THE
SPRING OF A LION
BY
H. RIDER HAGGARD,
Neely's Booklet Series. No. 26, June 26, 1899. Issued weekly
$5.00 a year. Entered as second-class matter
at New York Post Office.
F. TENNYSON NEELY,
PUBLISHER,
LONDON. NEW YORK. CHICAGO.
THE SPRING OF A LION.
The story which is narrated inthe following pages came to mefrom the lips of my old friendAllan Quatermain, or HunterQuatermain, as we used to callhim in South Africa. He told itto me one evening when I wasstopping with him at the placehe bought in Yorkshire. Shortlyafter that, the death of his onlyson so unsettled him that heimmediately left England,accompanied by two companions, whowere old fellow-voyagers of his,Sir Henry Curtis and CaptainGood, and has now utterlyvanished into the dark heart ofAfrica. He is persuaded that awhite people, of whom he hasheard rumors all his life, existssomewhere on the highlands inthe vast, still unexplored interior,and his great ambition is to findthem before he dies. This is thewild quest upon which he andhis companions have departed,and from which I shrewdly suspectthey never will return. Oneletter only have I received fromthe old gentleman, dated from amission station high up the Tana,a river on the east coast, aboutthree hundred miles north ofZanzibar; in it he says they havegone through many hardshipsand adventures, but are alive andwell, and have found traces whichgo far toward making him hopethat the results of their wildquest may be a "magnificent andunexampled discovery." I greatlyfear, however, that all he hasdiscovered is death; for this lettercame a long while ago, andnobody has heard a single word ofthe party since. They have totallyvanished.
It was on the last evening ofmy stay at his house that hetold the ensuing story to me andCaptain Good, who was diningwith him. He had eaten hisdinner and drunk two or threeglasses of old port, just to helpGood and myself to the end ofthe second bottle. It was anunusual thing for him to do, forhe was a most abstemious man,having conceived, as he used tosay, a great horror of drink fromobserving its effects upon theclass of men—hunters, transportriders, and others—among whomhe had passed so many years ofhis life. Consequently, the goodwine took more effect on himthan it would have done on mostmen, sending a little flush intohis wrinkled cheeks, and makinghim talk more freely than usual.
Dear old man! I can see himnow, as he went limping up anddown the vestibule, with hisgray hair sticking up inscrubbing-brush fashion, his shrivelledyellow face, and his large darkeyes, that were as keen as anyhawk's and yet soft as a buck's.The whole room was hung withtrophies of his numerous huntingexpeditions, and he had somestory about every one of them, ifonly you could get him to tellthem. Generally he would not,for he was not very fond ofnarrating his own adventures, butto-night the port wine made himmore communicative.
"Ah, you brute!" he said,stopping beneath an unusually largeskull of a lion, which was fixedjust over the mantelpiece,beneath a long row of guns, itsjaws distended to their utmostwidth. "Ah, you brute! you havegiven me a lot of trouble for thelast dozen years, and will, Isuppose, to my dying day."
"Tell us the yarn, Quatermain,"said Good. "You have oftenpromised to tell me, and have not."
"You had better not ask meto," he answered, "for it is