CINDERELLA IN THE SOUTH

New York AgentsLongmans, Green & Co. Fourth Avenue and 30th Street

CINDERELLA IN THE SOUTH

South African Tales

by

ARTHUR SHEARLY CRIPPS

Author of 'Faerylands Forlorn, ''Lyra Evangelistica, ' Etc. 

OxfordB. H. Blackwell, Broad StreetMCMXVIII

To C. H. CRIPPS

FRIEND AND KINSMAN. 

Grace me these veld spoils rude with name of thine!Mine's been the luck not thine these long years nowTo tread the veld. What other use had'st thou, Hunter and Horseman, made of chances mine!Nor horns nor heads have I to give to thee, Yet spoils of sorts veld spoils I bring with me. 

A. S. C. 

Eukeldoorn, Mashonaland. 

October 11th, 1917. 

CONTENTS

 PROLOGUE

 THE THING THAT HATH BEEN

 NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD CHAMPION

 FUEL OF FIRE

 'LA BELLE DAME'

 THE SCENTED TOWN

 THE PLACE OF PILGRIMAGE

 THE LEPER WINDOWS

 THE BURNT OFFERING

 EIGHTY-EIGHT IN LAVENDER

 DIVINATION

 JULIAN

 THE DOUBLE CABIN

 INTELLIGENCE

 A CREDIT BALANCE

 MAN'S AIRY NOTIONS

 PISGAH

 A LION IN THE WAY

 AS TREES WALKING

 THE BLACK DEATH

 AN OLD-WORLD SCRUPLE

 FOR HIS COUNTRY'S GOOD

 LE ROI EST MORT

 THE RIDING OF THE RED HORSE

 THREE AND AFRICA

 OUR LADY OF THE LAKE

 EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

[AFRICA AND HER SISTERS. ]

Some fifteen years now I have been her guest, For all this land's hers, tho' she does not reign. She's but a ward, at what late age she'll gainHer freedom and her kingdom, it were bestTo risk no surmise rash. E'en now she's drestSometimes in skins. Give her ground-nuts and grain, Cattle and thatch'd hut, then she'll not complain, She's happier-hearted than her Sisters blest. 

Her Sisters blest! Of them what shall I say?I like them better when they keep away, And toil in their own lands, not loll in hers. They use her ill. She's not so old as they. She drudges for them. But her youth confersA charm on her they've lost these many years. 

THE THING THAT HATH BEEN

What's the good of him?' said the bar-tender to me. 'If he couldtell us how the Ruins came he might be worth a forty-pound chequeevery month, or at least a twenty one. But he can't. '

We were discussing the new appointment of a Government Curator atthe Mabgwe Ruins. I approved it, the bar-tender did not. Ipleaded that he was a bit exacting, that the Curator had a verycold scent to puzzle out, and that he had tried plodding aboutfrom ruins to ruins, moling and sapping and mining, not to speakof writing to the Rhodesian Press. Afterwards I shouldered myknapsack, sought counsel with my carriers as to ways and means, crossed the river and took the Ruins road. A motor-car hurtledpast me when I was within two miles. Its driver had been pointedout to me as a Jo'burg magnate; his passengers I did not know, but I was soon to know them. I was the first to reach the Ruinsafter all; for their arrival time being one o'clock, and theirhalting-place a hotel. Civilization demanded that they shouldlunch there. 

I drank from the fair water by the temple's western approach, andsat down to smoke under a tree in the precincts. The big cone ofthe main tower was just in sight. I had seen the walls before, and was in no analytical mood; synthesis was enough for me. Itook in with my delighted eyes a roofless dome worthy to be atemple of some sort, even if it were not, a blue roof thatbettered mere human aspiration, debris testifying to earthlyincompleteness, a broken column with its memento mori all thesewere simmering in my vision and my judgment. I half dozed untilthe voices of the lunchers began to interest me. They were doingthe rounds rather hastily, lunch having cut into their time, soshort at its very best. 

A Church dignitary from our own territory was with them. Heintroduced himself to me, and he also introduced an engineer. Hewas a patriotic Rhodesian, that dignitary, and denounced McIver, who had dared to assign to the Ruins a native origin. 

'Such nonsense!' he said. 'Believe me, my dear sir, I know thenatives, and I know the natives never built these walls. Poorcreatures; they want firm handling, don't they? They're always inwant of bossing-up. But as for this display of art, they haven'tit in them, and they never had. '

The engineer did not seem interested in what was said, or in whatI answered. He was a man of few words. He went off to the easternwall, whither we followed him. I found him poking about therewith a stick. The Jo'burg charioteer was soon fussing along, hurrying on tea-time. 'He didn't want to get a dose of fever thistrip, ' he said. He had heard about our unhealthy season up north, and the month was now April. He wanted to be back by sunset. Soit came to pass that his party went off to tea with but side-glancesat the hill-fastness. 

'I'm neither a baboon nor a nigger, ' said their host, when Iproposed that he should go up. After all, it was good-natured ofhim to motor the dignitary out, I considered. He himself affectedno sort of interest in antiquities, and the dignified antiquarianunder his care was so wearily keen. I went to tea with them, postponing my reveries to camping time and night. It was notuntil we were eating guavas at the end of our meal that theengineer came in. Then the Jo'burger told him to hurry up, andwent off to cherish his car. As to the engineer, his scantytea-time was not left in peace. The dignitary lectured him on thetrue and patriotic theory of Ophir, on Astarte's worship, andSolomon's gold. He answered very little, but he hinted that therewere difficulties. His lecturer glowed, and appealed to theCurator, who had just come in, bent and shaken with fever. Unhappily, yet happily for me, he trod on one of the curator'sarchaeological corns and involved himself in an apology. Beforehe was out of the wood I had asked the engineer a question ortwo. 

'No time to talk now, ' he said, 'too much cackle. Come and see mein the town. Or, if I miss you there, I may see you on the road, mayn't I? I'm due out your way in three days. '

Soon after he was petroled away. I went to camp in a clearing, tosup, to smoke, to read my guidebook. At last the night aged, andthe moon rose. My carriers slept. I looked up in the night'sstarred face and beheld 'Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance'there. But would I ever live to trace them by 'the magic hand ofchance, ' as Keats called the grace of God? I began again tomumble the lines of my guide-book, and found them rather bare anddry. I looked up at the vast tapering walls. Why was there noscript there? After all, that trenchant argument outweighed amany arguments; it scaled up like Brennus's sword, and made for aclear issue. I looked at the sleeping carriers. Did they hold thesecret, not in tradition, not in history, but in the fleshytables of the heart and brain and aspiration of their race? Iwent to sleep and dreamed of men building, building, building. They were building stone kraals for their sacred trusts of kine, chipping and carving away at their totem hawks and theircrocodiles, breaking limbs and necks over a sky-high tower, withstones for their bricks, and no slime to make them mortar. Howthey sang over their work, and how it grew! Talk of Troy's walls;if only Kaffirs would start building a Troy, or a Palace of Art, or a Spiritual City, how the work would go forward to the musicof them! I could hear all the parts in their melodies thechecking and countering and refrains and responses of them. But, before I woke, the parts were merged in full chorus. With thatunison music in my ears I rose and knelt and rose again hastily. Then I ran round to the eastern wall under the zig-zag patterns. I came only just in time to see the sunrise by so doing. 

It was three days after that I caught up Spenser, the Governmentengineer. 

'I have seen buildings in North Africa, ' he told me. 'Theyweren't much like those at Mabgwe. In the north, if they builtwith stones they built with great slabs. But those granite flakesat Mabgwe were easy for a primitive people to manage a veryprimitive people. Very primitive, or why did they build on sandwhen, six inches deeper, they might have founded on bed-rock?They didn't understand arches, seemingly. They weren't verycareful about bond in building, were they? Nor were they verycareful to break joint outside, much less inside, so far as I canjudge. And the script; where is it? And the graves; where arethey? If they were Semites, why didn't they write? If they wereSemites, why didn't they bury? . . . But it isn't as easy as itlooks, the riddle. There are one or two jagged ends that conicaltower, for instance. '

We camped that evening near a Mission. I admired the oblongiron-roofed church there. It wasn't my style of art, but it seemedto me fair of its kind. 

'Quite good, ' growled my expert friend, and he said no more atthe time. He spoke more freely over a last pipe. 

'I'm sorry, ' he said, 'not to take more interest in this sort ofthing. Only, after all, it's African-built, and Europeans coulddo the thing a bit better, couldn't they? This sort of thingseems rather a wrong line of advance. If I hadn't seen Mabgwe solately I mightn't mind so much. '

They showed us to a hut, a very clean one. 'That's better; that'sever so much better, ' he said. On the wall was a rude frieze inBushman painting style, but white, not red. I enlightened him asto tsenza work, as to how you could use the cool watery rootslike crayons. 

'Why, that's surely Jezebel looking out of that grain-bin, ' hehazarded. 'But what are those?'

'The dogs to eat her, ' I answered. 

They were horrid little whelps with human heads. I told him aboutcertain night-fears common among natives. 'It was a solidChristian who dared to paint these, ' I surmised. 

'If you could only get Africans to believe what Christiansbelieved in the thirteenth century you might see signs andwonders yet, ' he said. 

He has not been our way again since April, but I met him at thePro-Cathedral Pageant in January. It was organized by a PageantMaster, our mutual friend the dignitary. Therein Asia, KingSolomon and Sheba's Queen, were represented. Africa was relegatedto her proper Cinderella and Plantation Chorus part. 'Poorcreatures!' Spenser said, with a grimace, and winked at me. 

'Come, and I will show you a thing, ' he said to me afterwards; 'athing I chanced on in the Christmas holidays. It's ten miles out. I want to inspan at six sharp to-morrow. '

I was guilty of three omissions next day. I cut a clericalmeeting; I flouted the True Romance in the shape of the Pageant'ssecond performance; I also missed the bazaar of St. Uriel'sNative Church that was held on the Pageant ground. St. Uriel'sstructure had been put out to European contract; it was a verydidactic building, so the Pageant-Master told us. We passed it onour way out to the kopje country. 

'About as sensuously lovely as a Pills' advertisement, ' wasSpenser's comment. 'A good pity and terror purge. '

I sighed indulgently. 

'It's very popular, I've heard, among the town boys. It's so veryEuropean to native eyes, so extra corrugated and angular. '

We came up at last to that which we sought a huge ellipse anddome of stones and earth, rising and broadening under our veryeyes. It was on a farm among the granite hills, many miles fromRosebery. 'It's only a glorified stone cattle-byre, and anintensified stone Kaffir hut, ' Spenser commented. 'It's not evenbuilt the old Mabgwe way. These are only blocks of granite; a fewof them broken, but not one of them dressed. And there's lots ofmud to eke them out. '

'Yet there's hope in the thing. It's not an artistic dead-endlike Saint Uriel's, ' I pleaded. 

One or two Europeans, very unskilled ones I could see, hadplanned this bit of work, and taken part in it. They had madethemselves at charges for it, though African gifts had not beenwanting. They had, so to speak, coaxed their African pack on totry an old scent. Now the moving European spirit was gone homefor months to England. Before he went the former rains had ruinedsome of the work. He had been too ambitious, too scornful ofdelay. Forewarned by Africans, he had pressed to a midsummerdisaster. Now he had left Africans in charge. He had trusted themto go on. One Christian, in particular, he had trusted his fellowand his master in building. The boy had built at a colonial'scattle-kraal once. His skill had multiplied as he built on at thegreat church, and now he was a master craftsman. Doggedly he wasbuilding up again the rain-ruined bastions. The work was goingwith a swing, if a slow one. The scent was no longer a cold one. The pack were belling and chiming over it, and they were runningwith their huntsman out of sight. 

'I don't understand this bit of work properly, ' Spenser said. 'What's made the dry bones live?'

'Inspiration, ' I said reverently. 'Looked at in one way it's Art. Looked at all ways it's Religion. It's the same sort of thing aswent on, I suppose, when the faith of sun and moon was a power. Now the faith of Christ is gathering force in the land. The landisn't an Italy, and our twentieth century isn't that oldthirteenth century; yet look out for the signs and wonders youspoke of. Likely enough they're to be expected. '

We went to the Pageant Master's lecture on the Mabgwe Ruins thatnight, when we had driven back to Rosebery. It was moreinteresting to me as a subjective study than an objective displayof learning. 

'Poor creatures!' the lecturer said of the natives. 'Don't putthem in a false light. Whatever claims they may have to equabletreatment, they have no claim to be considered romantic. Theancient romance of this country is the romance of a nobler racethe romance of the Tyrian trader, Tyrian or Sabaean. Allow me buta trifling emendation, and Matthew Arnold's lines will serve toindicate that romance. ' Substituting 'Zambesians' for 'Iberians, 'he gave us the last lines of 'The Scholar Gipsy. ' 'In that era ofTyre's trade, ' he concluded, 'I place the golden age of ourcountry a golden age which under our own Imperial rule beginsanew. '

'H'm, ' said Spenser. 'That live Mashona building-boy's worth manydead Phoenicians to me, at any rate. As to defining romance, we'dbetter agree to differ. 'Do well unto thyself, and all men willspeak well of thee, ' he went on, with a tang of bitterness. 'Jew-boys and Arabs mopped up trade when they were living, now theyjump other men's kudos, being dead. '

'Never mind. ' I said. 'Art for Art's sake, aspiration foraspiration's, faith for faith's! And some there be which have nomemorial; who are perished as though they had never been; and arebecome as though they had never been born; and their childrenafter them. '

'Never mind, ' it was his turn to say. 'That granite kopje churchis rising, and Magbwe Ruins stand the quick and the dead. Theseshall both come up for judgment and get justice. Yes, if theyhave to wait for it till the Supreme Court of Alt holds session. '

NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD CHAMPION

We were going on an expedition long before the morning lightcame. Our ship was an armed steamer a converted cargo boat. Wehad reinforced our naval guns' crews and our Indian ship's guardby taking officers and native soldiers (askaris) aboard at acertain bay. We had reinforced our artillery by borrowing a Maximfrom the shore. I had a guest on board that night, a cheerfulpadre. How he seemed to relish his craft, and how able I esteemedhim. I was very raw at the work, and he helped me to understandwhat my defects were both in nature and grace. He had thesort of smile, I thought the real, right sort to warm a navalparishioner's heart. He was very keen on the new sort of thrillsand experiences that he had sought for himself by coming aboard. 

We reclined on camp beds high up on the bridge-deck, but we didnot drop asleep when the electric light failed and faded. Weasked each other's ages, and discussed parts of England as we hadknown them in more peaceful days; then we assured one anotherthat we wanted to rise early. We were to steam off on our suddenraid in the dark. Coffee had been ordered about 5:30; actionmight be expected to begin not much later than 6 a. M. We speculatedas to whether it were true that our ship would have to face anold field gun's fire on the morrow, as well as a Maxim's. I waseloquent as I told how our four-inch gun might be expected toshake the ship. After that, in the dimness we talked shop; we hadneither of us possibly had many easy openings for that ravishingemployment lately. 

Was it right to pray for our own side's success? I was steadfastin my scruples as to praying thus, my new-found friend wasinclined to be a little scornful of them. 'Is there a God of theGermans fighting the English tribal God?' I asked ratherirreverently, and my friend showed that he was shocked. Iapologized. 'Let's leave the Supreme Power out, ' I said. 'Let'sconsider the action of the saints in this war. Are they supposedto be scrapping like the gods in Homer English Saint Georgeagainst German Saint Michael and so on?' But my friend did notseem very keen about either Homer or hagiology. He explained thathe was a C. M. S. Man, and not a medievalist. The discussionlanguished, ere he murmured 'Good night. '

I slept rather fitfully. I was awake long before the ship movedaway on her fierce errand. At last, when she had been steamingsome while, I stole down in the dark to the bathroom. When I cameout of it the grey twilight was beginning. I crept aft and lookedover the bulwark, wondering how far we were away now. The shoreMaxim was in place there with plenty of sand bags about it, butthe officer in charge of it was still stretched abed. His friendthe Intelligence Officer, who had messed with us last night, wassnoring on another bed beside him. I stood looking at a duskyisland in the moonlight, and began praying a favorite prayer ofmine for those times, asking God to let Saint Michael cover ourheads in the day of battle. I muttered the prayer very low, butit appeared that somebody heard. A slim figure, seemingly inkhaki, that I had not noticed, rose up from a seal; on the sandbags. 

'Are you praying something about battles?' it asked. I started, and assented clumsily. 

'How does one pray about battles nowadays?' the investigatorproceeded. He spoke in the friendliest way, and managed to seteven me at ease. So I told him what I had prayed for. 

'It sounds a fair sort of prayer; better than some I've heard, 'he allowed, as he sat down again. 'Some people seem to forget thelast lot of the Books in the Bible when they pray nowadays. ' Iheartily agreed. 

'I don't believe for one, ' he went on, 'that Saint Michael ispassionately interested in wiping out either English or askarisor Germans. It's surely better to pray about him like you prayed. I should think the negative work appeals to him more than thepositive, the salvage more than the blotting. '

His voice was clear, and evidently carried. The Maxim's wardengrumbled, and began to sit up in bed. 

'Possibly, ' this disturber of slumber went on quiteunconcernedly, 'Saint Michael has a clearer notion as to the realenemy than some clients who invoke him. '

Then the officer in pyjamas accosted me, and the thread of theother's talk was lost. When I moved off to dress he had alreadyleft his perch among the sand bags. I climbed the ladder, and hadmy coffee. Soon after came the scurry to stations. We were cominginto the bay in the glory of that morning under hangings of amberand rose and feathery grey. The four-inch gun's crew were intheir places. I stood trying to read the Prayer before Action inits very small print. I murmured what I was doing to my cheerycolleague, so much more enthusiastic than I was about what seemedto be coming. Then someone came up and spoke to me. It was surelymy friend from the sand bags. I could see him properly now. Hewas surely an officer. He stood up slender and shapely in hiskhaki, but he was not wearing a single star or a regimental badgeof any kind. Had he forgotten these in the hurry of this eagermorning? With but a few words, he passed on towards the guns'crews. Soon our four-inch gun was shaking the ship horribly. Wewere shelling a trench that ran up a hillside, they said. I satunder cover of the bulwark near some kneeling riflemen, far fromenjoying myself. Yet no gun roared back in answer to our own. Itseemed to be one-sided enough, this operation of war. 

'It's a fearful weapon, ' remarked my colleague rathercomplacently, as he paced towards the gun platform. One prayedfor those who were naked to its fearsomeness up on the hillthere, and prayed about Saint Michael's intervention to SaintMichael's Commander-in-Chief. The long-drawn moments slurred byus. A bell rang as the ship wound her way in slowly. The mournfulcry of him who took the soundings came again and again. Then westopped dead anew, and our gun's mouth roared and flamed. 

'Such a crowd of askaris; the hill's black with them!' So thesignalman cried to the doctor, as he sped by on a message. I wasinterested in watching the gun-layer as he readjusted the dragonmouth. But what had my friend of the sand-bags to do with thematter? He moved among the gun's crew, and none said him nay; hishands were on the gun after the accredited gunlayer's. We shelledanother position, and then another. Afterwards came a lull, andsome of us hurried up to breakfast. 

There was much talk there of the possible or probable slaughterwe had effected. Doubtless the store ship that had followed usand hung behind us had served us well. Those on shore Had surelybeen more disposed to hold to their positions, fearing that shecarried troops, and meant to land them. Now she was steamingslowly away. How many did our bag amount to? The IntelligenceOfficer was sanguine, so was my colleague, but the gunneryofficer was rather pessimistic. 'Two or three of those roundswent just wrong, ' he grunted. 'We've struck a bad day. ' Afterthat the porridge and the bacon and the eggs were done with; wewere soon back at our stations. Once more our gun bombarded. Oncemore no answer came. Now occurred the cruise of the motor boat;the best adventure of the day so far, as it seemed to me. 

The boat was lowered, and the shore Maxim mounted in it. Sandbags were piled up in plenty. A Naval Reserve officer, fair-hairedand young faced, sprang in to join the gun's officer. There wasalso a British bluejacket ready to go, and there were Africansoldiers and sailors, as well as the two engine-men, English andGoanese. They were to beat up the river, and hunt down canoes, should any appear. 

My heart thrilled as I uttered God-speed to the Maxim warden. Ithink he was unmarried, but his fellow officer was both husbandand father; they might have a fiery time in front. Last mygraceful friend, with no stars or badges on his khaki, slippedinto the boat. He seemed to come and go as he liked, and nonerefused his services. The boat hummed away from us, past somerocks, and round a headland into the unseen. Then our shiptraveled on slowly, before she stopped and fired again. She shotaway many rounds that time. I was sick and weary of the firing asI sat on the deck by the doctor's cabin. My colleague was muchmore alert and cheerful. He had secured a shell-case by the navalcommander's bounty. 'They make such splendid trophies, ' he toldme. But I did not covet one much. I thought of how such wartrophies were in demand for Christmas decoration vases in achurch by the lakeside. I also thought of the quite possiblehorror and havoc of shattered askaris' bodies that those splendidtrophies might be supposed to have wrought. How one thoughtbesides of the adventurers in that whizzing motor-boat duringthat next half-hour. But as it turned out, according to theirdisappointed report, not a shot was fired at them. 

'We let fly with the Maxim at some natives and one European onshore, ' the gun-worker shouted, as they drew up at the ship'sside. 'We saw some canoes, three of them. Askaris were in them, and urging the paddlers on. Then, of all times, the Maxim took itinto its head to jam badly. So we didn't get them. ' I happened tocatch my friend in khaki's eye as the other lamented. He lookedquite cheerful about things, while the other went on, 'We'd havesunk the lot, if it hadn't jammed just then. '

The thought flickered into my mind as to whether anybody wasresponsible for that singular coincidence. I looked in myfriend's face with some sort of an uneasy question. But he onlysmiled. His face was strangely prepossessing, so entirelyfearless, yet not the least truculent. His brown eyes and boy'slips answered my question with the most engaging of smiles. Thosebrown eyes assorted piquantly with his very fair hair. He hadpushed his white helmet far back on his yellow head. Half an hourlater we were in our action stations once more. Our riflemen werefiring at individual askaris (were they all askaris, and notunhappy villagers?) who could be descried upon the shore. Thesignalman, passing by again, snatched a rifle and fired justbeside me. One of the Maxims meanwhile was working away grimly, the officer's face was set firm as he steadied his coughingmachine. Then it was that I saw my unattached friend step towardshim, and take up his stand behind him. Ping! A bullet came justover the gun-director's head. 'That was a near shave, ' thewarrant officer told me afterwards. 'Someone aimed too high, orhe'd have got him that worked the gun. '

Yet it was a mystery to me why the bullet did not get thathandsome head behind and above him, the head that I reflected haddoubtless helped to draw the fire so high. He who had exposedhimself came to me untouched. 'It looked near, ' he allowed to mesmiling. He stayed by us for the rest of that fell morning. Hesmiled, and bade me cheer up, when the naval commander went by;had he not twitted me for sitting safe under the bulwark andwincing when the four-inch gun roared? He smiled also a littleironically when my colleague came up, still fondling his trophyand dilating on its splendor. Then he smiled again and again ashe moved behind him to and fro on the deck, watching him in thepitiless firing. He smiled moreover when he moved up to the gun;he was revising the gunlayer's work now and then, so far as Icould make out his movements. He smiled afterwards when theIntelligence Officer made such sanguine estimates of theslaughter we had dealt out to forts and trenches. They weretalking together, he and his comrade of the Maxim gun, discussingwhether the bag was really a big one, the former as glib with thepros as the latter was with the cons. The tall listener smiledrather wistfully as he heard them. After the last round from thesix-pounder had been fired, before we went to lunch, he came upand said farewell to me. 'But I shall see you again on board, shan't I?' I asked. 'We shan't put you off at the Bay till nearlysunset, shall we?' 'I may be getting off long before then, ' hesaid, but he did not explain how. My prayer book had fallen onthe deck, and he picked it up and gave it to me. 'Mind you keepto your own line, ' he said. 'I like that prayer in your prayerbook about Saint Michael. Doubtless he's covered not a fewpeople's heads in this day of battle, not all of them on the oneside. It's likely enough he has unearthly notions about war, ashe's an unearthly being. Perhaps the dragon he makes war on, warto the death, is neither England nor Germany, but just thescrapping between them. '

'What do you mean?' I asked, rather puzzled. Yet he only smiled, he was not very explicit. 

'Oh, by the way, ' he said. 'They tell me you've promised to builda mission church to Saint Michael if you get back to the southsafe and sound. ' I wondered afterwards who they were that hadtold him. 

'Yes, I said, 'and if I don't, the building of it's endowed in mywill. '

'Why not take the shell-cases, ' he said, 'if they offer you some?You needn't use them in your church as altar-vases. They'dmake a splendid trophy under Saint Michael's feet, a gleaming, sleek-barreled serpent of slaughter, just the sort of dragon forhim to tread, and delight in treading. Good-bye. '

He was gone amongst the sailors, just as the steward called me upto the cold soup. I saw no more of him on the voyage, nor have Iseen him since that September day. The one or two I asked abouthim seemed not to know whom I meant. I have often wondered who hewas since then, and have framed a theory. Perhaps you can guesswhat it is without my needing to write it down. 

FUEL OF FIRE

I was lucky to get a lift. We had risen before the moon took toher bed, and the sun had left his. We were driving through greenwoodlands when the light grew clear around us. A little while agotheir graceful trees had been ruddy or bronze doubtless. Now itwas the turn of the hill-trees on the great kopje that we passedwithin a mile, to grow bronzed and to redden. For the month ofNovember had only just come in. We outspanned in a valley wherethe new green of the grass had come already. No doubt a month agoit had looked very black and fire-scathed. Now the showers hadbrought kind healing and amendment. We made our morning Memorialtogether (being all of us Christians bound on some sort of aChristian pilgrimage), and after that we breakfasted and smokedat ease while the mules grazed close by, and the driver boiledhis pot, and fed it with meal, and stirred and ladled out, andate in the fullness of time. My heart was very thankful. How muchbetter and kindlier one's lot seemed now fallen as it was onceagain in this fair ground of a country at peace in Wartime. Thiscountryside pleased me ever so much better than British East orGerman East this Mashonaland. There to north I remembered withoutenthusiasm the tropical passions of the elements, I rememberedrather miserably some of the things that a state of war hadmeant. 

After breakfast, there was no hurry about our inspanning. Butwhen we had once got off we were soon up level with the farmhouseon the hill's shoulder. We halted for friendship's sake, andwaited for the cups of coffee that we were assured would be soonready. Our host was Dutch-looking, but seemed British; I thoughtrather narrowly British in his sympathies. He discussed the Warkeenly and thoughtfully with my companion. He had two brothers inGerman East, I knew, and he was soon asking me about them. Butour paths up that way had not converged. I could only tell him byhearsay about the main advance, wherein they had been sharing, and I had not. As I told, a dark handsome, gentle-voiced womanbrought our coffee out. Soon a shy little girl put her head roundthe corner of the stoep, and withdrew' it again. I jumped down togreet her. Then she agreed to come and shake hands with us both. Her father colored up, and smiled as he told me of a greatscheme. A lady in town had offered to board this child. So kind, wasn't it? She was of sturdy English make (her father's fatherwas an Essex man. I had been told). Her hair and eyes were verydark; she looked ever so capable. 

'Yes, very kind, ' I murmured, but I was reflecting that thelady's kindness might not be so very ill-rewarded. The childmight prove useful and cost little. She might give the sort ofhelp that is apt to be useful and costly in a country like ours. 'Yes, ' said the father smiling, 'and she may get to the dayschool that way, the lady says. We couldn't have nearly affordedto send her into town otherwise. But now she's got her chance ofa regular school. ' 'Oh, really, ' said my friend. His kind uglyface looked none too pleasant as he said it, I remember noticingthat. 

Then he went to his mules to 'buckle' up a strap somewhere. I wassurprised to hear him cursing something under his breath. It wasnot his manner, I thought, to curse straps or mules. We saidgood-bye a very cordial one and then drove down towards the mainroad. It winds through a vlei towards the town. We had got almostto the big water-course so banked up in thirsty sand, when hetold me what he was cursing. He repeated his words deliberately:'Damn it, damn it to hell, ' he said. I protested faintly till hemade it clear to me what he was damning, then I recklesslyendorsed his damnation. For he was not cursing Heaven orhumanity; he was cursing that blessed Anglo-Dutch, or ratherDutch-English, institution of South Africa, the color-bar. He hadbeen told by one of the managers that should the father apply foradmission to school on behalf of the child we had seen, he wouldbe certainly refused. The father was really much too poor to sendher away, he told me. 

'They're ever so honest and hard-worked. They've put up a greatfight on mealie meal against bad seasons. They've pinched hardfor the child's poor little outfit. He's got into debt for it. He's a Britisher, and has got two brothers fighting. Verydubious, dark children have been admitted already, as presumablyDutch. Dutch and colonials rule the roost here. And to leaveChristianity alone, where does British Imperialism come in? It'srisking spoiling a life, and the life of such a decent kid. '

Thereat he certainly condemned guiltily, as he should not havecondemned, Dutchmen and colonials, their churches, their socialorder, and their sanctimony. 'Thank God I was at plebeianOxford, ' he said, 'and was free to mix with colored men. This isfar more select, this dorp academy, with its elect Principal andits supermen-managers. ' We nearly had a row about his language. 

We came over a rolling down towards the commonage. 'They've keptfree from fires here, ' I said. 'Yes, ' he said, 'but I'm doubtfulif their vigilance pays, if their game's worth the candle. I meanif such absence of illumination is worth all their watchingabout. ' 'It saves waste of life. ' I said, 'animal and vegetable, if you can only keep the fires away. ' I appealed to the wisdom ofour laws as well as to the argument of mercy which I appealed tome. 'And you get that sort of thing. ' he said, pointing to thethick brown tufts of unappetizing feed. 'That's been going morethan a year, hasn't it? 'Oh for a wind and a fire, ' say I. 

We passed over the commonage, which showed very black with recentfires. 'It looks rather knocked out, ' I said. 'Yet not withouthope, ' he answered. We were driving back about the same time nextfore-noon. A great fire was rushing wind-driven over that rollingupland. 'At last, ' he said. I sighed. A mile further on we cameinto the smiling green vlei. 'This was black a while back, ' hesaid. 'Doesn't the fire help a bit after all? Who wants thatmoldy stuffy old feed, isn't it parabolic of that fusty Dutch-Anglodorp and its prejudices? What are they meant for, and it?'Fuel of fire, ' say I. ' I smiled indulgently. Since we had gotinto town things had happened. We had had our memorial servicesfor the Dead that last night, and this same morning. It was theweek of All Hallows and All Souls, a time that often tempts me tohomesickness. One is apt to think of hazy, yellow-leaved, dreamytimes in old England just about then not to speak of old familiarfaces. That night of the first Service was very starry, and themorning of the second Service was brilliantly clear, the rainseemed to be very far away for the time being. People had come atnight rather well. Not to speak of one of the school managershaving died quite recently, news of one of our police's death outscouting had leaked through from German East. I preached Paradiseto that attentive congregation in the iron-roofed church thatnatives had been so discouraged from attending. I was glad onestraggled into the back seats I had battled for, just todemonstrate one's principle of barring out the color-bar. It wasall very soul-soothing, thought I, that Memorial Evensong, thestars outside, and the golden evening brightening in the west ofthe hymn, and the lesson about white robes and palms, presumablyof victory or harvest-homing. My friend waited for me outsideunder the lamp. 'Very fine, ' he said in his grimmest way, 'theAnglican view of hopeful souls turned promiscuously into a sortof orchard and rose-garden with plenty of light to gild them, andrest to wrap them. ' I smiled. 'True enough in its way, ' I said. 'There's another side doubtless, yet the preaching of thatdoesn't appeal to me particularly. I don't want to work onpeople's apprehensions. But don't let me stand in your light. You're a lay reader with a bishop's license. You can preach andwelcome to-morrow morning. ' 'Trust me not to refuse, ' he said. 'Idon't want to play up to apprehensions exactly. I want to statewhat seem to me to be relentless laws of cause and effect, and toshow the only way with any sort of hope in Christ that I happenby faith to see. ' So he had preached that morning. He preachedquite simply on the trying of every man's work, on the burning offlimsy work, on the saving of the workman, yet so as by fire. There was a small but select gathering in the Church of SaintTertullian; two of the school managers even were there. Surely Ihad baited the trap, I thought guiltily as I looked upon them, by my over-amiabilities of the night before. 

Yet that side was true enough, the side I had preached. And wasnot this side also true in its way? The preacher seemed at firstto be referring to my own obsession with the words 'resist notevil, ' my following of Tolstoy in my own evangel. He was warm inhis commendation. 'And yet, ' he said, 'let us remember a justGod's resistance to evil. He resists and judges righteously, where we may neither resist nor judge. If we agree not to resistevil violently for Jesus' sake, yet ought we not to warn peopleof their God's unrelenting resistance? While we would not obscurethe fear of our just God by the fear of us unjust men, let usremember our just God!' He spoke of judgment and of purgation, ofwhat seemed to be indicated hereafter by the stupidity andcruelty of people's prejudices in South Africa. He painted quiteluridly the purgation he anticipated as likely for such as woulddare to wreck a child's education, and possibly her life for acolor-scruple. He glowed and kindled. There was no mistaking hisdrift. He painted the fires of purgation. He painted, too, theirpresumable fuel, much as I believe old preachers limned theflames of hell and their denizens. 'And it may lengthen out intohell! Who knows?' he kept interjecting. 'Who knows but that thatprejudiced spirit you play with may be a damned spirit after all, fuel for the fire that is not quenched, food for the worm thatdoes not die?'

T could not have preached happily on his lines, but for all thatI acknowledged that the thing might well be of God this bizarresurprise at his preaching that was glassed in at least two of hislisteners' eyes. Did that sermon do any good? Let me anticipate!The child came into town as a half-time servant. Somebody'sletter got handed up to the Administrator, and he made a requestto the managers. The child was clearly European by predominanceof race. They spent five hours of their precious time indiscussion. The officials wanted to oblige the Administrator, andthey had their way at last. But whether the child once admittedwill have much of a time, I am inclined to doubt, should she passinto the Paradise of so select an academy. I heard an ominousstory of the Dutch minister last week, how he had threatened ahiding to any child of his that spoke to this forlorn littlegirl, who seems hard up for playmates. I heard yesterday that oneof my Church magnates had asked that the child should not come upto play with his own. Yet the Fire of God has been preached, andI am willing to allow that the thing may have wanted doing ratherbadly in my amiable parish. Doesn't any real true Christian PeaceDoctrine mean spiritual fire and sword? Doesn't it mean burningand fuel of fire as set against the confused noise and garmentsrolled in blood of earthly campaigns? Doesn't any real trueChristian Imperialism mean the sword of the Spirit and the fireof the Gospel against South African Racialism? Perfect lovecasteth out fear, but what has Racialism to do with such aperfect love as will banish the fear of God?

After all, can any reasonable and lively Christian Faith avail tofind any evangelically reasonable destination short of hell forSouth African Racialists dying in their Racialism save such placeof purgation as my friend indicated? Yes, of course, God'sprerogative of mercy in Jesus is limitless, but are theseRacialists so merciful to little colored children that theyshould obtain mercy without judgment from Jesus' judgment?

And if the purgative fire seem so inevitable, why not warn itsprospective fuel?

Granted the Love of Jesus (Who was certainly what South Africanswould call a Jew Boy, Who was possibly so dark that any dorpschool would have hummed over His admission, Who enrolled Himselfin that House of David one of Whose ancestresses was the HamiticRahab apparently, Who took Ham's curse as well as Japheth's);granted that that Love is the one and only supreme motive forChristian Reform, yet for all that, facts are facts, and it maybe kind to tell people into what fires the fires of Racialismthreaten to merge their selves. On the whole, I am glad that ourlay reader preached on that bright morning that over-gloomedsermon, preaching from my own soothing pulpit to my startledcongregation. They did not seem to know what to make of it. Butthe preacher himself seemed quite unrepentant about it. He wastalking to me about it that morning when we drove home again, heto his farm and I with him, to walk on to my mission. Weoutspanned in a very green valley, I remember, and sat long overroast monkey-nuts that his driver benignantly provided. 

'The Lord put a word into my mouth, ' my friend said quite firmlyand simply. 'Was there not the cause the cause of a child'scareer? Didn't our Savior speak plainly as to the ugly analogy ofthe man drowned like a dog with a stone round his neck in thedeep of the sea? Weren't His children in question when Jesusspoke; wasn't there a Christian child in question when Ipreached?'

I thought he made out something of a case for his position as apreacher of fiery doom. We were sitting on a beautiful greencarpet. The Earth there had come through her bad time. Awayon the hillside a black forbidding patch testified to theunpleasantness of the remedial stage. Away in the distance was abeautiful tree-shaded granite hill with much show of brownfoliage and purplish underspaces. Just beside that hill theflames came driving (through the old last year's feed, Isuppose). His eyes followed mine the way of the flames. 'Hurray!'he said heartily. 'Now we shan't be so very long surely afterall. Don't you see the green grass on its way? It was a snugcorner, verily, for the old dry stuff. Look, how the flames leapup in the thick of it! Not very juicy browse nor tasty feed, butfine fuel for the fire; good for that, anyway. It was a snugcorner, but at last the time was ripe when the fire came drivingstraight for it the fire with the wind behind. 'Which things area parable, ' he said, his ugly sunburnt face twitching curiously, his eyes quite handsome, nay, even splendid with honest scorn. Hewas shaking his fist towards the prim little dorp that we hadleft behind over the ridges. 'No doubt but ye are the people, ' hesaid, 'ye that have made the freedom of England and the franchiseof Jesus of no effect by your tradition your sacrosancttradition. What's the good of the frowsy old stuff? It must besome good; what is it? It isn't very good pasture for sheep orhorses, not to speak of dairy cattle, but it's noble food forfire, don't you think?

There it lies-up so snug and sheltered and screened the old deadsurvival hidden in the prim little corrugated iron-roofed houses, and the narrow gumtree avenues, and the whitewashed Dutchtabernacle where they sing "Safe in the Arms of Jesus" (would youbelieve it?) But the time will come, it mayn't come in my day orin yours, but the time will come sure enough, when the Fire willtrek dead straight for this old dead-ripe stuff, the Fire withthe Wind behind. Then God have mercy on them whose work it was!For their work shall be burnt, aren't we sure of that? But as tothey themselves being the sort to be saved so as by fire can webe so very sanguine? Meanwhile. . . . . . . 

The way he so humbly appealed to me for my opinion on that mootpoint, did much to conciliate me. He had not carried me with himall the while. He seemed to me a bit out of date, too like anante-Christian prophet. Yet how my heart went out to him as heended up so very abruptly with his 'meanwhile. ' His voice brokequeerly, and his eyes shone. 'Meanwhile they may manage to give achild or two a rough passage. They've got pluck enough for that, the blighters, haven't they?' He turned away from me with a sortof a sob. 'The time'll come sure enough, but it's their time now, and they know it, ' he said. 'God pity her!'

'LA BELLE DAME'

Inhabiting this country you inhabit the Middle Ages, you dwell inthe wild Marchlands without the pale of Christendom. Here a manmay take to the forest roads in the old spirit of errantry. Howdarkly the shadow of witchcraft falls upon the path; we might bein Lapland or Thessaly! What strange satyr voices the drums haveof nights! I suppose it is the reading about such things long agothat gives me this sense of having been here before, of havingcome back to this country!'

