning fresh in my mind, I hesitated for just the fraction of a second, wondering whether perchance this might not be some subtle scheme on Bimbane’s part to get me into her power; but the friendly, ingenuous look in her eyes, as I glanced into them, disarmed my momentary suspicion, and a few seconds later, animated by the intensity of my desire to learn what I might regarding poor Nell’s whereabouts, I found myself stretched at full length upon the divan, with the little, shrivelled, decrepit figure of the queen bending over me as, in obedience to her command, I stared intently at the jewel on her right thumb, which she held within a few inches of my eyes.

For perhaps a minute I gazed at the wonderful flashing and changing colours of the stone, which seemed to be something between a diamond and an opal; and then, suddenly, I seemed to be mounted on Prince and journeying back along the road by which we had reached Masakisale, with Piet and ’Mfuni beside me and the wagon in the rear. We seemed to be passing the spot where I had buried the remains of the unhappy Siluce, and in my dream we turned aside to examine the grave, and assured ourselves that it had not been disturbed. Back, mile after mile, we travelled until we reached a certain mountain that I remembered perfectly well, and here we abandoned the route by which we had formerly travelled, striking eastward round the southern side of the mountain, and following for several days a stream that led south-eastward. Then, abandoning that stream, and still journeying south-eastward, we “struck” another stream that finally led us to a broad river which I somehow knew to be the Zambezi. Along the left bank of this great river we seemed to journey for several days, carefully noting the natural features of the country as we went, and especially some very fine falls—which were not, however, the famous Victoria Falls, discovered by Livingstone—and shortly afterward we reached a drift which enabled us to cross the river; and here we turned our backs upon it and followed upstream a smaller river discharging into it. And thus we seemed to go, day after day and week after week, until two months were past, when suddenly, toward the close of a certain day, I seemed to find myself in the midst of surroundings that I dimly remembered having seen before; and presently it dawned upon me that I was looking upon the plain which Mafuta, the Basuto nyanga, had shown me in the vision wherein I had been permitted a brief glimpse of Nell Lestrange. Yes, that was the place, without a doubt; and as I stood gazing in wonder at it a Kafir at my side, who had come from I know not where, informed me, in reply to a question, that the place was named Umgungundhlovu, and that it was the Great Place of Dingaan, the king of the Zulu nation. And therewith, as the man’s words fixed themselves in my memory, the vision faded; and, opening my eyes, I found myself staring into those of Bimbane, who was still bending over me.

“Well, Chia’gnosi,” said she, with a smile that, even on her withered features, I somehow thought very sweet and engaging, “you have slept long. Have you seen aught?”

“Yes,” said I, rising to my feet. “I have seen the way from this place to the spot where my friend’s little daughter may be found; and I thank you most heartily for granting me the vision. It is very wonderful, and I wish that I possessed the power to gain such information by means of self-induced dreams. I suppose the power lies in that ring, does it not?”

“Nay,” answered Bimbane, quickly placing her right hand behind her, “the power is in myself; the ring is but a means, and any bright thing would do as well.” (And then I suddenly remembered the bright disk by means of which Mafuta, the Basuto nyanga, had produced the vision that I had witnessed in his hut.)

“And wish not for any such power, my friend,” continued the queen, seating herself upon the divan from which I had risen; “for while the information so gained is sometimes useful, it is more often of a distressing nature, and many times have I thus learned that those whom I deemed my stanch friends were really secret enemies, industriously plotting evil against me. One is far happier without such knowledge, therefore I make use of my gift as seldom as possible. And now, go, Chia’gnosi, for the exercise of my power has rendered me very weary, and I must rest. But come to me again to-morrow; for although my magic has enabled me to learn much of what happens in the world outside Bandokolo, there are many things which I have never been able to understand until now, when you have explained them to me, and I wish to learn all I can while you are here to teach me.”

I retreated to my own apartments more puzzled than ever as to the true character of the queen; for while I could not help feeling that Anuti was perfectly sincere in his denunciation of her, the more I saw of her the more convinced did I become that there was some frightful misunderstanding somewhere, and that she was in reality a true, tender-hearted, generously disposed woman. Finally, I called for Prince, and took a long ride up the valley, seeking for light; but none came, and when about sunset I returned to the palace, I was as much befogged as ever.

When on the following day I was again summoned to the queen’s apartments, I found her full of schemes for the better government of the Bandokolo and the improvement in general of the condition of the people; and upon these schemes she expressed herself anxious to have my opinion, as well as any suggestions which I might see fit to offer. Now, I felt that I was altogether top young to set myself up as an authority upon so abstruse a subject as statesmanship; yet I was not quite destitute of ideas, or the inclination to express them when they happened to be strong and well-defined, consequently it was not long before we were so deeply engrossed in conversation as to be practically oblivious of everything else. Hence I was greatly astonished, not to say chagrined, when after about an hour’s animated and exceedingly interesting conversation I suddenly became conscious that I had been asleep—for a second or two only, it seemed to me, for when wakefulness returned the queen was still speaking, and I gathered from her speech that I could not have missed more than, at the most, half a dozen unimportant words. I was profoundly annoyed with myself, for if there is one thing upon which I especially pride myself it is my courtesy to women, let them be young or old, rich or poor, and I felt that in permitting myself to lose consciousness, even though it were but for a second, I had been guilty of a piece of gross discourtesy to a woman whom I was daily growing to respect and esteem more profoundly. Respect and esteem! Nay, those were cold words in which to express the feeling with which I was rapidly coming to regard this much vilified, much misunderstood woman; admiration was a word much nearer the truth: and I sincerely hoped that my momentary involuntary lapse of attention had escaped her notice. I presently believed that it had, for when I ventured to look at her I perceived that she was staring into vacancy, as people are apt to do sometimes when they are expressing their views on a subject upon which they feel very deeply.

We conversed together for nearly three hours that morning, and when at length the queen dismissed me the last shred of suspicion raised in my mind against her by Anuti had vanished, and in its stead I was conscious of a feeling of exalted, romantic devotion, such as the knights errant of old must have felt when they went forth to perform some deed of desperate gallantry in honour of the women who had won their admiration.

When I rode out from the palace that afternoon, I was animated by a fervent hope that I might encounter Anuti; for I longed for the opportunity to convince him that the ideas which he had somehow formed with regard to his royal wife were as far from the truth as darkness is from light, or as the east is from the west. And, as sometimes happens, my desire was gratified; for as I rode down the valley to pay my daily visit to the wagon, I found the man obviously waiting for me at the spot where we had previously met.

Upon seeing me he pressed his heels to his zebra’s sides, and galloped forward to meet me, greeting me with the same frank friendliness as before.

“Well met, Anuti,” said I. “I have been hoping that I might see you, for I have several matters of moment that I wish to discuss with you. Will you ride with me to the end of the valley, or shall I accompany you to your house?”

“Let us ride to the end of the valley first, Chia’gnosi,” said he; “then, afterwards, if you will accompany me to my house, I shall feel myself very deeply honoured.”

“Right!” I said. “Forward, then! Now, Anuti, I wonder whether you can guess why I am so anxious to have an opportunity to converse with you?”

“I think I can,” he answered, with that frank, genial smile of his which had so favourably impressed me at our former meeting. “You want to prove to me that my ideas concerning Bimbane are all wrong, and that I, and those who regard her as I do, are doing her the utmost injustice. Is not that it?”

“Heavens, man, you must be a thought-reader!” I ejaculated in astonishment. “How did you come to guess that?”

“Oh,” he replied laughingly, “it was quite easy! I knew that by the time you next met me Bimbane would have fully convinced you that she is a wronged and grossly maligned woman; and, having thoroughly read your character at our last meeting, I was sure that no sooner would she have done that than your chivalry of feeling would urge you to espouse her cause and undertake the task of proving to me and the rest of her enemies that, in regarding her as we do, we are doing her a hideous injustice. Well, now is your opportunity to convince me—if you can. She has convinced you. Tell me, how did she do it?”

By way of reply I related in detail everything that had happened since I had last met him, repeated our conversations word for word, so far as I could recall them, and dwelt at length upon the many exalted sentiments and lofty aspirations to which the queen had given expression; asking him finally how he could possibly associate those sentiments and aspirations with a woman of such a character as he believed that of Bimbane to be.

“Quite impossible, Chia’gnosi,” he answered, “if she were sincere in their expression.”

“And how do you know that she is not?” I demanded hotly.

“How do you know that she is?” he retorted. “You have only her word for it; she has not furnished you with a shadow of proof. It is easy for a woman—or a man—to express exalted sentiments and lofty aspirations, even though she—or he—may not feel them. As a matter of fact, I entertain the precise sentiments and have the same aspirations with which you credit Bimbane; but I suppose you will require something more than my bare assertion before you will believe me. Yet why should you doubt me, and believe her? I will tell you. It is because she has thrown the spell of her magic over you! You tell me that yesterday she cast you into a trance wherein you saw the way which you must follow in order to find the captive child of your friend. By allowing her to do that, you afforded her an opportunity to get you under her influence and into her power; and to-day, when you fell asleep while she was conversing with you, she was simply testing and strengthening her power over you. You believed that your sleep lasted but a second or two; I believe that it may have lasted half an hour or longer, during which she was getting more complete control over you: and when at length she aroused you from your trance she simply resumed her conversation at the point where it had broken off at the moment when you lost consciousness; hence you imagined—as she intended you should—that you had been asleep but for a moment.”

