be absolutely forgotten by nearly all who knew me. Yet in reading it
remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and
that in it, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand
to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from the
silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains
in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your
birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your
life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often
loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in
time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live.
My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when
such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are
completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me
if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year."

"So he killed himself," I exclaimed. "I thought so."

"And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to
be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as
much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if
he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have
told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In
the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The
strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress
upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed,
and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years
of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors
about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that
befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the
coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the
north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland,
at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a
negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there,
and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people
because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great
mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps.
I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are
r