emed for the moment like showing
some treasured personal relics to barbarians.

There were so many other things for the pleasure-seekers. Let them go
to the Falls, and Lake Nyassa, and the Himalayas, and those tourist
treasures; but why come and chatter inane banalities about his ruins:
his treasured, mysterious relic of perhaps the oldest civilisation
the world has known?

Of course, he knew perfectly that much controversy had raged round the
question, and that one or two learned scientists had definitely stated
their belief that the ruins were of comparatively recent date, and
deduced more or less convincing proofs in support of their theory; but
controversies and carefully worded reports were small things to the
man who had dwelt beside the mysterious temples and fortifications,
and learnt to love and treasure them. He had his proofs too and his
deductions, and such as they were they satisfied him, in the face of
all opposition, that the curious remains were indeed of great
antiquity, quite probably the ancient Havilah of the Scriptures. To
him every nook and every corner had its meaning and its history. In
the play of his fancy he had seen the white-robed priests and acolytes
in stately procession, amid the old, old walls; heard strains of
far-off music when an ancient worship offered its votary of prayer and
praise to that mysterious deity whom they believed in; heard perhaps a
single lovely voice, or seen a single lovely convert kneel before the
Sacred Enclosure. He had seen their strong men and their brave men and
their great men marshalling a host of women and children and infirm
citizens safely into the fastnesses of the Acropolis Hill, where, with
a sufficient supply of food and water, three thousand people might be
safely shielded for any length of time. He had seen them stand on the
high battlements, and look out across the plain or into the rock-hewn
kopjes for the hosts of the enemy. He had seen them, even when
besieged upon that mighty hill, assembling together to worship in the
temples they had laboriously raised upon the giant granite ledges.
Were they fair, those women of that old, old day? Were they brave,
were they mighty in stature, those men who evolved and achieved those
wonderful defence works? Did they love the fair land that fed them
with the love of home and country, or were they but sojourners for a
while amid unfriendly, cruel tribes, that needed watchful eyes day and
night? Led perhaps by