shirt,
and a pair of buskins made of soft white leather, soled with ox-hide.
The drawers were made quite plain, of thick white silk, and fitted
fairly tight to the body; the shirt also was made of the same material,
but about the armholes and the hem of it there was stitched a broad band
of crimson silk, sewn in a beautiful pattern with gold thread and
thickly studded with small gold bosses about the size of ordinary coat
buttons, each boss being beautifully chiselled with a flower-like
pattern in high relief. There was also a waist belt, made of solid gold
links fastened together with a sort of hinge, and clasped in front with
a pair of massive gold sculptured plaques, forming a very handsome
adornment to one's person, and very convenient, too, for it happened to
be of just the right width to take my pistol holsters. These garments
all fitted me as though made to measure, to my great astonishment; and
when I asked Langila--that being the name of my new servant--how he
accounted for such an extraordinary fact, he further amazed me by
saying, as calmly as though it were the most natural thing imaginable,
that the articles had all been made according to measurements supplied
by the queen! And when I pushed my curiosity farther by asking how Her
Majesty could possibly guess so accurately at the proportions of a man
whom she had never seen, he simply shrugged his shoulders and repeated
Pousa's astounding statement that "the queen knows all things!" After
which I requested that I might be left to myself; for I wished to give
this statement my most careful consideration, and to endeavour to fathom
all that it might possibly mean to me.

Was it possible that this extraordinary woman, reputed to be old far
beyond the limits of the age usually ascribed to humanity--this queen of
a wonderful people hidden away in the mysterious depths of Africa, the
continent of strange and mystic happenings, was really the possessor of
the gift of unlimited knowledge? To me, a plain, simple, matter-of-fact
Briton, such a thing seemed impossible; yet Pousa had already supplied
me with proof that surely ought to have been convincing to any
reasonable man. He had been told that on a certain date and at a
certain spot he would encounter me, and he had done so; my appearance
had been described to him, and the description had proved accurate in
every particular, down to the most minute detail; and he had even
learned the facts connected with th