na,
as she came out, got up for the ride. "Instead of going down we'll go
up, if you don't mind. Do you?"

"Why, of course not. I am in your hands entirely."

The horses were waiting, saddled, the boy walking them up and down.
Verna was in a sort of khaki-coloured riding habit, with a hat to match.
In it was a subtle combination of the fashionable and civilised build
with the congruous costume of the locality and surroundings that sat her
altogether charmingly.

"All right, then. I'll take you where you will get a beautiful view;
and the road is delightful. If you feel like getting off to look for a
specimen, do so at any time. Now, will you put me into that saddle?"

The smile she beamed at him recalled him to himself. The naked truth of
it was that Denham had about shed himself, as a snake sheds its skin.
He was a hard-headed man of the world--a keen, successful financier, yet
by now he was dimly realising that he scarcely knew himself.
Experiences came back to him--crowded up galore; yet it seemed to be
reserved for him that he should meet, in the wilds of Zululand--and the
wilds of Zululand can be very wild indeed, even up to date--an
experience utterly outside of all that had gone before.

"Thanks," she said, gathering up her reins. "Now we must go exactly
where we like, and do exactly what we like. We are going to make an
easy afternoon of it."

"Certainly," he answered. "I am very much in luck's way. I never
reckoned on being taken so much care of."

"No? Well, you shall be. But I don't think you require much taking
care of after having picked your way all through the Makanya bush
alone."

That allusion again. Denham felt a droop all of a sudden. Yet it was
only momentary. He had been alone with Verna practically the whole day.
Ben Halse had not returned for the midday dinner, and they had got
through it _a deux_. Thus together alone, the situation had set him
thinking a great deal. In fancy he had pictured her sitting opposite
him, as in that plain, rather primitive room, for any time, and the idea
was pleasing.

Their way lay upward, the track so narrow in parts that they had to ride
one behind the other, an arrangement fatal to conversation, for you
cannot conveniently shout back over your shoulder. Now it led through
some deep kloof, where the tall forest trees shut out the light of the
sun, and the green depths were stirred by mysterious noises; now up a
rocky steep, but ever a