Stories by English Authors: Africa (Selected by Scribners)
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Stories by English Authors: Africa (Selected by Scribners)
Africa -- Fiction; Short stories, English
So entranced was I by that feeling of awe which comes to almost every
one in the presence of death, that I did not hear the shouting of the
hammock-boy outside, or the footsteps of a white man coming into
the room; and not until he touched me on the shoulder did I turn and
recognise the sallow face of the Portuguese doctor whom I had sent for,
and who had thus arrived too late. However, he served to help me to bury
the mortal part of Jackson in the little graveyard beside the body of
his wife and that of the man who had come between them when alive. And
such was without doubt the fact; for when the doctor had gone, and I
was alone again, I collected and made an inventory of the dead men’s
effects, and in Jackson’s desk I found his diary, or, as he himself
would have called it, his log; and in that log was noted, on the very
day that Bransome had arrived on the Point, his suspicion of the man,
and later on his conviction that Bransome was indeed he who had injured
him.
Sooka was never found; but when the mail-steamer returned from the south
coast, I discovered that the younger patrao had made his crew row away
suddenly from the steamer’s side, while Mr. Bransome had been engaged
below, and was out of sight. So it was evident that the pair had been in
league together to insure Sooka his revenge. What share Jackson had had
in the murder of his enemy I did not care to think of, but feared the
worst.
For myself, I had to remain on the Point for many months, until the
factory was finally closed--for no purchaser was ever found for it;
and doubtless, by this time, the buildings are in ruins, and long grass
hides the graves of those who sleep upon King Bemba’s Point.
GHAMBA, By William Charles Scully
The darksome cave they enter, where they find
That cursed man, low sitting on the ground,
Musing full sadly in his sullen mind.
_The Faerie Queene._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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