{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_22886/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_22886","id":"gutenberg_22886","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22886","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Short Stories","Children's Myths, Fairy Tales, etc.","South Africa","Tales -- Africa"],"text":"E-text prepared by Charles Klingman\n\n\n\nCINDERELLA IN THE SOUTH\n\n\nNew York Agents\nLongmans, Green & Co.\nFourth Avenue and 30th Street\n\n\nCINDERELLA IN THE SOUTH\n\nSouth African Tales\n\nby\n\nARTHUR SHEARLY CRIPPS\n\nAuthor of 'Faerylands Forlorn,'\n'Lyra Evangelistica,' Etc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOxford\nB. H. Blackwell, Broad Street\nMCMXVIII\n\n\n\nTo C. H. CRIPPS\n\nFRIEND AND KINSMAN.\n\nGrace me these veld spoils rude with name of thine!\nMine's been the luck not thine these long years now\nTo tread the veld. What other use had'st thou,\nHunter and Horseman, made of chances mine!\nNor horns nor heads have I to give to thee,\nYet spoils of sorts veld spoils I bring with me.\n\nA. S. C.\n\nEukeldoorn, Mashonaland.\n\nOctober 11th, 1917.\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n   PROLOGUE\n\n   THE THING THAT HATH BEEN\n\n   NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD CHAMPION\n\n   FUEL OF FIRE\n\n   'LA BELLE DAME'\n\n   THE SCENTED TOWN\n\n   THE PLACE OF PILGRIMAGE\n\n   THE LEPER WINDOWS\n\n   THE BURNT OFFERING\n\n   EIGHTY-EIGHT IN LAVENDER\n\n   DIVINATION\n\n   JULIAN\n\n   THE DOUBLE CABIN\n\n   INTELLIGENCE\n\n   A CREDIT BALANCE\n\n   MAN'S AIRY NOTIONS\n\n   PISGAH\n\n   A LION IN THE WAY\n\n   AS TREES WALKING\n\n   THE BLACK DEATH\n\n   AN OLD-WORLD SCRUPLE\n\n   FOR HIS COUNTRY'S GOOD\n\n   LE ROI EST MORT\n\n   THE RIDING OF THE RED HORSE\n\n   THREE AND AFRICA\n\n   OUR LADY OF THE LAKE\n\n   EPILOGUE\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPROLOGUE\n\n[AFRICA AND HER SISTERS.]\n\nSome fifteen years now I have been her guest,\nFor all this land's hers, tho' she does not reign.\nShe's but a ward, at what late age she'll gain\nHer freedom and her kingdom, it were best\nTo risk no surmise rash. E'en now she's drest\nSometimes in skins. Give her ground-nuts and grain,\nCattle and thatch'd hut, then she'll not complain,\nShe's happier-hearted than her Sisters blest.\n\nHer Sisters blest! Of them what shall I say?\nI like them better when they keep away,\nAnd toil in their own lands, not loll in hers.\nThey use her ill. She's not so old as they.\nShe drudges for them. But her youth confers\nA charm on her they've lost these many years.\n\n\n\n\nTHE THING THAT HATH BEEN\n\nWhat's the good of him?' said the bar-tender to me. 'If he could\ntell us how the Ruins came he might be worth a forty-pound cheque\nevery month, or at least a twenty one. But he can't.'\n\nWe were discussing the new appointment of a Government Curator at\nthe Mabgwe Ruins. I approved it, the bar-tender did not. I\npleaded that he was a bit exacting, that the Curator had a very\ncold scent to puzzle out, and that he had tried plodding about\nfrom ruins to ruins, moling and sapping and mining, not to speak\nof writing to the Rhodesian Press. Afterwards I shouldered my\nknapsack, sought counsel with my carriers as to ways and means,\ncrossed the river and took the Ruins road. A motor-car hurtled\npast me when I was within two miles. Its driver had been pointed\nout to me as a Jo'burg magnate; his passengers I did not know,\nbut I was soon to know them. I was the first to reach the Ruins\nafter all; for their arrival time being one o'clock, and their\nhalting-place a hotel. Civilization demanded that they should\nlunch there.\n\nI drank from the fair water by the temple's western approach, and\nsat down to smoke under a tree in the precincts. The big cone of\nthe main tower was just in sight. I had seen the walls before,\nand was in no analytical mood; synthesis was enough for me. I\ntook in with my delighted eyes a roofless dome worthy to be a\ntemple of some sort, even if it were not, a blue roof that\nbettered mere human aspiration, debris testifying to earthly\nincompleteness, a broken column with its memento mori all these\nwere simmering in my vision and my judgment. I half dozed until\nthe voices of the lunchers began to interest me. They were doing\nthe rounds rather hastily, lunch having cut into their time, so\nshort at its very best.\n\nA Church dignitary from our own territory was with them. He\nintroduced himself to me, and he also introduced an engineer. He\nwas a patriotic Rhodesian, that dignitary, and denounced McIver,\nwho had dared to assign to the Ruins a native origin.\n\n'Such nonsense!' he said. 'Believe me, my dear sir, I know the\nnatives, and I know the natives never built these walls. Poor\ncreatures; they want firm handling, don't they? They're always in\nwant of bossing-up. But as for this display of art, they haven't\nit in them, and they never had.'\n\nThe engineer did not seem interested in what was said, or in what\nI answered. He was a man of few words. He went off to the eastern\nwall, whither we followed him. I found him poking about there\nwith a stick. The Jo'burg charioteer was soon fussing along,\nhurrying on tea-time. 'He didn't want to get a dose of fever this\ntrip,' he said. He had heard about our unhealthy season up north,\nand the month was now April. He wanted to be back by sunset. So\nit came to pass that his party went off to tea with but side-glances\nat the hill-fastness.\n\n'I'm neither a baboon nor a nigger,' said their host, when I\nproposed that he should go up. After all, it was good-natured of\nhim to motor the dignitary out, I considered. He himself affected\nno sort of interest in antiquities, and the dignified antiquarian\nunder his care was so wearily keen. I went to tea with them,\npostponing my reveries to camping time and night. It was not\nuntil we were eating guavas at the end of our meal that the\nengineer came in. Then the Jo'burger told him to hurry up, and\nwent off to cherish his car. As to the engineer, his scanty\ntea-time was not left in peace. The dignitary lectured him on the\ntrue and patriotic theory of Ophir, on Astarte's worship, and\nSolomon's gold. He answered very little, but he hinted that there\nwere difficulties. His lecturer glowed, and appealed to the\nCurator, who had just come in, bent and shaken with fever.\nUnhappily, yet happily for me, he trod on one of the curator's\narchaeological corns and involved himself in an apology. Before\nhe was out of the wood I had asked the engineer a question or\ntwo.\n\n'No time to talk now,' he said, 'too much cackle. Come and see me\nin the town. Or, if I miss you there, I may see you on the road,\nmayn't I? I'm due out your way in three days.'\n\nSoon after he was petroled away. I went to camp in a clearing, to\nsup, to smoke, to read my guidebook. At last the night aged, and\nthe moon rose. My carriers slept. I looked up in the night's\nstarred face and beheld 'Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance'\nthere. But would I ever live to trace them by 'the magic hand of\nchance,' as Keats called the grace of God? I began again to\nmumble the lines of my guide-book, and found them rather bare and\ndry. I looked up at the vast tapering walls. Why was there no\nscript there? After all, that trenchant argument outweighed a\nmany arguments; it scaled up like Brennus's sword, and made for a\nclear issue. I looked at the sleeping carriers. Did they hold the\nsecret, not in tradition, not in history, but in the fleshy\ntables of the heart and brain and aspiration of their race? I\nwent to sleep and dreamed of men building, building, building.\nThey were building stone kraals for their sacred trusts of kine,\nchipping and carving away at their totem hawks and their\ncrocodiles, breaking limbs and necks over a sky-high tower, with\nstones for their bricks, and no slime to make them mortar. How\nthey sang over their work, and how it grew! Talk of Troy's walls;\nif only Kaffirs would start building a Troy, or a Palace of Art,\nor a Spiritual City, how the work would go forward to the music\nof them! I could hear all the parts in their melodies the\nchecking and countering and refrains and responses of them. But,\nbefore I woke, the parts were merged in full chorus. With that\nunison music in my ears I rose and knelt and rose again hastily.\nThen I ran round to the eastern wall under the zig-zag patterns.\nI came only just in time to see the sunrise by so doing.\n\nIt was three days after that I caught up Spenser, the Government\nengineer.\n\n'I have seen buildings in North Africa,' he told me. 'They\nweren't much like those at Mabgwe. In the north, if they built\nwith stones they built with great slabs. But those granite flakes\nat Mabgwe were easy for a primitive people to manage a very\nprimitive people. Very primitive, or why did they build on sand\nwhen, six inches deeper, they might have founded on bed-rock?\nThey didn't understand arches, seemingly. They weren't very\ncareful about bond in building, were they? Nor were they very\ncareful to break joint outside, much less inside, so far as I can\njudge. And the script; where is it? And the graves; where are\nthey? If they were Semites, why didn't they write? If they were\nSemites, why didn't they bury? . . . But it isn't as easy as it\nlooks, the riddle. There are one or two jagged ends that conical\ntower, for instance.'\n\nWe camped that evening near a Mission. I admired the oblong\niron-roofed church there. It wasn't my style of art, but it seemed\nto me fair of its kind.\n\n'Quite good,' growled my expert friend, and he said no more at\nthe time. He spoke more freely over a last pipe.\n\n'I'm sorry,' he said, 'not to take more interest in this sort of\nthing. Only, after all, it's African-built, and Europeans could\ndo the thing a bit better, couldn't they? This sort of thing\nseems rather a wrong line of advance. If I hadn't seen Mabgwe so\nlately I mightn't mind so much.'\n\nThey showed us to a hut, a very clean one. 'That's better; that's\never so much better,' he said. On the wall was a rude frieze in\nBushman painting style, but white, not red. I enlightened him as\nto tsenza work, as to how you could use the cool watery roots\nlike crayons.\n\n'Why, that's surely Jezebel looking out of that grain-bin,' he\nhazarded. 'But what are those?'\n\n'The dogs to eat her,' I answered.\n\nThey were horrid little whelps with human heads. I told him about\ncertain night-fears common among natives. 'It was a solid\nChristian who dared to paint these,' I surmised.\n\n'If you could only get Africans to believe what Christians\nbelieved in the thirteenth century you might see signs and\nwonders yet,' he said.\n\nHe has not been our way again since April, but I met him at the\nPro-Cathedral Pageant in January. It was organized by a Pageant\nMaster, our mutual friend the dignitary. Therein Asia, King\nSolomon and Sheba's Queen, were represented. Africa was relegated\nto her proper Cinderella and Plantation Chorus part. 'Poor\ncreatures!' Spenser said, with a grimace, and winked at me.\n\n'Come, and I will show you a thing,' he said to me afterwards; 'a\nthing I chanced on in the Christmas holidays. It's ten miles out.\nI want to inspan at six sharp to-morrow.'\n\nI was guilty of three omissions next day. I cut a clerical\nmeeting; I flouted the True Romance in the shape of the Pageant's\nsecond performance; I also missed the bazaar of St. Uriel's\nNative Church that was held on the Pageant ground. St. Uriel's\nstructure had been put out to European contract; it was a very\ndidactic building, so the Pageant-Master told us. We passed it on\nour way out to the kopje country.\n\n'About as sensuously lovely as a Pills' advertisement,' was\nSpenser's comment. 'A good pity and terror purge.'\n\nI sighed indulgently.\n\n'It's very popular, I've heard, among the town boys. It's so very\nEuropean to native eyes, so extra corrugated and angular.'\n\nWe came up at last to that which we sought a huge ellipse and\ndome of stones and earth, rising and broadening under our very\neyes. It was on a farm among the granite hills, many miles from\nRosebery. 'It's only a glorified stone cattle-byre, and an\nintensified stone Kaffir hut,' Spenser commented. 'It's not even\nbuilt the old Mabgwe way. These are only blocks of granite; a few\nof them broken, but not one of them dressed. And there's lots of\nmud to eke them out.'\n\n'Yet there's hope in the thing. It's not an artistic dead-end\nlike Saint Uriel's,' I pleaded.\n\nOne or two Europeans, very unskilled ones I could see, had\nplanned this bit of work, and taken part in it. They had made\nthemselves at charges for it, though African gifts had not been\nwanting. They had, so to speak, coaxed their African pack on to\ntry an old scent. Now the moving European spirit was gone home\nfor months to England. Before he went the former rains had ruined\nsome of the work. He had been too ambitious, too scornful of\ndelay. Forewarned by Africans, he had pressed to a midsummer\ndisaster. Now he had left Africans in charge. He had trusted them\nto go on. One Christian, in particular, he had trusted his fellow\nand his master in building. The boy had built at a colonial's\ncattle-kraal once. His skill had multiplied as he built on at the\ngreat church, and now he was a master craftsman. Doggedly he was\nbuilding up again the rain-ruined bastions. The work was going\nwith a swing, if a slow one. The scent was no longer a cold one.\nThe pack were belling and chiming over it, and they were running\nwith their huntsman out of sight.\n\n'I don't understand this bit of work properly,' Spenser said.\n'What's made the dry bones live?'\n\n'Inspiration,' I said reverently. 'Looked at in one way it's Art.\nLooked at all ways it's Religion. It's the same sort of thing as\nwent on, I suppose, when the faith of sun and moon was a power.\nNow the faith of Christ is gathering force in the land. The land\nisn't an Italy, and our twentieth century isn't that old\nthirteenth century; yet look out for the signs and wonders you\nspoke of. Likely enough they're to be expected.'\n\nWe went to the Pageant Master's lecture on the Mabgwe Ruins that\nnight, when we had driven back to Rosebery. It was more\ninteresting to me as a subjective study than an objective display\nof learning.\n\n'Poor creatures!' the lecturer said of the natives. 'Don't put\nthem in a false light. Whatever claims they may have to equable\ntreatment, they have no claim to be considered romantic. The\nancient romance of this country is the romance of a nobler race\nthe romance of the Tyrian trader, Tyrian or Sabaean. Allow me but\na trifling emendation, and Matthew Arnold's lines will serve to\nindicate that romance.' Substituting 'Zambesians' for 'Iberians,'\nhe gave us the last lines of 'The Scholar Gipsy.' 'In that era of\nTyre's trade,' he concluded, 'I place the golden age of our\ncountry a golden age which under our own Imperial rule begins\nanew.'\n\n'H'm,' said Spenser. 'That live Mashona building-boy's worth many\ndead Phoenicians to me, at any rate. As to defining romance, we'd\nbetter agree to differ. 'Do well unto thyself, and all men will\nspeak well of thee,' he went on, with a tang of bitterness.\n'Jew-boys and Arabs mopped up trade when they were living, now they\njump other men's kudos, being dead.'\n\n'Never mind.' I said. 'Art for Art's sake, aspiration for\naspiration's, faith for faith's! And some there be which have no\nmemorial; who are perished as though they had never been; and are\nbecome as though they had never been born; and their children\nafter them.'\n\n'Never mind,' it was his turn to say. 'That granite kopje church\nis rising, and Magbwe Ruins stand the quick and the dead. These\nshall both come up for judgment and get justice. Yes, if they\nhave to wait for it till the Supreme Court of Alt holds session.'\n\n\n\nNEW LIGHT ON AN OLD CHAMPION\n\n\n\nWe were going on an expedition long before the morning light\ncame. Our ship was an armed steamer a converted cargo boat. We\nhad reinforced our naval guns' crews and our Indian ship's guard\nby taking officers and native soldiers (askaris) aboard at a\ncertain bay. We had reinforced our artillery by borrowing a Maxim\nfrom the shore. I had a guest on board that night, a cheerful\npadre. How he seemed to relish his craft, and how able I esteemed\nhim. I was very raw at the work, and he helped me to understand\nwhat my defects were both in nature and grace. He had the\nsort of smile, I thought the real, right sort to warm a naval\nparishioner's heart. He was very keen on the new sort of thrills\nand experiences that he had sought for himself by coming aboard.\n\nWe reclined on camp beds high up on the bridge-deck, but we did\nnot drop asleep when the electric light failed and faded. We\nasked each other's ages, and discussed parts of England as we had\nknown them in more peaceful days; then we assured one another\nthat we wanted to rise early. We were to steam off on our sudden\nraid in the dark. Coffee had been ordered about 5:30; action\nmight be expected to begin not much later than 6 a.m. We speculated\nas to whether it were true that our ship would have to face an\nold field gun's fire on the morrow, as well as a Maxim's. I was\neloquent as I told how our four-inch gun might be expected to\nshake the ship. After that, in the dimness we talked shop; we had\nneither of us possibly had many easy openings for that ravishing\nemployment lately.\n\nWas it right to pray for our own side's success? I was steadfast\nin my scruples as to praying thus, my new-found friend was\ninclined to be a little scornful of them. 'Is there a God of the\nGermans fighting the English tribal God?' I asked rather\nirreverently, and my friend showed that he was shocked. I\napologized. 'Let's leave the Supreme Power out,' I said. 'Let's\nconsider the action of the saints in this war. Are they supposed\nto be scrapping like the gods in Homer English Saint George\nagainst German Saint Michael and so on?' But my friend did not\nseem very keen about either Homer or hagiology. He explained that\nhe was a C.M.S. man, and not a medievalist. The discussion\nlanguished, ere he murmured 'Good night.'\n\nI slept rather fitfully. I was awake long before the ship moved\naway on her fierce errand. At last, when she had been steaming\nsome while, I stole down in the dark to the bathroom. When I came\nout of it the grey twilight was beginning. I crept aft and looked\nover the bulwark, wondering how far we were away now. The shore\nMaxim was in place there with plenty of sand bags about it, but\nthe officer in charge of it was still stretched abed. His friend\nthe Intelligence Officer, who had messed with us last night, was\nsnoring on another bed beside him. I stood looking at a dusky\nisland in the moonlight, and began praying a favorite prayer of\nmine for those times, asking God to let Saint Michael cover our\nheads in the day of battle. I muttered the prayer very low, but\nit appeared that somebody heard. A slim figure, seemingly in\nkhaki, that I had not noticed, rose up from a seal; on the sand\nbags.\n\n'Are you praying something about battles?' it asked. I started,\nand assented clumsily.\n\n'How does one pray about battles nowadays?' the investigator\nproceeded. He spoke in the friendliest way, and managed to set\neven me at ease. So I told him what I had prayed for.\n\n'It sounds a fair sort of prayer; better than some I've heard,'\nhe allowed, as he sat down again. 'Some people seem to forget the\nlast lot of the Books in the Bible when they pray nowadays.' I\nheartily agreed.\n\n'I don't believe for one,' he went on, 'that Saint Michael is\npassionately interested in wiping out either English or askaris\nor Germans. It's surely better to pray about him like you prayed.\nI should think the negative work appeals to him more than the\npositive, the salvage more than the blotting.'\n\nHis voice was clear, and evidently carried. The Maxim's warden\ngrumbled, and began to sit up in bed.\n\n'Possibly,' this disturber of slumber went on quite\nunconcernedly, 'Saint Michael has a clearer notion as to the real\nenemy than some clients who invoke him.'\n\nThen the officer in pyjamas accosted me, and the thread of the\nother's talk was lost. When I moved off to dress he had already\nleft his perch among the sand bags. I climbed the ladder, and had\nmy coffee. Soon after came the scurry to stations. We were coming\ninto the bay in the glory of that morning under hangings of amber\nand rose and feathery grey. The four-inch gun's crew were in\ntheir places. I stood trying to read the Prayer before Action in\nits very small print. I murmured what I was doing to my cheery\ncolleague, so much more enthusiastic than I was about what seemed\nto be coming. Then someone came up and spoke to me. It was surely\nmy friend from the sand bags. I could see him properly now. He\nwas surely an officer. He stood up slender and shapely in his\nkhaki, but he was not wearing a single star or a regimental badge\nof any kind. Had he forgotten these in the hurry of this eager\nmorning? With but a few words, he passed on towards the guns'\ncrews. Soon our four-inch gun was shaking the ship horribly. We\nwere shelling a trench that ran up a hillside, they said. I sat\nunder cover of the bulwark near some kneeling riflemen, far from\nenjoying myself. Yet no gun roared back in answer to our own. It\nseemed to be one-sided enough, this operation of war.\n\n'It's a fearful weapon,' remarked my colleague rather\ncomplacently, as he paced towards the gun platform. One prayed\nfor those who were naked to its fearsomeness up on the hill\nthere, and prayed about Saint Michael's intervention to Saint\nMichael's Commander-in-Chief. The long-drawn moments slurred by\nus. A bell rang as the ship wound her way in slowly. The mournful\ncry of him who took the soundings came again and again. Then we\nstopped dead anew, and our gun's mouth roared and flamed.\n\n'Such a crowd of askaris; the hill's black with them!' So the\nsignalman cried to the doctor, as he sped by on a message. I was\ninterested in watching the gun-layer as he readjusted the dragon\nmouth. But what had my friend of the sand-bags to do with the\nmatter? He moved among the gun's crew, and none said him nay; his\nhands were on the gun after the accredited gunlayer's. We shelled\nanother position, and then another. Afterwards came a lull, and\nsome of us hurried up to breakfast.\n\nThere was much talk there of the possible or probable slaughter\nwe had effected. Doubtless the store ship that had followed us\nand hung behind us had served us well. Those on shore Had surely\nbeen more disposed to hold to their positions, fearing that she\ncarried troops, and meant to land them. Now she was steaming\nslowly away. How many did our bag amount to? The Intelligence\nOfficer was sanguine, so was my colleague, but the gunnery\nofficer was rather pessimistic. 'Two or three of those rounds\nwent just wrong,' he grunted. 'We've struck a bad day.' After\nthat the porridge and the bacon and the eggs were done with; we\nwere soon back at our stations. Once more our gun bombarded. Once\nmore no answer came. Now occurred the cruise of the motor boat;\nthe best adventure of the day so far, as it seemed to me.\n\nThe boat was lowered, and the shore Maxim mounted in it. Sand\nbags were piled up in plenty. A Naval Reserve officer, fair-haired\nand young faced, sprang in to join the gun's officer. There was\nalso a British bluejacket ready to go, and there were African\nsoldiers and sailors, as well as the two engine-men, English and\nGoanese. They were to beat up the river, and hunt down canoes,\nshould any appear.\n\nMy heart thrilled as I uttered God-speed to the Maxim warden. I\nthink he was unmarried, but his fellow officer was both husband\nand father; they might have a fiery time in front. Last my\ngraceful friend, with no stars or badges on his khaki, slipped\ninto the boat. He seemed to come and go as he liked, and none\nrefused his services. The boat hummed away from us, past some\nrocks, and round a headland into the unseen. Then our ship\ntraveled on slowly, before she stopped and fired again. She shot\naway many rounds that time. I was sick and weary of the firing as\nI sat on the deck by the doctor's cabin. My colleague was much\nmore alert and cheerful. He had secured a shell-case by the naval\ncommander's bounty. 'They make such splendid trophies,' he told\nme. But I did not covet one much. I thought of how such war\ntrophies were in demand for Christmas decoration vases in a\nchurch by the lakeside. I also thought of the quite possible\nhorror and havoc of shattered askaris' bodies that those splendid\ntrophies might be supposed to have wrought. How one thought\nbesides of the adventurers in that whizzing motor-boat during\nthat next half-hour. But as it turned out, according to their\ndisappointed report, not a shot was fired at them.\n\n'We let fly with the Maxim at some natives and one European on\nshore,' the gun-worker shouted, as they drew up at the ship's\nside. 'We saw some canoes, three of them. Askaris were in them,\nand urging the paddlers on. Then, of all times, the Maxim took it\ninto its head to jam badly. So we didn't get them.' I happened to\ncatch my friend in khaki's eye as the other lamented. He looked\nquite cheerful about things, while the other went on, 'We'd have\nsunk the lot, if it hadn't jammed just then.'\n\nThe thought flickered into my mind as to whether anybody was\nresponsible for that singular coincidence. I looked in my\nfriend's face with some sort of an uneasy question. But he only\nsmiled. His face was strangely prepossessing, so entirely\nfearless, yet not the least truculent. His brown eyes and boy's\nlips answered my question with the most engaging of smiles. Those\nbrown eyes assorted piquantly with his very fair hair. He had\npushed his white helmet far back on his yellow head. Half an hour\nlater we were in our action stations once more. Our riflemen were\nfiring at individual askaris (were they all askaris, and not\nunhappy villagers?) who could be descried upon the shore. The\nsignalman, passing by again, snatched a rifle and fired just\nbeside me. One of the Maxims meanwhile was working away grimly,\nthe officer's face was set firm as he steadied his coughing\nmachine. Then it was that I saw my unattached friend step towards\nhim, and take up his stand behind him. Ping! A bullet came just\nover the gun-director's head. 'That was a near shave,' the\nwarrant officer told me afterwards. 'Someone aimed too high, or\nhe'd have got him that worked the gun.'\n\nYet it was a mystery to me why the bullet did not get that\nhandsome head behind and above him, the head that I reflected had\ndoubtless helped to draw the fire so high. He who had exposed\nhimself came to me untouched. 'It looked near,' he allowed to me\nsmiling. He stayed by us for the rest of that fell morning. He\nsmiled, and bade me cheer up, when the naval commander went by;\nhad he not twitted me for sitting safe under the bulwark and\nwincing when the four-inch gun roared? He smiled also a little\nironically when my colleague came up, still fondling his trophy\nand dilating on its splendor. Then he smiled again and again as\nhe moved behind him to and fro on the deck, watching him in the\npitiless firing. He smiled moreover when he moved up to the gun;\nhe was revising the gunlayer's work now and then, so far as I\ncould make out his movements. He smiled afterwards when the\nIntelligence Officer made such sanguine estimates of the\nslaughter we had dealt out to forts and trenches. They were\ntalking together, he and his comrade of the Maxim gun, discussing\nwhether the bag was really a big one, the former as glib with the\npros as the latter was with the cons. The tall listener smiled\nrather wistfully as he heard them. After the last round from the\nsix-pounder had been fired, before we went to lunch, he came up\nand said farewell to me. 'But I shall see you again on board,\nshan't I?' I asked. 'We shan't put you off at the Bay till nearly\nsunset, shall we?' 'I may be getting off long before then,' he\nsaid, but he did not explain how. My prayer book had fallen on\nthe deck, and he picked it up and gave it to me. 'Mind you keep\nto your own line,' he said. 'I like that prayer in your prayer\nbook about Saint Michael. Doubtless he's covered not a few\npeople's heads in this day of battle, not all of them on the one\nside. It's likely enough he has unearthly notions about war, as\nhe's an unearthly being. Perhaps the dragon he makes war on, war\nto the death, is neither England nor Germany, but just the\nscrapping between them.'\n\n'What do you mean?' I asked, rather puzzled. Yet he only smiled,\nhe was not very explicit.\n\n'Oh, by the way,' he said. 'They tell me you've promised to build\na mission church to Saint Michael if you get back to the south\nsafe and sound.' I wondered afterwards who they were that had\ntold him.\n\n'Yes, I said, 'and if I don't, the building of it's endowed in my\nwill.'\n\n'Why not take the shell-cases,' he said, 'if they offer you some?\nYou needn't use them in your church as altar-vases. They'd\nmake a splendid trophy under Saint Michael's feet, a gleaming,\nsleek-barreled serpent of slaughter, just the sort of dragon for\nhim to tread, and delight in treading. Good-bye.'\n\nHe was gone amongst the sailors, just as the steward called me up\nto the cold soup. I saw no more of him on the voyage, nor have I\nseen him since that September day. The one or two I asked about\nhim seemed not to know whom I meant. I have often wondered who he\nwas since then, and have framed a theory. Perhaps you can guess\nwhat it is without my needing to write it down.\n\n\n\nFUEL OF FIRE\n\n\n\nI was lucky to get a lift. We had risen before the moon took to\nher bed, and the sun had left his. We were driving through green\nwoodlands when the light grew clear around us. A little while ago\ntheir graceful trees had been ruddy or bronze doubtless. Now it\nwas the turn of the hill-trees on the great kopje that we passed\nwithin a mile, to grow bronzed and to redden. For the month of\nNovember had only just come in. We outspanned in a valley where\nthe new green of the grass had come already. No doubt a month ago\nit had looked very black and fire-scathed. Now the showers had\nbrought kind healing and amendment. We made our morning Memorial\ntogether (being all of us Christians bound on some sort of a\nChristian pilgrimage), and after that we breakfasted and smoked\nat ease while the mules grazed close by, and the driver boiled\nhis pot, and fed it with meal, and stirred and ladled out, and\nate in the fullness of time. My heart was very thankful. How much\nbetter and kindlier one's lot seemed now fallen as it was once\nagain in this fair ground of a country at peace in Wartime. This\ncountryside pleased me ever so much better than British East or\nGerman East this Mashonaland. There to north I remembered without\nenthusiasm the tropical passions of the elements, I remembered\nrather miserably some of the things that a state of war had\nmeant.\n\nAfter breakfast, there was no hurry about our inspanning. But\nwhen we had once got off we were soon up level with the farmhouse\non the hill's shoulder. We halted for friendship's sake, and\nwaited for the cups of coffee that we were assured would be soon\nready. Our host was Dutch-looking, but seemed British; I thought\nrather narrowly British in his sympathies. He discussed the War\nkeenly and thoughtfully with my companion. He had two brothers in\nGerman East, I knew, and he was soon asking me about them. But\nour paths up that way had not converged. I could only tell him by\nhearsay about the main advance, wherein they had been sharing,\nand I had not. As I told, a dark handsome, gentle-voiced woman\nbrought our coffee out. Soon a shy little girl put her head round\nthe corner of the stoep, and withdrew' it again. I jumped down to\ngreet her. Then she agreed to come and shake hands with us both.\nHer father colored up, and smiled as he told me of a great\nscheme. A lady in town had offered to board this child. So kind,\nwasn't it? She was of sturdy English make (her father's father\nwas an Essex man. I had been told). Her hair and eyes were very\ndark; she looked ever so capable.\n\n'Yes, very kind,' I murmured, but I was reflecting that the\nlady's kindness might not be so very ill-rewarded. The child\nmight prove useful and cost little. She might give the sort of\nhelp that is apt to be useful and costly in a country like ours.\n'Yes,' said the father smiling, 'and she may get to the day\nschool that way, the lady says. We couldn't have nearly afforded\nto send her into town otherwise. But now she's got her chance of\na regular school.' 'Oh, really,' said my friend. His kind ugly\nface looked none too pleasant as he said it, I remember noticing\nthat.\n\nThen he went to his mules to 'buckle' up a strap somewhere. I was\nsurprised to hear him cursing something under his breath. It was\nnot his manner, I thought, to curse straps or mules. We said\ngood-bye a very cordial one and then drove down towards the main\nroad. It winds through a vlei towards the town. We had got almost\nto the big water-course so banked up in thirsty sand, when he\ntold me what he was cursing. He repeated his words deliberately:\n'Damn it, damn it to hell,' he said. I protested faintly till he\nmade it clear to me what he was damning, then I recklessly\nendorsed his damnation. For he was not cursing Heaven or\nhumanity; he was cursing that blessed Anglo-Dutch, or rather\nDutch-English, institution of South Africa, the color-bar. He had\nbeen told by one of the managers that should the father apply for\nadmission to school on behalf of the child we had seen, he would\nbe certainly refused. The father was really much too poor to send\nher away, he told me.\n\n'They're ever so honest and hard-worked. They've put up a great\nfight on mealie meal against bad seasons. They've pinched hard\nfor the child's poor little outfit. He's got into debt for it.\nHe's a Britisher, and has got two brothers fighting. Very\ndubious, dark children have been admitted already, as presumably\nDutch. Dutch and colonials rule the roost here. And to leave\nChristianity alone, where does British Imperialism come in? It's\nrisking spoiling a life, and the life of such a decent kid.'\n\nThereat he certainly condemned guiltily, as he should not have\ncondemned, Dutchmen and colonials, their churches, their social\norder, and their sanctimony. 'Thank God I was at plebeian\nOxford,' he said, 'and was free to mix with colored men. This is\nfar more select, this dorp academy, with its elect Principal and\nits supermen-managers.' We nearly had a row about his language.\n\nWe came over a rolling down towards the commonage. 'They've kept\nfree from fires here,' I said. 'Yes,' he said, 'but I'm doubtful\nif their vigilance pays, if their game's worth the candle. I mean\nif such absence of illumination is worth all their watching\nabout.' 'It saves waste of life.' I said, 'animal and vegetable,\nif you can only keep the fires away.' I appealed to the wisdom of\nour laws as well as to the argument of mercy which I appealed to\nme. 'And you get that sort of thing.' he said, pointing to the\nthick brown tufts of unappetizing feed. 'That's been going more\nthan a year, hasn't it? 'Oh for a wind and a fire,' say I.\n\nWe passed over the commonage, which showed very black with recent\nfires. 'It looks rather knocked out,' I said. 'Yet not without\nhope,' he answered. We were driving back about the same time next\nfore-noon. A great fire was rushing wind-driven over that rolling\nupland. 'At last,' he said. I sighed. A mile further on we came\ninto the smiling green vlei. 'This was black a while back,' he\nsaid. 'Doesn't the fire help a bit after all? Who wants that\nmoldy stuffy old feed, isn't it parabolic of that fusty Dutch-Anglo\ndorp and its prejudices? What are they meant for, and it?\n'Fuel of fire,' say I.' I smiled indulgently. Since we had got\ninto town things had happened. We had had our memorial services\nfor the Dead that last night, and this same morning. It was the\nweek of All Hallows and All Souls, a time that often tempts me to\nhomesickness. One is apt to think of hazy, yellow-leaved, dreamy\ntimes in old England just about then not to speak of old familiar\nfaces. That night of the first Service was very starry, and the\nmorning of the second Service was brilliantly clear, the rain\nseemed to be very far away for the time being. People had come at\nnight rather well. Not to speak of one of the school managers\nhaving died quite recently, news of one of our police's death out\nscouting had leaked through from German East. I preached Paradise\nto that attentive congregation in the iron-roofed church that\nnatives had been so discouraged from attending. I was glad one\nstraggled into the back seats I had battled for, just to\ndemonstrate one's principle of barring out the color-bar. It was\nall very soul-soothing, thought I, that Memorial Evensong, the\nstars outside, and the golden evening brightening in the west of\nthe hymn, and the lesson about white robes and palms, presumably\nof victory or harvest-homing. My friend waited for me outside\nunder the lamp. 'Very fine,' he said in his grimmest way, 'the\nAnglican view of hopeful souls turned promiscuously into a sort\nof orchard and rose-garden with plenty of light to gild them, and\nrest to wrap them.' I smiled. 'True enough in its way,' I said.\n'There's another side doubtless, yet the preaching of that\ndoesn't appeal to me particularly. I don't want to work on\npeople's apprehensions. But don't let me stand in your light.\nYou're a lay reader with a bishop's license. You can preach and\nwelcome to-morrow morning.' 'Trust me not to refuse,' he said. 'I\ndon't want to play up to apprehensions exactly. I want to state\nwhat seem to me to be relentless laws of cause and effect, and to\nshow the only way with any sort of hope in Christ that I happen\nby faith to see.' So he had preached that morning. He preached\nquite simply on the trying of every man's work, on the burning of\nflimsy work, on the saving of the workman, yet so as by fire.\nThere was a small but select gathering in the Church of Saint\nTertullian; two of the school managers even were there. Surely I\nhad baited the trap, I thought guiltily as I looked upon them,\nby my over-amiabilities of the night before.\n\nYet that side was true enough, the side I had preached. And was\nnot this side also true in its way? The preacher seemed at first\nto be referring to my own obsession with the words 'resist not\nevil,' my following of Tolstoy in my own evangel. He was warm in\nhis commendation. 'And yet,' he said, 'let us remember a just\nGod's resistance to evil. He resists and judges righteously,\nwhere we may neither resist nor judge. If we agree not to resist\nevil violently for Jesus' sake, yet ought we not to warn people\nof their God's unrelenting resistance? While we would not obscure\nthe fear of our just God by the fear of us unjust men, let us\nremember our just God!' He spoke of judgment and of purgation, of\nwhat seemed to be indicated hereafter by the stupidity and\ncruelty of people's prejudices in South Africa. He painted quite\nluridly the purgation he anticipated as likely for such as would\ndare to wreck a child's education, and possibly her life for a\ncolor-scruple. He glowed and kindled. There was no mistaking his\ndrift. He painted the fires of purgation. He painted, too, their\npresumable fuel, much as I believe old preachers limned the\nflames of hell and their denizens. 'And it may lengthen out into\nhell! Who knows?' he kept interjecting. 'Who knows but that that\nprejudiced spirit you play with may be a damned spirit after all,\nfuel for the fire that is not quenched, food for the worm that\ndoes not die?'\n\nT could not have preached happily on his lines, but for all that\nI acknowledged that the thing might well be of God this bizarre\nsurprise at his preaching that was glassed in at least two of his\nlisteners' eyes. Did that sermon do any good? Let me anticipate!\nThe child came into town as a half-time servant. Somebody's\nletter got handed up to the Administrator, and he made a request\nto the managers. The child was clearly European by predominance\nof race. They spent five hours of their precious time in\ndiscussion. The officials wanted to oblige the Administrator, and\nthey had their way at last. But whether the child once admitted\nwill have much of a time, I am inclined to doubt, should she pass\ninto the Paradise of so select an academy. I heard an ominous\nstory of the Dutch minister last week, how he had threatened a\nhiding to any child of his that spoke to this forlorn little\ngirl, who seems hard up for playmates. I heard yesterday that one\nof my Church magnates had asked that the child should not come up\nto play with his own. Yet the Fire of God has been preached, and\nI am willing to allow that the thing may have wanted doing rather\nbadly in my amiable parish. Doesn't any real true Christian Peace\nDoctrine mean spiritual fire and sword? Doesn't it mean burning\nand fuel of fire as set against the confused noise and garments\nrolled in blood of earthly campaigns? Doesn't any real true\nChristian Imperialism mean the sword of the Spirit and the fire\nof the Gospel against South African Racialism? Perfect love\ncasteth out fear, but what has Racialism to do with such a\nperfect love as will banish the fear of God?\n\nAfter all, can any reasonable and lively Christian Faith avail to\nfind any evangelically reasonable destination short of hell for\nSouth African Racialists dying in their Racialism save such place\nof purgation as my friend indicated? Yes, of course, God's\nprerogative of mercy in Jesus is limitless, but are these\nRacialists so merciful to little colored children that they\nshould obtain mercy without judgment from Jesus' judgment?\n\nAnd if the purgative fire seem so inevitable, why not warn its\nprospective fuel?\n\nGranted the Love of Jesus (Who was certainly what South Africans\nwould call a Jew Boy, Who was possibly so dark that any dorp\nschool would have hummed over His admission, Who enrolled Himself\nin that House of David one of Whose ancestresses was the Hamitic\nRahab apparently, Who took Ham's curse as well as Japheth's);\ngranted that that Love is the one and only supreme motive for\nChristian Reform, yet for all that, facts are facts, and it may\nbe kind to tell people into what fires the fires of Racialism\nthreaten to merge their selves. On the whole, I am glad that our\nlay reader preached on that bright morning that over-gloomed\nsermon, preaching from my own soothing pulpit to my startled\ncongregation. They did not seem to know what to make of it. But\nthe preacher himself seemed quite unrepentant about it. He was\ntalking to me about it that morning when we drove home again, he\nto his farm and I with him, to walk on to my mission. We\noutspanned in a very green valley, I remember, and sat long over\nroast monkey-nuts that his driver benignantly provided.\n\n'The Lord put a word into my mouth,' my friend said quite firmly\nand simply. 'Was there not the cause the cause of a child's\ncareer? Didn't our Savior speak plainly as to the ugly analogy of\nthe man drowned like a dog with a stone round his neck in the\ndeep of the sea? Weren't His children in question when Jesus\nspoke; wasn't there a Christian child in question when I\npreached?'\n\nI thought he made out something of a case for his position as a\npreacher of fiery doom. We were sitting on a beautiful green\ncarpet. The Earth there had come through her bad time. Away\non the hillside a black forbidding patch testified to the\nunpleasantness of the remedial stage. Away in the distance was a\nbeautiful tree-shaded granite hill with much show of brown\nfoliage and purplish underspaces. Just beside that hill the\nflames came driving (through the old last year's feed, I\nsuppose). His eyes followed mine the way of the flames. 'Hurray!'\nhe said heartily. 'Now we shan't be so very long surely after\nall. Don't you see the green grass on its way? It was a snug\ncorner, verily, for the old dry stuff. Look, how the flames leap\nup in the thick of it! Not very juicy browse nor tasty feed, but\nfine fuel for the fire; good for that, anyway. It was a snug\ncorner, but at last the time was ripe when the fire came driving\nstraight for it the fire with the wind behind. 'Which things are\na parable,' he said, his ugly sunburnt face twitching curiously,\nhis eyes quite handsome, nay, even splendid with honest scorn. He\nwas shaking his fist towards the prim little dorp that we had\nleft behind over the ridges. 'No doubt but ye are the people,' he\nsaid, 'ye that have made the freedom of England and the franchise\nof Jesus of no effect by your tradition your sacrosanct\ntradition. What's the good of the frowsy old stuff? It must be\nsome good; what is it? It isn't very good pasture for sheep or\nhorses, not to speak of dairy cattle, but it's noble food for\nfire, don't you think?\n\nThere it lies-up so snug and sheltered and screened the old dead\nsurvival hidden in the prim little corrugated iron-roofed houses,\nand the narrow gumtree avenues, and the whitewashed Dutch\ntabernacle where they sing \"Safe in the Arms of Jesus\" (would you\nbelieve it?) But the time will come, it mayn't come in my day or\nin yours, but the time will come sure enough, when the Fire will\ntrek dead straight for this old dead-ripe stuff, the Fire with\nthe Wind behind. Then God have mercy on them whose work it was!\nFor their work shall be burnt, aren't we sure of that? But as to\nthey themselves being the sort to be saved so as by fire can we\nbe so very sanguine? Meanwhile. . . . . . .\n\nThe way he so humbly appealed to me for my opinion on that moot\npoint, did much to conciliate me. He had not carried me with him\nall the while. He seemed to me a bit out of date, too like an\nante-Christian prophet. Yet how my heart went out to him as he\nended up so very abruptly with his 'meanwhile.' His voice broke\nqueerly, and his eyes shone. 'Meanwhile they may manage to give a\nchild or two a rough passage. They've got pluck enough for that,\nthe blighters, haven't they?' He turned away from me with a sort\nof a sob. 'The time'll come sure enough, but it's their time now,\nand they know it,' he said. 'God pity her!'\n\n\n\n'LA BELLE DAME'\n\n\n\nInhabiting this country you inhabit the Middle Ages, you dwell in\nthe wild Marchlands without the pale of Christendom. Here a man\nmay take to the forest roads in the old spirit of errantry. How\ndarkly the shadow of witchcraft falls upon the path; we might be\nin Lapland or Thessaly! What strange satyr voices the drums have\nof nights! I suppose it is the reading about such things long ago\nthat gives me this sense of having been here before, of having\ncome back to this country!'\n\nHis eyes glistened as he sat over his wine, and smoked Transvaal\ntobacco in a calabash pipe. He looked much more as he used to\nlook twenty years back, I thought. I had deemed him aged almost\nout of recognition when first we sat down to dinner. He had come\nup to Mashonaland with some learned association on a holiday\ntrip. His name was Gerald Browne; he had lectured on English\nliterature these many years in an ancient northern university.