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Page 6
Well, it is eighteen months or so ago since first I met Sir Henry
Curtis and Captain Good. It was in this way. I had been up elephant
hunting beyond Bamangwato, and had met with bad luck. Everything went
wrong that trip, and to top up with I got the fever badly. So soon as
I was well enough I trekked down to the Diamond Fields, sold such
ivory as I had, together with my wagon and oxen, discharged my
hunters, and took the post-cart to the Cape. After spending a week in
Cape Town, finding that they overcharged me at the hotel, and having
seen everything there was to see, including the botanical gardens,
which seem to me likely to confer a great benefit on the country, and
the new Houses of Parliament, which I expect will do nothing of the
sort, I determined to go back to Natal by the /Dunkeld/, then lying at
the docks waiting for the /Edinburgh Castle/ due in from England. I
took my berth and went aboard, and that afternoon the Natal passengers
from the /Edinburgh Castle/ transhipped, and we weighed and put to
sea.
Among these passengers who came on board were two who excited my
curiosity. One, a gentleman of about thirty, was perhaps the biggest-
chested and longest-armed man I ever saw. He had yellow hair, a thick
yellow beard, clear-cut features, and large grey eyes set deep in his
head. I never saw a finer-looking man, and somehow he reminded me of
an ancient Dane. Not that I know much of ancient Danes, though I knew
a modern Dane who did me out of ten pounds; but I remember once seeing
a picture of some of those gentry, who, I take it, were a kind of
white Zulus. They were drinking out of big horns, and their long hair
hung down their backs. As I looked at my friend standing there by the
companion-ladder, I thought that if he only let his grow a little, put
one of those chain shirts on to his great shoulders, and took hold of
a battle-axe and a horn mug, he might have sat as a model for that
picture. And by the way it is a curious thing, and just shows how the
blood will out, I discovered afterwards that Sir Henry Curtis, for
that was the big man's name, is of Danish blood.[*] He also reminded
me strongly of somebody else, but at the time I could not remember who
it was.
[*] Mr. Quatermain's ideas about ancient Danes seem to be rather
confused; we have always understood that they were dark-haired
people. Probably he was thinking of Saxons.--Editor.
The other man, who stood talking to Sir Henry, was stout and dark, and
of quite a different cut. I suspected at once that he was a naval
officer; I don't know why, but it is difficult to mistake a navy man.
I have gone shooting trips with several of them in the course of my
life, and they have always proved themselves the best and bravest and
nicest fellows I ever met, though sadly given, some of them, to the
use of profane language. I asked a page or two back, what is a
gentleman? I'll answer the question now: A Royal Naval officer is, in
a general sort of way, though of course there may be a black sheep
among them here and there. I fancy it is just the wide seas and the
breath of God's winds that wash their hearts and blow the bitterness
out of their minds and make them what men ought to be.
Well, to return, I proved right again; I ascertained that the dark man
/was/ a naval officer, a lieutenant of thirty-one, who, after
seventeen years' service, had been turned out of her Majesty's employ
with the barren honour of a commander's rank, because it was
impossible that he should be promoted. This is what people who serve
the Queen have to expect: to be shot out into the cold world to find a
living just when they are beginning really to understand their work,
and to reach the prime of life. I suppose they don't mind it, but for
my own part I had rather earn my bread as a hunter. One's halfpence
are as scarce perhaps, but you do not get so many kicks.
The officer's name I found out--by referring to the passengers' lists
--was Good--Captain John Good. He was broad, of medium height, dark,
stout, and rather a curious man to look at. He was so very neat and so
very clean-shaved, and he always wore an eye-glass in his right eye.
It seemed to grow there, for it had no string, and he never took it
out except to wipe it. At first I thought he used to sleep in it, but
afterwards I found that this was a mistake. He put it in his trousers
pocket when he went to bed, together with his false teeth, of which he
had two beautiful sets that, my own being none of the best, have often
caused me to break the tenth commandment. But I am anticipating.
Soon after we had got under way evening closed in, and brought with it
very dirty weather. A keen breeze sprung up off land, and a kind of
aggravated Scotch mist soon drove everybody from the deck. As for the
/Dunkeld/, she is a flat-bottomed punt, and going up light as she was,
she rolled very heavily. It almost seemed as though she would go right
over, but she never did. It was quite impossible to walk about, so I
stood near the engines where it was warm, and amused myself with
watching the pendulum, which was fixed opposite to me, swinging slowly
backwards and forwards as the vessel rolled, and marking the angle she
touched at each lurch.
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