e enchantress who bound men's souls for ever?... Had Rhodesia,
in her sunny loveliness, been wife and child to the great man who went
lonely to his grave?...

As they drove along and the fascination increased, far outweighing any
discomfort of glare and dust and jolting roads, Meryl felt herself
engraving the sight and the sound and the freshness of it upon her
soul, that she might have hidden pictures to gaze upon with closed
eyes when the exigencies of life called her back into the throng.

Her father was mostly silent as was his wont, planning and scheming
with a brain that knew little other rest than following its natural
bent, yet with that in his silence, and in his watchful eyes that made
one feel he too loved the land for itself, as well as for what he
could get out of it; and that when occasion came, like Alfred Beit and
Cecil Rhodes, he would pay his debt a hundredfold.

So they came at last to the wide, open veldt where Edwardstown was
situated, and knew themselves in the district teeming with pioneer
memories.

Meryl and Diana descended reluctantly at the hotel, and looked round
disparagingly at their little hot bedroom, thinking regretfully of
their tent in the wilderness.

"How awful," said Diana, "if we find ourselves never able to exist in
an ordinary house again! We shall have to pitch two tents in Hyde
Park. Ugh!... it positively smells of walls and doors and windows;
how I hate them!"

"We'll go on to Zimbabwe to-morrow and camp beside the ruins,"
answered Meryl. "How splendid to be going there so soon!"

"Ruins are not much in my line," quoth the outspoken. "Let's hope
there'll be a man there as well."

VII

CAREW IS DISTURBED

The news that the millionaire Henry Pym with his daughter and a niece
were journeying to Great Zimbabwe reached the police camp first
through a letter from the Administration to Major Carew, requesting
him to have the long, disfiguring dry grass burnt, and the
surroundings of the temple tidied up a little, and to show every
attention to the travellers. When he received the letter it was
obvious at once that the information did not give him any pleasure. On
the contrary, his expression as nearly approached a frown as he was
likely to permit it on receiving orders from headquarters. He had
opened the letter standing outside his hut, where it had been handed
to him by the native runner, and Stanley was reading a newspaper near,
while Moore affectionately han