l of beads and a few packages of Birmingham-made assegai
blades. There may have been other things, but if so I did not
wait to investigate them. Gathering up the ends of my matches
and, in case there should be any dust in the place that would
show footmarks, flapping the stone floor behind me with my pocket
handkerchief, I retired and continued my investigations of that
wonderful marble deposit from the bottom of the quarry, to which,
having re-arranged the bushes, I descended by another route,
leaping like a buck from stone to stone.

It was just as well that I did so, for a few minutes later Dr.
Rodd appeared.

"Made a good job of your operation?" I asked cheerfully.

"Pretty fair, thanks," he answered, "although that Kaffir tried
to brain the nurse-man when he was coming out of the anesthetic.
But are you interested in geology?"

"A little," I replied, "that is if there is any chance of making
money out of it, which there ought to be here, as this marble
looks almost as good as that of Carrara. But flint instruments
are more my line, that is in an ignorant and amateur way, as I
think they are in yours, for I saw some in your room. Tell me,
what do you think of this. Is it a scraper?" and I produced a
stone out of my pocket which I had found a week before in the
bush-veld.

At once he forgot his suspicions, of which I could see he arrived
very full indeed. This curious man, as it happened, was really
fond of flint instruments, of which he knew a great deal.

"Did you find this here?" he asked.

I led him several yards further from the mouth of the cave and
pointed out the exact spot where I said I had picked it up
amongst some quarry debris. Then followed a most learned
discussion, for it appeared that this was a flint instrument of
the rarest and most valuable type, one that Noah might have used,
or Job might have scraped himself with, and the question was how
the dickens had it come among that quarry debris. In the end we
left the problem undecided, and having presented the article to
Dr. Rodd, a gift for which he thanked me with real warmth, I
returned to the house filled with the glow that rewards one who
has made a valuable discovery.

Of the following three days I have nothing particular to say,
except that during them I was perhaps more acutely bored than
ever I had been in my life before. The house was beautiful in
its own fashion; the food was excellent; there was everything I
could want