I never knew any one so
competent to form an accurate judgment of men and their motives.
'I have studied human nature all my life,' he would say, 'and
I ought to know something about it,' and he certainly did.
He had but two faults -- one was his excessive modesty, and the
other a slight tendency which he had to be jealous of anybody
on whom he concentrated his affections. As regards the first
of these points, anybody who reads what he has written will be
able to form his own opinion; but I will add one last instance of it.
As the reader will doubtless remember, it is a favourite trick
of his to talk of himself as a timid man, whereas really, though
very cautious, he possessed a most intrepid spirit, and, what
is more, never lost his head. Well, in the great battle of the
Pass, where he got the wound that finally killed him, one would
imagine from the account which he gives of the occurrence that
it was a chance blow that fell on him in the scrimmage. As a
matter of fact, however, he was wounded in a most gallant and
successful attempt to save Good's life, at the risk and, as it
ultimately turned out, at the cost of his own. Good was down
on the ground, and one of Nasta's highlanders was about to dispatch
him, when Quatermain threw himself on to his prostrate form and
received the blow on his own body, and then, rising, killed the
soldier.
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