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_Not in the waste beyond the swamp and sand, The fever-haunted forest and lagoon, Mysterious Kôr, thy fanes forsaken stand, With lonely towers beneath the lonely Moon! Not there doth Ayesha linger,--rune by rune Spelling the scriptures of a people banned,-- The world is disenchanted! oversoon Shall Europe send her spies through all the land!_

_Nay, not in Kôr, but in whatever spot, In fields, or towns, or by the insatiate sea, Hearts brood o'er buried Loves and unforgot, Or wreck themselves on some Divine decree, Or would o'er-leap the limits of our lot, There in the Tombs and deathless, dwelleth SHE!_

DEDICATION.

KÔR, Jan. 30, 1887.

_DEAR ALLAN QUATERMAIN,

You, who, with others, have aided so manfully in the Restoration of King Romance, know that His Majesty is a Merry Monarch.

You will not think, therefore, that the respectful Liberty we have taken with your Wondrous Tale (as Pamela did with the 137th Psalm) indicates any lack of Loyalty to our Lady Ayesha.

Her beauties are beyond the reach of danger from Burlesque, nor does her form flit across our humble pages.

May you restore to us yet the prize of her perfections, for we, at least, can never believe that she wholly perished in the place of the Pillar of Fire!

Yours ever,

TWO OF THE AMA LO-GROLLA._

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 1

II. POLLY'S NARRATIVE 12

III. LEONORA'S DISCOVERY 18

IV. THE EQUIPMENT 27

V. DOWN THE DARK RIVER 31

VI. THE ZÛ 41

VII. AMONG THE LO-GROLLAS 49

VIII. HE 59

IX. THE POWER OF HE 76

X. A BODY IN PAWN 81

XI. THE WIZARD UNBOSOMS 91

XII. THE WIZARD'S SCHEME 97

XIII. THE PERILOUS PATH 103

XIV. THE MAGIC CHAIR 113

XV. THE END 116

HE.

CHAPTER I.

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION.

As I sat, one evening, idly musing on memories of roers and Boers, and contemplating the horns of a weendigo I had shot in Labrador and the head of a Moo Cow[1] from Canada, I was roused by a ring at the door bell.

[1] A literary friend to whom I have shown your MS. says a weendigo is Ojibbeway for a cannibal. And why do you shoot poor Moo Cows?--PUBLISHER.

Mere slip of the pen. Meant a Cow Moose. Literary gent no sportsman.--ED.

All right.--PUBLISHER.

The hall-porter presently entered, bearing a huge parcel, which had just arrived by post. I opened it with all the excitement that an unexpected parcel can cause, and murmured, like Thackeray's sailor-man, 'Claret, perhaps, Mumm, I hope----'

It was a Mummy Case, by Jingo!

This was no common, or museum mummy case. The lid, with the gilded mask, was absent, and the under half or lower segment, painted all over with hieroglyphics of an unusual type, and green in colour--had obviously been used as a cradle for unconscious infancy. A baby had slept in the last sleeping-place of the dead! What an opportunity for the moralist! But I am not a collector of cradles.

Who had sent it, and why?

The question was settled by an envelope in a feminine hand, which, with a cylindrical packet, fell out of the Mummy Case, and contained a letter running as follows:--

'Lady Betty's, Oxford.

'My dear Sir,--You have not forgotten me and my friend Leonora O'Dolite?

'The Mummy Case which encloses this document is the Cradle of her ancient Race.