Uncanny Tales

to the hearth as the fender would allow, with a plentiful supply of literature and whisky, and pipe and

. "Can I come round and see you at once? It's most important.

'Varsity, and had kept the friendship up ever since, despite my intermittent wanderings over the face of the globe. But during the last few days or so Jack had become engaged to

es, he should be sitting in the stalls at some theatre, and not run

t he was in trouble, and without a word I pushed him into my chair and handed him a drink. Then I sat down on the opposi

whisky and sat for a mom

said at length, "I'

with Miss Glanv

y realise it; I feel numbed at present; it's too horrible. You remember that when y

odd

t killed by the Matabele, but was hanged in Bulawayo f

xclaimed in horror. "Sur

and I'm the son of a murderer, who was also a forger, a thief, and a card-sharper.

I asked. "Hav

nod

wful truth from me. That was why I was told he died an honourable death during the war. I've often wondered why the

he room for a minute; then he stopped and stoo

a child, that I remember as my father, with murder, forgery, or any other crime. And yet, according to Glanville and the old newspapers he showed me, Richard Bridges was one of the most unscrupulous

rica!" I exclaimed. "

and I mean to do it somehow. That's why I've run round to see you, old pal, for I want you to come

ever heard of, but Jack's distress was s

any vain hopes. Remember, it's twenty years ago. It will be

mall amount of information about the long-forgotten case th

ward across the Guai river into what was in those days a practically unknown land. In a little over a year's time Bridges had returned alone-his companion having been, so he stated, killed by the Matabele, and for six months or so he led a dissolute life in Bulawayo and the district, which ended ultimately in his executi

appears to be little room for doubt, but no one who knew my father could possibly co

had, boy-like, often boasted to us. I recalled how we had gazed admiringly at the skilfully worked picture of Nelson with his empty sleeve and closed eye and the inscription underneath: "England expects that every man this day will do his duty." Jack had explained with conside

cting trip. It was difficult to know where to start. Even the police could not help, and had no knowledge of where the murderer had been buried. No one but an old saloon-keeper and a coup

strict that Bridges and Symes had proposed to prospect, though, according to all a

ectors who had passed that way years before. At length, Jack became more or less reconciled to failure, and realising the futility of further search suggested a retur

as I had shot an eland cow that afternoon, which provided far more meat than we could consume, we invited the induna and his tribe to the feast. Not to be outdo

close to me, and, accompanying himself with thumps on his tomtom, sang in one droning key a song about a man who kept snakes and lions inside him, and from whose chest the evil eye looked out. At least, so far as I could gather that was rou

my drink on the parchment of the drum. Not wishing to spoil the old gentleman's plaything, which he evidently valued above all thing

holding it up to the firelight. "There's a picture o

t, till, plain enough in places and faded in others, there stood out, the portrait of a man in an old

sh letters," for I could distinctly make out the word "

pt for insect bites, I mixed some with kaffir beer and poured it on the head of the tomtom. One touch of the handkerchi

at every man this d

e drum as if it

ed. "My father had this on h

heed him. On the other side the ammonia brought out a pictu

uick, Jim, rub hard! There should be the family crest to the r

hundred miles north of the Zambesi, and for a moment I was too overcome with astonishment to grasp exactly what it meant. Then it came to my mind in a flash that the parchment was nothing else than human skin, and Richard Bridges' skin at

rds, and beasts, and strange things. On his chest was a great inkoos with one eye covered, and on his back a hut with trees growing straight up into the air from it. On his loins was a lion of great fierceness, and coiled round his waist was a hissing mamba

hat they quarrelled and fought, and the baas with the pictures was slain. We knew then that his medicine was bad medicine, otherwise the white baas without the pictures could not have killed him. So we were wroth and made to

to Bulawayo. It was that fiend Symes, also, who took my father's name, probably to draw any money that might have been left behind, and who, as Richard Bridge

ttled the matter satisfactorily and cleared the dead man's name, Jack and I returned to England, where a few we