A year has elapsed since our most dear friend Allan Quatermain wrote the words ‘I have spoken’ at the end of his record of our adventures. Nor should I have ventured to make any additions to the record had it not happened that by a most strange accident a chance has arisen of its being conveyed to England. The chance is but a faint one, it is true; but, as it is not probable that another will arise in our lifetimes, Good and myself think that we may as well avail ourselves of it, such as it is. During the last six months several Frontier Commissions have been at work on the various boundaries of Zu-Vendis, with a view of discovering whether there exists any possible means of ingress or from the country, with the result that a channel of communication with the outer world hitherto overlooked has been discovered. This channel, the only one (for I have discovered that it was by it that the native who ultimately reached Mr Mackenzie’s mission station, and whose arrival in the country, together with the fact of his expulsion—for he did arrive about three years before ourselves—was for reasons of their own kept a dead secret by the priests to whom he was brought), is about to be effectually closed. But before this is done, a messenger is to be despatched bearing with him this manuscript, and also one or two letters from Good to his friends, and from myself to my brother George, whom it deeply grieves me to think I shall never see again, informing them, as our next heirs, that they are welcome to our effects in England, if the Court of Probate will allow them to take them {Endnote 22}, inasmuchas we have made up our minds never to return to Europe. Indeed, it would be impossible for us to leave Zu-Vendis even if we wished to do so.
The messenger who is to go—and I wish him joy of his journey—is Alphonse. For a long while he has been wearied to death of Zu-Vendis and its inhabitants. ‘Oh, oui, c’est beau,’ he says, with an ; ‘mais je m’ennuie; ce n’est pas .’ Again, he complains dreadfully of the absence of cafes and theatres, and moans continually for his lost Annette, of whom he says he dreams three times a week. But I fancy his secret cause of disgust at the country, putting aside the homesickness to which every Frenchman is subject, is that the people here laugh at him so dreadfully about his conduct on the occasion of the great battle of the Pass about eighteen months ago, when he hid beneath a banner in Sorais’s tent in order to avoid being sent to fight, which he says would have gone against his conscience. Even the little boys call out at him in the streets, offending his pride and making his life . At any rate, he has to brave the horrors of a journey of almost difficulty and danger, and also to run the risk of falling into the hands of the French police to answer for a certain little indiscretion of his own some years old (though I do not consider that a very serious matter), rather than remain in ce triste pays. Poor Alphonse! we shall be very sorry to part with him; but I sincerely trust, for his own sake and also for the sake of this history, which is, I think, worth giving to the world, that he may arrive in safety. If he does, and can carry the treasure we have provided him with in the shape of bars of solid gold, he will be, comparatively speaking, a rich man for life, and well able to marry his Annette, if she is still in the land of the living and willing to marry her Alphonse.
Anyhow, on the chance, I may as well add a word or two to dear old Quatermain’s .
He died at dawn on the day following that on which he wrote the last words of the last chapter. Nyleptha, Good and myself were present, and a most and yet in its way beautiful scene it was. An hour before the daybreak it became apparent to us that he was sinking, and our was very keen. Indeed, Good melted into tears at the idea—a fact that called forth a last gentle of humour from our dying friend, for even at that hour he could be humorous. Good’s emotion had, by loosening the muscles, naturally caused his eyeglass to fall from its accustomed place, and Quatermain, who always observed everything, observed this also.
‘At last,’ he , with an attempt at a smile, ‘I have seen Good without his eyeglass.’
After that he said no more till the day broke, when he asked to be lifted up to watch the rising of the sun for the last time.
‘In a very few minutes,’ he said, after gazing earnestly at it, ‘I shall have passed through those golden gates.’
Ten minutes afterwards he raised himself and looked us in the face.
‘I am going a stranger journey than any we have ever taken together. Think of me sometimes,’ he murmured. ‘God bless you all. I shall wait for you.’ And with a sigh he fell back dead.
And so passed away a character that I consider went as near perfection as any it has ever been my lot to encounter.
Tender, constant, humorous, and possessing of many of the qualities that go to make a poet, he was yet almost unrivalled as a man of action and a citizen of the world. I never knew any one so competent to form an accurate of men and their . ‘I have studied human nature all my life,’ he would say, ‘and I ought to know something about it,’ and he certainly did. He had but two faults—one was his excessive , and the other a slight tendency which he had to be jealous of anybody on whom he concentrated his affections. As regards the first of these points, anybody who reads what he has written will be able to form his own opinion; but I will add one last instance of it.
As the reader will doubtless remember, it is a favourite trick of his to talk of himself as a timid man, whereas really, though very cautious, he a most spirit, and, what is more, never lost his head. Well, in the great battle of the Pass, where he got the wound that finally killed him, one would imagine from the account which he gives of the occurrence that it was a chance blow that fell on him in the scrimmage. As a matter of fact, however, he was wounded in a most and successful attempt to save Good’s life, at the risk and, as it ultimately turned out, at the cost of his own. Good was down on the ground, and one of Nasta’s highlanders was about to d............