“I will not believe it,” I exclaimed hotly. “Nothing shall convince me that any woman could be so base as to take such dastardly advantage of a man as you suggest.”

“Has the mischief indeed gone so far as that?” demanded Anuti, soberly enough now. “Then I am very sorry for you, Chia’gnosi; very sorry for us all. For in that case you will never be permitted to leave Bandokolo, never have the opportunity to rescue the captive daughter of your friend; while as for the rest of us, we shall inevitably be plunged into a disastrous civil war, in which many of Bandokolo’s highest and best will be slain. Probably Bimbane, aided by you, will triumph; but, believe me, when it is too late and the evil has been wrought, you will discover that you have made a disastrous mistake—or, rather, have been hideously deceived. Ah, do not shake your head in unbelief, my friend, for remember that I am speaking from experience. I know that what I say is true, because it was through the influence which Bimbane gained over me that she constrained me to become her spouse, although I loved Siluce. You look incredulous; you doubtless think that I might have resisted, had I chosen: but I swear to you that so complete was her power over me that I was absolutely helpless, and although I fully understood the enormity of the crime which she was committing, and which she was compelling me to commit, I was powerless to resist, because I could not escape from her. But afterward, when the foul wrong was done, when I was irrevocably bound to her, and my poor Siluce had been driven forth to perish miserably, Bimbane foolishly relaxed her hold upon me, thinking, I suppose, that, the knot being tied, I should not attempt to escape, but should accept the ignoble fate which she had designed for me. Also I think she was indifferent, because the event proved that I was not the man through whom she believes she is to recover her long-lost youth and beauty. And I took advantage of this relaxation of vigilance on her part to escape from the palace and from her influence, and, despite her entreaties and commands, have steadfastly refused to return: hence I have been able gradually to shake off her influence until now I am quite free from it; and I tell you that never again shall she have an opportunity to recover her power over me, if I can help it. Now, if you are not so completely bewitched as to be incapable of distinguishing between truth and falsehood, come with me, for I am prepared to submit to you ample and convincing proof of the truth of all my charges against Bimbane.”

“Very well,” said I, “I will go with you, for although the matter is really no concern of mine I am anxious to get at the truth, if only in order that I may be of some assistance in adjusting this most unhappy misunderstanding between the queen and the nobles. For I am convinced that it is nothing more serious than a misunderstanding, and that a little explanation on either side will suffice to clear it up completely. But I warn you, Anuti, not to indulge in any false hopes of your ability to persuade me of the queen’s guilt, for I shall need something far more convincing than unsupported assertions to satisfy me.”

“Yet Bimbane’s unsupported assertions have thus far completely satisfied you; do not forget that, Chia’gnosi,” retorted Anuti. “However,” he continued, “if you can persuade yourself to regard the question of the queen’s guilt or innocence as an open one for a little while, I have no doubt of my ability to make you recognise the truth.”

Much more was said by Anuti to the same effect, but as it was in the main but a reiteration and amplification of his previous statements, it need not be repeated here; suffice it to say that by the time we reached his house he had brought me to a state of mind which enabled me to recognise that, after all, it was just possible that I might be mistaken, that Bimbane might not be the sort of person I had allowed her to persuade me she was, and that Anuti and his friends were at least entitled to a dispassionate hearing.

And then, when at length we reached Anuti’s dwelling, that individual introduced me to some thirty of the most important and influential nobles and chiefs of Bandokolo, among whom was Mindula, the father of the unhappy Siluce; and, one after the other, these men arose and related the wrongs, the cruelties, and the injustices which they and theirs had suffered at the hands of Bimbane, accompanying their statements with proofs of so convincing a character that I no longer found it possible to disbelieve. And when at length the session was over I arose, stunned, astounded, horrified, and furious at the thought of the danger which I had so narrowly escaped, of falling into the hands of a vile, unscrupulous woman, and becoming her willing, deluded tool.

“And now,” I demanded, as the nobles rose to depart, “what am I to do? It is impossible that I can continue to reside in the palace and remain the guest of the queen; yet, having come so far, I do not like the idea of quitting the country without at least enough of the gold and shining stones to repay me for the toil and peril of my adventure. And I suppose that when I announce my intention of quitting the palace the queen will at once conjecture that I have been in communication with you, and have learned the truth concerning her. Will she attempt to detain me by force, think you?”

“It is impossible to surmise what she may do,” answered Anuti. “It is, however, not force so much as persuasion that you have to fear, for I do not believe that there is a man in Bandokolo who would be willing to face your fire weapons, even at Bimbane’s command: but if you venture to return to the palace and see her again, rest assured that she will bring the whole power of her influence to bear upon you in the effort to persuade you that we have deceived you, and that your original opinion of her was the correct one. And you best know whether you have now the strength of will to resist her beguilements. It would be safer, perhaps, not to risk it, but to take up your abode here with me. I will send a messenger to your servant, if you like, telling him—”

“No,” said I decisively, as the thought that ’Mfuni was still in the queen’s power came to me for the first time, “I must return to the palace, face the queen, inform her that I now know the truth concerning her and refuse any longer to remain her guest, and see what comes of it. As to her seeking to influence me, I have no doubt that she will do that, but I must take the risk; and now that I am fully convinced of the truth of all your assertions, I do not greatly dread the result. I will go at once, and get the interview over; after which I can either return here or ride to the wagon and make it my abode, as I have already done for so many months.”

“Nay,” said Anuti, “you shall certainly not do that. There is ample room in this house for you, and so long as you remain in Masakisale you must consent to be my most welcome and honoured guest.”

So it was arranged; and then, after a little further conversation, and reiterated warnings to be on my guard against every possible description of machination on the part of the queen, I mounted and rode back to the palace at a hand gallop, determined to get through what was certain to be a very unpleasant business forthwith. As ’Mfuni came out, at my approach, to receive my horse, I bade him walk the animal to and fro, instead of unsaddling him, and hold himself ready to accompany me to new quarters upon my reappearance. Then, entering the palace, I made my way straight to the queen’s apartments, and sent in a message craving an immediate interview.

I was admitted at once, and found Her Majesty occupying her usual seat upon the divan. At my entrance she dismissed her attendants; and, as soon as we were alone, invited me by a gesture to seat myself at her side. But I declined, saying that, as my interview would be but brief, I preferred to stand.

“Nay, Chia’gnosi,” she returned, “it will not be so brief as you appear to think; therefore sit, I pray you, if not by my side, then opposite me, for it wearies me to see you standing. That is well!”—as I drew up an ottoman and seated myself upon it.

Bimbane kept silence for a short time, resting her chin upon her clasped hands and regarding me with an inexpressibly mournful expression; and as I returned her gaze I felt my anger against her dying away, and a great pity for her taking its place in my heart. She looked so small, so frail, so utterly helpless and lonely and miserable that all the innate chivalry of my nature arose and clamoured that it was impossible she could be guilty of the crimes imputed to her; that I had judged her hastily and unfairly; that I had wronged her by lending a too ready ear to her declared enemies; and that in deciding to forsake her I had been guilty of a base and cowardly thing. Then a faint smile of dawning triumph, which lighted up her eyes and irradiated her face, warned me of my danger, warned me that again she was exercising her evil influence upon me, and that I was fast succumbing to it; it reminded me of the dreadful state of helplessness to which Anuti had been reduced by that influence; and I pulled myself together and braced my mental powers to meet and resist it. And as I did so the smile of triumph vanished from her eyes, and was replaced by a gleam of malice and hatred so deadly that although it was but momentary I recoiled in something that, if it was not fear, was very closely akin to it. Yet I was glad that I had caught that fleeting expression, for it reassured me; it afforded me a transitory glimpse of the woman’s true character, and taught me more thoroughly, perhaps, than anything else could that Anuti and his friends were right and justified in their denunciation of her character. And I think she must have realised in that moment that she had betrayed herself and lost her hold upon me, for when she spoke her voice was harsh and bitter, and full of scornful anger.

“So, Chia’gnosi,” she said, “you, to whom I extended a cordial welcome to my kingdom, whom I made a general of my army, upon whom I heaped benefits innumerable, even to the bestowal upon you of all the shining stones I possess, and which you have so greatly craved—you whom I deemed the very soul and embodiment of chivalry and honour and truth—you have stooped so low as to clandestinely consort with my enemies, to hearken to their slanderous tongues, to credit the base falsehoods about me which they have poured into your ears; and now you have the assurance to come to me with the purpose of telling me that I am so utterly vile that even you, false and craven that you are, will no longer remain my guest, from fear of contamination!”

“I don’t quite know how you came by your information, unless it was by means of your accursed magic,” I said, “but in the main you are right. There are one or two errors with regard to detail, such, for example, as your reference to the ‘falsehoods’ told me about you by Anuti and his friends, and also with regard to my reason for quitting the palace. But, after all, these discrepancies are really of no moment, and may be allowed to pass. That which is of moment is the fact that I cannot possibly remain any longer the guest of a woman who has been guilty of such crimes as you have perpetrated, nor can I submit to the degradation of retaining any of the gifts which I have accepted from you. I shall leave them all in my rooms when I presently quit them; and my regret at abandoning them will be much less than that which I shall always feel since it has been my misfortune to have been brought into contact with yourself, and thus to have learned beyond question that such women sometimes actually exist.”

