King Solomon's Mines (5 page)

I, Allan Quatermain, of Durban, Natal, Gentleman, make oath and say—That’s how I began my deposition before the magistrate, about poor Khiva’s and Ventvögel’s sad deaths;
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but somehow it doesn’t seem quite the right way to begin a book. And, besides, am I a gentleman? What is a gentleman? I don’t quite know, and yet I have had to do with niggers—no, I’ll scratch that word “niggers” out, for I don’t like it. I’ve known natives who
are,
and so you’ll say, Harry, my boy, before you’re done with this tale, and I have known mean whites with lots of money and fresh out from home, too, who ain’t. Well, at any rate, I was born a gentleman, though I’ve been nothing but a poor travelling trader and hunter all my life. Whether I have remained so I know not, you must judge of that. Heaven knows I’ve tried. I’ve killed many men in my time, but I have never slain wantonly or stained my hand in innocent blood, only in self-defence. The Almighty gave us our lives, and I suppose he meant us to defend them, at least I have always acted on that, and I hope it won’t be brought up against me when my clock strikes. There, there, it is a cruel and a wicked world, and for a timid man I have been mixed up in a deal of slaughter. I can’t tell the rights of it, but at any rate I have never stolen, though I once cheated a Kafir
^c
out of a herd of cattle. But then he had done me a dirty turn, and it has troubled me ever since into the bargain.

Well it’s eighteen months or so ago since I first met Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good, and it was in this way. I had been up elephant hunting beyond Bamangwato,
⁴
and had had bad luck. Everything went wrong that trip, and to top up with I got the fever badly. So soon as I was well enough I trekked down to the Diamond Fields,
⁵
sold such ivory as I had, and also my waggon and oxen, discharged my hunters, and took the post-cart to the Cape. After spending a week in Cape Town, finding that they overcharged me at the hotel, and having seen everything there was to see, including the botanical gardens, which seem to me likely to confer a great benefit on the country, and the new Houses of Parliament, which I expect will do nothing of the sort, I determined to go on back to Natal by the
Dunkeld,
then lying in the docks waiting for the Edinburgh Castle due in from England. I took my berth and went aboard, and that afternoon the Natal passengers from the
Edinburgh Castle
transhipped, and we weighed and put out to sea.

Among the passengers who came on board there were two who excited my curiosity. One, a man of about thirty, was one of the biggest-chested and longest-armed men I ever saw. He had yellow hair, a big yellow beard, clear-cut features, and large grey eyes set deep into his head. I never saw a finer-looking man, and somehow he reminded me of an ancient Dane. Not that I know much of ancient Danes, though I remember a modern Dane who did me out of ten pounds; but I remember once seeing a picture of some of those gentry, who, I take it, were a kind of white Zulus. They were drinking out of big horns, and their long hair hung down their backs, and as I looked at my friend standing there by the companion-ladder, I thought that if one only let his hair grow a bit, put one of those chain shirts on to those great shoulders of his, and gave him a big battle-axe and a horn mug, he might have sat as a model for that picture. And by the way it is a curious thing, and just shows how the blood will show out, I found out afterwards that Sir Henry Curtis, for that was the big man’s name, was of Danish blood.
^d
He also reminded me strongly of somebody else, but at the time I could not remember who it was.

The other man who stood talking to Sir Henry was short, stout, and dark, and of quite a different cut. I suspected at once that he was a naval officer. I don’t know why, but it is difficult to mistake a navy man. I have gone on shooting trips with several of them in the course of my life, and they have always been just the best and bravest and nicest fellows I ever met, though given to the use of profane language.

