{"product_id":"2940012790774","title":"Allan Quatermain","description":"INTRODUCTION\u003cbr\u003eI      THE CONSUL'S YARN\u003cbr\u003eII     THE BLACK HAND\u003cbr\u003eIII    THE MISSION STATION\u003cbr\u003eIV     ALPHONSE AND HIS ANNETTE\u003cbr\u003eV      UMSLOPOGAAS MAKES A PROMISE\u003cbr\u003eVI     THE NIGHT WEARS ON\u003cbr\u003eVII    A SLAUGHTER GRIM AND GREAT\u003cbr\u003eVIII   ALPHONSE EXPLAINS\u003cbr\u003eIX     INTO THE UNKNOWN\u003cbr\u003eX      THE ROSE OF FIRE\u003cbr\u003eXI     THE FROWNING CITY\u003cbr\u003eXII    THE SISTER QUEENS\u003cbr\u003eXIII   ABOUT THE ZU-VENDI PEOPLE\u003cbr\u003eXIV    THE FLOWER TEMPLE\u003cbr\u003eXV     SORAIS' SONG\u003cbr\u003eXVI    BEFORE THE STATUE\u003cbr\u003eXVII   THE STORM BREAKS\u003cbr\u003eXVIII  WAR! RED WAR!\u003cbr\u003eXIX    A STRANGE WEDDING\u003cbr\u003eXX     THE BATTLE OF THE PASS\u003cbr\u003eXXI    AWAY! AWAY!\u003cbr\u003eXXII   HOW UMSLOPOGAAS HELD THE STAIR\u003cbr\u003eXXIII  I HAVE SPOKEN\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eINTRODUCTION\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDecember 23\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'I have just buried my boy, my poor handsome boy of whom I was\u003cbr\u003eso proud, and my heart is broken.  It is very hard having only\u003cbr\u003eone son to lose him thus, but God's will be done.  Who am I that\u003cbr\u003eI should complain?  The great wheel of Fate rolls on like a Juggernaut,\u003cbr\u003eand crushes us all in turn, some soon, some late -- it does not\u003cbr\u003ematter when, in the end, it crushes us all.  We do not prostrate\u003cbr\u003eourselves before it like the poor Indians; we fly hither and\u003cbr\u003ethither -- we cry for mercy; but it is of no use, the black Fate\u003cbr\u003ethunders on and in its season reduces us to powder.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Poor Harry to go so soon! just when his life was opening to\u003cbr\u003ehim.  He was doing so well at the hospital, he had passed his\u003cbr\u003elast examination with honours, and I was proud of them, much\u003cbr\u003eprouder than he was, I think.  And then he must needs go to that\u003cbr\u003esmallpox hospital.  He wrote to me that he was not afraid of\u003cbr\u003esmallpox and wanted to gain the experience; and now the disease\u003cbr\u003ehas killed him, and I, old and grey and withered, am left to\u003cbr\u003emourn over him, without a chick or child to comfort me.  I might\u003cbr\u003ehave saved him, too -- I have money enough for both of us, and\u003cbr\u003emuch more than enough -- King Solomon's Mines provided me with\u003cbr\u003ethat; but I said, \"No, let the boy earn his living, let him labour\u003cbr\u003ethat he may enjoy rest.\"  But the rest has come to him before\u003cbr\u003ethe labour.  Oh, my boy, my boy!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'I am like the man in the Bible who laid up much goods and builded\u003cbr\u003ebarns -- goods for my boy and barns for him to store them in;\u003cbr\u003eand now his soul has been required of him, and I am left desolate.\u003cbr\u003eI would that it had been my soul and not my boy's!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'We buried him this afternoon under the shadow of the grey and\u003cbr\u003eancient tower of the church of this village where my house is.\u003cbr\u003eIt was a dreary December afternoon, and the sky was heavy with\u003cbr\u003esnow, but not much was falling.  The coffin was put down by the\u003cbr\u003egrave, and a few big flakes lit upon it.  They looked very white\u003cbr\u003eupon the black cloth!  There was a little hitch about getting\u003cbr\u003ethe coffin down into the grave -- the necessary ropes had been\u003cbr\u003eforgotten: so we drew back from it, and waited in silence watching\u003cbr\u003ethe big flakes fall gently one by one like heavenly benedictions,\u003cbr\u003eand melt in tears on Harry's pall.  But that was not all.  A\u003cbr\u003erobin redbreast came as bold as could be and lit upon the coffin\u003cbr\u003eand began to sing.  And then I am afraid that I broke down, and\u003cbr\u003eso did Sir Henry Curtis, strong man though he is; and as for\u003cbr\u003eCaptain Good, I saw him turn away too; even in my own distress\u003cbr\u003eI could not help noticing it.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe above, signed 'Allan Quatermain', is an extract from my diary\u003cbr\u003ewritten two years and more ago.  I copy it down here because\u003cbr\u003eit seems to me that it is the fittest beginning to the history\u003cbr\u003ethat I am about to write, if it please God to spare me to finish\u003cbr\u003eit.  If not, well it does not matter.  That extract was penned\u003cbr\u003eseven thousand miles or so from the spot where I now lie painfully\u003cbr\u003eand slowly writing this, with a pretty girl standing by my side\u003cbr\u003efanning the flies from my august countenance.  Harry is there\u003cbr\u003eand I am here, and yet somehow I cannot help feeling that I am\u003cbr\u003enot far off Harry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen I was in England I used to live in a very fine house --\u003cbr\u003eat least I call it a fine house, speaking comparatively, and\u003cbr\u003ejudging from the standard of the houses I have been accustomed\u003cbr\u003eto all my life in Africa -- not five hundred yards from the old\u003cbr\u003echurch where Harry is asleep, and thither I went after the funeral\u003cbr\u003eand ate some food; for it is no good starving even if one has\u003cbr\u003ejust buried all one's earthly hopes.  But I could not eat much,\u003cbr\u003eand soon I took to walking, or rather limping -- being permanently\u003cbr\u003elame from the bite of a lion -- up and down, up and down the\u003cbr\u003eoak-panelled vestibule; for there is a vestibule in my house\u003cbr\u003ein England.  On all the four walls of this vestibule were placed\u003cbr\u003epairs of horns -- about a hundred pairs altogether, all of which\u003cbr\u003eI had shot myself.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47145522594032,"sku":"2940012790774","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012790774_p0.jpg?v=1763572385","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012790774","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}