A beautiful battery they were of all sorts from elephant guns down, the most costly and best finished that money could buy at the time.  It made me shiver to think what the bill for them must have been, while their appearance when they were put together and stood in a long line against the wall of my sitting-room, moved old Hans to a kind of ecstasy.  For a long while he contemplated them, patting the stocks one after the other and giving to each a name as though they were all alive, then exclaimed: 

“With such weapons as these the Baas could kill the devil himself.  Still, let the Baas bring Intombi with him”—­a favourite old rifle of mine and a mere toy in size, that had however done me good service in the past, as those who have read what I have written in “Marie” and “The Holy Flower” may remember.  “For, Baas, after all, the wife of one’s youth often proves more to be trusted than the fine young ones a man buys in his age.  Also one knows all her faults, but who can say how many there may be hidden up in new women however beautifully they are tattooed?” and he pointed to the elaborate engraving upon the guns.

I translated this speech to Lord Ragnall.  It made him laugh, at which I was glad for up till then I had not seen him even smile.  I should add that in addition to these sporting weapons there were no fewer than fifty military rifles of the best make, they were large-bore Sniders that had just then been put upon the market, and with them, packed in tin cases, a great quantity of ammunition.  Although the regulations were not so strict then as they are now, I met with a great deal of difficulty in getting all this armament through the Customs.  Lord Ragnall however had letters from the Colonial Office to such authorities as ruled in Natal, and on our giving a joint undertaking that they were for defensive purposes only in unexplored territory and not for sale, they were allowed through.  Fortunate did it prove for us in after days that this matter was arranged.

That night before we went to bed I narrated to Lord Ragnall all the history of our search for the Holy Flower, which he seemed to find very entertaining.  Also I told him of my adventures, to me far more terrible, as chairman of the Bona Fide Gold Mine and of their melancholy end.

“The lesson of which is,” he remarked when I had finished, “that because a man is master of one trade, it does not follow that he is master of another.  You are, I should judge, one of the finest shots in the world, you are also a great hunter and explorer.  But when it comes to companies, Quatermain——!  Still,” he went on, “I ought to be grateful to that Bona Fide Gold Mine, since I gather that had it not been for it and for your rascally friend, Mr. Jacob, I should not have found you here.”

“No,” I answered, “it is probable that you would not, as by this time I might have been far in the interior where a man cannot be traced and letters do not reach him.”