hly intelligent; the mouth firm and shapely, with lips that were
perhaps a trifle too thick; the hair--well, there was rather a failure
in the hair, at least according to modern ideas, for it curled so
beautifully as to suggest that one of my ancestors might have fallen
in love with a person of negroid origin. However there was lots of it,
hanging down almost to the shoulders and bound about the brow by a very
neat fillet of blue cloth with silver studs. The colour of my skin, I
was glad to note, was by no means black, only a light and pleasing brown
such as might have been produced by sunburn. My age, I might add, was
anywhere between five and twenty and five and thirty, perhaps nearer the
latter than the former, at any rate, the very prime of life.

For the rest, I held in my left hand a very stout, long bow of black
wood which seemed to have seen much service, with a string of what
looked like catgut, on which was set a broad-feathered, barbed arrow.
This I kept in place with the fingers of my right hand, on one of which
I observed a handsome gold ring with strange characters carved upon the
bezel.

Now for the charioteer.

He was black as night, black as a Sunday hat, with yellow rolling
eyes set in a countenance of extraordinary ugliness and I may add,
extraordinary humour. His big, wide mouth with thick lips ran up the
left side of his face towards an ear that was also big and projecting.
His hair, that had a feather stuck in it, was real nigger wool covering
a skull like a cannon ball and I should imagine as hard. This head, by
the way, was set plumb upon the shoulders, as though it had been driven
down between them by a pile hammer. They were very broad shoulders
suggesting enormous strength, but the gaily-clad body beneath, which was
supported by two bowed legs and large, flat feet, was that of a dwarf
who by the proportions of his limbs Nature first intended for a giant;
yes, an Ethiopian dwarf.

Looking through this remarkable exterior, as it were, I recognized
that inside of it was the soul, or animating principle, of--whom do
you think? None other than my beloved old servant and companion, the
Hottentot Hans whose loss I had mourned for years! Hans himself who died
for me, slaying the great elephant, Jana, in Kendah Land, the elephant
I could not hit, and thereby saving my life. Oh! although I had been
obliged to go back to the days of I knew not what ancient empire to
do so in my trance, or whatever it