The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1897-01-08
!, A Tale Of
!, Three Lions
CHAPTER I.
n. RIDER HAGGARD

MOSI VI you DOyS VIII nave ledfu OF
Allan Quatermain, who was one of the
party who discovered King Solomon's
mines some little time ago. and after
ward came to live in England near his
friend Sir Henry Curtis. He had gone
back to the wilderness now, as these
hunters almost invariably do, on one
pretext or another. They cannot en-
dure civilization for very long, its
noise and racket and the omnipresence
of broadclothed humanity proving
more trying to their nerves than the
dangers of the desert / think that
they feel lonely here, for ii is a fact
that is too little understood, though it
has often been stated, that there is no
loneliness like the loneliness of crowds,
especially to those who are unaccus-
toned to them. What is there in the
world" old Quatermain would say, 80
desolate as 10 stand in the streets of
great city and listen to the footsteps
falling, falling multitudinous as the
rain, and watch the white line Of
faces as they hurry past, you know not
whence, you know not whittier. They
come and go, their eyes meet yours
with cold stare, for a moment their
features are written on your mind, and
then they are gone forever. You will
never see them again, they will never
see you again; they come up out of the
blackness, and presently they once
more vanish into the blackness, taking
their secrets with them. Yes, that is
loneliness pure and undefiled; but to
one who knows and loves it., the will
derness is not lonely, because the
spirit of nature is ever there to keep
the wanderer company. He finds COM
partnership in the rushing winds-the
sunny streams babble like Natures
children at his feet high above him,
in the purple sunset, are domes and
minarets and palaces, such as no NOR
tai man hath built, in and out of whose
flaming doors the glorious angels Of
the sun do move continually. And
then there is the wild game, following
its feeding grounds in great armies,
with the spring-buck thrown out be-
fore them for skirmishes; then rank
upon rank Of long-faced blesbuck,
marching and wheeling like infantry;
and last the shining troops of quagga
and the flerce-eyed shaggy vilderbeeste
to take the place of the great cossack
host that hangs upon an army's TANKS.
'Oh, no." he would say, "the wilder
ness is not lonely, for, my boy, remem-
Der that the farther you get from man.
the nearer you grow to God" and
though this is a saying that might we'll
be disputed, it is one / am sure that
anybody who has watched the sun rise
and set on the limitless deserted plains,
and seen the thunder chariots roll in
majesty across the depths Of unfathom-
able sky, will easily understand
Well, at any rate he went back again,
and now for many months have heard
nothing Of him, and to be frank, /
greatly doubt if anybody will ever hear
of him again. l fear that the wilder
ness, that has for so many years been
mother to him, will now also prove
his monument and the monument of
those who accompanied him, for the
quest upon which he and they have
started is a wild one indeed.
But while he was in England for
those three years or so between his re-
turn from the successful discovery of
the wise kings buried treasures, and
the death of his only son, saw a great
deal of old Allan Quatermain. l had
known him years before in Africa, and
after he came home, whenever l had
nothing better to do, l used to run up
| to Yorkshire and stay with him, and
| in this way l at one time and another
heard many of the incidents of his
past life, and most curious some of
them were. No man can pass all those
years following the rough existence of
an elephant hunter without. meeting
with many strange adventures, and
one way and another old Quatermain
has certainly seen his share. Well,
the story that / am going to tell you
in the following short pages is one
of the later of these adventures; in
deed. IL remember right, it happened
in the year 1875 At any rate l know
that it was the only one of his trips
upon which he took his son Harry
| (who is since dead with him, and that
Harry was then fourteen. And now
for the story, which | Will repeat, as
nearly as l can in the words in which
hunter Quatermain told it to me one
night in the oak-paneled vestibule of
his house in Yorkshire. We were talk
ing about gold-mining-
"Gold-mining," he broke in; "ah, yes,
once went gold-mining at Pilgrims
Rest in the Transvaal. and 1t was af-
ter that that we had the turn up about
Jim-Jim and the lions. Do you know
it? Well, it is. or was, one of the
queerest little places you ever saw.
The town itself was pitched in a sort OF
stony valley, with mountains all about
IL, and in the middle of such scenery
as one does not often get the chance of
seeing.
We'll, for some months ! dug away
gayly at nv claim, but at length the
very sight of a pick or of a washing