e rain was excluded by overhanging
eaves. The marble floor was strewn with native mats and skins of
animals. Bookcases filled with books were placed against the walls,
there was a table in the centre, chairs seated with rimpi or strips of
hide stood about, and beyond the table was a couch on which a man was
lying reading.

"Is that you, Stella?" said a voice, that even after so many years
seemed familiar to me. "Where have you been, my dear? I began to think
that you had lost yourself again."

"No, father, dear, I have not lost myself, but I have found somebody
else."

At that moment I stepped forward so that the light fell on me. The old
gentleman on the couch rose with some difficulty and bowed with much
courtesy. He was a fine-looking old man, with deep-set dark eyes, a pale
face that bore many traces of physical and mental suffering, and a long
white beard.

"Be welcome, sir," he said. "It is long since we have seen a white
face in these wilds, and yours, if I am not mistaken, is that of an
Englishman. There has been but one Englishman here for twelve years, and
he, I grieve to say, was an outcast flying from justice," and he bowed
again and stretched out his hand.

I looked at him, and then of a sudden his name flashed back into my
mind. I took his hand.

"How do you do, Mr. Carson?" I said.

He started as though he had been stung.

"Who told you that name?" he cried. "It is a dead name. Stella, is it
you? I forbade you to let it pass your lips."

"I did not speak it, father. I have never spoken it," she answered.

"Sir," I broke in, "if you will allow me I will show you how I came to
know your name. Do you remember many years ago coming into the study of
a clergyman in Oxfordshire and telling him that you were going to leave
England for ever?"

He bowed his head.

"And do you remember a little boy who sat upon the hearthrug writing
with a pencil?"

"I do," he said.

"Sir, I was that boy, and my name is Allan Quatermain. Those children
who lay sick are all dead, their mother is dead, and my father, your old
friend, is dead also. Like you he emigrated, and last year he died in
the Cape. But that is not all the story. After many adventures, I, one
Kaffir, and a little girl, lay senseless and dying in the Bad Lands,
where we had wandered for days without water, and there we should have
perished, but your daughter, Miss----"

"Call her Stella," he broke in, hastily. "I cannot bear to hear that
nam