hands into his pockets and continued his sullen chant:

“Give me again all that was there.
Give me the sun that shone.
Give me the heart, give me the eyes,
Give me the lad that is gone!”

He flung off his hat. I was able to get some idea of his general appearance then, as he passed up and down in the varying lights and shadows, and that too seemed strangely reminiscent of some one I had known. But I was disappointed to find that he didn’t look the least bit like the hero of a romance. He was not even tall. What was worse he had the most awful hair. It was black and lank like an Indian’s and distinctly thin in front, and one strand of it like a rag of black silk kept falling away from the rest and hanging down between his bad-tempered blue eyes—at least I felt sure they must be bad-tempered, and I had to come to the conclusion that they were blue, because every time he passed the fire I got a suggestion of blue. He perpetually smeared the rag of hair back from his eyes and it as perpetually fell down again. A curious thing about him was the way he moved, so softly and firmly on his feet, yet without making a sound, and when he reached the end of one of his enforced marches he swung round in the same pleasing way that the sail of a boat swings in the wind. It was hard to admit that a sort of burglar in riding-breeches could interest one by the way he walked, but I had to admit after a time, that there was a queer distinction and grace about him. He made a further remark to the stars:

“‘Give me again all that was there.’ But what for, good Lord? To let women wipe their boots on and throw in the mud! Ah, they leave one nothing! They throw down every shrine one sets up.”

I began to feel almost as safe as when the lions were prowling around.

“This terrible Africa is full of brutes!” I said to myself. “If I once get out of it, will I ever come back again? No!”

The man suddenly left off tramping, and going to each of the fires fed them in turn from a large pile of wood which he had evidently collected on arrival. Then he came to his horse and putting his arm round its neck spoke to it in a voice curiously sweet, quite unlike that in which he had been reviling women; and the horse whinnied softly to him in return.

“Dear old Belle!” he said, “you’ve had a rough time, but there’s a rest coming—a good rest coming and after that boot-and-saddle! We’ll get away from them all once more; and maybe if we have any luck, we’ll get a rest once and for all—a long, long rest—under the wide and starry sky.”

I was ashamed to hear these intimate bitter things he was confiding to his horse with his arm round her neck and his face bent. But could I help it? Only I was no longer afraid. I felt that in spite of his fierce and violent words there was nothing to fear from him.

Walking back to his rug he threw himself down once more, this time on his back, clasping his hands under his head and closing his eyes. In a few moments he was sleeping as peacefully as a child.

It really seemed after awhile that I might venture to descend. Apparently there was no danger to be anticipated from any quarter. He had guarded against lions by making fires and now he himself was asleep. There was nothing to fear but still I was horribly afraid. As quietly and carefully as possible I unknotted myself and crawled out of the cart, for I was really too stiff and weary to do anything but crawl, and when at last I stood on the ground by the step, my legs would hardly support me. However, I eventually gained the courage and strength to steal to the nearest fire and stretch my numbed fingers to the blaze. It was so big that I was able to warm myself without stooping, a fact I was intensely grateful for: I felt that I should never want to sit or kneel again for the rest of my life.

The man slept peacefully on. I could not see him clearly for the firelight dazed my eyes, but I could hear his quiet and regular breathing. Later I crept closer and gave another glance to the face I was so curious to see. At the same moment a bright flicker of light passed right over his eyes and I saw that they were open and regarding me with a wide and steady stare. Without a sound he rose to his feet.

My hands dropped to my sides, and I drew myself up to my full height, prepared (though my heart was nearly jumping out of my body) to be very calm and dignified indeed to this woman-hater who could only be nice to horses. As for him, the wind was entirely out of his sails also: he simply stood there staring at me, dumb with amazement at finding one of the hated brood of women in his camp. I might have got a good deal of malicious satisfaction out of the situation if I had not been almost stunned into confusion and astonishment myself in the revelation that the man who stood staring at me was the dark, blue-eyed man with whom I had talked about Africa three years before at the Viceregal Lodge. I recognised in a moment his extraordinarily vivid eyes with the careless lids that covered so intent a glance. And there were the little bits of blue turquoise still stuck in his ears!

I can only account for not having recognised him earlier by the fact that I had not really seen his eyes. He was one of those men whom you might pass without a glance, thinking him ordinary, until you looked in his face or he spoke to you. Then you saw at once that he was not ordinary at all, that so far from being short he was seemingly at least about three heads taller than most men, also that his hair was perfectly nice, and what was better perfectly original. In his crakey, thrilly voice he was now assuring me that he had never supposed for an instant that there was any one in the post-cart.

“And a lady, good God!—I mean it is unbelievable; but where is your driver? Do you mean to say, Madam, that you have been here alone in that cart all the evening?”

Madam! That was funny, though I did not much care about being taken for a madam. But of course he could see nothing of my face through my thick veil.

“Yes,” I said. “The driver gave me my choice between being shut into the stable with the mules or staying out here in the cart alone. I preferred this.”

“The infernal scoundrel! The—” His mouth shut, he hastily swallowed something, doubtless more profanity. “The scoundrel!” he repeated.

“The river is full. He said we could not cross to-night.”

“That is true, but his business was to make fires here and guard you. This is one of the most dangerous places in Africa. I cannot think, Madam, how you came to be on such a journey alone and unprotected. Some one is gravely to blame.”

“No, indeed,” I faltered. “No one is to blame but myself. I insisted on taking this journey against all advice. If the lions had eaten me it would have been my own fault.”

I don’t know what was the matter with me, but suddenly the remembrance of all my terrors overwhelmed me and I began to cry. I never thought I could have been so utterly silly and ridiculous, but the cause was something that I had no control over, something quite outside myself; it may have been the reaction of suddenly feeling so safe after all my misery, or that his voice was the kind of voice that stirs one up to doing things one didn’t intend to do; really I don’t know. Only, I cried quite foolishly and brokenly for a few moments like a child, and he took hold of my hands and patted them and said ever so kindly:

“There, there—don’t cry, for Heaven’s sake don’t cry—it’s all right now—you’re