I asked a page or two back, what is a gentleman? I’ll answer it now: a Royal Naval officer is, in a general sort of a way, though, of course, there may be a black sheep among them here and there. I fancy it is just the wide sea and the breath of God’s winds that washes their hearts and blows the bitterness out of their minds and makes them what men ought to be. Well, to return, I was right again; I found out that he
was
a naval officer, a lieutenant of thirty-one, who, after seventeen years’ service, had been turned out of her Majesty’s employ with the barren honour of a commander’s rank, because it was impossible that he should be promoted. That is what people who serve the Queen have to expect: to be shot out into the cold world to find a living just when they are beginning to really understand their work, and to get to the prime of life. Well, I suppose they don’t mind it, but for my part I had rather earn my bread as a hunter. One’s halfpence are as scarce perhaps, but you don’t get so many kicks. His name I found out—by referring to the passengers’ list—was Good—Captain John Good. He was broad, of medium height, dark, stout, and rather a curious man to look at. He was so very neat and so very clean shaved, and he always wore an eye-glass in his right eye. It seemed to grow there, for it had no string, and he never took it out except to wipe it. At first I thought he used to sleep in it, but I afterwards found that this was a mistake. He put it in his trousers pocket when he went to bed, together with his false teeth, of which he had two beautiful sets that have often, my own being none of the best, caused me to break the tenth commandment.
⁶
But I am anticipating.

Soon after we had got underway evening closed in, and brought with it very dirty weather. A keen breeze sprang up off land, and a kind of aggravated Scotch mist soon drove everybody from the deck. And as for that
Dunkeld,
she is a flat-bottomed punt, and going up light as she was, she rolled very heavily. It almost seemed as though she would go right over, but she never did. It was quite impossible to walk about, so I stood near the engines where it was warm, and amused myself with watching the pendulum,
^e
which was fixed opposite to me, swinging slowly backwards and forwards as the vessel rolled, and marking the angle she touched at each lurch.

“That pendulum’s wrong; it is not properly weighted,” suddenly said a voice at my shoulder, somewhat testily. Looking round I saw the naval officer I had noticed when the passengers came aboard.

“Indeed, now what makes you think so?” I asked.

“Think so. I don’t think at all. Why there”—as she righted herself after a roll—“if the ship had really rolled to the degree that thing pointed to then she would never have rolled again, that’s all. But it is just like these merchant skippers, they always are so confoundedly careless.”

Just then the dinner-bell rang, and I was not sorry, for it is a dreadful thing to have to listen to an officer of the Royal Navy when he gets on to that subject. I only know one worse thing, and that is to hear a merchant skipper express his candid opinion of officers of the Royal Navy.

Captain Good and I went down to dinner together, and there we found Sir Henry Curtis already seated. He and Captain Good sat together, and I sat opposite to them. The captain and I soon got into talk about shooting and what not; he asking me many questions, and I answering as well as I could. Presently he got on to elephants.

“Ah, sir,” called out somebody who was sitting near me, “you’ve got to the right man for that; Hunter Quatermain should be able to tell you about elephants if anybody can.”

Sir Henry, who had been sitting quite quiet listening to our talk, started visibly.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, leaning forward across the table, and speaking in a low, deep voice, a very suitable voice it seemed to me, to come out of those great lungs. “Excuse me, sir, but is your name Allan Quatermain?”

I said it was.

The big man made no further remark, but I heard him mutter “fortunate” into his beard.

Presently dinner came to an end, and as we were leaving the saloon Sir Henry came up and asked me if I would come into his cabin and smoke a pipe. I accepted, and he led the way to the
Dunkeld
deck cabin, and a very good cabin it was. It had been two cabins, but when Sir Garnet
⁷
or one of those big swells went down the coast in the
Dunkeld,
they had knocked away the partition and never put it up again. There was a sofa in the cabin, and a little table in front of it. Sir Henry sent the steward for a bottle of whisky, and the three of us sat down and lit our pipes.

“Mr. Quatermain,” said Sir Henry Curtis, when the steward had brought the whisky and lit the lamp, “the year before last about this time you were, I believe, at a place called Bamangwato, to the north of the Transvaal.”

“I was,” I answered, rather surprised that this gentleman should be so well acquainted with my movements, which were not, so far as I was aware, considered of general interest.

“You were trading there, were you not?” put in Captain Good, in his quick way.

“I was. I took up a wagon load of goods, and made a camp outside the settlement, and stopped till I had sold them.”