His eyes glistened as he sat over his wine, and smoked Transvaaltobacco in a calabash pipe. He looked much more as he used tolook twenty years back, I thought. I had deemed him aged almostout of recognition when first we sat down to dinner. He had comeup to Mashonaland with some learned association on a holidaytrip. His name was Gerald Browne; he had lectured on Englishliterature these many years in an ancient northern university. 

With him came his wife, a very plain and quiet lady, and also anundergraduate pupil named Drayton. 

I was asked to meet them, and to stay in the same house with themby a certain minor potentate of Rosebery, who had had rooms nearBrowne's and mine in years gone by. It was Saturday night, and Ihad just come in from the veld, while Browne's party had reachedRosebery by the morning train. Dinner had gone rather quietly, and our host had looked bored, I thought. Then, when the ladieshad left us, Browne had kindled up, and we all three had aglorious hour, voicing the praises of Africa in a sort ofthree-man descant or glee. Meanwhile the fourth man, Drayton, adark, plump and smiling youth, listened to us with a charming airof respectful attention. Transvaal tobacco was good, and the talkwas good, though I say it who should not. Drayton's silencewas also good, a very complimentary silence with a distinctcharacter, as it seemed to me. On Sunday after lunch this youthcame for a walk with me, while the Brownes and our host reclined. 

'Mr. Browne's got a sort of call to the Simple Life, ' he suddenlyblurted out with a grin. 'It's even money on his selling up atOxford and coming out here for good. What's going to happen toMrs. Browne, I wonder?'

I laughed, as I thought he expected me to do. 

'He seems rather smitten, ' I admitted. 'He certainly raved a bitlast night; but, then, so many people do that when they firstcome out. '

Drayton looked at me as if he might have said much more. But Ichanged the subject; it never occurred to me then that it mightbe a thrilling one. I went home later on and sat on the stoep andtalked to my host. Browne had very little to say. He went off fora sunset walk, and never came to church at night. We sat up inthe moonlight waiting for him afterwards. He came in at last andjoined us on the stoep, but he was very silent. He would not haveany supper. He smoked away furiously till bed-time. 

I arranged a riding trip for all three visitors next morning. They were to off-saddle under some high kopjes about ten milesfrom town; they were to have a picnic and an amazing view. Icould not go myself, as I had an appointment to keep. But I senttwo Mashona boys to be their retinue; one of them was Johannes, my own right hand at home. I solemnly entrusted the strangers andtheir steeds to his keeping. 

When I came in about sunset that Monday evening they had notreturned. But before the daylight failed, three of them were backMrs. Browne, Drayton, and the under-boy. Where were Browne andJohannes? Mrs. Browne seemed to be a little uneasy, but sheaffected to make light of what had happened. She said that herhusband had wanted to see the country beyond, so he had gone onwith the boy. He was sure to be back to-morrow, as he had takenso little food with him. Drayton said nothing at the time, butafter dinner, when we were smoking on the stoep, he began toquote to me:

'I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful a faery's child;Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild. '

'What do you mean to insinuate?' I said. 

'Oh, I don't mean anything libelous. Browne hasn't gone off witha comely Mashona. But, for all that, I believe he's taken Africamuch too seriously. She has a grim fascination for me, but shedoesn't stop at that with him. She grips him and orders him tocome along. '

'Tell me about today, ' I said. 

'Browne acknowledged a little to me three days ago, ' Draytonsaid. 'He told me that this huge Tamburlaine (or ratherZenocrate) of a country was giving him too heady a welcome. Hesaid she was still in the Middle Ages, and not only there, butmore than half outside the pale of Christendom, such as it wasthen. So she had strange forces at work in her, and usedincantations to allure, in prodigal variety. He talked aboutLapland, and some footling researches he had made into the magicof the north. He also told me a horrible tale or two of the Souththat he had found in the Bodleian. One was a real curdler, I cantell you. Jerry Browne's own moustache seemed to turn up like aGerman's as he imparted it to me. You know he's romantic enoughin his way, though he does lead such a repressed life. You shouldsee him at home. '

'But do tell me why he's gone off so suddenly, ' said I, with someimpatience. 

'I can't tell you very much, ' said Drayton. 'We rode out, andJerry seemed tremendously cheerful quite sportive. Anyone who'donly known him in Park Crescent would have been much surprised towatch him and listen to the things he said. Mrs. Browne seemed abit puzzled, I thought, at last. Then we came to the kopjes wherethere was a consummate view. You could see a long way to thenorth across a hugely wide plain. Browne climbed up on thehighest rock with me a sort of flat slab, whereon you mightimmolate a hecatomb. He seemed more exhilarated than ever justthen. Soon he slipped away down the rocks and left me smoking mypipe on high. About five minutes after I observed him makingtracks across the northern plain. He was cantering his dappledmule for all it was worth; he was carrying nothing so far as Icould see. 

'I made haste down. I found that boy you said we could trust. Igave him two or three picnic rugs and what was left of our foodto carry. I asked him to follow the rideaway, to stick to him, and to bring him back as soon as ever he could. Then I went toMrs. Browne. She was sitting behind some bushes crying. She saidBrowne had said such a curious good-bye to her. He had spoken ofriding on to see more of the country he had said he would be backin the morning. She had tried to dissuade him, but he seemedhardly to listen. She could scarcely believe that he had reallygone without blankets or food. I reassured her, telling her thatI had sent the boy and that you had said the boy was a good'un. But if she thinks, or you think, that the old man will comeback tomorrow, I don't. '

Tuesday passed anxiously both for Mrs. Browne and for me. Draytonwas anxious in the wrong way, unless I misjudged him. I seemed toread triumph in his face as the hours went by and brought noBrowne. 

I grew haggard when evening drew on. What was I to do? But aboutsunset tidings came. A native, who had traveled into town fromthe north, brought me a penciled note from Johannes: 'My father, I ask you to come to us. Let your horse make haste. The white manwill not turn. He has finished his food. He goes to the hills, hesays. I think that he is mad. Pray for us! Johannes. '

I went to Mrs. Browne at once. I remember I found her sittingunder a flaming hibiscus bush. She looked very pale and washed-outagainst it. I told her that her husband wanted to extend histour. She burst into tears, and said she could not understand it. Then I told her that I meant going after him in the morning totry to hasten his return. She brightened up at that, and fell toplanning what I should take with me. What comforts could she sendGerald in the comfortless desert without overloading me? I showedJohannes' note to Drayton after dinner. He whistled, and, to hiscredit, looked grave. 

'I'm to go after him to-morrow, ' I said. 'I've thought over it, and I think you may as well come too. You may be useful, asknowing his ways. '

He nodded. 'Rather bad about his running out of skoff, isn't it?'he asked. 'I wonder if he's out of baccy and just breaking hisheart. ' His plump face was pitiful. 

'Don't you fret, ' I answered. 'It only means he's run out of ourfood. They'll surely buy monkey-nuts or sweet-potatoes or rice inthe kraals. He's probably developed a passion for native food bynow, also for native snuff. He'll be able to buy some of that, surely. '

'Just so, ' said Drayton. He began to quote again in a sort ofdroning chant as if he were a chorus recording the onsweep of atragedy:

'I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long, For sidelong would she lean, and sing A faery's song. 

'She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna-dew, And sure in language strange she said I love thee true. '

In the morning we got a flying start after all, though Draytonwas in bed when I came back from church. We went away at eight, and soon found, to our joy, that we were really well mounted. Itwas joy, too, to remember what a stubborn mule Browne had forpacing steed. He had not got away far, we assured ourselves. Butwe did not catch him that night. 

We asked at kraals as we went along, and struck a hot scent aboutthree in the afternoon. A white man had passed that morning awhite man riding a dappled mule, with a boy carrying blanketsbehind him. Straightway we gave our ponies an off-saddle. 

Afterwards we rode on hard in what we deemed to be the rightdirection till darkness fell: We sought shelter at a villagethen. There was no village gossip, alas! about the passing of awhite man that day! They were good to us, though, thosevillagers, and gave us beans and monkey-nuts for supper andmealies for our ponies. After we had finished eating we spreadout the rush-mat they had lent us and lay down to smoke andmeditate and surmise as to our passionate pilgrim. They had givenus a hut that was old and grimy with fires. Its floor teemed withlife. 

Therefore we changed our resting-place and went out to camp undera rocky eminence. There with a bedrock of austere granite weslept in peace. At glimmer of dawn we were saddling up. We rodeto another kraal, but the folk there had no news for us. 

We were close on the hills now at last. We came to a low river atthe foot of them. We chose a landlocked pool that seemed to beimmune from crocodiles, for a plunge. Next I girded myself forSacrifice, and he served me. Then we made a fire and cooked ahuge breakfast in the hungry morning air. Drayton grew quitelyrical as to the charm of the country before the meal was over. 

'Browne's not far wrong about her, ' he said; 'but there's reasonin all things. '

That whole day we heard no news and found no spoor or sign. Thehill-country gave us stiff climbing and rocky paths to ride. Kraals and clusters of gardens places where we might hope to heartidings how few they were in that hill-country! We campeddisconsolately at last in a forlorn garden among grey boulderswhere stumps of trees were burning. We found no trouble inbuilding up a good night fire of half-burnt logs. We gave ourponies their nosebags and ate our own bread and bully rathersilently. Then we surmised with some weariness and gloom over ourpipes. At last we slept under the many eyes of the heavens. 

About first cock-crow, when a chill struck through my blanket, Iopened my eyes and looked towards the fire. Someone was sittingbeside it watching me. Now that he saw me stirring he greeted me. 

It was Johannes. 'I saw your fire but just now, ' he said. 'Ourfire is up there beyond great rocks. The white man has been verysick. I think he will come home now. '

I sprang to my feet and roused Drayton. He would not get up for along time. I suspect he combined breakfast and lunch fairly oftenat Oxford. But I roused him mercilessly. I told him the news. 

He argued in desperate fashion at first. 'How far's the sickbed, ' he asked. 

'Not more than a mile or so, ' said I. 

'Need we go till morning?' said he. 

'Shame!' said I. 

At last he sprang up. 

As we clambered among the boulders, piloted by Johannes, hedroned away at his chorus part:

'She took me to her elfin grot, And there she wept, and sighedfull sore, And there I shut her wild, sad eyes With kisses four. 

'And there she lulled me asleep, And there I dream'd Ah woebetide! The latest dream I ever dream'd On the cold hill's side. '

We found Browne in a nook among the rocks. A fire was burningbeside him. He seemed to be sleeping. 

'He looks as if he'd been sick, ' I said. 'We'd better let himsleep on!'

'Yes; let's go to bed ourselves, ' said Drayton, yawning. 

So we lay down on opposite sides of the fire. Such a red andsplendid fire that cold cock-crow time!

Browne kept giving sharp little moans in his sleep, just as a dogwill do of nights. 

'He's started a nightmare, ' said I. 'I wish we could help him tobetter dreams. I'd like to see what he sees just now. '

Drayton began to drone from his side of the fire:

'I saw pale kings and princes, too; Pale warriors death-pale werethey all. They cried, "La Belle Dame sans Merci" hath thee inthrall. 

'I saw their starved lips in the gloom With horrid warning gapedwide, And I awoke and found me here On the cold hill's side. '

I asked a question: 'What will Browne like for breakfast, Drayton?'

'If he's come back to his civilized tastes, you'd better openthat tin of sausages, ' he said. 'You've got some squish, too, haven't you? Don't give him that bush-tea of yours!'

I was up long before Drayton. I had secured Browne's confidencesbefore the sun had been risen an hour. 'I've had a sort ofmiserable ague, ' he said. 'A cold and hot fever has been plaguingme. Some part of this last night has been savagely horrible. ButI've sweated pounds of my weight away, and my fever's gone. Strange, isn't it?'

'Quite ordinary in this part of Africa, ' I said, sharply andminimizingly. I handed him a shirt, and he doffed his drenchedone. He did not tell me any more just then. His eyes watched mein a dazed, miserable way. I asked him to excuse me, and went offwith Johannes to my service. When I came back his eyes wereclearer, they had less of their look of wan-hope. 

'Sinister country, this Africa, ' he said. 'I was infatuated withher yesterday. Today I can't understand just what the attractionwas. Her desolate moors seemed to make me drunk. See how she'sserved me! I never felt quite so sick as I've done most of thislast day and night. Just before I woke it seemed to me I saw themin my dreams tens and twenties of her victims; men she's charmedand led on and on, and demoralized, ruined, killed and buried, and helped down-hill the way of the bottomless pit. I am betternow; but I'm shaken. How thankful I'll be if only I get out ofher, and can only stop thinking about her after that. '

I listened with grave attention. Then I gave him some bread andsausages, and he ate away ravenously. How ever many cups of teadid he drink afterwards?'

The above was all the avowal that Browne made to me. I do notthink that he said nearly as much to Drayton as he did to me. Drayton plied me with questions that night, and I told him toomuch, to my regret. 

Months afterwards a copy of an undergraduate paper, containing afantasia on the events that I have recorded, reached me. Itcomprised much African coloring and some little humor. I wonderif it reached Browne or Mrs. Browne?

We got Browne home in little over a day. He hurried on, oftentimes when we wanted to rest. He seemed as anxious to emergefrom the African desert as he had been to explore the deeps ofit. He looked rakish and wretched as he bumped about upon hismule. His face was livid, and his black beard, that he used tocut so formally, desperately out of trim. His eyes were strangelybloodshot. 

We reached home safely with our prize by noon on Saturday. Browne, as I have said, was all for getting on fast, and when weonce started, his stubborn mount went well. It was won toemulation by the willingness of our ponies, I imagine. 

Mrs. Browne was delighted at her Gerald's return. Yet I think itmust have taken some months to restore her confidence in hissanity. She had had a sore shock. Drayton and I, indeed, wereboth discreet in our brief narratives of what had reallyhappened. But I was heedless enough to forget Johannes. I did notcaution him in time. So Mrs. Browne gathered rather a bizarreaccount from him while we were at church on Sunday evening. It isto her credit that, despite her thrift, she gave the boy a wholegold sovereign. 

The three travelers left by the slow down-train on the Mondaymorning. I went to the station with them. I saw Drayton into asmoking-carriage, and climbed in and sat with him. There wasstill ten minutes' grace allowed us. 

'Where's Browne, and where's Mrs. Browne?' I asked. 

'Along there, ever so far!' he said; 'with Professor Ayres andthe Misses Ayres, and all sorts of good company. But, hullo! Lookthere!'

Browne was coming up the platform towards the bookstall, lookingforlorn and sad. 

'Ah! what can ail thee, wretched wight, Alone and palelyloitering?' murmured Drayton. 'It's a bad job for me, Jerry'sgetting off-color like this. How's he going to train men forFirsts next June, when he's gone in himself?'

'Oh. He'll pick up as soon as he gets out of Africa, never fear. 'I reassured him. 

Browne loitered up to the stall and amassed two month-old Englishmagazines. Then he stood by the stall, looking on to thedistances near and far behind it. Our feverish contact had notspoilt much of the landscape there as yet. Beyond a few railwaysheds showed some bushes, as it were, of wild cherry-blossom, flaunting a true white under the sky's true blue. Spring colorsdressed the woodland behind them red and bronze, and also the twofamous colors of Faeryland. Behind that, again, the view wasspread out widely diverse, certain blue hills standing up verydelicately. Meanwhile in the near foreground some Kaffir herdshelped the picture not a little. They were driving their flockbetween the white-blossomed bushes. 

Browne stood a long while and watched that landscape. I wouldhave given something to have read his face all the while, but hisback was turned to us. 

At last he began to pace up and down by the bookstall. Then hestood to gaze again, scouring, as it seemed, the far distancewith eyes straining their utmost. Our eyes followed his. 

Did not some ironstone kopjes rise up dimly to the north there?

Assuredly Browne saw those blue peaks and ridges, and rememberedthem. 

'Do you remember them?' I asked Drayton. 

'Don't I just?' he said. 

He began again in his chanting chorus tone: he was reading andtransposing from a pocket copy of Theocritus. 

'They all call thee a "gipsy, " gracious Africa, and "lean" and"sunburnt, " 'tis only I that call thee "honey-pale. " Yea, and theviolet is swart, and swart the lettered hyacinth, but yet theseflowers are chosen the first in garlands. . . . Ah, graciousAfrica, thy feet are fashioned like carven ivory, thy voice isdrowsy sweet, and thy ways, I cannot tell of them. '

The engine whistled. Browne roused himself to my intense relief, and climbed into the train. 

'Good-bye, ' I called to him as they steamed away. 

'Au revoir, ' he called back to me. 

THE SCENTED TOWN (A TRIPPER'S TALE)

It is now more than two years since I was invalided out of mycountry parish one bitter March, and sent on a southern voyage. Ihad ten weeks to recruit in, and I passed by the Mediterranean tothe eastern coast of Africa. It was hard to tear myself away fromZanzibar, but at last I went on southward and struck up into thewilder country of the central tableland. I meant to take the railfor Cape Town when my time should be up. 

It happened in Easter week that I camped out disconsolately, androse anxiously, having lost my way overnight. I had spent EasterDay in a cathedral, or pro-cathedral, town, and was now on my wayto a certain mission. I had hoped to make it that last nightthe third night of the journey but had somehow missed it in thedark after a big effort. There seemed to be no native villagenear, and no passers-by. My carriers were strangers to thatneighborhood, and I was afraid of going far past the house inbenighted wanderings, so I bent my resolution and lay down. Irose just before the sun did. It was April and the dews were veryheavy. 

From a rocky hill above me the baboons were barking. Just belowus was a fair stream with a rich grove of native trees on thefurther bank. Some native gardens showed on the slope above. Thewhite path wound through them, then away among boulders, some ofthem very big ones. While I watched the stream I saw a white bodyof mist mounting up. Just at that moment the sun showed. As Ilooked on the sacred sight I saw somebody coming down the path. It was the man whose mission station I had been looking for. Hewas coming through the long grass in a hurry. Soon he splashedthrough the drift. After that he caught sight of me, and rushedup to our camp, glowing. It was Leonard Reeve. He looked much thesame as he did that day in London three years before--dark, pale, slight, earnest. I had been to his sendoff and gone down toVictoria Docks with him. I had written to tell him; I was mostlikely coming his way after Easter. He seemed ever so glad to seeme. 

'But where were you off to?' I said. 

'It's only a mile on that I'm going, ' he answered. 'There's alittle chapel on that hill over there with some native villagesnear by. I want to have an Easter service there. '

'Let me come, ' said I. 'You can be back to breakfast here, can'tyou, when we've done?'

He said he could. Even as he nodded I felt a little anxious whenI remembered that we had no meat of any sort left. I took Jack, my head carrier, aside and asked him to do what he could while wewere gone. Couldn't he buy some eggs for salt, or do somethinguseful in the way of foraging? He said three words in kitchenKaffir that sounded hopeful. 

Then I went on with my chill, damp little friend. One of thecoldest ways surely of taking a bath is to tramp through the longgrass (it is very long in that country) when it is drenched withdew or rain. However it is all right if you are sturdy and ingood heart, and keep going a stirring pace, and never sit downtill you are dry again. My companion did not seem very buoyant, though he made no complaint and trudged on without flagging. Wehad a glorious service in a quaint church of wattles and earthand grass on a hill-top. One way it looked over a great spread ofvillage gardens I think there were at least three villages insight. The other way it looked on some well-wooded uplands thatthe eastern sun lighted tenderly. There were only a few people inchurch at the end of the rite, though a great crowd was there atthe outset, and the 'Kyrie' and first two hymns raised the hillechoes. 

There was no sermon. When the unbaptized were gone the tinychurch, that had seemed so thronged and stifling, grew to beroomy and cool. 

That was to me a very beautiful rendering of the Liturgy. Yet Ionly understood a word here and there. I could follow the actionof the Divine Pageant throughout, and I would not have had themystery and aloofness of the words one whit lessened. 

After it was over Reeve took me across to the native teacher'shouse, where we found a very shy wife and a very composed baby togreet us. Meanwhile the husband bustled about and gave us tea. Iliked his laugh and his boyish face, as well as his BiblicalEnglish. He did not stint the tea in his blue pot. Soon we wereon our way back to my camp. 

Jack had got a real good fire now in the shelter of the rocks, and a hearty smell of fish frying reassured me as we drew near. 

Reeve, who had seemed a little tired and washed out as we cameaway from the church, now brightened up marvelously. 

'I declare, ' he said, 'it's just like old times. You know theTooting Road, where I used to work? It's just like the fried-fishshop there, next door to the Surrey Arms. If we'd only got thefog and the trams and a few of the old people here how fine it'dbe!'

We had found a subject that interested us both and lasted most ofthe breakfast-time. His enthusiasm struck me as a little tooemphatic. I remarked that I thought he was well out of theTooting Road and out under blue sky on an African moorland. 

'Look up there!' I said. 'That makes the Tooting Road seem rathermonstrous when one comes to think of it. ' I pointed to the manycattle and sheep and goats coming down to the stream at aswinging pace through the gleaming woodland. 

Two little boys were mounted on bulls; two or three others camerushing behind. There was a barking of dogs and an ecstasy ofshouting. 

'Oh, it's all very well, ' he said, and his eyes flashed a littlescornfully. 

Afterwards he took me to his home. His church stood out nobly aswe came up the path towards it. Within it was beautifully kept, but I confess I was disappointed. It was all very neat, but itsuggested the skill of the church-furnishing firm too strongly. Isighed a little as he showed me four enormous brazen vases of atoo familiar type. I longed for the two or three little red andblack earthen vases that I had seen on his teacher's altar; but Ikept my longing to myself. 

He was a marvelous man for method, Leonard Reeve. He seemed to meto organize classes with real talent anybody who came to theMission at all habitually was pigeon-holed as 'Inquirer, ''Hearer, ' 'Catechumen, ' 'Under a cloud, ' or something else, anddealt with accordingly. His work, as I watched it day by day, andevening by evening in church and school and villages and Missionfarm seemed to me well-considered and painstaking. On the otherhand he seemed to me not so happy, and not so very well. 

The mail came in on the Monday. 

I was to start the following Thursday for the railroad on my wayto my home again. We gloated over the letters and papers thatevening it was really a superb mail. The native boy with the bag(I remember he was lanky and handsome and wore a rose-and-bluezephyr) came up just as we stood in the avenue leading to thehouse. We were smoking our pipes and arguing. The sun was almostdown. 

What were we arguing about? Oh, he was arguing rather recklesslyabout the glories of town-work. I retorted with few words, butstrong ones, in favor of work out in the country. Once I pressedhim rather inquisitively and mischievously as to his present workon the veld. 'How can you hold such views and do it?' I asked himpoint-blank. Thereat the fine side of the man showed. 

His face flushed and his lips quivered. 'It's my job, ' he said, 'and I'm not going to talk against it. I was arguing aboutcountry-work in the abstract over there in England. ' Then it wasthat the boy came in sight with the letters. Reeve looked up andwatched him with real pleasure and gratitude. He said somethingto him in the native language that seemed to amuse the boy verymuch. I had thought his manners towards his flock very courteous, but cold. I noticed a new tenderness now and from this nightforward. 

I could read him like a book, this town-lover so I thought. Hehad said too much to me, he had avowed to me his want ofaffection for his work in so many words, and now he was on thewatch against himself, and burning to render reparation to a veryquick conscience. 

He had a big mail, but he was not communicative about it. Indeedwe had not much time for our letters just then. We had Evensongsoon after sunset, then there was a class for catechumens that Iattended. I could not understand much, but it was good to watchhow they listened, all but the vigorous mail-boy, who nodded atwhiles unless I am mistaken. Afterwards we had a meal. It was bymutual agreement that we read our letters over our bread and teaand cheese. I read one of my letters with some indignation. Itwas a letter from my schoolmaster, who was not very encouragingon the subject of my locum tenens' industry. 

'I thought I had got a first-rate man in Cochrane, ' I said aloud. 

'Cochrane of Peckham Downs?' asked Reeve, looking up and eyeingme. 'What about him? Yes, I should say he was in his way quitefirst-rate. '

'I'm glad to hear it, but I wish he would find country work morecongenial. My correspondent says he's quite got the hump aboutour village. '

Leonard smiled. 'Some villages do tend to give people likeCochrane and me the hump, ' he said. 'But of course yours isdifferent. ' 'Of course it is. Come and see it some day. ' Hismouth twitched. 'If I get home-leave in two years' time, ' hesaid. 'I don't want to spend it in the country, not any of it, thank you all the same. I like the town much too well. '

'The smell of the shop you named attracts you just like thymedoes me. '

'Yes, ' he said, with a rather wry smile and a very real sigh. 

Then we went on reading till bed-time. In the morning Lorenzo, his house-boy, knocked me up just as the sun was rising. 'Thefather is very sick, ' he said. So he was very bad indeed withfever, at least so it seemed to me. But I am not used to nursingthat malady. I think his temperature was 103 that day, which mayseem a modest figure to a pioneer, but struck a chance visitor asnone too reassuring. However, I kept my anxieties to myself, andlooked after him quietly. He said there was no need to worryabout a doctor. That night he seemed to be delirious, and talkingat large. I made up my mind I would send for the doctor in themorning if his symptoms should last. But they did not. Heappeared to be quiet and sensible at sunrise, and his temperaturewas a normal one. The morning after that, again, he seemed sowell that I left him with a fairish conscience on my returnjourney for England. I want to tell you about that anxious night. He gave himself away then. I don't think he remembered muchof what he had said next morning. It seemed sad to me hisself-revelation. He said he did not know what in the world to do, he felt so ill and anxious. He was a Cockney born, and he hadloved his South London work. He really wanted to tackle the job infront of him here. But the romance was there behind him in thatEnglish city the unique sense of being in the right place thegreat adventure the gleam. 

Oh! why had he caught the fever? Not this fever, but the malariaof Imperialism, and felt drawn to go so very far afield. Hedidn't abuse the veld, the camping-out, the foot-slogging, theprimitive people. He was a very chivalrous person even in hisdelirium. 

But he spoke ecstatically of the streets, the tram-roads, thelights of the town, the smartness of his flock, the delights oftheir up-to-date humor. 

The tragedy thickened. He told me of her who had promised tomarry him by Eastertide next year. Cecilia was her name. 

She was a Londoner, and shared his views. 'Whatever will shethink of this place?' he asked. My eyes wandered to the ironroof, to the floor-boarded walls, to the candle in a bottle thatfought the draught so bravely. He told me about a letter of hershe had got by this mail. She had been working as a governessthese last few months at a country rectory in the Berkshiremoors. She found the village, and the neighborhood, and the lifethere in general very flat indeed. They bored her; yet she waskeen, he said, on 'the work, ' 'the work' as she had known it whenshe worked for him in London. 'Whatever will she think of thisplace?' he repeated. I looked at the floor, freshly treated withcow-dung, and thought again for an answer, but I could think ofno very suitable one. 

'I'll give you her letter to read, ' he said, in a burst ofconfidence. 'That puts it far more plainly than I can. My head'sso bad. ' He looked worried, and I thought I had better leave him. 

'No, ' he said; 'do read to me a bit before you go. '

'What shall I read?'

He looked at me meditatively. 'You'll find something to the pointin there, ' he said. He reached up to the little candle-boxbookcase over his head, and showed me a little crimson book. Itwas an anthology. I should think it might be commendably put onthe 'Index Expurgatorius' of upcountry missionaries. 

It was called 'The Cheerful City, ' and dwelt on the delights ofcivilization and urbanity. Doubtless it may serve a usefulpurpose, thought I, in reconciling Londoners to their wen; but, here, what does it spell for my delirious Cockney save onlydesiderium?

I read him two or three selections obediently, but withoutenthusiasm. Were they from Herrick and Charles Lamb? I ratherthink they were. 

Afterwards he asked me for a few verses of the Gospel. I cheeredup. 

'What would you like?'

'Oh, that story at the end of St. John. I've often thought of itsince I was so cold and wet; and got to your camp-fire. "The fireof coals, and fish laid thereon, and bread, " that's it. '

I read with a will, but rather sadly. 

'That's it, ' he said. 'It seems to bring back the fog, and goingto early Service past that coffee-stall, and the smell of thatshop next to the Surrey Arms. '

I thought of his homely comparison after I had left him for thenight. It moved me strangely. I read the letter he had lent methe letter of Cecilia, who found the Berkshire moors so banal. Yes, she promised to prove a very undesirable help-meet on theveld, so far as I could judge. I thought over things generallythat night, and I made up my mind to make a Quixotic offer in themorning. I would offer to take on Leonard's work. Let him go homeand be happy in his scented town, with his intolerantly urban (orsuburban) Cecilia. He was splendid stuff. He might do much, surely, in that quaint atmosphere of light and locomotion andfragrance that his sense of romance demanded. Here Cecilia wouldsurely be either impossible or a very great nuisance. While, evenwithout Cecilia, Leonard did not seem well suited in his sphere, and I judged that he would soon be rotten with fever and wouldn'tlast. 

As for me, I liked country life much, and roughing it a little. Ihad no particular fear of fever. I compared my physique withLeonard's not without complacency. I thought of the other side, too: the east country that village of all villages, thosevillagers of all villagers. 

But that night I was full of over-seas fervor. I rememberedphrases that had rung cut finely at meetings Outpost Duty, theChurch in Greater Britain, The White Man's Burden, In DarkestAfrica, etc. , etc. When I fell asleep there seemed to be asymphony in my ears sounding brass and tinkling cymbals enoughand to spare, but flute-voices of honest pity and sympathy aswell. 

In the morning I took Leonard's place in his church. We had theEnglish Liturgy again. The thatched dome, with much tinierwindows than the windows at home, but much more sun to fill them, seemed a sort of parable to me that morning. After I had finishedthe rite, I stayed on in the church, and spread out two lettersbefore the Lord, so to speak. One was my schoolmaster's, theother was that one from Cecilia. 

It took me half an hour to feel fairly sure of my answer. But Ifelt very sure then just as sure as I had been the night beforebut the answer was different. 

I thought of my own fold and flock as I read my own friend'sletter. How little the locum tenens seemed to see what I saw inthem! I read Cecilia's letter, and compared 'her view of theimportance of a country cure with my own. After all, I thought, the latter tended to be an exceptional view in our megalomaniacdays. On the other hand, the locum tenens' view might be rather anormal one, and so might Cecilia's be. Cecilia's scorn, it was, that materially helped the answer to come as clearly as it did. The thought of a Cecilia reigning in that east-country vicarageseemed no more right than pleasant. It sounds a callous thing tosay, but I left my lonely and convalescent friend with somethingof a sigh of relief, and no real misgiving. I felt troubled abouthis future certainly, but I saw clearly that I was not meant totake his place. I hoped to find the man who was meant to take it, however. 

And, by God's help, I believe that I really did find him beforemany months were over. 

A cousin of mine Richard East had been persuaded by a certainbishop to accept an urban charge. 

I fancy the said bishop had been reared in a rather strait schoolof enthusiasts, who regarded work in slums as ideally the bestsphere for clerics of activity. So he had routed my cousin out ofhis west-country village, and brought him to a big town--mycousin, who was an outdoor man from his youth. Curiously enough, at Cape Town, there was a letter waiting for me from him. Wouldn't I tell him something about the 'great spaces washed withsun'? The midland town in general seemed not to have gained hisaffections, though he loved his people one by one. 'I want toclear out, ' he wrote, 'for the parish's sake more than for myown, if only I can find the right place to clear to. I'm nota townsman, and I think by now the bishop understands mysmall-mindedness. I haven't the breadth of a good modern citizen. I want to go to some Little Peddlington an African village mightsuit me. No, directly the right man turns up, I don't doubt thebishop will want to put him here in my room. Do you know ofanyone likely?' I did know of someone. 

I did not write back; I got on my boat and started off for home. I went down to the east country and set free the locum tenens. The village had a bridal look for my eyes; the red-thorn tree wasjust coming out, the roses would not be long now. I was in timeto be at our yearly May games after all. Next day I went to theMidland town and saw my cousin; also, I saw his charge. I triedto look at it with Leonard Reeve's eyes, recalling to myremembrance that delirious night of his. Yes, though it was notSouth London, it had a drab look on a dull June day. There was aWarwick Arms, if no Surrey Arms. There was a shop with theauthentic fragrance only two or three doors off. I knew thatbishop, and I found him in, and in a listening mood, on thefollowing day. He wanted to hear about Africa. I describedmissions and missionaries to him. Then I told him at some lengthabout Leonard Reeve. 

'Yes, you have drawn the man convincingly, ' he said. 'You didn'tinvent those touches. I think he's a man after my own heart. Idon't understand you people that bury yourselves in littlerose-covered, immoral, earthy country villages. But I think I dounderstand the man that you have described. ' I went straight tothe point, and spoke of my cousin's parish. He agreed that mycousin was a disappointment. 'He's got the same peddling way oflooking at things as you, ' he said. 'I thought he'd flourishafter transplantation, but I admit he doesn't seem to. Yes, Ishould think a desert and a barbarous people might suit him. Idon't deny that he has vision, but his sense of perspective seemsto be rather ridiculous. ' I tried to arrange matters there andthen after that, but his lordship became politic, and seemed alittle afraid that he had said too much to me. 

However, the business was on the way to be settled before Iparted from him. It has been settled quite a long while now. Mycousin, Richard East, now tramps the Kaffir paths and ministersin the hill chapel and in that seven-domed church at the missionstation. I do not think that there is any Cecilia in his case, nor that there is likely to be one. He personifies the abstracttoo passionately to need the love of women. 

Africa is personified to him the Cinderella of the continents, the drudge with a destiny worthy of her charms and her good-temper. He is writing a monograph on the Song of Solomon, he tellsme. He follows certain scholars in his conjecture that theShulamite was given back to a humble shepherd by Solomon, whenshe had conquered the latter by the power of her impassionedchastity. But he has his own theory as well that the true loverswere both of African blood, that she came from the Ophir-landsouth of the Zambesi, and thither returned in peace at last fromthe foam of perilous seas. Perhaps his argument is slender; butit is good for him to believe in it himself, I think, for surelyit helps his work among those that he deems her descendants. 

He works on out there, personifying and idealizing. I think heis as much in love with his country parish as I am with mine inEngland. May we both, in our placid and unfashionable ways, dreamour dreams and see our visions! Meanwhile Leonard Reeve reignsin that midland town, and is treasured by the bishop who was notdeceived when he expected a kindred spirit. He and Cecilia havechosen a date in this next November for their deferred marriage. 

Their choice of month seems to me characteristic. I do not thinkthey will be disappointed if the day is a little urban in itsmurkiness. 

It is good for a man to be in love with his charge, is it not?Next time some fanatic of West-End work, or East-End work, orforeign mission work gets hold of you and talks excellent senseabout discipline, and offering yourself to your bishop, andpacking up your kit at a week's notice remember this story ofmine!

Is it not well to import something of the precise devotion ofHoly Matrimony into the general self-oblation of Holy Orders?

It is good to think that three of us friends have the very samesort of feeling Leonard Reeve for the crowds and the fogs and theodors; my cousin for the rock-sown plains and the little circlesof thatched huts; I for the cornlands and the elm-shaded ridgesand the cottage people. 

Yes, to Leonard anything grimy is just as romantic as greenfields to me, or brown veld to my cousin. 

Do you know, I was asked to preach Leonard's Institution sermonlast Whit Monday, and I dared to preach it? Cecilia, who wasstately but really pleasant-looking, sat beneath me in the frontpew. Leonard, in his stall, looked oppressed with the weight ofthe ceremony. 

But his eyes lighted up, I saw, as I gave out my text. It wasfrom the end of St. John's Gospel. I preached very shortly. Idrew for that poor and earnest-looking congregation the pictureof a dripping missionary as I had seen him. I told of him goingabout his business at dawn, cheered by the Easter Feast in frontat the chapel on the hill. I passed up to it by the cheerycamp-fire. I did not forget the smell of breakfast cooking, withits reminder of home afterwards. 

Then I spoke of the charm of the town work that Leonard had beencalled to take up once again. I tried to paint it as he dreamedof it the crowds, the classes, the fog, the scent of the streets. Then I went higher to the Easter scene, the shore in the morning, the vision of the altar that dawns on a true man's work howeverdeep the night of his failure may have been, wheresoever in allthe world he is working. 

Leonard looked gratefully at me as I came down the pulpit steps. 

While we hurried along from the Service on our way to the station(Reeve was coming to see me off), I quoted some words to him. Wewere just passing that fish-shop. 

'Awake, O north wind, and come, thou south; blow upon my gardenthat the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come intohis garden. '

His eyes kindled. 'Yes, old man, ' he said; 'I've come into mygarden. How I used to dream of this sort of reek out in Africa!'

I felt a gross materialist as I hurried home to my roses andred-thorn, leaving him to that visionary garden and those mysticalspices. 

THE PLACE OF PILGRIMAGE

I. 

'When you have set Thought free for one particular end you cannotbind her again as you will. ' Such is the purport of a certainhistorian's dictum, and I have proved the truth of what he says. Edgar used to go to the Place of Pilgrimage long ago in hisholidays, but I used not to go with him. I did not sympathizewith his veneration overmuch in those times of long ago. But Irespected the desire for hero-worship, and helped him thithereach year that he wanted to visit his shrine. He used to come upfor his long holidays every year from the colony. I had known hisfather rather well, and he had not any settled home. His motherwas dead, as well as his father. No one now that knew him needknow what she was like, for he took after his father almostunmitigatedly. His father was blonde and aggressively Saxon inappearance. His mother had been Dutch, semi-Dutch, of the coloredDutch type, as I very well knew. She came from the Westernprovince, and died when he was but a year old, to be followedby his father some ten years later, just when he had comeback to South Africa from England. Then I, acting on my ownresponsibility, sent him to school in the Eastern Province. No one seemed to bother, even if they had any inkling of hismother's parentage; he looked to be so completely his father'sson. 

It was in Edgar's schooldays that the Place of Pilgrimage wasinaugurated, and that a big star of hope swam into his ken. I hadtold him about Oxford before, but there had then seemed no sortof path open for him to go up thither. Now, in the midst of hisschooldays, there opened out to him a path that he thought hemight climb. It was then in the next long holiday time that hetook his path, a curious and grateful pilgrim, to the Matopos, toexplore the shrine and to give thanks before it. 

He dreamed of being a Rhodes scholar years before it came offthat Rhodes scholarship of his. It came in the fullness of time athing of many struggles and prayers, of star-led hopes and pathssteep with uphill climbing. 

Then at last it was that I agreed to go with him on his yearlypilgrimage, in September, the month of his sailing for home. Mayused to be a Canterbury month in England, the hawthorn month thatpricked men in their courages and sent them out on the Kentishroad. September had been Edgar's pilgrimage month every year aspring month in our southern country. The masasa leaves weretaking many tints then in Mashonaland. Speaking generally, thedominant note of our woodland world was rose-color as we trampedtogether to the station. Matabeleland by contrast seemed ratherdrab and drouthy, yet she was showing signs of spring. One greatrock stood up very beautiful in a pink lichen garment. It washard by the path that led to the last hill-climb, ere you reachedthe burial-place. We camped out close beside it, two Mashona boyswho had come to seek their fortunes in Bulawayo, and Edgar and I. 

When the morning light came I was up. When the sun rose I had allbut finished my service. There, on his own ground, so to speak, it seemed easier to pray for the Patron with a sanguine heart, and to give thanks for him with a clear conscience. Over ourbreakfast we sat on and talked, and looked about us. Edgar seemedto me to be growing in discernment. Once he had seemed soprovocatively cock-sure about his mighty patron. To pray for himas we had prayed that morning in the language of a race he hadcontemned might have sounded to him in years past mere clericalimpertinence. Now he seemed to suffer me rather gladly. 

