esh, these stood aside,
and half the tribe ate human flesh and half not; then, as the years
passed, none ate.

"Even in those days, which men reck not of now, when men fell easily
open their hands and knees, they were of us on the earth. And, if you
would learn a secret, even before man trod here, in the days when the
dicynodont bent yearningly over her young, and the river-horse which you
find now nowhere on earth's surface, save buried in stone, called with
love to his mate; and the birds whose footprints are on the rocks flew
in the sunshine calling joyfully to one another--even in those days when
man was not, the fore-dawn of this kingdom had broken on the earth. And
still as the sun rises and sets and the planets journey round, we grow
and grow."

The stranger rose from the fire, and stood upright: around him, and
behind him, the darkness stood out.

"All earth is ours. And the day shall come, when the stars, looking down
on this little world, shall see no spot where the soil is moist and dark
with the blood of man shed by his fellow man; the sun shall rise in the
East and set in the West and shed his light across this little globe;
and nowhere shall he see man crushed by his fellows. And they shall
beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks:
nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn
war any more. And instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree;
and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and man shall
nowhere crush man on all the holy earth. Tomorrow's sun shall rise,"
said the stranger, "and it shall flood these dark kopjes with light, and
the rocks shall glint in it. Not more certain is that rising than the
coming of that day. And I say to you that even here, in the land where
now we stand, where today the cries of the wounded and the curses of
revenge ring in the air; even here, in this land where man creeps on
his belly to wound his fellow in the dark, and where an acre of gold
is worth a thousand souls, and a reef of shining dirt is worth half a
people, and the vultures are heavy with man's flesh--even here that day
shall come. I tell you, Peter Simon Halket, that here on the spot where
now we stand shall be raised a temple. Man shall not gather in it to
worship that which divides; but they shall stand in it shoulder to
shoulder, white man with black, and the stranger with the inhabitant of
the land; and the place shall be holy; for