led. Was it the clear intuition which
rightly or wrongly is believed to accompany the hour of dissolution?
Then he remembered she could have learned much about civilized peoples
through the talk of Tyisandhlu and her father.

"I die, beloved, but I welcome death," she went on,--"for I have
lived--ah, yes, I have lived. I feel no pain now, and I die in your
arms. Surely my _itongo_[7] will not weep mournfully on the voices of
the night as others do; surely it will laugh for very joy, for very
love, because of this my end, until time shall die--will it not,
Nyonyoba, my beloved? Say--will it not?"

But Laurence could not say anything, for, lo--a marvel. This man,
deadened for long years to feeling or ruth; this coldly pitiless
trafficker in the sufferings of human beings; in whose cynical creed now
such a love as that of this savage girl held no place--felt now as
though a hand were gripping him by the throat, choking all power of
reply. And the call of birds, high among the tree-tops, alone broke the
silence, in the semi-gloom of the forest aisles.

Lindela's voice had sunk until it was well-nigh inaudible, and Laurence
was constrained to bend his head to hers in order to catch her every
word. Then--a flash of gladness seemed momentarily to light up the
drowsy eyes, and she spoke no more. Her eyelids closed, her breathing
grew fainter and fainter, and soon Laurence knew that that which lay
heavy within his arms was no longer a living woman. Lindela had passed.

For long he sat thus. Then a faint rustling sound in the dry wood of an
immense fallen tree-trunk caught his ear. Ha!--the snake which had been
the cause of her death! It, at any rate, should die. Gently he laid her
down, then snatching up a stick which had been used to carry one of the
loads he advanced towards the sound.

Something was struggling among the dry bark; with the stick he broke
this away. There fell out an enormous spider.

He started back in horror and loathing. The hairy monster brought back
too gruesome a reminiscence. Then he noticed that it looked as if it had
received injury through crushing, two or three of the hideous tentacles
being partially or wholly broken off.

Then, as he gazed with loathing upon the sprawling thing, it seemed that
the missing link was supplied. Lindela, in her sleep, must have moved
over on to this horror, though not heavily enough to crush it. It had
buried its venomous nippers in her shoulder, prior to crawlin