But he said little. We had scant time to spare just then; therewere so many miles to go to the railway. He was to leave forOxford that very night. While the carriers were cooking theirbreakfast he came with me to the grave and knelt at the head, looking northwards. I said nothing aloud, nor did he. The rocksbulked dark in the bright air, the hills wore mystic colors, thesun shone passionately in a setting of tender blue. Words seemeda presumption just then, too much of a time or nation or age thatpasses. That which may or may not take shape in words remainedthe untied power of silent prayer. That morning among themany-colored hills I looked to sight the faith that can remove suchas these. And I prayed there quietly, in prayer that seemed toneed no words, for Edgar. I asked for him that he might see thosevisions without which! people are apt to perish. 

II. 

He did not write much, and he did not come for five years. Whenhe came he was not at first communicative. He seemed to take moreinterest than he used to do in the Mission, I noticed. He hadalways been a hero among the Mashona boys: that was no new thing. And I was thankful indeed to see that he had not lost his oldartless art of making friends with them. So many things mighthave conspired to rob him of it. He stayed but a month in all atthe Mission, and he said little all that time, but his eyes werefull of thought as I talked to him passing on to him hopes, disappointments, joys of battle unabating and enhanced. He was agood listener. I did not try to force the pace with him. But forall that I was eager to know his mind. And it seemed a long whilewaiting and waiting, thinking he might be going to speak dayafter day. Then at last the time did come for him to speak, butit was after he had left the Mission. 

History repeated itself, and we camped in the old place oncemore. The camp-fire shone out, and the moon rose broad and goldenover the grave of pilgrimage. There he lay with his feet to thenorth on the height above us the founder and name-giver of ourState. It was strange how his patronage seemed to dominate us. Wesaid our evensong rather northwards than eastwards; we scannedthe northern horizon as though seeking a sign. The wind blew thatway as we paced to and fro afterwards, and our thoughts went theway of the wind. 

At last I broke the silence. We were resting on a ledge of rockthen, smoking, staring away north-wards among the moonlit kopjes. There he sat beside me, fair-haired and tall, strong andrejoicing in his strength, always courteous but strangely dumb. He was going to-morrow. Would he go without a revealing word?

'So many worlds, so much to do, So little done, such things tobe. '

I paused doubtfully. 

He turned to me, and his eyes sparkled as they looked into mine. 'Listen, ' he said. Then he told me his heart. Little I knew whatit was. I trembled for my crusade, yet not without hope. I hadpreached to him little, but I had prayed for him much. Now Ilearned that his heart was as my heart, his desire as my heart'sdesire, yet, like wine to water, like sunlight to moonlight. Isat at his feet, so to speak, and listened on and on. 

III

The next morning broke very brightly, yet there were cloudsenough on high to mystify its clear shining. There had been athunder-shower on the day before yesterday: our former rains hadsent on an advance-guard. We had finished our service before theday grew hot, in the prime and cool of the morning. The place hadbeen kept very sacred all that service-time. No hoot of a motor-carhad scared the sleep of those lonely hills. Afterwards it wasdifferent. People came out in crowds from Bulawayo. There was aspecial excursion from the Transvaal, I believe, that arrived onthat day of all days. We had breakfasted by our camp-fire. Thenwe came up the hill to the shrine once more, while the boys wereclearing up. 'Listen, ' said Edgar. A stout Bulawayo bourgeois washolding forth on the crankiness of Cecil Rhodes in choosing to beso lonely. 'He might have considered the town and trade ofBulawayo' seemed to be the burthen of his song. A pioneer shuthim up rather roughly. 'He knew best, ' he said. 'Where would yourtown and trade be if he hadn't cleared the path?' Edgar went upto the old fellow, ruddy, stalwart, more or less spirituous, indomitably good-humored. 'Tell me about it please, sir theburial; you were here for it, weren't you?' The old fellowcomplied with great goodwill. 

Bareheaded we stood looking north while he told us of the greatcamping-out, with the many twinkling fires, by the dam some milesaway, on the eve of the entombment. He told, too, of theconcourse of Matabele at the place itself next day, and of theauspicious climbing of the yoked cattle as they drew the body. 'They never turned. They went straight up, ' he said. 'You can seethe track-way up the rock now. It meant luck surely, and we tookit so, both black and white of us. '

Then he told us of him who lay there, in words of ruggedtenderness the hero of the old era who brought on the new era sofast; he who had tasted the old and knew the old was better, testifying the same by his choice of a burying-place. 

We were grateful, indeed, to that guide. A few yards in front ofus two beaked Afro-Hebrews were arguing as to what the hero'sleavings had been. 

'What did he die worth?' was to one of them a subject of earnestenquiry. A few yards in front of them again, as we passed, somebar-loungers foregathered. 'He stood no nonsense about niggers, 'one was saying as we went by him. Edgar nudged me. 'We all haveour different views of him, ' he said, 'haven't we? He gave usviews and visions. Thank God that he distrusted himself, and sentus straight to learn where he learned, haply to learn what hemissed learning from Oxford, his Mistress of Vision, so far tothe west and the north. '

'You see, it's this way, ' he said, when the place had grown quietagain in the drowsy noonday. They had gone off then, theJo'burgers, three wagonettes and a motor-car crowded with them. 'We must keep the road open to the north, mustn't we?---the wayhis feet lie, the way that goes beyond his vision into biggervisions. '

'I'll try and do something, ' I said humbly. 'There are plenty whowant to travel far, or think they do. ' I glanced at the threeMashonas by the fire. One was teaching the other two. They werespelling out Saint John's Gospel together. 'Is he one of the mostadventurous?' Edgar asked. 'He's very willing, ' I muttered. 'Youask him whether he'd like to go to school down south. '

The boy's face lighted up when Edgar asked him. It was a rounded, soft-featured Mashona face with large bright eyes. The lips werenot so very thick; the nostrils were cut like an Arab's. 

'Tell him I'll pay for him and for another who wants to go, 'Edgar said. 'He's probably got a particular friend. What aboutAtiwagoni?' 'He might be keen to go, ' I said, 'and he's quickerthan most of them. '

We began to smoke a last pipe silently. The time was drawing nearto strike our camp. We must start for Bulawayo at once if wewould catch Edgar's midnight train easily. 

I reached for my wallet, and brought out an Oxford anthology. 

I turned over the pages and began to read rather sadly

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan, To laugh as he sits by the river, Making a poet out of a man:The true gods sigh for the cost and the painFor the reed which grows nevermore againAs a reed with the reeds in the river. 

'There's that point of view to consider, ' I said. 'I'm fond ofArcadia and Arcadians, and there's loss entailed if you sendArcadians on the way of Athens. ' Edgar sighed. 'I know what youmean, ' said he; 'and I feel it as you do. But Arcadia's gotLacedaemon at her throat, a southern state not much troubled withscruples, neither very philosophic nor very literary. The way hasbeen opened by him we wot of to Oxford, to the Athens of thenorth. It was opened, as men thought, for the benefit of youngLacedaemonians. The man that was hand-in-glove with Africanders, with our Lacedaemonians of the south, did that. He imperiledLacedaemonian stability by opening the way to northern stars andtheir influences to Shelley, Burke, and Mill, and to all mannerof people dangerous to the back-veld views of Lacedaemon. Heopened the way to Tolstoy's rediscovery of the Christian Law, amongst other northern treasures, didn't he? And I, with theArcadian taint in my veins, saw the way open and went northwards. Now it has come to pass that I remember my own people as Mosesdid, and use the wisdom of Oxford as he used the wisdom of Egypt, to help one's own people towards a promised land. They wantleaders, don't they? Is there not a cause? Is it healthy forLacedaemon to go on as she does in Arcadia, setting asideArcadia's own happiness?' 'I'll be back again next year, ' Edgarsaid, 'to compare notes and report progress, should all fallwell. If I forget thee, O my Darien-peak, let my right handforget her cunning!' We knelt long at the grave with the feet ofits sleeper laid true north; then we said 'Good-bye' to it. 'Bless him, ' Edgar said to me as we turned away. ' He opened awider way than he knew perchance; God prosper the Great NorthRoad, the Road to Oxford rather than to Cairo!'

THE LEPER WINDOWS

Its Cathedral was rising at last in a small South Africancapital. For many years a pro-Cathedral of corrugated iron hadsufficed. Now the first stage of a noble design in ruddysandstone was all but completed. 

The new Bishop who had been called to sit in its Cape-oak thronewas complacent of its charms. Chancel and Lady-chapel wereprovided; transepts and tower might be expected in due course oftime. The Bishop was long and lean and dark-haired, very closelyshaven. He came from Oxford, yet he was wise enough to obtrudethat fact but seldom on South Africa. He watched and listenedintently and said strangely little; nevertheless, when he didspeak, he seemed to have no lack of things to say. His speech tothe Cathedral Building Committee after a three months' silencewas not without its interest. He spoke well of both design andexecution. 

He turned to the shyer subject of the raising of the funds. Howhad they attained to such wealth as their secretary announced?Mainly by means of three fancy fairs and a cafe chantant. Alas!that it should be so. Yet he did not propose to hold inquests. Let the dead bury their dead! Let them, however, set their heartsas the nether millstone against the adding of transept or towersave only by alms made to God. He went on to ask with whosememory the Lady-chapel was to be associated. Was it not the factthat they had associated the chapel of Christ's Mother with thememory of a visionary statesman? There seemed to be want ofconsideration for the great dead shown in their popular decision, inasmuch as he had not seen his way to accept her Son. Was it notsomething of a felony to have stolen the dead man's name--afelony that had assisted their funds very lavishly? But, likelyenough, the Committee had had some noble thought in mind whenthey gave to the dead such reckless honor. The last touches werenow being given to the nave. He wished to make a personal requestof his own. He understood that colored persons and natives werenot to be encouraged to frequent this mother of churches. Theirstatus within was, to say the least, precarious and hard toreconcile with due respect for the second chapter of Saint James. He asked to put in at his own expense five windows after thelikeness of leper windows in England windows that colored personsand natives might use freely and without reproach. By this meanssomeone at least of them from without the walls might be madefree of the vision of the services within. 

The irony of the speech escaped its hearers for the most part. After the usual type of debate on such a subject as viewed inSouth African Church circles, the request was granted. 

Now it happened that Mr. Conyers Smythe, the most prosperous manin the whole community, was not present at that Committeemeeting. He was a Master of Arts of a South African University, and a real scholar, not a mere qualifier. He was, moreover, bothsufficiently educated to understand the irony of a criticalfriend, and habitually inclined to resent it. He spoke fierily tocertain of his intimates when the Bishop's speech was reported tohim. He went to see him himself next day in the evening time. 

His host came and sat with him on the stoep, lighted the lamp toshow him a new book of his, and gave him coffee and a cigar. Thehour was about half-past seven, and the week was Christmas week. There was a new moon of very dim silver in the West lookingthrough the rose trellis upon them, and masses of inflammatorycloud were heaped about her. The host looked at the guestmeditatively as he lighted his pipe. 

The guest was fair-haired and well-featured, as well asmagnificently built; but his deep color was not exactly the hueof health. His eyes had been glowing when he had first come onthe scene, prepared to open battle. But when his host masterfullygained an armistice they became dull and rather worn eyes, thatseemed not to be seeing good days somehow. 

Their possessor only grew eager by flashes now and again as theBishop showed him a second new book one that they both deemedhighly delectable turning the passages and discussing variousphases of its general subject the cults of the Greek States. 

They had come together, these two, in a very tiny and remote cityeach an enthusiast as to this same by-path of erudition. 

It was not until he had shown his guest the road on to a largeextent of commonage--commonage of mutual delight that the Bishopled the way to a spot therein convenient for the desiredengagement. He began to discuss the relations of Xanthos, thefair god, and Melanthos, the dark god, in Hellenic society. 

'That's the trouble here, ' he said. 'I hope you won't draw theline even at my leper windows. They may at least ease theisolation of our two cults here. I find established so to speakin this Christian city the cult of Xanthos, tribal god of thefair-skins at the Cathedral, or for the present the Pro-Cathedral. Also I find the cult of Melanthos multiplying itself at the tintemple of Saint Simon the Cyrenian. '

Mr. Smythe's cheeks became more deeply empurpled and his eyesdanced. 

'You must know, ' went on the Bishop, 'I don't believe intribal-gods at this time of day. I believe in Someone bigger. Soit was that leper windows, modeled on those of the Middle Ages, seemed to me possible easements. There, at least, Lazarus may feelat home and join in worship, as his forerunners in the MiddleAges did, at their own wall-slits. Thus at least one step willbe taken towards the supercession of Xanthos. As to the cultof Melanthos, I hope to help to infuse more of the joy of theUniversal into it, so help me God!!! Yes, let me hear yourobjections. '

Mr. Smythe began quite conclusively. Yet there was moremoderation and more argument in his rather indistinct beginningthan in the flowing harangue that followed, when his voicecleared and his periods found their stride. The speech fell fromlevel to level. Ere the end it fell to the level of that sort ofinvective against natives one hears so often where mean whitesforgather a not very dizzy level, believe me!

Finally, Mr. Smythe vowed to give no penny for the future toChurch purposes, and never to darken the doors of the newCathedral, should the concession of those leper windows beconfirmed. He would agree to forfeit a thousand pounds should hebreak his word, he said. Thereupon they closed the subject. Thehost tried to lead back to the cults of the Greek States, but theguest was now too rapt and breathless to follow to much purpose. Soon, by mutual consent, they ended the interview, not withoutprivate friendliness, but with civic war at heart. 

This was in Christmas week, and things went much as might havebeen expected during the months that followed. The concession hadbeen granted by the Committee, and the concessionaire thought ithis duty to be grateful for that small mercy and to act upon it. The malcontent repeated his vow, and it rang throughout thevillage-city. A good many of the natives who worshipped at thetin temple managed to hear of it, and laughed to one another;they would watch for the darkening of the doors. 

The Cathedral was to be dedicated to Saint Mark as a saint whowas martyred in Africa, but lacked a cathedral in the south. 

His day was chosen for the hallowing. On the eve some pomp ofProcession, Recession, and Anthems had been prepared, and theBishop was to preach. He had been away much of these last monthsto north, south, east and west. So custom had not staled hisvariety of appeal to the outer circle of citizens or villagers. They, as well as the devotees, thronged the nave. At the leperwindows there were knots of dark participants in the service. 

The windows gave; a few the chance of sight, but they were onlyfive in number, and it would seem that many had to be contentwith very scanty views. It is questionable whether a number ofthe smaller folk nurse-boys, kitchen boys and telegraphmessengers got any sort of a glance ere the pageantry was over. 

The night was very clear; the autumn wind was somewhat bitter. 

The hymn after the Blessing had been reached 'Brief life is hereour portion' and the banners streamed down the central aisle inglory. The leper windows grew very starry with observation. 

One boy who had come late had no chance of a view now. He was theBishop's coachman, a lanky Bechuana, and he stood humming thehymn's air with his back to a window a window near the westerndoor. Suddenly he started. Somebody was striding up to the porch. Surely there was no mistaking Mr. Conyers Smythe's fine shouldersin that figure nor the jaunty carriage of his massive head. Nowhe drew near, and the light of the porch-lamp fell upon him. 

The coachman caught the arm of his stable-boy, who was standingnext to him a rather Jewish-looking Mashona. 

'Look! look!' he cried. 

They both watched the churchgoer as he passed up the steps. Thenhe was gone from their view. 

In the afternoon of the next day, when the triumphal services ofDedication were over, the Bishop was being driven to a farmhousenot very far distant. It was not till his mule-cart had almostreached home again that his driver ventured to question him. Hehad seemed rather preoccupied that driver all the dusty journey. Now he asked a question that was being wildly debated in nativecircles that very afternoon. 'My lord, has Mr. Smythe paid allthe thousand pounds yet?'

The Bishop started and stared; then he laughed. 'What do you knowof Mr. Smythe's thousand pounds?' he asked. Then he answered, 'No, Jack; why should he?'

Why indeed? So Mombe, the ox-man to give him his native name wastrying to evade his obligations, was he? Almost bursting withimportance, Jack told his master what Jim and he had seen lastnight. The Bishop listened carefully, and asked two or threequestions. Then he told Jack that he might want him and hisstable-boy later on that evening. He felt sure that the story wasno mere willful fiction. When they were home he wrote a letter toSmythe asking him if he could come over and smoke after dinner. Then he went off to his sunset Evensong. 

Conyers Smythe came about an hour afterwards. The Bishop and hehad had but two bookish evenings together since that ratherbizarre one in Christmas week. They met cordially enough on thisApril night. 

Smythe was looking far from well. He had been worried about hiswife's health she was away in England. The last news of it hadbeen rather disquieting. Smythe was glad enough of sympathy; hewas in no truculent mood. 

They smoked by the fire in the Bishop's study as the night wascold. The Bishop had some new books to show and points to debate. 

The two began with Greek pagan cults, but passed on to Christianhagiology, and discussed the legend of St. Mark with a fairmeasure of agreement. Then, when the coffee had come in, and theyhad I become friends at ease and amity, the Bishop told Smythethe boys' tale. 

Smythe grew curiously white and seemed angry. 

Then he laughed. 'Let's have 'em in and hear their yarn!' hesaid. 

So Jack and Jim were sent for, and, after some slight delay, appeared. They were well washed and in their Sunday clothes. Theywere disposed to be deferential enough, but withal veryconfident, both of them. They cast somewhat awed glances atSmythe in his armchair, but they told their tale clearly on thewhole, in fair Biblical English, Jack first, slowly, and Jim, ata great pace, after his superior. Smythe appeared to be busilyconsulting a reference while Jim was ending. There was a pause. Then the guest looked up from his book and stated his alibi: 'Iwas in my stable, sitting up with a sick horse, ' he said. 'I cameaway long after the church service was over when the poor beastdied with frothing at the nose. You can ask my stable-boy. '

Jack bowed his head respectfully. 'Your stableboy, Mutenu, hastold me so this evening, ' he said. 'But, O master, why should welie? Is it not known that people have been seen in two places atone time'?'

Smythe frowned. He was not anxious to discuss hypotheses withnatives. Then the Bishop told the boys that he had heard enough. Let them think that although they had spoken truth, they had beenmistaken. 

'How do you explain it?' said the Bishop rather eagerly when theyhad gone out. 

'O, ' said Smythe with a rather bitter smile, 'supposing it not tobe a native lie--natives have been known to lie, my lord--it'sthe sort of story one reads about in the Middle Ages, the sort oflegend likely to linger. He was seen going into a church on acertain ill-starred night. '

The Bishop gave a start and interrupted him. 'Do you know whatyesterday evening was? Why, it was Saint Mark's Eve. '

Smythe smiled a queer livid smile. 'Yes, I thought of that allalong, since the boy mentioned the porch, ' he said. 'I've justbeen looking up the old belief in that new book of yours. I wasseen going in, therefore I must look to go out in these nexttwelve months. 

A year, a month, a week, a natural dayThat Faustus may repent and save his soul!O lente, lente currite, noctis equi!The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, The devil will come, and Faustus will be damn'd. 

The Bishop smiled at the quotation, but looked anxiously at hisguest. Was he really taking his subliminal self's choice of dateto heart? He proceeded to recount his own unfaith in thirteen'sblack magic, also in the traditional properties of salt andbroken mirrors. He gave instances of disproof in his own unendedcareer. 

But Smythe, though he laughed with him, seemed rather restrainedand silent: the last hour of that evening appeared to hang firesomehow. Towards the end of it, Smythe talked of his wife. 'Sheis at her old home, ' he said, and mentioned a village very nearto Oxford. 

'I know, ' said his host, looking into the wood fire. He waswatching the Cherwell swirl through a narrow archway. He wasconscious of heavenly blue in the white limbo ceiling above him, and the cushions of his chair had a grassy feel. 

'She's gone home, ' said Smythe, 'and she's not well, and I've notbeen well. '

'You look as if you want rest and change, ' said the Bishopuneasily. 

'I think of going a trip to the old country, ' said Smythe. 'I wasborn out here, and haven't ever seen it. I'd like to see itonce. '

'O, do go, ' said his host. 'It is worth going far. Yes, all thatlong way. '

Not many minutes after they said good-night. 

But the Bishop did not go to bed at once after his guest hadgone. He reached for his Keats, and read, 'The Eve of SaintMark'; then he reflected. 

'Strange are the uses of leper windows, ' he thought. 'How Ishould like to know what I may know this time next year, if onlyI didn't know I'd better not know it now! Well, be it a sign or amock sign, God see him through with it!'

Conyers Smythe started home by the next mail boat save one. Thesame boat carried a letter in the Bishop's handwriting to apastoral divine in Oxford. 

'He's a sick sheep, anyhow, ' said the writer, 'and I've apresentiment that he mayn't last out a year. '

As it befell, Conyers Smythe died rather suddenly in Englandbefore November was over. People remarked on the dreadfulness ofthe event. But Mrs. Smythe bore the shock bravely, as if she hadbeen well prepared to bear it. It seemed that she had known thetruth about his heart-disease in May, almost as soon as he wastold it by the London doctor. Smythe had grown to be intimate inthose last months with two or three English scholars one was anexpert in tribal cults, and the other was that pastoral divine. It was one or other of these Oxford friends of his who sent onhis last letter to the Bishop in December after he had gone away. Among other messages, the letter brought this one:

'There was something in that Saint Mark's Eve business I suppose. But I had had my warnings before of an event that is likelyenough to occur this very week. I am glad indeed that I came homeand saw things from other sides before the end. Perhaps thosecrowded-out Kaffirs by your leper windows hurried me up withtheir intelligence. I am grateful to them for that. Otherwise Imight have delayed, and never started on the home voyage. 

'You must make some allowance for my old point of view, as I wasborn into it. But now I want to give both Transepts to the Gloryof God on condition that colored folk and natives shall, havethem to themselves undisturbed. Forgive my narrow-mindedness, butI'd rather have it so than have all races mixed up together, andperhaps they'd rather have it so themselves! No, I really don'tthink I'm dying in the creed of the tribal god Xanthos, but inthe faith of Someone bigger. I can trust you to befriend me atsome altar of His. . . . I wish I could afford the Tower. '

'Alms!' said the Bishop. 'Thank God they'll not be built now bybazaars or fancy fairs or even by cafes-chantants. Poor base-bornlittle churches out here, that one so often hears of, aren't theyonly too likely to grow up into the temples of the tribal god?'

Thus the Transepts were destined to be of purer lineage thanChancel or Nave or Lady-chapel. Only the Leper Windows are theirequals in descent as yet among their fellow-buildings. But thereis good hope of an honorable birth for the yet unborn Tower. 

THE BURNT OFFERING A SEQUEL TO 'THE LEPER WINDOWS'

['The Headman made it generally known that he expected all themen, both Christian and heathen, to subscribe to the funds. Oneman refused to give anything, and was taken before the Magistratein consequence. ' Extract from a South African Church paper, December 22, 1910. ]

The transepts had been built and blessed, the five leper windowswere no longer over-crowded. Xanthos and Melanthos, gods of thefair and the swart skins, had in a measure met together, and in asense kissed each other. Much remained to be achieved in thematter of mutual good understanding, and much more again in thesupercession of these tribal deities by a Greater. 

On the other hand, something had been done to teach the devoteesof Xanthos toleration and a spirit of alms. The Bishop now turnedhis attention towards Melanthos more particularly what could hedo to ennoble the aims and methods of his clients? He had made ajourney to England and back not long before the blessing of thetransepts. He regretted leaving his flock at the time. Yetcertain observations he had made just ere he started gave himmuch food for thought on the voyage. And when he was home in theold country he was glad to find time and occasion to observeafresh, supplementing Africa by Europe, intuitions by research. 

The Rev. Charles Topready, a keen missionary, had asked him tovisit him the week before he went homewards. It was the seasonwhen that countryside threshed out its millet-grain in a revelof rhythmic labor. The Bishop delighted in some of those airsthat the sticks beat time to. He was greedy of fantasticinterpretations as he wrote their voweled refrains down in anote-book. 

'We may have a Harvest Thanksgiving in church, may we not, thiscoming Sunday?' he said. 

Now Harvest Thanksgivings were as red rags to Topready. 'Whyshould we bind upon Africa a burden that irks England?' hegroaned. 'Surely it is a mercy that we can start afresh on theveld with no tradition of a Feast of Pumpkins. '

The Bishop smiled and smoked and argued by the hour. His pointwas that festivals of the soil were serviceable for sons ofthe soil. That agricultural festivals were serviceable forhusbandmen, pastoral feasts for shepherds and goat-herds, huntingcommemorations like that of Saint Hubert, for those who hunted. His knowledge of Greece and Rome, pagan and Christian, ofmediaeval England and modern Brittany helped him with many aptillustrations. Topready stuck out his chin and kept bravely tohis two points the danger of materialism and the menace to thespiritual cults and festas of Holy Church as by law establishedin the England of to-day. 

'All right, ' said the Bishop, 'let us have no HarvestThanksgiving for the tillage of African earth. That is to say notthis year. But keep an open mind. ' Topready promised dubiously. 

That struggle and waiving of victory had put the Bishop on hismettle. He had thought out the subject to some purpose beforethey met again. 

Here are some pages from his English diary:

Sept. 21. Preached at a Thanksgiving in Essex. 'Happy harvestfields, ' quiet tints in the Vicarage garden. A sun that seemed tomake better use of a short day than an African sun would of along one. What a festival Topready might have just about thistime if he only liked. The masasas tinted with copper, crimson;mauve, and pink, and other leaves showing faery green and gold. 

Saint Matthew's Day. The festival of the foolery of riches whenSpring is everywhere and the sun is shining. 

Oct. (date illegible). Preached at the blessing of the boats in asmall Sussex harbor the herring season just beginning. Whatglorious girls' names some of the boats had that we prayed for'Diana Elizabeth, ' for instance, might have sailed out of the'Faerie Queene. '

Nov. 1 (All Saints'). Went to church at Saint Paul's in a sidechapel. 

Nov. 2 (All Souls'). Went to pray in a cemetery chapel. 

Both were misty mornings, but the sun each day came out before wehad done, and broke through the dingy windows in a carnage ofcolor. How fine a side of death, November, the month of the dead, presents here. Damp and fog and fall of the leaf doubtless thesorryness of the bad business of decay and punishment but on theother hand what bravery of sunlight at times, and what colors forthe sun to shine upon. In Africa it's so different. There themonth is a spring month. The gay side of death as a release fromAfrica's plentiful curses and bondages is happily prominent. AllSaints' Day our May Day our Feast of Flora and the Rosa Mystica!What a day for converts suckled in animism! Let us commemoratethe African Saints with garlands of spring flowers as well aswith palms in their hands. Have written to Topready to suggest aMay-Day Festival with African drums to dance to, if no EnglishMay-pole to plait. 

Jan. 21 (St. Agnes' Day). Went to a down church, where they had asort of special service. Lambing-time among the South Downs justcoming on. The sacrifice pleaded with one main request in viewthe blessing on the flocks. If they had only brought some lambsin! I hope to live to see some pied African lambs and kids inchurch yet. 

June 21. Went to Stonehenge on the longest day. Would have campedout there on the eve if the policeman would have let me. Tookobservations as to Flame-Stone. Compared notes with those I tookat Zimbabwe this time last year on my way to Topready's. 

June 24 (Saint John). Yes, in African Mission Stations we shouldhave St. John's Fires or fires corresponding to them aboutChristmas time. 

Then in Mashonaland, summer is at height. Yes, the other SaintJohn's Day, or its Eve, would do. Let us give thanks for theLight of the World and the Sun of Righteousness symbolized bythings seen and enjoyed. What did Saint Patrick do about thesacred fire? He kept it going, didn't he? Let us light ourbonfires with a good will this coming Christmastide we who liveby sun-time so often. 

Back from England came the Bishop full of the lore of earlymissions. He had enriched his zeal for broad-basing the people'sworship on their own everyday earth, and for enlightening thingsopaque with effulgences invisible. He saw his way more clearly tofurther what he had at heart. Topready had had many letters, andthey had had their effect. But he had not capitulated yet. Hecapitulated at a price, as we shall see. 

'Church ready by Christmas, ' wrote Topready, 'please come andconsecrate. ' 'Expect me the day after, ' telegraphed the Bishop. He thought about a bonfire as he rode along on that SaintStephen's Day. 'The kopje above the Mission!' he reflected. 'Amagnificent place for a beacon-fire. '

To his delight the new church crowned the very kopje he had beenthinking of. There it stood on the sky-line, its gold of freshthatch crowned a huge pole building, and was itself crowned by awhite cross. 

'How fine!' said the Bishop to himself, 'but there's no room upthere for a bonfire as well, alas!'

Topready did not look over-cheerful when his leader greeted himwith congratulations on the building of the church. 

'It's all very well, or rather it might have been ever so muchbetter, ' he said, as they went in. 

In the evening there was much time to talk. They sat on the stonyrise above the house with a wide valley view. The starlight wasbrilliant above them eager, perfervid, passionate. They were onthe rocks smoking, the Bishop between Topready and Manners, whowas not a parson, but a policeman. 

'It's like this, ' said Topready. 'Holy Innocents' is the firstchurch that has been built since I came here. It was built on asystem. '

He explained roughly how it worked. The native teacher used hispersonal and official majesty for what it was worth. The peopleon the Mission ground were asked for poles, grass, work, &c. 'These were given, ' said Topready, 'or at least "given" is theword that I understand my predecessor would have chosen. Theheadman proclaimed that his will coincided with the will of thenative teacher. They wanted a church built that would comparefavorably with churches erected under the auspices of othernative teachers and other headmen. 

'The contributions came in plentifully, sylvan or grassy. Peoplewho never come to church, heathens who do not seem much overjoyedwith the Gospel, gave just as handsomely as Church officers. Noone was paid. The church is cheap and big, and the headman andnative teacher are both unhealthily contented. '

'Well, what's the matter?' said Manners; 'it's the way we dothese little things in Africa. White men don't build churchesfrom base to spire on ideal principles exactly, do they. Bishop?'

'At least we haven't had a cafe chantant lately, ' the Bishopsaid. 

'Well, don't you be too sure one isn't going on in some outlyingparish while we sit here. As it happens, I know of one advertisedfor next month. '

'Be sure of your facts, ' said the Bishop. 

'Anyhow, before you came, plenty of the society lash used to beapplied to get church-building doles out of Europeans. Moreover, if you look into it, generally you'll find things at Missionsmuch as you find them here. These gloriously "given" Missionchurches on Mission lands that the home magazine ecstasizes overare not given so very freely, to say the least of it. They areput up by a sort of social pressure immensely effective, 'Topready broke in. 

'They say most of the churches this side of the river are builtthe one way and I don't like the one way. Archdeacon Maynard usedto advocate the one way, and impress it on his missionaries blackand white. It was he who started the church-rate and debarreddefaulters from Easter Communion. I've stopped that, and I wantto stop the one way. '

The Bishop groaned. 'Archdeacon Maynard's a vice-president of theFree and Open Churchmen in England. I heard him speak eloquently, if a little floridly, on the right of the poor to the House ofGod. '

Manners chuckled. 'England's some way off, ' he said. 

Topready spoke from his heart. 'I don't like it. I told thepeople that the proper way was for Christians and philo-Christiansto build accordingly as they could spare money and time. But theysaid that they were too few. I answered "Then let them wait in the oldchurch awhile. " They said they wanted a new church this year, and thatthe heathen should be called to help the faithful as in other places. They said they ought to have a kraal levy as other places did it saveda great deal of trouble. They thought me mad, I think. Azariah, theteacher, practically told me so. '

The Bishop lit his pipe again. 

'We'll think about it, ' he said. 'The consecration is fixed forthe day after to-morrow, is it not? It was to be christened HolyInnocents' Church on Childermas Day, was it not? Will you have itconsecrated on the Eve instead, Saint John's Night? Time Sunset. '

Topready started. 'Rather late, is it not?' he asked. 

It was a great concourse that lined the hillside on the morrowwhen the sun was going down. The Bishop had spoken that morningin the old plain church of how he wished them to observe certaindays of prayer and thanksgiving. 

He asked them to keep a festival of flocks on Saint Agnes' Day. 

He asked them to keep a festival of herds on Saint Luke's Day. 

He asked them to keep the feasts of Loaf-Mass in August andWood-Mass in September as feasts of Harvest and Forestry. 

He asked them to keep a thanksgiving for summer after Christmason the night of Saint John, if they and their priest thoughtgood. 

He spoke of how the heathen had worshipped the sun in the greynorthern lands. Then Christians better taught had thanked Christ, the Light of the World, for the glory of the sun, and lightedtheir joy-fires to a better purpose. 

Doubtless, some in this land long ago, not only at Zimbabwe, buton many hills and high places, had honored the strong sun of theSouth. He asked them as Christians to be glad for that same sun'sblessings at Christmas time. It seemed to him good for those whowished it (he gave no law) for those to light their bonfiresto-night and to thank God not only for the summer, but for the Sunof righteousness. He himself had a mind to light a fire on thatSaint John's Night to the glory of God. 

Topready looked thoughtful after church. 'If I adopt yourcalendar loyally as far as may be, do you see your way to help meagainst the system?' he asked of a sudden. His grey-blue eyeswere full of fight. 

The Bishop nodded. He talked with him quietly a little while. 

'The pact is made, then?' said Topready. 'No, I don't think wehave sold our convictions, either of us. I don't feel penitentabout my side of the bargain. '

'I feel it's a holy alliance, ' said the Bishop, and his faceglowed. 'People will keep this night, and remember what was doneon it, may be, long after we are forgotten. '

That sunset a mighty crowd was there among the rocks. Much deadwood had been brought. Fathers, mothers, and children in costumesthat ranged from skins to European fashions shouldered or headedtheir faggots. ' A grim thought obsessed the Bishop as he watchedthem. These people, so quiet and yielding as to the selling ofsacrament, and levying of church vote how easily they might beswayed to more sinister reminiscences of the Middle Ages! If heand Topready and Azariah and the headman enjoined it, what wouldsave certain aged heathen neighbors from an auto-da-fe foralleged witchcraft one of these nights? Were not some of thoseold scenes at the stake much like this scene before him? Did notcountry people come together much as these, with dark impassivefaces and bundles of firewood? Did not they listen and listen so, until the time came to pile faggots to the glory of God?

He stood on a rock and looked down on the faces. Topready stoodclose beneath him looking cheerful, the native teacher was nearlooking dubious, next to him stood the headman with his whitebeard, looking amused. Around them the crowd poised and poseditself among the rocks with innate grace and imposing silence. Even the babies in the goatskins were quiet. 

The Bishop spoke of alms-giving. He said he did not like theirplan of raising a house for Christ. Let people who loved Christbuild churches if they wished to, but let them build churchesaccording to their power to give! Let them not seek the labor ormoney of others, careless how it came! Rather let them worship inthe old and the small, than build a new and great church anyhow!He, their Bishop, wished to buy their new church from them, paying back those who had helped to build, giving to each hisdue. He asked them, would they sell this church to him, to dowith it as seemed to him good? If, when they built, they hadmade, as it were, a false start, let them start again, and thistime so run that they might obtain the Promises of Christ. Wouldthey sell their church to him?

He waited for an answer. 

There was a hush. The eyes that watched him seemed almostoverwhelming in their vigilance. 

His eyes went wistfully off to the sky in front of him. Whatbeaches of gold and weed-tangles of rose-color those were to thenorth-west the way of England. 

Suddenly the silence was broken. 

Azariah spoke out bravely. He had heard the words of hisherdsman, and he knew that he had' gone astray, even like a lostbull. As for this thatched cattle-byre that they had built, lethim who asked for it have it! Was it not his own?

One after another spoke. Their speeches all had the same importlet the church be handed over to him that asked. 

A roar of acclamation worth many speeches went up from thehill-side Then the Bishop asked those who carried faggots to followhim to the consecration. His shepherd's staff went before him. Anearthen vessel smoked with incense in front of that again. Hefollowed up the steep path in his shining robes. Behind him cameblazing grass torches, and behind them again wood-carriers. Whenthey reached the hill's crown there was some delay in thegathering dusk. They were stacking the wood for the sacrifice. Atlast Topready turned to his chief with a happy face. All wasprepared. The Bishop's voice rang out in one sonorous prayer ofoblation. Then someone handed him a grass torch and he kindledthe thatch above the altar. The church that misbegotten innocentflamed up toward heaven amber and grey and crimson under thestars. 

EIGHT-EIGHT IN LAVENDER

Andrew Vine came out to Africa this year as a pilgrim, and wasdisappointed. He did not go about his pilgrimage in the right wayto my thinking. For to begin with, on his own confession, he puthimself in the hands of a born organizer, who was making up aparty of fellow-travelers. 

Of course they were provided with first-class tickets for theboat, and enjoyed for sixteen days and more, in a same and narrowscene, an amplitude of the luxuries they were used to, and tiredof. Then, dogged by a diet befitting that state to which it hadpleased Providence to call them, they rode the Great North Roadfor some days in a northern express. Vine said that the VictoriaFalls were all right, but that their surroundings were, many ofthem, perversely wrong. It was so very stale, the hotel business, with the moonlight river excursions and the Livingstone trips, far too much sleeked and smoothed by foresight, and tamed bytaking of thought. If one had only traveled up with pack donkeys, provisioned with leathery meat and leathery damper! For Vine hadknown better times in Africa. He had known pioneer adventures inhis headstrong youth but had fallen out of his Column after threecrowded months. Tempted of fever, he had made a great refusal. And now in this year, twenty-four years after, the sense ofhaving seen better days at a tithe of the expense, oppressed him. 

However, the tickets had been taken, and the splendidly nullorganization of their party had him in its grip. He went backfrom the Falls to Bulawayo, and was whisked out to Khami. Only anhour was allowed him to see the river. At the grave of theMatopos, he was allowed two hours. There a brooding Presencegrappled with the languors of his pilgrimage. The demoniacdiscontent of that savage scene made great play with him, duringthe two hours he was there, but two hours are not a very longtime. Soon they were scorching back again with an interval fortea at a well (or ill) appointed hotel. Vine was disposed to giveup the dreary pilgrimage-game that very night, he told me. Butthe born organizer, coming to him after dinner, persuaded him toplay it out. He offered to release him after the next lap the lapof Great Zimbabwe. When that was once finished to time, heproposed that the party should have a breather, a short spell ofcivilized life at Salisbury, should it so seem good to them. Vinecould be spared for the space of that interlude. Afterwards hewould doubtless take boat with them for a cruise up the EastCoast. He would be sufficiently reinvigorated to rough it outwith them rigorously to the end. The East Coast route might notentail quite so many hardships. Vine sighed, but he was a man ofhis word. He went to Zimbabwe without a murmur. He had longed forseventy-five miles of the dusty Umvuma post-cart, but alas, theday was the third of the new month! The railway extension toVictoria had been opened on the first. The organizer rubbed hishands as he told them the glad news: 'We can have a dining-carand sleeping berths now to within sixteen miles odd of the ruins. We shan't need to fare so ruggedly after all. A lunch at the"Apes and Peacocks" Hotel is about the worst of it. But we cantake out a Fortnum and Mason's hamper in the road-car that meetsus. '

So they went to the ruins. Vine, who, as a pioneer had seen the'Temple's' torso shaggy in bush and long grass, hardly knew itagain. It had been shaven and shorn rather ruthlessly. Some ofthe ruins, he noted ungratefully, were numbered to correspondwith a catalogue. There was, moreover, the glamorous sheen of awire fence about the whole place. 

