While we were talking I heard the gun fired which announced the arrival of the English mail, and stepping to the end of the garden, saw the steamer lying at anchor outside the bar. Then I went indoors to write a few business letters which, since I had become immersed in the affairs of that unlucky gold mine, had grown to be almost a daily task with me. I had got through several with many groanings, for none were agreeable in their tenor, when Hans poked his head through the window in a silent kind of a way as a big snake might do, and said: “Baas, I think there are two baases out on the road there who are looking for you. Very fine baases whom I don’t know.” “Shareholders in the Bona Fide Gold Mine,” thought I to myself, then added as I prepared to leave through the back door: “If they come here tell them I am not at home. Tell them I left early this morning for the Congo River to look for the sources of the Nile.” “Yes, Baas,” said Hans, collapsing on to the stoep. I went out through the back door, sorrowing that I, Allan Quatermain, should have reached a rung in the ladder of life whence I shrank from looking any stranger in the face, for fear of what he might have to say to me. Then suddenly my pride asserted itself. After all what was there of which I should be ashamed? I would face these irate shareholders as I had faced the others yesterday. I walked round the little house to the front garden which was planted with orange trees, and up to a big moonflower bush, I believe _datura_ is its right name, that grew near the pomegranate hedge which separated my domain from the road. There a conversation was in progress, if so it may be called. “_Ikona_” (that is: “I don’t know”), “_Inkoosi_” (i.e. “Chief”), said some Kafir in a stupid drawl. Thereon a voice that instantly struck me as familiar, answered: “We want to know where the great hunter lives.” “_Ikona_,” said the Kafir. “Can’t you remember his native name?” asked another voice which was also familiar to me, for I never forget voices though I am unable to place them at once. “The great hunter, Here-come-a-zany,” said the first voice triumphantly, and instantly there flashed back upon my mind a vision of the splendid drawing-room at Ragnall Castle and of an imposing majordomo introducing into it two white-robed, Arab-looking men. “Mr. Savage, by the Heavens!” I muttered. “What in the name of goodness is he doing here?” “There,” said the second voice, “your black friend has bolted, and no wonder, for who can be called by such a name? If you had done what I told you, Savage, and hired a white guide, it would have saved us a lot of trouble. Why will you always think that you know better than anyone else?” “Seemed an unnecessary expense, my lord, considering we are travelling incog., my lord.” “How long shall we travel ‘incog.’ if you persist in calling me my lord at the top of your voice, Savage? There is a house beyond those trees; go in and ask where——”