which
Rhodes had chanted in the ears of all those who shared with him the
pioneer enterprises of South Africa. The outburst which had broken in
on his monologue was so unexpected that for a moment he could scarcely
realize the situation. It was not often, in these strenuous and
perilous days--and for himself less often than ever before, so had
London and London life worked upon him--that he, or those who shared
with him the vast financial responsibilities of the Rand, indulged in
dreams or prophecies; and he resented the contemptuous phrase just
uttered, and the tone of the speaker even more.

Byng's blank amazement served only to incense his visitor further.
"Yes, be damned to it, Byng!" he continued. "I'm sick of the British
Empire and the All Red, and the 'immense future.' What I want is the
present. It's about big enough for you and me and the rest of us. I
want to hold our own in Johannesburg. I want to pull thirty-five
millions a year out of the eighty miles of reef, and get enough native
labour to do it. I want to run the Rand like a business concern, with
Kruger gone to Holland; and Leyds gone to blazes. That's what I want to
see, Mr. Invincible Rudyard Byng."

The reply to this tirade was deliberate and murderously bitter. "That's
what you want to see, is it, Mr. Blasphemous Barry Whalen? Well, you
can want it with a little less blither and a little more manners."

A hard and ugly look was now come into the big clean-shaven face which
had become sleeker with good living, and yet had indefinably coarsened
in the three years gone since the Jameson raid; and a gloomy anger
looked out of the deep-blue eyes as he slowly went on:

"It doesn't matter what you want--not a great deal, if the others agree
generally on what ought to be done; and I don't know that it matters
much in any case. What have you come to see me about?"

"I know I'm not welcome here, Byng. It isn't the same as it used to be.
It isn't--"

Byng jerked quickly to his feet and lunged forward as though he would
do his visitor violence; but he got hold of himself in time, and, with
a sudden and whimsical toss of the head, characteristic of him, he
burst into a laugh.

"Well, I've been stung by a good many kinds of flies in my time, and I
oughtn't to mind, I suppose," he growled.... "Oh, well, there," he
broke off; "you say you're not welcome here? If you really feel that,
you'd better try to see me at my chambers--or at the office in London
Wa