“Oh, Chia’gnosi, you are cruel, bitterly cruel and unjust to say such things to me!” she cried; and then, to my utter consternation, she burst into a perfect passion of weeping, and again I felt my heart insidiously softening and warming toward her, she looked so utterly woebegone, so terribly helpless and friendless. But the moment that I became conscious of the feeling I brought my will power to bear and determinedly repressed it; although I confess that I never in my life had a more difficult task than that which I battled with while Bimbane proceeded to explain tearfully that although she had undoubtedly done those deeds with which Anuti and his friends charged; her, she had been compelled to do them in the interests of good government and for reasons of state, and that if I would only listen to her explanation I would see that theywere capable of a very different interpretation from that put upon them by her enemies.

And I listened—I will do myself the justice to say that I listened patiently to the woman’s attempt to exculpate herself by proving that her crimes were really not crimes at all, but grim necessities of the peculiar position which she occupied as ruler of a turbulent and restive people. But, having steeled myself against the effect of her tears and her pathetic assumption of helplessness, I was able instantly to detect and draw her attention to the weak points of her defence; with the result that at last, realising, I suppose, that she had lost her power over me and that I was no longer to be cajoled, she suddenly abandoned her efforts and flew into a furious passion, abusing me most abominably, and heaping upon my head every opprobrious epithet that she could think of—and she was able to think of a good many.

“And you are fool enough to think that after such treatment as I have received at your hands I will let you go?” she shrieked in a perfect frenzy of fury. “No, Chia’gnosi; you have humiliated me as I believe no woman was ever before humiliated by a man, and since you have scorned my friendship you shall learn what it means to incur my hate. See!” and she flashed the ring on her thumb before my eyes. “By the power which the possession of this stone confers upon me I slay all your cattle. So! they are dead!” and she dashed her clenched right fist toward me. “Now it is impossible for you to leave the country, unless you choose to adventure into the wilderness without your wagon. But even that you shall not do. You shall leave this palace, as you have determined, at once, but it shall be to lodge in the cage next that occupied by the captive man-monkeys; and as soon as I have disposed of Anuti and his friends I will proclaim a festival, at which you and those of my enemies who survive shall do battle with an equal number of the monkeys, for the delectation and amusement of the people! Aha, Chia’gnosi, it will be a rare sight to watch you, unarmed, fighting for your life against the biggest and most savage man-monkey that my hunters can capture! Ha, release me, brute! What would you do to me? Help—!”

Although I had not the smallest belief in the woman’s power to destroy my cattle by any alleged occult virtue pertaining to her wonderful ring, the sight of it flashed before my eyes in so provocative a manner reminded me of my almost forgotten promise to Siluce to take the jewel from Bimbane, if I could; and, exasperated at last beyond endurance by her abuse and threats, I sprang to my feet, seized her right hand in mine, and, while I stifled her cries for help with my left, drew the ring from her thumb and thrust it upon my own little finger, animated by some sudden impulse for which I could not in the least account.

And as the ring passed from her possession into mine, the change that occurred in us both was startling in the extreme, particularly so as regarded Bimbane. For a few seconds after I released her she remained absolutely silent and motionless, as though scarcely able to realise what had happened; then, instead of summoning her guards and handing me over to their custody, she instantly became abjectly apologetic and pleading, entreating me to restore her ring in exchange for anything and everything that I might choose to demand. She offered me gold and diamonds without limit, perfect liberty to remain in the country as its honoured guest as long as I pleased, and all the help I might need in the transport of my spoils when it should please me to start upon my return journey; in short, she gave me clearly to understand that I need set no limits upon my demands if I would but restore the ring to her. But as for me, the moment that I slipped the jewel upon my finger I became conscious of a strange, new, exhilarating sense of power, of ability to do things, of being generally complete master of the situation; and I determined that I would keep the ring, if for no other reason than that Bimbane seemed to attach such an extraordinary value to it, and to require its restoration so badly. I therefore left her at last, quite exhausted with her fruitless entreaties, and doubled up in a little, shapeless, miserably sobbing heap on the divan; and as I went forth from the apartment I summoned her waiting women and directed them to go in and attend to the queen, as I feared that Her Majesty was unwell.

