kings, not to be spoken. Nor indeed did they ever speak it or tell the story of our search, because they were too much afraid both of Ayesha whom they believed to be the greatest of all witches, and of the axe of their captain, Umslopogaas.
Inez went to bed that night without seeming to recognise her old home, to all appearance just a mindless child as she had been ever since she awoke from her trance at Kôr. Next morning, however, Hans came to tell me that she was changed and that she wished to speak with me. I went, wondering, to find her in the sitting-room dressed in European clothes which she had taken from where she kept them, and once more a reasoning woman.
Mr. Quatermain,
she said, I suppose that I must have been ill, for the last thing I remember is going to sleep on the night after you started for the hippopotamus hunt. Where is my father? Did any harm come to him while he was hunting?
Alas!
I answered, lying boldly, for I feared lest the truth should take away her mind again, it did. He was trampled upon by a hippopotamus bull, which charged him, and killed, and we were obliged to bury him where he died.
She bowed her head for a while and muttered some prayer for his soul, then looked at me keenly and said,
I do not think you are telling me everything, Mr. Quatermain, but something seems to say to me that this is because it is not well that I should learn everything.
No,
I answered, you have been ill and out of your mind for quite a long while; something gave you a shock. I think that you learned of your father's death, which you have now forgotten, and were overcome with the news. Please trust to me and believe that if I keep anything back from you, it is because I think it best to do so for the present.
I trust and I believe,
she answered. Now please leave me, but tell me first where are those women and their children?
After your father died they went away,
I replied, lying once more.
She looked at me again but made no comment.
Then I left her.
How much Inez ever learned of the true story of her adventures I do not know to this hour, though my opinion is
