Now, Old Trader Hume was dead and buried, and his nephew, Francis Hume, was alone in the old man’s room, the room of a hunter filled with trophies of the chase.
The young man was bending forward, one hand supporting his head, while the other, dangling listlessly, held a sheet of paper. Long he remained so, his eyes absently fixed on the point of a curved rhinoceros’ horn, then leant back in the chair and read the contents, setting forth the last will of his uncle.
A very short and simple document it was:
“I, Abel Hume, commonly known as Old Hume, the Trader, leave to my nephew Frank all my possessions, including 275 pounds in the Standard Bank. There is a map in my pocket-book drawn by myself. That I leave him also, and it is my wish that he will follow the directions therein. I would like him to use my double Express, and to treat it tenderly. Good-bye, my lad; shoot straight, and deal straight.
“Signed Abel Hume.”
“Dear old chap!” muttered Frank, with a sad smile, and again he sank into a long reverie.
He had always thought that his uncle was a wealthy man, and, under that impression, he had lived rather extravagantly at Oxford. His uncle had paid his bills, and he tried to recall if there had been, unnoticed at the time by him, any word or sign of disapproval, but he could remember only the dry chuckle of the hunter at some unusual entry.
“Poor old boy,” he said again; “I wish he had told me. What a lonely time he had!”
He thought then—how could he help it?—of his own prospects, which had lost so suddenly all the wide outlook of a happy career.
“I must give up Oxford, of course, and my friends, too, before they give me up; but what am I to do?” He looked around at the house, at the trophy of assegais on the wall, at the lion’s skin on the hearth, the yellow eyes glaring, and the red mouth set in an everlasting snarl.
“I am sorry the old man came home. He was happy there in the bush, or on the trek. What a life he must have led during those thirty-five years of hunting and trading, and what yarns he did spin in the evenings! There was that story of the bull elephant.”