A curator participated as guide by special arrangement. A localcelebrity accompanied him; he stood for the faith of Ophir, andsmote the Egyptologist adversary not once nor twice alone. Heconfessed to the ladies of the party his conviction that thetheory of an African origin was too inconceivably squalid. Hestood for the gorgeous East, he said, as against Kaffirdom. Hewould not insult the culture that they brought with them bybothering them with detailed arguments. 

Meanwhile another local celebrity was employed in bossing up somerestoration work. Primitive walls were receiving trained modernattention, and medical attendance, regardless of expense. 

Vine came to me at Umvuma when the Zimbabwe visitation was overand done. He was seeing his party off by the Salisbury trainwhen he caught sight of me on the platform. That night he smokedand slept by an ox-wagon. Bread was to hand in rather frugalmeasure, but there was great plenty of monkey-nuts. There wasalso bush-tea, and Vine brought much tobacco. We smoked till longafter the moon set, and that was near midnight. He told me ofdisappointments that had come to him through his pilgrimage beingover well-appointed. 

'After all, ' I said, 'you might try again next year. '

'But a year's a lot at my age. I was forty-five last month, and Idon't mean coming out again. 

'So little done, so much to do, So many worlds, such things tobe. '

'Where shall we go to this week?' he went on. 'I've got a weekoff from the Cook's combination. You'll give me the one week, won't you Shall we go to Dhlo-Dhlo or Nanatali or Sinoia Caves?It's the curse of our Cook's tour that it's mopped up the sacredplaces I did want to see in a decent way the Grave, and theTemple, and the Falls. '

'Yours is the very snobbery of pilgrimage, ' I told him sternly. 'There are surely shrines on the veld that have never yet gotinto a Chartered Company's guide-book. ' I told him of a modestset of ruins out our way. I couldn't well come with him in anydirection, north, south, or east or west, as he seemed to think Icould. I might get in five days between Sunday and Sunday, if hechose our own neighborhood. He seemed glad enough to agree. 

We cut food down and loads, and we started. We camped within theprecincts of the shrine, hard by a place where a fire-fusedchalice had been dug out. Ours was a fair camping-ground. A ringof kopjes about it wore the sun's colors. To the east a spruitwas in sight, overhung in that autumn month by the mists ofmorning. Within those precincts we dreamed some temple-dreams ontwo golden afternoons, and slept temple-sleep on two very shinynights. 

'My reformed pilgrimage has justified itself, ' Vine told me onthe morning that we left, when we were making for my station. 

'Wait a bit, ' I said. 'We are arriving if all falls well, thisvery night at another shrine. We have not done with our Pilgrims'Way. '

That night we came to the farm-house where the Kents farmed andmissionized. I had expected Vine to like it and them, but I hadnot guessed how much attracted he would be. The Kents were notup-to-date, and they dressed as some people dressed in Englandtwenty-five years before in the period of their leaving home. 

So Mrs. Kent wore on that night a chocolate-brown Liberty costumeof a Burne Jones pattern. Miss Kent was only twenty-two, and worerose-color, but the design of her dress was her mother's own. Kent wore an eighties collar with old-oak plaid and a red tie, Idid not like his taste. 

Vine sat and watched them with a reverential sort of gaze. Heasked Kent when they were going home, thoughtfully. But Kent toldhim that they did not think of going home again, only up thecoast to Zanzibar, or down to Inhambane, when they wanted changeand holiday. 'That's splendid, ' said Vine emphatically. 'Don't gohome. It's not what it used to be. I feel sure you would not likeit. '

After supper we had music, and Kent kept on singing, at Vine'sparticular request. I did not take much notice of what he wassinging till Vine came and spoke to me. Then I saw how excited hewas, and I listened with attention. 

'Do you remember that?' he said. 'It was the song that Oriel manused to sing. ' Then I recognized 'Our Last Waltz, ' and afterwards'In Sweet September. ' I remembered both as the songs of a manwhose wedding we both had attended, in the very year that we wentdown. 

We shared a hut behind the mission homestead, and shared muchconverse before we slept. 

'It's purple and gold, ' Vine said. 'I came out to find a beastlyruin. '

'And you find the Victorian Sixth Decade mummified, ' I said. 

'Don't sneer!'

'Well, pressed in lavender, ' I amended. 

For early did'st thou leave the world, with powersFresh, undiverted to the world without, Firm to their mark, not spent on other things;Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt, Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings. 

'That describes Kent's Hegira, doesn't it? He's stopped where wetwo were, when we went down, in ever so many ways. '

'Hurray!' cried Vine, tossing his boot up, 'I came out to find abeastly ruin, and I've found my lost youth, nothing more norless! Bless you!'

But his ecstasy was to culminate on the following morning. Kenthad mounted him on one of his two mules, and piloted him on theother to see some Bush paintings three miles away. 

I grew a little uneasy, they were so long gone, for I knew wellwhat a lot of country lay between us and my own mission station. I was due there by sunrise or soon after, on the morrow. Mrs. Kent was strumming away on the piano old dance tunes that Iremembered barrel-organ melodies of now remote days, days when abi-weekly shave sufficed me. I stood in the doorway and beattime. Whenever were we going to get started at this rate? At lastthe mules came cantering up the wagon-road. 

'Get a move on, ' I shouted to Vine as he pulled up before thedoor. But just at that moment Mrs. Kent began on 'The Reign ofthe Roses. ' Vine, who had kicked a foot out of its stirrup, didnot dismount. He sat drinking in the dance-measure. Louder andlouder she played the air, and, humming it over, he drove hisfoot home. Shaking up the reins, he cantered his mule round andround the sun-dial in front of the door. Round and round he went, still humming, while those wiry and sun-burnt wrists pounded awayat the dance-music. 

'How long is this going on?' I pleaded. I began to see the humorof the thing when I watched our carriers. They were gaping as ata new kind of circus. At last Mrs. Kent gave over, not very soon, however; the melody was evidently a favorite of hers. 

'Is there not a cause?' pleaded Vine, when he had dismountedlingeringly, and was facing my reproaches for his wanton delay. He muttered something about a merry-go-round. Afterwards heexplained, when we were making up for lost time along the bigvlei. 

'It was that night when we got to Goring, ' he reminded me, 'whenwe went down to Henley in that double-sculler at the end of ourfirst summer term 1888, the first week in July. There was avillage fair on that night, and we rode round on the horses, everso many pennyworths. That was the tune I remembered best of allthe tunes that the steam-organ played. Don't you remember?' Andstrange to say, I did. 

He played the game with the organizer, rapt though he was by hismemory of the steam-organ, I will say that much for him. He tookthe trouble to go all the way up to Salisbury, and to beg him tohave him excused. And he was successful. I don't quite know whatexcuse he gave. It was scarcely likely to be so crude as theexcuse I guessed at, 'I want to marry a wife, and therefore Icannot go. ' He unbosomed himself to me engagingly when he cameback from Salisbury. He appealed to my compassionate sympathy. 

'Just fancy! Forty-five and no real home!' he said, 'And hereI've come on pilgrimage, and found just what I've unconsciouslycraved youth and beauty up-to-date, not this date but the date ofmy own unforgotten youth 1888 in lavender, so to speak. '

I wished him luck in his wooing of Miss Kent. If Mrs. Kent hadbeen a widow, I should have thought her much more suitable. Hegave the bridle-reins a shake, and rode away on an old saltedhorse he had bought, walking had grown much too slow for him. 

He won Joan Kent, and fixed it up with her late-Victorian parentsto their mutual content. 

The wedding date is chosen already it is June 20th a day hallowedenough, having twice been Jubilee Day. I think Vine would havepreferred May 24th as having been Victoria Day. But Joan objectedto her wedding taking place in Our Lady's May month. 

DIVINATION

I have a friend who lives some miles away, among fantastic rocksand crimson-flowered Kaffir trees. I was over at his homesteadone day in Christmas week last year and found that he was absent. He was sleeping at a trading-station to east, the boys said, andwould not be back for a day or so. But he had left word with themto give me supper should I come. So I had time to notice achange. 

Three or four very cool and fresh water-colors adorned his walls. They were pinned up there under a trophy of harness. Under eachoblong of paper was a title in old English characters. One wasnamed 'Sundown. ' another 'Sun-up' these both showed the homesteadnot as it was now in mid-summer, but as I remembered it in latewinter or early spring, with some of the trees in full flower. 

The other picture showed a charming group of children variouslycolored among the rocks. I feasted my eyes on it for quite a longwhile, noting its detail, which bewildered me. Surely no suchscene had been witnessed lately in all South Africa. Yet I knewthe rocks of the scene; they were close by, and the children werepainted some of them with familiar-looking faces. The titleunderneath was 'Innocents. '

I did not see my friend for a week or so after that, and when Idid I did not think at first to ask about the pictures. However, he began to tell the story of them himself. He was talking aboutmen on the road, a class with which he had a large acquaintance, having lodged many of them. 'I had one here last week, ' he said, 'a white man in clean white ducks. He stopped two nights, andwent outside painting most of the days. He gave me threepictures. He could paint, couldn't he? I couldn't catch his name, and he said he wasn't sure where he was going to stop next. Buthe went up the Rosebery Road, and seemed to know his way about. He hadn't got a bag, and he traveled very light just a blanket orso and a loaf of bread and a cup. I shouldn't think he'd come tomuch harm, would he?' I shook my head. 'He could paint, couldn'the?' he said, glancing up at the pictures. I nodded. 'That's afancy picture, ' I said; 'that of the children a pretty fancy. Iwonder what it means. ' My friend Dick meditated. 'I don't seemuch wrong in the painting anyhow, ' he said. 

The picture was indeed a pretty fancy there were children whiteand black in it, and lambs and kids. The white children weremixed up with the black curiously. One little sturdy Mashonacarried a white child in his arms. A white boy with fair hair, aged nine or ten, carried a Mashona baby in a goat's skinstrapped to his back. The light of dawn was in the picture a coolsummer dawn. Between the rocks and the red-sprayed trees of ourcountry was, as it were, a lawn, close-bit by much feeding into afair copy of an English lawn. I looked hard at the picture. 

'Those two Mashonas are like the children that were burnt in akraal this way, ' I said pointing. 'I tried to dress their burnsbut they both died. ' Dick looked up as I pointed, but he saidnothing. He eschews dwelling on painful subjects very often, Inotice. 'Don't you think that they are like?' I asked. 

'Kaffir children favor one another, ' Dick said sagely. He stoodwatching the picture on the faded wall in silence. Then wedropped the subject. But the mystery of it remained for me. 

A week or two after, that mystery multiplied. Dick was expectingvisitors, and he asked me over to meet them. The male visitor wasan official I used to know of old; he was to bring his sisterwith him this time, and the sister I did not know. She was acharming person; one who had been in the country a long time agoand left it, but had come back again now to be married and tomake a home in Rosebery. She had reached the homestead aboutmid-day, the same day that I came over in the late afternoon. 

After tea and before dinner we walked down to the cattle-kraal, all four of us. Then, when Dick and her brother were ahead shebegan to question me about that water-color on the wall. I toldher what Dick had told me. 'He told me that himself, ' she said, 'but I didn't understand. '

'I thought I knew two of the children, ' I said, 'but Kaffirchildren seem much alike to our English eyes, don't they? Theyseemed to me to resemble two quite little children I used to comeand see. They were badly burnt near here. '

She started. 

'Did they get better?' she asked. I shook my head. She startedagain. 'Listen, ' she said. 'Two children to whom I used to benursery-governess were murdered in the "Rebellion" on a farmclose to this very place. They were staying with their mother'selder sister. Please do try and tell me this. Why are theseportraits, life-like portraits, of those two children in thispicture?'

I stared at her rather stupidly. Then Dick came to us we, wereclose up to the cattle-kraal and called us to come and see hisyoung stock, and talked to us about them. 

'I don't think I'll tell the children's mother, ' she said to me. I was then saying good-night to her in the bright moonlightoutside the homestead door some hours afterwards. 'They live inthe colony now, she and her husband. Telling her might reopendeep wounds. It wouldn't do any good at all probably, would it?'

'That depends, ' I said, 'on the mother's point of view. You'resure about the likeness?' She gave a sort of sob. 

'Trust me for that, ' she said. 'I was very fond of them of Claudeand Polly. '

This last dry season, by the ordering of God, that mother cameour way herself. She was on a pilgrimage of her own. Dick sentover a messenger hot-haste to tell me that a lady was at hisplace and had asked for me. She wanted me to spare the morningto-morrow if I possibly could. She would have me come on anexpedition with her and talk over something that she had in hermind to do. Couldn't I sleep at Dick's homestead that night?

I could. I came over about nine o'clock I suppose, walking in afresh south-easter with a half-moon to light me. Dick was smokingoutside in the yard when I came. 

'The lady's tired, ' he told me. 'She's turned in already. She'sgot a lad with her. He's inside. Come in and have some supper. '

The stranger rose up as I came in, and I greeted him. He was atall, fair boy, whose face I seemed to know. He told me that hehad driven his mother down, as I sat over my supper. I glanced upat the wall curiously before I had finished. The picture was notthere. 

'I thought it was better out of the way, ' Dick said when hisguest had gone to bed. 'I didn't know how she might take it. It'sthe mother of those poor little Scotch children come to see theplace. Wants to put up a gravestone or monument or something, poor lady!'

Then I knew where I had seen the stranger boy's face. It was theimage of his dead brother's face in the picture, the whitepiccaninny that carried the Mashona baby. I whistled softly. 

'Who painted that picture?' I said. 'I know all yon told me. Butdid that chap ever come down the road again? I never asked you. '

'No, ' said Dick, 'I don't know to this day any more about him. '

I sat silent. 

'She wants you to go over to the place with her to-morrow, ' Dicksaid. 'You know the place, don't you? It's only about three milesaway up the old wagon road; you've been there, haven't you?'

'Yes, ' I said. 'There's a wooden cross where they're buried orshould be. I had it renewed two years ago. Didn't I ever tell youabout it? Haven't you been there yourself lately?'

'No, ' said Dick. 'I don't fancy the place somehow. But I wasasking about it only this afternoon. The boys tell me there aresome trees there still; white men's trees. '

'Yes, ' I said, 'yellow peach-stocks and one gumtree you get itagainst the skyline looking up from the spruit. The old pole anddaub house dropped to pieces long ago. I do hope that cross isstanding all right still. I blame myself for not having seenabout it this last year or two. '

The cross had fallen down and the place looked generally forlornwhen we reached it next day. I was troubled about my companion. She was fair and tall and quiet. When she did talk on the way shetalked about commonplace subjects. But when she saw the forsakenplace and the displaced cross the veil fell. She clutched herson's arm hard, and I left them together. I went off with theMashona boy and the mules out of the way. I had no inspiration atthe moment what to say or what to do. I did not come back forhalf an hour. 

She told me on the drive back that she wanted to provide somewhatof a memorial. 'It's been left too long, ' she said. 'But you canunderstand how sore I was before and how I shrank from coming. '

She told me that one great grief of hers was that she had no goodlikeness of her children as they were at that dreadful time. Iwas embarrassed and silent. 'What can I do to help you?' I wasthinking over and over again, 'Shall I show the picture? Yes, right or wrong, I must. '

I didn't know how to begin to tell her about it. I prayed forwords. Then I began in curt crisp sentences to tell her. 'You maynot like it. You must not be disappointed, ' I said. 'Why?' sheasked. But I did not try to explain. I would let the pictureplead its own point of view. When we were back I asked Dick forit, and I knocked at her room door and gave if to her. 

Then I went out and watched a team ploughing, till Dick called mein. 

At lunch the guests were very quiet and subdued, but seemed quitecheerful. Afterwards, before I started for home, she came andtalked to me alone. 

'Is this the scene of the picture?' she asked me, as she led meacross the yard. 'This grass plot between these rocks and thosetrees?'

'Yes, it's just here apparently, ' I said. 'You see that greattree there. One can hardly mistake it. '

'I remember the spot long ago, ' she said. 'I came down to mysister's to leave the children with her for a country holidayjust before that time. We were staying at that place we went tothis morning; they called it Happy Valley, and we drove over tothis place where there was a store. It was only a month or twobefore the time May Day, I think. I remember my children playinghide-and-seek here with the piccaninnies; yes, playing othergames too. ' Her lips quivered, but she went on quite steadily. 

'Those piccaninnies in that picture do you know any of theirfaces?'

'Yes, ' I said, 'I knew two that were burnt, and did not getbetter; two I used to come and see. And Dick says he recognizestwo or three little chaps that have died since he came here tolive after the "Rebellion" was over. '

'And how do you explain it?' she asked gently, 'this vision ofdead children so charmingly colored, so color-blind from a SouthAfrican point of view?'

I thought before I spoke. 

'It is, I believe, a real Vision, ' I said. 'The one who paintedit, whoever he was, saw more than we most of us see. Possibly hewas the seventh son of a seventh son. Very apparently he had apure heart. The picture was painted on Innocents' Day. I haveverified the date. You see he has called it "Innocents. " It waspainted in the children's old playing-place. He saw them in theirnew life with the beauty of things South African like a gooddream about them, and the stupidity of things South Africanpassed from them like a bad one. '

She did not speak for quite a long time. I feared I had hurt hersomehow. But at last she spoke and reassured me. 

'Yes, I think you understand how the picture came to be and whatit means. I used to be dreadfully bitter about the Mashonas. Itry not to be now. Couldn't you build on my account a littleschool or a little church in that forlorn place? There are somevillages near by, aren't there? Couldn't you call it for me theMission of the Innocents? I'd like to ask my host if he'll giveyou the picture for the church should you build it for me. In myhouse I should be shy about hanging it. I am afraid people mightscoff at it behind my back in their South African way, and Icouldn't bear that easily. I know in my heart of hearts it's truethat Picture as true as it's beautiful. They're all happy now, likely enough happy together. They were not likely to have beenhappy in the same ways had they grown up in South Africa. '

JULIAN

I. THE SOP

Julian Borne was going to leave the Mission that had been hishome for three years. He was a spruce-looking person with quitepleasantly colored red hair and a turned-up moustache. A Bishophad commended him, and a Canon Superintendent had delighted tohonor him. His immediate superior, a weather-beaten Missionary, had, however, partially dissented from the chorus of approval. Hehad discriminated. He credited Julian with fine gifts oforganization, but he submitted that he had proved himself lackingin qualities of heart far too often. His discrimination had beenreceived coldly by the Canon Superintendent, and liberallydiscounted on the scores of dullness, crankiness, want of vision, yes jealousy. Now at last something had happened to disturb theCanon Superintendent in his optimism, in his forecast of Julian'sbrilliant usefulness to the Mission. 

Julian had suddenly decided to leave his work. He had the offerof a congenial berth and a rising salary in the Cathedral city. He put the thing very kindly to the Canon Superintendent. Hewould help the Mission of course, wouldn't he just, when heshould climb into the seats of the mighty? He would be avolunteer henceforward the Cause could count upon him with asound commercial position for his jumping-off ground. Yet thefact remained that he was leaving his work, having loved thispresent world. 

It was the day of farewell to the surroundings of the last threeyears. Julian was to ride into town that afternoon. 

He went to lunch with Dick Hunter, the weather-beaten one, andtalked to him as he imagined he wanted to be talked to. He hadalways liked his host's Bohemian ways very well, he was onlyimpatient of his preoccupation with native postulants. There washis usual fly-swarm of them, that day as other days, about histhreshold, and lunch was late, as usual. At last they began. Julian had the first two courses to himself for the most part, while his host was busy once again outside. Then came a thirdcourse. 'I had this for you, ' said the host rather pathetically, as he settled down to his bread and cheese. 'It seemed the rightthing for the farewell banquet of a Mission. It's the food of thecountry. '

Sure enough under the cover was a platter of brown millet with asavory side dish of beans for relish. Julian flushed up. 'Nothanks, I've never tried millet pap yet, and I don't mean to, ' hesaid. 

His host smiled, 'As you will, ' said he. 'You won't mind myhaving some, will you?' He helped himself sparingly, then hecalled the Mashona boy to take the dishes away. Julian thecallous felt a shade remorseful. 

'Here, let me try what it's like, ' he said. His host took a pieceof the millet-food on a fork, and dipped it in the side dish. Hegave the result to Julian on a plate. 'For old sake's sake, ' hemurmured. Julian nibbled away rather delicately. 'It's not soawful, ' he said. 

He was riding into Rosebery that afternoon when the incidentrecurred to him. 

He had a great grip of his subjects whatever they were so long asthey were payable propositions, to use his own phrase. 

The textual study of the Bible had been accounted such aproposition until recently. Bible-words they were now that buzzedin his ears. 

'He it is to whom I shall give the sop when I have dipped it. Andwhen He had dipped the sop. . . '

The sop, the dipping, yes, he remembered now. He had read thewords in Church two or three evenings ago. 

'He gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. ' He started. 'And after the sop, Satan entered. ' He shuddered. 

He wished that incident at lunch-time had never occurred. Ofcourse it was pure chance, but still it was bizarre. 

Was it pure chance? 'I'm not so sure, ' reflected Julian. 'I wishHunter'd mind his own business. '

That farewell banquet at the Mount Pleasant Mission had left anill taste behind. 

II. THE SYMBOL OF THE SPURNED

Some five years after, Julian Borne came up to Rosebery by theearly train. He awoke at dawn and threw up the window. He wastraveling in a sleeping compartment deluxe. He had appearances tokeep up now. 

The sun had tilted up a golden arc and the withered landscapetook a lavish glory. 

Julian's eyes fell on some shabby thatched roofs that the blazewas brightening. 'Mount Pleasant Mission!' he said to himself. 'and to think I wasted three good years of my life there. Threebob a day with rations and no drinks. Good Lord!' He filled hispipe as the poverty-stricken homestead passed out of sight. 'Yetit wasn't all waste, ' he went on. 'I got to know the country andits questions. I got to know how to manage men. ' He laughed alittle to himself complacently. 'No, I couldn't manage Hunter. They told me last week he was nearly dead with blackwater. Iwonder if he's dead by now. Not one head of cattle to blesshimself with, I'll bet, and no banking account ever opened in hisname. He was quite unmanageable. '

'Ah! But I managed some of them. What about the CanonSuperintendent?' A white-haired vision, creasy-chinned and rosy, passed before his eyes. 'Toad!' he muttered and kicked thefoot-warmer. 'Even so, ' he growled. 'Butter for the clergy, palm-oilfor the laity, big stick for the incorruptible!' His face grewhard as he thought over some contemplated applications. His facewas little changed in five years save for the wrinkles about theeyes. 

The train drew up at the platform. Julian found a good manyacquaintances as he passed along it. But he was not disposed tomake himself too cheap. Some got a wintry nod, others a summersmile. One high official who represented big interests got twominutes' talk and a drink. Then Julian jumped into his mule-cart, and drove away. He reflected with satisfaction on the quantityand quality of the greetings that morning. Meanwhile his Cape-boycoachman whipped up the mules and took him along the main streetin style. 

Julian had not been in Rosebery for six months now. He had madegreat strides in those months the most momentous of his life. From being a coming man he had reached the summit of arrival. Hehad arrived without a doubt. His company's shares had risensuper-excellently. He had made a big coup at the end of lastyear. The fullness of time had now brought to him the prospect ofanother. As he whirled on into Suburbia, he fell to consideringrelative prosperities. He set names to the houses he was passing. No, he wouldn't change with any one of their owners. Not onestood better just now. Not one was more the man of the moment. Hecould give points and a beating to how many!

He drove through a gate and up a drive. He was at home again. Hishouse had been enlarged and re-decorated since he was last there. It looked solidly prosperous. Its second floor shouted 'money'in a country where most houses could boast no first floor. Its critics might have called its colors harrowing and itsarchitecture the reverse of inspired, but Julian cared not ajot for that sort of up-in-the-air criticism. He sat down tobreakfast with a thankful heart, and made himself quite amiableto Tommy Bates. 

Tommy Bates was five years older than Julian, and had acted ashis Secretary these two years past. He had small eyes set in arather big pasty face. His goatee beard was trim, but scarcelypleasing. 

Julian got through his letters at breakfast and after, breakfastwith Tommy's help. Amongst the letters was one from MountPleasant Mission enclosing a card. 'Hunter's mad, ' said Juliancrossly. He tore up the envelope viciously, but he did not tearup the card it contained. He placed that in his pocket-bookcarefully. Tommy looked at him in interrogation, but Julian wasnot communicative. 

After they had discussed a business letter or two, and had adrink together, Julian started for the Club. He made himselfagreeable to one or two, and got a deal of pleasure out ofsnubbing another. Then he gathered some important news from abusiness acquaintance. It was great news. He wanted time to thinkover it. He sent off two or three wires to labor agents and oneto a Native Commissioner. 

He must have boys at any cost, and quickly, to develop certainproperties. He

"... Turned an easy wheelThat set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel. "

Then he interviewed an agent in an office, and did some verydelicate work indeed in the drafting of a prospectus. He hadearned a drink by then. His brain interested him he was inclinedto self-analysis of a sort its chiaroscuro of limelight effectsand faint nuances indicated rather than expressed. It was good tobe alive to-day, and to pull as many strings as he was pulling. 

He did not stop at one drink; over the second, the expert made aproposition to him. It dazzled him, but he would not give ananswer just then. To-morrow morning would do. 

After that he lunched at the Club with Sir Charles Guestling whowas just back from England, and had brought a younger brother outwith him to see the country. It would have been a pleasanterlunch without that brother, Julian thought at the time. Thebrother said nothing offensive, indeed he hardly opened hismouth, but his eyes embarrassed Julian strangely. He had curiousblue-grey eyes that contrasted with his black hair, and he wouldfix Julian with these eyes just as he and Sir Charles were deepin shares and options and the scarcity of labor. Perhaps it wasthat Julian was overwrought with anxieties of success. The eyesseemed to him clairvoyant, he imagined that they saw more thanthey ought to see, when they looked him over, as he made somehighly technical statement. It was extraordinary that aconventional man about town like Sir Charles should have such abrother. 

After lunch Julian relaxed. 

He gave himself the indulgence of a call on Mrs. Puce. 

He had put her husband on to a good thing or two a year ago now. They had been great friends, he and the wife. 

To-day he was a little anxious as to how she would receive him. Things had altered since they last met. 'He had got engaged abusiness-like engagement. 

But she was very gracious in her welcome. Moreover she was moredecorous this afternoon than he remembered her a few months back. He told her about his contemplated coup. 

'I'll consult planchette for you, ' said she. 'Yes, and I'll letyou know to-night. '

She was a pretty woman with rather too high a color. But she grewpale enough now. 

'I forgot, though, it's against my principles, ' she said. 'I'vegiven up lots of things. I'm much more particular. ' Somethingroused Julian. He spoke masterfully. 

'Just this once, ' he said, 'Let me know to-night. I may know ofsomething gilt-edged that I won't keep to myself if I hear to-nightwithout fail. No, I won't be refused. I want proof of good-will. '

It was a sunny afternoon, with none of that southeast wind whichis the bane of our winter. Julian told his coachman to drive himup to his new farm. The homestead was about five miles out oftown in the Mount Pleasant direction. 

Julian drew out the draft of the prospectus, and began to workhard at its revision. They had stopped at the house ere he thrustpencil and paper into his pocket. He stepped out of El Dorado lethimself down, not without a jar, on to more humdrum earth. 

The farm-house was an iron shanty newly hammered together. Thebailiff a full-bearded Colonial stood in the front doorway. Julian gave him a perfunctory handshake. He talked farmingbusiness to him quickly. He was tired, and eager to be throughwith it. 

They were almost through with it in half an hour. They smokedtheir pipes and had coffee on the stoep together. 

'About that Mission Church, ' said the Bailiff, 'You know thenotice is just up that you gave them last year. The boy that usedto teach there is gone, and the kraal's moving. The buildingstill stands empty. They don't use it now. '

Julian frowned. 

'Let's have a look at it, ' he said. 'We can drive round that waywhen Bob's inspanned. Meanwhile let's have a drink. '

The Church was very small wattle and daub. It had done threeyears' service. 

'No value, ' pronounced Julian. He was rather angry with such amere shed for wasting his valuable time. 

'That grass wants burning, ' he muttered. 'If you set a light toit and the Church catches, I shouldn't think there'll be any harmdone. '

'Right, ' said the bailiff. Julian stepped inside the building. 

'Nothing left, ' he said. 'Nothing but this box. You'd better keepit. They can have it if they send for it. '

'What's inside?'

There were some red and black candlesticks and vases packed awayin the box works of art in their way, but that way was notJulian's. 

'Cheap and nasty, ' was his comment. 'Ah! What's that?'

'It was on the Communion Table, ' said the bailiff. 

Julian took up a clay cross and regarded it curiously. 

'A cross with a snake on it!' he exclaimed. 

'One of the boys said it meant the Brazen Serpent, ' said thebailiff. 

'Holy Moses!' laughed Julian. 'Well I'm going to jump this, it'squite a curiosity. You may give the boy five bob from me if heasks what we've done with it. '

'Right, ' said the bailiff, and went off with the box to the cart. 

Julian looked at the twisted symbol with an intent fascination. 'As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness, ' he murmuredto himself. 'Even so shall the Son of Man be lifted up. How wellI remember preaching outside a kraal, on a boulder under aflowering kaffir tree, on that very text. I liked preaching thatday more than I did most days. It wasn't half bad. That's Christall over that reptile that Worm and no man! The Worm that I treadon with impunity that's Christ! I expect Hunter might say itwould be better for me if the Worm would turn and bite better formy eternal interests. Perhaps the Worm will, one of these finedays. It's a rather clammy notion! The notion would be rather anuisance, if I believed in the Worm. '

III. THIS NIGHT

As he drove along the veld twenty minutes after, Julian lookedback at the burning Church. 'What would the Canon Superintendentsay?' he muttered with a grin. A fantastic shape started up fromthe grass in front of him. The mules shied at it, and broke intoa gallop. 'Pull up!' he shouted. At last the mules were pulledup. He sprang out and walked back along the road. The figurestood stock-still by the road-side, as if waiting to greet him. 

When he came near, it came towards him, the figure of an oldnative with a ragged grey beard, all hunched up in a blanket. 

'Tom. ' called Julian to him in his shrill voice, 'You've got tocome down to town tonight. No, you swine, to-morrow won't do. Tonight before sunset, or there'll be trouble. You know what Iwant you to do, what you did last Christmas. ' The drive back totown was uneventful. 

Julian sat on his stoep half an hour before dinner, smoking andpondering. He was anxious about that plunge he meant to maketo-morrow. His philosophy of life, so largely commercial, found roomfor a cult or two of superstition. He had consulted Mrs. Puce'soracle time and time again. He had had recourse to his boy Jim'sfather, Tom Nyoka, twice before. He had got him to use for him arude and illegal form of divination. He had been helped by itbefore, at least so he opined. He might be helped again. He satlooking at the sun dropping smoothly in a cloudless sky. As hewatched, Jim came out to him to tell him that his father was inthe kitchen. 'I'll come directly, Jim, ' he said. 

The piccanin was sent off to get water, the kitchen door wassafely locked. The throwing of the bones began, while Julianwatched with understanding eyes. His hard grip of his subjects, generally, extended to this remote ritual. 

To-night the answer seemed to be inconclusive, but as they soughtthe answer, a clear sign appeared as it were by the way, andunsought. Julian was watching haggardly. He snarled a question atJim. His cook-boy's big round eyes showed very big and very roundjust now. He was watching with painful intentness. 

'Yes, ' he answered his master, 'Yes, sir, it is so. '

Julian whistled and turned away moodily, with his hands in hispockets, staring into space. 

The old man the diviner was talking at large as he gathered thefingers of wood with their rude traceries together. Julian paidlittle heed to his words and gesticulations when he awoke fromhis day-dream. 

'Give him some skoff and a bit of meat, Jim, ' he said. 'Tell himI'll give him ten bob when I've got change. '

The old man was clamoring to him to make up his money to asovereign, but Julian paid no heed to what he said. He swung outof the hut and off to wash for dinner, still brooding moodily. 

At dinner. Tommy Bates found Julian the reverse of good company. He did not keep his gloom to himself, and he snapped at anyexcuse for snapping. Tommy left as the sweets came in, with anexcuse about meeting some friends at 8:30. 

'Don't be late, ' said Julian peremptorily. 'I want you here ateleven sharp. I want to see about tomorrow's letters before I goto bed. '

At 8:30 a pink note came in with the coffee. Mrs. Puce had sentit down. It contained but a few lines:

DEAR JULIAN, I'm so sorry, but I couldn't make head nor tail of the answer. What I was told clearly was that you were likely to be in sometrouble to-night about midnight. I don't know what sort oftrouble, but somebody who lives at the back of your house mayhave something to do with it. Do take care of yourself. I trustyou to do that for my sake. I think you are sensible enough to doit, now you are forewarned. Come up to-morrow to breakfast andreassure me, Yours, in ever so much of a shudder, CELIA. 

Julian turned rather green as he read. 'I don't like it, ' hegrowled, 'Two signs, and independent ones. The one sign death. Isaw it myself when the bones were thrown. The other sign danger. And Celia hasn't the sort of conscience that would let her inventit. I don't know what to set about doing. But I must do somethingor other. ' He began to reflect. He started from the unsubstantialgrounds of twofold superstition, and tried to be practical in hisown defense. 

'About midnight, ' he thought, 'Well, I can trust Jim. And I can'ttrust the other two boys that inhabit my back kitchen. Piet hassome of his own to get back for what I did last Christmas, andthe other boy I simply don't know. He was only sent to me to-day. I'll tell Jim to go over to the location and take the other twowith him, and look after them for all of to-night. Tommy shouldbe back by eleven. We two ought to be able to look afterourselves. Likely enough it's all moonshine this back-of-the-housebusiness. ' He pitied himself for his anxieties, and took anextra drink to dispel them. He went to the kitchen. Jim and thenew piccanin were just discussing the movements of somebody as hearrived. 

'When was it?' asked Jim. 

'Just when the sun set, ' the piccanin answered. 

'Where?' asked Jim. 

Then Julian cut them short, heedless of what they were saying. 

'Lock up at once, and go over to the location. Mind, Jim, youmust look after the other two and see they don't come back here. I don't want any boys on the place to-night. D'you hear?' Julianproceeded to enlarge on the bigness of reward or punishment incertain eventualities. 

Julian went to his study, and put on his slippers. He called Jimto light the wood-fire before he left. The night seemed a bitterone, or was it that he had taken a chill? He took up a localpaper when Jim was gone. 'It's been a busy day, ' he reflected, ashe straightened it out. 'Fancy my not looking at a paper of anysort till this time of night. '

He searched the columns impatiently. 

'No news to speak of, ' he thought. But then he cried out as hiseye caught an out-of-the-way corner. 'Why, Hunter's dead!' Thenews seemed to take his breath like a body-blow. 'A good man!' hesaid to himself. 'The man who gave me the sop when he had dippedit. The best of that Church gang! A man who called me an apostatestraight out more than once! The man who sent me that weird cardthis morning! Yes and he sent me a quaint souvenir, a sort of"Memento Mori, " once before, last Christmas, just when my boomcame off. I haven't forgotten the words yet. I will say to mysoul, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, takethine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. " And God said unto him, "Thou fool, this night. "

'This night, ' he muttered. 'I wish this night were well over. '

IV. VICISTI GALILAEE!

Julian was in a strange fit of tension when he heard Tommy Bates'steps coming up the garden path. They were very uncertain steps. 

Julian threw open his study door as the secretary reeled into thehall. He had longed for company this last grey craven hour ortwo, and this was all the company he was to enjoy for to-night atleast!

Humming and lurching and stinking of whisky as Tommy was, therewas not much comfort to be sought from him. 

Julian swore at him sonorously then he hustled him off to bed. Soon he was snoring. Julian had somehow shuffled away his fear inhis coercion of Tommy. 

'I'll get my blankets and pillow out of my room, and lie down inTommy's. I feel I can sleep now, ' he thought. 

He went into his room heedlessly in the dark and trod onsomething or somebody, just as he was striking a match. 

It was the big black snake that lived in the ant-hill at the backof the house whose movements Jim and the piccanin had beendiscussing. The snake dealt with Julian. 

Julian staggered about looking for crystals and a lancet. Theywere locked up safely and perhaps Jim, or perhaps Tommy had thekey. 

Tommy would not wake to any purpose. Just as Julian was shakinghim, the clock in the study a clock Julian had won in hissprinting days chimed twelve very melodiously. Everything seemedto be locked up. Had Jim the key of the spirit cupboard or Tommy?Julian was growing drowsy in his struggles against the current offortune. Hadn't he better give in, and let himself be carrieddown? Almost before he knew it, he was lying on the sofa in hisstudy where the lamp with the red shade was burning so cosily. Likely enough his eye caught a quaint ornament on his study tableat the juncture the figure of the Serpent on the Cross. 

It may be too, that some sort of startled respect came to him forthe Worm that had turned at last, not vindictively, but in theinterests of the Commonweal. 

Probability points to this one fact at least, that Julian fumbledfor something in his pocket-book ere he resigned himself finallyto the growing torpor. 

A card was found on the study floor when morning came; they foundthe pocket-book itself on the conch beside him. 

The card was the one that had come at his last breakfast-timefrom Dick Hunter, the card that he had reserved rather indignantlyfor future consideration. 

On the one side of it was a color-process reproduction, very goodof its kind Christ in Glory the Rex Tremendoe Majestatis and alsothe Fons Pietatis of the Dies Ira with tears in His Eyes andthorns on His Brows as He judged just judgment. On the other sidewere four lines from Browning, faithfully transcribed save forthe change of a name. They were written in the shaking writing ofa sick man, in Hunter's round, unformed hand:

'For the main criminal I have no hopeExcept in such a suddenness of fateSo may the truth be by one blow flashed out. And Julian see one instant and be saved. '

There is no question as to the suddenness of the stroke of fatethat ended Julian's career in South Africa. There is an openquestion as to the illuminative force of that blow, and we mustwait for the answer. 

THE DOUBLE CABIN

We had been close to a certain line of fire together, and yet wehad not seen much fighting. That is to say, we were taking partin a campaign together that was for the time being an affair ofpatrols near a certain border an affair that flashed into firenow and then as between man and man. As between sun and man thefiring was fairly continuous for eight hours of most days. Werewe not within a hundred miles or so of the equator? In thatclimatic struggle (so much the more constant of the two for usNortherners) I on my noncombatant job came off lightly, he, as acombatant, suffered. He was down with malaria time and timeagain. He had it on him that night when he put me up at his placea night when the old year was almost out. He was then inhabitinga border outpost a clean little camp tucked away behind a nativevillage. It was none too airy, I thought, with its heavy curtainsof cactus hedging. He seemed a little better that next morning, when I said prayers, and afterwards rehearsed a certain Rite. Hestayed to the end of my ministrations. After breakfast I startedagain on my journey, a round that took me far from the centre ofour small world. When I touched that centre again I heard hisnews, which was not so very reassuring. He had gone down withblackwater, and been carried into a small hospital. There, havingalmost gone out, he had rallied enough to be put on board a shipcrossing the lake. So he came to a greater hospital. It wasthither that I followed him up. He had had another crisis, Ifound, but he was better again by the time I got to him. Then heimproved a little, and seemed to be convalescing. Then malariachose to interfere with the running of her sister fever's course. This seemed extraordinarily meddlesome, and made things hazardousstill, though they were as well as one expected, when the time ofmy going on leave came. 

