Old Friends [36]
faith that the man is Piquouique, with whom he encountered himself when on a mission of secrecy to England it is now some years. What to do? (Que faire?)
LETTER: From Mr. Allan Quatermain to Sir Henry Curtis.
Mr. Quatermain offers the correct account of two celebrated right and left shots, also an adventure of the stranger in the Story of an African Farm.
Dear Curtis,--You ask me to give you the true account, in writing, of those right and left shots of mine at the two lions, the crocodile, and the eagle. The brutes are stuffed now, in the hall at home--the lions each on a pedestal, and the alligator on the floor with the eagle in his jaws--much as they were when I settled them and saved the Stranger. All sorts of stories have got into the papers about the business, which was simple enough; so, though no hand with a pen, I may as well write it all out.
I was up on the Knobkerry River, prospecting for diamonds, in Omomborombunga's country. I had nobody with me but poor Jim-jim, who afterwards met with an awful death, otherwise he would have been glad to corroborate my tale, if it needed it. One night I had come back tired to camp, when I found a stranger sitting by the fire. He was a dark, fat, Frenchified little chap, and you won't believe me, but it is a fact that he wore gloves. I asked him to stay the night, of course, and inspanned the waggons in laager, for Omomborombunga's impis were out, swearing to wash their spears in the blood of The Great White Liar--a Portuguese traveller probably; if not, I don't know who he can have been; perhaps this stranger: he gave no name. Well, we had our biltong together, and the Stranger put himself outside a good deal of the very little brandy I had left. We got yarning, so to speak, and I told him a few of the curious adventures that naturally fall to the lot of a man in those wild countries. The Stranger did not say much, but kept playing with a huge carved walking-stick that he had. Presently he said, "Look at this stick; I bought it from a boy on a South African Farm. Do you understand what the carvings mean?"
"Hanged if I do!" I said, after turning it about.
"Well, do you see that figure?" and he touched a thing like a Noah out of a child's ark. "That was a hunter like you, my friend, but not in all respects. That hunter pursued a vast white bird with silver wings, sailing in the everlasting blue."
"Everlasting bosh!" said I; "there is no bird of the kind on the veldt."
"That bird was Truth," says the Stranger, "and, judging from the anecdote you tell me about the Babyan woman and the Zulu medicine- man, it is a bird YOU don't trouble yourself with much, my friend."
This was a pretty cool thing to say to a man whose veracity is known like a proverb from Sheba's Breasts to the Zambesi.
Foide Macumazahn, the Zulus say, meaning as true as a yarn of Allan Quatermain's. Well, my blood was up; no man shall call Allan Quatermain a liar. The fellow was going on with a prodigious palaver about a white feather of Truth, and Mount Sinai, and the Land of Absolute Negation, and I don't know what, but I signified to him that if he did not believe my yarns I did not want his company. "I'm sorry to turn you out," I said, "for there are lions around"--indeed they were roaring to each other--"and you will have a parroty time. But you apologise, or you go!"
He laughed his short thick laugh. "I am a man who hopes nothing, feels nothing, fears nothing, and believes nothing that you tell me!"
I got up and went for him with my fists, and whether he feared nothing or not I don't know; but he scooted, dropping a yellow French novel, by one Catulle Mendes, that I could make neither head nor tail of. I afterwards heard that there was something about this stranger in a book called "The Story of an African Farm," which I once began, but never finished, not being able to understand most of it, and being vexed by the gross improbability of the girl not marrying the baby's father, he being ready and willing to make her an honest woman. However,
LETTER: From Mr. Allan Quatermain to Sir Henry Curtis.
Mr. Quatermain offers the correct account of two celebrated right and left shots, also an adventure of the stranger in the Story of an African Farm.
Dear Curtis,--You ask me to give you the true account, in writing, of those right and left shots of mine at the two lions, the crocodile, and the eagle. The brutes are stuffed now, in the hall at home--the lions each on a pedestal, and the alligator on the floor with the eagle in his jaws--much as they were when I settled them and saved the Stranger. All sorts of stories have got into the papers about the business, which was simple enough; so, though no hand with a pen, I may as well write it all out.
I was up on the Knobkerry River, prospecting for diamonds, in Omomborombunga's country. I had nobody with me but poor Jim-jim, who afterwards met with an awful death, otherwise he would have been glad to corroborate my tale, if it needed it. One night I had come back tired to camp, when I found a stranger sitting by the fire. He was a dark, fat, Frenchified little chap, and you won't believe me, but it is a fact that he wore gloves. I asked him to stay the night, of course, and inspanned the waggons in laager, for Omomborombunga's impis were out, swearing to wash their spears in the blood of The Great White Liar--a Portuguese traveller probably; if not, I don't know who he can have been; perhaps this stranger: he gave no name. Well, we had our biltong together, and the Stranger put himself outside a good deal of the very little brandy I had left. We got yarning, so to speak, and I told him a few of the curious adventures that naturally fall to the lot of a man in those wild countries. The Stranger did not say much, but kept playing with a huge carved walking-stick that he had. Presently he said, "Look at this stick; I bought it from a boy on a South African Farm. Do you understand what the carvings mean?"
"Hanged if I do!" I said, after turning it about.
"Well, do you see that figure?" and he touched a thing like a Noah out of a child's ark. "That was a hunter like you, my friend, but not in all respects. That hunter pursued a vast white bird with silver wings, sailing in the everlasting blue."
"Everlasting bosh!" said I; "there is no bird of the kind on the veldt."
"That bird was Truth," says the Stranger, "and, judging from the anecdote you tell me about the Babyan woman and the Zulu medicine- man, it is a bird YOU don't trouble yourself with much, my friend."
This was a pretty cool thing to say to a man whose veracity is known like a proverb from Sheba's Breasts to the Zambesi.
Foide Macumazahn, the Zulus say, meaning as true as a yarn of Allan Quatermain's. Well, my blood was up; no man shall call Allan Quatermain a liar. The fellow was going on with a prodigious palaver about a white feather of Truth, and Mount Sinai, and the Land of Absolute Negation, and I don't know what, but I signified to him that if he did not believe my yarns I did not want his company. "I'm sorry to turn you out," I said, "for there are lions around"--indeed they were roaring to each other--"and you will have a parroty time. But you apologise, or you go!"
He laughed his short thick laugh. "I am a man who hopes nothing, feels nothing, fears nothing, and believes nothing that you tell me!"
I got up and went for him with my fists, and whether he feared nothing or not I don't know; but he scooted, dropping a yellow French novel, by one Catulle Mendes, that I could make neither head nor tail of. I afterwards heard that there was something about this stranger in a book called "The Story of an African Farm," which I once began, but never finished, not being able to understand most of it, and being vexed by the gross improbability of the girl not marrying the baby's father, he being ready and willing to make her an honest woman. However,