Chapter Eighteen.The Climax of the Adventure.Hastening across to the suite of apartments I had thus far occupied, I discarded the splendid garments which had been presented to me by the queen, and in which I had been wont to appear in public, and resumed the somewhat worn and faded suit in which I had arrived at Masakisale; after which I turned my back upon the rooms, as I thought for ever, and descended to where ’Mfuni awaited me, walking my horse to and fro before the main entrance to the palace. The Mashona seemed somewhat startled to behold me once more clad in my shabby travelling garments; but without wasting any time in explaining matters I simply bade him hasten to the wagon, ascertain how things were in that quarter, and report to me at Anuti’s house, which I pointed out to him. Then, urging Prince into a gallop, I made the best of my way to Anuti’s abode, anxious to communicate to him what had passed at my final interview with Bimbane, and to take counsel with him as to what was best to be done under the circumstances.He was at home when I arrived, and might indeed have been watching for me, for he came forth to me as I dismounted.“Aha, Chia’gnosi,” he exclaimed, “welcome to my house, for I perceive that something of import has happened at the palace, and that you have indeed left it, as you resolved to do!”“Yes,” said I. “I have left the palace, never to return to it; for I have quarrelled with Bimbane beyond all possibility of reconciliation. And now, if you are not afraid to give me lodgment for a short time, I will very gladly avail myself of your offered hospitality; for I want to tell you exactly what has happened, and to obtain your advice.”“Pray, enter, and again welcome,” he replied. “No, I am not at all afraid to receive you as my guest; for you will be perfectly safe here, and— But what is that I see on your finger?—surely not the magic ring of Bimbane!”He seized my right hand, stared incredulously at the ring on my little finger, and then, murmuring: “It is, it is!” sank upon one knee before me, pressed the ring to his forehead, and exclaimed:“Salutations and homage, O high and mighty King! I know not how it has come to pass, but this is a great and happy day for Bandokolo; for at last the dominion has passed out of the hands of that cruel and wicked woman, under whose galling yoke the country has groaned for unnumbered generations, and has passed into yours, who will rule us mercifully, wisely, and justly. Great is my pride and joy, O Chia’gnosi, that mine is the privilege to be the first to hail you king. Deign to honour my poor house with your gracious presence for a few hours, Your Majesty, while I go forth and proclaim the glad tidings to the nobles and chiefs here in Masakisale, and make arrangements for the news to be transmitted to the uttermost parts of the kingdom—”“Stop, stop, for mercy’s sake stop your wild talk, and tell me what is the matter, and what you mean by all this rubbish about my being king!” I exclaimed, as soon as I had sufficiently recovered from my amazement to speak, at the same time dragging Anuti to his feet.“Ah, yes, I had forgotten!” replied Anuti. “Naturally Your Majesty does not understand. How should you, since no one has explained? In a few words, then, the matter stands thus. The possession of that ring carries with it the sovereignty of Bandokolo, and since you now possess it, you are, in virtue thereof, the monarch of the country; and right glad will all be that such is the case. But, if I may be permitted to ask, how passed the ring into your possession? For the tradition runs that it may only pass as a free gift from the reigning monarch to his—or her—chosen successor when the former is at the point of death; to attempt to steal it, or to take it by force, brings upon the would-be robber the doom of a mysterious, terrible death, otherwise Bimbane the Cruel would not have been permitted to reign so long. Yet I find it difficult to imagine that—that—”“She surrendered it to me of her own free will?” I interrupted. “You are right, Anuti, she did not. We quarrelled; she threatened to set you and me, among others, to fight the man-monkeys, and declared that by virtue of this ring she would destroy—has indeed destroyed—the remainder of my team of oxen. This made me angry; and in my anger I flung myself upon her, snatched the ring from her thumb, and placed it upon my own finger. And—and—there it is, as you see,” I finished lamely.“Yes. And you still live!” said Anuti thoughtfully. “It is wonderful; and it is proof conclusive that you are destined to be our king.”“Nonsense, man,” I retorted; “it is proof of nothing of the kind. I have no desire to be your king. All that I want is to find the daughter of my friend, rescue her from captivity, and return to my own country, taking with me, by your goodwill, as many of the shining stones as will enable me to retrieve my ruined fortunes. Therefore, permit me—” and before Anuti knew what I was about I withdrew the fateful ring from my own finger and slipped it on his.“There!” I continued, “now you are the king, which is as it should be. The Bandokolo will rejoice to have you as their sovereign, while, as for me, if you require any help or advice that I can give, it shall be freely yours; and when once you are firmly established upon the throne I will bid you farewell and go my way. But what about Bimbane; what will you do with her?”“There will be neither trouble nor difficulty in disposing of her, for she has not a friend in all Bandokolo,” answered Anuti. “It will but be necessary for me to display this ring and even her bodyguards will gladly transfer their allegiance to me. And perhaps you are right, Chia’gnosi, in the matter of the kingship; it is better that the Bandokolo should be governed by one of themselves than by a stranger. But you have this day done a service to the Bandokolo which we shall not forget, for by your action in wresting this ring from the queen, and, with it, all her power and authority, you have saved the country from civil war, with all its attendant horrors and slaughter. And now it will be well that the nobles and chiefs should be instantly informed of what has happened; therefore, if you will excuse me for a short time, I will dispatch the necessary messengers.”Anuti had been absent about three-quarters of an hour when a servant announced that two of my natives desired speech with me; and when they were introduced they proved to be ’Mfuni and Piet, who had encountered each other on the main road and now returned together, bringing with them the astounding news that the whole of my oxen had suddenly dropped dead while feeding, at the precise moment—so far as I was able to fix it—when Bimbane had pronounced their death warrant! It was a very extraordinary thing, much too extraordinary, I thought, to be a mere coincidence; yet I was not so much astonished as I might otherwise have been, for I had by this time been long enough in Bandokolo to have realised that many surprising and startling things happened there which would have been regarded as impossible in more civilised countries.But this was not the only, or even the most startling, occurrence of that eventful day; for Anuti had scarcely returned to the house, accompanied by half a dozen of the most powerful nobles, whom he had been lucky enough to encounter, when a wild-eyed messenger arrived from the palace with the astounding news that the queen was dead, having taken poison! This news, if true, would of course simplify matters immensely, since, the queen being childless, her husband would, according to the laws of Bandokolo, succeed her; and accordingly we all hastened to the palace to investigate the statement.Arrived at the royal residence, we found the place in a state of wild commotion—although the excitement was not so intense as to make the squadron of bodyguards then on duty forget to accord the royal salute to Anuti upon his entrance. We were informed that the body of the queen was in her sleeping chamber, and thither we hastened, to find the apartment in possession of about a dozen physicians, who had hurried to the palace upon the summons of the chief lady-in-waiting, and who had just completed their examination of the body. They all agreed that death was the result of poison, self-administered; and indeed there seemed to be no room for any other conclusion, for when the corpse was discovered a tiny flask was found tightly grasped in the right hand, the odour clinging to which, and to the lips of the dead woman, proclaimed beyond all question that it had contained bicari, a decoction prepared from the root of the combuti plant, and one of the most deadly toxics known to the Africans of the interior.The fact of the queen’s death being fully established, Anuti gave orders that the body should be prepared in the usual way for public cremation on the following day, after which the chamber was to be closed and sealed, and a guard of honour mounted before it. In the meantime, while these orders were being carried out, we all adjourned to the council chamber, where we were soon afterward joined by several other nobles and chiefs, who had been hastily summoned; and a council was held at which it was decided that, for expediency’s sake, Anuti should at once take up his abode at the palace, and that he should be proclaimed king that same evening. Mounted messengers were accordingly sent forth into the city, summoning the people to assemble before the palace at an hour corresponding to ten o’clock; and at that hour the ceremony of proclamation was duly performed.The scene was one of considerable barbaric splendour, chiefly by reason of the magnificent dresses worn by the various personages who took part in it. It happened that all the nobles and chiefs who were really of paramount importance were dwellers in the city. It was consequently possible for every one of them to be present; and as they all held high rank either in the army or what may be called the civil service, and wore the full-dress uniform of their rank upon this occasion, the display of golden armour and weapons, richly embroidered robes and banners, and jewelled and feathered head-dresses glittering in the somewhat smoky light of thousands of blazing torches presented a spectacle which I shall never forget.The act of proclamation was performed from the steps leading up to the main entrance to the palace, upon the top landing of which stood Anuti, clad in the resplendent uniform of a general, supported by the nobles and chiefs—and also by myself, in my uniform, which I had resumed at the urgent request of the king and his supporters; while the herald and trumpeters also stood upon the steps, but halfway down. The actual ceremony was of very brief duration, and simply consisted of seven blasts upon the golden trumpets, followed by the formal statement by the herald that, it having pleased the spirits who presided over the destinies of the Bandokolo nation to summon Bimbane to her long-deferred rest, her husband, the noble and illustrious Anuti, would take up the reins of government and henceforth rule the people. Might the king live for ever! Upon which the trumpets again sounded seven blasts, the assembled multitude expressed their approval by loud and prolonged applause, the nobles and chiefs present came forward in the order of their rank and did homage to the new king, the royal bodyguard, paraded in full strength for the occasion, deployed in front of the steps and gave the royal salute, and the ceremony was at an end. At Anuti’s urgent request I resumed occupation of the apartments which I had lived in during my stay in Masakisale; and as I did not wish to be further mixed up in the political situation, and was moreover somewhat fatigued, I at once retired to them and was soon sound asleep.The following day was scarcely less strenuous than that which had preceded it, though in a different way; for it had been arranged that the obsequies of the dead queen should take place at sunset, and all day long the several Court officials concerned were busily engaged in making the necessary preparations.The funeral pyre was erected in the centre of a spacious basin among the hills at the head of the valley, some six miles from the palace, and early in the afternoon the inhabitants began to gather in front of the palace, to witness and take part in the spectacle. Then, about four o’clock, the royal bodyguard, with their regimental banners twisted into a knot and bound to the staves with broad white ribbons in token of mourning, paraded before the palace, and the trumpeters sounded seven blasts; whereupon the funeral cortege made its appearance, issuing from the main entrance to the palace. First stalked the royal standard-bearer, carrying the royal standard, knotted and bound to its staff with white ribbon; then came the royal bier, which consisted of a platform borne by twelve men attired wholly in white—the mourning colour—and draped with white silk, heavily fringed with gold bullion, which swept the ground. Upon this platform was placed the royal throne of ivory heavily mounted in gold; and upon the throne, and securely fastened to it, was seated the body of Bimbane, fully attired in her robes of state, and crowned with a gold coronet set with uncut diamonds and ornamented with the crimson wings of the orilu, which only a monarch might wear. Then came Anuti, alone, in his full uniform, closely followed by the nobles and chiefs of the nation—among whom the new king had insisted that I should take my place. Slowly and with solemn step we descended the broad flight of stone steps until we reached the spacious quadrangle at their foot, and here our attendants led forward our steeds and we mounted, Prince, with his glossy black coat, being conspicuous among the array of zebras which constituted the mounts of the rest.As the bier reached the quadrangle, a trumpet blast rang out, and the royal bodyguard arranged itself into three sides of a hollow square, into which the bier passed, when, with the royal standard-bearer riding in front, the banners of the guard immediately following him, and the trumpeters between them and the mounted troops blowing long, wailing blasts at regular intervals, the cortege proceeded slowly and solemnly along the road, the bier, surrounded by the bodyguard, being followed by Anuti and the rest of us, while the inhabitants in general brought up the rear.In this fashion the funeral cortege passed along the main road through the city to the scene of the cremation, the march occupying just two hours. We reached the funeral pyre as the last rays of the sun were gilding the tops of the trees which hemmed in the valley, when the bodyguard formed a hollow square round the pyre, with Anuti and the nobles inside it, while the inhabitants ranged themselves upon the adjacent hillside to witness, for the first time in their lives, the spectacle of a royal cremation. About a hundred priests, arrayed in long white robes, were gathered about the pyre when we reached it; and as soon as the bier, with its dead occupant, had been deposited upon the summit of the pyre, the arch-priest began the funeral service, which lasted about a quarter of an hour. By the time that this was over it was quite dark, the surrounding tree tops standing out black against the star-studded sky; and only an occasional faint, evanescent gleam here and there of starlight upon golden armour told of the presence of all that multitude.Then, the religious service being at an end, a lighted torch was mysteriously produced from somewhere and handed to Anuti, who, approaching the pyre, thrust the burning brand into the heart of it and retired again to his former place. For a second or two the darkness continued; then here and there about the pyre small wreaths of smoke floated out, quickly followed by little tongues of flame, rapidly increasing in intensity until within a few minutes the whole of the upper part of the pyre was ablaze, and the basin, with its crowds of splendidly attired and mounted officials, was brilliantly illuminated by the ruddy glare. I think the bier, and possibly the body also, must have been treated with some highly combustible preparation, for I noticed that the moment the flames reached them they seized upon them with avidity, so that within ten minutes of the first kindling the bier and the body were both enwrapped in a roaring volume of vivid flame, in which the corpse seemed to shrink and shrivel so rapidly that when at length the top of the pyre collapsed and fell in, scarcely