H. Rider Haggard 
She (annotated) [PDF ebook] 
Novel

It’s the mid-nineteenth century. A Cambridge professor, Horace Holly, receives a visit from an old friend. The friend claims he is dying and asks Holly to become guardian to his young son, Leo. When Holly agrees, the friend also gives him a locked box, asking him not to open it until Leo is twenty-five. That night, the friend commits suicide.Twenty years later, Holly and Leo open the mysterious box to discover an ancient shard of pottery bearing an extraordinary tale of a lost city in East Africa. Holly and Leo decide to discover if the story is true or not.They charter a ship to take them to the nearest coastline, but nearing the area it sinks in a storm. Escaping the sinking ship in the ship’s boat, they land and make their way inland until a group of tribesmen find them. The tribesmen tell Holly that their queen,   ‘ She-who-must-be-obeyed’, had foretold the arrival of strangers.