Allan Quatermain, page 49 by H. Rider Haggard
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to sea. The captain found me and beat me. He took an opportunity. He posted a letter from a foreign port to the police. He did not put me ashore because I cooked so well. I cooked for him all the way to Zanzibar. When I asked for payment he kicked me. The blood of my heroic grandfather boiled within me, and I shook my fist in his face and vowed to have my revenge. He kicked me again. At Zanzibar there was a telegram. I cursed the man who invented telegraphs. Now I curse him again. I was to be arrested for desertion, for murder, and que sais-je? I escaped from the prison. I fled, I starved. I met the men of Monsieur le Cure. They brought me here. I am full of woe. But I return not to France. Better to risk my life in these horrible places than to know the Bagne.'
He paused, and we nearly choked with laughter, having to turn our faces away.
'Ah! you weep, messieurs,' he said. 'No wonder -- it is a sad story.'
'Perhaps,' said Sir Henry, 'the heroic blood of your grandparent will triumph after all; perhaps you will still be great. At any rate we shall see. And now I vote we go to bed. I am dead tired, and we had not much sleep on that confounded rock last night.'
And so we did, and very strange the tidy rooms and clean white sheets seemed to us after our recent experiences.
CHAPTER V
UMSLOPOGAAS MAKES A PROMISE
Next morning at breakfast I missed Flossie and asked where she was.
'Well,' said her mother, 'when I got up this morning I found a note put outside my door in which -- But here it is, you can read it for yourself,' and she gave me the slip of paper on which the following was written: --
'Dearest M--, -- It is just dawn, and I am off to the hills to get Mr Q-- a bloom of the lily he wants, so don't expect me till you see me. I have taken the white donkey; and nurse and a couple of boys are coming with me -- also something to eat, as I may be away all day, f