cument; what was in it?" added the captain.

"Well, gentlemen, if you like I will tell you. I have never showed it
to anybody yet except to a drunken old Portuguese trader who translated
it for me, and had forgotten all about it by the next morning. The
original rag is at my home in Durban, together with poor Dom Jose's
translation, but I have the English rendering in my pocket-book, and a
facsimile of the map, if it can be called a map. Here it is."

[MAP OMITTED]

"I, Jose da Silvestra, who am now dying of hunger in the little
cave here no snow is on the north side of the nipple of the
southernmost of the two mountains I have named Sheba's Breasts,
write this in the year 1590 with a cleft bone upon a remnant of my
raiment, my blood being the ink. If my slave should find it when
he comes, and should bring it to Delagoa, let my friend (name
illegible) bring the matter to the knowledge of the king, that he
may send an army which, if they live through the desert and the
mountains, and can overcome the brave Kukuanes and their devilish
arts, to which end many priests should be brought, will make him
the richest king since Solomon. With my own eyes I have seen the
countless diamonds stored in Solomon's treasure chamber behind the
white Death; but through the treachery of Gagool the witch-finder
I might bring nought away, scarcely my life. Let him who comes
follow the map, and climb the snow of Sheba's left breast till he
reaches the nipple, on the north side of which is the great road
Solomon made, from whence three days' journey to the King's
Palace. Let him kill Gagool. Pray for my soul. Farewell.

Jose da Silvestra."[2]

When I had finished reading the above, and shown the copy of the map,
drawn by the dying hand of the old Dom with his blood for ink, there
followed a silence of astonishment.

"Well," said Captain Good, "I have been round the world twice, and put
in at most ports, but may I be hung for a mutineer if ever I heard a
yarn like this out of a story book, or in it either, for the matter of
that."

"It's a queer tale, Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry. "I suppose you are
not hoaxing us? It is, I know, sometimes thought allowable to take in a
greenhorn."

"If you think that, Sir Henry," I said, much put out, and pocketing my
paper--for I do not like to be thought one of those silly fellows who
consider it witty to tell lies, and who are for ever boasting to
newcomer