growing straight up into the air from
it. On his loins was a lion of great fierceness, and coiled round his
waist was a hissing mamba (snake). We were sore afraid, for the white
baas told us he was bewitched, and that if harm came to either he would
uncover the closed eye of the great inkoos upon his chest, which was the
Evil Eye, and command him to blast the Barotse and their land for ever.

"So the white men were suffered to come and go in peace, for we dreaded
the Evil Eye of the great inkoos. They toiled, these white baases,
digging in the hillside and searching the riverbed; and then one day it
came to pass that they quarrelled and fought, and the baas with the
pictures was slain. We knew then that his medicine was bad medicine,
otherwise the white baas without the pictures could not have killed him.
So we were wroth and made to slay the other baas, but he shot us down
with a fire stick and returned to his own country in haste. Then did I
take the skin from the dead baas, for I loved him for his pictures, and
I made them into a tomtom. I have spoken."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Jack when I had translated the story. "Then my
father was killed here in Barotseland, and it was Symes, his murderer,
who went back to Bulawayo. It was that fiend Symes, also, who took my
father's name, probably to draw any money that might have been left
behind, and who, as Richard Bridges, was hanged for murder. Poor old
dad," he added brokenly, "murdered, and his body mutilated by savages!
But how glad I am to know that he died an honest man!"

With the evidence at hand it was easy to prove the identity of the
murderer of twenty years ago, and, having settled the matter
satisfactorily and cleared the dead man's name, Jack and I returned to
England, where a few weeks later I had to purchase wedding garments in
order that I might play the part of best man at Jack's wedding.

IV

THE CASE OF SIR ALISTER MOERAN

"Ethne?" My aunt looked at me with raised brows and smiled. "My dear
Maurice, hadn't you heard? Ethne went abroad directly after Christmas,
with the Wilmotts, for a trip to Egypt. She's having a glorious time!"

I am afraid I looked as blank as I felt. I had only landed in England
three days ago, after two years' service in India, and the one thing I
had been looking forward to was seeing my cousin Ethne again.

"Then, since you did not know she was away, you, of course, have not
heard the other news?" went on my aunt.