\n\nWith him came his wife, a very plain and quiet lady, and also an\nundergraduate pupil named Drayton.\n\nI was asked to meet them, and to stay in the same house with them\nby a certain minor potentate of Rosebery, who had had rooms near\nBrowne's and mine in years gone by. It was Saturday night, and I\nhad just come in from the veld, while Browne's party had reached\nRosebery by the morning train. Dinner had gone rather quietly,\nand our host had looked bored, I thought. Then, when the ladies\nhad left us, Browne had kindled up, and we all three had a\nglorious hour, voicing the praises of Africa in a sort of\nthree-man descant or glee. Meanwhile the fourth man, Drayton, a\ndark, plump and smiling youth, listened to us with a charming air\nof respectful attention. Transvaal tobacco was good, and the talk\nwas good, though I say it who should not. Drayton's silence\nwas also good, a very complimentary silence with a distinct\ncharacter, as it seemed to me. On Sunday after lunch this youth\ncame for a walk with me, while the Brownes and our host reclined.\n\n'Mr. Browne's got a sort of call to the Simple Life,' he suddenly\nblurted out with a grin. 'It's even money on his selling up at\nOxford and coming out here for good. What's going to happen to\nMrs. Browne, I wonder?'\n\nI laughed, as I thought he expected me to do.\n\n'He seems rather smitten,' I admitted. 'He certainly raved a bit\nlast night; but, then, so many people do that when they first\ncome out.'\n\nDrayton looked at me as if he might have said much more. But I\nchanged the subject; it never occurred to me then that it might\nbe a thrilling one. I went home later on and sat on the stoep and\ntalked to my host. Browne had very little to say. He went off for\na sunset walk, and never came to church at night. We sat up in\nthe moonlight waiting for him afterwards. He came in at last and\njoined us on the stoep, but he was very silent. He would not have\nany supper. He smoked away furiously till bed-time.\n\nI arranged a riding trip for all three visitors next morning.\nThey were to off-saddle under some high kopjes about ten miles\nfrom town; they were to have a picnic and an amazing view. I\ncould not go myself, as I had an appointment to keep. But I sent\ntwo Mashona boys to be their retinue; one of them was Johannes,\nmy own right hand at home. I solemnly entrusted the strangers and\ntheir steeds to his keeping.\n\nWhen I came in about sunset that Monday evening they had not\nreturned. But before the daylight failed, three of them were back\nMrs. Browne, Drayton, and the under-boy. Where were Browne and\nJohannes? Mrs. Browne seemed to be a little uneasy, but she\naffected to make light of what had happened. She said that her\nhusband had wanted to see the country beyond, so he had gone on\nwith the boy. He was sure to be back to-morrow, as he had taken\nso little food with him. Drayton said nothing at the time, but\nafter dinner, when we were smoking on the stoep, he began to\nquote to me:\n\n'I met a lady in the meads,\nFull beautiful a faery's child;\nHer hair was long, her foot was light,\nAnd her eyes were wild.'\n\n'What do you mean to insinuate?' I said.\n\n'Oh, I don't mean anything libelous. Browne hasn't gone off with\na comely Mashona. But, for all that, I believe he's taken Africa\nmuch too seriously. She has a grim fascination for me, but she\ndoesn't stop at that with him. She grips him and orders him to\ncome along.'\n\n'Tell me about today,' I said.\n\n'Browne acknowledged a little to me three days ago,' Drayton\nsaid. 'He told me that this huge Tamburlaine (or rather\nZenocrate) of a country was giving him too heady a welcome. He\nsaid she was still in the Middle Ages, and not only there, but\nmore than half outside the pale of Christendom, such as it was\nthen. So she had strange forces at work in her, and used\nincantations to allure, in prodigal variety. He talked about\nLapland, and some footling researches he had made into the magic\nof the north. He also told me a horrible tale or two of the South\nthat he had found in the Bodleian. One was a real curdler, I can\ntell you. Jerry Browne's own moustache seemed to turn up like a\nGerman's as he imparted it to me. You know he's romantic enough\nin his way, though he does lead such a repressed life. You should\nsee him at home.'\n\n'But do tell me why he's gone off so suddenly,' said I, with some\nimpatience.\n\n'I can't tell you very much,' said Drayton. 'We rode out, and\nJerry seemed tremendously cheerful quite sportive. Anyone who'd\nonly known him in Park Crescent would have been much surprised to\nwatch him and listen to the things he said. Mrs. Browne seemed a\nbit puzzled, I thought, at last. Then we came to the kopjes where\nthere was a consummate view. You could see a long way to the\nnorth across a hugely wide plain. Browne climbed up on the\nhighest rock with me a sort of flat slab, whereon you might\nimmolate a hecatomb. He seemed more exhilarated than ever just\nthen. Soon he slipped away down the rocks and left me smoking my\npipe on high. About five minutes after I observed him making\ntracks across the northern plain. He was cantering his dappled\nmule for all it was worth; he was carrying nothing so far as I\ncould see.\n\n'I made haste down. I found that boy you said we could trust. I\ngave him two or three picnic rugs and what was left of our food\nto carry. I asked him to follow the rideaway, to stick to him,\nand to bring him back as soon as ever he could. Then I went to\nMrs. Browne. She was sitting behind some bushes crying. She said\nBrowne had said such a curious good-bye to her. He had spoken of\nriding on to see more of the country he had said he would be back\nin the morning. She had tried to dissuade him, but he seemed\nhardly to listen. She could scarcely believe that he had really\ngone without blankets or food. I reassured her, telling her that\nI had sent the boy and that you had said the boy was a good\n'un. But if she thinks, or you think, that the old man will come\nback tomorrow, I don't.'\n\nTuesday passed anxiously both for Mrs. Browne and for me. Drayton\nwas anxious in the wrong way, unless I misjudged him. I seemed to\nread triumph in his face as the hours went by and brought no\nBrowne.\n\nI grew haggard when evening drew on. What was I to do? But about\nsunset tidings came. A native, who had traveled into town from\nthe north, brought me a penciled note from Johannes: 'My father,\nI ask you to come to us. Let your horse make haste. The white man\nwill not turn. He has finished his food. He goes to the hills, he\nsays. I think that he is mad. Pray for us! Johannes.'\n\nI went to Mrs. Browne at once. I remember I found her sitting\nunder a flaming hibiscus bush. She looked very pale and washed-out\nagainst it. I told her that her husband wanted to extend his\ntour. She burst into tears, and said she could not understand it.\nThen I told her that I meant going after him in the morning to\ntry to hasten his return. She brightened up at that, and fell to\nplanning what I should take with me. What comforts could she send\nGerald in the comfortless desert without overloading me? I showed\nJohannes' note to Drayton after dinner. He whistled, and, to his\ncredit, looked grave.\n\n'I'm to go after him to-morrow,' I said. 'I've thought over it,\nand I think you may as well come too. You may be useful, as\nknowing his ways.'\n\nHe nodded. 'Rather bad about his running out of skoff, isn't it?'\nhe asked. 'I wonder if he's out of baccy and just breaking his\nheart.' His plump face was pitiful.\n\n'Don't you fret,' I answered. 'It only means he's run out of our\nfood. They'll surely buy monkey-nuts or sweet-potatoes or rice in\nthe kraals. He's probably developed a passion for native food by\nnow, also for native snuff. He'll be able to buy some of that,\nsurely.'\n\n'Just so,' said Drayton. He began to quote again in a sort of\ndroning chant as if he were a chorus recording the onsweep of a\ntragedy:\n\n'I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long,\nFor sidelong would she lean, and sing A faery's song.\n\n'She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna-dew,\nAnd sure in language strange she said I love thee true.'\n\nIn the morning we got a flying start after all, though Drayton\nwas in bed when I came back from church. We went away at eight,\nand soon found, to our joy, that we were really well mounted. It\nwas joy, too, to remember what a stubborn mule Browne had for\npacing steed. He had not got away far, we assured ourselves. But\nwe did not catch him that night.\n\nWe asked at kraals as we went along, and struck a hot scent about\nthree in the afternoon. A white man had passed that morning a\nwhite man riding a dappled mule, with a boy carrying blankets\nbehind him. Straightway we gave our ponies an off-saddle.\n\nAfterwards we rode on hard in what we deemed to be the right\ndirection till darkness fell: We sought shelter at a village\nthen. There was no village gossip, alas! about the passing of a\nwhite man that day! They were good to us, though, those\nvillagers, and gave us beans and monkey-nuts for supper and\nmealies for our ponies. After we had finished eating we spread\nout the rush-mat they had lent us and lay down to smoke and\nmeditate and surmise as to our passionate pilgrim. They had given\nus a hut that was old and grimy with fires. Its floor teemed with\nlife.\n\nTherefore we changed our resting-place and went out to camp under\na rocky eminence. There with a bedrock of austere granite we\nslept in peace. At glimmer of dawn we were saddling up. We rode\nto another kraal, but the folk there had no news for us.\n\nWe were close on the hills now at last. We came to a low river at\nthe foot of them. We chose a landlocked pool that seemed to be\nimmune from crocodiles, for a plunge. Next I girded myself for\nSacrifice, and he served me. Then we made a fire and cooked a\nhuge breakfast in the hungry morning air. Drayton grew quite\nlyrical as to the charm of the country before the meal was over.\n\n'Browne's not far wrong about her,' he said; 'but there's reason\nin all things.'\n\nThat whole day we heard no news and found no spoor or sign. The\nhill-country gave us stiff climbing and rocky paths to ride.\nKraals and clusters of gardens places where we might hope to hear\ntidings how few they were in that hill-country! We camped\ndisconsolately at last in a forlorn garden among grey boulders\nwhere stumps of trees were burning. We found no trouble in\nbuilding up a good night fire of half-burnt logs. We gave our\nponies their nosebags and ate our own bread and bully rather\nsilently. Then we surmised with some weariness and gloom over our\npipes. At last we slept under the many eyes of the heavens.\n\nAbout first cock-crow, when a chill struck through my blanket, I\nopened my eyes and looked towards the fire. Someone was sitting\nbeside it watching me. Now that he saw me stirring he greeted me.\n\nIt was Johannes. 'I saw your fire but just now,' he said. 'Our\nfire is up there beyond great rocks. The white man has been very\nsick. I think he will come home now.'\n\nI sprang to my feet and roused Drayton. He would not get up for a\nlong time. I suspect he combined breakfast and lunch fairly often\nat Oxford. But I roused him mercilessly. I told him the news.\n\nHe argued in desperate fashion at first. 'How far's the sick\nbed,' he asked.\n\n'Not more than a mile or so,' said I.\n\n'Need we go till morning?' said he.\n\n'Shame!' said I.\n\nAt last he sprang up.\n\nAs we clambered among the boulders, piloted by Johannes, he\ndroned away at his chorus part:\n\n'She took me to her elfin grot, And there she wept, and sighed\nfull sore, And there I shut her wild, sad eyes With kisses four.\n\n'And there she lulled me asleep, And there I dream'd Ah woe\nbetide! The latest dream I ever dream'd On the cold hill's side.'\n\nWe found Browne in a nook among the rocks. A fire was burning\nbeside him. He seemed to be sleeping.\n\n'He looks as if he'd been sick,' I said. 'We'd better let him\nsleep on!'\n\n'Yes; let's go to bed ourselves,' said Drayton, yawning.\n\nSo we lay down on opposite sides of the fire. Such a red and\nsplendid fire that cold cock-crow time!\n\nBrowne kept giving sharp little moans in his sleep, just as a dog\nwill do of nights.\n\n'He's started a nightmare,' said I. 'I wish we could help him to\nbetter dreams. I'd like to see what he sees just now.'\n\nDrayton began to drone from his side of the fire:\n\n'I saw pale kings and princes, too; Pale warriors death-pale were\nthey all. They cried, \"La Belle Dame sans Merci\" hath thee in\nthrall.\n\n'I saw their starved lips in the gloom With horrid warning gaped\nwide, And I awoke and found me here On the cold hill's side.'\n\nI asked a question: 'What will Browne like for breakfast,\nDrayton?'\n\n'If he's come back to his civilized tastes, you'd better open\nthat tin of sausages,' he said. 'You've got some squish, too,\nhaven't you? Don't give him that bush-tea of yours!'\n\nI was up long before Drayton. I had secured Browne's confidences\nbefore the sun had been risen an hour. 'I've had a sort of\nmiserable ague,' he said. 'A cold and hot fever has been plaguing\nme. Some part of this last night has been savagely horrible. But\nI've sweated pounds of my weight away, and my fever's gone.\nStrange, isn't it?'\n\n'Quite ordinary in this part of Africa,' I said, sharply and\nminimizingly. I handed him a shirt, and he doffed his drenched\none. He did not tell me any more just then. His eyes watched me\nin a dazed, miserable way. I asked him to excuse me, and went off\nwith Johannes to my service. When I came back his eyes were\nclearer, they had less of their look of wan-hope.\n\n'Sinister country, this Africa,' he said. 'I was infatuated with\nher yesterday. Today I can't understand just what the attraction\nwas. Her desolate moors seemed to make me drunk. See how she's\nserved me! I never felt quite so sick as I've done most of this\nlast day and night. Just before I woke it seemed to me I saw them\nin my dreams tens and twenties of her victims; men she's charmed\nand led on and on, and demoralized, ruined, killed and buried,\nand helped down-hill the way of the bottomless pit. I am better\nnow; but I'm shaken. How thankful I'll be if only I get out of\nher, and can only stop thinking about her after that.'\n\nI listened with grave attention. Then I gave him some bread and\nsausages, and he ate away ravenously. How ever many cups of tea\ndid he drink afterwards?'\n\nThe above was all the avowal that Browne made to me. I do not\nthink that he said nearly as much to Drayton as he did to me.\nDrayton plied me with questions that night, and I told him too\nmuch, to my regret.\n\nMonths afterwards a copy of an undergraduate paper, containing a\nfantasia on the events that I have recorded, reached me. It\ncomprised much African coloring and some little humor. I wonder\nif it reached Browne or Mrs. Browne?\n\nWe got Browne home in little over a day. He hurried on,\noftentimes when we wanted to rest. He seemed as anxious to emerge\nfrom the African desert as he had been to explore the deeps of\nit. He looked rakish and wretched as he bumped about upon his\nmule. His face was livid, and his black beard, that he used to\ncut so formally, desperately out of trim. His eyes were strangely\nbloodshot.\n\nWe reached home safely with our prize by noon on Saturday.\nBrowne, as I have said, was all for getting on fast, and when we\nonce started, his stubborn mount went well. It was won to\nemulation by the willingness of our ponies, I imagine.\n\nMrs. Browne was delighted at her Gerald's return. Yet I think it\nmust have taken some months to restore her confidence in his\nsanity. She had had a sore shock. Drayton and I, indeed, were\nboth discreet in our brief narratives of what had really\nhappened. But I was heedless enough to forget Johannes. I did not\ncaution him in time. So Mrs. Browne gathered rather a bizarre\naccount from him while we were at church on Sunday evening. It is\nto her credit that, despite her thrift, she gave the boy a whole\ngold sovereign.\n\nThe three travelers left by the slow down-train on the Monday\nmorning. I went to the station with them. I saw Drayton into a\nsmoking-carriage, and climbed in and sat with him. There was\nstill ten minutes' grace allowed us.\n\n'Where's Browne, and where's Mrs. Browne?' I asked.\n\n'Along there, ever so far!' he said; 'with Professor Ayres and\nthe Misses Ayres, and all sorts of good company. But, hullo! Look\nthere!'\n\nBrowne was coming up the platform towards the bookstall, looking\nforlorn and sad.\n\n'Ah! what can ail thee, wretched wight, Alone and palely\nloitering?' murmured Drayton. 'It's a bad job for me, Jerry's\ngetting off-color like this. How's he going to train men for\nFirsts next June, when he's gone in himself?'\n\n'Oh. he'll pick up as soon as he gets out of Africa, never fear.'\nI reassured him.\n\nBrowne loitered up to the stall and amassed two month-old English\nmagazines. Then he stood by the stall, looking on to the\ndistances near and far behind it. Our feverish contact had not\nspoilt much of the landscape there as yet. Beyond a few railway\nsheds showed some bushes, as it were, of wild cherry-blossom,\nflaunting a true white under the sky's true blue. Spring colors\ndressed the woodland behind them red and bronze, and also the two\nfamous colors of Faeryland. Behind that, again, the view was\nspread out widely diverse, certain blue hills standing up very\ndelicately. Meanwhile in the near foreground some Kaffir herds\nhelped the picture not a little. They were driving their flock\nbetween the white-blossomed bushes.\n\nBrowne stood a long while and watched that landscape. I would\nhave given something to have read his face all the while, but his\nback was turned to us.\n\nAt last he began to pace up and down by the bookstall. Then he\nstood to gaze again, scouring, as it seemed, the far distance\nwith eyes straining their utmost. Our eyes followed his.\n\nDid not some ironstone kopjes rise up dimly to the north there?\n\nAssuredly Browne saw those blue peaks and ridges, and remembered\nthem.\n\n'Do you remember them?' I asked Drayton.\n\n'Don't I just?' he said.\n\nHe began again in his chanting chorus tone: he was reading and\ntransposing from a pocket copy of Theocritus.\n\n'They all call thee a \"gipsy,\" gracious Africa, and \"lean\" and\n\"sunburnt,\" 'tis only I that call thee \"honey-pale.\" Yea, and the\nviolet is swart, and swart the lettered hyacinth, but yet these\nflowers are chosen the first in garlands. . . . Ah, gracious\nAfrica, thy feet are fashioned like carven ivory, thy voice is\ndrowsy sweet, and thy ways, I cannot tell of them.'\n\nThe engine whistled. Browne roused himself to my intense relief,\nand climbed into the train.\n\n'Good-bye,' I called to him as they steamed away.\n\n'Au revoir,' he called back to me.\n\n\n\nTHE SCENTED TOWN (A TRIPPER'S TALE)\n\n\n\nIt is now more than two years since I was invalided out of my\ncountry parish one bitter March, and sent on a southern voyage. I\nhad ten weeks to recruit in, and I passed by the Mediterranean to\nthe eastern coast of Africa. It was hard to tear myself away from\nZanzibar, but at last I went on southward and struck up into the\nwilder country of the central tableland. I meant to take the rail\nfor Cape Town when my time should be up.\n\nIt happened in Easter week that I camped out disconsolately, and\nrose anxiously, having lost my way overnight. I had spent Easter\nDay in a cathedral, or pro-cathedral, town, and was now on my way\nto a certain mission. I had hoped to make it that last night\nthe third night of the journey but had somehow missed it in the\ndark after a big effort. There seemed to be no native village\nnear, and no passers-by. My carriers were strangers to that\nneighborhood, and I was afraid of going far past the house in\nbenighted wanderings, so I bent my resolution and lay down. I\nrose just before the sun did. It was April and the dews were very\nheavy.\n\nFrom a rocky hill above me the baboons were barking. Just below\nus was a fair stream with a rich grove of native trees on the\nfurther bank. Some native gardens showed on the slope above. The\nwhite path wound through them, then away among boulders, some of\nthem very big ones. While I watched the stream I saw a white body\nof mist mounting up. Just at that moment the sun showed. As I\nlooked on the sacred sight I saw somebody coming down the path.\nIt was the man whose mission station I had been looking for. He\nwas coming through the long grass in a hurry. Soon he splashed\nthrough the drift. After that he caught sight of me, and rushed\nup to our camp, glowing. It was Leonard Reeve. He looked much the\nsame as he did that day in London three years before--dark, pale,\nslight, earnest. I had been to his sendoff and gone down to\nVictoria Docks with him. I had written to tell him; I was most\nlikely coming his way after Easter. He seemed ever so glad to see\nme.\n\n'But where were you off to?' I said.\n\n'It's only a mile on that I'm going,' he answered. 'There's a\nlittle chapel on that hill over there with some native villages\nnear by. I want to have an Easter service there.'\n\n'Let me come,' said I. 'You can be back to breakfast here, can't\nyou, when we've done?'\n\nHe said he could. Even as he nodded I felt a little anxious when\nI remembered that we had no meat of any sort left. I took Jack,\nmy head carrier, aside and asked him to do what he could while we\nwere gone. Couldn't he buy some eggs for salt, or do something\nuseful in the way of foraging? He said three words in kitchen\nKaffir that sounded hopeful.\n\nThen I went on with my chill, damp little friend. One of the\ncoldest ways surely of taking a bath is to tramp through the long\ngrass (it is very long in that country) when it is drenched with\ndew or rain. However it is all right if you are sturdy and in\ngood heart, and keep going a stirring pace, and never sit down\ntill you are dry again. My companion did not seem very buoyant,\nthough he made no complaint and trudged on without flagging. We\nhad a glorious service in a quaint church of wattles and earth\nand grass on a hill-top. One way it looked over a great spread of\nvillage gardens I think there were at least three villages in\nsight. The other way it looked on some well-wooded uplands that\nthe eastern sun lighted tenderly. There were only a few people in\nchurch at the end of the rite, though a great crowd was there at\nthe outset, and the 'Kyrie' and first two hymns raised the hill\nechoes.\n\nThere was no sermon. When the unbaptized were gone the tiny\nchurch, that had seemed so thronged and stifling, grew to be\nroomy and cool.\n\nThat was to me a very beautiful rendering of the Liturgy. Yet I\nonly understood a word here and there. I could follow the action\nof the Divine Pageant throughout, and I would not have had the\nmystery and aloofness of the words one whit lessened.\n\nAfter it was over Reeve took me across to the native teacher's\nhouse, where we found a very shy wife and a very composed baby to\ngreet us. Meanwhile the husband bustled about and gave us tea. I\nliked his laugh and his boyish face, as well as his Biblical\nEnglish. He did not stint the tea in his blue pot. Soon we were\non our way back to my camp.\n\nJack had got a real good fire now in the shelter of the rocks,\nand a hearty smell of fish frying reassured me as we drew near.\n\nReeve, who had seemed a little tired and washed out as we came\naway from the church, now brightened up marvelously.\n\n'I declare,' he said, 'it's just like old times. You know the\nTooting Road, where I used to work? It's just like the fried-fish\nshop there, next door to the Surrey Arms. If we'd only got the\nfog and the trams and a few of the old people here how fine it'd\nbe!'\n\nWe had found a subject that interested us both and lasted most of\nthe breakfast-time. His enthusiasm struck me as a little too\nemphatic. I remarked that I thought he was well out of the\nTooting Road and out under blue sky on an African moorland.\n\n'Look up there!' I said. 'That makes the Tooting Road seem rather\nmonstrous when one comes to think of it.' I pointed to the many\ncattle and sheep and goats coming down to the stream at a\nswinging pace through the gleaming woodland.\n\nTwo little boys were mounted on bulls; two or three others came\nrushing behind. There was a barking of dogs and an ecstasy of\nshouting.\n\n'Oh, it's all very well,' he said, and his eyes flashed a little\nscornfully.\n\nAfterwards he took me to his home. His church stood out nobly as\nwe came up the path towards it. Within it was beautifully kept,\nbut I confess I was disappointed. It was all very neat, but it\nsuggested the skill of the church-furnishing firm too strongly. I\nsighed a little as he showed me four enormous brazen vases of a\ntoo familiar type. I longed for the two or three little red and\nblack earthen vases that I had seen on his teacher's altar; but I\nkept my longing to myself.\n\nHe was a marvelous man for method, Leonard Reeve. He seemed to me\nto organize classes with real talent anybody who came to the\nMission at all habitually was pigeon-holed as 'Inquirer,'\n'Hearer,' 'Catechumen,' 'Under a cloud,' or something else, and\ndealt with accordingly. His work, as I watched it day by day, and\nevening by evening in church and school and villages and Mission\nfarm seemed to me well-considered and painstaking. On the other\nhand he seemed to me not so happy, and not so very well.\n\nThe mail came in on the Monday.\n\nI was to start the following Thursday for the railroad on my way\nto my home again. We gloated over the letters and papers that\nevening it was really a superb mail. The native boy with the bag\n(I remember he was lanky and handsome and wore a rose-and-blue\nzephyr) came up just as we stood in the avenue leading to the\nhouse. We were smoking our pipes and arguing. The sun was almost\ndown.\n\nWhat were we arguing about? Oh, he was arguing rather recklessly\nabout the glories of town-work. I retorted with few words, but\nstrong ones, in favor of work out in the country. Once I pressed\nhim rather inquisitively and mischievously as to his present work\non the veld. 'How can you hold such views and do it?' I asked him\npoint-blank. Thereat the fine side of the man showed.\n\nHis face flushed and his lips quivered. 'It's my job,' he said,\n'and I'm not going to talk against it. I was arguing about\ncountry-work in the abstract over there in England.' Then it was\nthat the boy came in sight with the letters. Reeve looked up and\nwatched him with real pleasure and gratitude. He said something\nto him in the native language that seemed to amuse the boy very\nmuch. I had thought his manners towards his flock very courteous,\nbut cold. I noticed a new tenderness now and from this night\nforward.\n\nI could read him like a book, this town-lover so I thought. He\nhad said too much to me, he had avowed to me his want of\naffection for his work in so many words, and now he was on the\nwatch against himself, and burning to render reparation to a very\nquick conscience.\n\nHe had a big mail, but he was not communicative about it. Indeed\nwe had not much time for our letters just then. We had Evensong\nsoon after sunset, then there was a class for catechumens that I\nattended. I could not understand much, but it was good to watch\nhow they listened, all but the vigorous mail-boy, who nodded at\nwhiles unless I am mistaken. Afterwards we had a meal. It was by\nmutual agreement that we read our letters over our bread and tea\nand cheese. I read one of my letters with some indignation. It\nwas a letter from my schoolmaster, who was not very encouraging\non the subject of my locum tenens' industry.\n\n'I thought I had got a first-rate man in Cochrane,' I said aloud.\n\n'Cochrane of Peckham Downs?' asked Reeve, looking up and eyeing\nme. 'What about him? Yes, I should say he was in his way quite\nfirst-rate.'\n\n'I'm glad to hear it, but I wish he would find country work more\ncongenial. My correspondent says he's quite got the hump about\nour village.'\n\nLeonard smiled. 'Some villages do tend to give people like\nCochrane and me the hump,' he said. 'But of course yours is\ndifferent.' 'Of course it is. Come and see it some day.' His\nmouth twitched. 'If I get home-leave in two years' time,' he\nsaid. 'I don't want to spend it in the country, not any of it,\nthank you all the same. I like the town much too well.'\n\n'The smell of the shop you named attracts you just like thyme\ndoes me.'\n\n'Yes,' he said, with a rather wry smile and a very real sigh.\n\nThen we went on reading till bed-time. In the morning Lorenzo,\nhis house-boy, knocked me up just as the sun was rising. 'The\nfather is very sick,' he said. So he was very bad indeed with\nfever, at least so it seemed to me. But I am not used to nursing\nthat malady. I think his temperature was 103 that day, which may\nseem a modest figure to a pioneer, but struck a chance visitor as\nnone too reassuring. However, I kept my anxieties to myself, and\nlooked after him quietly. He said there was no need to worry\nabout a doctor. That night he seemed to be delirious, and talking\nat large. I made up my mind I would send for the doctor in the\nmorning if his symptoms should last. But they did not. He\nappeared to be quiet and sensible at sunrise, and his temperature\nwas a normal one. The morning after that, again, he seemed so\nwell that I left him with a fairish conscience on my return\njourney for England. I want to tell you about that anxious night.\nHe gave himself away then. I don't think he remembered much\nof what he had said next morning. It seemed sad to me his\nself-revelation. He said he did not know what in the world to do,\nhe felt so ill and anxious. He was a Cockney born, and he had\nloved his South London work. He really wanted to tackle the job in\nfront of him here. But the romance was there behind him in that\nEnglish city the unique sense of being in the right place the\ngreat adventure the gleam.\n\nOh! why had he caught the fever? Not this fever, but the malaria\nof Imperialism, and felt drawn to go so very far afield. He\ndidn't abuse the veld, the camping-out, the foot-slogging, the\nprimitive people. He was a very chivalrous person even in his\ndelirium.\n\nBut he spoke ecstatically of the streets, the tram-roads, the\nlights of the town, the smartness of his flock, the delights of\ntheir up-to-date humor.\n\nThe tragedy thickened. He told me of her who had promised to\nmarry him by Eastertide next year. Cecilia was her name.\n\nShe was a Londoner, and shared his views. 'Whatever will she\nthink of this place?' he asked. My eyes wandered to the iron\nroof, to the floor-boarded walls, to the candle in a bottle that\nfought the draught so bravely. He told me about a letter of hers\nhe had got by this mail. She had been working as a governess\nthese last few months at a country rectory in the Berkshire\nmoors. She found the village, and the neighborhood, and the life\nthere in general very flat indeed. They bored her; yet she was\nkeen, he said, on 'the work,' 'the work' as she had known it when\nshe worked for him in London. 'Whatever will she think of this\nplace?' he repeated. I looked at the floor, freshly treated with\ncow-dung, and thought again for an answer, but I could think of\nno very suitable one.\n\n'I'll give you her letter to read,' he said, in a burst of\nconfidence. 'That puts it far more plainly than I can. My head's\nso bad.' He looked worried, and I thought I had better leave him.\n\n'No,' he said; 'do read to me a bit before you go.'\n\n'What shall I read?'\n\nHe looked at me meditatively. 'You'll find something to the point\nin there,' he said. He reached up to the little candle-box\nbookcase over his head, and showed me a little crimson book. It\nwas an anthology. I should think it might be commendably put on\nthe 'Index Expurgatorius' of upcountry missionaries.\n\nIt was called 'The Cheerful City,' and dwelt on the delights of\ncivilization and urbanity. Doubtless it may serve a useful\npurpose, thought I, in reconciling Londoners to their wen; but,\nhere, what does it spell for my delirious Cockney save only\ndesiderium?\n\nI read him two or three selections obediently, but without\nenthusiasm. Were they from Herrick and Charles Lamb? I rather\nthink they were.\n\nAfterwards he asked me for a few verses of the Gospel. I cheered\nup.\n\n'What would you like?'\n\n'Oh, that story at the end of St. John. I've often thought of it\nsince I was so cold and wet; and got to your camp-fire. \"The fire\nof coals, and fish laid thereon, and bread,\" that's it.'\n\nI read with a will, but rather sadly.\n\n'That's it,' he said. 'It seems to bring back the fog, and going\nto early Service past that coffee-stall, and the smell of that\nshop next to the Surrey Arms.'\n\nI thought of his homely comparison after I had left him for the\nnight. It moved me strangely. I read the letter he had lent me\nthe letter of Cecilia, who found the Berkshire moors so banal.\nYes, she promised to prove a very undesirable help-meet on the\nveld, so far as I could judge. I thought over things generally\nthat night, and I made up my mind to make a Quixotic offer in the\nmorning. I would offer to take on Leonard's work. Let him go home\nand be happy in his scented town, with his intolerantly urban (or\nsuburban) Cecilia. He was splendid stuff. He might do much,\nsurely, in that quaint atmosphere of light and locomotion and\nfragrance that his sense of romance demanded. Here Cecilia would\nsurely be either impossible or a very great nuisance. While, even\nwithout Cecilia, Leonard did not seem well suited in his sphere,\nand I judged that he would soon be rotten with fever and wouldn't\nlast.\n\nAs for me, I liked country life much, and roughing it a little. I\nhad no particular fear of fever. I compared my physique with\nLeonard's not without complacency. I thought of the other side,\ntoo: the east country that village of all villages, those\nvillagers of all villagers.\n\nBut that night I was full of over-seas fervor. I remembered\nphrases that had rung cut finely at meetings Outpost Duty, the\nChurch in Greater Britain, The White Man's Burden, In Darkest\nAfrica, etc., etc. When I fell asleep there seemed to be a\nsymphony in my ears sounding brass and tinkling cymbals enough\nand to spare, but flute-voices of honest pity and sympathy as\nwell.\n\nIn the morning I took Leonard's place in his church. We had the\nEnglish Liturgy again. The thatched dome, with much tinier\nwindows than the windows at home, but much more sun to fill them,\nseemed a sort of parable to me that morning. After I had finished\nthe rite, I stayed on in the church, and spread out two letters\nbefore the Lord, so to speak. One was my schoolmaster's, the\nother was that one from Cecilia.\n\nIt took me half an hour to feel fairly sure of my answer. But I\nfelt very sure then just as sure as I had been the night before\nbut the answer was different.\n\nI thought of my own fold and flock as I read my own friend's\nletter. How little the locum tenens seemed to see what I saw in\nthem! I read Cecilia's letter, and compared 'her view of the\nimportance of a country cure with my own. After all, I thought,\nthe latter tended to be an exceptional view in our megalomaniac\ndays. On the other hand, the locum tenens' view might be rather a\nnormal one, and so might Cecilia's be. Cecilia's scorn, it was,\nthat materially helped the answer to come as clearly as it did.\nThe thought of a Cecilia reigning in that east-country vicarage\nseemed no more right than pleasant. It sounds a callous thing to\nsay, but I left my lonely and convalescent friend with something\nof a sigh of relief, and no real misgiving. I felt troubled about\nhis future certainly, but I saw clearly that I was not meant to\ntake his place. I hoped to find the man who was meant to take it,\nhowever.\n\nAnd, by God's help, I believe that I really did find him before\nmany months were over.\n\nA cousin of mine Richard East had been persuaded by a certain\nbishop to accept an urban charge.\n\nI fancy the said bishop had been reared in a rather strait school\nof enthusiasts, who regarded work in slums as ideally the best\nsphere for clerics of activity. So he had routed my cousin out of\nhis west-country village, and brought him to a big town--my\ncousin, who was an outdoor man from his youth. Curiously enough,\nat Cape Town, there was a letter waiting for me from him.\nWouldn't I tell him something about the 'great spaces washed with\nsun'? The midland town in general seemed not to have gained his\naffections, though he loved his people one by one. 'I want to\nclear out,' he wrote, 'for the parish's sake more than for my\nown, if only I can find the right place to clear to. I'm not\na townsman, and I think by now the bishop understands my\nsmall-mindedness. I haven't the breadth of a good modern citizen.\nI want to go to some Little Peddlington an African village might\nsuit me. No, directly the right man turns up, I don't doubt the\nbishop will want to put him here in my room. Do you know of\nanyone likely?' I did know of someone.\n\nI did not write back; I got on my boat and started off for home.\nI went down to the east country and set free the locum tenens.\nThe village had a bridal look for my eyes; the red-thorn tree was\njust coming out, the roses would not be long now. I was in time\nto be at our yearly May games after all. Next day I went to the\nMidland town and saw my cousin; also, I saw his charge. I tried\nto look at it with Leonard Reeve's eyes, recalling to my\nremembrance that delirious night of his. Yes, though it was not\nSouth London, it had a drab look on a dull June day. There was a\nWarwick Arms, if no Surrey Arms. There was a shop with the\nauthentic fragrance only two or three doors off. I knew that\nbishop, and I found him in, and in a listening mood, on the\nfollowing day. He wanted to hear about Africa. I described\nmissions and missionaries to him. Then I told him at some length\nabout Leonard Reeve.\n\n'Yes, you have drawn the man convincingly,' he said. 'You didn't\ninvent those touches. I think he's a man after my own heart. I\ndon't understand you people that bury yourselves in little\nrose-covered, immoral, earthy country villages. But I think I do\nunderstand the man that you have described.' I went straight to\nthe point, and spoke of my cousin's parish. He agreed that my\ncousin was a disappointment. 'He's got the same peddling way of\nlooking at things as you,' he said. 'I thought he'd flourish\nafter transplantation, but I admit he doesn't seem to. Yes, I\nshould think a desert and a barbarous people might suit him. I\ndon't deny that he has vision, but his sense of perspective seems\nto be rather ridiculous.' I tried to arrange matters there and\nthen after that, but his lordship became politic, and seemed a\nlittle afraid that he had said too much to me.\n\nHowever, the business was on the way to be settled before I\nparted from him. It has been settled quite a long while now. My\ncousin, Richard East, now tramps the Kaffir paths and ministers\nin the hill chapel and in that seven-domed church at the mission\nstation. I do not think that there is any Cecilia in his case,\nnor that there is likely to be one. He personifies the abstract\ntoo passionately to need the love of women.\n\nAfrica is personified to him the Cinderella of the continents,\nthe drudge with a destiny worthy of her charms and her good-temper.\nHe is writing a monograph on the Song of Solomon, he tells\nme. He follows certain scholars in his conjecture that the\nShulamite was given back to a humble shepherd by Solomon, when\nshe had conquered the latter by the power of her impassioned\nchastity. But he has his own theory as well that the true lovers\nwere both of African blood, that she came from the Ophir-land\nsouth of the Zambesi, and thither returned in peace at last from\nthe foam of perilous seas. Perhaps his argument is slender; but\nit is good for him to believe in it himself, I think, for surely\nit helps his work among those that he deems her descendants.\n\nHe works on out there, personifying and idealizing. I think he\nis as much in love with his country parish as I am with mine in\nEngland. May we both, in our placid and unfashionable ways, dream\nour dreams and see our visions! Meanwhile Leonard Reeve reigns\nin that midland town, and is treasured by the bishop who was not\ndeceived when he expected a kindred spirit. He and Cecilia have\nchosen a date in this next November for their deferred marriage.\n\nTheir choice of month seems to me characteristic. I do not think\nthey will be disappointed if the day is a little urban in its\nmurkiness.\n\nIt is good for a man to be in love with his charge, is it not?\nNext time some fanatic of West-End work, or East-End work, or\nforeign mission work gets hold of you and talks excellent sense\nabout discipline, and offering yourself to your bishop, and\npacking up your kit at a week's notice remember this story of\nmine!\n\nIs it not well to import something of the precise devotion of\nHoly Matrimony into the general self-oblation of Holy Orders?\n\nIt is good to think that three of us friends have the very same\nsort of feeling Leonard Reeve for the crowds and the fogs and the\nodors; my cousin for the rock-sown plains and the little circles\nof thatched huts; I for the cornlands and the elm-shaded ridges\nand the cottage people.\n\nYes, to Leonard anything grimy is just as romantic as green\nfields to me, or brown veld to my cousin.\n\nDo you know, I was asked to preach Leonard's Institution sermon\nlast Whit Monday, and I dared to preach it? Cecilia, who was\nstately but really pleasant-looking, sat beneath me in the front\npew. Leonard, in his stall, looked oppressed with the weight of\nthe ceremony.\n\nBut his eyes lighted up, I saw, as I gave out my text. It was\nfrom the end of St. John's Gospel. I preached very shortly. I\ndrew for that poor and earnest-looking congregation the picture\nof a dripping missionary as I had seen him. I told of him going\nabout his business at dawn, cheered by the Easter Feast in front\nat the chapel on the hill. I passed up to it by the cheery\ncamp-fire. I did not forget the smell of breakfast cooking, with\nits reminder of home afterwards.\n\nThen I spoke of the charm of the town work that Leonard had been\ncalled to take up once again. I tried to paint it as he dreamed\nof it the crowds, the classes, the fog, the scent of the streets.\nThen I went higher to the Easter scene, the shore in the morning,\nthe vision of the altar that dawns on a true man's work however\ndeep the night of his failure may have been, wheresoever in all\nthe world he is working.\n\nLeonard looked gratefully at me as I came down the pulpit steps.\n\nWhile we hurried along from the Service on our way to the station\n(Reeve was coming to see me off), I quoted some words to him. We\nwere just passing that fish-shop.\n\n'Awake, O north wind, and come, thou south; blow upon my garden\nthat the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into\nhis garden.'\n\nHis eyes kindled. 'Yes, old man,' he said; 'I've come into my\ngarden. How I used to dream of this sort of reek out in Africa!'\n\nI felt a gross materialist as I hurried home to my roses and\nred-thorn, leaving him to that visionary garden and those mystical\nspices.\n\n\n\nTHE PLACE OF PILGRIMAGE\n\nI.\n\n'When you have set Thought free for one particular end you cannot\nbind her again as you will.' Such is the purport of a certain\nhistorian's dictum, and I have proved the truth of what he says.\nEdgar used to go to the Place of Pilgrimage long ago in his\nholidays, but I used not to go with him. I did not sympathize\nwith his veneration overmuch in those times of long ago. But I\nrespected the desire for hero-worship, and helped him thither\neach year that he wanted to visit his shrine. He used to come up\nfor his long holidays every year from the colony. I had known his\nfather rather well, and he had not any settled home. His mother\nwas dead, as well as his father. No one now that knew him need\nknow what she was like, for he took after his father almost\nunmitigatedly. His father was blonde and aggressively Saxon in\nappearance. His mother had been Dutch, semi-Dutch, of the colored\nDutch type, as I very well knew. She came from the Western\nprovince, and died when he was but a year old, to be followed\nby his father some ten years later, just when he had come\nback to South Africa from England. Then I, acting on my own\nresponsibility, sent him to school in the Eastern Province.\nNo one seemed to bother, even if they had any inkling of his\nmother's parentage; he looked to be so completely his father's\nson.\n\nIt was in Edgar's schooldays that the Place of Pilgrimage was\ninaugurated, and that a big star of hope swam into his ken. I had\ntold him about Oxford before, but there had then seemed no sort\nof path open for him to go up thither. Now, in the midst of his\nschooldays, there opened out to him a path that he thought he\nmight climb. It was then in the next long holiday time that he\ntook his path, a curious and grateful pilgrim, to the Matopos, to\nexplore the shrine and to give thanks before it.\n\nHe dreamed of being a Rhodes scholar years before it came off\nthat Rhodes scholarship of his. It came in the fullness of time a\nthing of many struggles and prayers, of star-led hopes and paths\nsteep with uphill climbing.\n\nThen at last it was that I agreed to go with him on his yearly\npilgrimage, in September, the month of his sailing for home. May\nused to be a Canterbury month in England, the hawthorn month that\npricked men in their courages and sent them out on the Kentish\nroad. September had been Edgar's pilgrimage month every year a\nspring month in our southern country. The masasa leaves were\ntaking many tints then in Mashonaland. Speaking generally, the\ndominant note of our woodland world was rose-color as we tramped\ntogether to the station. Matabeleland by contrast seemed rather\ndrab and drouthy, yet she was showing signs of spring. One great\nrock stood up very beautiful in a pink lichen garment. It was\nhard by the path that led to the last hill-climb, ere you reached\nthe burial-place. We camped out close beside it, two Mashona boys\nwho had come to seek their fortunes in Bulawayo, and Edgar and I.\n\nWhen the morning light came I was up. When the sun rose I had all\nbut finished my service. There, on his own ground, so to speak,\nit seemed easier to pray for the Patron with a sanguine heart,\nand to give thanks for him with a clear conscience. Over our\nbreakfast we sat on and talked, and looked about us. Edgar seemed\nto me to be growing in discernment. Once he had seemed so\nprovocatively cock-sure about his mighty patron. To pray for him\nas we had prayed that morning in the language of a race he had\ncontemned might have sounded to him in years past mere clerical\nimpertinence. Now he seemed to suffer me rather gladly.\n\nBut he said little. We had scant time to spare just then; there\nwere so many miles to go to the railway. He was to leave for\nOxford that very night. While the carriers were cooking their\nbreakfast he came with me to the grave and knelt at the head,\nlooking northwards. I said nothing aloud, nor did he. The rocks\nbulked dark in the bright air, the hills wore mystic colors, the\nsun shone passionately in a setting of tender blue. Words seemed\na presumption just then, too much of a time or nation or age that\npasses. That which may or may not take shape in words remained\nthe untied power of silent prayer. That morning among the\nmany-colored hills I looked to sight the faith that can remove such\nas these. And I prayed there quietly, in prayer that seemed to\nneed no words, for Edgar. I asked for him that he might see those\nvisions without which! people are apt to perish.\n\nII.\n\nHe did not write much, and he did not come for five years. When\nhe came he was not at first communicative. He seemed to take more\ninterest than he used to do in the Mission, I noticed. He had\nalways been a hero among the Mashona boys: that was no new thing.\nAnd I was thankful indeed to see that he had not lost his old\nartless art of making friends with them. So many things might\nhave conspired to rob him of it. He stayed but a month in all at\nthe Mission, and he said little all that time, but his eyes were\nfull of thought as I talked to him passing on to him hopes,\ndisappointments, joys of battle unabating and enhanced. He was a\ngood listener. I did not try to force the pace with him. But for\nall that I was eager to know his mind. And it seemed a long while\nwaiting and waiting, thinking he might be going to speak day\nafter day. Then at last the time did come for him to speak, but\nit was after he had left the Mission.\n\nHistory repeated itself, and we camped in the old place once\nmore. The camp-fire shone out, and the moon rose broad and golden\nover the grave of pilgrimage. There he lay with his feet to the\nnorth on the height above us the founder and name-giver of our\nState. It was strange how his patronage seemed to dominate us. We\nsaid our evensong rather northwards than eastwards; we scanned\nthe northern horizon as though seeking a sign. The wind blew that\nway as we paced to and fro afterwards, and our thoughts went the\nway of the wind.\n\nAt last I broke the silence. We were resting on a ledge of rock\nthen, smoking, staring away north-wards among the moonlit kopjes.\nThere he sat beside me, fair-haired and tall, strong and\nrejoicing in his strength, always courteous but strangely dumb.\nHe was going to-morrow. Would he go without a revealing word?\n\n'So many worlds, so much to do, So little done, such things to\nbe.'\n\nI paused doubtfully.\n\nHe turned to me, and his eyes sparkled as they looked into mine.\n'Listen,' he said. Then he told me his heart. Little I knew what\nit was. I trembled for my crusade, yet not without hope. I had\npreached to him little, but I had prayed for him much. Now I\nlearned that his heart was as my heart, his desire as my heart's\ndesire, yet, like wine to water, like sunlight to moonlight. I\nsat at his feet, so to speak, and listened on and on.\n\nIII\n\nThe next morning broke very brightly, yet there were clouds\nenough on high to mystify its clear shining. There had been a\nthunder-shower on the day before yesterday: our former rains had\nsent on an advance-guard. We had finished our service before the\nday grew hot, in the prime and cool of the morning. The place had\nbeen kept very sacred all that service-time. No hoot of a motor-car\nhad scared the sleep of those lonely hills. Afterwards it was\ndifferent. People came out in crowds from Bulawayo. There was a\nspecial excursion from the Transvaal, I believe, that arrived on\nthat day of all days. We had breakfasted by our camp-fire. Then\nwe came up the hill to the shrine once more, while the boys were\nclearing up. 'Listen,' said Edgar. A stout Bulawayo bourgeois was\nholding forth on the crankiness of Cecil Rhodes in choosing to be\nso lonely. 'He might have considered the town and trade of\nBulawayo' seemed to be the burthen of his song. A pioneer shut\nhim up rather roughly. 'He knew best,' he said. 'Where would your\ntown and trade be if he hadn't cleared the path?' Edgar went up\nto the old fellow, ruddy, stalwart, more or less spirituous,\nindomitably good-humored. 'Tell me about it please, sir the\nburial; you were here for it, weren't you?' The old fellow\ncomplied with great goodwill.\n\nBareheaded we stood looking north while he told us of the great\ncamping-out, with the many twinkling fires, by the dam some miles\naway, on the eve of the entombment. He told, too, of the\nconcourse of Matabele at the place itself next day, and of the\nauspicious climbing of the yoked cattle as they drew the body.\n'They never turned. They went straight up,' he said. 'You can see\nthe track-way up the rock now. It meant luck surely, and we took\nit so, both black and white of us.'\n\nThen he told us of him who lay there, in words of rugged\ntenderness the hero of the old era who brought on the new era so\nfast; he who had tasted the old and knew the old was better,\ntestifying the same by his choice of a burying-place.\n\nWe were grateful, indeed, to that guide. A few yards in front of\nus two beaked Afro-Hebrews were arguing as to what the hero's\nleavings had been.\n\n'What did he die worth?' was to one of them a subject of earnest\nenquiry. A few yards in front of them again, as we passed, some\nbar-loungers foregathered. 'He stood no nonsense about niggers,'\none was saying as we went by him. Edgar nudged me. 'We all have\nour different views of him,' he said, 'haven't we? He gave us\nviews and visions. Thank God that he distrusted himself, and sent\nus straight to learn where he learned, haply to learn what he\nmissed learning from Oxford, his Mistress of Vision, so far to\nthe west and the north.'\n\n'You see, it's this way,' he said, when the place had grown quiet\nagain in the drowsy noonday. They had gone off then, the\nJo'burgers, three wagonettes and a motor-car crowded with them.\n'We must keep the road open to the north, mustn't we?---the way\nhis feet lie, the way that goes beyond his vision into bigger\nvisions.'\n\n'I'll try and do something,' I said humbly. 'There are plenty who\nwant to travel far, or think they do.' I glanced at the three\nMashonas by the fire. One was teaching the other two. They were\nspelling out Saint John's Gospel together. 'Is he one of the most\nadventurous?' Edgar asked. 'He's very willing,' I muttered. 'You\nask him whether he'd like to go to school down south.'\n\nThe boy's face lighted up when Edgar asked him. It was a rounded,\nsoft-featured Mashona face with large bright eyes. The lips were\nnot so very thick; the nostrils were cut like an Arab's.\n\n'Tell him I'll pay for him and for another who wants to go,'\nEdgar said. 'He's probably got a particular friend. What about\nAtiwagoni?' 'He might be keen to go,' I said, 'and he's quicker\nthan most of them.'\n\nWe began to smoke a last pipe silently. The time was drawing near\nto strike our camp. We must start for Bulawayo at once if we\nwould catch Edgar's midnight train easily.\n\nI reached for my wallet, and brought out an Oxford anthology.\n\nI turned over the pages and began to read rather sadly\n\nYet half a beast is the great god Pan,\nTo laugh as he sits by the river,\nMaking a poet out of a man:\nThe true gods sigh for the cost and the pain\nFor the reed which grows nevermore again\nAs a reed with the reeds in the river.\n\n'There's that point of view to consider,' I said. 'I'm fond of\nArcadia and Arcadians, and there's loss entailed if you send\nArcadians on the way of Athens.' Edgar sighed. 'I know what you\nmean,' said he; 'and I feel it as you do. But Arcadia's got\nLacedaemon at her throat, a southern state not much troubled with\nscruples, neither very philosophic nor very literary. The way has\nbeen opened by him we wot of to Oxford, to the Athens of the\nnorth. It was opened, as men thought, for the benefit of young\nLacedaemonians. The man that was hand-in-glove with Africanders,\nwith our Lacedaemonians of the south, did that. He imperiled\nLacedaemonian stability by opening the way to northern stars and\ntheir influences to Shelley, Burke, and Mill, and to all manner\nof people dangerous to the back-veld views of Lacedaemon. He\nopened the way to Tolstoy's rediscovery of the Christian Law,\namongst other northern treasures, didn't he? And I, with the\nArcadian taint in my veins, saw the way open and went northwards.\nNow it has come to pass that I remember my own people as Moses\ndid, and use the wisdom of Oxford as he used the wisdom of Egypt,\nto help one's own people towards a promised land. They want\nleaders, don't they? Is there not a cause? Is it healthy for\nLacedaemon to go on as she does in Arcadia, setting aside\nArcadia's own happiness?' 'I'll be back again next year,' Edgar\nsaid, 'to compare notes and report progress, should all fall\nwell. If I forget thee, O my Darien-peak, let my right hand\nforget her cunning!' We knelt long at the grave with the feet of\nits sleeper laid true north; then we said 'Good-bye' to it.\n'Bless him,' Edgar said to me as we turned away.' He opened a\nwider way than he knew perchance; God prosper the Great North\nRoad, the Road to Oxford rather than to Cairo!'\n\n\n\nTHE LEPER WINDOWS\n\n\n\nIts Cathedral was rising at last in a small South African\ncapital. For many years a pro-Cathedral of corrugated iron had\nsufficed. Now the first stage of a noble design in ruddy\nsandstone was all but completed.\n\nThe new Bishop who had been called to sit in its Cape-oak throne\nwas complacent of its charms. Chancel and Lady-chapel were\nprovided; transepts and tower might be expected in due course of\ntime. The Bishop was long and lean and dark-haired, very closely\nshaven. He came from Oxford, yet he was wise enough to obtrude\nthat fact but seldom on South Africa. He watched and listened\nintently and said strangely little; nevertheless, when he did\nspeak, he seemed to have no lack of things to say. His speech to\nthe Cathedral Building Committee after a three months' silence\nwas not without its interest. He spoke well of both design and\nexecution.\n\nHe turned to the shyer subject of the raising of the funds. How\nhad they attained to such wealth as their secretary announced?\nMainly by means of three fancy fairs and a cafe chantant. Alas!\nthat it should be so. Yet he did not propose to hold inquests.\nLet the dead bury their dead! Let them, however, set their hearts\nas the nether millstone against the adding of transept or tower\nsave only by alms made to God. He went on to ask with whose\nmemory the Lady-chapel was to be associated. Was it not the fact\nthat they had associated the chapel of Christ's Mother with the\nmemory of a visionary statesman? There seemed to be want of\nconsideration for the great dead shown in their popular decision,\ninasmuch as he had not seen his way to accept her Son. Was it not\nsomething of a felony to have stolen the dead man's name--a\nfelony that had assisted their funds very lavishly? But, likely\nenough, the Committee had had some noble thought in mind when\nthey gave to the dead such reckless honor. The last touches were\nnow being given to the nave. He wished to make a personal request\nof his own. He understood that colored persons and natives were\nnot to be encouraged to frequent this mother of churches. Their\nstatus within was, to say the least, precarious and hard to\nreconcile with due respect for the second chapter of Saint James.\nHe asked to put in at his own expense five windows after the\nlikeness of leper windows in England windows that colored persons\nand natives might use freely and without reproach. By this means\nsomeone at least of them from without the walls might be made\nfree of the vision of the services within.\n\nThe irony of the speech escaped its hearers for the most part.\nAfter the usual type of debate on such a subject as viewed in\nSouth African Church circles, the request was granted.\n\nNow it happened that Mr. Conyers Smythe, the most prosperous man\nin the whole community, was not present at that Committee\nmeeting. He was a Master of Arts of a South African University,\nand a real scholar, not a mere qualifier. He was, moreover, both\nsufficiently educated to understand the irony of a critical\nfriend, and habitually inclined to resent it. He spoke fierily to\ncertain of his intimates when the Bishop's speech was reported to\nhim. He went to see him himself next day in the evening time.\n\nHis host came and sat with him on the stoep, lighted the lamp to\nshow him a new book of his, and gave him coffee and a cigar. The\nhour was about half-past seven, and the week was Christmas week.\nThere was a new moon of very dim silver in the West looking\nthrough the rose trellis upon them, and masses of inflammatory\ncloud were heaped about her. The host looked at the guest\nmeditatively as he lighted his pipe.\n\nThe guest was fair-haired and well-featured, as well as\nmagnificently built; but his deep color was not exactly the hue\nof health. His eyes had been glowing when he had first come on\nthe scene, prepared to open battle. But when his host masterfully\ngained an armistice they became dull and rather worn eyes, that\nseemed not to be seeing good days somehow.\n\nTheir possessor only grew eager by flashes now and again as the\nBishop showed him a second new book one that they both deemed\nhighly delectable turning the passages and discussing various\nphases of its general subject the cults of the Greek States.\n\nThey had come together, these two, in a very tiny and remote city\neach an enthusiast as to this same by-path of erudition.\n\nIt was not until he had shown his guest the road on to a large\nextent of commonage--commonage of mutual delight that the Bishop\nled the way to a spot therein convenient for the desired\nengagement. He began to discuss the relations of Xanthos, the\nfair god, and Melanthos, the dark god, in Hellenic society.\n\n'That's the trouble here,' he said. 'I hope you won't draw the\nline even at my leper windows. They may at least ease the\nisolation of our two cults here. I find established so to speak\nin this Christian city the cult of Xanthos, tribal god of the\nfair-skins at the Cathedral, or for the present the Pro-Cathedral.\nAlso I find the cult of Melanthos multiplying itself at the tin\ntemple of Saint Simon the Cyrenian.'\n\nMr. Smythe's cheeks became more deeply empurpled and his eyes\ndanced.\n\n'You must know,' went on the Bishop, 'I don't believe in\ntribal-gods at this time of day. I believe in Someone bigger. So\nit was that leper windows, modeled on those of the Middle Ages,\nseemed to me possible easements. There, at least, Lazarus may feel\nat home and join in worship, as his forerunners in the Middle\nAges did, at their own wall-slits. Thus at least one step will\nbe taken towards the supercession of Xanthos. As to the cult\nof Melanthos, I hope to help to infuse more of the joy of the\nUniversal into it, so help me God!!! Yes, let me hear your\nobjections.'\n\nMr. Smythe began quite conclusively. Yet there was more\nmoderation and more argument in his rather indistinct beginning\nthan in the flowing harangue that followed, when his voice\ncleared and his periods found their stride. The speech fell from\nlevel to level. Ere the end it fell to the level of that sort of\ninvective against natives one hears so often where mean whites\nforgather a not very dizzy level, believe me!\n\nFinally, Mr. Smythe vowed to give no penny for the future to\nChurch purposes, and never to darken the doors of the new\nCathedral, should the concession of those leper windows be\nconfirmed. He would agree to forfeit a thousand pounds should he\nbreak his word, he said. Thereupon they closed the subject. The\nhost tried to lead back to the cults of the Greek States, but the\nguest was now too rapt and breathless to follow to much purpose.\nSoon, by mutual consent, they ended the interview, not without\nprivate friendliness, but with civic war at heart.\n\nThis was in Christmas week, and things went much as might have\nbeen expected during the months that followed. The concession had\nbeen granted by the Committee, and the concessionaire thought it\nhis duty to be grateful for that small mercy and to act upon it.\nThe malcontent repeated his vow, and it rang throughout the\nvillage-city. A good many of the natives who worshipped at the\ntin temple managed to hear of it, and laughed to one another;\nthey would watch for the darkening of the doors.\n\nThe Cathedral was to be dedicated to Saint Mark as a saint who\nwas martyred in Africa, but lacked a cathedral in the south.\n\nHis day was chosen for the hallowing. On the eve some pomp of\nProcession, Recession, and Anthems had been prepared, and the\nBishop was to preach. He had been away much of these last months\nto north, south, east and west. So custom had not staled his\nvariety of appeal to the outer circle of citizens or villagers.\nThey, as well as the devotees, thronged the nave. At the leper\nwindows there were knots of dark participants in the service.\n\nThe windows gave; a few the chance of sight, but they were only\nfive in number, and it would seem that many had to be content\nwith very scanty views. It is questionable whether a number of\nthe smaller folk nurse-boys, kitchen boys and telegraph\nmessengers got any sort of a glance ere the pageantry was over.\n\nThe night was very clear; the autumn wind was somewhat bitter.\n\nThe hymn after the Blessing had been reached 'Brief life is here\nour portion' and the banners streamed down the central aisle in\nglory. The leper windows grew very starry with observation.\n\nOne boy who had come late had no chance of a view now. He was the\nBishop's coachman, a lanky Bechuana, and he stood humming the\nhymn's air with his back to a window a window near the western\ndoor. Suddenly he started. Somebody was striding up to the porch.\nSurely there was no mistaking Mr. Conyers Smythe's fine shoulders\nin that figure nor the jaunty carriage of his massive head. Now\nhe drew near, and the light of the porch-lamp fell upon him.\n\nThe coachman caught the arm of his stable-boy, who was standing\nnext to him a rather Jewish-looking Mashona.\n\n'Look! look!' he cried.\n\nThey both watched the churchgoer as he passed up the steps. Then\nhe was gone from their view.\n\nIn the afternoon of the next day, when the triumphal services of\nDedication were over, the Bishop was being driven to a farmhouse\nnot very far distant. It was not till his mule-cart had almost\nreached home again that his driver ventured to question him. He\nhad seemed rather preoccupied that driver all the dusty journey.\nNow he asked a question that was being wildly debated in native\ncircles that very afternoon. 'My lord, has Mr. Smythe paid all\nthe thousand pounds yet?'\n\nThe Bishop started and stared; then he laughed. 'What do you know\nof Mr. Smythe's thousand pounds?' he asked. Then he answered,\n'No, Jack; why should he?'\n\nWhy indeed? So Mombe, the ox-man to give him his native name was\ntrying to evade his obligations, was he? Almost bursting with\nimportance, Jack told his master what Jim and he had seen last\nnight. The Bishop listened carefully, and asked two or three\nquestions. Then he told Jack that he might want him and his\nstable-boy later on that evening. He felt sure that the story was\nno mere willful fiction. When they were home he wrote a letter to\nSmythe asking him if he could come over and smoke after dinner.\nThen he went off to his sunset Evensong.\n\nConyers Smythe came about an hour afterwards. The Bishop and he\nhad had but two bookish evenings together since that rather\nbizarre one in Christmas week. They met cordially enough on this\nApril night.\n\nSmythe was looking far from well. He had been worried about his\nwife's health she was away in England. The last news of it had\nbeen rather disquieting. Smythe was glad enough of sympathy; he\nwas in no truculent mood.\n\nThey smoked by the fire in the Bishop's study as the night was\ncold. The Bishop had some new books to show and points to debate.\n\nThe two began with Greek pagan cults, but passed on to Christian\nhagiology, and discussed the legend of St. Mark with a fair\nmeasure of agreement. Then, when the coffee had come in, and they\nhad I become friends at ease and amity, the Bishop told Smythe\nthe boys' tale.\n\nSmythe grew curiously white and seemed angry.\n\nThen he laughed. 'Let's have 'em in and hear their yarn!' he\nsaid.\n\nSo Jack and Jim were sent for, and, after some slight delay,\nappeared. They were well washed and in their Sunday clothes. They\nwere disposed to be deferential enough, but withal very\nconfident, both of them. They cast somewhat awed glances at\nSmythe in his armchair, but they told their tale clearly on the\nwhole, in fair Biblical English, Jack first, slowly, and Jim, at\na great pace, after his superior. Smythe appeared to be busily\nconsulting a reference while Jim was ending. There was a pause.\nThen the guest looked up from his book and stated his alibi: 'I\nwas in my stable, sitting up with a sick horse,' he said. 'I came\naway long after the church service was over when the poor beast\ndied with frothing at the nose. You can ask my stable-boy.'\n\nJack bowed his head respectfully. 'Your stableboy, Mutenu, has\ntold me so this evening,' he said. 'But, O master, why should we\nlie? Is it not known that people have been seen in two places at\none time'?'\n\nSmythe frowned. He was not anxious to discuss hypotheses with\nnatives. Then the Bishop told the boys that he had heard enough.\nLet them think that although they had spoken truth, they had been\nmistaken.\n\n'How do you explain it?' said the Bishop rather eagerly when they\nhad gone out.\n\n'O,' said Smythe with a rather bitter smile, 'supposing it not to\nbe a native lie--natives have been known to lie, my lord--it's\nthe sort of story one reads about in the Middle Ages, the sort of\nlegend likely to linger. He was seen going into a church on a\ncertain ill-starred night.'\n\nThe Bishop gave a start and interrupted him. 'Do you know what\nyesterday evening was? Why, it was Saint Mark's Eve.'\n\nSmythe smiled a queer livid smile. 'Yes, I thought of that all\nalong, since the boy mentioned the porch,' he said. 'I've just\nbeen looking up the old belief in that new book of yours. I was\nseen going in, therefore I must look to go out in these next\ntwelve months.\n\nA year, a month, a week, a natural day\nThat Faustus may repent and save his soul!\nO lente, lente currite, noctis equi!\nThe stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,\nThe devil will come, and Faustus will be damn'd.\n\nThe Bishop smiled at the quotation, but looked anxiously at his\nguest. Was he really taking his subliminal self's choice of date\nto heart? He proceeded to recount his own unfaith in thirteen's\nblack magic, also in the traditional properties of salt and\nbroken mirrors. He gave instances of disproof in his own unended\ncareer.\n\nBut Smythe, though he laughed with him, seemed rather restrained\nand silent: the last hour of that evening appeared to hang fire\nsomehow. Towards the end of it, Smythe talked of his wife. 'She\nis at her old home,' he said, and mentioned a village very near\nto Oxford.\n\n'I know,' said his host, looking into the wood fire. He was\nwatching the Cherwell swirl through a narrow archway. He was\nconscious of heavenly blue in the white limbo ceiling above him,\nand the cushions of his chair had a grassy feel.\n\n'She's gone home,' said Smythe, 'and she's not well, and I've not\nbeen well.'\n\n'You look as if you want rest and change,' said the Bishop\nuneasily.\n\n'I think of going a trip to the old country,' said Smythe. 'I was\nborn out here, and haven't ever seen it. I'd like to see it\nonce.'\n\n'O, do go,' said his host. 'It is worth going far. Yes, all that\nlong way.'\n\nNot many minutes after they said good-night.\n\nBut the Bishop did not go to bed at once after his guest had\ngone. He reached for his Keats, and read, 'The Eve of Saint\nMark'; then he reflected.\n\n'Strange are the uses of leper windows,' he thought. 'How I\nshould like to know what I may know this time next year, if only\nI didn't know I'd better not know it now! Well, be it a sign or a\nmock sign, God see him through with it!'\n\nConyers Smythe started home by the next mail boat save one. The\nsame boat carried a letter in the Bishop's handwriting to a\npastoral divine in Oxford.\n\n'He's a sick sheep, anyhow,' said the writer, 'and I've a\npresentiment that he mayn't last out a year.'\n\nAs it befell, Conyers Smythe died rather suddenly in England\nbefore November was over. People remarked on the dreadfulness of\nthe event. But Mrs. Smythe bore the shock bravely, as if she had\nbeen well prepared to bear it. It seemed that she had known the\ntruth about his heart-disease in May, almost as soon as he was\ntold it by the London doctor. Smythe had grown to be intimate in\nthose last months with two or three English scholars one was an\nexpert in tribal cults, and the other was that pastoral divine.\nIt was one or other of these Oxford friends of his who sent on\nhis last letter to the Bishop in December after he had gone away.\nAmong other messages, the letter brought this one:\n\n'There was something in that Saint Mark's Eve business I suppose.\nBut I had had my warnings before of an event that is likely\nenough to occur this very week. I am glad indeed that I came home\nand saw things from other sides before the end. Perhaps those\ncrowded-out Kaffirs by your leper windows hurried me up with\ntheir intelligence. I am grateful to them for that. Otherwise I\nmight have delayed, and never started on the home voyage.\n\n'You must make some allowance for my old point of view, as I was\nborn into it. But now I want to give both Transepts to the Glory\nof God on condition that colored folk and natives shall, have\nthem to themselves undisturbed. Forgive my narrow-mindedness, but\nI'd rather have it so than have all races mixed up together, and\nperhaps they'd rather have it so themselves! No, I really don't\nthink I'm dying in the creed of the tribal god Xanthos, but in\nthe faith of Someone bigger. I can trust you to befriend me at\nsome altar of His. . . . I wish I could afford the Tower.'\n\n'Alms!' said the Bishop. 'Thank God they'll not be built now by\nbazaars or fancy fairs or even by cafes-chantants. Poor base-born\nlittle churches out here, that one so often hears of, aren't they\nonly too likely to grow up into the temples of the tribal god?'\n\nThus the Transepts were destined to be of purer lineage than\nChancel or Nave or Lady-chapel. Only the Leper Windows are their\nequals in descent as yet among their fellow-buildings. But there\nis good hope of an honorable birth for the yet unborn Tower.\n\n\n\nTHE BURNT OFFERING A SEQUEL TO 'THE LEPER WINDOWS'\n\n\n\n['The Headman made it generally known that he expected all the\nmen, both Christian and heathen, to subscribe to the funds. One\nman refused to give anything, and was taken before the Magistrate\nin consequence.' Extract from a South African Church paper,\nDecember 22, 1910.]\n\n\n\nThe transepts had been built and blessed, the five leper windows\nwere no longer over-crowded. Xanthos and Melanthos, gods of the\nfair and the swart skins, had in a measure met together, and in a\nsense kissed each other. Much remained to be achieved in the\nmatter of mutual good understanding, and much more again in the\nsupercession of these tribal deities by a Greater.\n\nOn the other hand, something had been done to teach the devotees\nof Xanthos toleration and a spirit of alms. The Bishop now turned\nhis attention towards Melanthos more particularly what could he\ndo to ennoble the aims and methods of his clients? He had made a\njourney to England and back not long before the blessing of the\ntransepts. He regretted leaving his flock at the time. Yet\ncertain observations he had made just ere he started gave him\nmuch food for thought on the voyage. And when he was home in the\nold country he was glad to find time and occasion to observe\nafresh, supplementing Africa by Europe, intuitions by research.\n\nThe Rev. Charles Topready, a keen missionary, had asked him to\nvisit him the week before he went homewards. It was the season\nwhen that countryside threshed out its millet-grain in a revel\nof rhythmic labor. The Bishop delighted in some of those airs\nthat the sticks beat time to. He was greedy of fantastic\ninterpretations as he wrote their voweled refrains down in a\nnote-book.\n\n'We may have a Harvest Thanksgiving in church, may we not, this\ncoming Sunday?' he said.\n\nNow Harvest Thanksgivings were as red rags to Topready. 'Why\nshould we bind upon Africa a burden that irks England?' he\ngroaned. 'Surely it is a mercy that we can start afresh on the\nveld with no tradition of a Feast of Pumpkins.'\n\nThe Bishop smiled and smoked and argued by the hour. His point\nwas that festivals of the soil were serviceable for sons of\nthe soil. That agricultural festivals were serviceable for\nhusbandmen, pastoral feasts for shepherds and goat-herds, hunting\ncommemorations like that of Saint Hubert, for those who hunted.\nHis knowledge of Greece and Rome, pagan and Christian, of\nmediaeval England and modern Brittany helped him with many apt\nillustrations. Topready stuck out his chin and kept bravely to\nhis two points the danger of materialism and the menace to the\nspiritual cults and festas of Holy Church as by law established\nin the England of to-day.\n\n'All right,' said the Bishop, 'let us have no Harvest\nThanksgiving for the tillage of African earth. That is to say not\nthis year. But keep an open mind.' Topready promised dubiously.\n\nThat struggle and waiving of victory had put the Bishop on his\nmettle. He had thought out the subject to some purpose before\nthey met again.\n\nHere are some pages from his English diary:\n\nSept. 21. Preached at a Thanksgiving in Essex. 'Happy harvest\nfields,' quiet tints in the Vicarage garden. A sun that seemed to\nmake better use of a short day than an African sun would of a\nlong one. What a festival Topready might have just about this\ntime if he only liked. The masasas tinted with copper, crimson;\nmauve, and pink, and other leaves showing faery green and gold.\n\nSaint Matthew's Day. The festival of the foolery of riches when\nSpring is everywhere and the sun is shining.\n\nOct. (date illegible). Preached at the blessing of the boats in a\nsmall Sussex harbor the herring season just beginning. What\nglorious girls' names some of the boats had that we prayed for\n'Diana Elizabeth,' for instance, might have sailed out of the\n'Faerie Queene.'\n\nNov. 1 (All Saints'). Went to church at Saint Paul's in a side\nchapel.\n\nNov. 2 (All Souls'). Went to pray in a cemetery chapel.\n\nBoth were misty mornings, but the sun each day came out before we\nhad done, and broke through the dingy windows in a carnage of\ncolor. How fine a side of death, November, the month of the dead,\npresents here. Damp and fog and fall of the leaf doubtless the\nsorryness of the bad business of decay and punishment but on the\nother hand what bravery of sunlight at times, and what colors for\nthe sun to shine upon. In Africa it's so different. There the\nmonth is a spring month. The gay side of death as a release from\nAfrica's plentiful curses and bondages is happily prominent. All\nSaints' Day our May Day our Feast of Flora and the Rosa Mystica!\nWhat a day for converts suckled in animism! Let us commemorate\nthe African Saints with garlands of spring flowers as well as\nwith palms in their hands. Have written to Topready to suggest a\nMay-Day Festival with African drums to dance to, if no English\nMay-pole to plait.\n\nJan. 21 (St. Agnes' Day). Went to a down church, where they had a\nsort of special service. Lambing-time among the South Downs just\ncoming on. The sacrifice pleaded with one main request in view\nthe blessing on the flocks. If they had only brought some lambs\nin! I hope to live to see some pied African lambs and kids in\nchurch yet.\n\nJune 21. Went to Stonehenge on the longest day. Would have camped\nout there on the eve if the policeman would have let me. Took\nobservations as to Flame-Stone. Compared notes with those I took\nat Zimbabwe this time last year on my way to Topready's.\n\nJune 24 (Saint John). Yes, in African Mission Stations we should\nhave St. John's Fires or fires corresponding to them about\nChristmas time.\n\nThen in Mashonaland, summer is at height. Yes, the other Saint\nJohn's Day, or its Eve, would do. Let us give thanks for the\nLight of the World and the Sun of Righteousness symbolized by\nthings seen and enjoyed. What did Saint Patrick do about the\nsacred fire? He kept it going, didn't he? Let us light our\nbonfires with a good will this coming Christmastide we who live\nby sun-time so often.\n\n\n\nBack from England came the Bishop full of the lore of early\nmissions. He had enriched his zeal for broad-basing the people's\nworship on their own everyday earth, and for enlightening things\nopaque with effulgences invisible. He saw his way more clearly to\nfurther what he had at heart. Topready had had many letters, and\nthey had had their effect. But he had not capitulated yet. He\ncapitulated at a price, as we shall see.\n\n'Church ready by Christmas,' wrote Topready, 'please come and\nconsecrate.' 'Expect me the day after,' telegraphed the Bishop.\nHe thought about a bonfire as he rode along on that Saint\nStephen's Day. 'The kopje above the Mission!' he reflected. 'A\nmagnificent place for a beacon-fire.'\n\nTo his delight the new church crowned the very kopje he had been\nthinking of. There it stood on the sky-line, its gold of fresh\nthatch crowned a huge pole building, and was itself crowned by a\nwhite cross.\n\n'How fine!' said the Bishop to himself, 'but there's no room up\nthere for a bonfire as well, alas!'\n\nTopready did not look over-cheerful when his leader greeted him\nwith congratulations on the building of the church.\n\n'It's all very well, or rather it might have been ever so much\nbetter,' he said, as they went in.\n\nIn the evening there was much time to talk. They sat on the stony\nrise above the house with a wide valley view. The starlight was\nbrilliant above them eager, perfervid, passionate. They were on\nthe rocks smoking, the Bishop between Topready and Manners, who\nwas not a parson, but a policeman.\n\n'It's like this,' said Topready. 'Holy Innocents' is the first\nchurch that has been built since I came here. It was built on a\nsystem.'\n\nHe explained roughly how it worked. The native teacher used his\npersonal and official majesty for what it was worth. The people\non the Mission ground were asked for poles, grass, work, &c.\n'These were given,' said Topready, 'or at least \"given\" is the\nword that I understand my predecessor would have chosen. The\nheadman proclaimed that his will coincided with the will of the\nnative teacher. They wanted a church built that would compare\nfavorably with churches erected under the auspices of other\nnative teachers and other headmen.\n\n'The contributions came in plentifully, sylvan or grassy. People\nwho never come to church, heathens who do not seem much overjoyed\nwith the Gospel, gave just as handsomely as Church officers. No\none was paid. The church is cheap and big, and the headman and\nnative teacher are both unhealthily contented.'\n\n'Well, what's the matter?' said Manners; 'it's the way we do\nthese little things in Africa. White men don't build churches\nfrom base to spire on ideal principles exactly, do they. Bishop?'\n\n'At least we haven't had a cafe chantant lately,' the Bishop\nsaid.\n\n'Well, don't you be too sure one isn't going on in some outlying\nparish while we sit here. As it happens, I know of one advertised\nfor next month.'\n\n'Be sure of your facts,' said the Bishop.\n\n'Anyhow, before you came, plenty of the society lash used to be\napplied to get church-building doles out of Europeans. Moreover,\nif you look into it, generally you'll find things at Missions\nmuch as you find them here. These gloriously \"given\" Mission\nchurches on Mission lands that the home magazine ecstasizes over\nare not given so very freely, to say the least of it. They are\nput up by a sort of social pressure immensely effective,'\nTopready broke in.\n\n'They say most of the churches this side of the river are built\nthe one way and I don't like the one way. Archdeacon Maynard used\nto advocate the one way, and impress it on his missionaries black\nand white. It was he who started the church-rate and debarred\ndefaulters from Easter Communion. I've stopped that, and I want\nto stop the one way.'\n\nThe Bishop groaned. 'Archdeacon Maynard's a vice-president of the\nFree and Open Churchmen in England. I heard him speak eloquently,\nif a little floridly, on the right of the poor to the House of\nGod.'\n\nManners chuckled. 'England's some way off,' he said.\n\nTopready spoke from his heart. 'I don't like it. I told the\npeople that the proper way was for Christians and philo-Christians\nto build accordingly as they could spare money and time. But they\nsaid that they were too few. I answered \"Then let them wait in the old\nchurch awhile.\" They said they wanted a new church this year, and that\nthe heathen should be called to help the faithful as in other places.\nThey said they ought to have a kraal levy as other places did it saved\na great deal of trouble.  They thought me mad, I think. Azariah, the\nteacher, practically told me so.'\n\nThe Bishop lit his pipe again.\n\n'We'll think about it,' he said. 'The consecration is fixed for\nthe day after to-morrow, is it not? It was to be christened Holy\nInnocents' Church on Childermas Day, was it not? Will you have it\nconsecrated on the Eve instead, Saint John's Night? Time Sunset.'\n\nTopready started. 'Rather late, is it not?' he asked.\n\nIt was a great concourse that lined the hillside on the morrow\nwhen the sun was going down. The Bishop had spoken that morning\nin the old plain church of how he wished them to observe certain\ndays of prayer and thanksgiving.\n\nHe asked them to keep a festival of flocks on Saint Agnes' Day.\n\nHe asked them to keep a festival of herds on Saint Luke's Day.\n\nHe asked them to keep the feasts of Loaf-Mass in August and\nWood-Mass in September as feasts of Harvest and Forestry.\n\nHe asked them to keep a thanksgiving for summer after Christmas\non the night of Saint John, if they and their priest thought\ngood.\n\nHe spoke of how the heathen had worshipped the sun in the grey\nnorthern lands. Then Christians better taught had thanked Christ,\nthe Light of the World, for the glory of the sun, and lighted\ntheir joy-fires to a better purpose.\n\nDoubtless, some in this land long ago, not only at Zimbabwe, but\non many hills and high places, had honored the strong sun of the\nSouth. He asked them as Christians to be glad for that same sun's\nblessings at Christmas time. It seemed to him good for those who\nwished it (he gave no law) for those to light their bonfires\nto-night and to thank God not only for the summer, but for the Sun\nof righteousness. He himself had a mind to light a fire on that\nSaint John's Night to the glory of God.\n\nTopready looked thoughtful after church. 'If I adopt your\ncalendar loyally as far as may be, do you see your way to help me\nagainst the system?' he asked of a sudden. His grey-blue eyes\nwere full of fight.\n\nThe Bishop nodded. He talked with him quietly a little while.\n\n'The pact is made, then?' said Topready. 'No, I don't think we\nhave sold our convictions, either of us. I don't feel penitent\nabout my side of the bargain.'\n\n'I feel it's a holy alliance,' said the Bishop, and his face\nglowed. 'People will keep this night, and remember what was done\non it, may be, long after we are forgotten.'\n\nThat sunset a mighty crowd was there among the rocks. Much dead\nwood had been brought. Fathers, mothers, and children in costumes\nthat ranged from skins to European fashions shouldered or headed\ntheir faggots.' A grim thought obsessed the Bishop as he watched\nthem. These people, so quiet and yielding as to the selling of\nsacrament, and levying of church vote how easily they might be\nswayed to more sinister reminiscences of the Middle Ages! If he\nand Topready and Azariah and the headman enjoined it, what would\nsave certain aged heathen neighbors from an auto-da-fe for\nalleged witchcraft one of these nights? Were not some of those\nold scenes at the stake much like this scene before him? Did not\ncountry people come together much as these, with dark impassive\nfaces and bundles of firewood? Did not they listen and listen so,\nuntil the time came to pile faggots to the glory of God?\n\nHe stood on a rock and looked down on the faces. Topready stood\nclose beneath him looking cheerful, the native teacher was near\nlooking dubious, next to him stood the headman with his white\nbeard, looking amused. Around them the crowd poised and posed\nitself among the rocks with innate grace and imposing silence.\nEven the babies in the goatskins were quiet.\n\nThe Bishop spoke of alms-giving. He said he did not like their\nplan of raising a house for Christ. Let people who loved Christ\nbuild churches if they wished to, but let them build churches\naccording to their power to give! Let them not seek the labor or\nmoney of others, careless how it came! Rather let them worship in\nthe old and the small, than build a new and great church anyhow!\nHe, their Bishop, wished to buy their new church from them,\npaying back those who had helped to build, giving to each his\ndue. He asked them, would they sell this church to him, to do\nwith it as seemed to him good? If, when they built, they had\nmade, as it were, a false start, let them start again, and this\ntime so run that they might obtain the Promises of Christ. Would\nthey sell their church to him?\n\nHe waited for an answer.\n\nThere was a hush. The eyes that watched him seemed almost\noverwhelming in their vigilance.\n\nHis eyes went wistfully off to the sky in front of him. What\nbeaches of gold and weed-tangles of rose-color those were to the\nnorth-west the way of England.\n\nSuddenly the silence was broken.\n\nAzariah spoke out bravely. He had heard the words of his\nherdsman, and he knew that he had' gone astray, even like a lost\nbull. As for this thatched cattle-byre that they had built, let\nhim who asked for it have it! Was it not his own?\n\nOne after another spoke. Their speeches all had the same import\nlet the church be handed over to him that asked.\n\nA roar of acclamation worth many speeches went up from the\nhill-side Then the Bishop asked those who carried faggots to follow\nhim to the consecration. His shepherd's staff went before him. An\nearthen vessel smoked with incense in front of that again. He\nfollowed up the steep path in his shining robes. Behind him came\nblazing grass torches, and behind them again wood-carriers. When\nthey reached the hill's crown there was some delay in the\ngathering dusk. They were stacking the wood for the sacrifice. At\nlast Topready turned to his chief with a happy face. All was\nprepared. The Bishop's voice rang out in one sonorous prayer of\noblation. Then someone handed him a grass torch and he kindled\nthe thatch above the altar. The church that misbegotten innocent\nflamed up toward heaven amber and grey and crimson under the\nstars.\n\n\n\nEIGHT-EIGHT IN LAVENDER\n\n\n\nAndrew Vine came out to Africa this year as a pilgrim, and was\ndisappointed. He did not go about his pilgrimage in the right way\nto my thinking. For to begin with, on his own confession, he put\nhimself in the hands of a born organizer, who was making up a\nparty of fellow-travelers.\n\nOf course they were provided with first-class tickets for the\nboat, and enjoyed for sixteen days and more, in a same and narrow\nscene, an amplitude of the luxuries they were used to, and tired\nof. Then, dogged by a diet befitting that state to which it had\npleased Providence to call them, they rode the Great North Road\nfor some days in a northern express. Vine said that the Victoria\nFalls were all right, but that their surroundings were, many of\nthem, perversely wrong. It was so very stale, the hotel business,\nwith the moonlight river excursions and the Livingstone trips,\nfar too much sleeked and smoothed by foresight, and tamed by\ntaking of thought. If one had only traveled up with pack donkeys,\nprovisioned with leathery meat and leathery damper! For Vine had\nknown better times in Africa. He had known pioneer adventures in\nhis headstrong youth but had fallen out of his Column after three\ncrowded months. Tempted of fever, he had made a great refusal.\nAnd now in this year, twenty-four years after, the sense of\nhaving seen better days at a tithe of the expense, oppressed him.\n\nHowever, the tickets had been taken, and the splendidly null\norganization of their party had him in its grip. He went back\nfrom the Falls to Bulawayo, and was whisked out to Khami. Only an\nhour was allowed him to see the river. At the grave of the\nMatopos, he was allowed two hours. There a brooding Presence\ngrappled with the languors of his pilgrimage. The demoniac\ndiscontent of that savage scene made great play with him, during\nthe two hours he was there, but two hours are not a very long\ntime. Soon they were scorching back again with an interval for\ntea at a well (or ill) appointed hotel. Vine was disposed to give\nup the dreary pilgrimage-game that very night, he told me. But\nthe born organizer, coming to him after dinner, persuaded him to\nplay it out. He offered to release him after the next lap the lap\nof Great Zimbabwe. When that was once finished to time, he\nproposed that the party should have a breather, a short spell of\ncivilized life at Salisbury, should it so seem good to them. Vine\ncould be spared for the space of that interlude. Afterwards he\nwould doubtless take boat with them for a cruise up the East\nCoast. He would be sufficiently reinvigorated to rough it out\nwith them rigorously to the end. The East Coast route might not\nentail quite so many hardships. Vine sighed, but he was a man of\nhis word. He went to Zimbabwe without a murmur. He had longed for\nseventy-five miles of the dusty Umvuma post-cart, but alas, the\nday was the third of the new month! The railway extension to\nVictoria had been opened on the first. The organizer rubbed his\nhands as he told them the glad news: 'We can have a dining-car\nand sleeping berths now to within sixteen miles odd of the ruins.\nWe shan't need to fare so ruggedly after all. A lunch at the\n\"Apes and Peacocks\" Hotel is about the worst of it. But we can\ntake out a Fortnum and Mason's hamper in the road-car that meets\nus.'\n\nSo they went to the ruins. Vine, who, as a pioneer had seen the\n'Temple's' torso shaggy in bush and long grass, hardly knew it\nagain. It had been shaven and shorn rather ruthlessly. Some of\nthe ruins, he noted ungratefully, were numbered to correspond\nwith a catalogue. There was, moreover, the glamorous sheen of a\nwire fence about the whole place.\n\nA curator participated as guide by special arrangement. A local\ncelebrity accompanied him; he stood for the faith of Ophir, and\nsmote the Egyptologist adversary not once nor twice alone. He\nconfessed to the ladies of the party his conviction that the\ntheory of an African origin was too inconceivably squalid. He\nstood for the gorgeous East, he said, as against Kaffirdom. He\nwould not insult the culture that they brought with them by\nbothering them with detailed arguments.\n\nMeanwhile another local celebrity was employed in bossing up some\nrestoration work. Primitive walls were receiving trained modern\nattention, and medical attendance, regardless of expense.\n\nVine came to me at Umvuma when the Zimbabwe visitation was over\nand done. He was seeing his party off by the Salisbury train\nwhen he caught sight of me on the platform. That night he smoked\nand slept by an ox-wagon. Bread was to hand in rather frugal\nmeasure, but there was great plenty of monkey-nuts. There was\nalso bush-tea, and Vine brought much tobacco. We smoked till long\nafter the moon set, and that was near midnight. He told me of\ndisappointments that had come to him through his pilgrimage being\nover well-appointed.\n\n'After all,' I said, 'you might try again next year.'\n\n'But a year's a lot at my age. I was forty-five last month, and I\ndon't mean coming out again.\n\n'So little done, so much to do, So many worlds, such things to\nbe.'\n\n'Where shall we go to this week?' he went on. 'I've got a week\noff from the Cook's combination. You'll give me the one week,\nwon't you Shall we go to Dhlo-Dhlo or Nanatali or Sinoia Caves?\nIt's the curse of our Cook's tour that it's mopped up the sacred\nplaces I did want to see in a decent way the Grave, and the\nTemple, and the Falls.'\n\n'Yours is the very snobbery of pilgrimage,' I told him sternly.\n'There are surely shrines on the veld that have never yet got\ninto a Chartered Company's guide-book.' I told him of a modest\nset of ruins out our way. I couldn't well come with him in any\ndirection, north, south, or east or west, as he seemed to think I\ncould. I might get in five days between Sunday and Sunday, if he\nchose our own neighborhood. He seemed glad enough to agree.\n\nWe cut food down and loads, and we started. We camped within the\nprecincts of the shrine, hard by a place where a fire-fused\nchalice had been dug out. Ours was a fair camping-ground. A ring\nof kopjes about it wore the sun's colors. To the east a spruit\nwas in sight, overhung in that autumn month by the mists of\nmorning. Within those precincts we dreamed some temple-dreams on\ntwo golden afternoons, and slept temple-sleep on two very shiny\nnights.\n\n'My reformed pilgrimage has justified itself,' Vine told me on\nthe morning that we left, when we were making for my station.\n\n'Wait a bit,' I said. 'We are arriving if all falls well, this\nvery night at another shrine. We have not done with our Pilgrims'\nWay.'\n\nThat night we came to the farm-house where the Kents farmed and\nmissionized. I had expected Vine to like it and them, but I had\nnot guessed how much attracted he would be. The Kents were not\nup-to-date, and they dressed as some people dressed in England\ntwenty-five years before in the period of their leaving home.\n\nSo Mrs. Kent wore on that night a chocolate-brown Liberty costume\nof a Burne Jones pattern. Miss Kent was only twenty-two, and wore\nrose-color, but the design of her dress was her mother's own.\nKent wore an eighties collar with old-oak plaid and a red tie, I\ndid not like his taste.\n\nVine sat and watched them with a reverential sort of gaze. He\nasked Kent when they were going home, thoughtfully. But Kent told\nhim that they did not think of going home again, only up the\ncoast to Zanzibar, or down to Inhambane, when they wanted change\nand holiday. 'That's splendid,' said Vine emphatically. 'Don't go\nhome. It's not what it used to be. I feel sure you would not like\nit.'\n\nAfter supper we had music, and Kent kept on singing, at Vine's\nparticular request. I did not take much notice of what he was\nsinging till Vine came and spoke to me. Then I saw how excited he\nwas, and I listened with attention.\n\n'Do you remember that?' he said. 'It was the song that Oriel man\nused to sing.' Then I recognized 'Our Last Waltz,' and afterwards\n'In Sweet September.' I remembered both as the songs of a man\nwhose wedding we both had attended, in the very year that we went\ndown.\n\nWe shared a hut behind the mission homestead, and shared much\nconverse before we slept.\n\n'It's purple and gold,' Vine said. 'I came out to find a beastly\nruin.'\n\n'And you find the Victorian Sixth Decade mummified,' I said.\n\n'Don't sneer!'\n\n'Well, pressed in lavender,' I amended.\n\nFor early did'st thou leave the world, with powers\nFresh, undiverted to the world without,\nFirm to their mark, not spent on other things;\nFree from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt,\nWhich much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings.\n\n'That describes Kent's Hegira, doesn't it? He's stopped where we\ntwo were, when we went down, in ever so many ways.'\n\n'Hurray!' cried Vine, tossing his boot up, 'I came out to find a\nbeastly ruin, and I've found my lost youth, nothing more nor\nless! Bless you!'\n\nBut his ecstasy was to culminate on the following morning. Kent\nhad mounted him on one of his two mules, and piloted him on the\nother to see some Bush paintings three miles away.\n\nI grew a little uneasy, they were so long gone, for I knew well\nwhat a lot of country lay between us and my own mission station.\nI was due there by sunrise or soon after, on the morrow. Mrs.\nKent was strumming away on the piano old dance tunes that I\nremembered barrel-organ melodies of now remote days, days when a\nbi-weekly shave sufficed me. I stood in the doorway and beat\ntime. Whenever were we going to get started at this rate? At last\nthe mules came cantering up the wagon-road.\n\n'Get a move on,' I shouted to Vine as he pulled up before the\ndoor. But just at that moment Mrs. Kent began on 'The Reign of\nthe Roses.' Vine, who had kicked a foot out of its stirrup, did\nnot dismount. He sat drinking in the dance-measure. Louder and\nlouder she played the air, and, humming it over, he drove his\nfoot home. Shaking up the reins, he cantered his mule round and\nround the sun-dial in front of the door. Round and round he went,\nstill humming, while those wiry and sun-burnt wrists pounded away\nat the dance-music.\n\n'How long is this going on?' I pleaded. I began to see the humor\nof the thing when I watched our carriers. They were gaping as at\na new kind of circus. At last Mrs. Kent gave over, not very soon,\nhowever; the melody was evidently a favorite of hers.\n\n'Is there not a cause?' pleaded Vine, when he had dismounted\nlingeringly, and was facing my reproaches for his wanton delay.\nHe muttered something about a merry-go-round. Afterwards he\nexplained, when we were making up for lost time along the big\nvlei.\n\n'It was that night when we got to Goring,' he reminded me, 'when\nwe went down to Henley in that double-sculler at the end of our\nfirst summer term 1888, the first week in July. There was a\nvillage fair on that night, and we rode round on the horses, ever\nso many pennyworths. That was the tune I remembered best of all\nthe tunes that the steam-organ played. Don't you remember?' And\nstrange to say, I did.\n\nHe played the game with the organizer, rapt though he was by his\nmemory of the steam-organ, I will say that much for him. He took\nthe trouble to go all the way up to Salisbury, and to beg him to\nhave him excused. And he was successful. I don't quite know what\nexcuse he gave. It was scarcely likely to be so crude as the\nexcuse I guessed at, 'I want to marry a wife, and therefore I\ncannot go.' He unbosomed himself to me engagingly when he came\nback from Salisbury. He appealed to my compassionate sympathy.\n\n'Just fancy! Forty-five and no real home!' he said, 'And here\nI've come on pilgrimage, and found just what I've unconsciously\ncraved youth and beauty up-to-date, not this date but the date of\nmy own unforgotten youth 1888 in lavender, so to speak.'\n\nI wished him luck in his wooing of Miss Kent. If Mrs. Kent had\nbeen a widow, I should have thought her much more suitable. He\ngave the bridle-reins a shake, and rode away on an old salted\nhorse he had bought, walking had grown much too slow for him.\n\nHe won Joan Kent, and fixed it up with her late-Victorian parents\nto their mutual content.\n\nThe wedding date is chosen already it is June 20th a day hallowed\nenough, having twice been Jubilee Day. I think Vine would have\npreferred May 24th as having been Victoria Day. But Joan objected\nto her wedding taking place in Our Lady's May month.\n\n\n\nDIVINATION\n\n\n\nI have a friend who lives some miles away, among fantastic rocks\nand crimson-flowered Kaffir trees. I was over at his homestead\none day in Christmas week last year and found that he was absent.\nHe was sleeping at a trading-station to east, the boys said, and\nwould not be back for a day or so. But he had left word with them\nto give me supper should I come. So I had time to notice a\nchange.\n\nThree or four very cool and fresh water-colors adorned his walls.\nThey were pinned up there under a trophy of harness. Under each\noblong of paper was a title in old English characters. One was\nnamed 'Sundown.' another 'Sun-up' these both showed the homestead\nnot as it was now in mid-summer, but as I remembered it in late\nwinter or early spring, with some of the trees in full flower.\n\nThe other picture showed a charming group of children variously\ncolored among the rocks. I feasted my eyes on it for quite a long\nwhile, noting its detail, which bewildered me. Surely no such\nscene had been witnessed lately in all South Africa. Yet I knew\nthe rocks of the scene; they were close by, and the children were\npainted some of them with familiar-looking faces. The title\nunderneath was 'Innocents.'\n\nI did not see my friend for a week or so after that, and when I\ndid I did not think at first to ask about the pictures. However,\nhe began to tell the story of them himself. He was talking about\nmen on the road, a class with which he had a large acquaintance,\nhaving lodged many of them. 'I had one here last week,' he said,\n'a white man in clean white ducks. He stopped two nights, and\nwent outside painting most of the days. He gave me three\npictures. He could paint, couldn't he? I couldn't catch his name,\nand he said he wasn't sure where he was going to stop next. But\nhe went up the Rosebery Road, and seemed to know his way about.\nHe hadn't got a bag, and he traveled very light just a blanket or\nso and a loaf of bread and a cup. I shouldn't think he'd come to\nmuch harm, would he?' I shook my head. 'He could paint, couldn't\nhe?' he said, glancing up at the pictures. I nodded. 'That's a\nfancy picture,' I said; 'that of the children a pretty fancy. I\nwonder what it means.' My friend Dick meditated. 'I don't see\nmuch wrong in the painting anyhow,' he said.\n\nThe picture was indeed a pretty fancy there were children white\nand black in it, and lambs and kids. The white children were\nmixed up with the black curiously. One little sturdy Mashona\ncarried a white child in his arms. A white boy with fair hair,\naged nine or ten, carried a Mashona baby in a goat's skin\nstrapped to his back. The light of dawn was in the picture a cool\nsummer dawn. Between the rocks and the red-sprayed trees of our\ncountry was, as it were, a lawn, close-bit by much feeding into a\nfair copy of an English lawn. I looked hard at the picture.\n\n'Those two Mashonas are like the children that were burnt in a\nkraal this way,' I said pointing. 'I tried to dress their burns\nbut they both died.' Dick looked up as I pointed, but he said\nnothing. He eschews dwelling on painful subjects very often, I\nnotice. 'Don't you think that they are like?' I asked.\n\n'Kaffir children favor one another,' Dick said sagely. He stood\nwatching the picture on the faded wall in silence. Then we\ndropped the subject. But the mystery of it remained for me.\n\nA week or two after, that mystery multiplied. Dick was expecting\nvisitors, and he asked me over to meet them. The male visitor was\nan official I used to know of old; he was to bring his sister\nwith him this time, and the sister I did not know. She was a\ncharming person; one who had been in the country a long time ago\nand left it, but had come back again now to be married and to\nmake a home in Rosebery. She had reached the homestead about\nmid-day, the same day that I came over in the late afternoon.\n\nAfter tea and before dinner we walked down to the cattle-kraal,\nall four of us. Then, when Dick and her brother were ahead she\nbegan to question me about that water-color on the wall. I told\nher what Dick had told me. 'He told me that himself,' she said,\n'but I didn't understand.'\n\n'I thought I knew two of the children,' I said, 'but Kaffir\nchildren seem much alike to our English eyes, don't they? They\nseemed to me to resemble two quite little children I used to come\nand see. They were badly burnt near here.'\n\nShe started.\n\n'Did they get better?' she asked. I shook my head. She started\nagain. 'Listen,' she said. 'Two children to whom I used to be\nnursery-governess were murdered in the \"Rebellion\" on a farm\nclose to this very place. They were staying with their mother's\nelder sister. Please do try and tell me this. Why are these\nportraits, life-like portraits, of those two children in this\npicture?'\n\nI stared at her rather stupidly. Then Dick came to us we, were\nclose up to the cattle-kraal and called us to come and see his\nyoung stock, and talked to us about them.\n\n'I don't think I'll tell the children's mother,' she said to me.\nI was then saying good-night to her in the bright moonlight\noutside the homestead door some hours afterwards. 'They live in\nthe colony now, she and her husband. Telling her might reopen\ndeep wounds. It wouldn't do any good at all probably, would it?'\n\n'That depends,' I said, 'on the mother's point of view. You're\nsure about the likeness?' She gave a sort of sob.\n\n'Trust me for that,' she said. 'I was very fond of them of Claude\nand Polly.'\n\nThis last dry season, by the ordering of God, that mother came\nour way herself. She was on a pilgrimage of her own. Dick sent\nover a messenger hot-haste to tell me that a lady was at his\nplace and had asked for me. She wanted me to spare the morning\nto-morrow if I possibly could. She would have me come on an\nexpedition with her and talk over something that she had in her\nmind to do. Couldn't I sleep at Dick's homestead that night?\n\nI could. I came over about nine o'clock I suppose, walking in a\nfresh south-easter with a half-moon to light me. Dick was smoking\noutside in the yard when I came.\n\n'The lady's tired,' he told me. 'She's turned in already. She's\ngot a lad with her. He's inside. Come in and have some supper.'\n\nThe stranger rose up as I came in, and I greeted him. He was a\ntall, fair boy, whose face I seemed to know. He told me that he\nhad driven his mother down, as I sat over my supper. I glanced up\nat the wall curiously before I had finished. The picture was not\nthere.\n\n'I thought it was better out of the way,' Dick said when his\nguest had gone to bed. 'I didn't know how she might take it. It's\nthe mother of those poor little Scotch children come to see the\nplace. Wants to put up a gravestone or monument or something,\npoor lady!'\n\nThen I knew where I had seen the stranger boy's face. It was the\nimage of his dead brother's face in the picture, the white\npiccaninny that carried the Mashona baby. I whistled softly.\n\n'Who painted that picture?' I said. 'I know all yon told me. But\ndid that chap ever come down the road again? I never asked you.'\n\n'No,' said Dick, 'I don't know to this day any more about him.'\n\nI sat silent.\n\n'She wants you to go over to the place with her to-morrow,' Dick\nsaid. 'You know the place, don't you? It's only about three miles\naway up the old wagon road; you've been there, haven't you?'\n\n'Yes,' I said. 'There's a wooden cross where they're buried or\nshould be. I had it renewed two years ago. Didn't I ever tell you\nabout it? Haven't you been there yourself lately?'\n\n'No,' said Dick. 'I don't fancy the place somehow. But I was\nasking about it only this afternoon. The boys tell me there are\nsome trees there still; white men's trees.'\n\n'Yes,' I said, 'yellow peach-stocks and one gumtree you get it\nagainst the skyline looking up from the spruit. The old pole and\ndaub house dropped to pieces long ago. I do hope that cross is\nstanding all right still. I blame myself for not having seen\nabout it this last year or two.'\n\nThe cross had fallen down and the place looked generally forlorn\nwhen we reached it next day. I was troubled about my companion.\nShe was fair and tall and quiet. When she did talk on the way she\ntalked about commonplace subjects. But when she saw the forsaken\nplace and the displaced cross the veil fell. She clutched her\nson's arm hard, and I left them together. I went off with the\nMashona boy and the mules out of the way. I had no inspiration at\nthe moment what to say or what to do. I did not come back for\nhalf an hour.\n\nShe told me on the drive back that she wanted to provide somewhat\nof a memorial. 'It's been left too long,' she said. 'But you can\nunderstand how sore I was before and how I shrank from coming.'\n\nShe told me that one great grief of hers was that she had no good\nlikeness of her children as they were at that dreadful time. I\nwas embarrassed and silent. 'What can I do to help you?' I was\nthinking over and over again, 'Shall I show the picture? Yes,\nright or wrong, I must.'\n\nI didn't know how to begin to tell her about it. I prayed for\nwords. Then I began in curt crisp sentences to tell her. 'You may\nnot like it. You must not be disappointed,' I said. 'Why?' she\nasked. But I did not try to explain. I would let the picture\nplead its own point of view. When we were back I asked Dick for\nit, and I knocked at her room door and gave if to her.\n\nThen I went out and watched a team ploughing, till Dick called me\nin.\n\nAt lunch the guests were very quiet and subdued, but seemed quite\ncheerful. Afterwards, before I started for home, she came and\ntalked to me alone.\n\n'Is this the scene of the picture?' she asked me, as she led me\nacross the yard. 'This grass plot between these rocks and those\ntrees?'\n\n'Yes, it's just here apparently,' I said. 'You see that great\ntree there. One can hardly mistake it.'\n\n'I remember the spot long ago,' she said. 'I came down to my\nsister's to leave the children with her for a country holiday\njust before that time. We were staying at that place we went to\nthis morning; they called it Happy Valley, and we drove over to\nthis place where there was a store. It was only a month or two\nbefore the time May Day, I think. I remember my children playing\nhide-and-seek here with the piccaninnies; yes, playing other\ngames too.' Her lips quivered, but she went on quite steadily.\n\n'Those piccaninnies in that picture do you know any of their\nfaces?'\n\n'Yes,' I said, 'I knew two that were burnt, and did not get\nbetter; two I used to come and see. And Dick says he recognizes\ntwo or three little chaps that have died since he came here to\nlive after the \"Rebellion\" was over.'\n\n'And how do you explain it?' she asked gently, 'this vision of\ndead children so charmingly colored, so color-blind from a South\nAfrican point of view?'\n\nI thought before I spoke.\n\n'It is, I believe, a real Vision,' I said. 'The one who painted\nit, whoever he was, saw more than we most of us see. Possibly he\nwas the seventh son of a seventh son. Very apparently he had a\npure heart. The picture was painted on Innocents' Day. I have\nverified the date. You see he has called it \"Innocents.\" It was\npainted in the children's old playing-place. He saw them in their\nnew life with the beauty of things South African like a good\ndream about them, and the stupidity of things South African\npassed from them like a bad one.'\n\nShe did not speak for quite a long time. I feared I had hurt her\nsomehow. But at last she spoke and reassured me.\n\n'Yes, I think you understand how the picture came to be and what\nit means. I used to be dreadfully bitter about the Mashonas. I\ntry not to be now. Couldn't you build on my account a little\nschool or a little church in that forlorn place? There are some\nvillages near by, aren't there? Couldn't you call it for me the\nMission of the Innocents? I'd like to ask my host if he'll give\nyou the picture for the church should you build it for me. In my\nhouse I should be shy about hanging it. I am afraid people might\nscoff at it behind my back in their South African way, and I\ncouldn't bear that easily. I know in my heart of hearts it's true\nthat Picture as true as it's beautiful. They're all happy now,\nlikely enough happy together. They were not likely to have been\nhappy in the same ways had they grown up in South Africa.'\n\n\n\nJULIAN\n\nI. THE SOP\n\n\n\nJulian Borne was going to leave the Mission that had been his\nhome for three years. He was a spruce-looking person with quite\npleasantly colored red hair and a turned-up moustache. A Bishop\nhad commended him, and a Canon Superintendent had delighted to\nhonor him. His immediate superior, a weather-beaten Missionary,\nhad, however, partially dissented from the chorus of approval. He\nhad discriminated. He credited Julian with fine gifts of\norganization, but he submitted that he had proved himself lacking\nin qualities of heart far too often. His discrimination had been\nreceived coldly by the Canon Superintendent, and liberally\ndiscounted on the scores of dullness, crankiness, want of vision,\nyes jealousy. Now at last something had happened to disturb the\nCanon Superintendent in his optimism, in his forecast of Julian's\nbrilliant usefulness to the Mission.\n\nJulian had suddenly decided to leave his work. He had the offer\nof a congenial berth and a rising salary in the Cathedral city.\nHe put the thing very kindly to the Canon Superintendent. He\nwould help the Mission of course, wouldn't he just, when he\nshould climb into the seats of the mighty? He would be a\nvolunteer henceforward the Cause could count upon him with a\nsound commercial position for his jumping-off ground. Yet the\nfact remained that he was leaving his work, having loved this\npresent world.\n\nIt was the day of farewell to the surroundings of the last three\nyears. Julian was to ride into town that afternoon.\n\nHe went to lunch with Dick Hunter, the weather-beaten one, and\ntalked to him as he imagined he wanted to be talked to. He had\nalways liked his host's Bohemian ways very well, he was only\nimpatient of his preoccupation with native postulants. There was\nhis usual fly-swarm of them, that day as other days, about his\nthreshold, and lunch was late, as usual. At last they began.\nJulian had the first two courses to himself for the most part,\nwhile his host was busy once again outside. Then came a third\ncourse. 'I had this for you,' said the host rather pathetically,\nas he settled down to his bread and cheese. 'It seemed the right\nthing for the farewell banquet of a Mission. It's the food of the\ncountry.'\n\nSure enough under the cover was a platter of brown millet with a\nsavory side dish of beans for relish. Julian flushed up. 'No\nthanks, I've never tried millet pap yet, and I don't mean to,' he\nsaid.\n\nHis host smiled, 'As you will,' said he. 'You won't mind my\nhaving some, will you?' He helped himself sparingly, then he\ncalled the Mashona boy to take the dishes away. Julian the\ncallous felt a shade remorseful.\n\n'Here, let me try what it's like,' he said. His host took a piece\nof the millet-food on a fork, and dipped it in the side dish. He\ngave the result to Julian on a plate. 'For old sake's sake,' he\nmurmured. Julian nibbled away rather delicately. 'It's not so\nawful,' he said.\n\nHe was riding into Rosebery that afternoon when the incident\nrecurred to him.\n\nHe had a great grip of his subjects whatever they were so long as\nthey were payable propositions, to use his own phrase.\n\nThe textual study of the Bible had been accounted such a\nproposition until recently. Bible-words they were now that buzzed\nin his ears.\n\n'He it is to whom I shall give the sop when I have dipped it. And\nwhen He had dipped the sop. . .'\n\nThe sop, the dipping, yes, he remembered now. He had read the\nwords in Church two or three evenings ago.\n\n'He gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.' He started.\n'And after the sop, Satan entered.' He shuddered.\n\nHe wished that incident at lunch-time had never occurred. Of\ncourse it was pure chance, but still it was bizarre.\n\nWas it pure chance? 'I'm not so sure,' reflected Julian. 'I wish\nHunter'd mind his own business.'\n\nThat farewell banquet at the Mount Pleasant Mission had left an\nill taste behind.\n\n\n\nII. THE SYMBOL OF THE SPURNED\n\n\n\nSome five years after, Julian Borne came up to Rosebery by the\nearly train. He awoke at dawn and threw up the window. He was\ntraveling in a sleeping compartment deluxe. He had appearances to\nkeep up now.\n\nThe sun had tilted up a golden arc and the withered landscape\ntook a lavish glory.\n\nJulian's eyes fell on some shabby thatched roofs that the blaze\nwas brightening. 'Mount Pleasant Mission!' he said to himself.\n'and to think I wasted three good years of my life there. Three\nbob a day with rations and no drinks. Good Lord!' He filled his\npipe as the poverty-stricken homestead passed out of sight. 'Yet\nit wasn't all waste,' he went on. 'I got to know the country and\nits questions. I got to know how to manage men.' He laughed a\nlittle to himself complacently. 'No, I couldn't manage Hunter.\nThey told me last week he was nearly dead with blackwater. I\nwonder if he's dead by now. Not one head of cattle to bless\nhimself with, I'll bet, and no banking account ever opened in his\nname. He was quite unmanageable.'\n\n'Ah! But I managed some of them. What about the Canon\nSuperintendent?' A white-haired vision, creasy-chinned and rosy,\npassed before his eyes. 'Toad!' he muttered and kicked the\nfoot-warmer. 'Even so,' he growled. 'Butter for the clergy, palm-oil\nfor the laity, big stick for the incorruptible!' His face grew\nhard as he thought over some contemplated applications. His face\nwas little changed in five years save for the wrinkles about the\neyes.\n\nThe train drew up at the platform. Julian found a good many\nacquaintances as he passed along it. But he was not disposed to\nmake himself too cheap. Some got a wintry nod, others a summer\nsmile. One high official who represented big interests got two\nminutes' talk and a drink. Then Julian jumped into his mule-cart,\nand drove away. He reflected with satisfaction on the quantity\nand quality of the greetings that morning. Meanwhile his Cape-boy\ncoachman whipped up the mules and took him along the main street\nin style.\n\nJulian had not been in Rosebery for six months now. He had made\ngreat strides in those months the most momentous of his life.\nFrom being a coming man he had reached the summit of arrival. He\nhad arrived without a doubt. His company's shares had risen\nsuper-excellently. He had made a big coup at the end of last\nyear. The fullness of time had now brought to him the prospect of\nanother. As he whirled on into Suburbia, he fell to considering\nrelative prosperities. He set names to the houses he was passing.\nNo, he wouldn't change with any one of their owners. Not one\nstood better just now. Not one was more the man of the moment. He\ncould give points and a beating to how many!\n\nHe drove through a gate and up a drive. He was at home again. His\nhouse had been enlarged and re-decorated since he was last there.\nIt looked solidly prosperous. Its second floor shouted 'money'\nin a country where most houses could boast no first floor.\nIts critics might have called its colors harrowing and its\narchitecture the reverse of inspired, but Julian cared not a\njot for that sort of up-in-the-air criticism. He sat down to\nbreakfast with a thankful heart, and made himself quite amiable\nto Tommy Bates.\n\nTommy Bates was five years older than Julian, and had acted as\nhis Secretary these two years past. He had small eyes set in a\nrather big pasty face. His goatee beard was trim, but scarcely\npleasing.\n\nJulian got through his letters at breakfast and after, breakfast\nwith Tommy's help. Amongst the letters was one from Mount\nPleasant Mission enclosing a card. 'Hunter's mad,' said Julian\ncrossly. He tore up the envelope viciously, but he did not tear\nup the card it contained. He placed that in his pocket-book\ncarefully. Tommy looked at him in interrogation, but Julian was\nnot communicative.\n\nAfter they had discussed a business letter or two, and had a\ndrink together, Julian started for the Club. He made himself\nagreeable to one or two, and got a deal of pleasure out of\nsnubbing another. Then he gathered some important news from a\nbusiness acquaintance. It was great news. He wanted time to think\nover it. He sent off two or three wires to labor agents and one\nto a Native Commissioner.\n\nHe must have boys at any cost, and quickly, to develop certain\nproperties. He\n\n\"... turned an easy wheel\nThat set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel.\"\n\nThen he interviewed an agent in an office, and did some very\ndelicate work indeed in the drafting of a prospectus. He had\nearned a drink by then. His brain interested him he was inclined\nto self-analysis of a sort its chiaroscuro of limelight effects\nand faint nuances indicated rather than expressed. It was good to\nbe alive to-day, and to pull as many strings as he was pulling.\n\nHe did not stop at one drink; over the second, the expert made a\nproposition to him. It dazzled him, but he would not give an\nanswer just then. To-morrow morning would do.\n\nAfter that he lunched at the Club with Sir Charles Guestling who\nwas just back from England, and had brought a younger brother out\nwith him to see the country. It would have been a pleasanter\nlunch without that brother, Julian thought at the time. The\nbrother said nothing offensive, indeed he hardly opened his\nmouth, but his eyes embarrassed Julian strangely. He had curious\nblue-grey eyes that contrasted with his black hair, and he would\nfix Julian with these eyes just as he and Sir Charles were deep\nin shares and options and the scarcity of labor. Perhaps it was\nthat Julian was overwrought with anxieties of success. The eyes\nseemed to him clairvoyant, he imagined that they saw more than\nthey ought to see, when they looked him over, as he made some\nhighly technical statement. It was extraordinary that a\nconventional man about town like Sir Charles should have such a\nbrother.\n\nAfter lunch Julian relaxed.\n\nHe gave himself the indulgence of a call on Mrs. Puce.\n\nHe had put her husband on to a good thing or two a year ago now.\nThey had been great friends, he and the wife.\n\nTo-day he was a little anxious as to how she would receive him.\nThings had altered since they last met. 'He had got engaged a\nbusiness-like engagement.\n\nBut she was very gracious in her welcome. Moreover she was more\ndecorous this afternoon than he remembered her a few months back.\nHe told her about his contemplated coup.\n\n'I'll consult planchette for you,' said she. 'Yes, and I'll let\nyou know to-night.'\n\nShe was a pretty woman with rather too high a color. But she grew\npale enough now.\n\n'I forgot, though, it's against my principles,' she said. 'I've\ngiven up lots of things. I'm much more particular.' Something\nroused Julian. He spoke masterfully.\n\n'Just this once,' he said, 'Let me know to-night. I may know of\nsomething gilt-edged that I won't keep to myself if I hear to-night\nwithout fail. No, I won't be refused. I want proof of good-will.'\n\nIt was a sunny afternoon, with none of that southeast wind which\nis the bane of our winter. Julian told his coachman to drive him\nup to his new farm. The homestead was about five miles out of\ntown in the Mount Pleasant direction.\n\nJulian drew out the draft of the prospectus, and began to work\nhard at its revision. They had stopped at the house ere he thrust\npencil and paper into his pocket. He stepped out of El Dorado let\nhimself down, not without a jar, on to more humdrum earth.\n\nThe farm-house was an iron shanty newly hammered together. The\nbailiff a full-bearded Colonial stood in the front doorway.\nJulian gave him a perfunctory handshake. He talked farming\nbusiness to him quickly. He was tired, and eager to be through\nwith it.\n\nThey were almost through with it in half an hour. They smoked\ntheir pipes and had coffee on the stoep together.\n\n'About that Mission Church,' said the Bailiff, 'You know the\nnotice is just up that you gave them last year. The boy that used\nto teach there is gone, and the kraal's moving. The building\nstill stands empty. They don't use it now.'\n\nJulian frowned.\n\n'Let's have a look at it,' he said. 'We can drive round that way\nwhen Bob's inspanned. Meanwhile let's have a drink.'\n\nThe Church was very small wattle and daub. It had done three\nyears' service.\n\n'No value,' pronounced Julian. He was rather angry with such a\nmere shed for wasting his valuable time.\n\n'That grass wants burning,' he muttered. 'If you set a light to\nit and the Church catches, I shouldn't think there'll be any harm\ndone.'\n\n'Right,' said the bailiff. Julian stepped inside the building.\n\n'Nothing left,' he said. 'Nothing but this box. You'd better keep\nit. They can have it if they send for it.'\n\n'What's inside?'\n\nThere were some red and black candlesticks and vases packed away\nin the box works of art in their way, but that way was not\nJulian's.\n\n'Cheap and nasty,' was his comment. 'Ah! What's that?'\n\n'It was on the Communion Table,' said the bailiff.\n\nJulian took up a clay cross and regarded it curiously.\n\n'A cross with a snake on it!' he exclaimed.\n\n'One of the boys said it meant the Brazen Serpent,' said the\nbailiff.\n\n'Holy Moses!' laughed Julian. 'Well I'm going to jump this, it's\nquite a curiosity. You may give the boy five bob from me if he\nasks what we've done with it.'\n\n'Right,' said the bailiff, and went off with the box to the cart.\n\nJulian looked at the twisted symbol with an intent fascination.\n'As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness,' he murmured\nto himself. 'Even so shall the Son of Man be lifted up. How well\nI remember preaching outside a kraal, on a boulder under a\nflowering kaffir tree, on that very text. I liked preaching that\nday more than I did most days. It wasn't half bad. That's Christ\nall over that reptile that Worm and no man! The Worm that I tread\non with impunity that's Christ! I expect Hunter might say it\nwould be better for me if the Worm would turn and bite better for\nmy eternal interests. Perhaps the Worm will, one of these fine\ndays. It's a rather clammy notion! The notion would be rather a\nnuisance, if I believed in the Worm.'\n\n\n\nIII. THIS NIGHT\n\n\n\nAs he drove along the veld twenty minutes after, Julian looked\nback at the burning Church. 'What would the Canon Superintendent\nsay?' he muttered with a grin. A fantastic shape started up from\nthe grass in front of him. The mules shied at it, and broke into\na gallop. 'Pull up!' he shouted. At last the mules were pulled\nup. He sprang out and walked back along the road. The figure\nstood stock-still by the road-side, as if waiting to greet him.\n\nWhen he came near, it came towards him, the figure of an old\nnative with a ragged grey beard, all hunched up in a blanket.\n\n'Tom.' called Julian to him in his shrill voice, 'You've got to\ncome down to town tonight. No, you swine, to-morrow won't do.\nTonight before sunset, or there'll be trouble. You know what I\nwant you to do, what you did last Christmas.' The drive back to\ntown was uneventful.\n\nJulian sat on his stoep half an hour before dinner, smoking and\npondering. He was anxious about that plunge he meant to make\nto-morrow. His philosophy of life, so largely commercial, found room\nfor a cult or two of superstition. He had consulted Mrs. Puce's\noracle time and time again. He had had recourse to his boy Jim's\nfather, Tom Nyoka, twice before. He had got him to use for him a\nrude and illegal form of divination. He had been helped by it\nbefore, at least so he opined. He might be helped again. He sat\nlooking at the sun dropping smoothly in a cloudless sky. As he\nwatched, Jim came out to him to tell him that his father was in\nthe kitchen. 'I'll come directly, Jim,' he said.\n\nThe piccanin was sent off to get water, the kitchen door was\nsafely locked. The throwing of the bones began, while Julian\nwatched with understanding eyes. His hard grip of his subjects,\ngenerally, extended to this remote ritual.\n\nTo-night the answer seemed to be inconclusive, but as they sought\nthe answer, a clear sign appeared as it were by the way, and\nunsought. Julian was watching haggardly. He snarled a question at\nJim. His cook-boy's big round eyes showed very big and very round\njust now. He was watching with painful intentness.\n\n'Yes,' he answered his master, 'Yes, sir, it is so.'\n\nJulian whistled and turned away moodily, with his hands in his\npockets, staring into space.\n\nThe old man the diviner was talking at large as he gathered the\nfingers of wood with their rude traceries together. Julian paid\nlittle heed to his words and gesticulations when he awoke from\nhis day-dream.\n\n'Give him some skoff and a bit of meat, Jim,' he said. 'Tell him\nI'll give him ten bob when I've got change.'\n\nThe old man was clamoring to him to make up his money to a\nsovereign, but Julian paid no heed to what he said. He swung out\nof the hut and off to wash for dinner, still brooding moodily.\n\nAt dinner. Tommy Bates found Julian the reverse of good company.\nHe did not keep his gloom to himself, and he snapped at any\nexcuse for snapping. Tommy left as the sweets came in, with an\nexcuse about meeting some friends at 8:30.\n\n'Don't be late,' said Julian peremptorily. 'I want you here at\neleven sharp. I want to see about tomorrow's letters before I go\nto bed.'\n\nAt 8:30 a pink note came in with the coffee. Mrs. Puce had sent\nit down. It contained but a few lines:\n\nDEAR JULIAN,\n\nI'm so sorry, but I couldn't make head nor tail of the answer.\nWhat I was told clearly was that you were likely to be in some\ntrouble to-night about midnight. I don't know what sort of\ntrouble, but somebody who lives at the back of your house may\nhave something to do with it. Do take care of yourself. I trust\nyou to do that for my sake. I think you are sensible enough to do\nit, now you are forewarned. Come up to-morrow to breakfast and\nreassure me,\n\nYours, in ever so much of a shudder,\n\nCELIA.\n\nJulian turned rather green as he read. 'I don't like it,' he\ngrowled, 'Two signs, and independent ones. The one sign death. I\nsaw it myself when the bones were thrown. The other sign danger.\nAnd Celia hasn't the sort of conscience that would let her invent\nit. I don't know what to set about doing. But I must do something\nor other.' He began to reflect. He started from the unsubstantial\ngrounds of twofold superstition, and tried to be practical in his\nown defense.\n\n'About midnight,' he thought, 'Well, I can trust Jim. And I can't\ntrust the other two boys that inhabit my back kitchen. Piet has\nsome of his own to get back for what I did last Christmas, and\nthe other boy I simply don't know. He was only sent to me to-day.\nI'll tell Jim to go over to the location and take the other two\nwith him, and look after them for all of to-night. Tommy should\nbe back by eleven. We two ought to be able to look after\nourselves. Likely enough it's all moonshine this back-of-the-house\nbusiness.' He pitied himself for his anxieties, and took an\nextra drink to dispel them. He went to the kitchen. Jim and the\nnew piccanin were just discussing the movements of somebody as he\narrived.\n\n'When was it?' asked Jim.\n\n'Just when the sun set,' the piccanin answered.\n\n'Where?' asked Jim.\n\nThen Julian cut them short, heedless of what they were saying.\n\n'Lock up at once, and go over to the location. Mind, Jim, you\nmust look after the other two and see they don't come back here.\nI don't want any boys on the place to-night. D'you hear?' Julian\nproceeded to enlarge on the bigness of reward or punishment in\ncertain eventualities.\n\nJulian went to his study, and put on his slippers. He called Jim\nto light the wood-fire before he left. The night seemed a bitter\none, or was it that he had taken a chill? He took up a local\npaper when Jim was gone. 'It's been a busy day,' he reflected, as\nhe straightened it out. 'Fancy my not looking at a paper of any\nsort till this time of night.'\n\nHe searched the columns impatiently.\n\n'No news to speak of,' he thought. But then he cried out as his\neye caught an out-of-the-way corner. 'Why, Hunter's dead!' The\nnews seemed to take his breath like a body-blow. 'A good man!' he\nsaid to himself. 'The man who gave me the sop when he had dipped\nit. The best of that Church gang! A man who called me an apostate\nstraight out more than once! The man who sent me that weird card\nthis morning! Yes and he sent me a quaint souvenir, a sort of\n\"Memento Mori,\" once before, last Christmas, just when my boom\ncame off. I haven't forgotten the words yet. I will say to my\nsoul, \"Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take\nthine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.\" And God said unto him,\n\"Thou fool, this night.\"\n\n'This night,' he muttered. 'I wish this night were well over.'\n\nIV. VICISTI GALILAEE!\n\n\n\nJulian was in a strange fit of tension when he heard Tommy Bates'\nsteps coming up the garden path. They were very uncertain steps.\n\nJulian threw open his study door as the secretary reeled into the\nhall. He had longed for company this last grey craven hour or\ntwo, and this was all the company he was to enjoy for to-night at\nleast!\n\nHumming and lurching and stinking of whisky as Tommy was, there\nwas not much comfort to be sought from him.\n\nJulian swore at him sonorously then he hustled him off to bed.\nSoon he was snoring. Julian had somehow shuffled away his fear in\nhis coercion of Tommy.\n\n'I'll get my blankets and pillow out of my room, and lie down in\nTommy's. I feel I can sleep now,' he thought.\n\nHe went into his room heedlessly in the dark and trod on\nsomething or somebody, just as he was striking a match.\n\nIt was the big black snake that lived in the ant-hill at the back\nof the house whose movements Jim and the piccanin had been\ndiscussing. The snake dealt with Julian.\n\nJulian staggered about looking for crystals and a lancet. They\nwere locked up safely and perhaps Jim, or perhaps Tommy had the\nkey.\n\nTommy would not wake to any purpose. Just as Julian was shaking\nhim, the clock in the study a clock Julian had won in his\nsprinting days chimed twelve very melodiously. Everything seemed\nto be locked up. Had Jim the key of the spirit cupboard or Tommy?\nJulian was growing drowsy in his struggles against the current of\nfortune. Hadn't he better give in, and let himself be carried\ndown? Almost before he knew it, he was lying on the sofa in his\nstudy where the lamp with the red shade was burning so cosily.\nLikely enough his eye caught a quaint ornament on his study table\nat the juncture the figure of the Serpent on the Cross.\n\nIt may be too, that some sort of startled respect came to him for\nthe Worm that had turned at last, not vindictively, but in the\ninterests of the Commonweal.\n\nProbability points to this one fact at least, that Julian fumbled\nfor something in his pocket-book ere he resigned himself finally\nto the growing torpor.\n\nA card was found on the study floor when morning came; they found\nthe pocket-book itself on the conch beside him.\n\nThe card was the one that had come at his last breakfast-time\nfrom Dick Hunter, the card that he had reserved rather indignantly\nfor future consideration.\n\nOn the one side of it was a color-process reproduction, very good\nof its kind Christ in Glory the Rex Tremendoe Majestatis and also\nthe Fons Pietatis of the Dies Ira with tears in His Eyes and\nthorns on His Brows as He judged just judgment. On the other side\nwere four lines from Browning, faithfully transcribed save for\nthe change of a name. They were written in the shaking writing of\na sick man, in Hunter's round, unformed hand:\n\n'For the main criminal I have no hope\nExcept in such a suddenness of fate\nSo may the truth be by one blow flashed out.\nAnd Julian see one instant and be saved.'\n\nThere is no question as to the suddenness of the stroke of fate\nthat ended Julian's career in South Africa. There is an open\nquestion as to the illuminative force of that blow, and we must\nwait for the answer.\n\n\n\nTHE DOUBLE CABIN\n\n\n\nWe had been close to a certain line of fire together, and yet we\nhad not seen much fighting. That is to say, we were taking part\nin a campaign together that was for the time being an affair of\npatrols near a certain border an affair that flashed into fire\nnow and then as between man and man. As between sun and man the\nfiring was fairly continuous for eight hours of most days. Were\nwe not within a hundred miles or so of the equator? In that\nclimatic struggle (so much the more constant of the two for us\nNortherners) I on my noncombatant job came off lightly, he, as a\ncombatant, suffered. He was down with malaria time and time\nagain. He had it on him that night when he put me up at his place\na night when the old year was almost out. He was then inhabiting\na border outpost a clean little camp tucked away behind a native\nvillage. It was none too airy, I thought, with its heavy curtains\nof cactus hedging. He seemed a little better that next morning,\nwhen I said prayers, and afterwards rehearsed a certain Rite. He\nstayed to the end of my ministrations. After breakfast I started\nagain on my journey, a round that took me far from the centre of\nour small world. When I touched that centre again I heard his\nnews, which was not so very reassuring. He had gone down with\nblackwater, and been carried into a small hospital. There, having\nalmost gone out, he had rallied enough to be put on board a ship\ncrossing the lake. So he came to a greater hospital. It was\nthither that I followed him up. He had had another crisis, I\nfound, but he was better again by the time I got to him. Then he\nimproved a little, and seemed to be convalescing. Then malaria\nchose to interfere with the running of her sister fever's course.\nThis seemed extraordinarily meddlesome, and made things hazardous\nstill, though they were as well as one expected, when the time of\nmy going on leave came.\n\nHow glad I was to get off! My Good-byes were hurried when once\nthe brown envelope had come. I saw him on the hospital stoep\n(baraza, did they call it in that alien part of Africa?) just as\nI was rushing down to the station. He had lost his blue color,\nbut still looked rather flickery.\n\n'If you go to Bulawayo, you'll remember, won't you?' he said.\n'You've got the plan?'\n\nHe had given me an elaborate little drawing of two streets that\nconverged. His bungalow stood upon an island betwixt their\nconfluence and the shading that he had marked waste ground. The\npink paper was in my breast pocket, but, knowing my way with\npapers, I had already learned those streets' names.\n\n'All right,' I said. 'But I'm not likely to go that way. And the\ntime's so short. I'll try though.'\n\nHis face lit, and his eyes gleamed. 'Do try,' he said.\n\n'Don't build on it,' I entreated him. 'I'll try to write to her\nanyway.'\n\nThen he looked downcast indeed; he had fallen from such a\nconfident height. But he said 'Goodbye' like a real friend.\n\nI forgot him almost completely for the next four days or so.\nThere were excitements, seeing somebody at headquarters, wiring\nbusiness wires, writing friendly letters against time, steering a\nforlorn small native and a more forlorn small dog, who were\nsharing my fortunes, down to the coast. At last I was there, and\ndiscussing shipping news with new-found keenness. My prospects of\ngetting off with speed looked black for a bit; then came the\nflash of a fresh idea. As there was no ship for the African port\nI knew, why not book for the unknown? There were transports\nreturning to a port beyond, I had heard. True, the cost of\nrailway traveling thence was hard to forecast, resources were of\na modest sort, and there were three of us to find fares for.\n\nYet ways and means began to show their forms out of the mist\nsoon. I chose to sail almost at once by the untried road, and I\nwrote to friends', telling them how I had chosen. I wrote to my\nfriend in hospital, among others. I was going the Bulawayo way\nafter all, and I might do what he wanted quite unbelievably\neasily. Who would have thought it when we parted? I scribbled\ndown the great news against time. (I had an importunate proof to\ncorrect before sailing; proofs are apt to take hours, I find, and\nmy sailing hour was near.) He might be expected to have my\nscribble handed to him on the hospital stoep about three days\nafter. So I calculated. I flattered myself that I knew the ins\nand outs of our despatches and mail deliveries, also that I had\nallowed in my calculation for censorial delay. It was pleasant to\nthink how pleased he might be expected to be. I well-wished him\nwith a prayer. Then I started down the glaring white road for the\nwharf. I had dismissed him from my mind, I regret to say, for\nanother three days or more.\n\nI traveled down from that east coast fighting-base on a transport\nthat had brought up mules and horses. She had naturally enough,\nshipped a goodly crew of flies with them. The mules and horses\nhad gone their ways, but the flies had by no means all gone with\nthem. Now with no quadrupeds to be their prime care, those that\nremained were apt to obtrude themselves upon us. I deprecated at\nheart the ruthless warfare that marine authority waged upon them.\nBut for all that I found my afternoon slumbers often distracted\nby the survivors. On the first and second afternoons of that\nvoyage I awoke not long after I dropped off. I awoke, and thought\nabout nothing in particular. On the third afternoon my waking\nthoughts took a very definite shape.\n\nI was in a cabin or stateroom that two officers had shared going\nup doubtless of the veterinary profession. Now on this return\njourney I had the place to myself. I lay in my bunk with my boots\noff, and observed the empty couch beside me.\n\nIt was my friend that I thought of my friend as I had taken leave\nof him, reclining on the hospital stoep, straining with eager\neyes at mine. It was his breathless voice that I remembered. It\nwas saying over and over, 'You will go and see her, won't you?\nI'll be with you in spirit in this your trek for her and home.'\n\nSurely he was on that couch in the cabin now beside me, and\nsurely he was saying the same thing over and over again, just as\nregularly and restlessly as if he were yonder electric fan\ncurveting with the same sort of panting iteration.\n\nAnd yet, don't mistake me, I don't pretend to have seen anything\nor heard anything extraordinary in the ordinary way of seeing or\nhearing. Only I was dead sure that he was there with the same old\nentreaty. Afterwards I lighted a pipe, went above, talked to the\nskipper's wife, read, investigated my boy's and also my dog's\nwelfare rather perfunctorily, settled down to saying an evening\nOffice, made an end more or less of that, just as night came on,\nand then again took time to think over things. I remembered that\nhe would have possibly got my letter, the letter which announced\nmy sailing in this ship of the Archangel Line, just about the\nvery time that he had seemed so near me. It was natural enough,\nthen, that his eager mind should have embarked with me on the\n'Saint Raphael.' He knew now that I was going home, contrary to\nprevious expectation, by the very way he had desired, the way to\nsee his wife and tell her his news.\n\nThat night, when I said my prayers, I took but a corner of that\ncouch for my elbows. I gave him room, so to speak, with odd\nscrupulous courtesy, just as if he were lying there in the body.\nFor I knew he was there, there by his own subtle means of\ntransport. That night the wind rose, and for the next three days\nabout, we were on the downgrade as regards weather. Our captain\nopined that there had been a hurricane of sorts to south-east,\nout Madagascar way. We were in the troughs of a mighty swell that\ngrew in might till the third morn of its reign was over. In the\nmad tilting of my cabin floor, and the scuffling of my cabin\naccessories, that last morning, the unseen and unheard presence\nthat I was now growing used to, reclined unperturbed. Elsewhere I\nwould forget it lightly enough, as soon as ever I left the cabin,\nat the saloon table, where plate and cup fretted themselves up\nand down against the table frames, in the skipper's basket lounge\nchair wherein I read contrasted romances, East End and Zulu, on\nthe deck where I groped from hold-by to hold-by, longing to\nchange grey sky and green sea-trenches for sunshine and blue\nlevels of sea and sky. The weather calmed and brightened, but the\npresence was unaffected. It remained to my perception eager and\nsanguine, no less, no more, than it had seemed at first.\n\nAt last the Bluff loomed to south-east. Soon a game of pitch-and-toss\nprecluded our access to harbor. At last we transshipped, all\nthree of us, boy and dog and I, to a steam-launch, and were soon\nashore. No, I won't say four of us. The presence did not make\nitself felt as taking a share in that scramble of ours. I was\nrather surprised at missing its company, when I found time to\nthink about it.  I was standing at ease in the Base Office then.\nSoon I was on my way back again to the station where I had left\nmy convoy. The boy was mounting guard over dog and gear. Yes,\neverything seemed all right. I turned towards the ticket office.\nAs I waited for our tickets I evolved a sort of rationale of my\nconsciousness of that presence. He who had accompanied me was\nvery weak, distinctly convalescent. He could but make himself\nfelt clinically, so to speak. When at length I was aboard the\ntrain I had opportunity to test my surmises. There were six\nsleeping berths in the Jo'burg second class compartment (there\nwas no third class, worse luck, on that train) wherein I found\nmyself. On one side slept the dark Theosophist who was to lend me\n'The Star of the East' next morning. Under him slept the\nNorwegian recruit bound for Potchefstroom. Under him again a\nfresh-colored, wizened little Colonist. On my side slept an\nAfricander recruit for Potchefstroom (God love him! I hope he was\nbetter than his looks and conversation). I was bedded over him.\nAbove me on the sixth sleeping ledge was only a certain amount of\nluggage. So we had arranged, and so my eyes assured me. But I\nbecame firmly conscious that the presence was reclining there.\n\nNext night I was able to travel on third class from Johannesburg\nwithout missing my train's connection. I had the carriage to\nmyself (not without misgivings, for the guard had cleared a\nnative out, and other compartments seemed likely to be rather\ncrowded). I lay down somewhat prayerlessly. The last light seemed\nto have not long faded on the white mine-banks. I woke in the\nchill of the dawn. The train was nearing Mafeking. The presence I\nhad been too tired to think much about last night, was assuredly\nthere on the other side of the carriage. Yet there was only my\nbag to be seen on the seat, my bag that I had set there to search\nfor a towel.\n\nThe next night we drew near to Bulawayo. I had a Jew for\ntraveling companion then. He was to get off about midnight at\nFrancistown. I dropped off to sleep somehow. I don't know exactly\nhow the trick was done, I was so excited at nearing my own\ncountry. When I awoke the Jew was gone, and the seat opposite me\nwas empty, empty save for the presence which reclined there. I\ngave it a share of my attention amongst other persons and\nmatters. I was far too full of plans and anticipations now to\nsleep. Yet I fought for sleep that next hour or two. Then, as the\ncocks had crowed undoubtedly, I lighted a pipe. Afterwards I\nstole out in the faint light to shave. When I returned, I was\nconfronted by an old acquaintance a detective. He wanted\ninformation about me, naturally enough, as it was war-time. He\nsat himself down on the seat whereon the presence was. I had\nsquirmed when he shook hands with me so heartily (I had twisted\nmy hand, slipping on a warship's deck). I was disposed to squirm\nonce again. When he sat down rudely on that seat which I knew to\nbe occupied, I forgot myself at once, and drew him to a seat\nbeside me. 'Can't you see what's there?' I said hastily. Of\ncourse he could not see, and thought me a little mad. Then, when\nI explained that the seat had been kept, he looked suspicious, If\nonly he had enjoyed the same perceptiveness as myself, what pages\nhe might have filled in that expensive-looking note book. I\nchuckled to myself as I thought of his description his, who had\ncrossed the Rhodesian border with me at Plumtree on such special\nservice. What would that note book make of him? The note book's\nmaster looked at me hard. Doubtless I aroused certain unnecessary\nalarums and excursions in the imagination of a useful and already\noverworked official. But I had given him nothing tangible in the\nway of incrimination. He looked at me as one who much desired to\nkeep me under observation, but he said 'Goodbye!'\n\nThe house answered the pink paper's description. It was on\nthe verge of some waste ground. But I had expected a more\nprosperous-looking place.\n\nIt had a long row of white palings that lacked repainting. The\nhouse itself looked rather poverty-stricken. I had hurried over\nmy breakfast at the station, then I had asked my way, and found\nit. I knocked once and again. That wife, whom I had never seen\nbefore, came slowly to the door. He had shown me her portrait\nmore than once, and I remembered it. It certainly had not\nflattered her. She was dressed in black. Her face would have been\nfresh under her bright hair, but the eyes were drawn, and the\nlips quivered that spoke to me, quivered in a pitiful fashion. I\ntold her how I came from her husband. I embarked on a longish\nrigmarole as to the luck that brought me her way after all,\nagainst expectations. She listened without saying a word. Then I\ntold her about him, and she listened patiently. 'I seem to have\nfelt him with me on my way,' I said. 'He was so keen that I\nshould bring you his love,' I said. Then she burst out crying.\n'It is all very interesting,' she sobbed. 'But I have got later\nnews than yours.'\n\nI shuddered. 'Was there a relapse, then?' I said.\n\n'I suppose there must have been,' she murmured, steadying\nherself. 'He came to me just at sunrise,' she said, 'this\nsunrise, this very morning. I saw him so plainly coming into the\nroom just after I had opened my eyes. He always said he was sure\nhe would be able to come, by God's mercy, if it should come to\nthat . . .' Her voice shook, and I knew what 'that' meant.\n\nNo doubt they had loved one another very dearly, no doubt he had\nbeen able, so strong was his affection, to follow my journey\ntowards her, while he was still in life. Then, at the moment of\nthe great change, he had doubtless gathered strength to come to\nher and manifest himself. Such things have surely happened\nbefore, and are likely to happen again whilst our lives linger in\nthe midst of death, and love is love.\n\n'It is just on church-time,' she said, 'all but eight o'clock. I\nwas getting ready to go when you knocked. You won't mind my going\nnow, will you? You won't mind my saying Good-bye?'\n\nSo we said 'Good-bye' outside the church door, our ways went so\nfar together. Then I went off by the station road; my train was\nto go on in another hour or so.\n\nWhen I got into an empty carriage I was conscious of some sense\nof forlornness. I had lost my traveling companion. Yet I was glad\nsomehow to think that the strain of his interest in my journey\nwas at an end. I gave thanks for that new rest of his.\n\nAs for her I am glad to remember where it was that she parted\nfrom me so graciously. That church was a poor, corrugated iron\nstructure, but I looked in and saw a gladsome light burning\nbefore its altar. Her eyes were on that light, I think, as she\nknelt down. Truly a sanctuary of God seemed the place of places\nto leave her in. They were so desperately fond of one another,\nand he was so devoted to his religion, as well as to her. If in\nGod's sanctuary the Psalmist found most satisfaction as to his\nown riddle of the ungodly's vitality, I feel sure she found some\ncomfortable answer to her own contrasted problem the mortality of\none so dear to her and to his Lord.\n\n\n\nINTELLIGENCE\n\n\n\nI was staying with an Intelligence Officer on a certain island.\nOur people had but just succeeded in occupying it with a force of\noccupation. It was a very green and richly tropical island with\nthe faults of its qualities, I should say. Most of its German\ntenants were prisoners now, a few had escaped in canoes. Their\nsergeant of askaris, a stout fellow, had passed the word of 'no\nsurrender.' But for all that very few native soldiers seemed to\nbe in the bush now. Most seemed to have surrendered, or to have\ntransformed themselves into civilians.\n\nI had reached my host's lodging just before sundown on Saturday\nnight. We dined simply, as far as courses went, but our\nconversation came easily and took many turns. There seemed to be\nsomething in the air that night. There were three of us at the\ntable, my host and Hunter and I. Hunter was a naval man who had\nwalked up with me, and was staying the night. He was very fresh\nand pleasant to look at; he seemed old for his years, which were\nfew; he had a range of interests as well as powers of expression.\nDid he seem just a little conscious of his tender age? Was he not\na bit too anxious to profess disillusion? Yes, he was cynical\nabout Belgians, also about France, also about the Foreign Office.\nI suffered him thus far with a certain guilty gladness. But the\nIntelligence Officer demurred grimly. He was a patriot and a\nfighting man. They had switched a maxim on to him years before,\nbut he was still going hardily, albeit he limped. He had fought\nin an irregular white corps in the present campaign; he had\nraised an irregular black corps; our adversaries were said to\nhave priced his head. He had charming manners; he had befriended\nme nobly not once nor twice. He was a man surely of extraordinary\ndash and resource. I had no sort of reason to doubt the great\nstories I had heard of him, of his coolness under fire and in\ntight places. I had seen every reason to believe them. For all\nthat, my affection for him was mixed with another feeling. He was\nvery tall. His face wore a sort of perennial fever-flush. He was\nvery dark. His eyes were fine and fierce, too; he wore a strange\nhe-goat-tuft on his chin. I found myself chuckling privately that\nevening over a bizarre fancy of mine. I had remembered a certain\nmediaeval print of a famous character. Yes, there certainly was a\nlikeness.\n\nWe discussed Intelligence Work a branch of War Service as to\nwhich I am apt to be prejudiced. To my indefensible delight.\nHunter excelled himself at giving my own views voice over the\npudding. Never did I hear an indictment more sweeping. He spoke\nof the reading of people's letters, the bluffing of unhappy\nnatives. He hinted darkly at dark methods of persuasion. He\nhammered in the debasing futility of the whole spy system, our\nown and the other side's. He ended with schoolboy personalities\nabout people he had met, some of our host's own agents. His\nremarks about them were unworthy of the eloquence that had gone\nbefore. Our host took it all in very kindly part. He was a man of\ndeeds rather than of words.\n\n'I never thought I'd come so low as I did to-day,' he admitted.\n'You heard of the German who got away with his wife and kids in\ncanoes. I was turning over one of the kids' money-boxes. Just\nfive rupees or so in it. But I'll try to get it back to the\nyoungster. I never thought to come quite so low.'\n\nI tackled him about a horrid practice he had admitted having\nrecourse to. 'Torture, or torture-witchcraft possibly! It seems a\nhopeful way of eliciting true intelligence, not to speak of\nplaying the game in any sort of British sense.' He hung his head\npenitently. He pleaded that this expedient had saved an execution\nonly the other day. There had been none after all. Had there\nbeen, as had looked likely at one time, an innocent man would\nhave died.\n\n'Oh, why not be without reproach as well as without fear?' I\npleaded.\n\n'How am I to get truth from them? It's a usage of their own.' He\nwas pleading back.\n\n'Not that way.' I was inflexible in my scorn and horror, for I\nknew that I was right.\n\nBy this time we had about finished dinner. Soon we were outside\nHunter in a deck-chair, I on a box, my host on a looted camp-stool.\nWe smoked on under the stars.\n\nWe spoke of looting. The naval man scintillated about the conduct\nof the army at a raid on a neighboring town. I was with him most\nof the way.\n\n'So they cleared away with their swags for fear of enemy\nreinforcements. And they had a report printed that the natives\nhad looted the place. That put the lid on it,' he said. But then\ncame purgatory for me. The Native Question cropped up. Our host\nwas away just then, conferring about chits that his spies had\nbrought in. Hunter fairly coruscated with cynicism, when it came\nto the Native Question. He had expressed very different views\nupon it the last time that I had met him (the day before at\nlunchtime). Now he expressed himself cured of any sneaking wish\nto treat natives with kindness rather than kiboko. His boy, to\nwhom he had granted leave of absence, had not come back to his\nday, and the whole fabric of Native sympathies, so far as he was\nconcerned, had crashed to the ground. Henceforth he would know\nhow to treat natives, the way to have no trouble with them. Any\nother way was not worth while. I objected, but my objections were\nas little rocks over which his periods broke in foam.\n\nThey enhanced the effect. Our host came back and laughed a\nlittle, till he saw how little I was enjoying it. Then he rotted\nthe orator on his lordly oblivion of one fact. Were there not\nlimits to his experience of Africa? He himself avowed his\nsympathies with the African. If he had a hobby, it was natives.\nHe wanted to win their trust for a great many reasons. It was\nworth while having it. He told a certain story and the talk\ndiverged. It was quite sympathetic talk, from my point of view\nthenceforward, up till bed-time. We slept in that big room\nwithin, all three of us. I had brought next to no kit, and\nI had noted with some awe my naval friend's scorn of the\nill-provided in the course of the evening. He had described how\na Belgian he had shared a room with, lacked certain accessories\nof civilization. So I was in the mood now to feel my own\ndeficiency. But the censor was not so very observant, and he\nseemed sleepy. Soon he was sleeping.\n\nMy host and I exchanged a few undertones. Tomorrow was\nWhitsunday. I wanted to have Service very early. 'That'll be all\nright,' he said. Soon he put our hurricane lamp out, but I was\nnot to win sleep for quite a long while. In the early morning,\nmoreover, something happened. Some red-ant skirmishers were\nabout, and I had a hot time in my bed on the floor. I' might well\nhave felt more grateful than I did feel. Yes, had I only known\nwhat battalions would have engaged me, had they decided to attack\nbefore dawn! At dawn I was to see for myself what were the\nnumbers of their host. Meanwhile, their scouts gave me trouble,\nif only a moderate amount. A cock crowed close by. Then another\nand another. The dawn was not so very far then surely. The\nthunder that had boomed when I first awoke, boomed louder. A\nrushing mighty wind seized upon the shanty where we slept, a very\nairy shanty. The fact that the Day that came was Pentecost,\nrecurred to me. Then the storm broke in fury. The rain smashed\ndown, and the lightning forked and flickered. The roar and tumult\nraged and swelled and thudded overhead. My host awakened.\n\n'It's near,' he said. 'Too near for me,' I murmured, as I ducked\ninvoluntarily when a perfervid flash came.\n\n'Look at the Navy!' he said. I looked.\n\nThe cynic slept like a child. His face was very calm and\nintensely optimistic. 'He told me he had slept through big guns'\nfire on his ship,' I said admiringly. 'He has great powers.'\n\nA curious lingering flash came. It played round the sleeper's\nhead. A huge peal seemed to come almost with it, the last huge\npeal ere that brief passionate storm withdrew.\n\nThen the sleeper began to talk.\n\nHe talked too well too well for me to mix his actual phrases up\nwith this secular story.\n\nThe Intelligence man began to laugh. The thing struck him as\nfunny. But suddenly I caught familiar words, and I put my finger\non my lips. My host's black eyes looked into mine, and I saw, as\nI had never seen before, how much there was in them. First they\nkindled, and then they grew soft, and he turned his head away.\nThe sleeper had been repeating the end of the fifth chapter of S.\nMatthew the bit about the God (whose sons we Christians are) that\nmakes His sun to shine, and His rain to fall so impartially.\n\nHe said the words very clearly, as articulately as if he were a\nchild saying repetition. What made our host's eyes melt so\ncuriously was what came after.\n\nThe sleeper said a sort of child's prayer about sun and rain, and\njust and unjust, and good and evil, praying quite simply to God\nto bless everybody and to do the best for them English and\nGermans, black men and white.\n\n'Yes, and my boy,' he said, as if that petition furnished a sort\nof limit to the mercy he invoked. 'And the mtoto,' he added a\nminute after.\n\n'What's his name?' he asked innocently. He had forgotten the name\nof his boy's apprentice, and his forgetfulness was on his mind.\n\nThe strain was a bit too much for us when it came to that\nquestion.\n\nWe laughed rather hysterically. Then we pulled ourselves\ntogether, but we had not disturbed him. He spoke no more save for\ntwo or three detached words proper names I think. But he breathed\nlong breaths peacefully.\n\nThe dawn was quite near on its way now. A dove called from the\nwood to its mate. Surely it desired to tell it that morning came.\n\n'We've got some fresh Intelligence,' my host said gravely.\n\n'Pentecostal Illumination, rather,' I said.\n\n'Did you happen to remember what the Day was?'\n\nHe nodded. 'We'd better not sit up talking,' he told me. 'It\nmight seem to spoil it somehow. We'd better try to get a little\nsleep. Come over here out of the ants.'\n\nSo we shifted my mattress.\n\nAfter our Pentecostal Service, and our breakfast, we compared\nnotes, we two alone.\n\nOnce more Hunter had talked a lot at table. It was somehow a\nlittle hard completely to identify the Hunter of breakfast time\nwith the Hunter of cock-crow. 'Our friend was rather angelical,\nonly rather,' my host said.\n\n'He was cynical about your cynical business,' I said. He laughed.\n'Have you forgotten what he said about missionaries?' he asked.\n\nI smiled ruefully. 'It certainly wasn't up to his level,' I said,\n'his cock-crow level.'\n\n'I've got a theory,' said my chin-tufted friend (I have made up\nmy mind to recall Don Quixote in future when I think of him\nrather than that mediaeval print). 'The subliminal self of the\nNavy was revealed by that Pentecostal flash. Pentecost was in the\nair. We saw the real lieutenant in his sleeping sub-consciousness.\nIt's a pity the real self isn't top-dog in ordinary life; it's under-dog\nfor the present, worse luck!'\n\n'But in sleep he's a child still, and a good child at that,' I\nsaid.\n\n'Yes, or he couldn't have responded to that Pentecostal\nsuggestion. You or I wouldn't have responded; anyhow, not so\nreadily.'\n\nHe sighed. 'It's a wicked world,' he said smiling, 'and we learn\nmany tricks of our respective trades.'\n\n'Speak for yourself and your own trade,' I said sternly. Then I\nbegged him to give up that unmentionable way of obtaining\nintelligence.\n\n'Let's try to live up to the cock-crow level,' I said. 'We two\nhave seen what we have seen, and heard what we have heard. We\nhave received unexpected Intelligence. We have got some hints as\nto self and soul, truth and falsehood.'\n\n'Yes, I'll allow that,' he admitted.\n\n\n\nA CREDIT BALANCE\n\n\n\nThe siding was on such soil as recalled South Devon; flanking the\nname-board there were a few pepper-trees with dry, fern-like\nfoliage, and bunches of red berries just then, the month being\nMarch. Alfred Home drew up before that name-board in scorching\nsunshine, wiped his face, and looked at his watch. Was he in\ntime?\n\nHe had heard nothing of the train yet, and it was not to be seen\napproaching. His watch told him that it had been due for ten\nminutes now. Surely it could not have gone! No, there it was. Its\nwhistle sounded, and soon it came winding through the sparse\nwoodlands. He gave a sigh of relief, and squatted down to wait\nfor it. Soon it drew up at Pepper-tree Siding.\n\nHe climbed on to a third-class carriage, which carried natives\nand colored people, also one European in lonely majesty. This\nlast stood smoking a cigarette in an amber or mock-amber\nmouthpiece. He was a boy not long out of his teens, a boy with a\ndazzling complexion if, indeed, he were not a girl in a boy's\ngrey suit. He introduced himself, as he ushered his fellow-traveler\ninto a compartment. 'I'm the only one here,' he said. 'I've been\nalone since Mafeking. I'm George Donald, and I'm just out from\nDerry.' Home accepted the cigarette that was offered him.\nThen he wiped his face again a dark, fiercely-burnt face. He\nwas a man over forty; he looked more than his age, or as if he\nhad had very hard times. 'Going far?' he asked. 'Not much further\nnow,' the boy said cheerfully. 'My station's fifty miles beyond\nGwelo. I'm about sick of it. I traveled second class on the boat.\nBut they never sent any money for expenses, so I've had to pig it\non this train.' Home smiled. 'Ever been out before?' he asked.\nDonald shook his head. Then he indulged in many confidences. 'I'm\ngoing to be partner in a trading concern,' he said. 'Soldana's is\nthe name of the place.' He went on to describe the voyage out,\nwith free criticisms of the food and of fellow-passengers. They\nhad had a concert or two on board, and he had recited at the\nsecond-class concert last week. 'What did you recite?' Home asked\nhim. 'Oh, I gave them \"Sir Galahad.\" I had to grind it up, with\nlots more of Tennyson, for an exam. You know it?' Home nodded.\nHis lips moved. 'How ever does it go?' he said a moment after. 'I\nonly remember tags of lines here and there \"And star-like mingles\nwith the stars.\" That's authentic, isn't it?' The boy repeated\nthe stanza whence those words came. 'Would you like any more?' he\nasked. Home grinned. 'May as well have it through, if it's all\nthe same to you,' he said. So the boy began at the beginning, and\ncontinued, and made an end, Home watching him all the while. His\neyes had satire in them as he watched, but they had also\nadmiration. Two or three hours after, they drew up at another\nsiding, and Home got together his belongings. He handed them to a\nBechuana boy who stood waiting for them outside on the step. Then\nhe settled himself down again, for the engine was waiting to take\nwater. He wrote a few words on a half-sheet and handed it to\nDonald. 'That's my address,' he said. 'Do write or look me up at\nmy store, if I can be of any use at any time.' The reciter of\n'Sir Galahad' shook his hand warmly, promising that he would do\nso. Then Home scrambled out into the noontide heat. Soon the slow\ntrain woke up again, and lumbered on.\n\nIt was much more than three years after when Donald came to\nHome's store. He looked fagged and weary as he came up the\nwagon-road, having done his thirty miles that day. He had a knapsack\non his back, but that was not heavy. Home was sitting on a case\nunder his verandah. The sun had just set, and he had closed the\nstore for the day, just before the traveler showed in sight. Now\nthat he drew near, he knew him at once. 'Hullo! I've often\nthought about you,' was his greeting. 'But what have you been\ndoing with yourself?' The boy's face he looked boyish still,\nthough no longer girlish was worn. He was very pale, and had blue\nmarks under his eyes. 'I've had a hell of a time,' he muttered.\n'Well, come and have some skoff,' Home said. 'After that you can\ntell me about it all.' The boy ate but languidly, though he\nemptied cup after cup. He said hardly anything; he looked down on\nhis luck. The zest was gone out of his talk, as the rose-pink out\nof his cheeks, since they last met.\n\nHome tried to say something cheerful. 'Do you know, if you'd come\nthis day week I don't think you'd have found me here. I've sold\nthis store. I'm meaning to go home, and to settle down there.'\nThe boy congratulated him rather listlessly. Then he spoke with a\nsparkle of his old keenness. 'I wish I were going home,' he said.\n\n'Why don't you?'\n\n'I haven't a shilling,' the boy said; 'only minus shillings, only\ndebts.' Home tried to say something pleasant about luck turning,\nbut it came out flatly. After supper the boy told a story, but he\ndid not seem to tell it candidly by any manner of means. The\npartnership he had gone to had been dissolved a year ago. He had\nbeen trading, backed up by a Jew, this last cold weather. He had\nhad horrible luck; his store had been burnt down in August. It\nwas November now. He had been knocking about in a certain town\nfor a month or two. Then he had taken to the road. Some people\nhad been kind to him as he came along; others hadn't.\n\n'What do you owe?' Home asked him abruptly. 'Oh, a pound or two,'\nhe answered, coloring. 'It's more than that, isn't it?' Home said\ngently. The boy denied its being more than that. Then all of a\nsudden he owned up. 'One Jew, they were partners, said it was\ntwenty-five; the other said he'd take fifteen. It wasn't really\nmore than fifteen, honor bright.'\n\n'So you owe him fifteen,' Home said. 'Do you mean to pay him?'\n\n'Not unless I'm forced,' the boy said savagely. He spoke in quite\nan open way now. 'I'd rather pay him out than pay him back, the .. .'\nHome changed the subject.\n\nJust before they went to bed he recalled their brief journey\ntogether so long ago now. He reached a newish Tennyson down from\nhis candle-box bookshelf. 'Do you mind saying that piece over\nagain that piece you said in the train?' Home spoke shyly.\n\nThe boy flushed up before he answered. 'I've forgotten it,' he\nsaid.\n\n'Well, read it, then, won't you, please? I've got it here.' The\nboy started to read the lines. He read rather badly that night,\nso Home thought to himself. He stuck in one place. 'Here, you'd\nbetter go on,' he said hoarsely. So Home finished the poem to the\nlast line of it:\n\nUntil I find the Holy Grail.\n\n'Do you know?' he said, when he had ended, 'I owe you a debt.\nYou've got a big balance to draw on so far as I'm concerned. I\nbucked up a bit, beginning from that day when we met in the\ntrain. I'd been thinking of giving up whisky, and other things,\nbefore that day. But you gave me what I wanted a start. \"Now or\nnever,\" I said, having seen you coming out so fresh as you did\nyes, and heard you recite. I won't describe you as you were then;\nyou may or may not remember what you were like. That bit in the\npoem about riding in lonely places through the dark caught my\nfancy. I used to think of you who had gone away in the train\nnorthwards. I thought of you trading on the Mashonaland veld, and\npassing unscathed and unafraid over it by night and day you that\nhad nothing to be ashamed of. Thinking so helped to buck me up.\nI've done better since that train journey than I ever did before\nout here. Now I'm doing quite well, else it wouldn't be likely\nI'd be thinking of going home, as I am.'\n\nThe boy looked up at him wretchedly. 'It all went wrong nearly\nfrom the first,' he said, 'so far as I was concerned.'\n\n'Yet all the while you helped me,' Home said. 'So I owe you a\ndebt, and I mean to pay my debts, whatever you mean to do about\nyours. Come on, now. Take this bed. I'm sleeping in the store.'\n\nThus it came about that in the morning Home, having slept upon\nhis resolve, brought out some money. He stacked it on the table\nimpressively. 'I'm glad I slept upon it,' he said. 'I thought\nlast night that I'd give you the money to go home this year. I'd\nmade up my mind almost to go next year instead of this.'\n\nThe boy's eyes lighted up. Gratitude looked out of them. Then\nthey changed. It seemed that gloomy Fear had taken Gratitude's\nplace at the double window. Donald stammered a bit; then he spoke\nout. 'I'd like to lie to you, like I did last night; but I can't\nsomehow. No, I'm going to tell you utter' truth. I'd like you to\ngive me the money well enough in one way. But if you did I know\nwhat I'd do. You don't know how gone-in I am. If I ever got as\nfar as Capetown I'd drink out what was left there, or I'd blow it\nsome way. But I'd never get so far as Capetown; I'll be honest\nwith you. Yet thanks all the same. You meant kindly.'\n\n'That's all right,' Home said kindly enough. 'Thanks for being\nstraight. I thought over that first plan of mine last night. I\nwasn't long in chucking it for a second.' The boy listened\nlanguidly. 'I was going second,' Home went on; 'I was going\nsecond if I'd gone alone. Now let's both go together! Supposing I\nsquare the Jew for you probably you understated his account a bit\n(I've allowed for that) I may have enough for two thirds and\nsomething to spare. You won't mind my going too, and my keeping\nthe bag, will you?'\n\n'Mind?' the other said. 'I shouldn't think I'd mind, seeing it's\na one-and-only sort of chance. But I don't see why you should\ngive it me.'\n\n'It's only paying you something on account,' Home said.\n'Remember, there'll be a credit balance still after the journey's\nover, but you'll give me a little time to pay off that, won't\nyou?'\n\nSo they went together in the following week by a slow train, the\nsame sort of slow train as had carried them of old one that\nstopped at Peppertree Siding.\n\n'I'd like to refund you,' the boy said while they waited there.\nHe was beginning to get a little of his own back by then, Home\nthought; Home was beginning to suffer him as an inseparable much\nmore gladly. 'I've written some things that might sell,' Donald\nmurmured; 'things I wrote when I was traveling in lonely places\namong the hills, or in the bush-veld, or by the river that held\nme up for three days.'\n\n'What sort of things? \"Sir Galahad\" sort of things?' Home asked\nwith a twinkle.\n\nThe boy shuddered. 'No, just the other sort of things,' he\nanswered. 'Not seeing everything right because one feels right,\nbut seeing everything devilish because one feels devilish.'\n\n'Hadn't you better, perhaps, burn the lot?' Home said. 'Don't\ntalk about a refund to me. Why, man, I tell you I owe you quite a\nlot. Make yourself easy; you've a big credit balance to draw on.'\n\n\n\nMAN'S AIRY NOTIONS\n\n\n\nIt is quaint how a catch of a song or a phrase of a lyric will\nhaunt one along the lonely miles of a walk, up hill and down dale\nof one's pilgrimage. Hood found a phrase of a lyric dogging him\ndown the first stages of his home-road last year. He thought\nlittle of the circumstance at the time, but afterwards he\nremembered it, and wondered why the thing had befallen so. The\nlines of the phrase had by that time gained meaning for him, more\nmeaning than he had suspected to be in them, when he said them\nover to himself:\n\n'In a wife's lap, as in a grave,\nMan's airy notions mix with earth.' *\n\n* From 'The Splendid Spur,' by Q.\n\nHe remembered saying them over and over to himself along one\nlong, sandy, thirsty stretch. Then again, when he sat down by the\ndrift in huge content waiting for his kettle to boil; then again\non a certain melodramatic night as he paddled in the rain a night\nhe is not likely to forget.\n\nHe had been a missionary in South-Eastern Africa for ten or\nfifteen years, I forget which, and his leave that came every five\nyears was once more due. He started for the railhead, some forty\nodd miles from his home, going by way of the post-town, and\ncalling there for his share of the last mail.\n\nYes, it was all right. Nothing near at hand in Africa, or far\noverseas in England, barred his home-road as far as he could\nlearn. On the other hand, at least two Southern letters bade him\ngo back and prosper, and a new welcome had come forward to him\nfrom the North in a writing that he remembered. It was posted in\nan Upper River village not many miles from Oxford, and it was a\nbidding to a meeting of Oxford contemporaries arranged for the\ncoming July. They had met on about that same day (the birthday of\nthe host) five years before.\n\nHood remembered that day of meeting, as he sat by the drift,\nreading his letter, and waiting for the kettle to boil. He\nremembered walking out from the city of the spires, and the way\nthe house looked as he came to it by a path through water-meadows.\nWhat gardens and green shades and coolness of comfort, he\nremembered, and linked with that time and that place. He\ndreamed a dream with the smell of new-turned hay in it, then\nawoke to find himself repeating that mellifluous tag of his about\nman's airy notions. The kettle had boiled.\n\nThe letter of invitation was written in high spirits. It was\nsanguine as to the completeness of their numbers when they should\nmeet. All but one was likely to be there if only Hood would come\nall but one who had fallen out of the ranks. Hood was, somehow, I\nthink, more overcast by the thought of the one exception, than\nrejoiced by the prospect of such a noble muster. Yet, as he\nstrode along the road, pondering the letter, his longing for\nEngland seemed to grow amazingly. His stride lengthened as his\nsatisfaction deepened. Twenty miles gave him little trouble that\nMarch forenoon and afternoon. He crossed the wide river in a\ncrazily perilous ferry-boat, forded a narrow one, and supped with\ngreat content on his bread and cheese.\n\nMeanwhile his carriers fell heartily to hungry men's rations of\nbully beef and millet-meal. The rains had been heavy those two or\nthree days in that last week, as the rivers testified. Now the\nclouds were closing up again, and the carriers shook their heads.\nTheir road was a lonely one. A kraal was some six miles ahead,\nthe railhead inn was almost nine. When they had gone on for about\na mile of their road, the rain began to come down heavily, just\nas the night began. On and on they splashed through the pools and\ncurrents of the wagon-way. Then the rain slackened. A red,\nelusive light shone ahead in the dip of a hollow. It seemed a\nwandering fire to Hood's eyes as the road twisted suddenly. But\nno it was a humdrum wagon-fire of logs. They clustered round it,\nchilly and dripping, his carriers and he. A voice called out to\nthem from the folds of a buck-sail above. A Mashona boy was\ncrouching in shelter there. He told them that his master was\nasleep on the wagon. Hood tried a greeting to this master, but it\ngained no answer. He began to take counsel with his comrades, as\nthey squatted by the fire. 'Wouldn't it be fine to sleep under\nthe wagon? Who wanted to tramp through a black night with perhaps\na pouring roof of sky above, and certainly a soaked mud floor\nbeneath?'\n\nThe carriers and he agreed to risk the storm (threatening even\nnow in the distance). Night-prayers were said by that gladsome\nfire. Still, the larger of the two muffled shapes above made no\nsign. Afterwards Hood's bed was made by the stretching out of a\nstrip of sailcloth. A blanket was laid over it, and a knapsack\ncrowned it as a pillow. Hood began to settle himself in with huge\ncontent, a pipe between his teeth. One carrier wriggled himself\nup beside him. The two others laid themselves at his feet. By\nthis time the thunder was rolling up relentlessly, and the\nflashes shone green and sinister. The storm was not long in\nbreaking over them. The rain swished in from the west the way of\nHood's right side. He wrapped his head in his five-shilling\nblanket; its cotton-waste was not very waterproof. He had a few\nmore draws at his pipe in the dark. Pools were filling under him.\nHe put his pipe down. He made haste for the frontiers of sleep.\nHe must have got some way in that direction, for he soon found\nhimself in his bath on the threshold of a dream. Of course, he\nshould have hardened his heart hygienically. He should have risen\nand stridden on with his retainers the miles that remained. But\nhe had his vein of weakness and sloth; he took the fury of that\nnight lying down.\n\nAt whiles he was across the drift of Lethe in the darkness, but\nnever for long together. Once he woke uneasily with a start and\nsaw a flash. The crash followed as in one beat, and the rain was\nlike the rain in King Lear. He was broadly awake now. Two\ncarriers were nestling near him. He felt fearfully for his pipe,\nand almost mourned for it as washed away. He found it, and turned\nover with a happy sigh. 'Man's airy notions!' 'as in a grave,'\n'mix with earth' he hummed himself to sleep with that brave\nsing-song.\n\nThe dawn had come ere he had roused himself again. It was good to\nfind that the rain was over and the night gone, and that the fire\nwas blazing. His carriers were chafing their hands and feet. His\nsleeping host bulked still as a molded shape in the buck-sail.\nHad he moved at all since last night? The big black-and-white and\nred-and-white oxen were tethered still. Would their wardens ever\nwake up and see them fed? The carriers tied up his packs, and\nmoved forward with a swing. Still there was no sign from the\nbuck-sail, boy and master alike were still within, though the sun\nhad climbed over the hills. Hood shrugged his shoulders, and\nmoved off down the west road. He left that little mystery, as he\nhad left bigger riddles in Africa, utterly unsolved.\n\nSoon they dried themselves at a hospitable hut-fire in a village.\nIt was Lady Day. Hood noted the seasonable blue-and-white of his\nblanket as he hung it on a rafter. He made the morning Offering\nbehind that vaporous screen. Then they ate their food, and\ndrugged themselves belatedly with quinine against those perils of\nthe night.\n\nHood for one felt cheerily defiant, if somewhat stiff from long\nbathing. 'This is life,' he thought as the sun came out, and they\nstrode mile after mile down the valley. Afterwards came the\nshining drift, and the last climb up to the Station.\n\nWhen Hood reached Capetown, he found a letter awaiting him. His\nchosen traveling companion an explorer was delayed up-country.\nHood was sorry to get that letter. Then the possibilities of a\nlonely journey struck him. He revived the remembrances of\nlong-room life as an under-schoolboy. He took an open berth for a\nthree weeks' voyage. Whereas, in the English public school he had\ngone to, Gentiles had been many and Jews the exception, the\nbalance was now redressed.\n\nIt was a good time on the whole that he had on this voyage, but\nhe was glad indeed to be out of the boat and in England once\nmore, his own South-country England! The spring and early summer\nwere kind to Hood, then July came and brought the gathering in\nBerkshire. All the old forgatherers of five years ago were there,\nall but that one they had left behind in Africa. He had gone to\nsleep there, three long years ago in the past.\n\n'How I do miss Hunter!' confided the explorer to Hood. 'They seem\nto have aged a lot, some of the others,' he explained forlornly.\n\nHood stared at him as he steered their boat down the river. He\nreflected.\n\n'I think you're right,' he said. 'But you haven't aged a bit. Nor\nhave I. Nor has our host so very much. That's how the dividing\nline comes in. The others are all married, much married, and like\ntheir little comforts.'\n\n'You're right there,' said the explorer, disconsolately. 'A\nbread-and-cheese lunch in a bar parlor and a twenty-mile walk\ndidn't suit Warner. He used not to be like that. If only he'd\nkept out in Africa after the war.'\n\n'Warner's better than somebody we both know,' grumbled Hood.\n'Having a car of his own hasn't made him any younger.'\n\n'Never mind,' the explorer said, 'there's two of us out in Africa\nyet, and not likely to marry. There used to be three, usedn't\nthere?'\n\n'I do wish we had one to spare,' said Hood. 'It'd be rather a\ntragedy for the other one if one of us two deserted. But you'll\ntry not, won't you, and I'll try too.'\n\nWhile they stayed with their bachelor host, friends of his,\nmarried and single alike, were very kind to them. The rector, who\nhad only come last year, asked them to make themselves at home in\nhis garden. It had a blaze of civilization in its front borders,\nnow, but at the back of the house it was rather wild and very\nshady. The rector's youngest sister, Perpetua, kept house for\nhim, a girl whose English coloring took a pretty and subdued\nform; Hood and the explorer were much interested in her romance.\nThe curate, Warner said, was her continual worshipper. He was a\nkeen sort of curate that.\n\nShe had been kind to him till quite recently. Now she was\nuninterested, or seemed so.\n\nThe Good-bye of the reunion came round, but the explorer and Hood\nwent not with the others. The married guests went off to their\nhome comforts, but these two stayed on for at least a week more.\nThey became fast friends with both Perpetua and the curate, but\nthey found it best for social joy not to mix them.\n\nPerpetua shared a sailing expedition with the strangers. Therein\nthey explored much of the Evenlode, the hay-harvest breeze\nfavoring them. Another day she went with them afoot to the\nHinkseys. Certain moot points of poetic identification were\nhardly settled by that trip, so another followed. They came home\nby Cumner both days.\n\n'She would do for Africa,' confided the explorer to Hood one\nnight. The village band had been playing, and they had thought no\nscorn of it. The groups under the dreaming garden trees, and the\nfull moon, and the white evening-star' had been memorable that\nevening.\n\n'She might do for Africa,' said Hood doubtfully, 'but I wouldn't\nlet her go and spoil her complexion.'\n\n'If you were the curate?' asked the explorer with a smile.\n\n'What's he to do with it?' said Hood impatiently. 'Didn't he\nalmost promise he'd sail with me in two months' time? I want him\nfor work.'\n\n'That's too bad,' said the explorer; 'cut that labor-agent\nbusiness. Let him stay at home and marry Perpetua. There's a\nfamily living waiting for him across the river. Won't they be\nhappy just?'\n\n'I don't know,' said Hood, thinking fast.\n\nNext morning the explorer had a touch of fever. The village\ndoctor dropped in as an anxious friend. He mustered up his\ncourage to prescribe two grains of quinine. His patient smiled,\nand promised to take them with additions. Then he went to sleep,\nand left Hood to escort Perpetua to Bab-lock-hythe. She was\nadventurous that afternoon. 'She has outgrown the curate,' Hood\nthought. The explorer's words recurred to him: 'She might do for\nAfrica.' 'Not if I know it,' he answered them in his own mind.\n\nHis interest in her grew that day, and the next day, when the\nexplorer was convalescent. The day after that he said 'Good-bye,'\nand escorted the convalescent to Oxford.\n\n'Good luck!' said the explorer as they parted near the Martyrs'\nMemorial, each bound for his own college. 'Let's stick to our own\nway of life, we two. Don't let's get middle-aged just yet, like\nWarner and Davies. And, mind, drop that agency rot, and leave the\ncurate to Perpetua. They're just the age she twenty, he twenty-five.\nYou, who're forty-one, have pity!'\n\nThat evening Hood smoked his pipe in a college garden. One who\nhad taught him years ago was there. Hood was fairly candid as to\nhis real thoughts when he talked to him. He was telling the tale\nof that rainy night, as the summer twilight darkened, 'I'm just\nforty,' he said. 'It seems as if I could hold my own a bit with\nyounger men, D.G.!'\n\nHis friend looked at him thoughtfully. 'It's fictitious youth, he\nsaid. 'Supposing you were to try marrying and settling down.\nSupposing you were to try deserting your perennially youthful\nbride the Great Adventure, or the High Romance, or the New\nJerusalem, or whatsoever you call her. Supposing you settle down\nwith an earthly bride say, a sweet-and-twenty one! Supposing you\nhad to toe the line of four-meals-a-day in a country vicarage.\nYou would know your age then.'\n\nHood looked uninterested and aloof. But he recurred to the\nsubject again later on, and he asked whether a certain living in\nthe near neighborhood had been filled.\n\n'No,' said his friend; do you want it?'\n\nHood flushed up. 'It's the sort of place I'd like to settle down\nin,' he said, 'if I were coming home. But why should I come?'\n\nHis friend made no answer at once. The same sort of wistful look\ncame into his eyes that Hood had noticed in the explorer's eyes\nthat afternoon.\n\n'Why should you not?' he said at last. 'Yet I for one would like\nyou not to renounce the perpetually juvenile lady. I'm not in a\nhurry to see the last of your glad, perennial youth.'\n\nThat night Hood lay in his friend's spare room, looking out over\nthe Gardens. He was reading in bed a college list. It had pencil\nnotes of the deaths or careers of some contemporaries. Rousing\nhimself from his researches, he sprang up and put the book away.\nHe leaned down to the window-shelf. What was that book with the\nstained red cover! He remembered a romance that had come out in\nhis college days of twenty years ago, a book by one who had had\nhis own rooms before him. He took it back to bed with him, and\nturned over the pages. At last he found the lyric he sought. One\nof its verses held the tag he had remembered so often, but had\nforgotten, and wanted that evening, wanted to confirm his own\nhalting decision:\n\n'In a wife's lap, as in a grave,\nMan's airy notions mix with earth.'\n\nHe put down the book and switched off the electric light. He lay\na long while in the moonlight, thinking himself far away to\nearthen walls and guttering candles. He thought of the chill\npenury of lack of blankets that he had known in winter. Also of\nthe sun's summer glare on white wagon-roads and Kaffir paths.\nWhat wonder that wayfarers' eyes amass many wrinkles around them?\nYet how young one had kept after all; and at what speed one would\nage here with electric light and sheets and a stately dinner to\ntempt one! 'Man's airy notions.' Yes, he had got some very airy\nnotions still, whereof the earth was not worthy. Getting old\ndidn't matter, of course, so much; but he wanted to stick to\ndoing his own work (his Lord's work) in his own way. He didn't\nwant to leave like-minded friends in the lurch either. Nor did he\nsee his way to hug the shore at home with Perpetua, while the\ncurate braved the 'foam of perilous seas.' Would he ever have the\nheart to watch her fresh face spoiling in Africa? Could he bear\nto see it wizened and withered in the Tropic of Capricorn? No!\n\nHe was soon asleep.\n\nHis first waking knowledge was of his friend's asking him the\nquestion, 'Are you going to apply for that living?' He had his\n'No!' ready from that last night.\n\n'I'm glad,' his friend said. '\"Fly our paths, our feverish\ncontact fly!\" I'd like you to take my advice and be happy yes,\nand useful as well as youthful.'\n\n'All right,' smiled Hood from his pillow. 'I mean sailing next\nmonth.'\n\nHe went to his home in Kent that same day, and rejoiced in the\nWeald. His sister and he made a pilgrimage to Canterbury before\nthe month was over, from Sevenoaks by way of the Downs.\n\n'This was where Marlowe went to school,' she reminded him. 'I\nthink he might have been almost as great as Shakespeare, don't\nyou?'\n\n'I don't know,' Hood answered. 'He was a different sort. I can't\nimagine him settled down in middle age at Canterbury like\nShakespeare at Stratford. \"His raptures were all air and fire.\"\nHis airy notions refused to mix with earth somehow.'\n\nThe conversation was not very important, but it showed the\ncontinuing trend of Hood's purpose. He hardened his heart and\nwent to the Upper River no more ere his sailing from Southampton,\nnor did he press the curate to sail with him. The latter wrote\nhim a very dubious letter. He would make no promises about work\nin Africa now. Hood gathered that Perpetua was relenting.\n\nThe explorer sailed with him, to his joy, instead of the curate.\nThey went up from Capetown in continuing amity together. At last\nthey parted far upcountry. Hood went on his lonely way, not\nwithout some retrospects and some doubts as to his decision.\n\nAt a roadside station a well-tried comrade came to greet him.\nThis friend had married last year, and his wife was donkey-riding\nand foot-faring with him. They were but just back from many miles\nin very wild country. Seven carriers were with them.\n\n'Heavy loads!' said Hood, shaking his head. 'So you carry chairs\nand a table into the Veld?'\n\n'Home comforts,' growled his fellow-missionary. 'Why not be\ncomfortable? And why, too, didn't you bring a wife back? Some one\nsaid.'\n\nHood smiled, and the missionary's wife smiled back at him. 'He's\nbetter as he is, dear,' said she to her grunting husband. 'He's a\nfoot-slogging free-lance. We're the household heavy cavalry. He's\ndifferent.'\n\n'Wait and see if he remains so,' rejoined her husband solemnly.\nThen the train screamed and went off.\n\nSoon Hood was landing at his own rail-head and receiving the\ngreetings of many brown people. They seemed glad to see him as he\nstraggled back so forlornly to them up the platform, and out of\nthe station. His holiday was done.\n\nBut he was soon forlorn no longer. They had so many delights and\nanxieties to share with him his traveling comrades. Soon they\nwere striding away far up the remembered road together. They were\nthrough the drift. How low it was now in this droughty time. Then\nthey wound along the valley. Hood peered curiously among the\nruddy-leaved bushes as they came round the shoulder of a hill.\nWas the silent teamster still outspanned there? No, he was not\nthere to make them welcome, or to sleep away the tyranny of their\npresence. He had fled their 4 greetings, fled their speech and\nsmiles.' Never mind. If the road was lonely, Spring was in the\nland. How the trees and the bushes glowed! 'Surely no man ever in\na land of exile found more of a warmth of welcome home!' he\nthought to himself.\n\nIt was on Christmas Day (last Christmas Day) that, Hood tells me,\na momentous letter came to hand. It was from Berkshire, and he\ndid not read it till the time came for him to turn towards his\nveld-home. He had held Christmas services in various places.\n\nHe was now looking forward to a rest and to supper-time. He was\nsitting outside a wayside school as he read that letter. Some\nMashona children had brought him clay figures as Christmas\npresents. They graced the grey rock beside him one big figure and\na little figure or two in clay skirts, also a quaint version of a\nperambulator. They showed up rather drably against the glory of\nWestern sun and blue sky.\n\nThe letter announced Perpetua's plighted troth. It was from the\ncurate. He added that they were both looking forward to settling\ndown shortly in the family living. They might be married in April\nor in June. Hood smiled and lit his pipe resignedly.\n\n'So his airy notions of Africa are mixed with earth,' he thought,\n'honest Berkshire earth, hurst sand, or down chalk, I suppose.\nNo, I'm forgetting. That rectory's across the river in Bucks or\nOxon, I forget which. Anyhow the earth's got the better of the\nair, and it's arranged that Africa's not to see him.' His eyes\nfell upon the clay family grouped beside him. 'It's good\nPerpetua's having a home and a family in prospect,' he thought.\n'One understands that there's a good deal to be said for such\nthings when Christmas comes round, at any rate.'\n\nSome words came into his head, words of his favorite poet weren't\nthey? 'I hope I shall never marry; the roaring wind is my wife,\nand the stars through the window-panes are my children: the\nmighty abstract idea of beauty I have in all things stifles the\nmore divided and minute domestic happiness.' He looked at those\nclay grotesques rather tenderly. He was thinking of a story in a\nlife of St. Francis he had read only yesterday, how he had made\nhim figures of snow and called them in irony his wife and\nchildren and servants. 'Here is thy wife, these are thy sons and\ndaughters, the other two are thy servant and thy handmaid; and\nfor all these thou art bound to provide. But if the care of so\nmany trouble thee, be thou careful to serve one Lord alone.'\n\nHe said over to himself those unforgotten words, sadly rather\nthan scornfully this time:\n\n'In a wife's lap, as in a grave,\nMan's airy notions mix with earth.'\n\nHe shouldered his knapsack. Then he commended the clay figures to\ntheir donors; he asked them if they would mind looking after\nthem. He was very grateful; he would have them kept in the school\nto remind him of things that earthy little family of his own.\n\nThen airily and fierily he splashed away down the path for home.\nThrough the marshland he went, and down towards the stream. He\nforded the wagon-torn drift eagerly, climbed up out of it, and\nstrode away beyond.\n\nHow young and fresh he felt as he went away again on his campaign\nwith earth and water! How air and fire subdued their sister\nelements to themselves!\n\n\n\nPISGAH\n\n\n\nWe had been going sixteen days on the home course to England, and\nI had come to know him fairly well. He was a seaman who had\nsailed the self-same mail-boat for some years past. I remembered\nhim on a brighter trip in summer-time when I was a good deal\nyounger and took the languors of the voyage less slumberously.\nNow it was winter-time on the home-side of the Line, and I was\nsailing under a cloud of news grave and stern. So I was rather\nprone to see most things as much alike in a sort of dream of\nneutral colors. My seafaring friend had helped me in the sultry\nnights further south, had shown me a sleeping place high up among\nthe ropes, had called me in the grey dawn, or warned me when\nlightning flashed and it seemed that a downpour threatened.\nAfterwards we had passed Madeira, a cheering vista with its white\nwalls and red roofs and purple bougainvillea, and settled down\ninto wintry weather and storm-vexed seas. Now the last night up\nthe Channel had come, and the weather was calmer. We had seen the\nscowling Ushant coast in the sun and shower of an icy mid-day. So\nwe were looking for a light to show very soon now an English\nlight, a Dorset light and the pulse of our chill quickened to\nracing rhythm. 'How many voyages have you made before this one?'\nI asked my friend as we leant over a rail together. He mentioned\nan astonishing number. 'You must know a lot about the things that\nI want to know' I said, 'the going to and fro of people, their\nstarting out and their coming back again. Doesn't it all seem\npretty stale to you by now?' 'No,' he said; 'it's my living, and\nbesides that it interests me watching the game. It's an\ninteresting bit of the game that I see, don't you think, sir,\ncoming to the fringes of two Promised Lands, and not tackling the\njob of settling down in either? I've got interests, though, in\nboth of them.' He was silent, and we both filled our pipes again.\nThis friend of mine interested me: his reading tastes had\nsurprised me: he borrowed Mr. Masefield's works and Miss Olive\nSchreiner's, but I had not often found him communicative till\nthat last night before reaching home. 'I'm better where I am\nearning a sure living,' he went on. 'I've got a boy put to school\nat Southampton; no, not mine I'm not married. But he's staying at\nschool a long while. I don't particularly want him to go out to\nSouth Africa, speaking for myself. His father didn't do\nparticularly well there as people reckon, but yet I don't know.\nHe enjoyed his life in his own way, I think. I saw enough of him\nto understand that, and the boy seems bound to go back there:\nbound or tied's the very word. He was born up the country, and\ncarried on a Kaffir woman's back in her goatskin, and knew more\nKaffir than English, and wore veld-schoen when he came back on\nthe boat with me.' 'When was that?' I asked. 'When his father,\nWalter Holmes, came aboard seven years ago come this next March.\nThat was the second time his father traveled with me. He came on\nbefore, fifteen years earlier, when first he traveled to Africa,\nand I remembered him well enough. I was on the old boat. I've\nonly served on the two boats all my time.' 'What did he go out to\ndo?' I asked. 'Oh! he went up to join the pioneers at Kimberley.\nA counter-jumper he'd been, and he'd got his head all stuffed\nfull. It was 1890, one of Rhodes' big years, the year they went\nnorth. It would have done you good to hear him talk. He was so\nkeen, and his eyes glowed. Just like the water glows near the\nkeel in the tropics.' 'That must have been a time,' I said; 'I've\nonly read about it. It was before I saw the country.' The sailor\ngrinned and spat. 'I reckon there hadn't been better days for\nyoung fellows to live in,' he said, 'not since Queen Elizabeth's\nreign. It came just between the two Jubilees the time. Kimberley\nand Rhodesia and the native wars and the Raid, and the big war\nlooming on ahead for by and by. I reckon it was something like it\nwas in Drake's and Hawkins' and Sir Walter's days.' That was a\nnew view to me. But it sounded likely enough to hear him bring it\nout, who believed in it so evidently. 'It was all Ophir and El\nDorado,' he went on; 'I used to hear lots of it from people to\nand fro. I'd see them going out to Africa and all the excitement\nafter the lagging times along the coast, when they came with the\ndawn into Table Bay. I'd see them coming back, too, greedy enough\nto see Portland Light then, like that stout party over there.' He\npointed to a paunchy miner who was flinging his leather cap up.\n'He's seen it,' he said; 'yes, look there! One! Two! Three!\n'Four!'\n\nMy own eyes glowed and my heart hopped up and down. Yonder was a\nverity of England once more after years of absence. People came\nalong to our corner of the deck and questioned and stared and\nlaughed to one another. 'But I want to hear the end of that\nstory,' I said, and I enticed him away with me past the wheel-house\nto a place far out of the talk and the tramping up and down.\n'How used the people to come back, did you say?' I asked him.\n'Oh! some had done fairly well,' he said, 'and some were\nbroken, but it was good to see how slow they found the boat go,\ngetting back again, and how they hung on the lights.' 'Yet they\ndidn't stay long in England some of them?' I hazarded. 'No,' he\nsaid; 'I'd see some coming back, and hear of lots more. The same\nthing over again it would seem when we came into Table Bay, only\nthey were a bit older.' 'But some didn't come home to England,\ndid they?' I wanted him to tell me. 'No,' he said; 'you're right\nthere no doubt. This friend of mine named Holmes took a long time\ncoming. But I heard from him sometimes when he was up country. He\nfound the business of settling Canaan rough, I gathered. I think\nI'm glad I heard about it from a distance. It mightn't have\nsuited me.' 'And he got married up there, did you say?' 'Yes, his\ngirl came out on this ship when he'd been out seven years or so.\nHe used to write to me sometimes, and he arranged about the boat\nshe came by. She was full of the farm she was going to; he had\nwritten about it. She seemed to think that it was a regular\nKentish homestead. She wrote afterwards and thanked me for\nlooking after her on the voyage, and said she had found two huts\non a kopje when she got there. All their cattle died when her boy\nwas about six years old. Then she died. Holmes had a lot of\ntrouble that year. So he sold up and came on board the year\nafter. Waited for my boat, worse luck, and contracted enteric in\nCape Town. I thought we should lose him off Cape Verde. But it\nwasn't a clammy night the night we passed the wind blew fresh and\nwe got him by. How he longed for home, for settling down in Kent.\nRhodesia was all very well when one was young, he had said. She\nhadn't treated him so very well, but she had taught him to value\nthings at home. I thought we might land him home after all, when\nwe were a whole day or so past Cape Verde. But that night a\nchange came and he was gone. We dropped him over at sunrise, only\nfour or five hours after, so as not to cast a gloom over the\npassengers, you understand.' 'And you took on his child?' I\nasked. 'Yes, and wanted him to settle down in the south country.\nNo, not Africa Kent I mean. I thought I'd settle down with him in\nthe better of my two countries. For it is the better. I who've\nlooked down at both, like Moses on the mountain, have found out\nthat much. But it doesn't look a bit now as if he'll believe\nin my advice.' 'And if he goes out, you'll follow him?' I\nquestioned. He smiled. 'I think I'll be simple enough for it,' he\nsaid; 'I seem to want to renew my youth. I somehow used to be\nsorry I missed my chance to follow his father up. Now that\ngeneration's about gone the generation of King Solomon's Mines.\nIt doesn't seem like putting myself forward so much if the boy\nhimself asks me to come up with him, does it, sir?' 'And you want\nto go.' 'Well if you look over Moses' Moabitish mountain long\nenough, at a promised land, so to speak, you may get a hankering\nto go in,' he said. 'It's not a better country. It's not a\nheavenly; I don't make any mistake about that. But it's a country\nthat people have thought big things about, if they have carried\nthem out badly. I seem to have seen something of the right and\nthe wrong of it all these nights coming north to Southampton\nWater or south into Table Bay.' 'And what's the conclusion of the\nwhole matter?' I said. We were almost alone on the deck now.\n(There was just one lonely, lanky passenger strolling up and\ndown. I guessed that the rest were in bed, or going to bed or\nhaving a last drink below. We went down the deck together and\ntook our stand behind that forsaken watcher of the shore-light.\nHe stood at gaze, pulling deeply from his pipe and drinking in\nthe four-a-time flashes with owlish contentment.) 'Oh! the\nconclusion's what Solomon said right enough,' he muttered. 'Fear\nand keep, and keep and fear. Perhaps he'd been out and visited\nthe men on his mines up-country.' He paused. I seemed to hear the\njingling of bar-glasses in a back-veld canteen as he did so. The\nthud of drums, too, from Kaffir villages seemed to bear down on\nus. The Channel breeze came to me as it were heavily laden with\nthe sounding challenges of the South. 'I suppose,' I said, 'it\nmakes a big difference when one loses the northern star. Those\nsouthern skies painted with unnumbered sparks are all very well,\nbut one lacks the pole-star of honor one steered by in England.'\n'Yes,' he said, 'It's there I reckon the Southern Cross comes in,\nand people going south make a mistake not to notice it. When\none's out of sight of the old compass-point of English opinion\none feels the want of believing, if one's to make any sort\nof a show. It's a bad look-out if, when one lives under the\nSouthern Cross, one can't understand it. Fear God and keep His\nCommandments. Do you think God would have put that cluster of\nstars to south if the South did not need it most?'\n\n\n\nA LION IN THE WAY*\n\n* This tale may seem obscure, I suppose, if read in modern\nEnglish. It may be interpreted in the light of two ideas:\n\n(1) The African idea about leanthropy or transmutation of man\ninto lion, an idea likely to linger on, I should think.\n\n(2) An idea prevalent as it seems in our Europe of old '. . . the\nidea that when a witch in animal form is wounded, say by a blow\nor a shot, the natural wound will appear on the human body when\nthe witch returns to her own person.'\n\nBut I have topsy-turvied (2) in my tale. A.S.C.\n\nI saw the lion with my own eyes, his shaggy head haloed by the\nrising moon. The Mashona who was with me had far sharper eyes\nthan mine. He saw a dark scar across its brow. He would know that\nlion again, he told me. It was not a gun-shot wound it carried.\nSurely it was the caress of a brother lion.\n\nThe trader's road led down from the half-deserted kraal to the\ndrift. It forked into two wagon ways with a huge rock to part\nthem. There on the rock stood the lion expectant. That may not be\na heraldic term, but it is a true description of him as I saw\nhim. We watched him from the height above for what seemed a\nlongish time.\n\nThen in haste I stole back to the desolate kraal that I might\nfind Trooper No. 2. Had he not the chance of his life now to\nshoot a lion? I found him in the kraal, angry with himself and\nswearing at his Black Watch boy who suffered him silently. While\nhe swore at him I gave him some idea of what I was thinking, as\nto his need of humility. Had I not seen him run ten minutes\nbefore? All this took time. When at last his flow of words dried\nup and he came with me, we were too late. The lion was no longer\nagainst the sky-line. He had taken cover in the bush below. We\nheard him there once or twice, but we saw him no more. This is\nhow these things came about.\n\nI had traveled into that forlorn country the day before, looking\nfor Carrot. He had been a pioneer and a reputed hero, not so many\nyears gone past. Now he was an Ishmael, receding and receding\nbefore the tide of civilization. Like the eagle in Byron's lines\non Kirke White, he might blame himself, or at any rate credit\nhimself, for the turn things had taken. He had winged the shaft\nthat was draining his life, or at least his livelihood. He had\nhelped to bring on a native war that had expedited matters. He\nhad helped to wind it up in a very few months.\n\nSo now the abomination of civilization, as he deemed it, was set\nup in high places of the land. It was increasingly hard for him\nto be a law to himself anywhere within the land's limits. He had\nretired further and further yet again into the fastnesses of the\nhill-country. Yet civilization had a graceless way of looking him\nup.\n\nHe was just by the Portuguese border when I visited him. I knew\nhim of old, and I wanted him to let his eldest son come to\nschool. He had told me a year ago to ask again.\n\nI went through a frowning gorge of rocks to the part-deserted\nkraal, and found him sitting at his beer with three native\ncourtiers. He was a tall West-countryman, with a ragged dark\nbeard. His khaki was badly stained, and his hair was poking\nthrough his hat. He spoke the tongue of this southern country\nmost volubly. He also reinforced it with ne'er-do-well words from\nEurope that did her no particular credit. Just as I came up a\nquarrel was in full swing. A free fight followed. Carrot broke a\nblack earthen pot over the head of one of those three. Out came\nhis swarthy wife that he had paid many cattle for, with his baby\nin a goat-skin at her back; also his other children, aged about\neight, six, five, and four.\n\nThere was much confused crying and protesting. But Carrot\ndominated the scene in the end. The courtiers retired crying\n'Shame!' and under protest. The most truculent of them was\nbleeding freely from his broken head. I followed him to their\nhamlet far down among the rocks and bandaged him. I camped\noutside the Carrot homestead that night and the next day, and\nlearned something of the family's way of life.\n\nCarrot was shooting big buck sable and roan without a license, I\ngathered. He was trading cattle for most of the venison that he\namassed. He had by now a goodly herd feeding in a green vlei near\nthe border. By and by he would sell them, he thought, and set\nhimself up in a wayside public-house. That was to say, if an\nungrateful Government could be squared somehow. He chuckled at my\nprotests. He had many tales in the speech of North Devon to tell\nme.\n\nMany of them concerned the police, and were not altogether\nunkindly, though disparaging. To Carrot, who could both ride and\nfind his way about the veld, the police seemed often deficient as\npathfinders and horsemen. The story he told about the five\nEuropean members of a police camp delighted me. One had got lost.\nHe who went out to look for him had got lost also. There was an\nepidemic or something of the sort just then among the native\npolice, who, as a rule, piloted the troopers about and did\nnurses' work at need. One after another of the remaining three\nEuropeans was engulfed in this exhaustive search. Then a grass\nfire effaced the empty police camp. Carrot ended with a\nspeculation as to whether they were still looking for one another\nor whether they had begun to miss their camp yet.\n\nHe was good in a feudal way, I gathered a severely feudal way to\nhis retainers. He threw pots but seldom. His eldest child he\nseemed to worship in some sort of pagan fashion of his own.\n\nThe boy might have sat for a child Dionysos with his leopard-skin,\nand his arm of golden copper thrown about his father's pot of\nbeer; black and big that pot should be painted.\n\nNo, his father wouldn't let him come away with me; at least, not\nthis year. He graciously hesitated twice or thrice. But he ended\nwith the same proposal each time a drink and a postponement of\ndecision. I wanted neither. I would not go on wasting my days on\npostponements, and I meant to start with dawn on the second\nmorning. But at sunset the night before there had been a\nsurprise.\n\nJust as the sun went down a strange native appeared in hot haste\nand told a tale.\n\nTwo ma-Johnnies were coming down the wagon road with five or six,\nnative police and camp-followers. The Government was looking up\nCarrot once again. He had had two pots of beer that afternoon, or\nmost of them, and was not quite himself, otherwise he might have\ngone his way at his ease.\n\nBut as it was, a ghastly row woke the echoes, what with the\nchildren crying, and the father singing and swearing, and the\nmother scolding, as they tied up their bundles. Carrot kept\nuntying his in good humor, and searching for patent medicines and\na safety razor that could not be found. Then after he had started\nhe came back at least twice to give me a parting word. Meanwhile\nthe western glow began to be rivaled by an eastern glow. The moon\nwas brimming over the horizon. The Philistines of civilization\nwere almost riding into the kraal before Carrot had really gone.\nMy Adullamite friend was slow indeed with his farewells. Would he\never be through with them? 'Good-bye!' he said. He was enjoying\nthe emergency hugely now that he was sobered. 'You'd better walk\ndown the road and meet 'em. Do remind 'em not to lose their mules\nthis time. No, I won't worry you to see me off. They might ask\nquestions. You must honor and obey the King and those who are set\nin authority. But you won't want to give me away exactly. So\ngood-bye till next time!'\n\nA hundred yards from Carrot's dwelling I met Troopers 1 and 2\nTrooper No. I dusty and disheveled and livid with fever a lanky,\ndark man; Trooper No. 2 trim and ruddy. The former could hardly\nsit his mule as he trotted up to me. 'Have you seen Carrot?' he\nasked in a sort of groan. I said 'Good evening,' and passed on.\nPromptly he gasped to two native police to bring me along, and\nwent his way forward to explore the ruinous kraal. He felt\ndoubtful whether I was or was not Carrot, he told me afterwards.\nHe went for the three Carrot huts at once and began to search\nthem. There were no finds there. Then he questioned me sharply.\nTwo of his black watch knew me by sight, and I was soon set free\nto go my ways. Then he gave clear decisive orders to No. 2 to\nride for all he was worth to the drift. 'The river's the border,'\nhe said; 'it's his old game to dodge across it. If he's taken his\nkids with him he can't cross anywhere. It's a big river, and\nthere's only the one drift so far as I know. Go for the drift,\nman, and we'll have him yet!'\n\nSo Trooper No. 2, with the glory-thirst upon him, bustled off\nwith one black boy and four black men in red and blue.\n\nAfter he was safely out of the way Trooper No. I fainted. It had\nbeen hard for him to keep going so long as he had. I spread a\nblanket for him and made him a pillow. He was not long in coming\nround. Meanwhile the great moon had climbed a little. The light\nof the sunset was losing its brilliance as hers grew splendid.\n\nThe sound of two shots came sharply to us. A minute or so after\nNo. 2's mule was galloping wildly past us through rocks and\nruins. A native trooper rushed for it, but missed its bridle.\nSoon after that Trooper No. 2 galloped up on his feet. I should\njudge from the pace he showed that he was a real sprinter. I had\nnoted him before as a trim little man and ruddy, and a sort of\npersonification of self-respect. Now he was blue and demoralized.\n\n'Have you caught my mule?' he panted anxiously.\n\n'Have you stopped our man?' Trooper No. 1 asked him coldly, his\nface set very hard.\n\n'There's a lion in the way,' gasped Trooper No. 2, quoting\nScripture, whether he knew it or not. 'I got off my mule, I fired\ntwo shots. Then my mule bolted.'\n\n'And you bolted,' said No. 1 with a sneer. He took no further\nnotice of him, but called the Black Watch corporal and gave him\nhis orders. 'Take three men,' he said. 'Get to the drift. Run for\nyour lives. Leave the path and go through the bush if there's\nreally a lion.' The four Black Watch were off almost as soon as\nhe had spoken.\n\nTrooper No. 2 began to explain matters at length to his senior.\nBut the latter did not suffer him at all gladly. Then it was that\nI started down the drift road, asking No. 2's boy if he would\nshow me the place where they had seen the lion. I asked him if he\nthought it was wounded. He answered me disdainfully. He showed me\nhow Trooper No. 2 shot the panic way the way to heaven.\n\nThen we came in sight of the lion standing, haloed by the disc of\nthe moon. As I have told you, I tried to give No. 2 a chance to\nwipe out his stain. I went back to fetch him; he was taking\nthings hardly, doubtless, and I ought to try and do him a good\nturn. He came, but the lion did not stand still to await him. Why\nwas I so glad he escaped? I don't think it was only because I was\nafraid. Yet glad I was. So we gave him up, and tramped back to\nthe kraal.\n\nSoon after we were back one of the pursuers returned. He had seen\nCarrot splash through the drift. He took his time and went at it\nleisurely, I gathered, with his piccanin astride upon his\nshoulders. On the other side a crowd of natives had received him\nin triumph. They jeered at the police and shook their spears and\nknobkerries. Carrot was safely across the border and among his\nfriends.\n\n'It's a lost trip,' said No. 1, and looked No. 2 up and down, as\nwe sat by the camp fire. No. 2 looked injured and ashamed at one\nand the same time. He was not a hero on principle, I should\nthink, and he had not risen to this occasion. Some people seem to\nhold that Britishers are heroes on principle all along our\nfrontiers, and rise to all occasions. I can testify that this\nis not the truth, for I know my own deficiencies. As to No. 2,\nthere is some sort of mitigating explanation of his conduct to\nbe yet recounted. But no, even when I have allowed for this,\nI am not disposed to write him down heroically efficient or\njournalistically British not on that night at least. Just as\na Colenso now and then slips into our big campaigns, so the\nmonotony of our frontier triumphs gets diversified, I fear, and\nnot so very seldom. No. 2. is by no means the only man of the\ndiversifying type I seem to have met. I refuse to admire No. 2 as\nhe was that night, though I would excuse him.\n\nFor the hero of that night, let us look away from him. What a\nsplendid night it was in the late autumn in the very end of May!\nStars seemed to fall in profusion. But the steady ranks that were\nleft showed no thinning to my dazzled eyes. I had much time to\nwatch them, I remember.\n\nOurs was a gloomy camp among the ruins under the stars. One\ntrooper was convalescent and irritable as well as disappointed.\nThe other was shaken and sulky with little to say. There were\ngreat pauses in the talk. I thought how I congratulated Carrot,\nthe cheerful and irresponsible, on his escape. Assuredly his\nwould-be captors would have seemed to him dull dogs. Of course he\nwould have thoroughly deserved ordinary boredom. But theirs was\nlike a London fog. So it fell about that I had much time to give\nheed to the Black Watch as they chattered over their fire hard\nby. One was telling tales of lions, tales where the terror was\nglamorous and ghostly. A hint of a surmise floated to me. It\nrecalled a type of mediaeval tale that had once entranced me. But\nI said nothing to those young white men beside me whose frowning\nfaces were a study, and a pitiful one. I was intensely sorry for\nthem both. I just smoked my pipe, and made ready to go to bed\nbetimes. I was soon asleep, to dream of holy water and silver\nbullets and to wake and rise as the cock was crowing (for the\nsecond cock-crow I suppose) away down the hillside; I said an\nadded prayer of eager devotion, feeling myself to be a postulant\nin great need of its answer. I made for the rock of vantage. I\nfound the lion's spoor in the growing light, and followed it\nslowly and timorously into the bush and beyond. There had been a\nshower yesterday about noon, and it was easy enough to follow it.\nIt led down and then up again. I guessed it might be leading me\nto Carrot's huts and the troopers once more. But, no, it dipped\nfar down to that other group of huts wedged amongst the rocks,\nwhere Carrot's boon comrades lived, where I had bandaged the hurt\nhead, where I had heard but just now the cock crowing. Two huts I\ncould see to be empty. It did not lead to either of these. It led\nstraight to the other wherein the embers of a fire shone red.\nThere was no lion within. I looked for the spoor of the lion's\nexit. There was none.\n\nThe retainer who had had his head broken by Carrot lay curled in\nhis blanket by the fire. He was sleeping an exhausted man's\nsleep. It was hard work waking him. At last he sat up, a squat\npatriarch with grizzled bushy beard and shrewd watchful eyes. He\nwas huddled in a queer parti-colored blanket purple and brown and\norange and grey. I tried to testify to him with zeal against\nblackness of witchcraft. I told him with zest of the Light. He\nlooked blank enough. Afterwards I spoke of Carrot's escape. His\neyes underwent a change as I watched. The Light which lighteth\nevery man that cometh into the world, showed in them, as it\nseemed to me. He was genuinely glad that his baas was out of the\nwood. So clear an affection for the man whose mark he was wearing\ntouched me. I half emptied my tobacco bag into his hand ere I\nsaid Good-bye in the roaring south-easter, under the saffron\nstreamered dawn.\n\nI surmised that Carrot owed his escape largely to a real hero\nready to face fire at need, whom we white men had not recognized.\n\nA new feeling of pity for Trooper No. 2 took me. Haply he had\nmiscalculated things as he pursued his unsanctified way. Haply he\na modern, had been handicapped from his lack of equipment, lack\nof such discarded kit as I had dreamed about. Quite conceivably\nhe had wrestled last night, not only against flesh and blood, but\nagainst principalities and powers unknown.\n\n\n\nAS TREES WALKING\n\n\n\nIt was in the spring of last year that I started for a holiday\njourney towards some ruins about a hundred miles away. I had\nsuffered much in the cold weather from fever and broken rest, so\nI longed to renew my strength before the heats of summer should\nbe fully come.\n\nI started on a bright and calm September morning by the main\nsouthward track, hoping to reach a friend's Mission Station on\nthe eve of the third day.\n\nI reached it then, but I had provoked my enemies by walking in\nthe chilly hours, and walking to weariness. I was feverish and\nspent ere I reached Greenwood's Mission House.\n\nIt stood under a towering granite kopje some ten miles only from\nthe ruins. I had never entered it before. When I last visited\nGreenwood, quite two years ago, he had been working on a town\nstation. He was a dark, lean, rather ascetic-looking person, not\nvery talkative. I remembered the days when I had fought shy of\nhim; we had seemed to disagree on so many subjects, and he had\nseemed to resent disagreement so intensely. But he had written me\ntwo or three most friendly letters of late, and that nigh?, when\nI came to his door so sick and sorry, he seemed to be kindness\nitself. I soon revived by his fireside, ate my supper, and smoked\nand talked with him to my great content. We were speaking about\nroughing it, and told many camp-fire and roadside tales. As I\ntold and listened, I seemed to be my old self of a year ago once\nmore, tough and dogged, and rather sinfully contemptuous of\nmosquitoes and malaria. Yet I had but a poor night after all, and\nthe yawning and shuddering chills came on with vigor at Church in\nthe early morning. I went back to my blankets after an aguish\nbreakfast, and Greenwood dosed me and told me to go to sleep. He\nspoke with authority, and I obeyed. I did not wake up till the\nearly afternoon. I seemed to have lost much weight in those last\nsteaming hours, and also, to my joy, the fever.\n\n'I hope I'll sleep well to-night and get an early start to-morrow\nafter all,' I said to Greenwood. He looked at me rather intently\nwith his resolute grey eyes.\n\n'The fever is gone for the time,' he said, 'but I don't like the\nlook of your eyes at all. If I were you, I'd change your room\nto-night and sleep in the Hospital.'\n\n'Where's that?' I asked.\n\n'Oh, not very far; half a mile at most. It's Saint Lucy's little\nhospice on the hill there across the valley.'\n\nAfterwards, when I went out and sat on the sunny stoep with him,\nhe showed me the place. I could see a grove of trees standing up\non a near ridge and two or three thatched buildings in among\nthem; yes, and a white cross surmounting one of these.\n\n'It looks lonely over there,' I pleaded.\n\n'Oh, I'll come with you,' he said. 'I want to tell you the story\nof the place before we blow our candle out; it may help the\ncure.' So when sundown was near, he and three of his native\nretainers started with me for the Hospice of Saint Lucy, carrying\ngoodly packs every one. I was rather dubious about that\nexpedition.\n\n'I hope it's warm there,' grumbled I to myself. 'If Greenwood's\nas strong as a horse, I am not so just now. I wish he'd camp at\nhome in peace.'\n\nHowever, I tried to look interested as they made ready for us to\ngo and delighted, as we started away.\n\nJust as we went across the narrow valley the sun went down behind\nSt. Lucy's hill, and bells or gongs answered one another from\neither side.\n\n'So you have a bell up there at the Hospital,' I said.\n\n'There's more than you expect to see at the Hospital,' said\nGreenwood mysteriously.\n\nSo there was. It wasn't a Hospital at all in our wonted modern\nsense, but a rather ornate round Church. Outside, it was plain\nenough, but within it gave me a sense of studied charm and even\ncostliness. No drug-covered or dispenser's table was admitted\nwithin its doors, though both were to be found in one of its\nneighbor buildings. The main building housed aids to recovery,\nbut they were of another type. Over the Altar was a life-sized\npicture of Saint Lucy, golden-haired and blue grey-eyed, with\ngreat splendor of shapeliness and stature, and real English\napple-blossom cheeks. She came along a rocky path through an\nAfrican forest; she was smiling, and had a far-shining lantern in\nher hand. You could single out the trees in the forest, there was\nthe crimson-flowered tree yet leafless, and the wild fig-tree in\nfull leaf and cluster, and the wild orange-tree; the wild acacias\nand the cactus trees were growing among the stones above. Far off\nin the distance, at the back of the picture, there were dim\ncliffs and pale sands and waves breaking in the bright star-light.\n\nThe time was meant to be cock-crow. At least it seemed so, for a\nred cock was perched on a tree-pole in the foreground of the\npicture, crowing with a will. In the sky were many stars. The\nquarter over the sea whence the Saint came was of excelling\nbrightness. There the morning star hung in a haze of glory.\n\nThe Altar itself was of granite slabs and masses. Before it burnt\na purple-glass lamp, hung by chains of native smithy-work, rather\nincongruously heavy, I thought. But who was I to cavil at this\njewel of a shrine in our wilderness?\n\n'Where are we to sleep?' I asked.\n\n'Here, before the Altar,' said Greenwood solemnly.\n\nEven as he spoke his house-boy came in with hushed feet, and\nbegan to spread out our rush mats and many-colored blankets. Then\nwe went into the dispensary hut, and had our supper and many\npipes together, while the native boys chatted and chewed roasted\nmonkey-nuts in the hut beside us. I felt very hungry and happy\nand healthy generally that night, and we sat at our table long,\nand then smoked far into the hours of darkness. But, though he\ntold me many tales, Greenwood would not tell me the tale of the\nplace, however much I begged him to do so. That was kept for the\nShrine itself. That was not as other tales.\n\nWe kept up a good fire, for the night was a cold one.\n\nThe talk turned on pilgrimages at last; we spoke of many Shrines,\nof old-time ones and of others in the heyday of their youth\nstill. Greenwood talked well on that subject. Was the aura of his\nown Saint in the air of that dispensary? He talked with a\npassionate faith about more than one Shrine, that left me almost\nbreathless.\n\nThen we argued about the Pilgrims' Way in Kent, as to where it\nwas that most pilgrims forded the Medway, and about certain\nhomely Kentish legends.\n\nSuddenly he rose and went to the door. He looked out on the\nmighty vista of sable earth and spangled sky.\n\n'The moon is just going down and you ought to be sleeping,' he\nsaid. 'And remember there is my tale still to tell.'\n\nSo we went to the Church. We had one candle between us there.\nMoreover, the purple lamp was burning, its quaint cup of wire-gauze\naverted doom from many self-immolant flies. We knelt beneath it,\nand he said the Prayers of the Shrine, then our own prayers\nfollowed then he began to tell:\n\n'I was coming back from England twenty months ago and I chose to\ncome by the East Coast. It is a beautiful way to come. I saw\nZanzibar, where there are many hopes and memories. I slept two\nnights far out of the city there, in a grove of palm trees. Then\nthe boat came back from the mainland and I went aboard again.\n\n'We started for a four days' voyage or so, to Beira. She came\naboard at Zanzibar, I think. Some one told me this, when I asked\nabout her afterwards. But I was never really conscious of her\npresence till the second night of our voyaging. Then we met at a\nConcert in the Third Class, that I had strolled down the deck to\npatronize. To my shame I was traveling second, while she was in\nthe crowded family of the third. I went and spoke to her.\n\n'A child had had a bad fall from some steps, and she was\nmothering him. It was a lovely and pleasant thing to see how she\ndid it.\n\n'He should wake up without much pain,' she said, with a smile, at\nlast. She handed the boy to his own admiring mother. Then she\nturned to me, for I had been asking after him.\n\n'She began to talk about our common work. \"I want to climb on a\nnew boat at Chinde, and go the way of the Lakes,\" she said.\n\n'Are you going to teach?' I asked.\n\n'\"I hope I may teach at whiles,\" she said, \"But I am sent first\nof all to heal.\"\n\n'She told me about her hopes for her work.\n\n'\"They tell me I have healing hands,\" she said. \"I have a seed-grain of\nfaith, I think, and that is the secret of them.