Sir Henry was sitting opposite to me in a Madeira chair,
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his arms leaning on the table. He now looked up, fixing his large grey eyes full upon my face. There was a curious anxiety in them I thought.

“Did you happen to meet a man called Neville there?”

“Oh, yes; he outspanned
^f
alongside of me for a fortnight to rest his oxen before going on to the interior. I had a letter from a lawyer a few months back asking me if I knew what had become of him, which I answered to the best of my ability at the time.”

“Yes,” said Sir Henry, “your letter was forwarded to me. You said in it that the gentleman called Neville left Bamangwato in the beginning of May in a waggon with a driver, a voorlooper,
^g
and a Kafir hunter called Jim, announcing his intention of trekking if possible as far as Inyati,
⁹
the extreme trading post in the Matabele country, where he would sell his wagon and proceed on foot. You also said that he did sell his waggon, for six months afterwards you saw the waggon in the possession of a Portuguese trader, who told you that he had bought it at Inyati from a white man whose name he had forgotten, and that the white man with a native servant had started off for the interior on a shooting trip, he believed.”

“Yes.”

Then came a pause.

“Mr. Quatermain,” said Sir Henry, suddenly, “I suppose you know or can guess nothing more of the reasons of my—of Mr. Neville’s journey to the northward, or as to what point that journey was directed ?”

“I heard something,” I answered, and stopped. The subject was one which I did not care to discuss.

Sir Henry and Captain Good looked at each other, and Captain Good nodded.

“Mr. Quatermain,” said the former, “I am going to tell you a story, and ask your advice, and perhaps your assistance. The agent who forwarded me your letter told me that I might implicitly rely upon it, as you were,” he said, “well known and universally respected in Natal, and especially noted for your discretion.”

I bowed and drank some whisky and water to hide my confusion, for I am a modest man—and Sir Henry went on.

“Mr. Neville was my brother.”

“Oh,” I said, starting, for now I knew who Sir Henry had reminded me of when I first saw him. His brother was a much smaller man and had a dark beard, but now I thought of it, he possessed eyes of the same shade of grey and with the same keen look in them, and the features too were not unlike.

“He was,” went on Sir Henry, “my only and younger brother, and till five years ago I do not suppose we were ever a month away from each other. But just about five years ago a misfortune befell us, as sometimes does happen in families. We had quarrelled bitterly, and I behaved very unjustly to my brother in my anger.” Here Captain Good nodded his head vigorously to himself. The ship gave a big roll just then, so that the looking-glass, which was fixed opposite us to starboard, was for a moment nearly over our heads, and as I was sitting with my hands in my pockets and staring upwards, I could see him nodding like anything.

“As I daresay you know,” went on Sir Henry, “if a man dies intestate, and has no property but land, real property it is called in England, it all descends to his eldest son. It so happened that just at the time when we quarrelled our father died intestate. He had put off making his will until it was too late. The result was that my brother, who had not been brought up to any profession, was left without a penny. Of course it would have been my duty to provide for him, but at the time the quarrel between us was so bitter that I did not—to my shame I say it (and he sighed deeply) offer to do anything. It was not that I grudged him anything, but I waited for him to make advances, and he made none. I am sorry to trouble you with all this, Mr. Quatermain, but I must to make things clear, eh, Good?”

“Quite so, quite so,” said the captain. “Mr. Quatermain will, I am sure, keep this history to himself.”

“Of course,” said I, for I rather pride myself on my discretion.

“Well,” went on Sir Henry, “my brother had a few hundred pounds to his account at the time, and without saying anything to me he drew out this paltry sum, and, having adopted the name of Neville, started off for South Africa in the wild hope of making a fortune. This I heard afterwards. Some three years passed, and I heard nothing of my brother, though I wrote several times. Doubtless the letters never reached him. But as time went on I grew more and more troubled about him. I found out, Mr. Quatermain, that blood is thicker than water.”

“That’s true,” said I, thinking of my boy Harry.

“I found out, Mr. Quatermain, that I would have given half my fortune to know that my brother George, the only relation I have, was safe and well, and that I should see him again.”