40+ Adventure Novels & Lost World Mysteries in One Premium Edition. Henry Rider Haggard

It lifted him above the world, and thrilled him with indescribable emotion. His eyes wandered over the infinite space above, searching for the presence of a God; then they fell upon Isandhlwana, and marked the spot just where the shadows were deepest; where his comrades lay, and gazed upon the splendid sky with eyes that could not see; and at last his spirit gave way, and, weakened with emotion and long toil and abstinence, he burst into a paroxysm of grief.

      "O Jeremy," he sobbed, "they are all dead, all except you and I, and I feel a coward that I should still live to weep over them. When it was over, I should have let that Zulu kill me but I was a coward, and I fought for my life. Had I but held my hand for a second, I should have gone with Alston and the others, Jeremy."

      "Come, come, old fellow, you did your best, and fought the corps like a brick. No man could have done more."

      "Yes, Jeremy, but I should have died with them; it was my duty to die. And I do not care about living, and they did. I have been an unfortunate dog all my life. I shot my cousin, I lost Eva, and now I have seen all my comrades killed, and I, who was their leader, alone escaped. And perhaps I have not done with my misfortunes yet. What next, I wonder; what next?"

      Ernest's distress was so acute, that Jeremy, looking at him and seeing that all he had gone through had been too much for him, tried to soothe him, lest he should go into hysterics, by putting his arm round his waist and giving him a good hug.

      "Look here, old chap," he said, "it is no use bothering one's head about these things. We are just so many feathers blown by the wind, and must float where the wind blows us. Sometimes it is a good wind, and sometimes a bad one; but on the whole it is bad, and we must just make the best of it, and wait till it doesn't think it worth while to blow our particular feathers about any more, and then we shall come to the ground, and not till then. Now we have been up here for more than five minutes, and given the horses a bit of a rest. We must be pushing on if we want to get to Helpmakaar before dark, and I only hope we shall get there before the Zulus, that's all. By Jove, here comes the storm--come on!" And Jeremy jumped off the lump of iron ore, and began to descend the koppie.

      Ernest, who had been listening with his face in his hands, rose and followed him in silence. As he did so, a breath of ice-cold air from the storm-cloud, which was now right overhead, fanned his hot brow, and when he had gone a few yards he turned to meet it, and to cast one more look at the scene.

      It was the last earthly landscape he ever saw. For at that instant there leaped from the cloud overhead a fierce stream of jagged light, which struck the mass of iron-ore on which they had been seated, shivered and fused it, and then ran down the side of the hill to the plain. Together with the lightning there came an ear-splitting crack of thunder.

      Jeremy, who was now nearly at the bottom of the little hill, staggered at the shock. When he recovered, he looked up where Ernest had been standing, and could not see him. He rushed up the hill again, calling him in accents of frantic grief. There was no answer. Presently he found him lying on the ground, white and still.

      BOOK III

       Table of Content

      CHAPTER I

       THE CLIFFS OF OLD ENGLAND

       Table of Content

      It was an April evening; off the south coast of England. The sun had just made up his mind to struggle out from behind a particularly black shower-cloud, and give that part of the world a look before he bade it good-night.

      "That is lucky," said a little man, who was with difficulty hanging on to the bulwark netting of the R.M.S. /Conway Castle/; "now, Mr. Jones, look if you can't see them in the sunlight."

      Mr. Jones accordingly looked through his glasses again.

      "Yes," he said, "I can see them distinctly."

      "See what?" asked another passenger, coming up.

      "The cliffs of old England," answered the little man, joyously.

      "Oh, is that all?" said the other; "curse the cliffs of Old England!"

      "Nice remark for a man who is going home to be married, eh?" said the little man, turning to where his companion had stood.

      But Mr. Jones had shut up his glasses, and vanished aft.

      Presently he reached a deck-cabin, and entered without knocking.

      "England is in sight, old fellow," he said, addressing somebody who lay back smoking in a cane-chair.

      The person addressed made a movement as though to rise, then put up his hand to a shade that covered his eyes.

      "I forgot," he answered, with a smile; "it will have to be very much in sight before I can see it. By the way, Jeremy," he went on, nervously, "I want to ask you something. These doctors tell such lies." And he removed the shade. "Now, look at my eyes, and tell me honestly, am I disfigured? Are they shrunk, I mean, or have they got a squint, or anything of that sort?" and Ernest turned up his dark orbs, which except that they had acquired that painful, expectant look peculiar to the blind, were just as they always had been.

      Jeremy looked at them, first in one light, then in another.

      "Well!" said Ernest impatiently. "I can feel that you are staring me out of countenance."

      "Hamba gachle," replied the imperturbable one. "I am di--di--diagnosing the case. There, that will do. To all appearance, your optics are as sound as mine. You get a girl to look at them, and see what she says."

      "Ah, well; that is something to be thankful for."

      Just then some one knocked at the cabin-door. It was the steward.

      "You sent for me, Sir Ernest?"

      "O yes, I remember. Will you be so good as to find my servant? I want him."

      "Yes, Sir Ernest."

      Ernest moved impatiently.

      "Confound that fellow, with his everlasting 'Sir Ernest'!"

      "What, haven't you got used to your handle yet?"

      "No, I haven't, and I wish it were at Jericho, and that is a fact. It is all your fault, Jeremy. If you had not told that confoundedly garrulous little doctor, who went and had the information printed in the /Natal Mercury/, it would never have come out at all. I could have dropped the title in England; but now all these people know that I am Sir Ernest, and Sir Ernest I shall remain for the rest of my days."

      "Well, most people would not think that such a dreadful misfortune."

      "Yes, they would, if they had happened to shoot the real heir. By the way, what did the lawyer say in his letter? As we are so near home, I suppose I had better post myself up. You will find it in the despatch-box. Read it, there's a good fellow."

      Jeremy opened the box, battered with many years of travel, and searched about for the letter. It contained a curious collection of articles, prominent among which was a handkerchief, which once belonged to Eva Ceswick; a long tress of chestnut hair tied up with a blue ribbon; ditto of golden, which had come--well, not from Eva's locks; a whole botanical collection of dead flowers, tender souvenirs of goodness knows who, for, after a while, these accumulated dried specimens are difficult to identify; and many letters and other curiosities.

      At last Jeremy came to the desired document, written in a fair clerk's hand; and having shovelled back the locks of hair, &c., began to read it aloud:

      "/St. Ethelred's Court, Poultry/,

       "/22nd January/, 1879.

      "Sir,--"

      "You see," broke in Ernest, "while we were fighting over there at Isandhlwana, those beggars were writing to tell me that I was a baronet. Case of the 'bloody hand' with a vengeance, eh?"

      "Sir"