a vestige of bier or body was to be seen. The fire blazed so furiously—throwing out an almost unendurable heat—that within half an hour the pyre had become reduced to a heap of ruddy, dull-glowing ashes; whereupon Anuti gave a signal, the trumpeters blew seven blasts by way of final salute to the dead, the white ribbons were torn from the banners and cast upon the flickering flames, the banners were unknotted, and, forming up in military array, the mounted contingent wheeled and departed, making their way back to the palace, and leaving the pedestrians to return home at their leisure.On the following day a golden urn, containing ashes asserted to be those of the dead queen, was deposited by the priests in the funeral chamber beneath the palace, and Bimbane, with all her faults and crimes, finally disappeared for ever from among the Bandokolo.The accession of Anuti to the throne was the cause of general rejoicing throughout the country; and in accordance with custom the new king proclaimed a grand festival in celebration of the event. But as the festival—also in accordance with custom—necessarily consisted to a great extent of fights between condemned criminals and wild animals, especially man-monkeys, I declined to remain and be present; and Anuti, knowing my views with regard to such barbarous spectacles, did not press the point. On the contrary, he fully sympathised with me, and would very gladly have abolished the custom, but public opinion was too strong even for him; the sports were so highly appreciated that to have suppressed them would have very seriously impaired his popularity, and this he dared not risk just then, at the very beginning of his reign. Therefore he did everything he could to expedite my departure, presenting me with a beautiful team of twenty-four thoroughly broken zebras to take the place of my slain oxen, lending me a driver to instruct mine in the handling of them; also he insisted upon my retaining every one of the gifts bestowed upon me by the late queen, and added to them a second goatskin sackful of magnificent diamonds; and finally he instructed my old friend Pousa to escort me with his squadron to the frontier, more as a guard of honour than by way of protection, for by that time my fame had spread to the uttermost parts of the kingdom, and no Bandokolo would have dreamed of attempting to molest me. And, thus magnificently rewarded for services that, after all, I at least regarded as utterly insignificant, I took my departure from Masakisale on my homeward journey, exactly a week after the celebration of the funeral obsequies of Queen Bimbane, much to the regret, I was assured, of all whose acquaintance I had made.My departure from Masakisale was a very different affair from that of my entrance into it. For, although I was not permitted to suspect it at the time, there can be no doubt that I entered the capital of Bandokolo virtually as a prisoner, and was an object of curiosity and suspicion to everybody who set eyes upon me; while now I went forth accompanied by expressions of regard and regret from the entire inhabitants of the city, who seemed to have turned outen masseto witness my departure and to bid me farewell. Also, excluding what remained of my ammunition and provisions, my wagon was loaded to its utmost capacity with gold and precious stones; and it no longer crawled over the ground at a bare three miles an hour, but proceeded at quite double that speed behind the sturdy, sprightly, high-spirited team of twenty-four zebras, which would have travelled half as fast again had I not determined to work them very lightly, in view of the long, toilsome journey that lay before me.And here, for the gratification of the curious, I may as well describe the manner in which these animals were attached to the wagon. I suppose everybody by this time knows, either from pictures or from having seen the thing itself, what a South African wagon is like; and also knows that it is drawn by a team of from twelve to eighteen oxen yoked together in pairs, the cleverest pair being yoked next the wagon to the disselboom—which answers to the ordinary carriage pole where a pair of horses are driven abreast—while the remainder of the team are yoked, also in pairs, to the trek chain, which is attached to the extremity of the disselboom. Now, oxen pull upon a yoke which rests upon their necks and is attached thereto by a strip of rein passing under their throats, and this constitutes the whole of their very primitive harness. But it was obvious that such an arrangement would be quite unsuited to my new team of zebras: consequently harness had to be especially made for them, consisting of a breast and shoulder strap, the former being made long enough to form a pair of traces attachable to a splinter bar; there was also added a headstall with a single rein, which was fastened to the trek chain. This arrangement served for all but the leading pair of zebras, the off animal of which was fitted with a saddle upon which the driver sat postilion fashion, guiding the leaders and regulating the pace of the whole team.During the first two days a Bandokolo drove the team, while ’Ngulubi, my Bantu voorlouper, rode beside him on one of my horses, watching the process and receiving instruction; but after that ’Ngulubi himself undertook the driving, while the Bandokolo rode alongside and continued his instruction. Thus, by the time that we reached the frontier, ’Ngulubi was quite qualified to act as driver, while he, Jan, and Piet had also learned to look after the zebras when they were outspanned.With such a spanking team to draw the wagon, we took only eight and a half days to cover the distance between Masakisale and the frontier, instead of seventeen days, as on the outward journey; and here Pousa and his squadron regretfully bade me farewell, the captain’s regrets at parting from me being mitigated to a great extent by the gift of a shaving mirror and a burning-glass, the latter being esteemed by him at about the value that I attached to my two sacks of diamonds.Our farewells were spoken at the precise spot where we had met on my outward journey, but I did not pause there, pushing some twenty miles into the defile where we had seen the man-monkeys before we outspanned for the night. Two days later we passed the grave of the unhappy Siluce, and I had the melancholy satisfaction of seeing that, thus far, it had not been disturbed by wild animals. And on the following day we arrived at the spot where, according to the vision in which Bimbane had revealed to me the route I must follow in order to find Nell Lestrange, it became necessary for us to forsake our former trail and enter upon the new one. I took up this new trail without hesitation, the conviction being strong upon me that I should be right in so doing; and the event justified me, for on the evening of the sixty-second day after my departure from Masakisale I arrived upon the north bank of the Pongola River, and was informed by an astonished Kafir whom I encountered that Zululand, the country of the redoubtable Dingaan, lay upon the opposite shore of the stream. Of course I did not accomplish this journey of two months’ duration through a savage country without meeting with a few adventures, yet they were surprisingly few, all things considered, for I hunted now only for food for myself and my followers; moreover, they were of a very similar character to those of my outward journey, with a few unimportant variations in details. They may, therefore, be passed over with merely this brief reference to them, since to record them in detail would only render my story of altogether too unwieldy dimensions, without adding very greatly to its interest.Arrived upon the Zululand border, I lost no time in dispatching a message to the formidable and somewhat unscrupulous king of the country, requesting his permission to pass through his territory on my way to Cape Colony from the north; and four days later ’Mfuni, who was my messenger for the occasion, returned with a reply to the effect that Dingaan granted my request, with the proviso that I did not linger unduly upon my journey, and that I should call upon him at his Place, Umgungundhlovu, on my way, to pay my respects—and also, as I fully understood, tribute, in the shape of a handsome present, for the privilege. This, of course, suited me admirably, as I intended to call upon the king in any case; and on the morning following the return of ’Mfuni we forded the river and entered upon the somewhat risky journey across Zululand, taking things fairly easy, as I wished to keep my team of zebras in good condition, in case it should be necessary to hurry, later on, after my interview with the king.Two days later, about mid-afternoon, we arrived at Umgungundhlovu (or the Multitude of Houses), and before we reached it the leading features of the landscape began to assume an appearance of familiarity, until finally I beheld with my bodily eyes the entire scene, complete down to the smallest detail, which Mafuta, the Basuto nyanga, had revealed to me in a vision some six months before. There was the great “town”—containing, I suppose, quite two thousand huts—built upon the crest of a gently rising hill, and completely surrounded by a stout, high palisade with an open gateway in it through which passed a number of people going about their business, and merely pausing for a minute or two to gaze in wonder at my handsome team of zebras; and there, too, close at hand, was the singular-looking hog-backed kopje, with its straggling bushes and its tumbled masses of dark rock, upon which were perched some fifty or sixty vultures that seemed to be quite at home there. Little did I dream of the ghastly tragedy of which that weird kopje had been the scene a few months earlier, when, on the preceding sixth of February, the treacherous and ruthless king had caused the massacre upon it of the ill-fated Boer general, Pieter Retief, and some sixty of his followers; otherwise I should have been a good deal more uneasy in my mind than I actually was when I gave the order to outspan.Yet, although I had no knowledge of it, the memory of that tragedy, and the fear lest the whites should eventually determine to avenge it, proved of the utmost service to me in my negotiations with the savage monarch; for when, adopting my usual tactics of “bluffing” boldly in my dealings with savages, I informed Dingaan bluntly that my object in visiting him was to demand the surrender of the white ’ntombozaan whom he held in captivity, I saw at once that, for some reason which I could not then guess, he was very greatly perturbed. But, like the savage he was, he also attempted to “bluff”, so that the matter soon resolved itself into a “bluffing match” between us, in which, although I did not know it, I held the advantage. First the king indignantly denied all knowledge of the girl for whom I was then seeking; then, when I not only insisted that she was in his power, but also minutely described her and her two girl companions, just as I had seen them in my vision, he retorted by declaring that it was in his mind to kill me and my followers, destroy my wagon, and turn my zebras loose, so that no trace should be left of any of us. Upon this I countered by asking him whether he really believed me such a fool as to venture into his country without sending a messenger to my countrymen by another way, informing them where I had gone, and asking them to investigate my fate if I did not arrive at home in due course. This retort proved to be my winning card, for he gave in at once, acknowledging Nell’s presence in the place; but insinuating that, since he had kept her alive and treated her well ever since the Tembu had sent her to him as a present, I ought to buy her of him. Of course, after this, the remainder of our negotiation was merely a matter of bargaining, and as I was not at all disposed to prolong the agony by being over particular in the matter of price, another half-hour saw the dear child sobbing happily in my arms, in exchange for practically the whole of the “truck” that still remained to me.Nell sat up quite late that night talking with me and telling her adventures, beginning with that awful time when she awoke to find her room full of armed Tembu warriors, who forced her to rise from her bed, dress, and go with them; but although her tale was interesting enough to me, I have no space in which to record it here.One incident, however, struck me as being sufficiently peculiar to be worthy of mention, and it was this. She told me how, when she had been at Dingaan’s Place nearly a year, she left the town one morning, accompanied by two young Zulu girls, to go down to a favourite haunt of hers near the river; “and,” said she, “when we were passing just about here, where this wagon is outspanned, a very strange thing happened. For, although I was not thinking of you at all just then, I suddenly believed for an instant that I saw you standing two or three yards away, with your hands outstretched and your lips moving as though you wanted to speak to me. I seemed to see you so distinctly that for a moment I was quite startled—indeed I believe I actually stopped under the impression that you were really there; but, as I did so, you vanished, and although I remember looking back I did not see you again.” Now, the most remarkable thing about this occurrence is that, by carefully questioning the child, I was at length forced to the conclusion that it had happened at the precise moment when I was beholding the vision conjured up for me by Mafuta, the Basuto nyanga.We inspanned with the arrival of the dawn on the following morning, and, pushing the zebras to their utmost capacity, swept down through Zululand into Natal, and thence more leisurely through Kaffraria to Cape Colony, arriving in Somerset East on the seventeenth day after our departure from Umgungundhlovu, to the amazement and delight of Henderson and a host of other friends who had long given me up as “wiped out”. I told them as much of my story as I deemed fit, though not all of it by any means; neither did I ask anybody’s advice, for my wanderings in the wilds had given me so much self-reliance that I felt quite able to depend upon my own judgment. In the first place I negotiated with the manager of the local bank for the exchange of five hundred pounds’ worth of gold for coin, and then, learning that there were ships loading for England at Algoa Bay, I installed ’Mfuni, Piet, Jan, and ’Ngulubi on my estate, leaving the horses and zebras with them to be looked after during my absence, packed up my belongings, and transferred Nell and myself to Port Elizabeth, where I engaged passages for us both on a ship which was on the point of sailing for home, leaving us just time to procure our outfit prior to our departure.A pleasant voyage of a little under three months ended in our finding ourselves in London in the early part of February, 1839, and although we found the climate of England exceedingly cold and unpleasant after the brilliant sunshine and warmth of South Africa, we managed to enjoy ourselves thoroughly during the ensuing two months. Then, with Nell’s cordial approval, I put her to a first-rate school at Bath, where she remained until her eighteenth birthday, emerging therefrom a very beautiful, accomplished, and lovable young woman.Meanwhile, having disposed of Nell for the time being, I next turned my attention to the disposal of my treasure. The Bank of England took all my gold from me at its current value, thus placing me in immediate possession of abundant funds; and eventually, before returning to South Africa, I succeeded in finding a firm of jewellers who were prepared, for a consideration, to undertake the task of disposing of my diamonds, a small parcel at a time, so as not to flood the market. The reader may gather some idea of the number of those diamonds when I say that now, at the time of writing, this process is still going on, yet I have nearly half of the original number left. The arrangement, although no doubt exceedingly profitable to the firm of jewellers in question, has provided me with a princely annual income, much of which has been spent in restoring and extending Bella Vista, which is now one of the finest and best-stocked estates in the whole of South Africa.Need I add that she who was once known as Nell Lestrange has been for many years the beloved and cherished mistress of the beautiful house that replaced the one in which the tragedy of more than fifty years ago occurred?

