d like a veiled child. It was so
still that I think it must have been dead."

"Well. What happened?"

"I was so overcome I could not speak, and she stood gazing at me with
wide-opened eyes, looking more beautiful than I can tell you. She never
stirred, and her lips never moved--that I will swear. And yet both of us
heard her say, very low but quite clearly: 'The mountain, George! Don't
desert me. Seek me on the mountain, my dear, my husband.'"

"Well, what next?"

"I sprang up and she was gone. That's all."

"Now tell me what _you_ saw and heard, Savage."

"What his lordship saw and heard, Mr. Quatermain, neither more nor less.
Except that I was awake, having had one of my bad dreams about snakes,
and saw her come through the door."

"Through the door! Was it open then?"

"No, sir, it was shut and bolted. She just came through it as if it
wasn't there. Then I called to his lordship after she had been looking
at him for half a minute or so, for I couldn't speak at first. There's
one more thing, or rather two. On her head was a little cap that looked
as though it had been made from the skin of a bird, with a gold snake
rising up in front, which snake was the first thing I caught sight of,
as of course it would be, sir. Also the dress she wore was so thin that
through it I could see her shape and the sandals on her feet, which were
fastened at the instep with studs of gold."

"I saw no feather cap or snake," said Ragnall.

"Then that's the oddest part of the whole business," I remarked. "Go
back to your room, both of you, and if you see anything more, call me. I
want to think things over."

They went, in a bewildered sort of fashion, and I called Hans and spoke
with him in a whisper, repeating to him the little that he had not
understood of our talk, for as I have said, although he never spoke it,
Hans knew a great deal of English.

"Now, Hans," I said to him, "what is the use of you? You are no better
than a fraud. You pretend to be the best watchdog in Africa, and yet
a woman comes into this house under your nose and in the grey of the
morning, and you do not see her. Where is your reputation, Hans?"

The old fellow grew almost speechless with indignation, then he
spluttered his answer:

"It was not a woman, Baas, but a spook. Who am I that I should be
expected to catch spooks as though they were thieves or rats? As it
happens I was wide awake half an hour before the dawn and lay with my
eyes fixed upon