“No,” I answered, “you can now buy your land back, or some other land, and there will be no need for you to come with me to the country of the Kendah.”

Hans thought a moment and then very deliberately began to tear up the draft; indeed I was only just in time to save it from destruction.

“If the Baas is going to turn me off because of this paper,” he said, “I will make it small and eat it.”

“You silly old fool,” I said as I possessed myself of the cheque.

Then the conversation was interrupted, for who should appear but Sammy, my old cook, who began in his pompous language: 

“The perfect rectitude of your conduct, Mr. Quatermain, moves me to the deepest gratitude, though indeed I wish that I had put something into the food of the knave Jacob who beguiled us all, that would have caused him internal pangs of a severe if not of a dangerous order.  My holding in the gold mine was not extensive, but the unpaid bill of the said Jacob and his friends——­”

Here I cut him short and fled, since I saw yet another shareholder galloping to the gate, and behind him two more in a spider.  First I took refuge in my room, my idea being to put away that pile of letters.  In so doing I observed that there was one still unopened.  Half mechanically I took it from the envelope and glanced at its contents.  They were word for word identical with those of that addressed to “Mr. Hans, Hottentot,” only my name was at the bottom of it instead of that of Hans and the cheque was for L1,500, the amount I had paid for the shares I held in the venture.

Feeling as though my brain were in a melting-pot, I departed from the house into a patch of native bush that in those days still grew upon the slope of the hill behind.  Here I sat myself down, as I had often done before when there was a knotty point to be considered, aimlessly watching a lovely emerald cuckoo flashing, a jewel of light, from tree to tree, while I turned all this fairy-godmother business over in my mind.

Of course it soon became clear to me.  Lord Ragnall in this case was the little old lady with the wand, the touch of which could convert worthless share certificates into bank-notes of their face value.  I remembered now that his wealth was said to be phenomenal and after all the cash capital of the company was quite small.  But the question was—­could I accept his bounty?

I returned to the house where the first person whom I met was Lord Ragnall himself, just arrived from some interview about the fifty Snider rifles, which were still in bond.  I told him solemnly that I wished to speak to him, whereon he remarked in a cheerful voice,

“Advance, friend, and all’s well!”

I don’t know that I need set out the details of the interview.  He waited till I had got through my halting speech of mingled gratitude and expostulation, then remarked: