delay, another roar, closer at hand, considerably accelerating my steps. In a moment I was back in my old place on the floor; and he was swiftly untethering the horse from the back of the cart, to fasten it in front, more fully in the glare of the fires. Then he stepped into the driver’s place, and half-sitting, half-stooping, laid his rifle across the splash-board, right over the horse’s head. We waited.

“Don’t make a sound,” he said over his shoulder. There was no alarm in his voice, but rather a kind of gay elation, and my fear immediately died away. I began to watch and listen with interest for what was to happen next. There were no more roars, only an ominous stillness, that was broken presently by the restless moving and shuddering of the horse. The poor beast began to try to break loose and get away, but its master leaning forward, spoke to it in a soothing gentle voice, and the terrified creature was presently quiet, except for an occasional shudder that it could not control.

Silence again for a time that seemed hours, then at last the click of a broken twig that sounded to my straining ears like a pistol shot. There was just the faintest suspicion of a rustling of leaves. An instant later something in my companion’s intent gaze and attitude told me that the psychological moment had come. He could see something, and was taking aim. I glanced at the dim, shadowy mass of foliage towards which his rifle pointed, and for one moment saw nothing. Then something huge and pale and massive came bounding high in the air out of the shadows, and the horse cried out like a human being. The Martini-Henry cracked twice and a blinding flash of gunpowder filled the air. Later I heard my friend’s voice speaking to his leaping horse and as the smoke died away my dazed eyes saw lying stretched between the fires something that had not been there before. The only sounds to be heard were the creaking of the cart caused by the shudderings of the horse, and the chattering of my teeth. I don’t know which was the louder. But I know that I crouched beside the man’s knee and was grateful and glad for one of his strong brown hands on mine, and his crakey, thrilly voice saying close to my ear:

“There is no danger. Only we must be quiet. There’s probably another of them about. I should like to pot him too.”

Needless to say, I sat still with all my might. The great honey-coloured body fascinated my eyes, but there was something extraordinarily reassuring in the scent of mingled gunpowder and tobacco that hung about the grey flannel sleeve so close to me. We sat in silence for what must have been nearly an hour and nothing happened: no more roars, no sound anywhere but the far cry of the jackal, and the rush of the river. It was my companion who at last broke the spell, speaking in a low, absent voice, almost like a man in a reverie.

“So you have come to Africa after all, Miss Saurin!”

I could hardly believe my ears were not playing me false. It seemed the strangest thing of all the strange things that had come to pass that night that he should know my name and speak it thus. He had recognised me after all, then! In the same voice of gentle reverie he spoke again, staring not at me but straight before him.

”—And this is the way she receives you!”

“You know my name?” I faltered.

“Of course. Do you think I could ever forget your face?”

I felt my cheeks grow hot. I was not unused to hearing men say charming, flattering things, and I knew very well how to parry them. But there was something so unusual in the quiet serenity of this man’s words and the vibration of his beautiful voice that I could not lightly turn aside his strange answer. I am all woman, too, and could not refrain from feeling a little thrill of pleasure in what he said. It is surely something rather sweet to be remembered for three years by a man to whom one has spoken only once, for a few minutes, in a crowded ball-room.

“And that dance—I think you remember the dance we had together—and our talk of Africa. You said you would love to come out here, and I told you then you surely would. I think you must remember?”

There was something so appealing and yet compelling in his question that I felt obliged to answer him sincerely, though such worldly wisdom as I possessed strongly counselled me to do otherwise.

“Yes, I have always remembered,” I said, and found myself remembering other things, too, vividly: the way his words had moved me, the way my lids had fallen under his strong glance.

“And you are still Miss Saurin? Deirdre Saurin?”

It would be impossible to describe the beauty and gentleness of his voice as he so unexpectedly spoke my name. It sounded almost as if he were blessing me.

“You did not many Herriott after all? But you could not have, or he would be here. No man who married you would ever leave your side.”

That was ridiculous, of course. I felt it was ridiculous, but he said it so convincingly that I almost believed it. In fact, I was obliged to recognise that this man was very convincing indeed. You could not treat his remarks with the indifference they deserved, even if you wanted to. However, there was one thing I felt I ought to make clear to him, though it was rather embarrassing to say these things.

“I think as you know so much,” I stammered, “you ought to know a little more. I was never engaged to Lord Herriott.”

“But I was told by two different people that night, both relatives of his, that you were engaged; that the announcement was to be made immediately.”

“They had no right to say so,” I said firmly. “We were never engaged.”

“Will you tell me that he never asked you to marry him?”

“I cannot tell you more than I have,” I answered rather stiffly.

“And you think it insolence on my part to ask so much?” His voice had gone back to reverie and his eyes to the dying fires. “Do not think that, Miss Saurin. Insolence has no place near you in my mind and memory. It was no business of mine I suppose whether you refused Herriott, or why. In any case I should have left Ireland at once as I did. Only—I wish to God I had known in all these years.”

I had to realise at last that this man was making love to me, and that the fact aroused in my heart neither anger nor indignation. I felt not the slightest disposition to reprove him, but rather to go on sitting there for ever listening to his strange burning words and vibrating voice. It seemed to me suddenly that I was listening to an old song I had known all my life, but had never before heard set to music. My heart began to flutter like a wild bird in my breast and a trembling thrilled me unlike any trembling I had known through the past hours of darkness and fear. A faintness stole over my senses. I, too, had kept my gaze straight before me while we talked, but now, while I felt myself growing pale to the lips with some strange emotion, I turned my eyes his way and found him looking at me. Glance burnt glance. His blue, intent eyes searching in mine as if for something that was his. Mine reading in his—I know not what—something I had long known dimly but dared not recognise. In that moment I realised why I had come to Africa. I knew why I had refused Herriott. It was for the sake of seeing again this strange man with the voice that pulled at my heart-strings and the burning eyes that searched in mine as if for something that was his. And now, alone with him in this wild and desolate spot, where conventions and all the superficialities of