\"\n\n'I saw her only for a few moments. I will try to tell you or\nrather to show you what she looked like, when I have ended my\nstory. She enlightened me not a little. I saw how lame a thing my\nown journey was my leisurely dawdling back to my work. This girl\ncame as it were on wings, with power in her heart and will, that\nwould take no denial but God's. Her few words as we walked up and\ndown the well-deck were words that burnt and shone in the cold\ndark. I am talking about things as I saw them just then. As a\nmatter of fact, I believe it was a blazing night with a moon at\nthe full, and stars dropping over one another. I remember that I\nslept on deck afterwards. I had a sort of Midsummer South African\nChristmas picnic feeling (up till cock-crow, when the fever that\nhad dogged me that month came again). It was really a consummate\nnight. But as she talked, she made it seem cold and dark, her\nwords were so radiantly kind.\n\n'T think we talked about Saint Vincent of Paris mostly, and of\nmen that had carried in their bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus;\nand of the imitation of Jesus in India and Africa. Then she said\n\"Good night!\" and was gone.\n\n'Next day that return of fever blurred my new visions of the\nLight. Yet I was to see her again. An hour before we came off\nChinde, she asked leave to come up on to our second-class deck\nand to bid me \"Good-bye.\"\n\n'I was lying in a deck-chair, my hat tilted over my eyes, under\nthe morning sun. She was suddenly beside me and speaking to me.\nShe gave me a watchword out of that confident ending of Saint\nMark, to which, some people, who have their misgivings, attach so\nlittle credit. It was this, \"They shall lay hands on the sick and\nthey shall recover.\" Then she prayed for me, lifting up her\nhealing hands. And she held out to me a tiny flask that I might\nanneal myself, \"For that is your own office,\" she said.\n\n'My head had defied sleep, but now sleep came apace. It seemed to\nme it came breathing about me with the light gusts of wind. I\nslept, nor did I know when she said \"Good-bye.\"\n\n'When I awoke the sun was westering. Some passengers had\ntrans-shipped for Chinde four hours or more ago, a man told me.\nShe was gone, and I was well. No, not well in one way, but mending.\nThat is all or almost all of my tale.'\n\nHe had told it reverently. Towards the end of the telling, he\nhimself seemed to wander as he told.\n\n'What was she like?' I asked after a silence.\n\n'She was much like that picture of Saint Lucy,' he said.\n\n'I found a man in the third class, who had taken a really fine\nphoto of her, not a little snapshot. I had helped him with a\nsketch of the voyage he was writing for some magazine, and he was\npleased enough to print me another copy. I sent it home that\nmonth. A friend painted me that panel. I suggested that the name\nof the Saint should be Lucy, it was on Saint Lucy's day she had\nsaid \"Good-bye.\" The picture came a day or two before this\nMidsummer. He has done wondrously well, I think, if you remember\nthat he never saw her.'\n\n'How do you know that he never saw her?' I asked.\n\n'Yes, you may well say that,' he said. 'I sometimes think that he\nhad seen her, even as I. He has painted something of her light\nand spirit. Look how she threads' that forest by night!' He held\nthe candle near, then he pulled it away.\n\n'Forgive me! How can you see her duly by this light? You must\nhave a real session before her in the morning.'\n\nI awoke early, but not too early, as it seemed to me. Dawn was\ngrowing very bright, and spring seemed to be in the air that came\nfrom the doorway. I sprang up and looked out. Light that was\nalready almost flame kindled the east. The leaves of the grove\nabout me had their spring colors on. There was quite enough\nillumination to show how brilliant and tender they were ruddy and\ngreen and mauve, and bronze that was almost gold. Day was coming\nfast and so was Spring. I turned within and lit the candles on\nthe Altar. The purple lamp was burning low. I knelt down, and saw\nDawn and Spring, aye, and Summer too, in that picture. Eastern\nlight was streaming from that lantern Saint Lucy held. It was of\ncoral and silver set with pearls. Eastern light was in her happy\nface. You could see even in that cock-crow dusk in the forest,\nhow the fig-tree and all the trees were stirring for Spring and\nSummer. I took note now that Saint Lucy's wreath was of orchard\nleaves and blossoms. I lifted up my thanksgiving there and then,\nas the first sunbeams shone about me, for the rest and the light\nthat I had found, found at last for good as I hope in sultry and\nweary Africa.\n\nSoon we were kneeling at the morning Sacrifice, then we went out\nand broke our fast in the sunshine, sitting on rocks by the wood\nfire. How hungry I was in that hill's pure air!\n\nWhen he had done, Greenwood showed me some of the workings of the\nShrine. A young mother, filleted and stately, brought her baby to\nhim. Almost naked but roped with beads, the boy hung in the pied\nsheep-skin at her back. Greenwood folded a handkerchief that he\nhad brought from the Altar about his dusky head. It was of faded\nblue and silver. Then he said prayers to the Father and to\nChrist, and again to both of them, for the prayers of Saint Lucy\nand that other.\n\n'It is not good to drug children so young, is it? He asked the\nquestion as though defending himself.\n\n'I think this may soothe him better than a powder.'\n\nHe told me how he had found that kerchief wrapped about his own\nhead on a certain sunny day when he lay sick aboard ship. 'It was\nhers,' he said, 'handkerchiefs and aprons are Bible remedies.'\n\nOther pilgrims or patients came to him after that mother with her\nchild. He persuaded three or four of them to carry letters to the\ndoctor in the town. But he prayed for these too, and signed them\nwith oil from the Shrine lamp, ere he trusted them to his\nfriend's salves or surgery. By and by came three young men with a\nboy. He was stricken and mad, they said. He had come home from\nwork in a distant town last month. Now he would stay speechless\nfor hours. He would wander far by day, and brood over the fire by\nnight.\n\n'Let him stay if he will,' Greenwood said. 'Let him wait in peace\nhere, and eat and sleep his fill, if he so desires. If he shall\nsleep in the Holy Place a few nights, who can say what wonder\nChrist may do?'\n\nThe boy seemed to be an old friend of his, and stayed quietly by\nhim. His companions started off joyously down the hill, one of\nthem playing on the marimba. 'This is Merrie England come again,'\nsaid I. 'Did not an unburnt Lollard upbraid the bagpipe din or\nother music of pilgrims long ago? Wasn't that \"lewd losel\" told\nby the Kentish Archbishop how useful such music might be say if a\npilgrim struck his toe on a stone?'\n\n'There are many pilgrims at this Shrine,' said Greenwood smiling.\n'I am glad about it. I think she would be glad if she knew.'\n\n'Where is she?' I asked. 'Doesn't she know?'\n\n'I have tried hard to track her,' he said. 'Not a trace have I\nfound. I have asked our missions, I have asked the White Fathers.\nI have asked Africans and Scots and Dutch and Portuguese. But she\nhas gone on her way out of sight.'\n\n'She has done some work here,' I said.\n\n'Yes,' he said, 'Angel or Saint, Faith Healer or Revenante from\nParadise, she has worked wonders here. Do you know, there is a\nsimple native cure I have ever so much faith in? It comes from\nthe root of a tree. Have not some men and women the same sort of\nvirtue in their wills and hands that trees have in their roots? I\nseem to see men and women such as Father John of Kronstadt and\nthis my Saint Lucy of the Ship even as trees walking.\n\nThe outstanding virtue of my patroness was surely in her blossom,\nand in the fruit that blossom can yet bring forth. \"As the apple-tree among\nthe trees of the wood\" I found her. I sat down under her shadow for\nthose moments of time. And now, and all my days of grace, will her fruit\nbe sweet to my taste.'\n\n\n\nTHE BLACK DEATH\n\n\n\nThis is a story of a voyage home. The boat was one of the finest\non the line and we were not overcrowded. We had wonderful weather\nthat trip, brilliant sunshine relieved by a fresh little breeze\nthat kept its place, doing its duty without taking too much upon\nitself, or making itself obnoxious. In the third-class we were\nquiet on the whole, and what is called well-behaved, though\nneither with millennial serenity nor millennial sobriety.\n\nA red-cheeked gentleman took a red-cheeked married lady and her\nchild under his vigilant protection. Two or three Rhodesians and\nJo'burgers enriched the bar with faithful fondness. Cards and\nsweeps on the run of the boat and the selling of sweep-tickets\nthese all stimulated the circulation of savings. Hues of language\nvied with hues of sunset not seldom of an eventide.\n\nLife was not so very thrilling on that voyage, the treading of\n'border-land dim 'twixt vice and virtue' is apt to be rather a\ndull business.\n\nThere was no such incident as that which stirred us on another\nvoyage the taking of a carving knife to the purser by a drunkard.\nOn the other hand there was no unusual battle-noise of spiritual\ncombat such as may have quickened the pulses of one or two of the\nboats the year of the English Mission.\n\nWe were middling, and dull at that, on the \"Sluys Castle,\" till\nwe reached Madeira. Then the description I have given of our\nvoyage ceases to apply. The two or three days after that were\nexciting enough to one or two passengers at any rate.\n\nJames Carraway had come down from Kimberley, he told me. He\nwas a spare, slight man, with a red moustache. He sought me\noccasionally of an eventide, and confided to me views of life\nin general, and of some of his fellow-passengers in particular.\nI remember one night especially, when the Southern Cross\nwas in full view and the water about the keel splotched with\nphosphorescence. Carraway had a big grievance that night. He\ncommented acridly on a colored woman that I had espied on board.\nShe was not very easily visible herself, but one or two faintly\ncolored children played often about the deck, and she herself\nmight now and then be seen nursing a baby. I had seen her on a\nbench sometimes when I had gone to the library to change a book.\nI had seen her more rarely in the sunshine on deck, nursing the\naforesaid baby.\n\n'One man's brought a Kaffir wife on board,' growled Carraway.\n\nI said, 'I thought she might be a nurse.'\n\n'No, she's his wife,' contended Carraway. 'It's cheek of him\nbringing her on board with the third-class passengers.'\n\nI said, 'Which is her husband?'\n\n'He's been pointed out to me,' he said. 'The other white men seem\nrather to avoid him. I don't know what your opinion on this point\nmay be,' he said. 'I consider that a man who marries a Kaffir\nsinks to her status.'\n\nI said nothing. He did not like my silence much, I gathered. He\nwas not so very cordial afterwards. He was a man with many\ngrievances Carraway.\n\nWhen we were drawing close to Madeira, two nights before, on the\nSunday, Carraway touched the subject again.\n\nThe parson had preached incidentally on the advisability of being\nwhite--white all round. I thought he played to his gallery a bit,\nin what he said.\n\n'An excellent sermon,' said Carraway. 'Did you hear how he got at\nthat josser with the Kaffir wife? That parson's a white man.'\n\nI said nothing.\n\n'What God hath divided let no man unite,' said Carraway,\nimproving the occasion. 'I don't uphold Kaffirs. The white man\nmust always be top dog,' etc., etc.\n\nCarraway grew greasily fluent on rather well-worn lines. I smoked\nmy pipe and made no comment. By-and-bye he tired of his\nmonologue.\n\nHe gave me no further confidences till the night after we left\nMadeira.\n\nThen he came to me suddenly about eleven o'clock as I stood on\nthe well-deck, smoking a pipe before turning in.\n\n'Come and have a walk,' he said, in a breathless sort of way.\n\nWe climbed some steps and paced the upper deck towards the\nwheel-house. There were few electric lights burning now. After\na turn or two he drew up under one of them, and looked round to\nsee whether anyone listened.\n\n'Don't give me away for God's sake,' he said. He held up a hand\ntowards the light pathetically. 'It's showing,' he said. 'God\nknows why. God knows what I've done to bring it.'\n\nI said nothing, but looked at him and considered him carefully.\nHe certainly did not seem to be drunk.\n\nThen I examined the hand he gave me.\n\n'I don't see anything particular,' I said. 'What's wrong?'\n\n'Good Lord! The nails.'\n\nBut the nails looked to me pink and healthy.\n\n'Tell me,' I said, 'What you think's wrong.'\n\nYet he could not tell me that night. He tried to tell me. He was\njust like a little boy in most awful trepidation, trying to\nconfess some big transgression. He gasped and spluttered, but he\nnever got it out that night. I couldn't make head nor tail of\nwhat he said. After he was gone to bed it is true I put two and\ntwo together and guessed something. But I was fairly puzzled at\nthe time.\n\n'You're a bit upset to-night,' I said. 'You're not quite\nyourself, it's the sea I suppose, or something. Come to bed and\nget a good night.' His teeth chattered as he came down the\nladder. I got him down to his cabin.\n\n'Thanks!' he said. 'Good night! I may come all right in the\nmorning. Anyhow I'll have a bath and try.'\n\nHe said it so naively that I could not help laughing.\n\n'Yes, have a sea-water-bath, a jolly good idea,' I said. 'You'll\nhave to be up early. There's only one and there's a run on it\nbefore breakfast. Goodnight!'\n\nI saw him again in the morning outside the bathroom. He came out\nin his pink-and-white pyjamas; the pink was aggressive and fought\nwith the tint of his moustache. He looked very blue and wretched.\n\n'Well,' I asked, 'Have you slept it off whatever it was?'\n\n'No,' he said, 'let me tell you about it.' He began to gasp and\nsplutter.\n\nJust then another postulant came up, making for the bath-room\ndoor.\n\n'Afterwards!' I said, 'After breakfast.' And I vanished into the\nbath-room. It was probably Carraway, I thought, that had left a\nlittle collection of soaps in that bath-room. He had brought a\nbucket of fresh water with him apparently to give them a fair\ntrial. There was yellow soap, a pumice stone, and carbolic soap,\nand scented soap. 'I'll keep them for him,' I thought. 'Somebody\nmay jump them if I leave them here. I wonder why in the world\nhe's so distrait.' I had my suspicions as to the reason, and I\nlaughed softly to myself.\n\nAfter breakfast he invited me back to the bathroom; there was no\nrun on it then.\n\n'It's quiet,' he said. Then after many gasps and splutters he\nenlightened me. His nails were turning color, he told me.\n\n'Anyone would think I had Kaffir blood in me,' he said.\n\nAlso his skin was giving him grave cause for solicitude. I did\nnot resist the temptation to take him rather seriously. I\nadministered philosophic consolation. I reminded him of Dumas and\nother serviceable colored people. I rather enjoyed his misery;\npoetic justice seemed to me to need some satisfaction. He, the\nnegrophobe, who was so ultra-keen on drawing the line was now\nenjoying imaginative experiences on the far side of it.\n\n'It seems then,' I remarked, 'That you are now a person of\ncolor.'\n\nHe nearly fainted. He did not swear. He seemed to have lost all\nhis old truculence. He began to whimper like a child.\n\n'After all, I never shared your prejudices.' I said. 'Cheer up,\nold man, I won't drop you like a hot potato even if you have a\ntouch of the tar brush.'\n\nHe cried as if his heart would break. I saw I had gone too far.\nIf was like dancing on a trodden worm.\n\n'Carraway,' I said, 'It's a pure delusion. Your nails are all\nright, and so's your skin. You're dreaming, man. You've got\nnerves or indigestion, or something. It's something inside you\nthat's wrong. There's nothing outside for anyone to see.'\n\nHis eyes gleamed. He shook my hand feebly. Then he held up his\nown hand to the light.\n\n'It's there,' he said wearily, after a while. 'You want to be\nkind, but you can't make black white. That's what I've always\nsaid. It's the Will of God, and there's nothing to gain by\nfighting it. Black will be black, and white will be white till\ncrack of doom.'\n\nI told him sternly that I was going to fetch the doctor to him.\nHe sprang at me and gripped my arm.\n\n'I trusted you,' he said. 'I needn't have told you. You\npromised.'\n\nSo I had like a simpleton.\n\n'Only give me two days,' he said, 'then I'll go to the doctor\nmyself, if nothing works in all that time.'\n\nSo I said I would respect my promise loyally for those two days.\n\n'I only told you,' he said, 'because my head was splitting with\nkeeping it in. It's awful to me. I thought you were a negrophile\nand wouldn't think so much of it as other fellows. But for God's\nsake don't give me away to them. There's lots of things to try\nyet. By the way, ask that parson to pray for one afflicted and\ndistressed in mind, body, and estate.'\n\nHe did try many sorts of things, poor fellow. He was in and out\nof that bath-room a good share of both days. He also tried drugs\nand patent medicines. I saw his cabin littered with them. He\nwould sneak into meals those two days when people had almost\nfinished, and gobble his food furtively.\n\nI caught him once or twice smoking his pipe in the bath-room or\nthe bath-room passage. He would not venture amid the crowd on\ndeck. Only when many of the passengers were in bed would he come\nup with me, and take my arm and walk up and down. That was on the\nWednesday night.\n\nWednesday night came, then Thursday morning. Thursday forenoon\nwas long, and Thursday afternoon longer.\n\nAt last the sun was low, and I began to count the hours to the\ntime when I might consult the doctor.\n\nI secured an interview with Carraway in the bathroom soon after\nsunset.\n\n'Any better?' I asked for about the twentieth time.\n\nHe shook his head dejectedly.\n\n'All right. We must go to the doctor to-morrow morning. But, O\nCarraway, do go to him to-night, don't be afraid. It's only\nimagination. Do go.'\n\n'I'll see,' he said in a dazed, dreary sort of way, 'I'll see,\nbut I want to play the last card I have in my hand before I go.\nIt's a trump card perhaps.'\n\n'On my honor,' I said, 'You're tormenting yourself for nothing.\nYou're as white as ever you were.'\n\nThen I said 'Good-night.' I stopped for a moment outside the\ndoor, and heard him begin splashing and scrubbing. The thing was\ngetting on my own nerves.\n\nI went off up on deck, and smoked hard, then I read, and wrote\nletters, and smoked again, and went to bed very late. I had\nsteered clear of the bathroom and all Carraway's haunts so far as\nI could. Yes, and I had gone over to the second class, and I had\nasked the parson to do as he wanted. I had asked him the day\nbefore. Now I asked him over again.\n\nThe steward handed me a letter when he brought me my coffee in\nthe morning. I opened it and read:\n\nDEAR SIR, Perhaps my negrophoby is wrong. Anyhow, it's real to\nme. I had and have it, and see no way to get rid of it properly\nhere on earth. Now God has touched me, me the negrophobe, and\ncolored me. And to me the thing seems very hard to bear.\nTherefore I am trying the sea to-night.\n\n'In the bath-room there never seemed to be enough water. I want\nto try a bath with plenty of water. But I am afraid it may be\nwith me as it would have been with Macbeth or Lady Macbeth. Those\nred hands of murder could not be washed white by the ocean, they\ncould only \"the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green\none red.\" What if I cannot be decolorized by any sea? What if my\nflesh only pollutes the sea, when I plunge, and makes all black?\nGod help me!!! You are a negrophile and don't half understand.\n\n'Yours truly,\n\n'J. CARRAWAY.'\n\nI questioned the steward. He had found the letter in my place at\ntable.\n\nSure enough there was a third-class passenger missing. I suppose\nCarraway had slipped off quietly in the moonlight to try his\ndesperate experiment. It was a cruel business his monomania.\n\nIf I had broken my promise and called the doctor earlier, could\nhe have been cured? Or would he have lingered in an asylum\nshuddering over the fictitious glooming of his nails and skin,\nshaking in a long ague of negrophoby.\n\nAnyhow, I'm sorry I didn't do more for him, didn't walk him round\nthe deck the last night at least, and try my best to cheer him.\nYes, I blame myself badly for not doing that.\n\nMay God who allowed his delusion pardon that last maneuver of\nhis! I do not think Carraway had any clear wish to take his own\nlife.\n\nI can imagine the scene so convincingly Carraway pausing,\nhesitating, then plunging into the moon-blanched water from the\ndizzy height above, eager to find which the multitudinous seas\nwould do would they change his imagined color, or would they\nsuddenly darken, matching in their tints his own discoloration?\n\n\n\nAN OLD-WORLD SCRUPLE\n\n\n\n'If you come back, which Heaven ordain, you'll be all the more\nuse to the priesthood,' the Superintendent of Missions said. 'Go\nand serve with our fearless and faithful, approach as an acolyte\nthe altar of freedom. Supposing you don't see your way to go, I\nwould remind you of a certain passage about \"Curse ye Meroz!\" I\nneed not insult your knowledge of the Scriptures by finishing my\nquotation.'\n\nOsborne listened respectfully, but his eyes were looking far\naway, with dreams of the veld in them.\n\nThe Superintendent's preaching of a sort of Christian Jehad\nappealed to him infinitesimally.\n\nThere was a silence. He knocked his pipe out, and offered the\nSuperintendent a sundowner.\n\n'I'm glad to have had your opinion,' he said. 'I take it you\ndon't want me just now as a candidate for ordination?'\n\nThe Superintendent flushed and hesitated.\n\n'You mustn't put it like that,' he said almost irritably. 'The\ndecision rests with you, of course. Of course we want men now and\nwant them badly. Yet I wouldn't press my recruiting needs just\nnow. It doesn't seem to me the right time to do so. Afterwards. . . . '\n\nHe gulped and spluttered as the big words rushed so fast to his\nlips.\n\nHe was enlarging on the big days for God's priesthood, when the\nwar, please God, should be over. Big days, that is to say, if the\nonly sort of fit and proper issue should be reached, as doubtless\nit would be before long.\n\n'You mean a complete knock-out for the other side?' his hearer\ninterpolated crudely.\n\n'I mean a supreme vindication of our holy cause,' amended the\nSuperintendent with conviction.\n\nThen they changed the subject.\n\nAfterwards, when they smoked late on the lamp-lit stoep,\nconversation was apt to flag a little. The layman's eyes would\ngrow abstracted in the intervals of his ceremonious hospitality.\nThe Superintendent watched his face intently once or twice. The\nman was a mystery to him. He had an uneasy sense that he had not\ntaken his measure, and had been responsible for some sort of a\nmisfit more than once in conversation. Why was he not more like\nordinary people? Probably because he had lived a lonely life on\nthe veld much too long. The Superintendent was conscious of a\nprofound distrust of the untamed veld, its influence and its\ninhabitants. Yet his natural kindliness, reinforced assuredly by\nhis grace of orders and Christian sense of duty, strove quite\nheroically against that distrust.\n\nDavid Osborne walked over to see me next week, but he did not\nfind me at home; I was camping with a native teacher's wagon some\ntwenty miles away.\n\nHe slept at my place, and came on after me. A thirty miles' tramp\nor so it meant to overtake me, but he did not shrink from it. He\nwanted to think out things, and he liked foot-slogging on a big\nscale as a stimulus to thought. I was on a high ledge above the\nwindings of the Sawi River when he found me a ledge with a great\nview of the Wedza hills. The sun was going down then, and their\nblue was just dying into purple. I got him some tea, and he drank\nand ate like a veldsman one who had broken his journey but little\nsince he broke his morning fast. He told me the Superintendent's\npoint of view, which I have already chronicled. 'It provides a\ncertain amount of excuse,' Osborne said, 'for what I want to do.\nThat's about all I can say for it.'\n\n'Then you want to go?' I asked.\n\n'I want a change,' he said, 'and adventures and all that. As to\nany war's being a holy war, that's Greek to me.' I smiled. I\nunderstood what he meant.\n\nI had only just come back from a limited experience of war as a\nnon-combatant. 'Why don't you say outright what you think?' he\npressed me. 'The Superintendent does do that apparently, I'll say\nthat much for him. Isn't Saint Telemachus still your bright\nparticular star of Christian sainthood in wartime? And isn't\nTolstoy still in your eyes a sort of forlorn hope the most\nhopeful of modern war-time philosophers? Or have you changed all\nthat?'\n\nI looked him straight in the eyes, considering.\n\n'I have changed,' I said. He looked at me hopefully. He hadn't\nseen me since I had come back from the war. 'So the holy war's\nall right?' he asked. 'And the acolyte to the altar of freedom\nand all that sort of thing? I attach some importance to your\nopinion, remember, so don't say more than you mean. Having seen\nwar, which do you plump for? Tolstoy, Saint Telemachus, or the\nSuperintendent? Speak now, and kiss the Book on it.'\n\nI would have liked to laugh, but I did not dare. He was in such\ndesperate earnest. I answered: 'I have changed for the worse from\nthe Superintendent's point of view. I am not the same as I was. I\nam more so.'\n\nHe went to the war. But he went with a share of Reuben's curse\nupon him. He wrote to me quite frankly from his East African\ncamps about the things that appealed to him, and the other\nthings. His experience seemed to bear out my own, for the most\npart. He considered that some deplorable things had been done on\nboth sides, and also some very fine things. But as to the\nefficacy of the machine guns he ministered to, in promoting the\nKingdom of God, he was under no illusions. He was possibly\ndisposed to exaggerate things, e.g., the vitiating influence of\nwar upon life about one. He was certainly disposed, I think, to\nexaggerate his own coarsening, as a not very reputable campaign\nproceeded. He harped somewhat morbidly on one particular strain\nin his letters. How much better, he surmised, it would be for\nChristianity and civilization if he and others like him should\nnever return to resume their places in Christian society! Some\nverses that he sent me when he was under orders to join a rather\nhazardous expedition, have, I believe, a certain sincerity in\ntheir ruggedness. They are not very cheerful, are they?\n\nThey have a note attached to them. N.B. We had Church parade this\nmorning, and the lesson was about Nebuchadnezzar's going into\nretreat.\n\n\n\nLYCANTHROPY.\n\n\n\nThey drove him forth as beast and not as man\nTill seven times had pass'd. At last he came\nBack to his Babylon, but not the same.\nNay! For he now had learn'd of Lips on high,\nHerded with cattle, 'neath a dewy sky,\nHow patience cannot fail where passion can.\nBut we, war's wehr-wolves, we than wolves more\nfain.\n\n(Grace-harden'd, deaf to Gospel, blind to Rood),\nFain to seek night-long horrors of the wood\nWhere the blood-trail is red, the blood-scent hot,\nShall we return in time? God, were it not\nBest for Thy world we should not come again?\n\nBut he was to come again, for all his reluctance and shrinking\nfrom a return. He was to come through that campaign all right,\nand back to our part of Africa that he loved so dearly.\n\n'We shall have him back, I hope, before the end of this month,'\nthe Superintendent of Missions told me. 'The Bishop seems willing\nto ordain him before Christmas. He's not likely to need a long\ndiaconate, is he? Our Bishop agrees with me that he's had just\nthe kind of training for his priesthood that was most to be\ndesired.' I nodded dubiously.\n\nWe were sitting in the Superintendent's well-ordered study, which\nhe preferred to call his office. Its big window took a discreet\npeep at the veld, but it was not the untamed veld, only Rosebery\nCommonage. I searched in my pockets, and after uneasy gropings,\nunearthed a crumpled letter begrimed and tobacco-dusty. 'This\ndoesn't look much like his coming up for ordination,' I said. I\nread an extract: 'Please give that Chinde boy in the College at\nCape Town a message from me. I was glad to hear from you how well\nhe was doing. I always liked that boy extraordinarily, and I\nthink I had a sort of glimmer of his pastoral destiny quite\nearly, soon after he came our way as a straying sheep. Now, from\nwhat you say, he bids fair to be a quite respectable candidate\nfor the native ministry. Will you please offer him two or three\nmore years at the College to enable him to qualify, should that\nbe his own wish. I am quite prepared to be at charges for him.\nIt's a happy augury that his baptismal name happens to be\nSolomon, even as it was rather a tragic one that mine happened to\nbe David. I don't see my way to building up God's House on the\nold farm now, either literally or metaphorically, in the way a\npriest should.\n\nI look on your boy at Cape Town as a likely substitute.\nVicariously I hope to offer by his hands, since mine are now too\nstained to offer to my own satisfaction. I'll do David's part,\nplease God, and help him to build up the House, in both senses,\nthe house I might have built with my own hands, had they been\notherwise occupied than they have been these last months. I am\nquite resigned now. It is all for the best, doubtless.'\n\n'What does he mean?' The Superintendent's rather assured face\ngrew quite indeterminate and puzzled.\n\n'What he says, probably,' I hazarded. 'He's got a scruple an\nold-world scruple.'\n\nI picked up the Superintendent's khaki-covered Bible, and turned\nover hastily the red, blue, and white edges.\n\n'Here's the passage,' I said. 'Listen to what his namesake, the\nother David, said: \"But God said unto me, 'Thou shalt not build\nan house for My Name, because thou hast been a man of war, and\nhast shed blood.\"'\n\n'Oh, that text!' said the Superintendent not very reverentially.\n'I don't think that it's particularly relevant.'\n\n'Isn't it what he thinks that matters?' I asked. 'No, make your\nmind up to it. When he followed your own advice and went off to\nthe war, he decided. He decided to remain a layman to the end of\nhis earthly days. Some of us have got our scruples. His took\nshape that way.'\n\n'I don't see why,' said the Superintendent rather piteously. He\nwas genuinely disappointed. I liked him for the unconscious\ntribute he was paying to him whom we discussed.\n\n'Be consoled,' I said with a twinkle. 'His farm promises to be a\nreal lay centre of Christian influence. May we not rest assured\nof that? Trust him to encourage native industries and native\nideas; Trust him to believe in the veld. Trust him to read to his\nveld-dwellers the Sermon on the Mount; trust him to live it\nrather. Trust him to deprecate, by example, as well as precept,\nexcessive care for food and raiment. Our missions are apt to be\nrather over-ecclesiastical, aren't they? Far too much of an urban\nand Europeanized type, don't you think? Be consoled, his lay\nsettlement may be trusted to teach us a lot. God grant that his\nnative priest-designate he has chosen to be his Solomon, may soon\ncome along! Be consoled!'\n\nThe Superintendent looked slightly aghast. 'I don't see where the\nconsolation comes in,' he groaned.\n\n\n\nFOR HIS COUNTRY'S GOOD\n\n\n\nPercy Benson opened his eyes and looked around him. He was lying\nin a tiny grass-hut. How did he get there? He thought for a while\nslowly; his head was very hot and heavy.\n\nOf course! This must be one of the hoppers' houses, and he had\ngot back into Kent or East Sussex somehow. Where had he been\nlately? Not in Kent, or even in England. He could remember only\na confused medley of traveling by land and water, and a huge\nhome-sickness. Never mind, all's well that ends well. Here he was\nback in Kent surely, and in a hoppers' house. What time of year\nwas it? That rather puzzled him. For was not that a mass of\ncherry-blossom not twenty yards from the tiny doorway? Why should\nthey put up a hoppers' house before September? Why in the world\nshould they put it up when cherries were in flower?\n\nNever mind, he was in Kent; he would sleep ever so much better\nnow for knowing that. He put the cup of water that he found\nbeside him to his lips. Then he closed his eyes and slept anew.\nWhen he woke again, hours after, a big man in flannel shirt and\nwide-brimmed grey hat was standing by a wood fire outside the\ndoorway. It seemed to be just growing dark. The man was cooking\nsomething in a pan over the fire. As he turned, Benson knew his\nface. This was his old school and City friend John Haslar. He had\nnot seen him for years he could not remember how many.\n\n'Hullo, Jack!' he said.\n\n'Hullo!' said John with a start. 'That's much better. You've\nslept well this last time! How do you feel now?'\n\n'Oh, better, much better,' said Benson. 'But I've had it badly.\nInfluenza, isn't it?'\n\nJohn looked at him with a question in his eyes, but did not\nanswer. 'I think you'll do now,' he said. 'You must take some\nnourishment and your medicine, and then try to sleep again. I'm\nyour man for a talk in the morning, if only you get a good night.\nI didn't come eighty miles to see you for nothing, I can tell\nyou.'\n\nBenson felt weak and weary, and did as he was told. Just as he\nclosed his eyes he said, 'I'm glad to be back in Kent ever so\nglad.' He sighed a little sigh of relief. 'I can't think where\nI've been all this time. I am really back again, am I not?' He\ndid not wait for an answer, but fell asleep.\n\nHe woke up once in the night, and saw John sitting by the fire\nand smoking his pipe.\n\n\"This is a hoppers' house, isn't it?\" he began.\n\nJohn turned round and looked at him with interest and pity. 'It\nlooks very much like it,' he said.\n\nBenson gave a contented sigh, and turned over on his side again.\n\nWhen he awoke in the morning his strength was really beginning to\ncome again. He was hungry for breakfast. He caught sight of a\ndark, tall form by the fire on waking. But a minute or two after\nit was gone, and John was back again.\n\n'Ready for breakfast?' he asked.\n\nBenson was soon at his porridge, and debating as to whether he\nshould finish with eggs or chops.\n\n'You'd better have what you really care for,' said John, and\nstepped outside and gave a call.\n\n'Who's that gypsy-looking fellow?' asked Benson.\n\n'Oh, he helps me,' said John. 'He's all right.' He went out of\nthe hut and received a dish from somebody as he spoke.\n\nIt was after breakfast that Benson made a request. 'I believe I\nknow where I am,' he said. 'Though I'm not quite sure, because my\nhead's still dizzy. I believe I'm back again in High Wood, just\nnear Hawkenbury, not two miles from my old home. What do you\nthink?'\n\n'I don't think I know that country,' said John, looking\nuncomfortable. 'And I'm sure I've never been here before.'\n\n'I remember,' Percy Benson said, 'there used to be a little\ngrocer's shop down in Hawkenbury Street, where they sold mixed\nbiscuits, with lots of pink and white and yellow sugar, and\nglass-stoppered ginger-beer. I haven't forgotten the taste,\nthough it's years ago. Do you think you could go down there, or\nsend somebody, and get me a bottle of ginger-beer and a pound of\nbiscuits. They're just what I'd fancy.'\n\nJohn looked doubtful. 'I know a place that isn't so very far off,\nwhere they keep groceries,' he said. 'But I don't know whether\nthey keep ginger-beer in glass-stoppered bottles, or if they keep\nthat particular sort of biscuits. However, we'll try.'\n\nBenson slept a good deal that day. He talked between whiles\nrather feverishly about the place, and how glad he was to be back\nthere again. John said very little, but that seemed not to\nmatter. Benson was glad enough to ramble on and on. He did not\nappear to take much notice whether you answered his questions or\nnot. He was ecstatic rather than curious.\n\nThe biscuits came and were a fair success.\n\n'Not quite so good as they used to be, but very good,' said\nBenson. 'I like these sugar ones immensely; the ones with the\npink sugar are the pick.' But the ginger-beer was not of the\ntime-honored brand. It was drinkable enough, but it had a cork\ntied, instead of a long cool mouth with a glass stopper.\n\n'I must walk down and do some shopping for myself to-morrow,'\nBenson said. 'What a summer we're having. Did you ever see such\nblue sky as we've had yesterday and to-day?'\n\nNext morning he was much better, and could get up and walk about\na little. John looked uncomfortable at times, as they sat over\ntheir breakfast by the fire under the great trees. He was trying\nto make up his mind to tell his friend where he was, and to\nrecall what had happened to him. He could see that, now the\nfever-mists were melting, he was likely to be remembering for\nhimself before long. But how could he break things to him easily\nwithout giving him a dire shock in his worn-out state?\n\nThen to him pondering, the crisis came of itself.\n\nSuddenly out of the woodland stepped a party of natives with\nmonkey-nuts, sweet potatoes, and other wares, very cheery and\nsmiling.\n\nBenson started and his eyes grew troubled. 'Is this Africa?' he\nsaid. 'Then I'm not home after all not home after all.'\n\n'You're in Africa,' said John. 'You came up here about three\nmonths ago, so they told me.'\n\n'I remember,' said Benson. 'There was some money trouble in the\nCity some bad trouble. Then I had to leave my little place in\nKent near Seven-oaks, just as I was getting it to rights.' He\nlooked miserable as he thought over things, this sallow little\nCity man.\n\nMeanwhile John traded some monkey-nuts and sweet potatoes for\nsalt, and sent the traffickers away.\n\nAfterwards Benson began to talk out of the bitterness of his\nsoul, and John lit his pipe and listened gravely. He talked about\nhis little estate near Sevenoaks, the cottages and the farm, the\nElizabethan manor-house, the school and church, the timber and\nthe planting of the new trees. 'I was just getting the place into\nshape,' he said. And then he nearly broke down and cried as he\ntold about the trouble in the City, and how a family council had\nbeen called, and he had agreed to go to this country for his\ncountry's good, and to keep away. 'Oh this farm, as they call\nit,' he said 'these thousands of acres of grass and rocks with a\ntin shanty to die of fever in! How wretched I've been here! But\nwe aren't on the farm still, are we? This seems a bit better. It\nregularly took me in, this place. I did really think I was in\nKent again.'\n\nJohn knocked out his pipe solemnly, and was just going to try and\nsay something comforting.\n\nBut Benson began again. 'And how did you get here you, the only\nfriend I've got in this wretched country?'\n\nJohn told him that he had come down to see him, when he did,\nwithout knowing how ill he was. He had had a letter from him, at\nhis store up in Rosebery last month, and for old sakes' sake he\nhad driven down when he had a chance to come away. When he\nreached the farm he had found Benson lying at his homestead\nunconscious from fever. The natives who were waiting on him\nseemed to think him in danger. They said he had been sick for\ndays. John had gone to bed early that night of his coming to the\nfarm a glorious moonlit night. But long before dawn he had been\nroused by a Kaffir boy with the news that Benson had risen and\nrushed out. They tracked his wanderings to that beautiful stretch\nof woodland, and managed to house him in a garden-hut of grass,\nclose by a clearing among the trees. Either John or his native\nboy kept watch over him day and night then. But when he awoke\nwith that happy fancy of being at home, John kept away the native\nboy, and put away, as far as he could, all the distinctive signs\nof Africa. That dream of being at home might be a real help in\ntiding his friend over a very wretched time. There he camped\nunder the two great trees with the wild white-flowered bush so\nlike an English cherry-tree in full September bloom about him,\nand wondered what the issue of that comfortable delusion of\nBenson's would be. It could not be expected to last anyhow, now\nthat he was coming back to sense and strength.\n\nBenson writhed as John finished his story. He went on with the\ntale of his own black loneliness and grey home-sickness. The\nglory of Kent and the charm of High Wood seemed to be gone like\nthe shadows of a dream already. What good had they done him after\nall?\n\nJohn felt miserable as he heard him out. 'Look here!' he said,\n'I've been doing well at the store, and I've got a good many\ncattle that I'd like to run on this farm, if we can come to\nterms; and I'll try and drive down every month or other month,\nand stay with you for a bit and see how they're getting on.'\n\nPercy Benson's face grew bright again at that saying. He was very\nweak, and prone to sudden ups and downs.\n\n'Oh, do promise you'll come every month,' he said. 'Weeks are so\nlong, and the one mail-day a week comes always terribly slowly.\nDo promise.'\n\nJohn promised faithfully.\n\nNext day they went back to the homestead, a dull little iron\nbuilding on a rather feverish site. 'If I were you,' said John,\n'I'd build where you have been lying sick. I don't like the look\nof this other place at all.'\n\n'Yes, I shall build in High Wood; I want to call it so now.\nIt's a magical place, I think: I shall always feel something is\nhome-like when I'm there.'\n\nLife was growing brighter to him. His fever-fancy had opened his\neyes a little to the charm of the new country it was, at least,\nhere and there, not unlike the old country.\n\n'I think I shall fancy this place more now,' he said to John on\nthe morning they parted. 'But, oh, if you could only have seen\nthat little place of mine five miles from Sevenoaks!'\n\n'Look here!' said John. 'You've got a bigger estate here than\never you had there, and you can find the same sort of interests\nin it. Study your Kaffir tenants, and help them with ideas about\nstock and ploughing and church and school. Your neighbors don't.\nWell, more simpletons and arrant wasters, they! Believe me,\nyou'll find the new life much more like the old life in Kent, if\nyou do. Then study tree-planting, and look after this grand old\nnative timber. Expect me next month, on the 23rd.'\n\nHe went away and left Benson lonely. But the real blackness of\nhis loneliness was gone. The planning of the new homestead would\nkeep him busy for a long while now. Was not healing virtue\nexuding from that soil, which the happy dreams of his recovery\nhad consecrated? His fever had given him a new point of view, or\nrather given him back his old Kentish point of view delight in\nGod's own country sights and scenes, care for his tenants, and\nhope.\n\n\n\nLE ROI EST MORT\n\n\n\nThe railway had almost crept up to Alexandra Then--the seventy-three\nmiles of its sandy pilgrimage were all but complete. In three\nmonths or so it would be open to those who could afford their\npenny a mile no, but I am forgetting, on the privileged group\nto which it belongs no European may travel third-class.\n\nI did not welcome that railway with any warmth. The district\nthat it tapped had seemed to me a camping-ground of refuge, as\ncivilization pressed on. That district was a haven for the\nKaffir-trader, a haven for the transport-rider, a haven too for\nthe foot-slogging missionary, like myself. We have our faults,\nall three doubtless, and deserve the spurning of civilization's\niron feet, when our time comes, doubtless. On the other hand our\ndisplacement is a matter for some sympathy, it is likely to hurt\nlike other displacements. Also we are prone to note that the\nadmirable iron feet of our displacer are not unmixed with baser\nclay.\n\nI came to Shumba Siding last Eastertide, on my way to Alexandra.\nCharles Miller was there in charge of the line, and he offered me\na thirty-one mile ride in to within two miles of town if I would\nonly wait for a construction train. I declined in my stupid\nsentimentality. For one thing I hate breaking up a plan of\ncombined foot-travel; it seems to me hard on one's native\nfellow-travelers, on whom one is apt to call for big efforts. To\nride on ahead, and leave them struggling alone with the sandy\nmonster of a road for any long distance, seems vile desertion,\nand I was by no means sure that the invitation to board the train\nincluded them. Moreover, this might be my last journey in, on the\nold road, under the old order.\n\nSo I declined, but I lunched with Charles Miller Before I went\non. Marvell was there, the Kaffir store-keeper from ten miles\naway. He had much to tell me of his wonderful good luck. The\nbig firm that were putting up the new Store at Alexandra, that\nrail-head terminus designate, had asked him to manage it.\n\nHe could marry now on his prospects. He had wanted to see me, and\nhad waylaid me on my road. The bride was due by coach to-morrow.\nHe hoped to get a Special License when once she had arrived.\nWould I marry them on Monday?\n\nWe had a good lunch with healths afterwards, but they let me\ndrink them in tea. Miller proposed the health of the bridegroom,\nto whom the railway, or ever it came, had brought luck. Might his\nluck last while the rails lasted, and grow heavier when they\nshould be replaced by heavier metals! Might he never make less in\na year than that railway had cost per mile! 'Three thousand five\nhundred will take some making,' Marvell sighed to me. He\nacknowledged the toast and proposed the Railway's prosperity. He\ngrew rather florid to my thinking, about the benefit to the\nDistrict how Kaffir gardens were to be displaced by up-to-date\nfarming, how tourists were to pour in athirst to explore its\nruins. He discoursed of the blessedness of ranching, and of\nchrome and asbestos syndicates. He said that we were in at the\ndeath alike of malaria, of blackwater, and horse-sickness. Then I\nspoke up for the other side. I asked them to remember the old Era\nin silence, and if they must drink, to drink to the transport-road\nand the transport-riders, and to all pioneers, and old hands\ngoing and gone, to the big native district and its dependencies,\nso rich in cattle and so rich in grain, to God's Eden of a\ncountry, and the people that He Himself had chosen to set there\nto dress it, and to keep it before our coming. My toast fell\nrather flat, I noticed. They both looked rather bored.\n\nSoon I pressed on, with fifteen miles or so to cover before our\ncamping-place would be reached.\n\nI had gone some ten miles before the construction train passed\nme, and my carriers pressed through bushes and long grass for a\nnearer view of it.\n\nWith three or four white men on the engine, a Black Watch or two\nand a few other natives on the trucks, it snorted along through\nthe woodland. As the night deepened and the moon rose, we came\nclose to the last coach-stable, and were soon encamped.\n\nThe old Basuto near by gave me a drink of fairish water, but\nwater was far away, I was told. My boys straggled away wearily,\nand came back at last, having seemingly missed the dipping-place.