whether it were in this house or at the other end of Africa I did
not know.

The mental depression increased and culminated. Then of a sudden
it passed completely away, and as I mopped the sweat from off my
brow I noticed that dawn was breaking. It was a tender and
beautiful dawn, and in a dim way I took it as a good omen. Of
course it was nothing but the daily resurrection of the sun, and
yet it brought to me comfort and hope. The night was past with
all its fears; the light had come with all its joys. From that
moment I was certain that we should triumph over these
difficulties and that the end of them would be peace.

So sure was I that I ventured to take a nap, knowing that the
slightest movement or sound would wake me. I suppose I slept
until six o'clock, when I was aroused by a footfall. I sprang
up, and saw before me one of our native servants. He was
trembling and his face was ashen beneath the black. Moreover he
could not speak. All he did was to put his head on one side,
like a dead man, and keep on pointing downwards. Then with his
mouth open and starting eyes he beckoned to me to follow him.

I followed.

CHAPTER VIII

RODD'S LAST CARD

The man led me to Marnham's room, which I had never entered
before. All I could see at first, for the shutters were closed,
was that the place seemed large, as bedchambers go in South
Africa. When my eyes grew accustomed to the light, I made out
the figure of a man seated in a chair with his head bent forward
over a table that was placed at the foot of the bed almost in the
centre of the room. I threw open the shutters and the morning
light poured in. The man was Marnham. On the table were writing
materials, also a brandy bottle with only a dreg of spirit in it.
I looked for the glass and found it by his side on the floor,
shattered, not merely broken.

"Drunk," I said aloud, whereon the servant, who understood me,
spoke for the first time, saying in a frightened voice in Dutch--

"No, Baas, dead, half cold. I found him so just now."

I bent down and examined Marnham, also felt his face. Sure
enough, he was dead, for his jaw had fallen; also his flesh was
chill, and from him came a horrible smell of brandy. I thought
for a moment, then bade the boy fetch Dr. Rodd and say nothing
to any one else, He went, and now for the first time I noticed a
large envelope addressed "Allan Quatermain, Esq." in a somewhat
shaky hand. This I