Hunter Quatermains Story | Page 3

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Etext prepared by John Bickers, [email protected] Dagny,
[email protected] and Emma Dudding, [email protected]

HUNTER QUATERMAIN'S STORY
by H. Rider Haggard

Sir Henry Curtis, as everybody acquainted with him knows, is one of
the most hospitable men on earth. It was in the course of the enjoyment
of his hospitality at his place in Yorkshire the other day that I heard the
hunting story which I am now about to transcribe. Many of those who
read it will no doubt have heard some of the strange rumours that are
flying about to the effect that Sir Henry Curtis and his friend Captain
Good, R.N., recently found a vast treasure of diamonds out in the heart
of Africa, supposed to have been hidden by the Egyptians, or King
Solomon, or some other antique people. I first saw the matter alluded to
in a paragraph in one of the society papers the day before I started for

Yorkshire to pay my visit to Curtis, and arrived, needless to say,
burning with curiosity; for there is something very fascinating to the
mind in the idea of hidden treasure. When I reached the Hall, I at once
asked Curtis about it, and he did not deny the truth of the story; but on
my pressing him to tell it he would not, nor would Captain Good, who
was also staying in the house.
"You would not believe me if I did," Sir Henry said, with one of the
hearty laughs which seem to come right out of his great lungs. "You
must wait till Hunter Quatermain comes; he will arrive here from
Africa to-night, and I am not going to say a word about the matter, or
Good either, until he turns up. Quatermain was with us all through; he
has known about the business for years and years, and if it had not been
for him we should not have been here to-day. I am going to meet him
presently."
I could not get a word more out of him, nor could anybody else, though
we were all dying of curiosity, especially some of the ladies. I shall
never forget how they looked in the drawing-room before dinner when
Captain Good produced a great rough diamond, weighing fifty carats or
more, and told them that he had many larger than that. If ever I saw
curiosity and envy printed on fair faces, I saw them then.
It