\nThey had brought something between a liquid and a solid. Boiled,\nit was no doubt wholesome enough, but its taste was not such as\nto tempt to excess.\n\nThat night I dreamed, with a tag of Marvell's speech buzzing in\nmy head (I had garrisoned it with quinine before I slept). That\ntag rang out in boastful refrain like the natives' curfew-bell of\nAlexandra, a bell not always very punctually rung. 'We are in at\nthe death of malaria, of black-water, and of horse-sickness.'\n\nSo clanged the bell, the bell in the market tower, the tower of\nthe dismantled pioneer fort. And it seemed to me that I saw\nMalaria a lean yellow ague-shaken shape with a Cape-boy sort of\nface, steal away out of the town past the new Railway Station,\nand across the river. He went, like a frightened Kaffir dog with\na jackal-like yelp, far away into the Veld. I am not sure whether\nhe did not become canine on the way, at least cynocephalous. I\nfollowed him. I went far in that following, over country that I\nremember as very difficult, there were so many stumps of trees\nabout. Moreover, it had abundance of black-jacks to stud one's\nsocks with. 'He is going through dry places seeking rest,' I\nthought. 'Soon he will return.' And sure enough we were to return\nby-and by. And a jackal pack of seven, that I was somehow\nexpecting to come, came with us. We saw the lights of Alexandra\nsoon, but the people had gone to bed, it seemed. There was no one\nabout anywhere. Then the leading jackal fed foul and lapped long\nat a great black drain. Afterwards he howled under a window of\nthe Hospital, and leaped through it, straddling his legs. Then I\nawoke.\n\nI married Marvell on the following Monday, and partook of his\nwedding-lunch. He made a far more florescent speech than that\nearlier one, it compared with it as the nuptial champagne with\nMiller's bottled beer.\n\n'The old Pioneer is now dead,' he told us, 'as dead as the Dodo\nor the Great Auk. No longer need we take Quinine to be \"our grim\nchamberlain to usher us and draw\" . . .' (here his memory of Hood\nfailed him). 'No more need we shiver in our Kaffir blankets at\nKaffir Stores 'fifty miles from the dead-ends of rail-less\npost-towns. \"Le roi est mort.\" Malaria is dead or dying so far\nas Alexandra is concerned. We Alexandrians are now becoming\nwholesome Englishmen in a wholesome White Man's country. Long\nlive the railway, and may it perforate the Alexandra District!'\n'Amen,' said the best-man fervently. But I said nothing.\n\nI admired Marvell. It was just like him to press a guinea on me for\nmy Mission, though I told him there was no fee of any kind, and\nthat I was ever so glad to be there. The remembrance of my dream\nstung me. I said something for conscience sake. 'Civilization has\nits perils,' I said dully, 'immature civilization. The period\nbetween no-drains and the up-to-date drainage system wants some\nliving through.' 'That's all right,' Marvell declared. 'I'll watch\nit. I didn't go through Bloemfontein in the War for nothing.'\n\n'Le roi est mort: vive le roi! 'Alack! If Malaria slackened hold,\nenteric tightened its clutch. People were found to say that the\nlatter state of Alexandra was worse than the former. Marvell and\nRose Marvell both got enteric. But, thank God, the uneasy\nmisgivings engendered by that eight-devil dream of mine about\nAlexandra were not justified! They both won through. They are\ngoing back to England for a change next month (the hay-making\nmonth at home), they tell me.\n\n'God made the country, and man made the town, and the devil made\nthe little railway-swollen, transitional, Alexandra-sort-of-town.'\nSo Marvell wrote to me by last mail. He is not so keen now on\nthe transition stage of civilization for his wife's residence.\nHe is thinking of a pioneer place in Northern Rhodesia, either\nthat or London. If the perils of the old regime in Alexandra are\ndiminished, the perils of the new regime appear to have a knack\nof growing.\n\n\n\nTHE RIDING OF THE RED HORSE\n\nI\n\n\n\nIsaka rubbed his eyes, but he did not unroll himself yet out of\nhis blankets. He was lying in the darkness with a round of white\nwalls dimly seen about him. Through a hole in the grass roof, a\nstar met his fixed gaze. The cocks had but just crowed the second\ntime, and the light was but just winning way in the east. The\nnight was holding out steadily so far.\n\nWas it he, Isaka, who had awakened, or some other? He was not\nvery clear. Strange alike looked the happiness behind, and the\nhope before him. He was not sure of himself in that twilight of\nhis senses. It seemed scarcely believable his title to either\ngift of heaven to memory or to expectation.\n\nSurely but slowly his brain cleared, his doubt grew faint as that\nstar was growing, his outlook bright as the one pane in the wall,\nlooking east. He sprang up with one of the best wills in the\nworld; he was far too happy to be drowsy any longer. Soon he was\nwashing himself, and dressing himself in white, with real zest.\nLast night had been a joy-night indeed, and the morning promised\nbrilliantly. It was doubtless he himself who had both reached and\nenjoyed the night's happenings, he also who now stood firm on the\nthreshold of the morning, having reached that also. Isaka, who\nhad been Kadona, was a native of an African village with a far\nglimpse on fair days of Kilimanjaro. Being born where he was, and\ndwelling where he did, he belonged to a certain Central European\nPower. Certain manifestations of that Power had made him uneasy\nfrom his goat-herding boyhood onwards.\n\nHe had walked warily, and kept an unscored back, but he gathered\nthat fellow subjects were not always so fortunate. At last the\nclaims on his attendance of a Government School had become\nimportunate. Suddenly he took his fate into his hands, bade his\nfamily farewell (was not his mother dead these two years?), and\nmade for a track through the forest. Since he must go to school,\nhe would choose his own schoolmaster, and he chose one that he\nknew. This teacher, as it happened, stood for another European\nPower further west. He was fast ageing now, he could remember the\ndays before Europe divided up with such appetite so much of\nAfrica. He had been traveling on some teaching errand, and had\nfallen sick and lain nearly a whole month at Kadona's village.\nKadona had brought him many gifts milk and ground-nuts and honey.\nThe sick man for his part had not been thankless. As for gifts,\nhe had given a knife and salt and soap and matches, but he had\nalso shown fellow-feeling, which meant much more. Their\nfriendship, signed and sealed outwardly by what they gave, was\nunderlain by affection of a promising sort. So Kadona went to\nthis teacher's mission, as to a city of refuge, traveling through\na bush country, and sleeping in huts of a strange speaking tribe\ntwo or three nights of his way. He came to his host as man and\nfriend, and his trust was not abused. Afterwards his host, known\nbetter, revealed new uses, he could doctor a little, he could\nteach more than a little, he also held keys of certain joys and\nwonders.\n\nBy and by Kadona was illuminated to some extent by his friend. He\nwas allowed to exchange his name when the approved fullness of\ntime was come, on a day of benevolent mysteries. Henceforth he\nwas Isaka. He had changed his name six months before the eventful\nmorning I have chronicled changed it at the season he had come to\nreckon the years by the good time of Christmas.\n\nNow this last night had been a brilliant one in the church that\nhe had learned to care for. There had been much glow of candles\nand splendor of psalms and anthem. He had been taught to make\nhimself ready with light, so to speak, in view of the greatest\nillumination on earth the Sacred Banquet of the morning. The\nwords of the anthem had rung in his ears like a trumpet in the\nnight, they had peopled and painted his dream. 'And I saw and\nbehold a white horse: . . . and He went forth conquering and to\nconquer.' This morning was the Banquet morning. It was no marvel\nthat Kadona had been wonder-stricken at his awaking. The sense of\nmoving in a vision was hard to escape from, it seemed to him. He\nmoved towards the church like a man in a dream, and his feet felt\nfor the steps. Was it he who had been herding goats but a few\nyears ago, who had seen what he had seen on nights and at dances,\nwho had felt so naked and helpless before a harsh Government not\nso very long ago? It did seem that it was he, and he was very\ngrateful. He stole into the church soft-footed, and glided\ntowards the blazing altar. Then he waited, trying to remember\nwhat it was best to remember at such an hour. Had he repentance,\nfaith, gratitude, and love? He had so much of the last two surely\nas to make some amends for defects of the others, or at least he\nthought so. Yes, there was no mistaking his thanks, he thought to\nhimself. He remembered his night's dream afterwards when the bell\nrang, and the Rider on the White Horse drew so near. Then he\nlifted up his heart that he might meet Him on His way, tried to\nopen his heart as wide as it would go for the conquering Presence\nto ride into it.\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\n\nThe scene was a mission station once more, but a different sort\nof interest appeared to be paramount in this busy station, other\nthan plain Evangelism. This was a Lutheran Mission, used now\nin time of war as a collecting centre for the rice of the\ncountryside. The foreboding of Isaka's teacher had come but too\ntrue. When Isaka had been telling him (on the day after the great\nday) his dream of the White Horse and his Rider, he had read to\nhim the story of other horses and other riders out of Saint\nJohn's Vision. And his face had grown troubled as he added, 'We\nhave proved what the riding of the black horse means here in this\nmission of ours. Do you remember years ago how the rains were\nshort here, and how the people went hungry afterwards? And now\nthere are clouds in the sky clouds not of rain. Will the Red\nHorse be ridden, as some prophesy? I seem to see him with the bit\nin his teeth spurred by his rider our way. Pray, Isaka, I beseech\nyou, that the Red Horse and his rider be turned in their road.'\nAnd he told Isaka something of what he meant, also something of\nwhat that riding might mean to them all. And he would have Isaka\npray, and his schoolmates pray also. And they prayed, but for all\nthat this mad rider came galloping, the rider of whom Saint John\nwrote, 'And there went out another horse that was red; and power\nwas given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth,\nand that they should kill one another: . . .'\n\nIt was nearly a year now since that morning Isaka remembered so\nwell, when the White Horse was ridden his way. Once again when\nawaked.\n\nIsaka, Kadona, was not sure if he was dreaming, but this time the\nmain reason for doubt was that things seemed too bad rather than\ntoo good to be true, things that had come or were coming, upon\nthe earth. Nearly a year ago now the news of the riding of the\nRed Horse had come. Europe was in a horrible temper, and Africans\nmust do as usually, not what they wanted to do, but what Europe\nbade. Isaka's English teacher must leave his school or his\nliberty, he must either run away or stay fast in the Government's\nhands a Government that was fighting England. He chose to remain,\nhoping to help Isaka and others, but he had very little power on\nearth left to him. For a little while he was allowed to stay in\nhis old home, and the school began to be broken up only little by\nlittle. Then the pace quickened; some were drafted off as\nporters, some as soldiers, some were allowed to stay and\ncultivate for the Government. Its local officials' tempers\nhad apparently not improved with its troubles. None on this\nalien mission within its borders were liable to be accounted\ntrustworthy, all were liable to suspicion. Yet Isaka worked on\nhappily for a while. When his teacher was moved to a place of\ninternment he was allowed to keep one body servant. He invited\nIsaka to come, and Isaka came right willingly. He might have been\npassed by, and the choice lain among others, but his teacher\nasked him as the first choice of all, if he would come with him?\nWas it likely that he would refuse?\n\nThen suspicion fell upon Isaka in a day of rebuke and blasphemy.\nProbably he was to blame, probably he said more than he should\nhave said, probably he did not recognize how well off he was.\nAnyhow the blow fell, and he was to be envied no longer, as he\nhad been.\n\nHe was beaten rather mercilessly, and taken to be a Government\nporter in a district far away. The tears came into his teacher's\neyes when he bade Isaka farewell; his own captivity was\nwearisome, he was beginning to feel his age now; also this boy\nhad been as a son to him.\n\nIt was all like an evil dream, this war, so fecund of death and\nparting among friends, this riding of the Red Horse that had\nhaunted Isaka's visions of the night. The light was just coming\nwhen he awaked from them at the German Mission Station. He was\nloath and slow to unroll himself from his one torn blanket and to\nstep out of it. But someone kicked him angrily, and then needs\nmust. He had come on these last days ever so many miles, and\ncarried a full load. He struggled up stiffly, and crept to the\nlittle fire that two of his fellows were heaping and lighting\nwhile they chattered together. They were tribesmen of a district\nfar from his own. One was telling a story of how their white\nmasters with native soldiers had raided, a village. The other,\nwhose village it was, full-stopped the story with grunts or\ndeprecations. There had been some throats cut. Folk had been\nbidden to lie down, so the teller said; they had lain down as for\nthe lash, but they had been paid in cold steel. Isaka listened\ndazedly. The end of his Christian era seemed to have come as\nsuddenly and unexplainedly as the end of his Pagan era. His\nteacher had preached 'love,' 'love,' 'love,' with Pauline\niteration, and not a little self-repetition. His teacher had\ntaught that war was an unclean thing haunting the heathen world,\nand lurking in the blackness of Pagan villages. His teacher had\ndeprecated violence; it was his rule never to strike, nor ever to\nrule by such fear as cast out love.\n\nNow, an askari (a native soldier) came up to the three, and he\nwas storming furiously. He laid on his lash right and left. Isaka\ndid not escape. They were to carry their loads at once, it was\nsaid, by forced marches to a rice mill at the lakeside. In\nanother five minutes the big train of porters took the road, and\nspread itself like a serpent up the trackway. Isaka was the\ntwentieth or the twenty-first in their advance. I do not think\nthat his illness which was to show itself in a day or two, was\nreally manifest on that day. Yet he went very heavily. Such\nmaladies were certainly upon him as a poet has diagnosed, 'blank\nmisgivings of a Creature moving about in worlds half realized.'\nThe ridings of Red and White Horses had so fast succeeded one\nanother in Isaka's circle, and had brought such different worlds\nand atmospheres in their respective wakes!\n\n\n\nThe Riding of the Red Horse 253\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\n\nThree days after, they were at the rice mill, and a July day was\nbreaking. Isaka lay and listened to the lapping of the lake water\nlapping of the water in the greatest of African lakes. He was\nlying beside a creek that was papyrus-fringed with curtains of\nfeathery green. A cloud of lake flies hung dark in the distance.\nThe soft lake haze redeemed landscape and waterscape now from\noverclarity of outline the besetting blemish, as some might\nthink, of its mid-day. Isaka was really ill that morning. He\ncould hardly stir hand or foot. An askari came and looked at him,\nand said something to his German officer. The latter came and\nlaid his hand not unkindly on his brow, found what the heat of\nhis body was, and gave him some drug out of their scanty store.\nThe great war with their fellow Christians was pinching them\nsorely in the matter of medicines these sturdy patriots of\nCentral Europe. They were keeping their flag flying in a feverish\nland where febrifuges meant much indeed. Isaka was let lie, and\nhe brooded over his dream the old dream that had come back so\nintrusively last night into such alien surroundings. For he in\nthe province of the red-mounted rider had dreamed that He on the\nWhite Horse came as an invader, the light of daybreak in His\nlooks, the faith of conquest in His eyes.\n\nNow, a friend happened upon Isaka that morning, one who had been\nreared upon the self-same mission-crowned hill whither Isaka's\nhomesick mood harked back. How they spoke of old days together,\nand warmed their chilled hearts again! Surely Isaka's dream had\nheralded a measure of restored joy for him that morning, if\nnothing better and more lasting. He spoke of his dream, and of\nhow it came first as the prelude of that Banquet, and of how his\nheart had danced on that Banquet morning, and the sun had danced\nin his sight at the sunrise. His friend was allowed to stay by\nhim, for the transport officer was kindly, and they talked on and\non. Isaka knew now that they thought his sickness a great one.\nSuddenly came a wild stir among porters and native soldiers. One\nof the English lake ships had shown round the point to northward,\nand was heading fast for the bay. The one German hurried down\namong the transport crowd, bidding them make haste and take\ncover. His friend left Isaka. He was one of the few soldiers who\nwere to line the trench in a banana grove ready to dispute a\nlanding. But Isaka was bestowed in some long grass; there was\nlittle time to carry him far. The ship rang and slowed down, then\nshe crept like a lean black panther into the place that suited\nher spring. Soon she rang again, and stopped dead. There was a\nghastly pause of stillness. Crash! Her twelve-pounder spoke.\nCrash! and crash! again, five times over. The rice mill showed a\ngaping wound by now. Then two boats were lowered, the Indian\nShip's Guard and the British officers crowded into them, and the\nAfrican sailors pulled for the shore. Isaka crawled to a hummock,\nand peered out to see what was happening. The shell fire had made\nhim pant and shake, his lips were full of prayers remembered and\nhalf-remembered. The boats came nearer, they were almost up to\nthe log-built pier now. Had they been left alone till they had\ncome further, there might have been hope for the ambush of a\ngreat bag, while the Indians were bunched together on the landing\nplace. But those in the banana grove trench were eager, they\nwould not hold their fire. The rifles cracked, the bullets\nthrashed up the water, men crouched down in the drifting boats\nwith oars and rifles waving rather helplessly. It looked as\nthough they were likely to pay toll, wide though the shots had\ngone as yet. Then the oarsmen pulled themselves together, and\nrowed back for the ship's protection. There was not even an oar\nor a boat hit after all.\n\nIsaka stared eagerly at the fight. He showed himself. A minute\nafter the ship's shrapnel burst near him, putting death's fear\nupon his weakness. Someone had said that the ambush was in the\ngrass rather than in the banana grove, the ambush that was\nscreened so well. Was there just will and time left to invoke the\nRider on the White Horse of that unforgotten and abiding vision?\nI think there was. Then the shrapnel burst over Isaka. He was\nblotted, as his fellow Christians of the ship and her guns might\nhave expressed it. The twelve-pounder (or was it the four-inch?)\ncrashed again and again. The Maxim coughed and spat in a\nparoxysm. The Rider on the Red Horse rode on relentlessly.\n\n\n\nTHREE AND AFRICA\n\n\n\nWe all three went a common way with rather a bad grace, and\nAfrica in a measure dominated our movements, or at least our\nproposed destinations. I think she tightened her grip on all our\nthree affections by that journey, she made us more of her slaves\nshe has ever a hankering after the slave-trade, has she not?\nIn her shrewdness she gained a grip on us by very diverse\nexpedients. Me the restless, so feverishly tired of her, she\nexercised in fresh fields. One result was, that I found out in\nthose trial-grounds ever so many reasons why flight from Africa\nwould be unthinkable for me. While as to him, my friend, whose\ndoom of exile from her she had herself done much to bring about,\nI am sure that she dazzled him on that his road to the railway\n(his Via Dolorosa,) making assurance much more sure that he must\nleave his heart with her. As to her, my other friend, who had\ntaken Africa so complacently and so very much for granted, Africa\nmade revelations to her at each stage of a journey that was\nrousing in itself, for it brought her away from her western\nstation to a very different countryside. And if these revelations\nwere not prone to stimulate affection, I am quite mistaken. I\ncould make out a strong case against Africa, on the grounds of\nthat journey, as capricious, inconsiderate, and so on. Yet before\nI have done, I want to indicate pleas of extenuation.\n\nWe were going with a donkey-wagon, he and I, the wagon wherein\nshe, my other friend, was riding. He had been in the Civil\nService, and suffered much from fever; yet he was leaving the\nService for other reasons as well as that particular one. He was\ntraveling cross-country to his exit station, prolonging thus his\npangs of farewell; he was making himself useful by escorting her\non her desolate road. Moreover, I was making myself courteous by\nadding my own escort. I was under no delusion as to my being\nuseful.\n\nThe donkeys were none too fat; they looked as if they had not\nbeen used well, and were far on in life. With their driver I\ndiffered as to beating them, but I will allow that they were dear\nto him on the whole, and that he made progress in by no means\neasy places. Indeed the road had been against us for many days\nbefore the day on which I left the wagon; and I as wagon\nconductor was to blame for the choice of it. I should have\nyielded myself patiently to go the mighty round that the main\nroads went. I had come almost due east at a venture, and when I\nhad lost my first stake by being disappointed of the by-road I\nsought, I went on gambler-fashion. I had seen already how the\nwagon stuck in a big river's sand-bed. How many times we had dug\nout, how the whip and the driver's voice had plied, how we had\nfilled up the ruts with sods and grass-tufts, striving to gain\npurchase for the wheels! And yet I was obstinately sanguine when\nI heard a tale of an ancient trading road. It would be wondrously\ndirect, if one could win through by it. So along it, by my own\ndecision, we went. That first night that we turned off by it, we\nstuck long in the waning light, trying to pull through a neck in\nthe hills. It was grievously cumbered with boulders, and we were\nlong in trying. Yet at last the driver rallied his team, and we\nslept on the right side of the pass, clear of the granite, ready\nfor an early inspan next day. Then on the morrow we but crawled\nalong, till at last we stuck fast in a spruit's spongy floor.\nThat time we were not to pull out before we slept. Darkness drew\nin on the struggles of the dead-beat donkeys. We outspanned and\nwent on with the struggle soon after sunrise, putting shoulders\nto wheels in wild earnest. At last we were through, but we had\nbeen delayed far into another day. That noon and afternoon the\ndisused road traveled through bush-veld. It had been ridden over\nso little in the last few years, that there was much wood-cutting\nnow to be done.\n\nOur voorlooper was no scraggy piccanin, he was brawny and\nbearded, an expert Mashona woodman. Now the woods bowed beneath\nhis sturdy stroke. But his labors took time. One shrank in shame\nfrom the reckoning of miles covered on those days. Sunday came to\nour rescue, and we lay encamped in the granite-country, very\ngrateful for our rest. On the Monday, its results showed. We\ntrekked gallantly for hours and hours, we pulled out of a swamp\nat the first attempt; we even essayed a dreaded ford before we\noutspanned. But we did not win our stake. Not till we had knocked\nunder, and outspanned once more did we struggle through. The lady\nof the wagon waded barefoot to lighten it, she even helped to\ncoax a wheel up the further bank. At last we were saved from\nrelapse. But that night our travelers' joy flickered and faded.\nWe stuck grimly at a crossing; stuck at a mean little stream;\nthere we found odds against us, both rocks and also deep mire. So\nwe camped, leaving our wagon jammed in the stream's bed.\n\nNow I would tell you about that night and the next morning. We\ngot the lady's mattress out of the wagon. She could not well\nsleep on it, where it was. There were many midges and mosquitoes\nabout then, for March was the time of the year; so we made her\nbed on some high ground, close but not too close to our camp-fire.\nAfter supper we sat about the fire long, the branch-heaped\nblaze was comfortable after our chilly paddling. The wisdom or\nfolly that we puffed and inhaled and toasted and sucked and\nmunched over the fire is the making of my story. It is its best\nexcuse for a yawning lack of plot.\n\nDelia Moore, lady mission-worker, roasted monkey-nuts for us.\nWhen they were at last ready, we all three munched at them. But\nmeanwhile Richard Anson and I smoked Shangaan tobacco, and Miss\nMoore ate sweets out of a screw-topped bottle.\n\nAnson spoke about the charms of Mashonaland. He had been\nquartered in many parts of her those last ten years; his\nadmiration had been consistent, it had also stood the test of her\nfeverish dealings with him. He said that she was the only country\nworth inhabiting in a cursed world, that she was God's own\ncountry. Then I fanned his flame with my own home-sick talk. The\nwind was blowing chillily north-westward that night on the other\nside of our ant-hill shelter. A kindred wind was blowing just as\nsteadfastly in my own soul. I had had my contrarieties lately,\nboth of hard times and pastoral reverses; but, and that seemed to\nmatter more, I was beginning to feel my age, its untimely growth\nas my work grew. Had I not done my share by now? I painted scenes\nin south-eastern England for my private view frequently now,\nscenes in cool greens and sober blues and restful grey scenes of\nweald and down-land, of hop-garden and country rectory. Over this\nlast my fancy played and kindled ruddily in tiles and roses.\n\nWhen I found words for these scenes they proved so many\nbattlefields, for Dick gave battle to my panegyrics impartially,\nas I filed them up before him. He seemed to be very hard hit that\nnight, savagely bludgeoned by his doom of banishment. He said\nthat he hoped to come back someday. Anyhow, he said, would I try\nto remember that he had chosen his burial-place a place where two\nrivers commingled some two hundred miles north of where we were\ncamping? I promised to try. It seemed to me a pity that we Could\nnot interchange health and abiding-places he so ague-wrung, so\nplainly doomed to go, yet withal so keen to stay. I, on the other\nhand, full of home lust, England-amorous, yet so robust, so\nlacking in any decent excuse to give over my job and go in that\ngreen old age of mine. Then, at last, Delia Moore chimed or\nrather clashed in, when she had roasted her monkey-nuts and found\na dish for them. She said that we were both wrong, we were both\nso clearly called to do just what we were doing, he to go his\nway, and I to stay on. But, contended she, her own move was a\nmore than doubtful one; she had been made into a rolling stone,\nagainst her own judgment, by church despotism; the odds were\nagainst her gathering moss to any reasonable extent. 'O,' she\nappealed to me, 'look after my west-country work, whatever else\nyou do. My going east bids you in honor to stay.' I allowed her\nplea with a nod. It was not till some while afterwards that I\npropounded Africa's apology, as I had guessed it. Dick had been\ntalking, rather bitterly as well as floridly, about sighting the\ncold Northern Star and losing the Southern Cross. I lay back and\ngloated over the starry picture overhead through a crisscross\npicture-mount of ragged grass. I left the confutation of the\nscoffer to Miss Moore. There was an edge on many of her remarks\nthat night, and I could trust her to deal with him. But what she\nsaid I have forgotten. Only I remember that he gave her best at\nlast. Then, and not till then, I broke silence, submitting\nsubjects for inquiry.\n\n'Are not countries and subcontinents like men born under stars\nWhat star was South Africa herself born under? Not the Lyre\nsurely, her poetry is comparatively so negligible. Not the\nPlough, nor yet Aquarius, for she is not blest with overmuch\nirrigation, nor brilliant at agriculture. Neither was it the\nNorthern Star surely; constancy does not easily beset her. No, it\nwas the Southern Cross. Take the cross as a symbol inclusive of\nmore than Christian symbolism. Take it as a symbol signifying\npeine forte et dure. Is it not peculiarly characteristic of\nAfrica to deal with us as she is doing? Does she not truly follow\nher star in banishing you, and shifting you, and detaining me'?\n\n'That's all very well,' said Dick truculently, 'but I want to\nknow what WE are going to do. Are we going to take it lying\ndown?'\n\nI sniffed. 'I suppose we had better,' I said. 'And if we want a\ndecent handbook of procedure I am told that the Imitatio Christi\nis excellent.'\n\n'Promise me you'll not leave the Station, so help you, at least\nnot till I come back.' Miss Moore plunged for a particular\nshallow just when I was floating in gay generalities.\n\n'Let me have till to-morrow,' I asked. Then I spoke in Africa's\ndefense, setting out her case as well as I could. 'She's\nemphatically a feminine continent,' I said. 'I learned only the\nother day from a modern novelist that a woman's possibly at the\nheight of her power with a man, just when her contact with him is\nbut one of hope and memory. Surely that is true enough of some\nwomen and some men. Isn't Africa one of such women, and Dick one\nof such men? She knows her own business, and sends him to a\ndistance, bidding him consecrate \"a night of memories and sighs\"\nto her. It's a doom that tends to bitterness on his part now. But\ntrust him by and by to taste the bitter-sweet of it. It's the\nsame sort of thing that I wrote raw verses about after I left\nOxford behind: \"Not until you go from her will she come to you\"\nyou know the sort of thing.'\n\nDick grunted. Miss Moore complimented me on my preaching. My\nlucidities, I feared, were missing fire.\n\nA donkey saved the situation, one of the two that were not\nharnessed up for the night, there being no trek-gear for them.\nWith a grassy mouth he was chewing at Miss Moore's pillow-slip.\nAfter many and shrill cries, it was rescued, but not before it\nhad taken stains of a deep green color. After such a misfortune\nhad been properly keened for, we sat down by the fire again.\n\n'Go on,' Dick said. 'Let's have your peroration.'\n\n'Well, as to Miss Moore Africa has shaken her up by shifting her,\nand by giving her a lesson in local values, just as the donkey\nhas done about linen or calico, I forget which.'\n\nThat started the keening again.\n\n'O,' said the mourner, 'my poor pillow-slip! But I'd give it by\nthe dozen to get back just to the one place the same old Mission.\nYou will promise to stop there till I come back, at any rate?'\n\nWorn out by continual dropping-fire, I promised, starry Heaven\nbeing my helper. 'Let's go to bed after that,' I pleaded. 'I've\nsoared in an airy disquisition and I've come to earth in a gross\nsort of pledge.'\n\n'No, you're to go on,' Dick told me.\n\n'What about yourself?'\n\n'O, I'm led out on a string. I'm given trotting exercise by\nAfrica within her own confines. I'm kept hanging about on her\nveld, while she delays my donkeys. Meanwhile she shows me\nout-of-the-way holes and corners where there's nobody to do the\nwork she wants done. She appeals to my shame and pity, she has made\na study of weak spots of mine. Has she not method? I meant to leave\nthe wagon last week, but I'm lucky if I get off tomorrow. What\nwith bad roads, spongy crossings, and indifferent donkeys, she's\nlanded me in a pledge to-night a pledge to keep me hanging on.\nI'm in honor bound now to try to turn her night into day, just\nlike a cock in one of her kraals. While all the time I want to be\nflitting North like one of her swallows this month of all months\nin the year.'\n\nIn the morning I renewed my pledge at a rock's altar a rock that\nlichen had stained bright orange. I professed resignation, as did\nthe other two beside me. Then after breakfast, we shook hands. I\ngave Dick a motto about Africa:\n\nShe cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,\nFor 'ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!\n\nI gave Delia a prayer to say for her westward return. 'Turn our\ncaptivity ... as the rivers in the south.' Then I knelt by the\ngrey flat stone and prayed audibly, 'Give me a blessing; for Thou\nhast given me a south land; give me also springs of water.'\n\nSoon I was striding away. There was little time to reach home by\nthe hour when home wanted me. Pity and shame, pity pointing east\nand west, while shame spurns and aspires these two beams seem to\nmake up my own Cyrenian's burden the burden of the Southern Cross\nfor me. On the other hand, regret and adoration seem to supply\nthe same office for Dick, if I may judge by his letters. As for\nMiss Moore, by far the most deserving of us three admittedly,\ndoubtless her faith is firmly rooted wherever she is, and her\nsympathy spreads east or west, whichever way her duty calls her.\nNevertheless she would be still glad should the Voice call and\nthe Wind blow westward again, at least that is my own conviction.\nIn our several ways we three are devoted to Africa: one way or\nanother the Southern Cross is the constellation ascendant in each\nof our three careers.\n\n\n\nOUR LADY OF THE LAKE\n\n\n\nWe had been dining on the bridge of H.M.S. Kampala the captain,\nthe two ship's officers, the gunnery lieutenant and he who writes\nthis story. We had come in as it grew dark that August evening,\nand anchored some few miles out from the German's great place.\nFor that great place a big gun, rumored or real, commanded\nrespect.\n\nI suppose our main object on that patrol trip of ours was the\nstopping of rice-running, the preservation of our lake blockade.\nWe had had some firing a few days ago at presumptive stores,\nalso at a dhow and lighter dimly descried (they were in the\npapyrus-fringed labyrinth of a boat-passage). But of late we had\nbeen lying up for the most part off a lonely island. Perhaps they\nwould think we were out of the way, perhaps not. We should see\nwhat we should see.' I suppose that the gunnery lieutenant was\nalmost as sanguine of adventure as I was of humdrum peace in this\nafter-dinner hour on the darkened bridge. Adventure, or at least\nwhat seemed to be its promising prelude arrived quite suddenly.\n\nThere was a sudden announcement to our captain about a light\nbeing seen, a brief one-sided discussion, the whistle blowing for\n'Stations,' the rattle of arms as the Indian ship's-guard fell\nin. These all affected me with strange twinges of futile protest.\nSurely there was a time for all things, and this was the time for\ncoffee and tobacco, not for disconcerting risks and detestable\nnoises. I wanted never to hear our four-inch gun again by\nday. The idea of its shaking the peace of night to bits was\npreposterous. Yet a light was reported ahead, a moving light on\nthe lake itself. 'You haven't much time, Craig,' I heard the\nlieutenant cry to our captain. The engine-room bells rang\nominously, there was much puffing and spouting, then we were off.\nI stole into a safe sort of corner, as corners went, by the\ndoctor's cabin. I edged out of the way of the Indian riflemen who\nwere sorting themselves, making ready for action. We were running\nalong somewhither. I didn't know much about our bearings, but I\nhad misgivings as to whether that big gun of the Germans was not\ngetting nearer. 'I've been thinking it may be a lure to draw us\non,' hazarded the Eurasian doctor by and by. That was just what\nI'd been thinking. I was glad when the tension ceased suddenly,\nnot so many minutes after it had started. The light had vanished;\nwe were out of the hunt somehow it seemed; our captain meant\nto wait till morning, then possibly he would show us a thing.\nMeanwhile there were some hours to morning. We had had no\nnight-firing after all. Nor did there seem to be much prospect\nof any. One might as well go to bed in the dark without delay.\n\nMorning came and we hunted around, but drew blank. Then we\nstarted away to look for a supposed dhow in likely covers of\ncreeks or inlets, but we drew these blank also. What was the\nvanished light? That of the resurrected German steam-tug?\nPossibly. Possibly it was not that of a dhow after all. Anyhow it\nwas gone out of our ken. 'There's dirty work in there of night,\nCraig,' the gunnery-lieutenant had said with a stern eye on that\nGerman harbor. He spoke as a partisan. Was it such very dirty\nwork if they did run a little food across to feed their own\npeople? Anyhow their dirty work, whatever it was, had seemingly\nbaffled our immaculate patrol under our white ensign, for that\ntime at any rate.\n\nI don't think there is anything strange about this story as it\nstands up to this point, do you? There may have been a dhow ahead\nof us that night in August, and it may have been its light that\nour watchman spied. Also it may have put out its light all of a\nsudden, and so we may have lost it in the darkness. That simple\nexplanation sounds probable enough, doesn't it, when you come to\nthink of it?\n\nNevertheless in the following week, a more romantic explanation\nwas tendered to me it concerned a gramophone.\n\n'That was the last tune before the light was seen,' a bluejacket\ntold me solemnly. 'It's a good tune, you perhaps know it, sir,\n\"Ave Maris Stella\"'? We had fraternized over recollections of\nHastings, that was his birth-place. I told him how I had been\ninto his church there, which was not mine, Saint Mary's, Star of\nthe Sea. I recalled the blue-circled chancel and its glittering\nstars with admiration. Now he was confidential about what had\nhappened a few nights before. He seemed to regard the putting-on\nof that particular gramophone record at that particular moment as\nsignificant. I was sympathetic, but I only grasped his point\nvaguely. 'You mean,' I said. 'I mean that She may have meant it,'\nhe said rather confusedly. 'She may have meant us luck. If we'd\nonly gone in straight where Her light showed, we might have found\nour luck.' 'You mean we might have captured Muanza, I suppose,' I\nsaid rather skeptically. 'Well, we might have killed a lot of\nGermans, sir, and done a lot of good. But our captain's too\ncautious altogether.'\n\n'It's possible,' I said. 'She may have meant to give us the tip,'\nhe went on. 'I don't think it's likely, but you may be right,' I\nsaid with some detachment. The notion of Our Lady illuminating\nthe lake that she might give us the tip to kill Germans was not\nso very convincing. I'm afraid I choked off the surmiser a bit\nwith my Tolstoyite incredulity. He drew in his horns there and\nthen; he confided none of his views to me again on similar\nsubjects. He was to die at sea a year or so after. They had got\nhim on to a ship from an island hospital, but he never reached\nthe South African port they had shipped him for. I am glad now to\nthink of his faith in Our Lady, Our Lady good at need.\n\nIt was before he went down to the coast, that we advanced and\ntook a great island renowned for its rice commerce. Then the day\ncame only a month or so after that our troops marched into\nMuanza. The main body of its German defenders had steamed away\ndown that land-locked sound of theirs a little while before. We\nhad not stormed the place from the lake after all, we had arrived\nby a back-door road among the kopjes. Yet there we were at last.\nIt seemed curious to be in the place that I had peered at\napprehensively on patrol. How mysterious its lights and its\nharbor had looked from a darkened bridge or a deck of old. Now I\nwent to and fro in the glaring Boma square, climbed the road\namong the rocks to the Fort Hospital with the tower and its dummy\nguns, patrolled the palm-tree promenade where no band played, but\nlake-water provided placid music much more to my taste than that\nof drums and brass.\n\nIt was in the church above the bay, the church of the White\nFathers, that I came upon my sequel, or at least what looks like\nthe earthly sequel of my story. Afterwards, of course, I may hear\nmuch more. The White Father I had gone to see, took me into the\nchurch one morning and showed me Our Lady's altar. Over it was an\naltar-piece of familiar design I think it represented Our Lady of\nGood Counsel, but I am not sure. In front votive candles blazed,\nin very creditable profusion for those hard times surely. A\nsilver star with about two-inch points caught my eye. There were\nother stars hung there too, much less conspicuous ones. There\nwere also two or three little models of dhows or boats set on a\nledge before that altar. I pointed to the silver star, and my\nguide answered my mute question: 'A gift to Our Lady, Star of\nthis lake and these lake-shores,' he said. 'It was one night in\nAugust of last year that it happened, the miracle or whatever you\nwish to call it.' 'Did Our Lady appear on the lake?' I asked\nkeenly, for memories began to stir in me. 'No, not quite that,'\nsaid the White Father. He had a brown beard, and a very white\nface, and he spoke clear-cut English. 'There was a light seen\nover the water.' Then it was that the surmise about the\ngramophone recurred to me. 'Do you really think,' I asked, 'that\nthere was a light to be seen? If so, what was there strange about\nit?' 'Well, it was a miracle of sorts,' he said. 'I didn't\nbelieve about it at first, for I didn't see reason for it. They\nsaid it was a light given to lure the English within range. That\nwas the talk of some of our Catholics in the town, but it wasn't\ngood talk. I argued against it.' He paused. Then I told him,\nsmilingly, the story of the gramophone. 'It's a parallel story,'\nI said. 'Our Lady was indeed divided against herself that night\nin her clients' estimation.' 'It shows the absurdity of war\nbetween Catholics,' he murmured. 'Yes, of war between so-called\nChristian nations,' I agreed. In an impulse I shook his hand.\n'But there was a light,' I said: 'I saw it.' 'So did I,' he said.\n'Was it the light of a dhow?' I wondered. 'No,' he said,\nsurprisingly, 'the dhow was on the other side of your ship.' He\npointed to the votive star. 'That star commemorates this sight of\na light, or rather of a star,' he said. 'I veritably believe that\nthe star light was Our Lady of the Lake's work. Yet she did not\nin the least mean to show the English where to land and slaughter\nus, nor on the other hand to lure them on to a fiery doom. Our\nLady wants the salvage of men's lives not their destruction.\nGuess what happened that night.'\n\nI was puzzled. I took the star into my hand and looked it over.\nIt only had 'Muanza' graved upon it, 'Muanza' and the date of\nthat August evening. No, I gave it up. So he told me his version\nof events. 'There was a dhow beating round the corner of an\nisland. The Goanese skipper had no idea that you were there. It\nwas a near thing. He was lucky, wasn't he, that the alarm of the\nlight seen by your watch came just then? He was running almost\nstraight for your war-ship. But you started off on a course that\ntook you far out of his way, started off on a light's chase or\nrather a star's chase. He is a very pious man, that Goanese\nskipper; he was here for two Masses this morning. He has a great\ndevotion to Our Lady, as I believe, and he knows how to pray. He\nvowed a silver star to Our Lady Our Lady of the Lake, if she\nwould but bring him through with his ship safe. He made a fair\nvoyage after all. But he thanked the star that led you off from\nhim for it, say rather Her who kindled that star. He is a man of\nprayer, the sort of prayer that invites miracles.' I was very\nsilent. I knelt before the statue a little. Then I said 'Good-bye.'\nWhen I had said it I looked at two of the stars (that were not\nsilver) curiously. Were they not Belgian officers' stars, and\nwere they not likely to have a tragical history? 'Ask the silver\nstar-man, please,' I said, 'to pray for God's miracle of peace.\nIt does seem to me as if his prayers might do a lot of good. I'd\ngive Our Lady of the Lake a whole Southern-Crossful of stars\nshould peace come before the year's out.' Did he forget to ask\nthat star-man for his prayers?\n\n\n\nEPILOGUE\n\n\n\n[AFRICA AND HER GODMOTHER.]\n\nWith shoes of crystal peace and glee\nChristmas his clients proves:\nThey're misfits for those masters pale\nAnd their white lady-loves;\nBut O they fit black boys and girls\nWho clean their knives and stoves!\n\nI slipt from out the white men's church,\nThe northern chants rang cold,\nAnd with the preacher's war-time words\nMy heart it would not hold,\nGay hymns and I alike had grown\nIn exile grave and old.\n\nI said 'I'll wander from the town\nThis cheerless Christmas Day.'\nA church stood up beside my road,\nAnd I turn'd in to pray.\nBuff-brick its walls were, and its roof\nOf ridg'd unlovely grey.\n\nI enter'd in, and joy was there\nThe Mass had just begun.\nThey filled the place from screen to door\nThe children of the sun.\nMe seem'd that southern sun was glass'd\nIn eyes of ev'ryone.\n\nThe server-men had lawn and lace\nAnd crimson pageantry,\nAnd boys were in their best, and girls\nWore kerchiefs bright to see.\nMe seem'd those bare brown feet were shod\nWith crystal peace and glee.\n\nThe incense-smoke it skein 'd and spir'd,\nThe vowell'd hymns rang clear,\nA shrill bell rung by a brown hand\nSaid Christ was very near.\nMe seem'd a sun-tann'd Angel stoopt\nAnd caroll'd in mine ear.\n\nI Bless God for this our Christmas Ball\nAbout our Christmas Board!\nOur Church that faery Godmother\nHer child hath not ignor'd,\nAnd Africa, with heart in sky,\nIs dancing to the Lord.\n\nThe Old World's and the New World's drudge\nWhom few would praise before\nNow from the kitchen hath been claim 'd,\nThe stable and the store,\nChrist claims her heart to dance with his\nWhere Europe's danced of yore.'\n\nWith shoes of crystal peace and glee\nChristmas his clients proves:\nThey're misfits for those masters pale\nAnd their white lady-loves;\nBut O they fit black boys and girls\nWho clean their knives and stoves!","title":"Cinderella in the South: Twenty-Five South African Tales","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":68982}