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yoke together. That is something, let me tell you, when one has a long
journey like this before one.

"And now as to the journey itself, I tell you flatly, Sir Henry and
Captain Good, that I do not think it probable we can come out of it
alive, that is, if we attempt to cross the Suliman Mountains. What was
the fate of the old Dom da Silvestra three hundred years ago? What was
the fate of his descendant twenty years ago? What has been your
brother's fate? I tell you frankly, gentlemen, that as their fates
were so I believe ours will be."

I paused to watch the effect of my words. Captain Good looked a little
uncomfortable, but Sir Henry's face did not change. "We must take our
chance," he said.

"You may perhaps wonder," I went on, "why, if I think this, I, who am,
as I told you, a timid man, should undertake such a journey. It is for
two reasons. First I am a fatalist, and believe that my time is
appointed to come quite without reference to my own movements and
will, and that if I am to go to Suliman's Mountains to be killed, I
shall go there and shall be killed. God Almighty, no doubt, knows His
mind about me, so I need not trouble on that point. Secondly, I am a
poor man. For nearly forty years I have hunted and traded, but I have
never made more than a living. Well, gentlemen, I don't know if you
are aware that the average life of an elephant hunter from the time he
takes to the trade is between four and five years. So you see I have
lived through about seven generations of my class, and I should think
that my time cannot be far off, anyway. Now, if anything were to
happen to me in the ordinary course of business, by the time my debts
are paid there would be nothing left to support my son Harry whilst he
was getting in the way of earning a living, whereas now he will be set
up for five years. There is the whole affair in a nutshell."

"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry, who had been giving me his most
serious attention, "your motives for undertaking an enterprise which
you believe can only end in disaster reflect a great deal of credit on
you. Whether or not you are right, of course time and the event alone
can show. But whether you are right or wrong, I may as well tell you
at once that I am going through with it to the end, sweet or bitter.
If we are to be knocked on the head, all I have to say is, that I hope
we get a little shooting first, eh, Good?"

"Yes, yes," put in the captain. "We have all three of us been
accustomed to face danger, and to hold our lives in our hands in
various ways, so it is no good turning back now. And now I vote we go
down to the saloon and take an observation just for luck, you know."
And we did--through the bottom of a tumbler.

Next day we went ashore, and I put up Sir Henry and Captain Good at
the little shanty I have built on the Berea, and which I call my home.
There are only three rooms and a kitchen in it, and it is constructed

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