So sure was I that I ventured to take a nap, knowing that the slightest movement or sound would wake me. I suppose I slept until six o’clock, when I was aroused by a footfall. I sprang up, and saw before me one of our native servants. He was trembling and his face was ashen beneath the black. Moreover he could not speak. All he did was to put his head on one side, like a dead man, and keep on pointing downwards. Then with his mouth open and starting eyes he beckoned to me to follow him.
I followed.
CHAPTER VIII.
RODD’S LAST CARD
The man led me to Marnham’s room, which I had never entered before. All I could see at first, for the shutters were closed, was that the place seemed large, as bedchambers go in South Africa. When my eyes grew accustomed to the light, I made out the figure of a man seated in a chair with his head bent forward over a table that was placed at the foot of the bed almost in the centre of the room. I threw open the shutters and the morning light poured in. The man was Marnham. On the table were writing materials, also a brandy bottle with only a dreg of spirit in it. I looked for the glass and found it by his side on the floor, shattered, not merely broken.
“Drunk,” I said aloud, whereon the servant, who understood me, spoke for the first time, saying in a frightened voice in Dutch—
“No, Baas, dead, half cold. I found him so just now.”
I bent down and examined Marnham, also felt his face. Sure enough, he was dead, for his jaw had fallen; also his flesh was chill, and from him came a horrible smell of brandy. I thought for a moment, then bade the boy fetch Dr. Rodd and say nothing to any one else, He went, and now for the first time I noticed a large envelope addressed “Allan Quatermain, Esq.” in a somewhat shaky hand. This I picked up and slipped into my pocket.
Rodd arrived half dressed.
“What’s the matter now?” he growled.
I pointed to Marnham, saying—