Allans Wife | Page 4

patrols; aye, and hear the roar of guns echoed from the Shameful Hill.
To you then, Macumazahn, in perpetual memory of those eventful
years of youth which we passed together in the African towns and on
the African veldt, I dedicate these pages, subscribing myself now as
always, Your sincere friend, Indanda.
To Arthur H. D. Cochrane, Esq.

ALLAN'S WIFE
CHAPTER I
EARLY DAYS

It may be remembered that in the last pages of his diary, written just
before his death, Allan Quatermain makes allusion to his long dead
wife, stating that he has written of her fully elsewhere.
When his death was known, his papers were handed to myself as his
literary executor. Among them I found two manuscripts, of which the
following is one. The other is simply a record of events wherein Mr.
Quatermain was not personally concerned--a Zulu novel, the story of
which was told to him by the hero many years after the tragedy had
occurred. But with this we have nothing to do at present.

I have often thought (Mr. Quatermain's manuscript begins) that I would
set down on paper the events connected with my marriage, and the loss
of my most dear wife. Many years have now passed since that event,
and to some extent time has softened the old grief, though Heaven
knows it is still keen enough. On two or three occasions I have even
begun the record. Once I gave it up because the writing of it depressed
me beyond bearing, once because I was suddenly called away upon a
journey, and the third time because a Kaffir boy found my manuscript
convenient for lighting the kitchen fire.
But now that I am at leisure here in England, I will make a fourth
attempt. If I succeed, the story may serve to interest some one in after
years when I am dead and gone; before that I should not wish it to be
published. It is a wild tale enough, and suggests some curious
reflections.
I am the son of a missionary. My father was originally curate in charge
of a small parish in Oxfordshire. He had already been some ten years
married to my dear mother when he went there, and he had four
children, of whom I was the youngest. I remember faintly the place
where we lived. It was an ancient long grey house, facing the road.
There was a very large tree of some sort in the garden. It was hollow,
and we children used to play about inside of it, and knock knots of
wood from the rough bark. We all slept in a kind of attic, and my
mother always came and kissed us when we were in bed. I used to

wake up and see her bending over me, a candle in her hand. There was
a curious kind of pole projecting from the wall over my bed. Once I
was dreadfully frightened because my eldest brother made me hang to
it by my hands. That is all I remember about our old home. It has been
pulled down long ago, or I would journey there to see it.
A little further down the road was a large house with big iron gates to it,
and on the top of the gate pillars sat two stone lions, which were so
hideous that I was afraid of them. Perhaps this sentiment was prophetic.
One could see the house by peeping through the bars of the gates. It
was a gloomy-looking place, with a tall yew hedge round it; but in the
summer-time some flowers grew about the sun-dial in the grass plat.
This house was called the Hall, and Squire Carson lived there. One
Christmas--it must have been the Christmas before my father emigrated,
or I should not remember it--we children went to a Christmas-tree
festivity at the Hall. There was a great party there, and footmen
wearing red waistcoats stood at the door. In the dining- room, which
was panelled with black oak, was the Christmas-tree. Squire Carson
stood in front of it. He was a tall, dark man, very quiet in his manners,
and he wore a bunch of seals on his waistcoat. We used to think him
old, but as a matter of fact he was then not more than forty. He had
been, as I afterwards learned, a great traveller in his youth, and some
six or seven years before this date he married a lady who was half a
Spaniard--a papist, my father called her. I can remember her well. She
was small and very pretty, with a rounded figure, large black eyes, and
glittering teeth. She spoke English with a curious accent. I suppose that
I must have been a funny child to look at, and I know