Hastening across to the suite of apartments I had thus far occupied, I discarded the splendid garments which had been presented to me by the queen, and in which I had been wont to appear in public, and resumed the somewhat worn and faded suit in which I had arrived at Masakisale; after which I turned my back upon the rooms, as I thought for ever, and descended to where ’Mfuni awaited me, walking my horse to and fro before the main entrance to the palace. The Mashona seemed somewhat startled to behold me once more clad in my shabby travelling garments; but without wasting any time in explaining matters I simply bade him hasten to the wagon, ascertain how things were in that quarter, and report to me at Anuti’s house, which I pointed out to him. Then, urging Prince into a gallop, I made the best of my way to Anuti’s abode, anxious to communicate to him what had passed at my final interview with Bimbane, and to take counsel with him as to what was best to be done under the circumstances.

He was at home when I arrived, and might indeed have been watching for me, for he came forth to me as I dismounted.

“Aha, Chia’gnosi,” he exclaimed, “welcome to my house, for I perceive that something of import has happened at the palace, and that you have indeed left it, as you resolved to do!”

“Yes,” said I. “I have left the palace, never to return to it; for I have quarrelled with Bimbane beyond all possibility of reconciliation. And now, if you are not afraid to give me lodgment for a short time, I will very gladly avail myself of your offered hospitality; for I want to tell you exactly what has happened, and to obtain your advice.”

“Pray, enter, and again welcome,” he replied. “No, I am not at all afraid to receive you as my guest; for you will be perfectly safe here, and— But what is that I see on your finger?—surely not the magic ring of Bimbane!”

He seized my right hand, stared incredulously at the ring on my little finger, and then, murmuring: “It is, it is!” sank upon one knee before me, pressed the ring to his forehead, and exclaimed:

“Salutations and homage, O high and mighty King! I know not how it has come to pass, but this is a great and happy day for Bandokolo; for at last the dominion has passed out of the hands of that cruel and wicked woman, under whose galling yoke the country has groaned for unnumbered generations, and has passed into yours, who will rule us mercifully, wisely, and justly. Great is my pride and joy, O Chia’gnosi, that mine is the privilege to be the first to hail you king. Deign to honour my poor house with your gracious presence for a few hours, Your Majesty, while I go forth and proclaim the glad tidings to the nobles and chiefs here in Masakisale, and make arrangements for the news to be transmitted to the uttermost parts of the kingdom—”

“Stop, stop, for mercy’s sake stop your wild talk, and tell me what is the matter, and what you mean by all this rubbish about my being king!” I exclaimed, as soon as I had sufficiently recovered from my amazement to speak, at the same time dragging Anuti to his feet.

“Ah, yes, I had forgotten!” replied Anuti. “Naturally Your Majesty does not understand. How should you, since no one has explained? In a few words, then, the matter stands thus. The possession of that ring carries with it the sovereignty of Bandokolo, and since you now possess it, you are, in virtue thereof, the monarch of the country; and right glad will all be that such is the case. But, if I may be permitted to ask, how passed the ring into your possession? For the tradition runs that it may only pass as a free gift from the reigning monarch to his—or her—chosen successor when the former is at the point of death; to attempt to steal it, or to take it by force, brings upon the would-be robber the doom of a mysterious, terrible death, otherwise Bimbane the Cruel would not have been permitted to reign so long. Yet I find it difficult to imagine that—that—”

“She surrendered it to me of her own free will?” I interrupted. “You are right, Anuti, she did not. We quarrelled; she threatened to set you and me, among others, to fight the man-monkeys, and declared that by virtue of this ring she would destroy—has indeed destroyed—the remainder of my team of oxen. This made me angry; and in my anger I flung myself upon her, snatched the ring from her thumb, and placed it upon my own finger. And—and—there it is, as you see,” I finished lamely.

“Yes. And you still live!” said Anuti thoughtfully. “It is wonderful; and it is proof conclusive that you are destined to be our king.”

“Nonsense, man,” I retorted; “it is proof of nothing of the kind. I have no desire to be your king. All that I want is to find the daughter of my friend, rescue her from captivity, and return to my own country, taking with me, by your goodwill, as many of the shining stones as will enable me to retrieve my ruined fortunes. Therefore, permit me—” and before Anuti knew what I was about I withdrew the fateful ring from my own finger and slipped it on his.

“There!” I continued, “now you are the king, which is as it should be. The Bandokolo will rejoice to have you as their sovereign, while, as for me, if you require any help or advice that I can give, it shall be freely yours; and when once you are firmly established upon the throne I will bid you farewell and go my way. But what about Bimbane; what will you do with her?”

“There will be neither trouble nor difficulty in disposing of her, for she has not a friend in all Bandokolo,” answered Anuti. “It will but be necessary for me to display this ring and even her bodyguards will gladly transfer their allegiance to me. And perhaps you are right, Chia’gnosi, in the matter of the kingship; it is better that the Bandokolo should be governed by one of themselves than by a stranger. But you have this day done a service to the Bandokolo which we shall not forget, for by your action in wresting this ring from the queen, and, with it, all her power and authority, you have saved the country from civil war, with all its attendant horrors and slaughter. And now it will be well that the nobles and chiefs should be instantly informed of what has happened; therefore, if you will excuse me for a short time, I will dispatch the necessary messengers.”

Anuti had been absent about three-quarters of an hour when a servant announced that two of my natives desired speech with me; and when they were introduced they proved to be ’Mfuni and Piet, who had encountered each other on the main road and now returned together, bringing with them the astounding news that the whole of my oxen had suddenly dropped dead while feeding, at the precise moment—so far as I was able to fix it—when Bimbane had pronounced their death warrant! It was a very extraordinary thing, much too extraordinary, I thought, to be a mere coincidence; yet I was not so much astonished as I might otherwise have been, for I had by this time been long enough in Bandokolo to have realised that many surprising and startling things happened there which would have been regarded as impossible in more civilised countries.

But this was not the only, or even the most startling, occurrence of that eventful day; for Anuti had scarcely returned to the house, accompanied by half a dozen of the most powerful nobles, whom he had been lucky enough to encounter, when a wild-eyed messenger arrived from the palace with the astounding news that the queen was dead, having taken poison! This news, if true, would of course simplify matters immensely, since, the queen being childless, her husband would, according to the laws of Bandokolo, succeed her; and accordingly we all hastened to the palace to investigate the statement.

Arrived at the royal residence, we found the place in a state of wild commotion—although the excitement was not so intense as to make the squadron of bodyguards then on duty forget to accord the royal salute to Anuti upon his entrance. We were informed that the body of the queen was in her sleeping chamber, and thither we hastened, to find the apartment in possession of about a dozen physicians, who had hurried to the palace upon the summons of the chief lady-in-waiting, and who had just completed their examination of the body. They all agreed that death was the result of poison, self-administered; and indeed there seemed to be no room for any other conclusion, for when the corpse was discovered a tiny flask was found tightly grasped in the right hand, the odour clinging to which, and to the lips of the dead woman, proclaimed beyond all question that it had contained bicari, a decoction prepared from the root of the combuti plant, and one of the most deadly toxics known to the Africans of the interior.

The fact of the queen’s death being fully established, Anuti gave orders that the body should be prepared in the usual way for public cremation on the following day, after which the chamber was to be closed and sealed, and a guard of honour mounted before it. In the meantime, while these orders were being carried out, we all adjourned to the council chamber, where we were soon afterward joined by several other nobles and chiefs, who had been hastily summoned; and a council was held at which it was decided that, for expediency’s sake, Anuti should at once take up his abode at the palace, and that he should be proclaimed king that same evening. Mounted messengers were accordingly sent forth into the city, summoning the people to assemble before the palace at an hour corresponding to ten o’clock; and at that hour the ceremony of proclamation was duly performed.

