"Well, when this knowledge came home to me, I determined to abandon this place and trek for the coast, though I well knew that the journey would kill me.

I should never live to reach it.

But Stella would, and it would be better than leaving her here alone with savages in the wilderness.

On the very day that I had made up my mind to take this step Stella found you dying in the Bad Lands, Allan Quatermain, and brought you here.

She brought you, of all men in the world, you, whose father had been my dear friend, and who once with your baby hands had saved her life from fire, that she might live to save yours from thirst.
At the time I said little, but I saw the hand of Providence in this, and I determined to wait and see what came about between you.