"'Oh!' I said; 'wait a bit, Jim; will you take a note to your master,
Jim, and promise not to give it to him till you reach Inyati?' which
was some hundred miles off.

"'Yes, Baas.'

"So I took a scrap of paper, and wrote on it, 'Let him who comes . . .
climb the snow of Sheba's left breast, till he reaches the nipple, on
the north side of which is Solomon's great road.'

"'Now, Jim,' I said, 'when you give this to your master, tell him he
had better follow the advice on it implicitly. You are not to give it
to him now, because I don't want him back asking me questions which I
won't answer. Now be off, you idle fellow, the wagon is nearly out of
sight.'

"Jim took the note and went, and that is all I know about your
brother, Sir Henry; but I am much afraid--"

"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry, "I am going to look for my brother;
I am going to trace him to Suliman's Mountains, and over them if
necessary, till I find him, or until I know that he is dead. Will you
come with me?"

I am, as I think I have said, a cautious man, indeed a timid one, and
this suggestion frightened me. It seemed to me that to undertake such
a journey would be to go to certain death, and putting other
considerations aside, as I had a son to support, I could not afford to
die just then.