The scene was one of considerable barbaric splendour, chiefly by reason of the magnificent dresses worn by the various personages who took part in it. It happened that all the nobles and chiefs who were really of paramount importance were dwellers in the city. It was consequently possible for every one of them to be present; and as they all held high rank either in the army or what may be called the civil service, and wore the full-dress uniform of their rank upon this occasion, the display of golden armour and weapons, richly embroidered robes and banners, and jewelled and feathered head-dresses glittering in the somewhat smoky light of thousands of blazing torches presented a spectacle which I shall never forget.

The act of proclamation was performed from the steps leading up to the main entrance to the palace, upon the top landing of which stood Anuti, clad in the resplendent uniform of a general, supported by the nobles and chiefs—and also by myself, in my uniform, which I had resumed at the urgent request of the king and his supporters; while the herald and trumpeters also stood upon the steps, but halfway down. The actual ceremony was of very brief duration, and simply consisted of seven blasts upon the golden trumpets, followed by the formal statement by the herald that, it having pleased the spirits who presided over the destinies of the Bandokolo nation to summon Bimbane to her long-deferred rest, her husband, the noble and illustrious Anuti, would take up the reins of government and henceforth rule the people. Might the king live for ever! Upon which the trumpets again sounded seven blasts, the assembled multitude expressed their approval by loud and prolonged applause, the nobles and chiefs present came forward in the order of their rank and did homage to the new king, the royal bodyguard, paraded in full strength for the occasion, deployed in front of the steps and gave the royal salute, and the ceremony was at an end. At Anuti’s urgent request I resumed occupation of the apartments which I had lived in during my stay in Masakisale; and as I did not wish to be further mixed up in the political situation, and was moreover somewhat fatigued, I at once retired to them and was soon sound asleep.

The following day was scarcely less strenuous than that which had preceded it, though in a different way; for it had been arranged that the obsequies of the dead queen should take place at sunset, and all day long the several Court officials concerned were busily engaged in making the necessary preparations.

The funeral pyre was erected in the centre of a spacious basin among the hills at the head of the valley, some six miles from the palace, and early in the afternoon the inhabitants began to gather in front of the palace, to witness and take part in the spectacle. Then, about four o’clock, the royal bodyguard, with their regimental banners twisted into a knot and bound to the staves with broad white ribbons in token of mourning, paraded before the palace, and the trumpeters sounded seven blasts; whereupon the funeral cortege made its appearance, issuing from the main entrance to the palace. First stalked the royal standard-bearer, carrying the royal standard, knotted and bound to its staff with white ribbon; then came the royal bier, which consisted of a platform borne by twelve men attired wholly in white—the mourning colour—and draped with white silk, heavily fringed with gold bullion, which swept the ground. Upon this platform was placed the royal throne of ivory heavily mounted in gold; and upon the throne, and securely fastened to it, was seated the body of Bimbane, fully attired in her robes of state, and crowned with a gold coronet set with uncut diamonds and ornamented with the crimson wings of the orilu, which only a monarch might wear. Then came Anuti, alone, in his full uniform, closely followed by the nobles and chiefs of the nation—among whom the new king had insisted that I should take my place. Slowly and with solemn step we descended the broad flight of stone steps until we reached the spacious quadrangle at their foot, and here our attendants led forward our steeds and we mounted, Prince, with his glossy black coat, being conspicuous among the array of zebras which constituted the mounts of the rest.

As the bier reached the quadrangle, a trumpet blast rang out, and the royal bodyguard arranged itself into three sides of a hollow square, into which the bier passed, when, with the royal standard-bearer riding in front, the banners of the guard immediately following him, and the trumpeters between them and the mounted troops blowing long, wailing blasts at regular intervals, the cortege proceeded slowly and solemnly along the road, the bier, surrounded by the bodyguard, being followed by Anuti and the rest of us, while the inhabitants in general brought up the rear.

In this fashion the funeral cortege passed along the main road through the city to the scene of the cremation, the march occupying just two hours. We reached the funeral pyre as the last rays of the sun were gilding the tops of the trees which hemmed in the valley, when the bodyguard formed a hollow square round the pyre, with Anuti and the nobles inside it, while the inhabitants ranged themselves upon the adjacent hillside to witness, for the first time in their lives, the spectacle of a royal cremation. About a hundred priests, arrayed in long white robes, were gathered about the pyre when we reached it; and as soon as the bier, with its dead occupant, had been deposited upon the summit of the pyre, the arch-priest began the funeral service, which lasted about a quarter of an hour. By the time that this was over it was quite dark, the surrounding tree tops standing out black against the star-studded sky; and only an occasional faint, evanescent gleam here and there of starlight upon golden armour told of the presence of all that multitude.

Then, the religious service being at an end, a lighted torch was mysteriously produced from somewhere and handed to Anuti, who, approaching the pyre, thrust the burning brand into the heart of it and retired again to his former place. For a second or two the darkness continued; then here and there about the pyre small wreaths of smoke floated out, quickly followed by little tongues of flame, rapidly increasing in intensity until within a few minutes the whole of the upper part of the pyre was ablaze, and the basin, with its crowds of splendidly attired and mounted officials, was brilliantly illuminated by the ruddy glare. I think the bier, and possibly the body also, must have been treated with some highly combustible preparation, for I noticed that the moment the flames reached them they seized upon them with avidity, so that within ten minutes of the first kindling the bier and the body were both enwrapped in a roaring volume of vivid flame, in which the corpse seemed to shrink and shrivel so rapidly that when at length the top of the pyre collapsed and fell in, scarcely a vestige of bier or body was to be seen. The fire blazed so furiously—throwing out an almost unendurable heat—that within half an hour the pyre had become reduced to a heap of ruddy, dull-glowing ashes; whereupon Anuti gave a signal, the trumpeters blew seven blasts by way of final salute to the dead, the white ribbons were torn from the banners and cast upon the flickering flames, the banners were unknotted, and, forming up in military array, the mounted contingent wheeled and departed, making their way back to the palace, and leaving the pedestrians to return home at their leisure.

On the following day a golden urn, containing ashes asserted to be those of the dead queen, was deposited by the priests in the funeral chamber beneath the palace, and Bimbane, with all her faults and crimes, finally disappeared for ever from among the Bandokolo.

The accession of Anuti to the throne was the cause of general rejoicing throughout the country; and in accordance with custom the new king proclaimed a grand festival in celebration of the event. But as the festival—also in accordance with custom—necessarily consisted to a great extent of fights between condemned criminals and wild animals, especially man-monkeys, I declined to remain and be present; and Anuti, knowing my views with regard to such barbarous spectacles, did not press the point. On the contrary, he fully sympathised with me, and would very gladly have abolished the custom, but public opinion was too strong even for him; the sports were so highly appreciated that to have suppressed them would have very seriously impaired his popularity, and this he dared not risk just then, at the very beginning of his reign. Therefore he did everything he could to expedite my departure, presenting me with a beautiful team of twenty-four thoroughly broken zebras to take the place of my slain oxen, lending me a driver to instruct mine in the handling of them; also he insisted upon my retaining every one of the gifts bestowed upon me by the late queen, and added to them a second goatskin sackful of magnificent diamonds; and finally he instructed my old friend Pousa to escort me with his squadron to the frontier, more as a guard of honour than by way of protection, for by that time my fame had spread to the uttermost parts of the kingdom, and no Bandokolo would have dreamed of attempting to molest me. And, thus magnificently rewarded for services that, after all, I at least regarded as utterly insignificant, I took my departure from Masakisale on my homeward journey, exactly a week after the celebration of the funeral obsequies of Queen Bimbane, much to the regret, I was assured, of all whose acquaintance I had made.

My departure from Masakisale was a very different affair from that of my entrance into it. For, although I was not permitted to suspect it at the time, there can be no doubt that I entered the capital of Bandokolo virtually as a prisoner, and was an object of curiosity and suspicion to everybody who set eyes upon me; while now I went forth accompanied by expressions of regard and regret from the entire inhabitants of the city, who seemed to have turned outen masseto witness my departure and to bid me farewell. Also, excluding what remained of my ammunition and provisions, my wagon was loaded to its utmost capacity with gold and precious stones; and it no longer crawled over the ground at a bare three miles an hour, but proceeded at quite double that speed behind the sturdy, sprightly, high-spirited team of twenty-four zebras, which would have travelled half as fast again had I not determined to work them very lightly, in view of the long, toilsome journey that lay before me.

And here, for the gratification of the curious, I may as well describe the manner in which these animals were attached to the wagon. I suppose everybody by this time knows, either from pictures or from having seen the thing itself, what a South African wagon is like; and also knows that it is drawn by a team of from twelve to eighteen oxen yoked together in pairs, the cleverest pair being yoked next the wagon to the disselboom—which answers to the ordinary carriage pole where a pair of horses are driven abreast—while the remainder of the team are yoked, also in pairs, to the trek chain, which is attached to the extremity of the disselboom. Now, oxen pull upon a yoke which rests upon their necks and is attached thereto by a strip of rein passing under their throats, and this constitutes the whole of their very primitive harness. But it was obvious that such an arrangement would be quite unsuited to my new team of zebras: consequently harness had to be especially made for them, consisting of a breast and shoulder strap, the former being made long enough to form a pair of traces attachable to a splinter bar; there was also added a headstall with a single rein, which was fastened to the trek chain. This arrangement served for all but the leading pair of zebras, the off animal of which was fitted with a saddle upon which the driver sat postilion fashion, guiding the leaders and regulating the pace of the whole team.

