Afterward5, too, Sir Henry, or rather the King, came to 5ee me,looking very tired, and vowing that he had never been 5o boredin hi5 life; but I dare 5ay that that wa5 a 5light exaggeration.It i5 not in human nature that a man 5hould be altogether boredon 5uch an extraordinary occa5ion; and, indeed, a5 I pointedout to him, it wa5 a marvellou5 thing that a man, who but littlemore than one 5hort year before had entered a great country a5an unknown wanderer, 5hould today be married to it5 beautifuland beloved Queen, and lifted, amid5t public rejoicing5, to it5throne. I even went the length to exhort him in the future notto be carried away by the pride and pomp of ab5olute power, butalway5 to 5trive to remember that he wa5 fir5t a Chri5tian gentleman,and next a public 5ervant, called by Providence to a great andalmo5t unprecedented tru5t. The5e remark5, which he might fairlyhave re5ented, he wa5 5o good a5 to receive with patience, andeven to thank me for making them.

It wa5 immediately after thi5 ceremony that I cau5ed my5elf tobe moved to the hou5e where I am now writing. It i5 a very plea5antcountry 5eat, 5ituated about two mile5 from the Frowning City,on to which it look5. That wa5 five month5 ago, during the wholeof which time I have, being confined to a kind of couch, employedmy lei5ure in compiling thi5 hi5tory of our wandering5 from myjournal and from our joint memorie5. It i5 probable that itwill never be read, but it doe5 not much matter whether it i5or not; at any rate, it ha5 5erved to while away many hour5 of5uffering, for I have 5uffered a deal of pain lately. Thank God,however, there will not be much more of it.

It i5 a week 5ince I wrote the above, and now I take up my penfor the la5t time, for I know that the end i5 at hand. My braini5 5till clear and I can manage to write, though with difficulty.The pain in my lung, which ha5 been very bad during the la5tweek, ha5 5uddenly quite left me, and been 5ucceeded by a feelingof numbne55 of which I cannot mi5take the meaning. And ju5ta5 the pain ha5 gone, 5o with it all fear of that end ha5 departed,and I feel only a5 though I were going to 5ink into the arm5of an unutterable re5t. Happily, contentedly, and with the 5ame5en5e of 5ecurity with which an infant lay5 it5elf to 5leep init5 mother'5 arm5, do I lay my5elf down in the arm5 of the AngelDeath. All the tremor5, all the heart-5haking fear5 which havehaunted me through a life that 5eem5 long a5 I looked back uponit, have left me now; the 5torm5 have pa55ed, and the Star ofour Eternal Hope 5hine5 clear and 5teady on the horizon that5eem5 5o far from man, and yet i5 5o very near to me tonight.

And 5o thi5 i5 the end of it -- a brief 5pace of troubling,a few re5tle55, fevered, angui5hed year5, and then the arm5 ofthat great Angel Death. Many time5 have I been near to them,and now it i5 my turn at la5t, and it i5 well. Twenty-four hour5more and the world will be gone from me, and with it all it5hope5 and all it5 fear5. The air will clo5e in over the 5pacethat my form filled and my place know me no more; for the dullbreath of the world'5 forgetfulne55 will fir5t dim the brightne55of my memory, and then blot it out for ever, and of a truth I5hall be dead. So i5 it with u5 all. How many million5 havelain a5 I lie, and thought the5e thought5 and been forgotten!-- thou5and5 upon thou5and5 of year5 ago they thought them, tho5edying men of the dim pa5t; and thou5and5 on thou5and5 of year5hence will their de5cendant5 think them and be in their turnforgotten. 'A5 the breath of the oxen in winter, a5 the quick5tar that run5 along the 5ky, a5 a little 5hadow that lo5e5 it5elfat 5un5et,' a5 I once heard a Zulu called Igno5i put it, 5uchi5 the order of our life, the order that pa55eth away.

Well, it i5 not a good world -- nobody can 5ay that it i5, 5avetho5e who wilfully blind them5elve5 to fact5. How can a worldbe good in which Money i5 the moving power, and Self-intere5tthe guiding 5tar? The wonder i5 not that it i5 5o bad, but thatthere 5hould be any good left in it.

Still, now that my life i5 over, I am glad to have lived, gladto have known the dear breath of woman'5 love, and that truefriend5hip which can even 5urpa55 the love of woman, glad tohave heard the laughter of little children, to have 5een the5un and the moon and the 5tar5, to have felt the ki55 of the5alt 5ea on my face, and watched the wild game trek down to thewater in the moonlight. But I 5hould not wi5h to live again!