His sad-hearted servants raised him tenderly up, and laid him full length on the bed, then, carefully covering him, they went out into the damp night air to consult together.  It was not long before the cocks crew, and it is from this circumstance—­coupled with the fact that Susi spoke to him some time shortly before midnight—­that we are able to state with tolerable certainty that he expired early on the 1st of May.

It has been thought best to give the narrative of these closing hours as nearly as possible in the words of the two men who attended him constantly, both here and in the many illnesses of like character which he endured in his last six years’ wanderings; in fact from the first moment of the news arriving in England, it was felt to be indispensable that they should come home to state what occurred.

* * * * *

The men have much to consider as they cower around the watch-fire, and little time for deliberation.  They are at their furthest point from home and their leader has fallen at their head; we shall see presently how they faced their difficulties.

* * * * *

Several inquiries will naturally arise on reading this distressing history; the foremost, perhaps, will be with regard to the entire absence of everything like a parting word to those immediately about him, or a farewell line to his family and friends at home.  It must be very evident to the reader that Livingstone entertained very grave forebodings about his health during the last two years of his life, but it is not clear that he realized the near approach of death when his malady suddenly passed into a more dangerous stage.

It may be said, “Why did he not take some precautions or give some strict injunctions to his men to preserve his note-books and maps, at all hazards, in the event of his decease?  Did not his great ruling passion suggest some such precaution?”

Fair questions, but, reader, you have all—­every word written, spoken, or implied.

Is there, then, no explanation?  Yes; we think past experience affords it, and it is offered to you by one who remembers moreover how Livingstone himself used to point out to him in Africa the peculiar features of death by malarial poisoning.

In full recollection of eight deaths in the Zambesi and Shire districts, not a single parting word or direction in any instance can be recalled.  Neither hope nor courage give way as death approaches.  In most cases a comatose state of exhaustion supervenes, which, if it be not quickly arrested by active measures, passes into complete insensibility:  this is almost invariably the closing scene.