How glad I was to get off! My Good-byes were hurried when oncethe brown envelope had come. I saw him on the hospital stoep(baraza, did they call it in that alien part of Africa?) just asI was rushing down to the station. He had lost his blue color, but still looked rather flickery. 

'If you go to Bulawayo, you'll remember, won't you?' he said. 'You've got the plan?'

He had given me an elaborate little drawing of two streets thatconverged. His bungalow stood upon an island betwixt theirconfluence and the shading that he had marked waste ground. Thepink paper was in my breast pocket, but, knowing my way withpapers, I had already learned those streets' names. 

'All right, ' I said. 'But I'm not likely to go that way. And thetime's so short. I'll try though. '

His face lit, and his eyes gleamed. 'Do try, ' he said. 

'Don't build on it, ' I entreated him. 'I'll try to write to heranyway. '

Then he looked downcast indeed; he had fallen from such aconfident height. But he said 'Goodbye' like a real friend. 

I forgot him almost completely for the next four days or so. There were excitements, seeing somebody at headquarters, wiringbusiness wires, writing friendly letters against time, steering aforlorn small native and a more forlorn small dog, who weresharing my fortunes, down to the coast. At last I was there, anddiscussing shipping news with new-found keenness. My prospects ofgetting off with speed looked black for a bit; then came theflash of a fresh idea. As there was no ship for the African portI knew, why not book for the unknown? There were transportsreturning to a port beyond, I had heard. True, the cost ofrailway traveling thence was hard to forecast, resources were ofa modest sort, and there were three of us to find fares for. 

Yet ways and means began to show their forms out of the mistsoon. I chose to sail almost at once by the untried road, and Iwrote to friends', telling them how I had chosen. I wrote to myfriend in hospital, among others. I was going the Bulawayo wayafter all, and I might do what he wanted quite unbelievablyeasily. Who would have thought it when we parted? I scribbleddown the great news against time. (I had an importunate proof tocorrect before sailing; proofs are apt to take hours, I find, andmy sailing hour was near. ) He might be expected to have myscribble handed to him on the hospital stoep about three daysafter. So I calculated. I flattered myself that I knew the insand outs of our despatches and mail deliveries, also that I hadallowed in my calculation for censorial delay. It was pleasant tothink how pleased he might be expected to be. I well-wished himwith a prayer. Then I started down the glaring white road for thewharf. I had dismissed him from my mind, I regret to say, foranother three days or more. 

I traveled down from that east coast fighting-base on a transportthat had brought up mules and horses. She had naturally enough, shipped a goodly crew of flies with them. The mules and horseshad gone their ways, but the flies had by no means all gone withthem. Now with no quadrupeds to be their prime care, those thatremained were apt to obtrude themselves upon us. I deprecated atheart the ruthless warfare that marine authority waged upon them. But for all that I found my afternoon slumbers often distractedby the survivors. On the first and second afternoons of thatvoyage I awoke not long after I dropped off. I awoke, and thoughtabout nothing in particular. On the third afternoon my wakingthoughts took a very definite shape. 

I was in a cabin or stateroom that two officers had shared goingup doubtless of the veterinary profession. Now on this returnjourney I had the place to myself. I lay in my bunk with my bootsoff, and observed the empty couch beside me. 

It was my friend that I thought of my friend as I had taken leaveof him, reclining on the hospital stoep, straining with eagereyes at mine. It was his breathless voice that I remembered. Itwas saying over and over, 'You will go and see her, won't you?I'll be with you in spirit in this your trek for her and home. '

Surely he was on that couch in the cabin now beside me, andsurely he was saying the same thing over and over again, just asregularly and restlessly as if he were yonder electric fancurveting with the same sort of panting iteration. 

And yet, don't mistake me, I don't pretend to have seen anythingor heard anything extraordinary in the ordinary way of seeing orhearing. Only I was dead sure that he was there with the same oldentreaty. Afterwards I lighted a pipe, went above, talked to theskipper's wife, read, investigated my boy's and also my dog'swelfare rather perfunctorily, settled down to saying an eveningOffice, made an end more or less of that, just as night came on, and then again took time to think over things. I remembered thathe would have possibly got my letter, the letter which announcedmy sailing in this ship of the Archangel Line, just about thevery time that he had seemed so near me. It was natural enough, then, that his eager mind should have embarked with me on the'Saint Raphael. ' He knew now that I was going home, contrary toprevious expectation, by the very way he had desired, the way tosee his wife and tell her his news. 

That night, when I said my prayers, I took but a corner of thatcouch for my elbows. I gave him room, so to speak, with oddscrupulous courtesy, just as if he were lying there in the body. For I knew he was there, there by his own subtle means oftransport. That night the wind rose, and for the next three daysabout, we were on the downgrade as regards weather. Our captainopined that there had been a hurricane of sorts to south-east, out Madagascar way. We were in the troughs of a mighty swell thatgrew in might till the third morn of its reign was over. In themad tilting of my cabin floor, and the scuffling of my cabinaccessories, that last morning, the unseen and unheard presencethat I was now growing used to, reclined unperturbed. Elsewhere Iwould forget it lightly enough, as soon as ever I left the cabin, at the saloon table, where plate and cup fretted themselves upand down against the table frames, in the skipper's basket loungechair wherein I read contrasted romances, East End and Zulu, onthe deck where I groped from hold-by to hold-by, longing tochange grey sky and green sea-trenches for sunshine and bluelevels of sea and sky. The weather calmed and brightened, but thepresence was unaffected. It remained to my perception eager andsanguine, no less, no more, than it had seemed at first. 

At last the Bluff loomed to south-east. Soon a game of pitch-and-tossprecluded our access to harbor. At last we transshipped, allthree of us, boy and dog and I, to a steam-launch, and were soonashore. No, I won't say four of us. The presence did not makeitself felt as taking a share in that scramble of ours. I wasrather surprised at missing its company, when I found time tothink about it. I was standing at ease in the Base Office then. Soon I was on my way back again to the station where I had leftmy convoy. The boy was mounting guard over dog and gear. Yes, everything seemed all right. I turned towards the ticket office. As I waited for our tickets I evolved a sort of rationale of myconsciousness of that presence. He who had accompanied me wasvery weak, distinctly convalescent. He could but make himselffelt clinically, so to speak. When at length I was aboard thetrain I had opportunity to test my surmises. There were sixsleeping berths in the Jo'burg second class compartment (therewas no third class, worse luck, on that train) wherein I foundmyself. On one side slept the dark Theosophist who was to lend me'The Star of the East' next morning. Under him slept theNorwegian recruit bound for Potchefstroom. Under him again afresh-colored, wizened little Colonist. On my side slept anAfricander recruit for Potchefstroom (God love him! I hope he wasbetter than his looks and conversation). I was bedded over him. Above me on the sixth sleeping ledge was only a certain amount ofluggage. So we had arranged, and so my eyes assured me. But Ibecame firmly conscious that the presence was reclining there. 

Next night I was able to travel on third class from Johannesburgwithout missing my train's connection. I had the carriage tomyself (not without misgivings, for the guard had cleared anative out, and other compartments seemed likely to be rathercrowded). I lay down somewhat prayerlessly. The last light seemedto have not long faded on the white mine-banks. I woke in thechill of the dawn. The train was nearing Mafeking. The presence Ihad been too tired to think much about last night, was assuredlythere on the other side of the carriage. Yet there was only mybag to be seen on the seat, my bag that I had set there to searchfor a towel. 

The next night we drew near to Bulawayo. I had a Jew fortraveling companion then. He was to get off about midnight atFrancistown. I dropped off to sleep somehow. I don't know exactlyhow the trick was done, I was so excited at nearing my owncountry. When I awoke the Jew was gone, and the seat opposite mewas empty, empty save for the presence which reclined there. Igave it a share of my attention amongst other persons andmatters. I was far too full of plans and anticipations now tosleep. Yet I fought for sleep that next hour or two. Then, as thecocks had crowed undoubtedly, I lighted a pipe. Afterwards Istole out in the faint light to shave. When I returned, I wasconfronted by an old acquaintance a detective. He wantedinformation about me, naturally enough, as it was war-time. Hesat himself down on the seat whereon the presence was. I hadsquirmed when he shook hands with me so heartily (I had twistedmy hand, slipping on a warship's deck). I was disposed to squirmonce again. When he sat down rudely on that seat which I knew tobe occupied, I forgot myself at once, and drew him to a seatbeside me. 'Can't you see what's there?' I said hastily. Ofcourse he could not see, and thought me a little mad. Then, whenI explained that the seat had been kept, he looked suspicious, Ifonly he had enjoyed the same perceptiveness as myself, what pageshe might have filled in that expensive-looking note book. Ichuckled to myself as I thought of his description his, who hadcrossed the Rhodesian border with me at Plumtree on such specialservice. What would that note book make of him? The note book'smaster looked at me hard. Doubtless I aroused certain unnecessaryalarums and excursions in the imagination of a useful and alreadyoverworked official. But I had given him nothing tangible in theway of incrimination. He looked at me as one who much desired tokeep me under observation, but he said 'Goodbye!'

The house answered the pink paper's description. It was onthe verge of some waste ground. But I had expected a moreprosperous-looking place. 

It had a long row of white palings that lacked repainting. Thehouse itself looked rather poverty-stricken. I had hurried overmy breakfast at the station, then I had asked my way, and foundit. I knocked once and again. That wife, whom I had never seenbefore, came slowly to the door. He had shown me her portraitmore than once, and I remembered it. It certainly had notflattered her. She was dressed in black. Her face would have beenfresh under her bright hair, but the eyes were drawn, and thelips quivered that spoke to me, quivered in a pitiful fashion. Itold her how I came from her husband. I embarked on a longishrigmarole as to the luck that brought me her way after all, against expectations. She listened without saying a word. Then Itold her about him, and she listened patiently. 'I seem to havefelt him with me on my way, ' I said. 'He was so keen that Ishould bring you his love, ' I said. Then she burst out crying. 'It is all very interesting, ' she sobbed. 'But I have got laternews than yours. '

I shuddered. 'Was there a relapse, then?' I said. 

'I suppose there must have been, ' she murmured, steadyingherself. 'He came to me just at sunrise, ' she said, 'thissunrise, this very morning. I saw him so plainly coming into theroom just after I had opened my eyes. He always said he was surehe would be able to come, by God's mercy, if it should come tothat . . . ' Her voice shook, and I knew what 'that' meant. 

No doubt they had loved one another very dearly, no doubt he hadbeen able, so strong was his affection, to follow my journeytowards her, while he was still in life. Then, at the moment ofthe great change, he had doubtless gathered strength to come toher and manifest himself. Such things have surely happenedbefore, and are likely to happen again whilst our lives linger inthe midst of death, and love is love. 

'It is just on church-time, ' she said, 'all but eight o'clock. Iwas getting ready to go when you knocked. You won't mind my goingnow, will you? You won't mind my saying Good-bye?'

So we said 'Good-bye' outside the church door, our ways went sofar together. Then I went off by the station road; my train wasto go on in another hour or so. 

When I got into an empty carriage I was conscious of some senseof forlornness. I had lost my traveling companion. Yet I was gladsomehow to think that the strain of his interest in my journeywas at an end. I gave thanks for that new rest of his. 

As for her I am glad to remember where it was that she partedfrom me so graciously. That church was a poor, corrugated ironstructure, but I looked in and saw a gladsome light burningbefore its altar. Her eyes were on that light, I think, as sheknelt down. Truly a sanctuary of God seemed the place of placesto leave her in. They were so desperately fond of one another, and he was so devoted to his religion, as well as to her. If inGod's sanctuary the Psalmist found most satisfaction as to hisown riddle of the ungodly's vitality, I feel sure she found somecomfortable answer to her own contrasted problem the mortality ofone so dear to her and to his Lord. 

INTELLIGENCE

I was staying with an Intelligence Officer on a certain island. Our people had but just succeeded in occupying it with a force ofoccupation. It was a very green and richly tropical island withthe faults of its qualities, I should say. Most of its Germantenants were prisoners now, a few had escaped in canoes. Theirsergeant of askaris, a stout fellow, had passed the word of 'nosurrender. ' But for all that very few native soldiers seemed tobe in the bush now. Most seemed to have surrendered, or to havetransformed themselves into civilians. 

I had reached my host's lodging just before sundown on Saturdaynight. We dined simply, as far as courses went, but ourconversation came easily and took many turns. There seemed to besomething in the air that night. There were three of us at thetable, my host and Hunter and I. Hunter was a naval man who hadwalked up with me, and was staying the night. He was very freshand pleasant to look at; he seemed old for his years, which werefew; he had a range of interests as well as powers of expression. Did he seem just a little conscious of his tender age? Was he nota bit too anxious to profess disillusion? Yes, he was cynicalabout Belgians, also about France, also about the Foreign Office. I suffered him thus far with a certain guilty gladness. But theIntelligence Officer demurred grimly. He was a patriot and afighting man. They had switched a maxim on to him years before, but he was still going hardily, albeit he limped. He had foughtin an irregular white corps in the present campaign; he hadraised an irregular black corps; our adversaries were said tohave priced his head. He had charming manners; he had befriendedme nobly not once nor twice. He was a man surely of extraordinarydash and resource. I had no sort of reason to doubt the greatstories I had heard of him, of his coolness under fire and intight places. I had seen every reason to believe them. For allthat, my affection for him was mixed with another feeling. He wasvery tall. His face wore a sort of perennial fever-flush. He wasvery dark. His eyes were fine and fierce, too; he wore a strangehe-goat-tuft on his chin. I found myself chuckling privately thatevening over a bizarre fancy of mine. I had remembered a certainmediaeval print of a famous character. Yes, there certainly was alikeness. 

We discussed Intelligence Work a branch of War Service as towhich I am apt to be prejudiced. To my indefensible delight. Hunter excelled himself at giving my own views voice over thepudding. Never did I hear an indictment more sweeping. He spokeof the reading of people's letters, the bluffing of unhappynatives. He hinted darkly at dark methods of persuasion. Hehammered in the debasing futility of the whole spy system, ourown and the other side's. He ended with schoolboy personalitiesabout people he had met, some of our host's own agents. Hisremarks about them were unworthy of the eloquence that had gonebefore. Our host took it all in very kindly part. He was a man ofdeeds rather than of words. 

'I never thought I'd come so low as I did to-day, ' he admitted. 'You heard of the German who got away with his wife and kids incanoes. I was turning over one of the kids' money-boxes. Justfive rupees or so in it. But I'll try to get it back to theyoungster. I never thought to come quite so low. '

I tackled him about a horrid practice he had admitted havingrecourse to. 'Torture, or torture-witchcraft possibly! It seems ahopeful way of eliciting true intelligence, not to speak ofplaying the game in any sort of British sense. ' He hung his headpenitently. He pleaded that this expedient had saved an executiononly the other day. There had been none after all. Had therebeen, as had looked likely at one time, an innocent man wouldhave died. 

'Oh, why not be without reproach as well as without fear?' Ipleaded. 

'How am I to get truth from them? It's a usage of their own. ' Hewas pleading back. 

'Not that way. ' I was inflexible in my scorn and horror, for Iknew that I was right. 

By this time we had about finished dinner. Soon we were outsideHunter in a deck-chair, I on a box, my host on a looted camp-stool. We smoked on under the stars. 

We spoke of looting. The naval man scintillated about the conductof the army at a raid on a neighboring town. I was with him mostof the way. 

'So they cleared away with their swags for fear of enemyreinforcements. And they had a report printed that the nativeshad looted the place. That put the lid on it, ' he said. But thencame purgatory for me. The Native Question cropped up. Our hostwas away just then, conferring about chits that his spies hadbrought in. Hunter fairly coruscated with cynicism, when it cameto the Native Question. He had expressed very different viewsupon it the last time that I had met him (the day before atlunchtime). Now he expressed himself cured of any sneaking wishto treat natives with kindness rather than kiboko. His boy, towhom he had granted leave of absence, had not come back to hisday, and the whole fabric of Native sympathies, so far as he wasconcerned, had crashed to the ground. Henceforth he would knowhow to treat natives, the way to have no trouble with them. Anyother way was not worth while. I objected, but my objections wereas little rocks over which his periods broke in foam. 

They enhanced the effect. Our host came back and laughed alittle, till he saw how little I was enjoying it. Then he rottedthe orator on his lordly oblivion of one fact. Were there notlimits to his experience of Africa? He himself avowed hissympathies with the African. If he had a hobby, it was natives. He wanted to win their trust for a great many reasons. It wasworth while having it. He told a certain story and the talkdiverged. It was quite sympathetic talk, from my point of viewthenceforward, up till bed-time. We slept in that big roomwithin, all three of us. I had brought next to no kit, andI had noted with some awe my naval friend's scorn of theill-provided in the course of the evening. He had described howa Belgian he had shared a room with, lacked certain accessoriesof civilization. So I was in the mood now to feel my owndeficiency. But the censor was not so very observant, and heseemed sleepy. Soon he was sleeping. 

My host and I exchanged a few undertones. Tomorrow wasWhitsunday. I wanted to have Service very early. 'That'll be allright, ' he said. Soon he put our hurricane lamp out, but I wasnot to win sleep for quite a long while. In the early morning, moreover, something happened. Some red-ant skirmishers wereabout, and I had a hot time in my bed on the floor. I' might wellhave felt more grateful than I did feel. Yes, had I only knownwhat battalions would have engaged me, had they decided to attackbefore dawn! At dawn I was to see for myself what were thenumbers of their host. Meanwhile, their scouts gave me trouble, if only a moderate amount. A cock crowed close by. Then anotherand another. The dawn was not so very far then surely. Thethunder that had boomed when I first awoke, boomed louder. Arushing mighty wind seized upon the shanty where we slept, a veryairy shanty. The fact that the Day that came was Pentecost, recurred to me. Then the storm broke in fury. The rain smasheddown, and the lightning forked and flickered. The roar and tumultraged and swelled and thudded overhead. My host awakened. 

'It's near, ' he said. 'Too near for me, ' I murmured, as I duckedinvoluntarily when a perfervid flash came. 

'Look at the Navy!' he said. I looked. 

The cynic slept like a child. His face was very calm andintensely optimistic. 'He told me he had slept through big guns'fire on his ship, ' I said admiringly. 'He has great powers. '

A curious lingering flash came. It played round the sleeper'shead. A huge peal seemed to come almost with it, the last hugepeal ere that brief passionate storm withdrew. 

Then the sleeper began to talk. 

He talked too well too well for me to mix his actual phrases upwith this secular story. 

The Intelligence man began to laugh. The thing struck him asfunny. But suddenly I caught familiar words, and I put my fingeron my lips. My host's black eyes looked into mine, and I saw, asI had never seen before, how much there was in them. First theykindled, and then they grew soft, and he turned his head away. The sleeper had been repeating the end of the fifth chapter of S. Matthew the bit about the God (whose sons we Christians are) thatmakes His sun to shine, and His rain to fall so impartially. 

He said the words very clearly, as articulately as if he were achild saying repetition. What made our host's eyes melt socuriously was what came after. 

The sleeper said a sort of child's prayer about sun and rain, andjust and unjust, and good and evil, praying quite simply to Godto bless everybody and to do the best for them English andGermans, black men and white. 

'Yes, and my boy, ' he said, as if that petition furnished a sortof limit to the mercy he invoked. 'And the mtoto, ' he added aminute after. 

'What's his name?' he asked innocently. He had forgotten the nameof his boy's apprentice, and his forgetfulness was on his mind. 

The strain was a bit too much for us when it came to thatquestion. 

We laughed rather hysterically. Then we pulled ourselvestogether, but we had not disturbed him. He spoke no more save fortwo or three detached words proper names I think. But he breathedlong breaths peacefully. 

The dawn was quite near on its way now. A dove called from thewood to its mate. Surely it desired to tell it that morning came. 

'We've got some fresh Intelligence, ' my host said gravely. 

'Pentecostal Illumination, rather, ' I said. 

'Did you happen to remember what the Day was?'

He nodded. 'We'd better not sit up talking, ' he told me. 'Itmight seem to spoil it somehow. We'd better try to get a littlesleep. Come over here out of the ants. '

So we shifted my mattress. 

After our Pentecostal Service, and our breakfast, we comparednotes, we two alone. 

Once more Hunter had talked a lot at table. It was somehow alittle hard completely to identify the Hunter of breakfast timewith the Hunter of cock-crow. 'Our friend was rather angelical, only rather, ' my host said. 

'He was cynical about your cynical business, ' I said. He laughed. 'Have you forgotten what he said about missionaries?' he asked. 

I smiled ruefully. 'It certainly wasn't up to his level, ' I said, 'his cock-crow level. '

'I've got a theory, ' said my chin-tufted friend (I have made upmy mind to recall Don Quixote in future when I think of himrather than that mediaeval print). 'The subliminal self of theNavy was revealed by that Pentecostal flash. Pentecost was in theair. We saw the real lieutenant in his sleeping sub-consciousness. It's a pity the real self isn't top-dog in ordinary life; it's under-dogfor the present, worse luck!'

'But in sleep he's a child still, and a good child at that, ' Isaid. 

'Yes, or he couldn't have responded to that Pentecostalsuggestion. You or I wouldn't have responded; anyhow, not soreadily. '

He sighed. 'It's a wicked world, ' he said smiling, 'and we learnmany tricks of our respective trades. '

'Speak for yourself and your own trade, ' I said sternly. Then Ibegged him to give up that unmentionable way of obtainingintelligence. 

'Let's try to live up to the cock-crow level, ' I said. 'We twohave seen what we have seen, and heard what we have heard. Wehave received unexpected Intelligence. We have got some hints asto self and soul, truth and falsehood. '

'Yes, I'll allow that, ' he admitted. 

A CREDIT BALANCE

The siding was on such soil as recalled South Devon; flanking thename-board there were a few pepper-trees with dry, fern-likefoliage, and bunches of red berries just then, the month beingMarch. Alfred Home drew up before that name-board in scorchingsunshine, wiped his face, and looked at his watch. Was he intime?

He had heard nothing of the train yet, and it was not to be seenapproaching. His watch told him that it had been due for tenminutes now. Surely it could not have gone! No, there it was. Itswhistle sounded, and soon it came winding through the sparsewoodlands. He gave a sigh of relief, and squatted down to waitfor it. Soon it drew up at Pepper-tree Siding. 

He climbed on to a third-class carriage, which carried nativesand colored people, also one European in lonely majesty. Thislast stood smoking a cigarette in an amber or mock-ambermouthpiece. He was a boy not long out of his teens, a boy with adazzling complexion if, indeed, he were not a girl in a boy'sgrey suit. He introduced himself, as he ushered his fellow-travelerinto a compartment. 'I'm the only one here, ' he said. 'I've beenalone since Mafeking. I'm George Donald, and I'm just out fromDerry. ' Home accepted the cigarette that was offered him. Then he wiped his face again a dark, fiercely-burnt face. Hewas a man over forty; he looked more than his age, or as if hehad had very hard times. 'Going far?' he asked. 'Not much furthernow, ' the boy said cheerfully. 'My station's fifty miles beyondGwelo. I'm about sick of it. I traveled second class on the boat. But they never sent any money for expenses, so I've had to pig iton this train. ' Home smiled. 'Ever been out before?' he asked. Donald shook his head. Then he indulged in many confidences. 'I'mgoing to be partner in a trading concern, ' he said. 'Soldana's isthe name of the place. ' He went on to describe the voyage out, with free criticisms of the food and of fellow-passengers. Theyhad had a concert or two on board, and he had recited at thesecond-class concert last week. 'What did you recite?' Home askedhim. 'Oh, I gave them "Sir Galahad. " I had to grind it up, withlots more of Tennyson, for an exam. You know it?' Home nodded. His lips moved. 'How ever does it go?' he said a moment after. 'Ionly remember tags of lines here and there "And star-like mingleswith the stars. " That's authentic, isn't it?' The boy repeatedthe stanza whence those words came. 'Would you like any more?' heasked. Home grinned. 'May as well have it through, if it's allthe same to you, ' he said. So the boy began at the beginning, andcontinued, and made an end, Home watching him all the while. Hiseyes had satire in them as he watched, but they had alsoadmiration. Two or three hours after, they drew up at anothersiding, and Home got together his belongings. He handed them to aBechuana boy who stood waiting for them outside on the step. Thenhe settled himself down again, for the engine was waiting to takewater. He wrote a few words on a half-sheet and handed it toDonald. 'That's my address, ' he said. 'Do write or look me up atmy store, if I can be of any use at any time. ' The reciter of'Sir Galahad' shook his hand warmly, promising that he would doso. Then Home scrambled out into the noontide heat. Soon the slowtrain woke up again, and lumbered on. 

It was much more than three years after when Donald came toHome's store. He looked fagged and weary as he came up thewagon-road, having done his thirty miles that day. He had a knapsackon his back, but that was not heavy. Home was sitting on a caseunder his verandah. The sun had just set, and he had closed thestore for the day, just before the traveler showed in sight. Nowthat he drew near, he knew him at once. 'Hullo! I've oftenthought about you, ' was his greeting. 'But what have you beendoing with yourself?' The boy's face he looked boyish still, though no longer girlish was worn. He was very pale, and had bluemarks under his eyes. 'I've had a hell of a time, ' he muttered. 'Well, come and have some skoff, ' Home said. 'After that you cantell me about it all. ' The boy ate but languidly, though heemptied cup after cup. He said hardly anything; he looked down onhis luck. The zest was gone out of his talk, as the rose-pink outof his cheeks, since they last met. 

Home tried to say something cheerful. 'Do you know, if you'd comethis day week I don't think you'd have found me here. I've soldthis store. I'm meaning to go home, and to settle down there. 'The boy congratulated him rather listlessly. Then he spoke with asparkle of his old keenness. 'I wish I were going home, ' he said. 

'Why don't you?'

'I haven't a shilling, ' the boy said; 'only minus shillings, onlydebts. ' Home tried to say something pleasant about luck turning, but it came out flatly. After supper the boy told a story, but hedid not seem to tell it candidly by any manner of means. Thepartnership he had gone to had been dissolved a year ago. He hadbeen trading, backed up by a Jew, this last cold weather. He hadhad horrible luck; his store had been burnt down in August. Itwas November now. He had been knocking about in a certain townfor a month or two. Then he had taken to the road. Some peoplehad been kind to him as he came along; others hadn't. 

'What do you owe?' Home asked him abruptly. 'Oh, a pound or two, 'he answered, coloring. 'It's more than that, isn't it?' Home saidgently. The boy denied its being more than that. Then all of asudden he owned up. 'One Jew, they were partners, said it wastwenty-five; the other said he'd take fifteen. It wasn't reallymore than fifteen, honor bright. '

'So you owe him fifteen, ' Home said. 'Do you mean to pay him?'

'Not unless I'm forced, ' the boy said savagely. He spoke in quitean open way now. 'I'd rather pay him out than pay him back, the .. . 'Home changed the subject. 

Just before they went to bed he recalled their brief journeytogether so long ago now. He reached a newish Tennyson down fromhis candle-box bookshelf. 'Do you mind saying that piece overagain that piece you said in the train?' Home spoke shyly. 

The boy flushed up before he answered. 'I've forgotten it, ' hesaid. 

'Well, read it, then, won't you, please? I've got it here. ' Theboy started to read the lines. He read rather badly that night, so Home thought to himself. He stuck in one place. 'Here, you'dbetter go on, ' he said hoarsely. So Home finished the poem to thelast line of it:

Until I find the Holy Grail. 

'Do you know?' he said, when he had ended, 'I owe you a debt. You've got a big balance to draw on so far as I'm concerned. Ibucked up a bit, beginning from that day when we met in thetrain. I'd been thinking of giving up whisky, and other things, before that day. But you gave me what I wanted a start. "Now ornever, " I said, having seen you coming out so fresh as you didyes, and heard you recite. I won't describe you as you were then;you may or may not remember what you were like. That bit in thepoem about riding in lonely places through the dark caught myfancy. I used to think of you who had gone away in the trainnorthwards. I thought of you trading on the Mashonaland veld, andpassing unscathed and unafraid over it by night and day you thathad nothing to be ashamed of. Thinking so helped to buck me up. I've done better since that train journey than I ever did beforeout here. Now I'm doing quite well, else it wouldn't be likelyI'd be thinking of going home, as I am. '

The boy looked up at him wretchedly. 'It all went wrong nearlyfrom the first, ' he said, 'so far as I was concerned. '

'Yet all the while you helped me, ' Home said. 'So I owe you adebt, and I mean to pay my debts, whatever you mean to do aboutyours. Come on, now. Take this bed. I'm sleeping in the store. '

Thus it came about that in the morning Home, having slept uponhis resolve, brought out some money. He stacked it on the tableimpressively. 'I'm glad I slept upon it, ' he said. 'I thoughtlast night that I'd give you the money to go home this year. I'dmade up my mind almost to go next year instead of this. '

The boy's eyes lighted up. Gratitude looked out of them. Thenthey changed. It seemed that gloomy Fear had taken Gratitude'splace at the double window. Donald stammered a bit; then he spokeout. 'I'd like to lie to you, like I did last night; but I can'tsomehow. No, I'm going to tell you utter' truth. I'd like you togive me the money well enough in one way. But if you did I knowwhat I'd do. You don't know how gone-in I am. If I ever got asfar as Capetown I'd drink out what was left there, or I'd blow itsome way. But I'd never get so far as Capetown; I'll be honestwith you. Yet thanks all the same. You meant kindly. '

'That's all right, ' Home said kindly enough. 'Thanks for beingstraight. I thought over that first plan of mine last night. Iwasn't long in chucking it for a second. ' The boy listenedlanguidly. 'I was going second, ' Home went on; 'I was goingsecond if I'd gone alone. Now let's both go together! Supposing Isquare the Jew for you probably you understated his account a bit(I've allowed for that) I may have enough for two thirds andsomething to spare. You won't mind my going too, and my keepingthe bag, will you?'

'Mind?' the other said. 'I shouldn't think I'd mind, seeing it'sa one-and-only sort of chance. But I don't see why you shouldgive it me. '

'It's only paying you something on account, ' Home said. 'Remember, there'll be a credit balance still after the journey'sover, but you'll give me a little time to pay off that, won'tyou?'

So they went together in the following week by a slow train, thesame sort of slow train as had carried them of old one thatstopped at Peppertree Siding. 

'I'd like to refund you, ' the boy said while they waited there. He was beginning to get a little of his own back by then, Homethought; Home was beginning to suffer him as an inseparable muchmore gladly. 'I've written some things that might sell, ' Donaldmurmured; 'things I wrote when I was traveling in lonely placesamong the hills, or in the bush-veld, or by the river that heldme up for three days. '

'What sort of things? "Sir Galahad" sort of things?' Home askedwith a twinkle. 

The boy shuddered. 'No, just the other sort of things, ' heanswered. 'Not seeing everything right because one feels right, but seeing everything devilish because one feels devilish. '

'Hadn't you better, perhaps, burn the lot?' Home said. 'Don'ttalk about a refund to me. Why, man, I tell you I owe you quite alot. Make yourself easy; you've a big credit balance to draw on. '

MAN'S AIRY NOTIONS

It is quaint how a catch of a song or a phrase of a lyric willhaunt one along the lonely miles of a walk, up hill and down daleof one's pilgrimage. Hood found a phrase of a lyric dogging himdown the first stages of his home-road last year. He thoughtlittle of the circumstance at the time, but afterwards heremembered it, and wondered why the thing had befallen so. Thelines of the phrase had by that time gained meaning for him, moremeaning than he had suspected to be in them, when he said themover to himself:

'In a wife's lap, as in a grave, Man's airy notions mix with earth. ' *

* From 'The Splendid Spur, ' by Q. 

He remembered saying them over and over to himself along onelong, sandy, thirsty stretch. Then again, when he sat down by thedrift in huge content waiting for his kettle to boil; then againon a certain melodramatic night as he paddled in the rain a nighthe is not likely to forget. 

He had been a missionary in South-Eastern Africa for ten orfifteen years, I forget which, and his leave that came every fiveyears was once more due. He started for the railhead, some fortyodd miles from his home, going by way of the post-town, andcalling there for his share of the last mail. 

Yes, it was all right. Nothing near at hand in Africa, or faroverseas in England, barred his home-road as far as he couldlearn. On the other hand, at least two Southern letters bade himgo back and prosper, and a new welcome had come forward to himfrom the North in a writing that he remembered. It was posted inan Upper River village not many miles from Oxford, and it was abidding to a meeting of Oxford contemporaries arranged for thecoming July. They had met on about that same day (the birthday ofthe host) five years before. 

Hood remembered that day of meeting, as he sat by the drift, reading his letter, and waiting for the kettle to boil. Heremembered walking out from the city of the spires, and the waythe house looked as he came to it by a path through water-meadows. What gardens and green shades and coolness of comfort, heremembered, and linked with that time and that place. Hedreamed a dream with the smell of new-turned hay in it, thenawoke to find himself repeating that mellifluous tag of his aboutman's airy notions. The kettle had boiled. 

The letter of invitation was written in high spirits. It wassanguine as to the completeness of their numbers when they shouldmeet. All but one was likely to be there if only Hood would comeall but one who had fallen out of the ranks. Hood was, somehow, Ithink, more overcast by the thought of the one exception, thanrejoiced by the prospect of such a noble muster. Yet, as hestrode along the road, pondering the letter, his longing forEngland seemed to grow amazingly. His stride lengthened as hissatisfaction deepened. Twenty miles gave him little trouble thatMarch forenoon and afternoon. He crossed the wide river in acrazily perilous ferry-boat, forded a narrow one, and supped withgreat content on his bread and cheese. 

Meanwhile his carriers fell heartily to hungry men's rations ofbully beef and millet-meal. The rains had been heavy those two orthree days in that last week, as the rivers testified. Now theclouds were closing up again, and the carriers shook their heads. Their road was a lonely one. A kraal was some six miles ahead, the railhead inn was almost nine. When they had gone on for abouta mile of their road, the rain began to come down heavily, justas the night began. On and on they splashed through the pools andcurrents of the wagon-way. Then the rain slackened. A red, elusive light shone ahead in the dip of a hollow. It seemed awandering fire to Hood's eyes as the road twisted suddenly. Butno it was a humdrum wagon-fire of logs. They clustered round it, chilly and dripping, his carriers and he. A voice called out tothem from the folds of a buck-sail above. A Mashona boy wascrouching in shelter there. He told them that his master wasasleep on the wagon. Hood tried a greeting to this master, but itgained no answer. He began to take counsel with his comrades, asthey squatted by the fire. 'Wouldn't it be fine to sleep underthe wagon? Who wanted to tramp through a black night with perhapsa pouring roof of sky above, and certainly a soaked mud floorbeneath?'

The carriers and he agreed to risk the storm (threatening evennow in the distance). Night-prayers were said by that gladsomefire. Still, the larger of the two muffled shapes above made nosign. Afterwards Hood's bed was made by the stretching out of astrip of sailcloth. A blanket was laid over it, and a knapsackcrowned it as a pillow. Hood began to settle himself in with hugecontent, a pipe between his teeth. One carrier wriggled himselfup beside him. The two others laid themselves at his feet. Bythis time the thunder was rolling up relentlessly, and theflashes shone green and sinister. The storm was not long inbreaking over them. The rain swished in from the west the way ofHood's right side. He wrapped his head in his five-shillingblanket; its cotton-waste was not very waterproof. He had a fewmore draws at his pipe in the dark. Pools were filling under him. He put his pipe down. He made haste for the frontiers of sleep. He must have got some way in that direction, for he soon foundhimself in his bath on the threshold of a dream. Of course, heshould have hardened his heart hygienically. He should have risenand stridden on with his retainers the miles that remained. Buthe had his vein of weakness and sloth; he took the fury of thatnight lying down. 

At whiles he was across the drift of Lethe in the darkness, butnever for long together. Once he woke uneasily with a start andsaw a flash. The crash followed as in one beat, and the rain waslike the rain in King Lear. He was broadly awake now. Twocarriers were nestling near him. He felt fearfully for his pipe, and almost mourned for it as washed away. He found it, and turnedover with a happy sigh. 'Man's airy notions!' 'as in a grave, ''mix with earth' he hummed himself to sleep with that bravesing-song. 

The dawn had come ere he had roused himself again. It was good tofind that the rain was over and the night gone, and that the firewas blazing. His carriers were chafing their hands and feet. Hissleeping host bulked still as a molded shape in the buck-sail. Had he moved at all since last night? The big black-and-white andred-and-white oxen were tethered still. Would their wardens everwake up and see them fed? The carriers tied up his packs, andmoved forward with a swing. Still there was no sign from thebuck-sail, boy and master alike were still within, though the sunhad climbed over the hills. Hood shrugged his shoulders, andmoved off down the west road. He left that little mystery, as hehad left bigger riddles in Africa, utterly unsolved. 

Soon they dried themselves at a hospitable hut-fire in a village. It was Lady Day. Hood noted the seasonable blue-and-white of hisblanket as he hung it on a rafter. He made the morning Offeringbehind that vaporous screen. Then they ate their food, anddrugged themselves belatedly with quinine against those perils ofthe night. 

Hood for one felt cheerily defiant, if somewhat stiff from longbathing. 'This is life, ' he thought as the sun came out, and theystrode mile after mile down the valley. Afterwards came theshining drift, and the last climb up to the Station. 

When Hood reached Capetown, he found a letter awaiting him. Hischosen traveling companion an explorer was delayed up-country. Hood was sorry to get that letter. Then the possibilities of alonely journey struck him. He revived the remembrances oflong-room life as an under-schoolboy. He took an open berth for athree weeks' voyage. Whereas, in the English public school he hadgone to, Gentiles had been many and Jews the exception, thebalance was now redressed. 

It was a good time on the whole that he had on this voyage, buthe was glad indeed to be out of the boat and in England oncemore, his own South-country England! The spring and early summerwere kind to Hood, then July came and brought the gathering inBerkshire. All the old forgatherers of five years ago were there, all but that one they had left behind in Africa. He had gone tosleep there, three long years ago in the past. 

'How I do miss Hunter!' confided the explorer to Hood. 'They seemto have aged a lot, some of the others, ' he explained forlornly. 

Hood stared at him as he steered their boat down the river. Hereflected. 

'I think you're right, ' he said. 'But you haven't aged a bit. Norhave I. Nor has our host so very much. That's how the dividingline comes in. The others are all married, much married, and liketheir little comforts. '

'You're right there, ' said the explorer, disconsolately. 'Abread-and-cheese lunch in a bar parlor and a twenty-mile walkdidn't suit Warner. He used not to be like that. If only he'dkept out in Africa after the war. '

'Warner's better than somebody we both know, ' grumbled Hood. 'Having a car of his own hasn't made him any younger. '

'Never mind, ' the explorer said, 'there's two of us out in Africayet, and not likely to marry. There used to be three, usedn'tthere?'

'I do wish we had one to spare, ' said Hood. 'It'd be rather atragedy for the other one if one of us two deserted. But you'lltry not, won't you, and I'll try too. '

While they stayed with their bachelor host, friends of his, married and single alike, were very kind to them. The rector, whohad only come last year, asked them to make themselves at home inhis garden. It had a blaze of civilization in its front borders, now, but at the back of the house it was rather wild and veryshady. The rector's youngest sister, Perpetua, kept house forhim, a girl whose English coloring took a pretty and subduedform; Hood and the explorer were much interested in her romance. The curate, Warner said, was her continual worshipper. He was akeen sort of curate that. 

