lect materials
to build the huts, another to draw water, a third for firewood and
stones, on which to place the cooking-pot. At sunset the headman blew
his whistle and asked if all were present. A lusty chorus replied. He
reported to his chief and received the orders for the next day's march.

Alec had told Lucy that from the cry that goes up in answer to the
headman's whistle, you could always gauge the spirit of the men. If game
had been shot, or from scarcity the caravan had come to a land of
plenty, there was a perfect babel of voices. But if the march had been
long and hard, or if food had been issued for a number of days, of which
this was the last, isolated voices replied; and perhaps one, bolder than
the rest, cried out: I am hungry.

Then Alec and George, and the others sat down to their evening meal,
while the porters, in little parties, were grouped around their huge
pots of porridge. A little chat, a smoke, an exchange of sporting
anecdotes, and the white men turned in. And Alec, gazing on the embers
of his camp fire was alone with his thoughts: the silence of the night
was upon him, and he looked up at the stars that shone in their
countless myriads in the blue African sky. Lucy got up and stood at her
open window. She, too, looked up at the sky, and she thought that she
saw the same stars as he did. Now in that last half hour, free from the
burden of the day, with everyone at rest, he could give himself over to
his thoughts, and his thoughts surely were of her.

* * *

During the months that had passed since Alec left England, Lucy's love
had grown. In her solitude there was nothing else to give brightness to
her life, and little by little it filled her heart. Her nature was so
strong that she could do nothing by half measures, and it was with a
feeling of extreme relief that she surrendered herself to this
overwhelming passion. It seemed to her that she was growing in a
different direction. The yearning of her soul for someone on whom to
lean was satisfied at last. Hitherto the only instincts that had been
fostered in her were those that had been useful to her father and
George; they had needed her courage and her self-reliance. It was very
comfortable to depend entirely upon Alec's love. Here she could be weak,
here she could find a greater strength which made her own seem puny.
Lucy's thoughts were absorbed in the man whom really she knew so little.
She exulted in his unselfish striving and in his f