Meanwhile Alan was suffering torments, being convinced that Barbara was dead and buried in that new-made grave beneath the trees.  He could not speak, he could scarcely stand, and yet a picture began to form in his numb mind.  He saw himself seated in the dark in the Treasure-house at Bonsa-Town; he saw a vision in the air before him.

Lo! the tent door opened and that vision reappeared.

There was the pale Barbara seated, weeping.  There again, as he entered she sprang up and snatching the pistol that lay beside her, turned it to her breast.  Then she perceived him and the pistol sank downwards till from her relaxed hand it dropped to the ground.  She threw up her arms and without a sound fell backwards, or would have fallen, had he not caught her.

CHAPTER XIX

THE LAST OF THE ASIKI

Barbara had recovered.  She sat upon her bed in the tent and by her sat Alan, holding her hand, while before them stood Aylward like a prisoner in the dock, and behind him the armed Jeekie.

“Tell me the story, Barbara,” said Alan, “and tell it briefly, for I cannot bear much more of this.”

She looked at him and began in a slow, even voice: 

“After you had gone, dear, things went on as usual for a month or two.  Then came the great Sahara Company trouble.  First there were rumours and the shares began to go down.  My uncle bought them in by tens and hundreds of thousands, to hold up the market, because he was being threatened, but of course he did not know then that Lord Aylward—­for I forgot to tell you, he had become a lord somehow—­was secretly one of the principal sellers, let him deny it if he can.  At last the Ottoman Government, through the English ambassador, published its repudiation of the concession, which it seems was a forgery, actually executed or obtained in Constantinople by my uncle.  Well, there was a fearful smash.  Writs were taken out against my uncle, but before they could be served, he died suddenly of heart disease.  I was with him at the time and he kept saying he saw that gold mask which Jeekie calls Bonsa, the thing you took back to Africa.  He had a fine funeral, for what he had done was not publicly known, and when his will was opened I found that he had left me his fortune, but made Lord Aylward there my trustee until I came to the full age of twenty-five under my father’s will.  Alan, don’t force me to tell you what sort of a guardian he was to me; also there was no fortune, it had all gone; also I had very, very little left, for almost all my own money had gone too.  In his despair he had forged papers to get it in order to support those Sahara Syndicate shares.  Still I managed to borrow about L2000 from that little lawyer out of the L5000 that remain to me, an independent sum which he was unable to touch, and, Alan, with it I came to find you.