Produced by Tom Harris, text provided by Litrix Reading Room.
TALES OF THREE HEMISPHERES
Lord Dunsany
CONTENTS
The Last Dream Of Bwona Khubla
How the Office of Postman Fell Vacant In Otford-under-the-Wold
The Prayer Of Boob Aheera
East And West
A Pretty Quarrel
How The Gods Avenged Meoul Ki Ning
The Gift Of The Gods
The Sack Of Emeralds
The Old Brown Coat
An Archive Of The Older Mysteries
A City Of Wonder
Beyond the Fields We Know
Publisher's Note
First Tale: Idle Days on the Yann
Second Tale: A Shop In Go-By Street
Third Tale: The Avenger Of Perdóndaris
[Note that the tale "Idle Days on the Yann" also appears in the collection "A Dreamer's Tales".]
THE LAST DREAM OF BWONA KHUBLA
From steaming lowlands down by the equator, where monstrous orchids blow, where beetles big as mice sit on the tent-ropes, and fireflies glide about by night like little moving stars, the travelers went three days through forests of cactus till they came to the open plains where the oryx are.
And glad they were when they came to the water-hole, where only one white man had gone before, which the natives know as the camp of Bwona Khubla, and found the water there.
It lies three days from the nearest other water, and when Bwona Khubla had gone there three years ago, what with malaria with which he was shaking all over, and what with disgust at finding the water-hole dry, he had decided to die there, and in that part of the world such decisions are always fatal. In any case he was overdue to die, but hitherto his amazing resolution, and that terrible strength of character that so astounded his porters, had kept him alive and moved his safari on.