She had been kind to him till quite recently. Now she wasuninterested, or seemed so. 

The Good-bye of the reunion came round, but the explorer and Hoodwent not with the others. The married guests went off to theirhome comforts, but these two stayed on for at least a week more. They became fast friends with both Perpetua and the curate, butthey found it best for social joy not to mix them. 

Perpetua shared a sailing expedition with the strangers. Thereinthey explored much of the Evenlode, the hay-harvest breezefavoring them. Another day she went with them afoot to theHinkseys. Certain moot points of poetic identification werehardly settled by that trip, so another followed. They came homeby Cumner both days. 

'She would do for Africa, ' confided the explorer to Hood onenight. The village band had been playing, and they had thought noscorn of it. The groups under the dreaming garden trees, and thefull moon, and the white evening-star' had been memorable thatevening. 

'She might do for Africa, ' said Hood doubtfully, 'but I wouldn'tlet her go and spoil her complexion. '

'If you were the curate?' asked the explorer with a smile. 

'What's he to do with it?' said Hood impatiently. 'Didn't healmost promise he'd sail with me in two months' time? I want himfor work. '

'That's too bad, ' said the explorer; 'cut that labor-agentbusiness. Let him stay at home and marry Perpetua. There's afamily living waiting for him across the river. Won't they behappy just?'

'I don't know, ' said Hood, thinking fast. 

Next morning the explorer had a touch of fever. The villagedoctor dropped in as an anxious friend. He mustered up hiscourage to prescribe two grains of quinine. His patient smiled, and promised to take them with additions. Then he went to sleep, and left Hood to escort Perpetua to Bab-lock-hythe. She wasadventurous that afternoon. 'She has outgrown the curate, ' Hoodthought. The explorer's words recurred to him: 'She might do forAfrica. ' 'Not if I know it, ' he answered them in his own mind. 

His interest in her grew that day, and the next day, when theexplorer was convalescent. The day after that he said 'Good-bye, 'and escorted the convalescent to Oxford. 

'Good luck!' said the explorer as they parted near the Martyrs'Memorial, each bound for his own college. 'Let's stick to our ownway of life, we two. Don't let's get middle-aged just yet, likeWarner and Davies. And, mind, drop that agency rot, and leave thecurate to Perpetua. They're just the age she twenty, he twenty-five. You, who're forty-one, have pity!'

That evening Hood smoked his pipe in a college garden. One whohad taught him years ago was there. Hood was fairly candid as tohis real thoughts when he talked to him. He was telling the taleof that rainy night, as the summer twilight darkened, 'I'm justforty, ' he said. 'It seems as if I could hold my own a bit withyounger men, D. G. !'

His friend looked at him thoughtfully. 'It's fictitious youth, hesaid. 'Supposing you were to try marrying and settling down. Supposing you were to try deserting your perennially youthfulbride the Great Adventure, or the High Romance, or the NewJerusalem, or whatsoever you call her. Supposing you settle downwith an earthly bride say, a sweet-and-twenty one! Supposing youhad to toe the line of four-meals-a-day in a country vicarage. You would know your age then. '

Hood looked uninterested and aloof. But he recurred to thesubject again later on, and he asked whether a certain living inthe near neighborhood had been filled. 

'No, ' said his friend; do you want it?'

Hood flushed up. 'It's the sort of place I'd like to settle downin, ' he said, 'if I were coming home. But why should I come?'

His friend made no answer at once. The same sort of wistful lookcame into his eyes that Hood had noticed in the explorer's eyesthat afternoon. 

'Why should you not?' he said at last. 'Yet I for one would likeyou not to renounce the perpetually juvenile lady. I'm not in ahurry to see the last of your glad, perennial youth. '

That night Hood lay in his friend's spare room, looking out overthe Gardens. He was reading in bed a college list. It had pencilnotes of the deaths or careers of some contemporaries. Rousinghimself from his researches, he sprang up and put the book away. He leaned down to the window-shelf. What was that book with thestained red cover! He remembered a romance that had come out inhis college days of twenty years ago, a book by one who had hadhis own rooms before him. He took it back to bed with him, andturned over the pages. At last he found the lyric he sought. Oneof its verses held the tag he had remembered so often, but hadforgotten, and wanted that evening, wanted to confirm his ownhalting decision:

'In a wife's lap, as in a grave, Man's airy notions mix with earth. '

He put down the book and switched off the electric light. He laya long while in the moonlight, thinking himself far away toearthen walls and guttering candles. He thought of the chillpenury of lack of blankets that he had known in winter. Also ofthe sun's summer glare on white wagon-roads and Kaffir paths. What wonder that wayfarers' eyes amass many wrinkles around them?Yet how young one had kept after all; and at what speed one wouldage here with electric light and sheets and a stately dinner totempt one! 'Man's airy notions. ' Yes, he had got some very airynotions still, whereof the earth was not worthy. Getting olddidn't matter, of course, so much; but he wanted to stick todoing his own work (his Lord's work) in his own way. He didn'twant to leave like-minded friends in the lurch either. Nor did hesee his way to hug the shore at home with Perpetua, while thecurate braved the 'foam of perilous seas. ' Would he ever have theheart to watch her fresh face spoiling in Africa? Could he bearto see it wizened and withered in the Tropic of Capricorn? No!

He was soon asleep. 

His first waking knowledge was of his friend's asking him thequestion, 'Are you going to apply for that living?' He had his'No!' ready from that last night. 

'I'm glad, ' his friend said. '"Fly our paths, our feverishcontact fly!" I'd like you to take my advice and be happy yes, and useful as well as youthful. '

'All right, ' smiled Hood from his pillow. 'I mean sailing nextmonth. '

He went to his home in Kent that same day, and rejoiced in theWeald. His sister and he made a pilgrimage to Canterbury beforethe month was over, from Sevenoaks by way of the Downs. 

'This was where Marlowe went to school, ' she reminded him. 'Ithink he might have been almost as great as Shakespeare, don'tyou?'

'I don't know, ' Hood answered. 'He was a different sort. I can'timagine him settled down in middle age at Canterbury likeShakespeare at Stratford. "His raptures were all air and fire. "His airy notions refused to mix with earth somehow. '

The conversation was not very important, but it showed thecontinuing trend of Hood's purpose. He hardened his heart andwent to the Upper River no more ere his sailing from Southampton, nor did he press the curate to sail with him. The latter wrotehim a very dubious letter. He would make no promises about workin Africa now. Hood gathered that Perpetua was relenting. 

The explorer sailed with him, to his joy, instead of the curate. They went up from Capetown in continuing amity together. At lastthey parted far upcountry. Hood went on his lonely way, notwithout some retrospects and some doubts as to his decision. 

At a roadside station a well-tried comrade came to greet him. This friend had married last year, and his wife was donkey-ridingand foot-faring with him. They were but just back from many milesin very wild country. Seven carriers were with them. 

'Heavy loads!' said Hood, shaking his head. 'So you carry chairsand a table into the Veld?'

'Home comforts, ' growled his fellow-missionary. 'Why not becomfortable? And why, too, didn't you bring a wife back? Some onesaid. '

Hood smiled, and the missionary's wife smiled back at him. 'He'sbetter as he is, dear, ' said she to her grunting husband. 'He's afoot-slogging free-lance. We're the household heavy cavalry. He'sdifferent. '

'Wait and see if he remains so, ' rejoined her husband solemnly. Then the train screamed and went off. 

Soon Hood was landing at his own rail-head and receiving thegreetings of many brown people. They seemed glad to see him as hestraggled back so forlornly to them up the platform, and out ofthe station. His holiday was done. 

But he was soon forlorn no longer. They had so many delights andanxieties to share with him his traveling comrades. Soon theywere striding away far up the remembered road together. They werethrough the drift. How low it was now in this droughty time. Thenthey wound along the valley. Hood peered curiously among theruddy-leaved bushes as they came round the shoulder of a hill. Was the silent teamster still outspanned there? No, he was notthere to make them welcome, or to sleep away the tyranny of theirpresence. He had fled their 4 greetings, fled their speech andsmiles. ' Never mind. If the road was lonely, Spring was in theland. How the trees and the bushes glowed! 'Surely no man ever ina land of exile found more of a warmth of welcome home!' hethought to himself. 

It was on Christmas Day (last Christmas Day) that, Hood tells me, a momentous letter came to hand. It was from Berkshire, and hedid not read it till the time came for him to turn towards hisveld-home. He had held Christmas services in various places. 

He was now looking forward to a rest and to supper-time. He wassitting outside a wayside school as he read that letter. SomeMashona children had brought him clay figures as Christmaspresents. They graced the grey rock beside him one big figure anda little figure or two in clay skirts, also a quaint version of aperambulator. They showed up rather drably against the glory ofWestern sun and blue sky. 

The letter announced Perpetua's plighted troth. It was from thecurate. He added that they were both looking forward to settlingdown shortly in the family living. They might be married in Aprilor in June. Hood smiled and lit his pipe resignedly. 

'So his airy notions of Africa are mixed with earth, ' he thought, 'honest Berkshire earth, hurst sand, or down chalk, I suppose. No, I'm forgetting. That rectory's across the river in Bucks orOxon, I forget which. Anyhow the earth's got the better of theair, and it's arranged that Africa's not to see him. ' His eyesfell upon the clay family grouped beside him. 'It's goodPerpetua's having a home and a family in prospect, ' he thought. 'One understands that there's a good deal to be said for suchthings when Christmas comes round, at any rate. '

Some words came into his head, words of his favorite poet weren'tthey? 'I hope I shall never marry; the roaring wind is my wife, and the stars through the window-panes are my children: themighty abstract idea of beauty I have in all things stifles themore divided and minute domestic happiness. ' He looked at thoseclay grotesques rather tenderly. He was thinking of a story in alife of St. Francis he had read only yesterday, how he had madehim figures of snow and called them in irony his wife andchildren and servants. 'Here is thy wife, these are thy sons anddaughters, the other two are thy servant and thy handmaid; andfor all these thou art bound to provide. But if the care of somany trouble thee, be thou careful to serve one Lord alone. '

He said over to himself those unforgotten words, sadly ratherthan scornfully this time:

'In a wife's lap, as in a grave, Man's airy notions mix with earth. '

He shouldered his knapsack. Then he commended the clay figures totheir donors; he asked them if they would mind looking afterthem. He was very grateful; he would have them kept in the schoolto remind him of things that earthy little family of his own. 

Then airily and fierily he splashed away down the path for home. Through the marshland he went, and down towards the stream. Heforded the wagon-torn drift eagerly, climbed up out of it, andstrode away beyond. 

How young and fresh he felt as he went away again on his campaignwith earth and water! How air and fire subdued their sisterelements to themselves!

PISGAH

We had been going sixteen days on the home course to England, andI had come to know him fairly well. He was a seaman who hadsailed the self-same mail-boat for some years past. I rememberedhim on a brighter trip in summer-time when I was a good dealyounger and took the languors of the voyage less slumberously. Now it was winter-time on the home-side of the Line, and I wassailing under a cloud of news grave and stern. So I was ratherprone to see most things as much alike in a sort of dream ofneutral colors. My seafaring friend had helped me in the sultrynights further south, had shown me a sleeping place high up amongthe ropes, had called me in the grey dawn, or warned me whenlightning flashed and it seemed that a downpour threatened. Afterwards we had passed Madeira, a cheering vista with its whitewalls and red roofs and purple bougainvillea, and settled downinto wintry weather and storm-vexed seas. Now the last night upthe Channel had come, and the weather was calmer. We had seen thescowling Ushant coast in the sun and shower of an icy mid-day. Sowe were looking for a light to show very soon now an Englishlight, a Dorset light and the pulse of our chill quickened toracing rhythm. 'How many voyages have you made before this one?'I asked my friend as we leant over a rail together. He mentionedan astonishing number. 'You must know a lot about the things thatI want to know' I said, 'the going to and fro of people, theirstarting out and their coming back again. Doesn't it all seempretty stale to you by now?' 'No, ' he said; 'it's my living, andbesides that it interests me watching the game. It's aninteresting bit of the game that I see, don't you think, sir, coming to the fringes of two Promised Lands, and not tackling thejob of settling down in either? I've got interests, though, inboth of them. ' He was silent, and we both filled our pipes again. This friend of mine interested me: his reading tastes hadsurprised me: he borrowed Mr. Masefield's works and Miss OliveSchreiner's, but I had not often found him communicative tillthat last night before reaching home. 'I'm better where I amearning a sure living, ' he went on. 'I've got a boy put to schoolat Southampton; no, not mine I'm not married. But he's staying atschool a long while. I don't particularly want him to go out toSouth Africa, speaking for myself. His father didn't doparticularly well there as people reckon, but yet I don't know. He enjoyed his life in his own way, I think. I saw enough of himto understand that, and the boy seems bound to go back there:bound or tied's the very word. He was born up the country, andcarried on a Kaffir woman's back in her goatskin, and knew moreKaffir than English, and wore veld-schoen when he came back onthe boat with me. ' 'When was that?' I asked. 'When his father, Walter Holmes, came aboard seven years ago come this next March. That was the second time his father traveled with me. He came onbefore, fifteen years earlier, when first he traveled to Africa, and I remembered him well enough. I was on the old boat. I'veonly served on the two boats all my time. ' 'What did he go out todo?' I asked. 'Oh! he went up to join the pioneers at Kimberley. A counter-jumper he'd been, and he'd got his head all stuffedfull. It was 1890, one of Rhodes' big years, the year they wentnorth. It would have done you good to hear him talk. He was sokeen, and his eyes glowed. Just like the water glows near thekeel in the tropics. ' 'That must have been a time, ' I said; 'I'veonly read about it. It was before I saw the country. ' The sailorgrinned and spat. 'I reckon there hadn't been better days foryoung fellows to live in, ' he said, 'not since Queen Elizabeth'sreign. It came just between the two Jubilees the time. Kimberleyand Rhodesia and the native wars and the Raid, and the big warlooming on ahead for by and by. I reckon it was something like itwas in Drake's and Hawkins' and Sir Walter's days. ' That was anew view to me. But it sounded likely enough to hear him bring itout, who believed in it so evidently. 'It was all Ophir and ElDorado, ' he went on; 'I used to hear lots of it from people toand fro. I'd see them going out to Africa and all the excitementafter the lagging times along the coast, when they came with thedawn into Table Bay. I'd see them coming back, too, greedy enoughto see Portland Light then, like that stout party over there. ' Hepointed to a paunchy miner who was flinging his leather cap up. 'He's seen it, ' he said; 'yes, look there! One! Two! Three!'Four!'

My own eyes glowed and my heart hopped up and down. Yonder was averity of England once more after years of absence. People camealong to our corner of the deck and questioned and stared andlaughed to one another. 'But I want to hear the end of thatstory, ' I said, and I enticed him away with me past the wheel-houseto a place far out of the talk and the tramping up and down. 'How used the people to come back, did you say?' I asked him. 'Oh! some had done fairly well, ' he said, 'and some werebroken, but it was good to see how slow they found the boat go, getting back again, and how they hung on the lights. ' 'Yet theydidn't stay long in England some of them?' I hazarded. 'No, ' hesaid; 'I'd see some coming back, and hear of lots more. The samething over again it would seem when we came into Table Bay, onlythey were a bit older. ' 'But some didn't come home to England, did they?' I wanted him to tell me. 'No, ' he said; 'you're rightthere no doubt. This friend of mine named Holmes took a long timecoming. But I heard from him sometimes when he was up country. Hefound the business of settling Canaan rough, I gathered. I thinkI'm glad I heard about it from a distance. It mightn't havesuited me. ' 'And he got married up there, did you say?' 'Yes, hisgirl came out on this ship when he'd been out seven years or so. He used to write to me sometimes, and he arranged about the boatshe came by. She was full of the farm she was going to; he hadwritten about it. She seemed to think that it was a regularKentish homestead. She wrote afterwards and thanked me forlooking after her on the voyage, and said she had found two hutson a kopje when she got there. All their cattle died when her boywas about six years old. Then she died. Holmes had a lot oftrouble that year. So he sold up and came on board the yearafter. Waited for my boat, worse luck, and contracted enteric inCape Town. I thought we should lose him off Cape Verde. But itwasn't a clammy night the night we passed the wind blew fresh andwe got him by. How he longed for home, for settling down in Kent. Rhodesia was all very well when one was young, he had said. Shehadn't treated him so very well, but she had taught him to valuethings at home. I thought we might land him home after all, whenwe were a whole day or so past Cape Verde. But that night achange came and he was gone. We dropped him over at sunrise, onlyfour or five hours after, so as not to cast a gloom over thepassengers, you understand. ' 'And you took on his child?' Iasked. 'Yes, and wanted him to settle down in the south country. No, not Africa Kent I mean. I thought I'd settle down with him inthe better of my two countries. For it is the better. I who'velooked down at both, like Moses on the mountain, have found outthat much. But it doesn't look a bit now as if he'll believein my advice. ' 'And if he goes out, you'll follow him?' Iquestioned. He smiled. 'I think I'll be simple enough for it, ' hesaid; 'I seem to want to renew my youth. I somehow used to besorry I missed my chance to follow his father up. Now thatgeneration's about gone the generation of King Solomon's Mines. It doesn't seem like putting myself forward so much if the boyhimself asks me to come up with him, does it, sir?' 'And you wantto go. ' 'Well if you look over Moses' Moabitish mountain longenough, at a promised land, so to speak, you may get a hankeringto go in, ' he said. 'It's not a better country. It's not aheavenly; I don't make any mistake about that. But it's a countrythat people have thought big things about, if they have carriedthem out badly. I seem to have seen something of the right andthe wrong of it all these nights coming north to SouthamptonWater or south into Table Bay. ' 'And what's the conclusion of thewhole matter?' I said. We were almost alone on the deck now. (There was just one lonely, lanky passenger strolling up anddown. I guessed that the rest were in bed, or going to bed orhaving a last drink below. We went down the deck together andtook our stand behind that forsaken watcher of the shore-light. He stood at gaze, pulling deeply from his pipe and drinking inthe four-a-time flashes with owlish contentment. ) 'Oh! theconclusion's what Solomon said right enough, ' he muttered. 'Fearand keep, and keep and fear. Perhaps he'd been out and visitedthe men on his mines up-country. ' He paused. I seemed to hear thejingling of bar-glasses in a back-veld canteen as he did so. Thethud of drums, too, from Kaffir villages seemed to bear down onus. The Channel breeze came to me as it were heavily laden withthe sounding challenges of the South. 'I suppose, ' I said, 'itmakes a big difference when one loses the northern star. Thosesouthern skies painted with unnumbered sparks are all very well, but one lacks the pole-star of honor one steered by in England. ''Yes, ' he said, 'It's there I reckon the Southern Cross comes in, and people going south make a mistake not to notice it. Whenone's out of sight of the old compass-point of English opinionone feels the want of believing, if one's to make any sortof a show. It's a bad look-out if, when one lives under theSouthern Cross, one can't understand it. Fear God and keep HisCommandments. Do you think God would have put that cluster ofstars to south if the South did not need it most?'

A LION IN THE WAY*

* This tale may seem obscure, I suppose, if read in modernEnglish. It may be interpreted in the light of two ideas:

(1) The African idea about leanthropy or transmutation of maninto lion, an idea likely to linger on, I should think. 

(2) An idea prevalent as it seems in our Europe of old '. . . Theidea that when a witch in animal form is wounded, say by a blowor a shot, the natural wound will appear on the human body whenthe witch returns to her own person. '

But I have topsy-turvied (2) in my tale. A. S. C. 

I saw the lion with my own eyes, his shaggy head haloed by therising moon. The Mashona who was with me had far sharper eyesthan mine. He saw a dark scar across its brow. He would know thatlion again, he told me. It was not a gun-shot wound it carried. Surely it was the caress of a brother lion. 

The trader's road led down from the half-deserted kraal to thedrift. It forked into two wagon ways with a huge rock to partthem. There on the rock stood the lion expectant. That may not bea heraldic term, but it is a true description of him as I sawhim. We watched him from the height above for what seemed alongish time. 

Then in haste I stole back to the desolate kraal that I mightfind Trooper No. 2. Had he not the chance of his life now toshoot a lion? I found him in the kraal, angry with himself andswearing at his Black Watch boy who suffered him silently. Whilehe swore at him I gave him some idea of what I was thinking, asto his need of humility. Had I not seen him run ten minutesbefore? All this took time. When at last his flow of words driedup and he came with me, we were too late. The lion was no longeragainst the sky-line. He had taken cover in the bush below. Weheard him there once or twice, but we saw him no more. This ishow these things came about. 

I had traveled into that forlorn country the day before, lookingfor Carrot. He had been a pioneer and a reputed hero, not so manyyears gone past. Now he was an Ishmael, receding and recedingbefore the tide of civilization. Like the eagle in Byron's lineson Kirke White, he might blame himself, or at any rate credithimself, for the turn things had taken. He had winged the shaftthat was draining his life, or at least his livelihood. He hadhelped to bring on a native war that had expedited matters. Hehad helped to wind it up in a very few months. 

So now the abomination of civilization, as he deemed it, was setup in high places of the land. It was increasingly hard for himto be a law to himself anywhere within the land's limits. He hadretired further and further yet again into the fastnesses of thehill-country. Yet civilization had a graceless way of looking himup. 

He was just by the Portuguese border when I visited him. I knewhim of old, and I wanted him to let his eldest son come toschool. He had told me a year ago to ask again. 

I went through a frowning gorge of rocks to the part-desertedkraal, and found him sitting at his beer with three nativecourtiers. He was a tall West-countryman, with a ragged darkbeard. His khaki was badly stained, and his hair was pokingthrough his hat. He spoke the tongue of this southern countrymost volubly. He also reinforced it with ne'er-do-well words fromEurope that did her no particular credit. Just as I came up aquarrel was in full swing. A free fight followed. Carrot broke ablack earthen pot over the head of one of those three. Out camehis swarthy wife that he had paid many cattle for, with his babyin a goat-skin at her back; also his other children, aged abouteight, six, five, and four. 

There was much confused crying and protesting. But Carrotdominated the scene in the end. The courtiers retired crying'Shame!' and under protest. The most truculent of them wasbleeding freely from his broken head. I followed him to theirhamlet far down among the rocks and bandaged him. I campedoutside the Carrot homestead that night and the next day, andlearned something of the family's way of life. 

Carrot was shooting big buck sable and roan without a license, Igathered. He was trading cattle for most of the venison that heamassed. He had by now a goodly herd feeding in a green vlei nearthe border. By and by he would sell them, he thought, and sethimself up in a wayside public-house. That was to say, if anungrateful Government could be squared somehow. He chuckled at myprotests. He had many tales in the speech of North Devon to tellme. 

Many of them concerned the police, and were not altogetherunkindly, though disparaging. To Carrot, who could both ride andfind his way about the veld, the police seemed often deficient aspathfinders and horsemen. The story he told about the fiveEuropean members of a police camp delighted me. One had got lost. He who went out to look for him had got lost also. There was anepidemic or something of the sort just then among the nativepolice, who, as a rule, piloted the troopers about and didnurses' work at need. One after another of the remaining threeEuropeans was engulfed in this exhaustive search. Then a grassfire effaced the empty police camp. Carrot ended with aspeculation as to whether they were still looking for one anotheror whether they had begun to miss their camp yet. 

He was good in a feudal way, I gathered a severely feudal way tohis retainers. He threw pots but seldom. His eldest child heseemed to worship in some sort of pagan fashion of his own. 

The boy might have sat for a child Dionysos with his leopard-skin, and his arm of golden copper thrown about his father's pot ofbeer; black and big that pot should be painted. 

No, his father wouldn't let him come away with me; at least, notthis year. He graciously hesitated twice or thrice. But he endedwith the same proposal each time a drink and a postponement ofdecision. I wanted neither. I would not go on wasting my days onpostponements, and I meant to start with dawn on the secondmorning. But at sunset the night before there had been asurprise. 

Just as the sun went down a strange native appeared in hot hasteand told a tale. 

Two ma-Johnnies were coming down the wagon road with five or six, native police and camp-followers. The Government was looking upCarrot once again. He had had two pots of beer that afternoon, ormost of them, and was not quite himself, otherwise he might havegone his way at his ease. 

But as it was, a ghastly row woke the echoes, what with thechildren crying, and the father singing and swearing, and themother scolding, as they tied up their bundles. Carrot keptuntying his in good humor, and searching for patent medicines anda safety razor that could not be found. Then after he had startedhe came back at least twice to give me a parting word. Meanwhilethe western glow began to be rivaled by an eastern glow. The moonwas brimming over the horizon. The Philistines of civilizationwere almost riding into the kraal before Carrot had really gone. My Adullamite friend was slow indeed with his farewells. Would heever be through with them? 'Good-bye!' he said. He was enjoyingthe emergency hugely now that he was sobered. 'You'd better walkdown the road and meet 'em. Do remind 'em not to lose their mulesthis time. No, I won't worry you to see me off. They might askquestions. You must honor and obey the King and those who are setin authority. But you won't want to give me away exactly. Sogood-bye till next time!'

A hundred yards from Carrot's dwelling I met Troopers 1 and 2Trooper No. I dusty and disheveled and livid with fever a lanky, dark man; Trooper No. 2 trim and ruddy. The former could hardlysit his mule as he trotted up to me. 'Have you seen Carrot?' heasked in a sort of groan. I said 'Good evening, ' and passed on. Promptly he gasped to two native police to bring me along, andwent his way forward to explore the ruinous kraal. He feltdoubtful whether I was or was not Carrot, he told me afterwards. He went for the three Carrot huts at once and began to searchthem. There were no finds there. Then he questioned me sharply. Two of his black watch knew me by sight, and I was soon set freeto go my ways. Then he gave clear decisive orders to No. 2 toride for all he was worth to the drift. 'The river's the border, 'he said; 'it's his old game to dodge across it. If he's taken hiskids with him he can't cross anywhere. It's a big river, andthere's only the one drift so far as I know. Go for the drift, man, and we'll have him yet!'

So Trooper No. 2, with the glory-thirst upon him, bustled offwith one black boy and four black men in red and blue. 

After he was safely out of the way Trooper No. I fainted. It hadbeen hard for him to keep going so long as he had. I spread ablanket for him and made him a pillow. He was not long in cominground. Meanwhile the great moon had climbed a little. The lightof the sunset was losing its brilliance as hers grew splendid. 

The sound of two shots came sharply to us. A minute or so afterNo. 2's mule was galloping wildly past us through rocks andruins. A native trooper rushed for it, but missed its bridle. Soon after that Trooper No. 2 galloped up on his feet. I shouldjudge from the pace he showed that he was a real sprinter. I hadnoted him before as a trim little man and ruddy, and a sort ofpersonification of self-respect. Now he was blue and demoralized. 

'Have you caught my mule?' he panted anxiously. 

'Have you stopped our man?' Trooper No. 1 asked him coldly, hisface set very hard. 

'There's a lion in the way, ' gasped Trooper No. 2, quotingScripture, whether he knew it or not. 'I got off my mule, I firedtwo shots. Then my mule bolted. '

'And you bolted, ' said No. 1 with a sneer. He took no furthernotice of him, but called the Black Watch corporal and gave himhis orders. 'Take three men, ' he said. 'Get to the drift. Run foryour lives. Leave the path and go through the bush if there'sreally a lion. ' The four Black Watch were off almost as soon ashe had spoken. 

Trooper No. 2 began to explain matters at length to his senior. But the latter did not suffer him at all gladly. Then it was thatI started down the drift road, asking No. 2's boy if he wouldshow me the place where they had seen the lion. I asked him if hethought it was wounded. He answered me disdainfully. He showed mehow Trooper No. 2 shot the panic way the way to heaven. 

Then we came in sight of the lion standing, haloed by the disc ofthe moon. As I have told you, I tried to give No. 2 a chance towipe out his stain. I went back to fetch him; he was takingthings hardly, doubtless, and I ought to try and do him a goodturn. He came, but the lion did not stand still to await him. Whywas I so glad he escaped? I don't think it was only because I wasafraid. Yet glad I was. So we gave him up, and tramped back tothe kraal. 

Soon after we were back one of the pursuers returned. He had seenCarrot splash through the drift. He took his time and went at itleisurely, I gathered, with his piccanin astride upon hisshoulders. On the other side a crowd of natives had received himin triumph. They jeered at the police and shook their spears andknobkerries. Carrot was safely across the border and among hisfriends. 

'It's a lost trip, ' said No. 1, and looked No. 2 up and down, aswe sat by the camp fire. No. 2 looked injured and ashamed at oneand the same time. He was not a hero on principle, I shouldthink, and he had not risen to this occasion. Some people seem tohold that Britishers are heroes on principle all along ourfrontiers, and rise to all occasions. I can testify that thisis not the truth, for I know my own deficiencies. As to No. 2, there is some sort of mitigating explanation of his conduct tobe yet recounted. But no, even when I have allowed for this, I am not disposed to write him down heroically efficient orjournalistically British not on that night at least. Just asa Colenso now and then slips into our big campaigns, so themonotony of our frontier triumphs gets diversified, I fear, andnot so very seldom. No. 2. Is by no means the only man of thediversifying type I seem to have met. I refuse to admire No. 2 ashe was that night, though I would excuse him. 

For the hero of that night, let us look away from him. What asplendid night it was in the late autumn in the very end of May!Stars seemed to fall in profusion. But the steady ranks that wereleft showed no thinning to my dazzled eyes. I had much time towatch them, I remember. 

Ours was a gloomy camp among the ruins under the stars. Onetrooper was convalescent and irritable as well as disappointed. The other was shaken and sulky with little to say. There weregreat pauses in the talk. I thought how I congratulated Carrot, the cheerful and irresponsible, on his escape. Assuredly hiswould-be captors would have seemed to him dull dogs. Of course hewould have thoroughly deserved ordinary boredom. But theirs waslike a London fog. So it fell about that I had much time to giveheed to the Black Watch as they chattered over their fire hardby. One was telling tales of lions, tales where the terror wasglamorous and ghostly. A hint of a surmise floated to me. Itrecalled a type of mediaeval tale that had once entranced me. ButI said nothing to those young white men beside me whose frowningfaces were a study, and a pitiful one. I was intensely sorry forthem both. I just smoked my pipe, and made ready to go to bedbetimes. I was soon asleep, to dream of holy water and silverbullets and to wake and rise as the cock was crowing (for thesecond cock-crow I suppose) away down the hillside; I said anadded prayer of eager devotion, feeling myself to be a postulantin great need of its answer. I made for the rock of vantage. Ifound the lion's spoor in the growing light, and followed itslowly and timorously into the bush and beyond. There had been ashower yesterday about noon, and it was easy enough to follow it. It led down and then up again. I guessed it might be leading meto Carrot's huts and the troopers once more. But, no, it dippedfar down to that other group of huts wedged amongst the rocks, where Carrot's boon comrades lived, where I had bandaged the hurthead, where I had heard but just now the cock crowing. Two huts Icould see to be empty. It did not lead to either of these. It ledstraight to the other wherein the embers of a fire shone red. There was no lion within. I looked for the spoor of the lion'sexit. There was none. 

The retainer who had had his head broken by Carrot lay curled inhis blanket by the fire. He was sleeping an exhausted man'ssleep. It was hard work waking him. At last he sat up, a squatpatriarch with grizzled bushy beard and shrewd watchful eyes. Hewas huddled in a queer parti-colored blanket purple and brown andorange and grey. I tried to testify to him with zeal againstblackness of witchcraft. I told him with zest of the Light. Helooked blank enough. Afterwards I spoke of Carrot's escape. Hiseyes underwent a change as I watched. The Light which lightethevery man that cometh into the world, showed in them, as itseemed to me. He was genuinely glad that his baas was out of thewood. So clear an affection for the man whose mark he was wearingtouched me. I half emptied my tobacco bag into his hand ere Isaid Good-bye in the roaring south-easter, under the saffronstreamered dawn. 

I surmised that Carrot owed his escape largely to a real heroready to face fire at need, whom we white men had not recognized. 

A new feeling of pity for Trooper No. 2 took me. Haply he hadmiscalculated things as he pursued his unsanctified way. Haply hea modern, had been handicapped from his lack of equipment, lackof such discarded kit as I had dreamed about. Quite conceivablyhe had wrestled last night, not only against flesh and blood, butagainst principalities and powers unknown. 

AS TREES WALKING

It was in the spring of last year that I started for a holidayjourney towards some ruins about a hundred miles away. I hadsuffered much in the cold weather from fever and broken rest, soI longed to renew my strength before the heats of summer shouldbe fully come. 

I started on a bright and calm September morning by the mainsouthward track, hoping to reach a friend's Mission Station onthe eve of the third day. 

I reached it then, but I had provoked my enemies by walking inthe chilly hours, and walking to weariness. I was feverish andspent ere I reached Greenwood's Mission House. 

It stood under a towering granite kopje some ten miles only fromthe ruins. I had never entered it before. When I last visitedGreenwood, quite two years ago, he had been working on a townstation. He was a dark, lean, rather ascetic-looking person, notvery talkative. I remembered the days when I had fought shy ofhim; we had seemed to disagree on so many subjects, and he hadseemed to resent disagreement so intensely. But he had written metwo or three most friendly letters of late, and that nigh?, whenI came to his door so sick and sorry, he seemed to be kindnessitself. I soon revived by his fireside, ate my supper, and smokedand talked with him to my great content. We were speaking aboutroughing it, and told many camp-fire and roadside tales. As Itold and listened, I seemed to be my old self of a year ago oncemore, tough and dogged, and rather sinfully contemptuous ofmosquitoes and malaria. Yet I had but a poor night after all, andthe yawning and shuddering chills came on with vigor at Church inthe early morning. I went back to my blankets after an aguishbreakfast, and Greenwood dosed me and told me to go to sleep. Hespoke with authority, and I obeyed. I did not wake up till theearly afternoon. I seemed to have lost much weight in those laststeaming hours, and also, to my joy, the fever. 

'I hope I'll sleep well to-night and get an early start to-morrowafter all, ' I said to Greenwood. He looked at me rather intentlywith his resolute grey eyes. 

'The fever is gone for the time, ' he said, 'but I don't like thelook of your eyes at all. If I were you, I'd change your roomto-night and sleep in the Hospital. '

'Where's that?' I asked. 

'Oh, not very far; half a mile at most. It's Saint Lucy's littlehospice on the hill there across the valley. '

Afterwards, when I went out and sat on the sunny stoep with him, he showed me the place. I could see a grove of trees standing upon a near ridge and two or three thatched buildings in amongthem; yes, and a white cross surmounting one of these. 

'It looks lonely over there, ' I pleaded. 

'Oh, I'll come with you, ' he said. 'I want to tell you the storyof the place before we blow our candle out; it may help thecure. ' So when sundown was near, he and three of his nativeretainers started with me for the Hospice of Saint Lucy, carryinggoodly packs every one. I was rather dubious about thatexpedition. 

'I hope it's warm there, ' grumbled I to myself. 'If Greenwood'sas strong as a horse, I am not so just now. I wish he'd camp athome in peace. '

However, I tried to look interested as they made ready for us togo and delighted, as we started away. 

Just as we went across the narrow valley the sun went down behindSt. Lucy's hill, and bells or gongs answered one another fromeither side. 

'So you have a bell up there at the Hospital, ' I said. 

'There's more than you expect to see at the Hospital, ' saidGreenwood mysteriously. 

So there was. It wasn't a Hospital at all in our wonted modernsense, but a rather ornate round Church. Outside, it was plainenough, but within it gave me a sense of studied charm and evencostliness. No drug-covered or dispenser's table was admittedwithin its doors, though both were to be found in one of itsneighbor buildings. The main building housed aids to recovery, but they were of another type. Over the Altar was a life-sizedpicture of Saint Lucy, golden-haired and blue grey-eyed, withgreat splendor of shapeliness and stature, and real Englishapple-blossom cheeks. She came along a rocky path through anAfrican forest; she was smiling, and had a far-shining lantern inher hand. You could single out the trees in the forest, there wasthe crimson-flowered tree yet leafless, and the wild fig-tree infull leaf and cluster, and the wild orange-tree; the wild acaciasand the cactus trees were growing among the stones above. Far offin the distance, at the back of the picture, there were dimcliffs and pale sands and waves breaking in the bright star-light. 

The time was meant to be cock-crow. At least it seemed so, for ared cock was perched on a tree-pole in the foreground of thepicture, crowing with a will. In the sky were many stars. Thequarter over the sea whence the Saint came was of excellingbrightness. There the morning star hung in a haze of glory. 

The Altar itself was of granite slabs and masses. Before it burnta purple-glass lamp, hung by chains of native smithy-work, ratherincongruously heavy, I thought. But who was I to cavil at thisjewel of a shrine in our wilderness?

'Where are we to sleep?' I asked. 

'Here, before the Altar, ' said Greenwood solemnly. 

Even as he spoke his house-boy came in with hushed feet, andbegan to spread out our rush mats and many-colored blankets. Thenwe went into the dispensary hut, and had our supper and manypipes together, while the native boys chatted and chewed roastedmonkey-nuts in the hut beside us. I felt very hungry and happyand healthy generally that night, and we sat at our table long, and then smoked far into the hours of darkness. But, though hetold me many tales, Greenwood would not tell me the tale of theplace, however much I begged him to do so. That was kept for theShrine itself. That was not as other tales. 

We kept up a good fire, for the night was a cold one. 

The talk turned on pilgrimages at last; we spoke of many Shrines, of old-time ones and of others in the heyday of their youthstill. Greenwood talked well on that subject. Was the aura of hisown Saint in the air of that dispensary? He talked with apassionate faith about more than one Shrine, that left me almostbreathless. 

Then we argued about the Pilgrims' Way in Kent, as to where itwas that most pilgrims forded the Medway, and about certainhomely Kentish legends. 

Suddenly he rose and went to the door. He looked out on themighty vista of sable earth and spangled sky. 

'The moon is just going down and you ought to be sleeping, ' hesaid. 'And remember there is my tale still to tell. '

So we went to the Church. We had one candle between us there. Moreover, the purple lamp was burning, its quaint cup of wire-gauzeaverted doom from many self-immolant flies. We knelt beneath it, and he said the Prayers of the Shrine, then our own prayersfollowed then he began to tell:

'I was coming back from England twenty months ago and I chose tocome by the East Coast. It is a beautiful way to come. I sawZanzibar, where there are many hopes and memories. I slept twonights far out of the city there, in a grove of palm trees. Thenthe boat came back from the mainland and I went aboard again. 

'We started for a four days' voyage or so, to Beira. She cameaboard at Zanzibar, I think. Some one told me this, when I askedabout her afterwards. But I was never really conscious of herpresence till the second night of our voyaging. Then we met at aConcert in the Third Class, that I had strolled down the deck topatronize. To my shame I was traveling second, while she was inthe crowded family of the third. I went and spoke to her. 

'A child had had a bad fall from some steps, and she wasmothering him. It was a lovely and pleasant thing to see how shedid it. 

'He should wake up without much pain, ' she said, with a smile, atlast. She handed the boy to his own admiring mother. Then sheturned to me, for I had been asking after him. 

'She began to talk about our common work. "I want to climb on anew boat at Chinde, and go the way of the Lakes, " she said. 

'Are you going to teach?' I asked. 

'"I hope I may teach at whiles, " she said, "But I am sent firstof all to heal. "

'She told me about her hopes for her work. 

