“It is this.  I believe that potsherd to be perfectly genuine, and that, wonderful as it may seem, it has come down in your family from since the fourth century before Christ.  The entries absolutely prove it, and therefore, however improbable it may seem, it must be accepted.  But there I stop.  That your remote ancestress, the Egyptian princess, or some scribe under her direction, wrote that which we see on the sherd I have no doubt, nor have I the slightest doubt but that her sufferings and the loss of her husband had turned her head, and that she was not right in her mind when she did write it.”

“How do you account for what my father saw and heard there?” asked Leo.

“Coincidence.  No doubt there are bluffs on the coast of Africa that look something like a man’s head, and plenty of people who speak bastard Arabic.  Also, I believe that there are lots of swamps.  Another thing is, Leo, and I am sorry to say it, but I do not believe that your poor father was quite right when he wrote that letter.  He had met with a great trouble, and also he had allowed this story to prey on his imagination, and he was a very imaginative man.  Anyway, I believe that the whole thing is the most unmitigated rubbish.  I know that there are curious things and forces in nature which we rarely meet with, and, when we do meet them, cannot understand.  But until I see it with my own eyes, which I am not likely to, I never will believe that there is any means of avoiding death, even for a time, or that there is or was a white sorceress living in the heart of an African swamp.  It is bosh, my boy, all bosh!—­What do you say, Job?”

“I say, sir, that it is a lie, and, if it is true, I hope Mr. Leo won’t meddle with no such things, for no good can’t come of it.”

“Perhaps you are both right,” said Leo, very quietly.  “I express no opinion.  But I say this.  I am going to set the matter at rest once and for all, and if you won’t come with me I will go by myself.”

I looked at the young man, and saw that he meant what he said.  When Leo means what he says he always puts on a curious look about the mouth.  It has been a trick of his from a child.  Now, as a matter of fact, I had no intention of allowing Leo to go anywhere by himself, for my own sake, if not for his.  I was far too attached to him for that.  I am not a man of many ties or affections.  Circumstances have been against me in this respect, and men and women shrink from me, or at least, I fancy that they do, which comes to the same thing, thinking, perhaps, that my somewhat forbidding exterior is a key to my character.  Rather than endure this, I have, to a great extent, secluded myself from the world, and cut myself off from those opportunities which with most men result in the formation of relations more or less intimate.  Therefore Leo was all the world to me—­brother, child, and friend—­and until he wearied of me, where he went there I should go too.  But, of course, it would not do to let him see how great a hold he had over me; so I cast about for some means whereby I might let myself down easy.