eye could reach, steeped in the richest purple
red. Laurence fell fast asleep.

He dreamed they were steaming into Charing Cross Station. Lilith was
waiting to meet him. He swore, in his dream, because they had halted on
the railway bridge too long to take the tickets. Then he awoke. They
were steaming slowly into a terminus, amid the familiar flashing of
lamps and the rumbling of porters' trucks. But it was not Charing
Cross, it was Kimberley.

Not long did it take him to collect his scanty baggage and fling it into
a "cab," otherwise an open, two-seated Cape cart. Hardly had he taken
his seat than the driver uttered a war-whoop, and, with a jerk that
nearly sent its passenger somersaulting into the road, the concern
started off as hard as its eight legs and two wheels could carry it.

The night was dark, the streets guiltless of lighting. As the trap
zigzagged furiously from one side of the way to the other, now poised on
one wheel, now leaping bodily into the air as it charged through a deep
hole or rut, it was a comfort to the said passenger to reflect that the
road being feet deep in sand one was bound to fall soft anyhow. Yet,
candidly, he rather enjoyed it. After thirty-three hours in a South
African "Flying Watkin" even this spurious excitement was welcome.

They shaved corners, always on one wheel, sometimes even scraping the
corners of houses, and causing those pedestrians in their line of flight
to skip like young unicorns. Then, recovering, the startled wayfarers
would hurl their choicest blessings after the cab. To these, the madcap
driver would reply with a shrill and fiendish yell, belabouring his
frantic cattle with a view to attempting fresh feats. They succeeded. It
only wanted a bullock-waggon coming down the street to afford them the
opportunity. The bullock-waggon came. Then a dead, dull scrunch--an
awful shock--and the cab was at a standstill. The waggon people opened
their safety-valves and let off a fearful blast of profanity; the
cab-driver replied in suitable and feeling terms, then backed clear of
the wreck and whipped on.

Vastly amused by this lively experience, Laurence still ventured to
expostulate, mildly, and as a matter of form. But he got no more change
out of his present Jehu than Horace Greeley did of Hank Monk. The reply,
accompanied by a jovial guffaw, was:

"All right, mister. You sit tight, and I'll fetch you through. Which
hotel did you say?"

Laurence refreshed his mem