heaven. I said, 'Give me millionairesses,' and you, with the
wisdom of the ages, said, 'Give me whisky.' I'll take a little now and
hope for the best."

And still Carew said nothing. The pipe was filled and he slowly lit
it. Then unexpectedly he tapped it with light significance. "This is
the best friend of all," he said, and went away into his hut.

Stanley glanced after him a moment with a curious expression.
"Gad!..." he murmured. "Was our bronze image a bit hit too? He looks
fierce enough and stern enough to be resenting a dent."

In the meantime the travellers reached the Charter Flats, and decided
to camp there for the night. They had travelled for some time along
the sandy tracts, enjoying the sense of space all around and the wide
horizons, and both Mr. Pym and the girls were loth to hurry away. It
is customary to dread these wide sandy tracts, and either hurry across
them or avoid them; but to these city-dwellers their vast calm held a
deep allurement; for though only scrub and sand stretched from horizon
to horizon, with occasional little strips of stunted trees, the clear
southern atmosphere lent a lovely effect of light and shade and
colour. Many large patches here and there were blackened with veldt
fires, but these in the distance formed delicate shadings that
enhanced the charm of a strip of yellow sand or young green grass or
purple-shadowed wilderness. It was like a world that contained only a
colour scheme; no dwellings, no humans, no landmarks, no hills and
valleys, no roads: just delicate shadings and haze as far as the eye
could see, with no clear line between earth and heaven. They might
have been looking over the edge of the world into a delicately tinted
space, so boundless it seemed, so unfathomable, so remote. They
pitched their camp on a little rising ground, near a slow meandering
stream that crept lazily across the miniature desert. And when the
dusk came down the effect was more unusual still, for the flats are on
high ground, and the heavens seem to stoop down all round, hanging a
dark curtain, decorated with brilliant stars, on every side. Across
all the world no sign of human life, no sound; only vast emptiness
everywhere--above, around, below; and for companions, worlds and suns
and solar systems.

It is a scene in which a man may seem to get very close to his God;
not a remote, incomprehensible Deity, dwelling vaguely beyond the
stars, but a Presence that is in the breathing silen