During the first two days a Bandokolo drove the team, while ’Ngulubi, my Bantu voorlouper, rode beside him on one of my horses, watching the process and receiving instruction; but after that ’Ngulubi himself undertook the driving, while the Bandokolo rode alongside and continued his instruction. Thus, by the time that we reached the frontier, ’Ngulubi was quite qualified to act as driver, while he, Jan, and Piet had also learned to look after the zebras when they were outspanned.

With such a spanking team to draw the wagon, we took only eight and a half days to cover the distance between Masakisale and the frontier, instead of seventeen days, as on the outward journey; and here Pousa and his squadron regretfully bade me farewell, the captain’s regrets at parting from me being mitigated to a great extent by the gift of a shaving mirror and a burning-glass, the latter being esteemed by him at about the value that I attached to my two sacks of diamonds.

Our farewells were spoken at the precise spot where we had met on my outward journey, but I did not pause there, pushing some twenty miles into the defile where we had seen the man-monkeys before we outspanned for the night. Two days later we passed the grave of the unhappy Siluce, and I had the melancholy satisfaction of seeing that, thus far, it had not been disturbed by wild animals. And on the following day we arrived at the spot where, according to the vision in which Bimbane had revealed to me the route I must follow in order to find Nell Lestrange, it became necessary for us to forsake our former trail and enter upon the new one. I took up this new trail without hesitation, the conviction being strong upon me that I should be right in so doing; and the event justified me, for on the evening of the sixty-second day after my departure from Masakisale I arrived upon the north bank of the Pongola River, and was informed by an astonished Kafir whom I encountered that Zululand, the country of the redoubtable Dingaan, lay upon the opposite shore of the stream. Of course I did not accomplish this journey of two months’ duration through a savage country without meeting with a few adventures, yet they were surprisingly few, all things considered, for I hunted now only for food for myself and my followers; moreover, they were of a very similar character to those of my outward journey, with a few unimportant variations in details. They may, therefore, be passed over with merely this brief reference to them, since to record them in detail would only render my story of altogether too unwieldy dimensions, without adding very greatly to its interest.

Arrived upon the Zululand border, I lost no time in dispatching a message to the formidable and somewhat unscrupulous king of the country, requesting his permission to pass through his territory on my way to Cape Colony from the north; and four days later ’Mfuni, who was my messenger for the occasion, returned with a reply to the effect that Dingaan granted my request, with the proviso that I did not linger unduly upon my journey, and that I should call upon him at his Place, Umgungundhlovu, on my way, to pay my respects—and also, as I fully understood, tribute, in the shape of a handsome present, for the privilege. This, of course, suited me admirably, as I intended to call upon the king in any case; and on the morning following the return of ’Mfuni we forded the river and entered upon the somewhat risky journey across Zululand, taking things fairly easy, as I wished to keep my team of zebras in good condition, in case it should be necessary to hurry, later on, after my interview with the king.

Two days later, about mid-afternoon, we arrived at Umgungundhlovu (or the Multitude of Houses), and before we reached it the leading features of the landscape began to assume an appearance of familiarity, until finally I beheld with my bodily eyes the entire scene, complete down to the smallest detail, which Mafuta, the Basuto nyanga, had revealed to me in a vision some six months before. There was the great “town”—containing, I suppose, quite two thousand huts—built upon the crest of a gently rising hill, and completely surrounded by a stout, high palisade with an open gateway in it through which passed a number of people going about their business, and merely pausing for a minute or two to gaze in wonder at my handsome team of zebras; and there, too, close at hand, was the singular-looking hog-backed kopje, with its straggling bushes and its tumbled masses of dark rock, upon which were perched some fifty or sixty vultures that seemed to be quite at home there. Little did I dream of the ghastly tragedy of which that weird kopje had been the scene a few months earlier, when, on the preceding sixth of February, the treacherous and ruthless king had caused the massacre upon it of the ill-fated Boer general, Pieter Retief, and some sixty of his followers; otherwise I should have been a good deal more uneasy in my mind than I actually was when I gave the order to outspan.

Yet, although I had no knowledge of it, the memory of that tragedy, and the fear lest the whites should eventually determine to avenge it, proved of the utmost service to me in my negotiations with the savage monarch; for when, adopting my usual tactics of “bluffing” boldly in my dealings with savages, I informed Dingaan bluntly that my object in visiting him was to demand the surrender of the white ’ntombozaan whom he held in captivity, I saw at once that, for some reason which I could not then guess, he was very greatly perturbed. But, like the savage he was, he also attempted to “bluff”, so that the matter soon resolved itself into a “bluffing match” between us, in which, although I did not know it, I held the advantage. First the king indignantly denied all knowledge of the girl for whom I was then seeking; then, when I not only insisted that she was in his power, but also minutely described her and her two girl companions, just as I had seen them in my vision, he retorted by declaring that it was in his mind to kill me and my followers, destroy my wagon, and turn my zebras loose, so that no trace should be left of any of us. Upon this I countered by asking him whether he really believed me such a fool as to venture into his country without sending a messenger to my countrymen by another way, informing them where I had gone, and asking them to investigate my fate if I did not arrive at home in due course. This retort proved to be my winning card, for he gave in at once, acknowledging Nell’s presence in the place; but insinuating that, since he had kept her alive and treated her well ever since the Tembu had sent her to him as a present, I ought to buy her of him. Of course, after this, the remainder of our negotiation was merely a matter of bargaining, and as I was not at all disposed to prolong the agony by being over particular in the matter of price, another half-hour saw the dear child sobbing happily in my arms, in exchange for practically the whole of the “truck” that still remained to me.

Nell sat up quite late that night talking with me and telling her adventures, beginning with that awful time when she awoke to find her room full of armed Tembu warriors, who forced her to rise from her bed, dress, and go with them; but although her tale was interesting enough to me, I have no space in which to record it here.

One incident, however, struck me as being sufficiently peculiar to be worthy of mention, and it was this. She told me how, when she had been at Dingaan’s Place nearly a year, she left the town one morning, accompanied by two young Zulu girls, to go down to a favourite haunt of hers near the river; “and,” said she, “when we were passing just about here, where this wagon is outspanned, a very strange thing happened. For, although I was not thinking of you at all just then, I suddenly believed for an instant that I saw you standing two or three yards away, with your hands outstretched and your lips moving as though you wanted to speak to me. I seemed to see you so distinctly that for a moment I was quite startled—indeed I believe I actually stopped under the impression that you were really there; but, as I did so, you vanished, and although I remember looking back I did not see you again.” Now, the most remarkable thing about this occurrence is that, by carefully questioning the child, I was at length forced to the conclusion that it had happened at the precise moment when I was beholding the vision conjured up for me by Mafuta, the Basuto nyanga.

We inspanned with the arrival of the dawn on the following morning, and, pushing the zebras to their utmost capacity, swept down through Zululand into Natal, and thence more leisurely through Kaffraria to Cape Colony, arriving in Somerset East on the seventeenth day after our departure from Umgungundhlovu, to the amazement and delight of Henderson and a host of other friends who had long given me up as “wiped out”. I told them as much of my story as I deemed fit, though not all of it by any means; neither did I ask anybody’s advice, for my wanderings in the wilds had given me so much self-reliance that I felt quite able to depend upon my own judgment. In the first place I negotiated with the manager of the local bank for the exchange of five hundred pounds’ worth of gold for coin, and then, learning that there were ships loading for England at Algoa Bay, I installed ’Mfuni, Piet, Jan, and ’Ngulubi on my estate, leaving the horses and zebras with them to be looked after during my absence, packed up my belongings, and transferred Nell and myself to Port Elizabeth, where I engaged passages for us both on a ship which was on the point of sailing for home, leaving us just time to procure our outfit prior to our departure.

A pleasant voyage of a little under three months ended in our finding ourselves in London in the early part of February, 1839, and although we found the climate of England exceedingly cold and unpleasant after the brilliant sunshine and warmth of South Africa, we managed to enjoy ourselves thoroughly during the ensuing two months. Then, with Nell’s cordial approval, I put her to a first-rate school at Bath, where she remained until her eighteenth birthday, emerging therefrom a very beautiful, accomplished, and lovable young woman.

Meanwhile, having disposed of Nell for the time being, I next turned my attention to the disposal of my treasure. The Bank of England took all my gold from me at its current value, thus placing me in immediate possession of abundant funds; and eventually, before returning to South Africa, I succeeded in finding a firm of jewellers who were prepared, for a consideration, to undertake the task of disposing of my diamonds, a small parcel at a time, so as not to flood the market. The reader may gather some idea of the number of those diamonds when I say that now, at the time of writing, this process is still going on, yet I have nearly half of the original number left. The arrangement, although no doubt exceedingly profitable to the firm of jewellers in question, has provided me with a princely annual income, much of which has been spent in restoring and extending Bella Vista, which is now one of the finest and best-stocked estates in the whole of South Africa.

Need I add that she who was once known as Nell Lestrange has been for many years the beloved and cherished mistress of the beautiful house that replaced the one in which the tragedy of more than fifty years ago occurred?

Back to IndexNext