'"They tell me I have healing hands, " she said. "I have a seed-grain offaith, I think, and that is the secret of them. "

'I saw her only for a few moments. I will try to tell you orrather to show you what she looked like, when I have ended mystory. She enlightened me not a little. I saw how lame a thing myown journey was my leisurely dawdling back to my work. This girlcame as it were on wings, with power in her heart and will, thatwould take no denial but God's. Her few words as we walked up anddown the well-deck were words that burnt and shone in the colddark. I am talking about things as I saw them just then. As amatter of fact, I believe it was a blazing night with a moon atthe full, and stars dropping over one another. I remember that Islept on deck afterwards. I had a sort of Midsummer South AfricanChristmas picnic feeling (up till cock-crow, when the fever thathad dogged me that month came again). It was really a consummatenight. But as she talked, she made it seem cold and dark, herwords were so radiantly kind. 

'T think we talked about Saint Vincent of Paris mostly, and ofmen that had carried in their bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus;and of the imitation of Jesus in India and Africa. Then she said"Good night!" and was gone. 

'Next day that return of fever blurred my new visions of theLight. Yet I was to see her again. An hour before we came offChinde, she asked leave to come up on to our second-class deckand to bid me "Good-bye. "

'I was lying in a deck-chair, my hat tilted over my eyes, underthe morning sun. She was suddenly beside me and speaking to me. She gave me a watchword out of that confident ending of SaintMark, to which, some people, who have their misgivings, attach solittle credit. It was this, "They shall lay hands on the sick andthey shall recover. " Then she prayed for me, lifting up herhealing hands. And she held out to me a tiny flask that I mightanneal myself, "For that is your own office, " she said. 

'My head had defied sleep, but now sleep came apace. It seemed tome it came breathing about me with the light gusts of wind. Islept, nor did I know when she said "Good-bye. "

'When I awoke the sun was westering. Some passengers hadtrans-shipped for Chinde four hours or more ago, a man told me. She was gone, and I was well. No, not well in one way, but mending. That is all or almost all of my tale. '

He had told it reverently. Towards the end of the telling, hehimself seemed to wander as he told. 

'What was she like?' I asked after a silence. 

'She was much like that picture of Saint Lucy, ' he said. 

'I found a man in the third class, who had taken a really finephoto of her, not a little snapshot. I had helped him with asketch of the voyage he was writing for some magazine, and he waspleased enough to print me another copy. I sent it home thatmonth. A friend painted me that panel. I suggested that the nameof the Saint should be Lucy, it was on Saint Lucy's day she hadsaid "Good-bye. " The picture came a day or two before thisMidsummer. He has done wondrously well, I think, if you rememberthat he never saw her. '

'How do you know that he never saw her?' I asked. 

'Yes, you may well say that, ' he said. 'I sometimes think that hehad seen her, even as I. He has painted something of her lightand spirit. Look how she threads' that forest by night!' He heldthe candle near, then he pulled it away. 

'Forgive me! How can you see her duly by this light? You musthave a real session before her in the morning. '

I awoke early, but not too early, as it seemed to me. Dawn wasgrowing very bright, and spring seemed to be in the air that camefrom the doorway. I sprang up and looked out. Light that wasalready almost flame kindled the east. The leaves of the groveabout me had their spring colors on. There was quite enoughillumination to show how brilliant and tender they were ruddy andgreen and mauve, and bronze that was almost gold. Day was comingfast and so was Spring. I turned within and lit the candles onthe Altar. The purple lamp was burning low. I knelt down, and sawDawn and Spring, aye, and Summer too, in that picture. Easternlight was streaming from that lantern Saint Lucy held. It was ofcoral and silver set with pearls. Eastern light was in her happyface. You could see even in that cock-crow dusk in the forest, how the fig-tree and all the trees were stirring for Spring andSummer. I took note now that Saint Lucy's wreath was of orchardleaves and blossoms. I lifted up my thanksgiving there and then, as the first sunbeams shone about me, for the rest and the lightthat I had found, found at last for good as I hope in sultry andweary Africa. 

Soon we were kneeling at the morning Sacrifice, then we went outand broke our fast in the sunshine, sitting on rocks by the woodfire. How hungry I was in that hill's pure air!

When he had done, Greenwood showed me some of the workings of theShrine. A young mother, filleted and stately, brought her baby tohim. Almost naked but roped with beads, the boy hung in the piedsheep-skin at her back. Greenwood folded a handkerchief that hehad brought from the Altar about his dusky head. It was of fadedblue and silver. Then he said prayers to the Father and toChrist, and again to both of them, for the prayers of Saint Lucyand that other. 

'It is not good to drug children so young, is it? He asked thequestion as though defending himself. 

'I think this may soothe him better than a powder. '

He told me how he had found that kerchief wrapped about his ownhead on a certain sunny day when he lay sick aboard ship. 'It washers, ' he said, 'handkerchiefs and aprons are Bible remedies. '

Other pilgrims or patients came to him after that mother with herchild. He persuaded three or four of them to carry letters to thedoctor in the town. But he prayed for these too, and signed themwith oil from the Shrine lamp, ere he trusted them to hisfriend's salves or surgery. By and by came three young men with aboy. He was stricken and mad, they said. He had come home fromwork in a distant town last month. Now he would stay speechlessfor hours. He would wander far by day, and brood over the fire bynight. 

'Let him stay if he will, ' Greenwood said. 'Let him wait in peacehere, and eat and sleep his fill, if he so desires. If he shallsleep in the Holy Place a few nights, who can say what wonderChrist may do?'

The boy seemed to be an old friend of his, and stayed quietly byhim. His companions started off joyously down the hill, one ofthem playing on the marimba. 'This is Merrie England come again, 'said I. 'Did not an unburnt Lollard upbraid the bagpipe din orother music of pilgrims long ago? Wasn't that "lewd losel" toldby the Kentish Archbishop how useful such music might be say if apilgrim struck his toe on a stone?'

'There are many pilgrims at this Shrine, ' said Greenwood smiling. 'I am glad about it. I think she would be glad if she knew. '

'Where is she?' I asked. 'Doesn't she know?'

'I have tried hard to track her, ' he said. 'Not a trace have Ifound. I have asked our missions, I have asked the White Fathers. I have asked Africans and Scots and Dutch and Portuguese. But shehas gone on her way out of sight. '

'She has done some work here, ' I said. 

'Yes, ' he said, 'Angel or Saint, Faith Healer or Revenante fromParadise, she has worked wonders here. Do you know, there is asimple native cure I have ever so much faith in? It comes fromthe root of a tree. Have not some men and women the same sort ofvirtue in their wills and hands that trees have in their roots? Iseem to see men and women such as Father John of Kronstadt andthis my Saint Lucy of the Ship even as trees walking. 

The outstanding virtue of my patroness was surely in her blossom, and in the fruit that blossom can yet bring forth. "As the apple-tree amongthe trees of the wood" I found her. I sat down under her shadow forthose moments of time. And now, and all my days of grace, will her fruitbe sweet to my taste. '

THE BLACK DEATH

This is a story of a voyage home. The boat was one of the fineston the line and we were not overcrowded. We had wonderful weatherthat trip, brilliant sunshine relieved by a fresh little breezethat kept its place, doing its duty without taking too much uponitself, or making itself obnoxious. In the third-class we werequiet on the whole, and what is called well-behaved, thoughneither with millennial serenity nor millennial sobriety. 

A red-cheeked gentleman took a red-cheeked married lady and herchild under his vigilant protection. Two or three Rhodesians andJo'burgers enriched the bar with faithful fondness. Cards andsweeps on the run of the boat and the selling of sweep-ticketsthese all stimulated the circulation of savings. Hues of languagevied with hues of sunset not seldom of an eventide. 

Life was not so very thrilling on that voyage, the treading of'border-land dim 'twixt vice and virtue' is apt to be rather adull business. 

There was no such incident as that which stirred us on anothervoyage the taking of a carving knife to the purser by a drunkard. On the other hand there was no unusual battle-noise of spiritualcombat such as may have quickened the pulses of one or two of theboats the year of the English Mission. 

We were middling, and dull at that, on the "Sluys Castle, " tillwe reached Madeira. Then the description I have given of ourvoyage ceases to apply. The two or three days after that wereexciting enough to one or two passengers at any rate. 

James Carraway had come down from Kimberley, he told me. Hewas a spare, slight man, with a red moustache. He sought meoccasionally of an eventide, and confided to me views of lifein general, and of some of his fellow-passengers in particular. I remember one night especially, when the Southern Crosswas in full view and the water about the keel splotched withphosphorescence. Carraway had a big grievance that night. Hecommented acridly on a colored woman that I had espied on board. She was not very easily visible herself, but one or two faintlycolored children played often about the deck, and she herselfmight now and then be seen nursing a baby. I had seen her on abench sometimes when I had gone to the library to change a book. I had seen her more rarely in the sunshine on deck, nursing theaforesaid baby. 

'One man's brought a Kaffir wife on board, ' growled Carraway. 

I said, 'I thought she might be a nurse. '

'No, she's his wife, ' contended Carraway. 'It's cheek of himbringing her on board with the third-class passengers. '

I said, 'Which is her husband?'

'He's been pointed out to me, ' he said. 'The other white men seemrather to avoid him. I don't know what your opinion on this pointmay be, ' he said. 'I consider that a man who marries a Kaffirsinks to her status. '

I said nothing. He did not like my silence much, I gathered. Hewas not so very cordial afterwards. He was a man with manygrievances Carraway. 

When we were drawing close to Madeira, two nights before, on theSunday, Carraway touched the subject again. 

The parson had preached incidentally on the advisability of beingwhite--white all round. I thought he played to his gallery a bit, in what he said. 

'An excellent sermon, ' said Carraway. 'Did you hear how he got atthat josser with the Kaffir wife? That parson's a white man. '

I said nothing. 

'What God hath divided let no man unite, ' said Carraway, improving the occasion. 'I don't uphold Kaffirs. The white manmust always be top dog, ' etc. , etc. 

Carraway grew greasily fluent on rather well-worn lines. I smokedmy pipe and made no comment. By-and-bye he tired of hismonologue. 

He gave me no further confidences till the night after we leftMadeira. 

Then he came to me suddenly about eleven o'clock as I stood onthe well-deck, smoking a pipe before turning in. 

'Come and have a walk, ' he said, in a breathless sort of way. 

We climbed some steps and paced the upper deck towards thewheel-house. There were few electric lights burning now. Aftera turn or two he drew up under one of them, and looked round tosee whether anyone listened. 

'Don't give me away for God's sake, ' he said. He held up a handtowards the light pathetically. 'It's showing, ' he said. 'Godknows why. God knows what I've done to bring it. '

I said nothing, but looked at him and considered him carefully. He certainly did not seem to be drunk. 

Then I examined the hand he gave me. 

'I don't see anything particular, ' I said. 'What's wrong?'

'Good Lord! The nails. '

But the nails looked to me pink and healthy. 

'Tell me, ' I said, 'What you think's wrong. '

Yet he could not tell me that night. He tried to tell me. He wasjust like a little boy in most awful trepidation, trying toconfess some big transgression. He gasped and spluttered, but henever got it out that night. I couldn't make head nor tail ofwhat he said. After he was gone to bed it is true I put two andtwo together and guessed something. But I was fairly puzzled atthe time. 

'You're a bit upset to-night, ' I said. 'You're not quiteyourself, it's the sea I suppose, or something. Come to bed andget a good night. ' His teeth chattered as he came down theladder. I got him down to his cabin. 

'Thanks!' he said. 'Good night! I may come all right in themorning. Anyhow I'll have a bath and try. '

He said it so naively that I could not help laughing. 

'Yes, have a sea-water-bath, a jolly good idea, ' I said. 'You'llhave to be up early. There's only one and there's a run on itbefore breakfast. Goodnight!'

I saw him again in the morning outside the bathroom. He came outin his pink-and-white pyjamas; the pink was aggressive and foughtwith the tint of his moustache. He looked very blue and wretched. 

'Well, ' I asked, 'Have you slept it off whatever it was?'

'No, ' he said, 'let me tell you about it. ' He began to gasp andsplutter. 

Just then another postulant came up, making for the bath-roomdoor. 

'Afterwards!' I said, 'After breakfast. ' And I vanished into thebath-room. It was probably Carraway, I thought, that had left alittle collection of soaps in that bath-room. He had brought abucket of fresh water with him apparently to give them a fairtrial. There was yellow soap, a pumice stone, and carbolic soap, and scented soap. 'I'll keep them for him, ' I thought. 'Somebodymay jump them if I leave them here. I wonder why in the worldhe's so distrait. ' I had my suspicions as to the reason, and Ilaughed softly to myself. 

After breakfast he invited me back to the bathroom; there was norun on it then. 

'It's quiet, ' he said. Then after many gasps and splutters heenlightened me. His nails were turning color, he told me. 

'Anyone would think I had Kaffir blood in me, ' he said. 

Also his skin was giving him grave cause for solicitude. I didnot resist the temptation to take him rather seriously. Iadministered philosophic consolation. I reminded him of Dumas andother serviceable colored people. I rather enjoyed his misery;poetic justice seemed to me to need some satisfaction. He, thenegrophobe, who was so ultra-keen on drawing the line was nowenjoying imaginative experiences on the far side of it. 

'It seems then, ' I remarked, 'That you are now a person ofcolor. '

He nearly fainted. He did not swear. He seemed to have lost allhis old truculence. He began to whimper like a child. 

'After all, I never shared your prejudices. ' I said. 'Cheer up, old man, I won't drop you like a hot potato even if you have atouch of the tar brush. '

He cried as if his heart would break. I saw I had gone too far. If was like dancing on a trodden worm. 

'Carraway, ' I said, 'It's a pure delusion. Your nails are allright, and so's your skin. You're dreaming, man. You've gotnerves or indigestion, or something. It's something inside youthat's wrong. There's nothing outside for anyone to see. '

His eyes gleamed. He shook my hand feebly. Then he held up hisown hand to the light. 

'It's there, ' he said wearily, after a while. 'You want to bekind, but you can't make black white. That's what I've alwayssaid. It's the Will of God, and there's nothing to gain byfighting it. Black will be black, and white will be white tillcrack of doom. '

I told him sternly that I was going to fetch the doctor to him. He sprang at me and gripped my arm. 

'I trusted you, ' he said. 'I needn't have told you. Youpromised. '

So I had like a simpleton. 

'Only give me two days, ' he said, 'then I'll go to the doctormyself, if nothing works in all that time. '

So I said I would respect my promise loyally for those two days. 

'I only told you, ' he said, 'because my head was splitting withkeeping it in. It's awful to me. I thought you were a negrophileand wouldn't think so much of it as other fellows. But for God'ssake don't give me away to them. There's lots of things to tryyet. By the way, ask that parson to pray for one afflicted anddistressed in mind, body, and estate. '

He did try many sorts of things, poor fellow. He was in and outof that bath-room a good share of both days. He also tried drugsand patent medicines. I saw his cabin littered with them. Hewould sneak into meals those two days when people had almostfinished, and gobble his food furtively. 

I caught him once or twice smoking his pipe in the bath-room orthe bath-room passage. He would not venture amid the crowd ondeck. Only when many of the passengers were in bed would he comeup with me, and take my arm and walk up and down. That was on theWednesday night. 

Wednesday night came, then Thursday morning. Thursday forenoonwas long, and Thursday afternoon longer. 

At last the sun was low, and I began to count the hours to thetime when I might consult the doctor. 

I secured an interview with Carraway in the bathroom soon aftersunset. 

'Any better?' I asked for about the twentieth time. 

He shook his head dejectedly. 

'All right. We must go to the doctor to-morrow morning. But, OCarraway, do go to him to-night, don't be afraid. It's onlyimagination. Do go. '

'I'll see, ' he said in a dazed, dreary sort of way, 'I'll see, but I want to play the last card I have in my hand before I go. It's a trump card perhaps. '

'On my honor, ' I said, 'You're tormenting yourself for nothing. You're as white as ever you were. '

Then I said 'Good-night. ' I stopped for a moment outside thedoor, and heard him begin splashing and scrubbing. The thing wasgetting on my own nerves. 

I went off up on deck, and smoked hard, then I read, and wroteletters, and smoked again, and went to bed very late. I hadsteered clear of the bathroom and all Carraway's haunts so far asI could. Yes, and I had gone over to the second class, and I hadasked the parson to do as he wanted. I had asked him the daybefore. Now I asked him over again. 

The steward handed me a letter when he brought me my coffee inthe morning. I opened it and read:

DEAR SIR, Perhaps my negrophoby is wrong. Anyhow, it's real tome. I had and have it, and see no way to get rid of it properlyhere on earth. Now God has touched me, me the negrophobe, andcolored me. And to me the thing seems very hard to bear. Therefore I am trying the sea to-night. 

'In the bath-room there never seemed to be enough water. I wantto try a bath with plenty of water. But I am afraid it may bewith me as it would have been with Macbeth or Lady Macbeth. Thosered hands of murder could not be washed white by the ocean, theycould only "the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the greenone red. " What if I cannot be decolorized by any sea? What if myflesh only pollutes the sea, when I plunge, and makes all black?God help me!!! You are a negrophile and don't half understand. 

'Yours truly, 'J. CARRAWAY. '

I questioned the steward. He had found the letter in my place attable. 

Sure enough there was a third-class passenger missing. I supposeCarraway had slipped off quietly in the moonlight to try hisdesperate experiment. It was a cruel business his monomania. 

If I had broken my promise and called the doctor earlier, couldhe have been cured? Or would he have lingered in an asylumshuddering over the fictitious glooming of his nails and skin, shaking in a long ague of negrophoby. 

Anyhow, I'm sorry I didn't do more for him, didn't walk him roundthe deck the last night at least, and try my best to cheer him. Yes, I blame myself badly for not doing that. 

May God who allowed his delusion pardon that last maneuver ofhis! I do not think Carraway had any clear wish to take his ownlife. 

I can imagine the scene so convincingly Carraway pausing, hesitating, then plunging into the moon-blanched water from thedizzy height above, eager to find which the multitudinous seaswould do would they change his imagined color, or would theysuddenly darken, matching in their tints his own discoloration?

AN OLD-WORLD SCRUPLE

'If you come back, which Heaven ordain, you'll be all the moreuse to the priesthood, ' the Superintendent of Missions said. 'Goand serve with our fearless and faithful, approach as an acolytethe altar of freedom. Supposing you don't see your way to go, Iwould remind you of a certain passage about "Curse ye Meroz!" Ineed not insult your knowledge of the Scriptures by finishing myquotation. '

Osborne listened respectfully, but his eyes were looking faraway, with dreams of the veld in them. 

The Superintendent's preaching of a sort of Christian Jehadappealed to him infinitesimally. 

There was a silence. He knocked his pipe out, and offered theSuperintendent a sundowner. 

'I'm glad to have had your opinion, ' he said. 'I take it youdon't want me just now as a candidate for ordination?'

The Superintendent flushed and hesitated. 

'You mustn't put it like that, ' he said almost irritably. 'Thedecision rests with you, of course. Of course we want men now andwant them badly. Yet I wouldn't press my recruiting needs justnow. It doesn't seem to me the right time to do so. Afterwards. . . . '

He gulped and spluttered as the big words rushed so fast to hislips. 

He was enlarging on the big days for God's priesthood, when thewar, please God, should be over. Big days, that is to say, if theonly sort of fit and proper issue should be reached, as doubtlessit would be before long. 

'You mean a complete knock-out for the other side?' his hearerinterpolated crudely. 

'I mean a supreme vindication of our holy cause, ' amended theSuperintendent with conviction. 

Then they changed the subject. 

Afterwards, when they smoked late on the lamp-lit stoep, conversation was apt to flag a little. The layman's eyes wouldgrow abstracted in the intervals of his ceremonious hospitality. The Superintendent watched his face intently once or twice. Theman was a mystery to him. He had an uneasy sense that he had nottaken his measure, and had been responsible for some sort of amisfit more than once in conversation. Why was he not more likeordinary people? Probably because he had lived a lonely life onthe veld much too long. The Superintendent was conscious of aprofound distrust of the untamed veld, its influence and itsinhabitants. Yet his natural kindliness, reinforced assuredly byhis grace of orders and Christian sense of duty, strove quiteheroically against that distrust. 

David Osborne walked over to see me next week, but he did notfind me at home; I was camping with a native teacher's wagon sometwenty miles away. 

He slept at my place, and came on after me. A thirty miles' trampor so it meant to overtake me, but he did not shrink from it. Hewanted to think out things, and he liked foot-slogging on a bigscale as a stimulus to thought. I was on a high ledge above thewindings of the Sawi River when he found me a ledge with a greatview of the Wedza hills. The sun was going down then, and theirblue was just dying into purple. I got him some tea, and he drankand ate like a veldsman one who had broken his journey but littlesince he broke his morning fast. He told me the Superintendent'spoint of view, which I have already chronicled. 'It provides acertain amount of excuse, ' Osborne said, 'for what I want to do. That's about all I can say for it. '

'Then you want to go?' I asked. 

'I want a change, ' he said, 'and adventures and all that. As toany war's being a holy war, that's Greek to me. ' I smiled. Iunderstood what he meant. 

I had only just come back from a limited experience of war as anon-combatant. 'Why don't you say outright what you think?' hepressed me. 'The Superintendent does do that apparently, I'll saythat much for him. Isn't Saint Telemachus still your brightparticular star of Christian sainthood in wartime? And isn'tTolstoy still in your eyes a sort of forlorn hope the mosthopeful of modern war-time philosophers? Or have you changed allthat?'

I looked him straight in the eyes, considering. 

'I have changed, ' I said. He looked at me hopefully. He hadn'tseen me since I had come back from the war. 'So the holy war'sall right?' he asked. 'And the acolyte to the altar of freedomand all that sort of thing? I attach some importance to youropinion, remember, so don't say more than you mean. Having seenwar, which do you plump for? Tolstoy, Saint Telemachus, or theSuperintendent? Speak now, and kiss the Book on it. '

I would have liked to laugh, but I did not dare. He was in suchdesperate earnest. I answered: 'I have changed for the worse fromthe Superintendent's point of view. I am not the same as I was. Iam more so. '

He went to the war. But he went with a share of Reuben's curseupon him. He wrote to me quite frankly from his East Africancamps about the things that appealed to him, and the otherthings. His experience seemed to bear out my own, for the mostpart. He considered that some deplorable things had been done onboth sides, and also some very fine things. But as to theefficacy of the machine guns he ministered to, in promoting theKingdom of God, he was under no illusions. He was possiblydisposed to exaggerate things, e. G. , the vitiating influence ofwar upon life about one. He was certainly disposed, I think, toexaggerate his own coarsening, as a not very reputable campaignproceeded. He harped somewhat morbidly on one particular strainin his letters. How much better, he surmised, it would be forChristianity and civilization if he and others like him shouldnever return to resume their places in Christian society! Someverses that he sent me when he was under orders to join a ratherhazardous expedition, have, I believe, a certain sincerity intheir ruggedness. They are not very cheerful, are they?

They have a note attached to them. N. B. We had Church parade thismorning, and the lesson was about Nebuchadnezzar's going intoretreat. 

LYCANTHROPY. 

They drove him forth as beast and not as manTill seven times had pass'd. At last he cameBack to his Babylon, but not the same. Nay! For he now had learn'd of Lips on high, Herded with cattle, 'neath a dewy sky, How patience cannot fail where passion can. But we, war's wehr-wolves, we than wolves morefain. 

(Grace-harden'd, deaf to Gospel, blind to Rood), Fain to seek night-long horrors of the woodWhere the blood-trail is red, the blood-scent hot, Shall we return in time? God, were it notBest for Thy world we should not come again?

But he was to come again, for all his reluctance and shrinkingfrom a return. He was to come through that campaign all right, and back to our part of Africa that he loved so dearly. 

'We shall have him back, I hope, before the end of this month, 'the Superintendent of Missions told me. 'The Bishop seems willingto ordain him before Christmas. He's not likely to need a longdiaconate, is he? Our Bishop agrees with me that he's had justthe kind of training for his priesthood that was most to bedesired. ' I nodded dubiously. 

We were sitting in the Superintendent's well-ordered study, whichhe preferred to call his office. Its big window took a discreetpeep at the veld, but it was not the untamed veld, only RoseberyCommonage. I searched in my pockets, and after uneasy gropings, unearthed a crumpled letter begrimed and tobacco-dusty. 'Thisdoesn't look much like his coming up for ordination, ' I said. Iread an extract: 'Please give that Chinde boy in the College atCape Town a message from me. I was glad to hear from you how wellhe was doing. I always liked that boy extraordinarily, and Ithink I had a sort of glimmer of his pastoral destiny quiteearly, soon after he came our way as a straying sheep. Now, fromwhat you say, he bids fair to be a quite respectable candidatefor the native ministry. Will you please offer him two or threemore years at the College to enable him to qualify, should thatbe his own wish. I am quite prepared to be at charges for him. It's a happy augury that his baptismal name happens to beSolomon, even as it was rather a tragic one that mine happened tobe David. I don't see my way to building up God's House on theold farm now, either literally or metaphorically, in the way apriest should. 

I look on your boy at Cape Town as a likely substitute. Vicariously I hope to offer by his hands, since mine are now toostained to offer to my own satisfaction. I'll do David's part, please God, and help him to build up the House, in both senses, the house I might have built with my own hands, had they beenotherwise occupied than they have been these last months. I amquite resigned now. It is all for the best, doubtless. '

'What does he mean?' The Superintendent's rather assured facegrew quite indeterminate and puzzled. 

'What he says, probably, ' I hazarded. 'He's got a scruple anold-world scruple. '

I picked up the Superintendent's khaki-covered Bible, and turnedover hastily the red, blue, and white edges. 

'Here's the passage, ' I said. 'Listen to what his namesake, theother David, said: "But God said unto me, 'Thou shalt not buildan house for My Name, because thou hast been a man of war, andhast shed blood. "'

'Oh, that text!' said the Superintendent not very reverentially. 'I don't think that it's particularly relevant. '

'Isn't it what he thinks that matters?' I asked. 'No, make yourmind up to it. When he followed your own advice and went off tothe war, he decided. He decided to remain a layman to the end ofhis earthly days. Some of us have got our scruples. His tookshape that way. '

'I don't see why, ' said the Superintendent rather piteously. Hewas genuinely disappointed. I liked him for the unconscioustribute he was paying to him whom we discussed. 

'Be consoled, ' I said with a twinkle. 'His farm promises to be areal lay centre of Christian influence. May we not rest assuredof that? Trust him to encourage native industries and nativeideas; Trust him to believe in the veld. Trust him to read to hisveld-dwellers the Sermon on the Mount; trust him to live itrather. Trust him to deprecate, by example, as well as precept, excessive care for food and raiment. Our missions are apt to berather over-ecclesiastical, aren't they? Far too much of an urbanand Europeanized type, don't you think? Be consoled, his laysettlement may be trusted to teach us a lot. God grant that hisnative priest-designate he has chosen to be his Solomon, may sooncome along! Be consoled!'

The Superintendent looked slightly aghast. 'I don't see where theconsolation comes in, ' he groaned. 

FOR HIS COUNTRY'S GOOD

Percy Benson opened his eyes and looked around him. He was lyingin a tiny grass-hut. How did he get there? He thought for a whileslowly; his head was very hot and heavy. 

Of course! This must be one of the hoppers' houses, and he hadgot back into Kent or East Sussex somehow. Where had he beenlately? Not in Kent, or even in England. He could remember onlya confused medley of traveling by land and water, and a hugehome-sickness. Never mind, all's well that ends well. Here he wasback in Kent surely, and in a hoppers' house. What time of yearwas it? That rather puzzled him. For was not that a mass ofcherry-blossom not twenty yards from the tiny doorway? Why shouldthey put up a hoppers' house before September? Why in the worldshould they put it up when cherries were in flower?

Never mind, he was in Kent; he would sleep ever so much betternow for knowing that. He put the cup of water that he foundbeside him to his lips. Then he closed his eyes and slept anew. When he woke again, hours after, a big man in flannel shirt andwide-brimmed grey hat was standing by a wood fire outside thedoorway. It seemed to be just growing dark. The man was cookingsomething in a pan over the fire. As he turned, Benson knew hisface. This was his old school and City friend John Haslar. He hadnot seen him for years he could not remember how many. 

'Hullo, Jack!' he said. 

'Hullo!' said John with a start. 'That's much better. You'veslept well this last time! How do you feel now?'

'Oh, better, much better, ' said Benson. 'But I've had it badly. Influenza, isn't it?'

John looked at him with a question in his eyes, but did notanswer. 'I think you'll do now, ' he said. 'You must take somenourishment and your medicine, and then try to sleep again. I'myour man for a talk in the morning, if only you get a good night. I didn't come eighty miles to see you for nothing, I can tellyou. '

Benson felt weak and weary, and did as he was told. Just as heclosed his eyes he said, 'I'm glad to be back in Kent ever soglad. ' He sighed a little sigh of relief. 'I can't think whereI've been all this time. I am really back again, am I not?' Hedid not wait for an answer, but fell asleep. 

He woke up once in the night, and saw John sitting by the fireand smoking his pipe. 

"This is a hoppers' house, isn't it?" he began. 

John turned round and looked at him with interest and pity. 'Itlooks very much like it, ' he said. 

Benson gave a contented sigh, and turned over on his side again. 

When he awoke in the morning his strength was really beginning tocome again. He was hungry for breakfast. He caught sight of adark, tall form by the fire on waking. But a minute or two afterit was gone, and John was back again. 

'Ready for breakfast?' he asked. 

Benson was soon at his porridge, and debating as to whether heshould finish with eggs or chops. 

'You'd better have what you really care for, ' said John, andstepped outside and gave a call. 

'Who's that gypsy-looking fellow?' asked Benson. 

'Oh, he helps me, ' said John. 'He's all right. ' He went out ofthe hut and received a dish from somebody as he spoke. 

It was after breakfast that Benson made a request. 'I believe Iknow where I am, ' he said. 'Though I'm not quite sure, because myhead's still dizzy. I believe I'm back again in High Wood, justnear Hawkenbury, not two miles from my old home. What do youthink?'

'I don't think I know that country, ' said John, lookinguncomfortable. 'And I'm sure I've never been here before. '

'I remember, ' Percy Benson said, 'there used to be a littlegrocer's shop down in Hawkenbury Street, where they sold mixedbiscuits, with lots of pink and white and yellow sugar, andglass-stoppered ginger-beer. I haven't forgotten the taste, though it's years ago. Do you think you could go down there, orsend somebody, and get me a bottle of ginger-beer and a pound ofbiscuits. They're just what I'd fancy. '

John looked doubtful. 'I know a place that isn't so very far off, where they keep groceries, ' he said. 'But I don't know whetherthey keep ginger-beer in glass-stoppered bottles, or if they keepthat particular sort of biscuits. However, we'll try. '

Benson slept a good deal that day. He talked between whilesrather feverishly about the place, and how glad he was to be backthere again. John said very little, but that seemed not tomatter. Benson was glad enough to ramble on and on. He did notappear to take much notice whether you answered his questions ornot. He was ecstatic rather than curious. 

The biscuits came and were a fair success. 

'Not quite so good as they used to be, but very good, ' saidBenson. 'I like these sugar ones immensely; the ones with thepink sugar are the pick. ' But the ginger-beer was not of thetime-honored brand. It was drinkable enough, but it had a corktied, instead of a long cool mouth with a glass stopper. 

'I must walk down and do some shopping for myself to-morrow, 'Benson said. 'What a summer we're having. Did you ever see suchblue sky as we've had yesterday and to-day?'

Next morning he was much better, and could get up and walk abouta little. John looked uncomfortable at times, as they sat overtheir breakfast by the fire under the great trees. He was tryingto make up his mind to tell his friend where he was, and torecall what had happened to him. He could see that, now thefever-mists were melting, he was likely to be remembering forhimself before long. But how could he break things to him easilywithout giving him a dire shock in his worn-out state?

Then to him pondering, the crisis came of itself. 

Suddenly out of the woodland stepped a party of natives withmonkey-nuts, sweet potatoes, and other wares, very cheery andsmiling. 

Benson started and his eyes grew troubled. 'Is this Africa?' hesaid. 'Then I'm not home after all not home after all. '

'You're in Africa, ' said John. 'You came up here about threemonths ago, so they told me. '

'I remember, ' said Benson. 'There was some money trouble in theCity some bad trouble. Then I had to leave my little place inKent near Seven-oaks, just as I was getting it to rights. ' Helooked miserable as he thought over things, this sallow littleCity man. 

Meanwhile John traded some monkey-nuts and sweet potatoes forsalt, and sent the traffickers away. 

Afterwards Benson began to talk out of the bitterness of hissoul, and John lit his pipe and listened gravely. He talked abouthis little estate near Sevenoaks, the cottages and the farm, theElizabethan manor-house, the school and church, the timber andthe planting of the new trees. 'I was just getting the place intoshape, ' he said. And then he nearly broke down and cried as hetold about the trouble in the City, and how a family council hadbeen called, and he had agreed to go to this country for hiscountry's good, and to keep away. 'Oh this farm, as they callit, ' he said 'these thousands of acres of grass and rocks with atin shanty to die of fever in! How wretched I've been here! Butwe aren't on the farm still, are we? This seems a bit better. Itregularly took me in, this place. I did really think I was inKent again. '

John knocked out his pipe solemnly, and was just going to try andsay something comforting. 

But Benson began again. 'And how did you get here you, the onlyfriend I've got in this wretched country?'

John told him that he had come down to see him, when he did, without knowing how ill he was. He had had a letter from him, athis store up in Rosebery last month, and for old sakes' sake hehad driven down when he had a chance to come away. When hereached the farm he had found Benson lying at his homesteadunconscious from fever. The natives who were waiting on himseemed to think him in danger. They said he had been sick fordays. John had gone to bed early that night of his coming to thefarm a glorious moonlit night. But long before dawn he had beenroused by a Kaffir boy with the news that Benson had risen andrushed out. They tracked his wanderings to that beautiful stretchof woodland, and managed to house him in a garden-hut of grass, close by a clearing among the trees. Either John or his nativeboy kept watch over him day and night then. But when he awokewith that happy fancy of being at home, John kept away the nativeboy, and put away, as far as he could, all the distinctive signsof Africa. That dream of being at home might be a real help intiding his friend over a very wretched time. There he campedunder the two great trees with the wild white-flowered bush solike an English cherry-tree in full September bloom about him, and wondered what the issue of that comfortable delusion ofBenson's would be. It could not be expected to last anyhow, nowthat he was coming back to sense and strength. 

Benson writhed as John finished his story. He went on with thetale of his own black loneliness and grey home-sickness. Theglory of Kent and the charm of High Wood seemed to be gone likethe shadows of a dream already. What good had they done him afterall?

John felt miserable as he heard him out. 'Look here!' he said, 'I've been doing well at the store, and I've got a good manycattle that I'd like to run on this farm, if we can come toterms; and I'll try and drive down every month or other month, and stay with you for a bit and see how they're getting on. '

Percy Benson's face grew bright again at that saying. He was veryweak, and prone to sudden ups and downs. 

'Oh, do promise you'll come every month, ' he said. 'Weeks are solong, and the one mail-day a week comes always terribly slowly. Do promise. '

John promised faithfully. 

Next day they went back to the homestead, a dull little ironbuilding on a rather feverish site. 'If I were you, ' said John, 'I'd build where you have been lying sick. I don't like the lookof this other place at all. '

'Yes, I shall build in High Wood; I want to call it so now. It's a magical place, I think: I shall always feel something ishome-like when I'm there. '

Life was growing brighter to him. His fever-fancy had opened hiseyes a little to the charm of the new country it was, at least, here and there, not unlike the old country. 

'I think I shall fancy this place more now, ' he said to John onthe morning they parted. 'But, oh, if you could only have seenthat little place of mine five miles from Sevenoaks!'

'Look here!' said John. 'You've got a bigger estate here thanever you had there, and you can find the same sort of interestsin it. Study your Kaffir tenants, and help them with ideas aboutstock and ploughing and church and school. Your neighbors don't. Well, more simpletons and arrant wasters, they! Believe me, you'll find the new life much more like the old life in Kent, ifyou do. Then study tree-planting, and look after this grand oldnative timber. Expect me next month, on the 23rd. '

He went away and left Benson lonely. But the real blackness ofhis loneliness was gone. The planning of the new homestead wouldkeep him busy for a long while now. Was not healing virtueexuding from that soil, which the happy dreams of his recoveryhad consecrated? His fever had given him a new point of view, orrather given him back his old Kentish point of view delight inGod's own country sights and scenes, care for his tenants, andhope. 

LE ROI EST MORT

The railway had almost crept up to Alexandra Then--the seventy-threemiles of its sandy pilgrimage were all but complete. In threemonths or so it would be open to those who could afford theirpenny a mile no, but I am forgetting, on the privileged groupto which it belongs no European may travel third-class. 

I did not welcome that railway with any warmth. The districtthat it tapped had seemed to me a camping-ground of refuge, ascivilization pressed on. That district was a haven for theKaffir-trader, a haven for the transport-rider, a haven too forthe foot-slogging missionary, like myself. We have our faults, all three doubtless, and deserve the spurning of civilization'siron feet, when our time comes, doubtless. On the other hand ourdisplacement is a matter for some sympathy, it is likely to hurtlike other displacements. Also we are prone to note that theadmirable iron feet of our displacer are not unmixed with baserclay. 

I came to Shumba Siding last Eastertide, on my way to Alexandra. Charles Miller was there in charge of the line, and he offered mea thirty-one mile ride in to within two miles of town if I wouldonly wait for a construction train. I declined in my stupidsentimentality. For one thing I hate breaking up a plan ofcombined foot-travel; it seems to me hard on one's nativefellow-travelers, on whom one is apt to call for big efforts. Toride on ahead, and leave them struggling alone with the sandymonster of a road for any long distance, seems vile desertion, and I was by no means sure that the invitation to board the trainincluded them. Moreover, this might be my last journey in, on theold road, under the old order. 

So I declined, but I lunched with Charles Miller Before I wenton. Marvell was there, the Kaffir store-keeper from ten milesaway. He had much to tell me of his wonderful good luck. Thebig firm that were putting up the new Store at Alexandra, thatrail-head terminus designate, had asked him to manage it. 

He could marry now on his prospects. He had wanted to see me, andhad waylaid me on my road. The bride was due by coach to-morrow. He hoped to get a Special License when once she had arrived. Would I marry them on Monday?

We had a good lunch with healths afterwards, but they let medrink them in tea. Miller proposed the health of the bridegroom, to whom the railway, or ever it came, had brought luck. Might hisluck last while the rails lasted, and grow heavier when theyshould be replaced by heavier metals! Might he never make less ina year than that railway had cost per mile! 'Three thousand fivehundred will take some making, ' Marvell sighed to me. Heacknowledged the toast and proposed the Railway's prosperity. Hegrew rather florid to my thinking, about the benefit to theDistrict how Kaffir gardens were to be displaced by up-to-datefarming, how tourists were to pour in athirst to explore itsruins. He discoursed of the blessedness of ranching, and ofchrome and asbestos syndicates. He said that we were in at thedeath alike of malaria, of blackwater, and horse-sickness. Then Ispoke up for the other side. I asked them to remember the old Erain silence, and if they must drink, to drink to the transport-roadand the transport-riders, and to all pioneers, and old handsgoing and gone, to the big native district and its dependencies, so rich in cattle and so rich in grain, to God's Eden of acountry, and the people that He Himself had chosen to set thereto dress it, and to keep it before our coming. My toast fellrather flat, I noticed. They both looked rather bored. 

