wanted to marry him, and that was why he ran away to Africa. But now she
is dead and buried."

"Are all women in England called Barbara, Jeekie?"

"Yes, O Asika, Barbara means woman."

"If your lord loved this Barbara, why then did he run away from her?
Well, it matters not since she is dead and buried, for whatever their
spirits may feel, no man cares for a woman that is dead until she
clothes herself in flesh again. That was a good vision and I will reward
you for it."

"I have earned nothing, O Asika," answered Jeekie modestly, "who only
tell you what I see as I must. Yet, O Asika," he added with a note of
anxiety in his voice, "why do you not read these magic writings for
yourself?"

"Because I dare not, or rather because I can not," she answered
fiercely. "Be silent, slave, for now the power of the good broods upon
my soul."

The dream went on. A great forest appeared, such a forest as they had
passed before they met the cannibals, and set beneath one of the trees,
a tent and in that tent Barbara, Barbara weeping. Someone began to lift
the flap of the tent. She sprang up, snatching at a pistol that lay
beside her, turning its muzzle towards her breast. A man entered the
tent. Alan saw his face, it was his own. Barbara let fall the pistol
and fell backwards as though a bullet from it had pierced her heart. He
leapt towards her, but before he came to where she lay everything had