Longden, broken-hearted, for it occurred to me as possible that my wife
might have drifted or been taken thither. But here, too, there was no
trace of her or of anybody who could possibly answer to her description.
So at last I came to the conclusion that her bones must lie somewhere at
the bottom of the Nile, and gave way to despair."

"Always a foolish thing to do," I remarked.

"You will say so indeed when you hear the end, Quatermain. My
bereavement and the sleeplessness which it caused prayed upon me so
much, for now that the child was dead my wife was everything to me,
that, I will tell you the truth, my brain became affected and like Job I
cursed God in my heart and determined to die. Indeed I should have died
by my own hand, had it not been for Savage. I had procured the laudanum
and loaded the pistol with which I proposed to shoot myself immediately
after it was swallowed so that there might be no mistake. One night only
a couple of months or so ago, Quatermain, I sat in my study at Ragnall,
with the doors locked as I thought, writing a few final letters before
I did the deed. The last of them was just finished about twelve when
hearing a noise, I looked up and saw Savage standing before me. I asked
him angrily how he came there (I suppose he must have had another key to
one of the other doors) and what he wanted. Ignoring the first part of
the question he replied:

"'My lord, I have been thinking over our trouble'--he was with us in
Egypt--'I have been thinking so much that it has got a hold of my sleep.
To-night as you said you did not want me any more and I was tired, I
went to bed early and had a dream. I dreamed that we were once more in
the shrubbery, as happened some years ago, and that the little African
gent who shot like a book, was showing us the traces of those two black