Soon I pressed on, with fifteen miles or so to cover before ourcamping-place would be reached. 

I had gone some ten miles before the construction train passedme, and my carriers pressed through bushes and long grass for anearer view of it. 

With three or four white men on the engine, a Black Watch or twoand a few other natives on the trucks, it snorted along throughthe woodland. As the night deepened and the moon rose, we cameclose to the last coach-stable, and were soon encamped. 

The old Basuto near by gave me a drink of fairish water, butwater was far away, I was told. My boys straggled away wearily, and came back at last, having seemingly missed the dipping-place. They had brought something between a liquid and a solid. Boiled, it was no doubt wholesome enough, but its taste was not such asto tempt to excess. 

That night I dreamed, with a tag of Marvell's speech buzzing inmy head (I had garrisoned it with quinine before I slept). Thattag rang out in boastful refrain like the natives' curfew-bell ofAlexandra, a bell not always very punctually rung. 'We are in atthe death of malaria, of black-water, and of horse-sickness. '

So clanged the bell, the bell in the market tower, the tower ofthe dismantled pioneer fort. And it seemed to me that I sawMalaria a lean yellow ague-shaken shape with a Cape-boy sort offace, steal away out of the town past the new Railway Station, and across the river. He went, like a frightened Kaffir dog witha jackal-like yelp, far away into the Veld. I am not sure whetherhe did not become canine on the way, at least cynocephalous. Ifollowed him. I went far in that following, over country that Iremember as very difficult, there were so many stumps of treesabout. Moreover, it had abundance of black-jacks to stud one'ssocks with. 'He is going through dry places seeking rest, ' Ithought. 'Soon he will return. ' And sure enough we were to returnby-and by. And a jackal pack of seven, that I was somehowexpecting to come, came with us. We saw the lights of Alexandrasoon, but the people had gone to bed, it seemed. There was no oneabout anywhere. Then the leading jackal fed foul and lapped longat a great black drain. Afterwards he howled under a window ofthe Hospital, and leaped through it, straddling his legs. Then Iawoke. 

I married Marvell on the following Monday, and partook of hiswedding-lunch. He made a far more florescent speech than thatearlier one, it compared with it as the nuptial champagne withMiller's bottled beer. 

'The old Pioneer is now dead, ' he told us, 'as dead as the Dodoor the Great Auk. No longer need we take Quinine to be "our grimchamberlain to usher us and draw" . . . ' (here his memory of Hoodfailed him). 'No more need we shiver in our Kaffir blankets atKaffir Stores 'fifty miles from the dead-ends of rail-lesspost-towns. "Le roi est mort. " Malaria is dead or dying so faras Alexandra is concerned. We Alexandrians are now becomingwholesome Englishmen in a wholesome White Man's country. Longlive the railway, and may it perforate the Alexandra District!''Amen, ' said the best-man fervently. But I said nothing. 

I admired Marvell. It was just like him to press a guinea on me formy Mission, though I told him there was no fee of any kind, andthat I was ever so glad to be there. The remembrance of my dreamstung me. I said something for conscience sake. 'Civilization hasits perils, ' I said dully, 'immature civilization. The periodbetween no-drains and the up-to-date drainage system wants someliving through. ' 'That's all right, ' Marvell declared. 'I'll watchit. I didn't go through Bloemfontein in the War for nothing. '

'Le roi est mort: vive le roi! 'Alack! If Malaria slackened hold, enteric tightened its clutch. People were found to say that thelatter state of Alexandra was worse than the former. Marvell andRose Marvell both got enteric. But, thank God, the uneasymisgivings engendered by that eight-devil dream of mine aboutAlexandra were not justified! They both won through. They aregoing back to England for a change next month (the hay-makingmonth at home), they tell me. 

'God made the country, and man made the town, and the devil madethe little railway-swollen, transitional, Alexandra-sort-of-town. 'So Marvell wrote to me by last mail. He is not so keen now onthe transition stage of civilization for his wife's residence. He is thinking of a pioneer place in Northern Rhodesia, eitherthat or London. If the perils of the old regime in Alexandra arediminished, the perils of the new regime appear to have a knackof growing. 

THE RIDING OF THE RED HORSE

I

Isaka rubbed his eyes, but he did not unroll himself yet out ofhis blankets. He was lying in the darkness with a round of whitewalls dimly seen about him. Through a hole in the grass roof, astar met his fixed gaze. The cocks had but just crowed the secondtime, and the light was but just winning way in the east. Thenight was holding out steadily so far. 

Was it he, Isaka, who had awakened, or some other? He was notvery clear. Strange alike looked the happiness behind, and thehope before him. He was not sure of himself in that twilight ofhis senses. It seemed scarcely believable his title to eithergift of heaven to memory or to expectation. 

Surely but slowly his brain cleared, his doubt grew faint as thatstar was growing, his outlook bright as the one pane in the wall, looking east. He sprang up with one of the best wills in theworld; he was far too happy to be drowsy any longer. Soon he waswashing himself, and dressing himself in white, with real zest. Last night had been a joy-night indeed, and the morning promisedbrilliantly. It was doubtless he himself who had both reached andenjoyed the night's happenings, he also who now stood firm on thethreshold of the morning, having reached that also. Isaka, whohad been Kadona, was a native of an African village with a farglimpse on fair days of Kilimanjaro. Being born where he was, anddwelling where he did, he belonged to a certain Central EuropeanPower. Certain manifestations of that Power had made him uneasyfrom his goat-herding boyhood onwards. 

He had walked warily, and kept an unscored back, but he gatheredthat fellow subjects were not always so fortunate. At last theclaims on his attendance of a Government School had becomeimportunate. Suddenly he took his fate into his hands, bade hisfamily farewell (was not his mother dead these two years?), andmade for a track through the forest. Since he must go to school, he would choose his own schoolmaster, and he chose one that heknew. This teacher, as it happened, stood for another EuropeanPower further west. He was fast ageing now, he could remember thedays before Europe divided up with such appetite so much ofAfrica. He had been traveling on some teaching errand, and hadfallen sick and lain nearly a whole month at Kadona's village. Kadona had brought him many gifts milk and ground-nuts and honey. The sick man for his part had not been thankless. As for gifts, he had given a knife and salt and soap and matches, but he hadalso shown fellow-feeling, which meant much more. Theirfriendship, signed and sealed outwardly by what they gave, wasunderlain by affection of a promising sort. So Kadona went tothis teacher's mission, as to a city of refuge, traveling througha bush country, and sleeping in huts of a strange speaking tribetwo or three nights of his way. He came to his host as man andfriend, and his trust was not abused. Afterwards his host, knownbetter, revealed new uses, he could doctor a little, he couldteach more than a little, he also held keys of certain joys andwonders. 

By and by Kadona was illuminated to some extent by his friend. Hewas allowed to exchange his name when the approved fullness oftime was come, on a day of benevolent mysteries. Henceforth hewas Isaka. He had changed his name six months before the eventfulmorning I have chronicled changed it at the season he had come toreckon the years by the good time of Christmas. 

Now this last night had been a brilliant one in the church thathe had learned to care for. There had been much glow of candlesand splendor of psalms and anthem. He had been taught to makehimself ready with light, so to speak, in view of the greatestillumination on earth the Sacred Banquet of the morning. Thewords of the anthem had rung in his ears like a trumpet in thenight, they had peopled and painted his dream. 'And I saw andbehold a white horse: . . . And He went forth conquering and toconquer. ' This morning was the Banquet morning. It was no marvelthat Kadona had been wonder-stricken at his awaking. The sense ofmoving in a vision was hard to escape from, it seemed to him. Hemoved towards the church like a man in a dream, and his feet feltfor the steps. Was it he who had been herding goats but a fewyears ago, who had seen what he had seen on nights and at dances, who had felt so naked and helpless before a harsh Government notso very long ago? It did seem that it was he, and he was verygrateful. He stole into the church soft-footed, and glidedtowards the blazing altar. Then he waited, trying to rememberwhat it was best to remember at such an hour. Had he repentance, faith, gratitude, and love? He had so much of the last two surelyas to make some amends for defects of the others, or at least hethought so. Yes, there was no mistaking his thanks, he thought tohimself. He remembered his night's dream afterwards when the bellrang, and the Rider on the White Horse drew so near. Then helifted up his heart that he might meet Him on His way, tried toopen his heart as wide as it would go for the conquering Presenceto ride into it. 

II. 

The scene was a mission station once more, but a different sortof interest appeared to be paramount in this busy station, otherthan plain Evangelism. This was a Lutheran Mission, used nowin time of war as a collecting centre for the rice of thecountryside. The foreboding of Isaka's teacher had come but tootrue. When Isaka had been telling him (on the day after the greatday) his dream of the White Horse and his Rider, he had read tohim the story of other horses and other riders out of SaintJohn's Vision. And his face had grown troubled as he added, 'Wehave proved what the riding of the black horse means here in thismission of ours. Do you remember years ago how the rains wereshort here, and how the people went hungry afterwards? And nowthere are clouds in the sky clouds not of rain. Will the RedHorse be ridden, as some prophesy? I seem to see him with the bitin his teeth spurred by his rider our way. Pray, Isaka, I beseechyou, that the Red Horse and his rider be turned in their road. 'And he told Isaka something of what he meant, also something ofwhat that riding might mean to them all. And he would have Isakapray, and his schoolmates pray also. And they prayed, but for allthat this mad rider came galloping, the rider of whom Saint Johnwrote, 'And there went out another horse that was red; and powerwas given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: . . . '

It was nearly a year now since that morning Isaka remembered sowell, when the White Horse was ridden his way. Once again whenawaked. 

Isaka, Kadona, was not sure if he was dreaming, but this time themain reason for doubt was that things seemed too bad rather thantoo good to be true, things that had come or were coming, uponthe earth. Nearly a year ago now the news of the riding of theRed Horse had come. Europe was in a horrible temper, and Africansmust do as usually, not what they wanted to do, but what Europebade. Isaka's English teacher must leave his school or hisliberty, he must either run away or stay fast in the Government'shands a Government that was fighting England. He chose to remain, hoping to help Isaka and others, but he had very little power onearth left to him. For a little while he was allowed to stay inhis old home, and the school began to be broken up only little bylittle. Then the pace quickened; some were drafted off asporters, some as soldiers, some were allowed to stay andcultivate for the Government. Its local officials' tempershad apparently not improved with its troubles. None on thisalien mission within its borders were liable to be accountedtrustworthy, all were liable to suspicion. Yet Isaka worked onhappily for a while. When his teacher was moved to a place ofinternment he was allowed to keep one body servant. He invitedIsaka to come, and Isaka came right willingly. He might have beenpassed by, and the choice lain among others, but his teacherasked him as the first choice of all, if he would come with him?Was it likely that he would refuse?

Then suspicion fell upon Isaka in a day of rebuke and blasphemy. Probably he was to blame, probably he said more than he shouldhave said, probably he did not recognize how well off he was. Anyhow the blow fell, and he was to be envied no longer, as hehad been. 

He was beaten rather mercilessly, and taken to be a Governmentporter in a district far away. The tears came into his teacher'seyes when he bade Isaka farewell; his own captivity waswearisome, he was beginning to feel his age now; also this boyhad been as a son to him. 

It was all like an evil dream, this war, so fecund of death andparting among friends, this riding of the Red Horse that hadhaunted Isaka's visions of the night. The light was just comingwhen he awaked from them at the German Mission Station. He wasloath and slow to unroll himself from his one torn blanket and tostep out of it. But someone kicked him angrily, and then needsmust. He had come on these last days ever so many miles, andcarried a full load. He struggled up stiffly, and crept to thelittle fire that two of his fellows were heaping and lightingwhile they chattered together. They were tribesmen of a districtfar from his own. One was telling a story of how their whitemasters with native soldiers had raided, a village. The other, whose village it was, full-stopped the story with grunts ordeprecations. There had been some throats cut. Folk had beenbidden to lie down, so the teller said; they had lain down as forthe lash, but they had been paid in cold steel. Isaka listeneddazedly. The end of his Christian era seemed to have come assuddenly and unexplainedly as the end of his Pagan era. Histeacher had preached 'love, ' 'love, ' 'love, ' with Paulineiteration, and not a little self-repetition. His teacher hadtaught that war was an unclean thing haunting the heathen world, and lurking in the blackness of Pagan villages. His teacher haddeprecated violence; it was his rule never to strike, nor ever torule by such fear as cast out love. 

Now, an askari (a native soldier) came up to the three, and hewas storming furiously. He laid on his lash right and left. Isakadid not escape. They were to carry their loads at once, it wassaid, by forced marches to a rice mill at the lakeside. Inanother five minutes the big train of porters took the road, andspread itself like a serpent up the trackway. Isaka was thetwentieth or the twenty-first in their advance. I do not thinkthat his illness which was to show itself in a day or two, wasreally manifest on that day. Yet he went very heavily. Suchmaladies were certainly upon him as a poet has diagnosed, 'blankmisgivings of a Creature moving about in worlds half realized. 'The ridings of Red and White Horses had so fast succeeded oneanother in Isaka's circle, and had brought such different worldsand atmospheres in their respective wakes!

The Riding of the Red Horse 253

III

Three days after, they were at the rice mill, and a July day wasbreaking. Isaka lay and listened to the lapping of the lake waterlapping of the water in the greatest of African lakes. He waslying beside a creek that was papyrus-fringed with curtains offeathery green. A cloud of lake flies hung dark in the distance. The soft lake haze redeemed landscape and waterscape now fromoverclarity of outline the besetting blemish, as some mightthink, of its mid-day. Isaka was really ill that morning. Hecould hardly stir hand or foot. An askari came and looked at him, and said something to his German officer. The latter came andlaid his hand not unkindly on his brow, found what the heat ofhis body was, and gave him some drug out of their scanty store. The great war with their fellow Christians was pinching themsorely in the matter of medicines these sturdy patriots ofCentral Europe. They were keeping their flag flying in a feverishland where febrifuges meant much indeed. Isaka was let lie, andhe brooded over his dream the old dream that had come back sointrusively last night into such alien surroundings. For he inthe province of the red-mounted rider had dreamed that He on theWhite Horse came as an invader, the light of daybreak in Hislooks, the faith of conquest in His eyes. 

Now, a friend happened upon Isaka that morning, one who had beenreared upon the self-same mission-crowned hill whither Isaka'shomesick mood harked back. How they spoke of old days together, and warmed their chilled hearts again! Surely Isaka's dream hadheralded a measure of restored joy for him that morning, ifnothing better and more lasting. He spoke of his dream, and ofhow it came first as the prelude of that Banquet, and of how hisheart had danced on that Banquet morning, and the sun had dancedin his sight at the sunrise. His friend was allowed to stay byhim, for the transport officer was kindly, and they talked on andon. Isaka knew now that they thought his sickness a great one. Suddenly came a wild stir among porters and native soldiers. Oneof the English lake ships had shown round the point to northward, and was heading fast for the bay. The one German hurried downamong the transport crowd, bidding them make haste and takecover. His friend left Isaka. He was one of the few soldiers whowere to line the trench in a banana grove ready to dispute alanding. But Isaka was bestowed in some long grass; there waslittle time to carry him far. The ship rang and slowed down, thenshe crept like a lean black panther into the place that suitedher spring. Soon she rang again, and stopped dead. There was aghastly pause of stillness. Crash! Her twelve-pounder spoke. Crash! and crash! again, five times over. The rice mill showed agaping wound by now. Then two boats were lowered, the IndianShip's Guard and the British officers crowded into them, and theAfrican sailors pulled for the shore. Isaka crawled to a hummock, and peered out to see what was happening. The shell fire had madehim pant and shake, his lips were full of prayers remembered andhalf-remembered. The boats came nearer, they were almost up tothe log-built pier now. Had they been left alone till they hadcome further, there might have been hope for the ambush of agreat bag, while the Indians were bunched together on the landingplace. But those in the banana grove trench were eager, theywould not hold their fire. The rifles cracked, the bulletsthrashed up the water, men crouched down in the drifting boatswith oars and rifles waving rather helplessly. It looked asthough they were likely to pay toll, wide though the shots hadgone as yet. Then the oarsmen pulled themselves together, androwed back for the ship's protection. There was not even an oaror a boat hit after all. 

Isaka stared eagerly at the fight. He showed himself. A minuteafter the ship's shrapnel burst near him, putting death's fearupon his weakness. Someone had said that the ambush was in thegrass rather than in the banana grove, the ambush that wasscreened so well. Was there just will and time left to invoke theRider on the White Horse of that unforgotten and abiding vision?I think there was. Then the shrapnel burst over Isaka. He wasblotted, as his fellow Christians of the ship and her guns mighthave expressed it. The twelve-pounder (or was it the four-inch?)crashed again and again. The Maxim coughed and spat in aparoxysm. The Rider on the Red Horse rode on relentlessly. 

THREE AND AFRICA

We all three went a common way with rather a bad grace, andAfrica in a measure dominated our movements, or at least ourproposed destinations. I think she tightened her grip on all ourthree affections by that journey, she made us more of her slavesshe has ever a hankering after the slave-trade, has she not?In her shrewdness she gained a grip on us by very diverseexpedients. Me the restless, so feverishly tired of her, sheexercised in fresh fields. One result was, that I found out inthose trial-grounds ever so many reasons why flight from Africawould be unthinkable for me. While as to him, my friend, whosedoom of exile from her she had herself done much to bring about, I am sure that she dazzled him on that his road to the railway(his Via Dolorosa, ) making assurance much more sure that he mustleave his heart with her. As to her, my other friend, who hadtaken Africa so complacently and so very much for granted, Africamade revelations to her at each stage of a journey that wasrousing in itself, for it brought her away from her westernstation to a very different countryside. And if these revelationswere not prone to stimulate affection, I am quite mistaken. Icould make out a strong case against Africa, on the grounds ofthat journey, as capricious, inconsiderate, and so on. Yet beforeI have done, I want to indicate pleas of extenuation. 

We were going with a donkey-wagon, he and I, the wagon whereinshe, my other friend, was riding. He had been in the CivilService, and suffered much from fever; yet he was leaving theService for other reasons as well as that particular one. He wastraveling cross-country to his exit station, prolonging thus hispangs of farewell; he was making himself useful by escorting heron her desolate road. Moreover, I was making myself courteous byadding my own escort. I was under no delusion as to my beinguseful. 

The donkeys were none too fat; they looked as if they had notbeen used well, and were far on in life. With their driver Idiffered as to beating them, but I will allow that they were dearto him on the whole, and that he made progress in by no meanseasy places. Indeed the road had been against us for many daysbefore the day on which I left the wagon; and I as wagonconductor was to blame for the choice of it. I should haveyielded myself patiently to go the mighty round that the mainroads went. I had come almost due east at a venture, and when Ihad lost my first stake by being disappointed of the by-road Isought, I went on gambler-fashion. I had seen already how thewagon stuck in a big river's sand-bed. How many times we had dugout, how the whip and the driver's voice had plied, how we hadfilled up the ruts with sods and grass-tufts, striving to gainpurchase for the wheels! And yet I was obstinately sanguine whenI heard a tale of an ancient trading road. It would be wondrouslydirect, if one could win through by it. So along it, by my owndecision, we went. That first night that we turned off by it, westuck long in the waning light, trying to pull through a neck inthe hills. It was grievously cumbered with boulders, and we werelong in trying. Yet at last the driver rallied his team, and weslept on the right side of the pass, clear of the granite, readyfor an early inspan next day. Then on the morrow we but crawledalong, till at last we stuck fast in a spruit's spongy floor. That time we were not to pull out before we slept. Darkness drewin on the struggles of the dead-beat donkeys. We outspanned andwent on with the struggle soon after sunrise, putting shouldersto wheels in wild earnest. At last we were through, but we hadbeen delayed far into another day. That noon and afternoon thedisused road traveled through bush-veld. It had been ridden overso little in the last few years, that there was much wood-cuttingnow to be done. 

Our voorlooper was no scraggy piccanin, he was brawny andbearded, an expert Mashona woodman. Now the woods bowed beneathhis sturdy stroke. But his labors took time. One shrank in shamefrom the reckoning of miles covered on those days. Sunday came toour rescue, and we lay encamped in the granite-country, verygrateful for our rest. On the Monday, its results showed. Wetrekked gallantly for hours and hours, we pulled out of a swampat the first attempt; we even essayed a dreaded ford before weoutspanned. But we did not win our stake. Not till we had knockedunder, and outspanned once more did we struggle through. The ladyof the wagon waded barefoot to lighten it, she even helped tocoax a wheel up the further bank. At last we were saved fromrelapse. But that night our travelers' joy flickered and faded. We stuck grimly at a crossing; stuck at a mean little stream;there we found odds against us, both rocks and also deep mire. Sowe camped, leaving our wagon jammed in the stream's bed. 

Now I would tell you about that night and the next morning. Wegot the lady's mattress out of the wagon. She could not wellsleep on it, where it was. There were many midges and mosquitoesabout then, for March was the time of the year; so we made herbed on some high ground, close but not too close to our camp-fire. After supper we sat about the fire long, the branch-heapedblaze was comfortable after our chilly paddling. The wisdom orfolly that we puffed and inhaled and toasted and sucked andmunched over the fire is the making of my story. It is its bestexcuse for a yawning lack of plot. 

Delia Moore, lady mission-worker, roasted monkey-nuts for us. When they were at last ready, we all three munched at them. Butmeanwhile Richard Anson and I smoked Shangaan tobacco, and MissMoore ate sweets out of a screw-topped bottle. 

Anson spoke about the charms of Mashonaland. He had beenquartered in many parts of her those last ten years; hisadmiration had been consistent, it had also stood the test of herfeverish dealings with him. He said that she was the only countryworth inhabiting in a cursed world, that she was God's owncountry. Then I fanned his flame with my own home-sick talk. Thewind was blowing chillily north-westward that night on the otherside of our ant-hill shelter. A kindred wind was blowing just assteadfastly in my own soul. I had had my contrarieties lately, both of hard times and pastoral reverses; but, and that seemed tomatter more, I was beginning to feel my age, its untimely growthas my work grew. Had I not done my share by now? I painted scenesin south-eastern England for my private view frequently now, scenes in cool greens and sober blues and restful grey scenes ofweald and down-land, of hop-garden and country rectory. Over thislast my fancy played and kindled ruddily in tiles and roses. 

When I found words for these scenes they proved so manybattlefields, for Dick gave battle to my panegyrics impartially, as I filed them up before him. He seemed to be very hard hit thatnight, savagely bludgeoned by his doom of banishment. He saidthat he hoped to come back someday. Anyhow, he said, would I tryto remember that he had chosen his burial-place a place where tworivers commingled some two hundred miles north of where we werecamping? I promised to try. It seemed to me a pity that we Couldnot interchange health and abiding-places he so ague-wrung, soplainly doomed to go, yet withal so keen to stay. I, on the otherhand, full of home lust, England-amorous, yet so robust, solacking in any decent excuse to give over my job and go in thatgreen old age of mine. Then, at last, Delia Moore chimed orrather clashed in, when she had roasted her monkey-nuts and founda dish for them. She said that we were both wrong, we were bothso clearly called to do just what we were doing, he to go hisway, and I to stay on. But, contended she, her own move was amore than doubtful one; she had been made into a rolling stone, against her own judgment, by church despotism; the odds wereagainst her gathering moss to any reasonable extent. 'O, ' sheappealed to me, 'look after my west-country work, whatever elseyou do. My going east bids you in honor to stay. ' I allowed herplea with a nod. It was not till some while afterwards that Ipropounded Africa's apology, as I had guessed it. Dick had beentalking, rather bitterly as well as floridly, about sighting thecold Northern Star and losing the Southern Cross. I lay back andgloated over the starry picture overhead through a crisscrosspicture-mount of ragged grass. I left the confutation of thescoffer to Miss Moore. There was an edge on many of her remarksthat night, and I could trust her to deal with him. But what shesaid I have forgotten. Only I remember that he gave her best atlast. Then, and not till then, I broke silence, submittingsubjects for inquiry. 

'Are not countries and subcontinents like men born under starsWhat star was South Africa herself born under? Not the Lyresurely, her poetry is comparatively so negligible. Not thePlough, nor yet Aquarius, for she is not blest with overmuchirrigation, nor brilliant at agriculture. Neither was it theNorthern Star surely; constancy does not easily beset her. No, itwas the Southern Cross. Take the cross as a symbol inclusive ofmore than Christian symbolism. Take it as a symbol signifyingpeine forte et dure. Is it not peculiarly characteristic ofAfrica to deal with us as she is doing? Does she not truly followher star in banishing you, and shifting you, and detaining me'?

'That's all very well, ' said Dick truculently, 'but I want toknow what WE are going to do. Are we going to take it lyingdown?'

I sniffed. 'I suppose we had better, ' I said. 'And if we want adecent handbook of procedure I am told that the Imitatio Christiis excellent. '

'Promise me you'll not leave the Station, so help you, at leastnot till I come back. ' Miss Moore plunged for a particularshallow just when I was floating in gay generalities. 

'Let me have till to-morrow, ' I asked. Then I spoke in Africa'sdefense, setting out her case as well as I could. 'She'semphatically a feminine continent, ' I said. 'I learned only theother day from a modern novelist that a woman's possibly at theheight of her power with a man, just when her contact with him isbut one of hope and memory. Surely that is true enough of somewomen and some men. Isn't Africa one of such women, and Dick oneof such men? She knows her own business, and sends him to adistance, bidding him consecrate "a night of memories and sighs"to her. It's a doom that tends to bitterness on his part now. Buttrust him by and by to taste the bitter-sweet of it. It's thesame sort of thing that I wrote raw verses about after I leftOxford behind: "Not until you go from her will she come to you"you know the sort of thing. '

Dick grunted. Miss Moore complimented me on my preaching. Mylucidities, I feared, were missing fire. 

A donkey saved the situation, one of the two that were notharnessed up for the night, there being no trek-gear for them. With a grassy mouth he was chewing at Miss Moore's pillow-slip. After many and shrill cries, it was rescued, but not before ithad taken stains of a deep green color. After such a misfortunehad been properly keened for, we sat down by the fire again. 

'Go on, ' Dick said. 'Let's have your peroration. '

'Well, as to Miss Moore Africa has shaken her up by shifting her, and by giving her a lesson in local values, just as the donkeyhas done about linen or calico, I forget which. '

That started the keening again. 

'O, ' said the mourner, 'my poor pillow-slip! But I'd give it bythe dozen to get back just to the one place the same old Mission. You will promise to stop there till I come back, at any rate?'

Worn out by continual dropping-fire, I promised, starry Heavenbeing my helper. 'Let's go to bed after that, ' I pleaded. 'I'vesoared in an airy disquisition and I've come to earth in a grosssort of pledge. '

'No, you're to go on, ' Dick told me. 

'What about yourself?'

'O, I'm led out on a string. I'm given trotting exercise byAfrica within her own confines. I'm kept hanging about on herveld, while she delays my donkeys. Meanwhile she shows meout-of-the-way holes and corners where there's nobody to do thework she wants done. She appeals to my shame and pity, she has madea study of weak spots of mine. Has she not method? I meant to leavethe wagon last week, but I'm lucky if I get off tomorrow. Whatwith bad roads, spongy crossings, and indifferent donkeys, she'slanded me in a pledge to-night a pledge to keep me hanging on. I'm in honor bound now to try to turn her night into day, justlike a cock in one of her kraals. While all the time I want to beflitting North like one of her swallows this month of all monthsin the year. '

In the morning I renewed my pledge at a rock's altar a rock thatlichen had stained bright orange. I professed resignation, as didthe other two beside me. Then after breakfast, we shook hands. Igave Dick a motto about Africa:

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For 'ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

I gave Delia a prayer to say for her westward return. 'Turn ourcaptivity ... As the rivers in the south. ' Then I knelt by thegrey flat stone and prayed audibly, 'Give me a blessing; for Thouhast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. '

Soon I was striding away. There was little time to reach home bythe hour when home wanted me. Pity and shame, pity pointing eastand west, while shame spurns and aspires these two beams seem tomake up my own Cyrenian's burden the burden of the Southern Crossfor me. On the other hand, regret and adoration seem to supplythe same office for Dick, if I may judge by his letters. As forMiss Moore, by far the most deserving of us three admittedly, doubtless her faith is firmly rooted wherever she is, and hersympathy spreads east or west, whichever way her duty calls her. Nevertheless she would be still glad should the Voice call andthe Wind blow westward again, at least that is my own conviction. In our several ways we three are devoted to Africa: one way oranother the Southern Cross is the constellation ascendant in eachof our three careers. 

OUR LADY OF THE LAKE

We had been dining on the bridge of H. M. S. Kampala the captain, the two ship's officers, the gunnery lieutenant and he who writesthis story. We had come in as it grew dark that August evening, and anchored some few miles out from the German's great place. For that great place a big gun, rumored or real, commandedrespect. 

I suppose our main object on that patrol trip of ours was thestopping of rice-running, the preservation of our lake blockade. We had had some firing a few days ago at presumptive stores, also at a dhow and lighter dimly descried (they were in thepapyrus-fringed labyrinth of a boat-passage). But of late we hadbeen lying up for the most part off a lonely island. Perhaps theywould think we were out of the way, perhaps not. We should seewhat we should see. ' I suppose that the gunnery lieutenant wasalmost as sanguine of adventure as I was of humdrum peace in thisafter-dinner hour on the darkened bridge. Adventure, or at leastwhat seemed to be its promising prelude arrived quite suddenly. 

There was a sudden announcement to our captain about a lightbeing seen, a brief one-sided discussion, the whistle blowing for'Stations, ' the rattle of arms as the Indian ship's-guard fellin. These all affected me with strange twinges of futile protest. Surely there was a time for all things, and this was the time forcoffee and tobacco, not for disconcerting risks and detestablenoises. I wanted never to hear our four-inch gun again byday. The idea of its shaking the peace of night to bits waspreposterous. Yet a light was reported ahead, a moving light onthe lake itself. 'You haven't much time, Craig, ' I heard thelieutenant cry to our captain. The engine-room bells rangominously, there was much puffing and spouting, then we were off. I stole into a safe sort of corner, as corners went, by thedoctor's cabin. I edged out of the way of the Indian riflemen whowere sorting themselves, making ready for action. We were runningalong somewhither. I didn't know much about our bearings, but Ihad misgivings as to whether that big gun of the Germans was notgetting nearer. 'I've been thinking it may be a lure to draw uson, ' hazarded the Eurasian doctor by and by. That was just whatI'd been thinking. I was glad when the tension ceased suddenly, not so many minutes after it had started. The light had vanished;we were out of the hunt somehow it seemed; our captain meantto wait till morning, then possibly he would show us a thing. Meanwhile there were some hours to morning. We had had nonight-firing after all. Nor did there seem to be much prospectof any. One might as well go to bed in the dark without delay. 

Morning came and we hunted around, but drew blank. Then westarted away to look for a supposed dhow in likely covers ofcreeks or inlets, but we drew these blank also. What was thevanished light? That of the resurrected German steam-tug?Possibly. Possibly it was not that of a dhow after all. Anyhow itwas gone out of our ken. 'There's dirty work in there of night, Craig, ' the gunnery-lieutenant had said with a stern eye on thatGerman harbor. He spoke as a partisan. Was it such very dirtywork if they did run a little food across to feed their ownpeople? Anyhow their dirty work, whatever it was, had seeminglybaffled our immaculate patrol under our white ensign, for thattime at any rate. 

I don't think there is anything strange about this story as itstands up to this point, do you? There may have been a dhow aheadof us that night in August, and it may have been its light thatour watchman spied. Also it may have put out its light all of asudden, and so we may have lost it in the darkness. That simpleexplanation sounds probable enough, doesn't it, when you come tothink of it?

Nevertheless in the following week, a more romantic explanationwas tendered to me it concerned a gramophone. 

'That was the last tune before the light was seen, ' a bluejackettold me solemnly. 'It's a good tune, you perhaps know it, sir, "Ave Maris Stella"'? We had fraternized over recollections ofHastings, that was his birth-place. I told him how I had beeninto his church there, which was not mine, Saint Mary's, Star ofthe Sea. I recalled the blue-circled chancel and its glitteringstars with admiration. Now he was confidential about what hadhappened a few nights before. He seemed to regard the putting-onof that particular gramophone record at that particular moment assignificant. I was sympathetic, but I only grasped his pointvaguely. 'You mean, ' I said. 'I mean that She may have meant it, 'he said rather confusedly. 'She may have meant us luck. If we'donly gone in straight where Her light showed, we might have foundour luck. ' 'You mean we might have captured Muanza, I suppose, ' Isaid rather skeptically. 'Well, we might have killed a lot ofGermans, sir, and done a lot of good. But our captain's toocautious altogether. '

'It's possible, ' I said. 'She may have meant to give us the tip, 'he went on. 'I don't think it's likely, but you may be right, ' Isaid with some detachment. The notion of Our Lady illuminatingthe lake that she might give us the tip to kill Germans was notso very convincing. I'm afraid I choked off the surmiser a bitwith my Tolstoyite incredulity. He drew in his horns there andthen; he confided none of his views to me again on similarsubjects. He was to die at sea a year or so after. They had gothim on to a ship from an island hospital, but he never reachedthe South African port they had shipped him for. I am glad now tothink of his faith in Our Lady, Our Lady good at need. 

It was before he went down to the coast, that we advanced andtook a great island renowned for its rice commerce. Then the daycame only a month or so after that our troops marched intoMuanza. The main body of its German defenders had steamed awaydown that land-locked sound of theirs a little while before. Wehad not stormed the place from the lake after all, we had arrivedby a back-door road among the kopjes. Yet there we were at last. It seemed curious to be in the place that I had peered atapprehensively on patrol. How mysterious its lights and itsharbor had looked from a darkened bridge or a deck of old. Now Iwent to and fro in the glaring Boma square, climbed the roadamong the rocks to the Fort Hospital with the tower and its dummyguns, patrolled the palm-tree promenade where no band played, butlake-water provided placid music much more to my taste than thatof drums and brass. 

It was in the church above the bay, the church of the WhiteFathers, that I came upon my sequel, or at least what looks likethe earthly sequel of my story. Afterwards, of course, I may hearmuch more. The White Father I had gone to see, took me into thechurch one morning and showed me Our Lady's altar. Over it was analtar-piece of familiar design I think it represented Our Lady ofGood Counsel, but I am not sure. In front votive candles blazed, in very creditable profusion for those hard times surely. Asilver star with about two-inch points caught my eye. There wereother stars hung there too, much less conspicuous ones. Therewere also two or three little models of dhows or boats set on aledge before that altar. I pointed to the silver star, and myguide answered my mute question: 'A gift to Our Lady, Star ofthis lake and these lake-shores, ' he said. 'It was one night inAugust of last year that it happened, the miracle or whatever youwish to call it. ' 'Did Our Lady appear on the lake?' I askedkeenly, for memories began to stir in me. 'No, not quite that, 'said the White Father. He had a brown beard, and a very whiteface, and he spoke clear-cut English. 'There was a light seenover the water. ' Then it was that the surmise about thegramophone recurred to me. 'Do you really think, ' I asked, 'thatthere was a light to be seen? If so, what was there strange aboutit?' 'Well, it was a miracle of sorts, ' he said. 'I didn'tbelieve about it at first, for I didn't see reason for it. Theysaid it was a light given to lure the English within range. Thatwas the talk of some of our Catholics in the town, but it wasn'tgood talk. I argued against it. ' He paused. Then I told him, smilingly, the story of the gramophone. 'It's a parallel story, 'I said. 'Our Lady was indeed divided against herself that nightin her clients' estimation. ' 'It shows the absurdity of warbetween Catholics, ' he murmured. 'Yes, of war between so-calledChristian nations, ' I agreed. In an impulse I shook his hand. 'But there was a light, ' I said: 'I saw it. ' 'So did I, ' he said. 'Was it the light of a dhow?' I wondered. 'No, ' he said, surprisingly, 'the dhow was on the other side of your ship. ' Hepointed to the votive star. 'That star commemorates this sight ofa light, or rather of a star, ' he said. 'I veritably believe thatthe star light was Our Lady of the Lake's work. Yet she did notin the least mean to show the English where to land and slaughterus, nor on the other hand to lure them on to a fiery doom. OurLady wants the salvage of men's lives not their destruction. Guess what happened that night. '

I was puzzled. I took the star into my hand and looked it over. It only had 'Muanza' graved upon it, 'Muanza' and the date ofthat August evening. No, I gave it up. So he told me his versionof events. 'There was a dhow beating round the corner of anisland. The Goanese skipper had no idea that you were there. Itwas a near thing. He was lucky, wasn't he, that the alarm of thelight seen by your watch came just then? He was running almoststraight for your war-ship. But you started off on a course thattook you far out of his way, started off on a light's chase orrather a star's chase. He is a very pious man, that Goaneseskipper; he was here for two Masses this morning. He has a greatdevotion to Our Lady, as I believe, and he knows how to pray. Hevowed a silver star to Our Lady Our Lady of the Lake, if shewould but bring him through with his ship safe. He made a fairvoyage after all. But he thanked the star that led you off fromhim for it, say rather Her who kindled that star. He is a man ofprayer, the sort of prayer that invites miracles. ' I was verysilent. I knelt before the statue a little. Then I said 'Good-bye. 'When I had said it I looked at two of the stars (that were notsilver) curiously. Were they not Belgian officers' stars, andwere they not likely to have a tragical history? 'Ask the silverstar-man, please, ' I said, 'to pray for God's miracle of peace. It does seem to me as if his prayers might do a lot of good. I'dgive Our Lady of the Lake a whole Southern-Crossful of starsshould peace come before the year's out. ' Did he forget to askthat star-man for his prayers?

EPILOGUE

[AFRICA AND HER GODMOTHER. ]

With shoes of crystal peace and gleeChristmas his clients proves:They're misfits for those masters paleAnd their white lady-loves;But O they fit black boys and girlsWho clean their knives and stoves!

I slipt from out the white men's church, The northern chants rang cold, And with the preacher's war-time wordsMy heart it would not hold, Gay hymns and I alike had grownIn exile grave and old. 

I said 'I'll wander from the townThis cheerless Christmas Day. 'A church stood up beside my road, And I turn'd in to pray. Buff-brick its walls were, and its roofOf ridg'd unlovely grey. 

I enter'd in, and joy was thereThe Mass had just begun. They filled the place from screen to doorThe children of the sun. Me seem'd that southern sun was glass'dIn eyes of ev'ryone. 

The server-men had lawn and laceAnd crimson pageantry, And boys were in their best, and girlsWore kerchiefs bright to see. Me seem'd those bare brown feet were shodWith crystal peace and glee. 

The incense-smoke it skein 'd and spir'd, The vowell'd hymns rang clear, A shrill bell rung by a brown handSaid Christ was very near. Me seem'd a sun-tann'd Angel stooptAnd caroll'd in mine ear. 

I Bless God for this our Christmas BallAbout our Christmas Board!Our Church that faery GodmotherHer child hath not ignor'd, And Africa, with heart in sky, Is dancing to the Lord. 

The Old World's and the New World's drudgeWhom few would praise beforeNow from the kitchen hath been claim 'd, The stable and the store, Christ claims her heart to dance with hisWhere Europe's danced of yore. '

With shoes of crystal peace and gleeChristmas his clients proves:They're misfits for those masters paleAnd their white lady-loves;But O they fit black boys and girlsWho clean their knives and stoves!