“I don’t know what to make of it, Quatermain, except that many strange things happen in the world which we mock at as insults to our limited intelligence because we cannot understand them.” (Very soon I was to have another proof of this remark.) “But what are you driving at?  You are keeping something back.”

“Only this, Ragnall.  If your wife were utterly mad I cannot conceive how it came about that she searched you out and spoke to you even in a vision—­for the thing was not an individual dream since both you and Savage saw her.  Nor did she actually visit you in the flesh, as the door never opened and the spider’s web across it was not broken.  So it comes to this:  either some part of her is not mad but can still exercise sufficient will to project itself upon your senses, or she is dead and her disembodied spirit did this thing.  Now we know that she is not dead, for we have seen her and Harut has confessed as much.  Therefore I maintain that, whatever may be her temporary state, she must still be fundamentally of a reasonable mind, as she is of a natural body.  For instance, she may only be hypnotized, in which case the spell will break one day.”

“Thank you for that thought, old fellow.  It never occurred to me and it gives me new hope.  Now listen!  If I should come to grief in this business, which is very likely, and you should survive, you will do your best to get her home; will you not?  Here is a codicil to my will which I drew up after that night of dream, duly witnessed by Savage and Hans.  It leaves to you whatever sums may be necessary in this connexion and something over for yourself.  Take it, it is best in your keeping, especially as if you should be killed it has no value.”

“Of course I will do my best,” I answered as I put away the paper in my pocket.  “And now don’t let us take any more thought of being killed, which may prevent us from getting the sleep we want.  I don’t mean to be killed if I can help it.  I mean to give those beggars, the Black Kendah, such a doing as they never had before, and then start for the coast with you and Lady Ragnall, as, God willing, we shall do.  Good night.”

After this I slept like a top for some hours, as I believe Ragnall did also.  When I awoke, which happened suddenly and completely, the first thing that I saw was Hans seated at the entrance to my little shelter smoking his corn-cob pipe, and nursing the single-barrelled rifle, Intombi, on his knee.  I asked him what the time was, to which he replied that it lacked two hours to dawn.  Then I asked him why he had not been sleeping.  He replied that he had been asleep and dreamed a dream.  Idly enough I inquired what dream, to which he replied: