nestled rather closer to his
side, as he continued:

"Now to open the box--a thing I haven't done since, partly from
superstitious motives--partly that I intended we should do so together--
if we ever were to be again together, that is."

He pressed the spring, but it was out of order. It needed the wrench of
a strong knife blade before the lid flew open.

"Look at that. The assegai point is so firmly wedged that it would take
a hammer to drive it out--but I propose to leave it in--use it as a
`charm' next war perhaps. Now for the letter. It has gone through and
through it--through the photograph too--and has just dinted the bottom
of the box."

He spread out the letter. Those last tender, loving words, direct from
her overflowing heart, were pierced and lacerated by the point of the
murderous weapon.

"If this is not an oracle, there never was such a thing," he went on.
"Look at this"--reading--"`I dare not say "God bless you." Coming from
me it would entail a curse, rather than a blessing...' The point has
cut clean through the words `a curse'--Mfulini's assegai has made short
work of that malediction. Is not that the voice of an oracle?"

She made no reply. She was watching the development of the
investigation with rapt, eager attention.

"Here again--`Were anything to befall you--were you never to come back
to me my heart would be broken...' As the paper is folded it has cut
through the word `heart'--And--by Jove, this is more than a coincidence!
Here again, it has gone clean through the same word. Look at the end.
`_I want you in all your dangers and hardships to have, with you, these
poor little lines, coming, as they are, warm from my hand and heart_'...
And now for the photograph. It is a sweetly lifelike representation of
you, my dearest--"

A cry from her interrupted him. The portrait was a three parts length
cabinet one, cut round to enable it to fit the box, which it did
exactly. Right through the breast of the portrait, the assegai point
had pierced.

"O Eustace--this is an oracle, indeed!" she cried. "Do you not see?
The spear point has gone right through my `heart' again for the third
time. My dearest love, thrice has my `heart' stood between you and
death--once in the portrait, twice in the letter. At the same time it
has obliterated the word `curse.' It is, indeed, an `oracle' and--What
if I had never given you that box at all?"

"I should be a lot of dry bones scattered