“You will have to get over that in Africa,” I muttered.  Still I let him have his way, with the result that presently the strange sight was seen of the magnificent English majordomo standing behind my chair in the little room and handing round the square-face as though it were champagne.  It was a spectacle that excited the greatest interest in my primitive establishment and caused Hans with some native hangers-on to gather at the window.  However, Lord Ragnall took it as a matter of course and I thought it better not to interfere.

When we had finished we went on to the stoep to smoke, leaving Savage to eat his dinner, and I asked Lord Ragnall where his luggage was.  He replied that he had left it at the Customs.  “Then,” I said, “I will send a native with Savage to arrange about getting it up here.  If you do not mind my rough accommodation there is a room for you, and your man can pitch a tent in the garden.”

After some demur he accepted with gratitude, and a little later Savage and the native were sent off with a note to a man who hired out a mule-cart.

“Now,” I said when the gate had shut behind them, “will you tell me why you have come to Africa?”

“Disaster,” he replied.  “Disaster of the worst sort.”

“Is your wife dead, Lord Ragnall?”

“I do not know.  I almost hope that she is.  At any rate she is lost to me.”

An idea leapt to my mind to the effect that she might have run away with somebody else, a thing which often happens in the world.  But fortunately I kept it to myself and only said,

“She was nearly lost once before, was she not?”

“Yes, when you saved her.  Oh! if only you had been with us, Quatermain, this would never have happened.  Listen:  About eighteen months ago she had a son, a very beautiful child.  She recovered well from the business and we were as happy as two mortals could be, for we loved each other, Quatermain, and God has blessed us in every way; we were so happy that I remember her telling me that our great good fortune made her feel afraid.  One day last September when I was out shooting, she drove in a little pony cart we had, with the nurse, and the child but no man, to call on Mrs. Scroope who also had been recently confined.  She often went out thus, for the pony was an old animal and quiet as a sheep.

“By some cursed trick of fate it chanced that when they were passing through the little town which you may remember near Ragnall, they met a travelling menagerie that was going to some new encampment.  At the head of the procession marched a large bull elephant, which I discovered afterwards was an ill-tempered brute that had already killed a man and should never have been allowed upon the roads.  The sight of the pony cart, or perhaps a red cloak which my wife was wearing, as she always liked bright colours, for some unknown reason seems to have infuriated this beast, which trumpeted.  The pony becoming frightened