"And now," Leo went on, without replying, "enough of myself. What has to
be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as
much forgotten as though I had never been. Holly, my friend (to whom, if
he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have
told you something of the extraordinary antiquity of your race. In
the contents of this casket you will find sufficient to prove it. The
strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress
upon the potsherd was communicated to me by my father on his deathbed,
and took a strong hold in my imagination. When I was only nineteen years
of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors
about the time of Elizabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that
befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the
coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the
north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland,
at the extremity of which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a
negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there,
and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people
because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great
mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps.
I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are
ruled over by a _beautiful white woman_ who is seldom seen by them, but
who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two
days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted
in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by
symptoms of an illness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow
again.

"Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was
wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards
by an English ship that brought me to Aden, whence I started for