ce and the velvety
deeps at hand. And a man may meet himself there also; not the aping,
grinning, chattering mask of a personality custom more or less compels
him to wear in the crowd, but the hidden, mysterious being, conscious
of a soul beyond his ken, that in such quiet hours desires eternally
some goal, some good, afar off. The indestructible, incomprehensible,
infinite hunger, that lies as a germ in every human heart and is man's
best attribute, in that it raises him for ever incontestably above the
beasts that perish, and stands serene and steadfast as the Rock of
Ages, the one barrier past which the materialists and the scientists
cannot go: the divine spark within the human, which no theory can
account for and no learning of sage or cynic obliterate.

The travellers sat round a glowing fire, for the night air was keen
and cold; and much that is inevitably disturbing in the friction of
daily being and daily doing seemed to fall away from them and cease to
exist for that one wonderful night. And the next day, when the small
black attendant brought their early tea and opened wide the tent-flap
to a brilliant morning, yet another picture awaited them. This time it
was a world decked with enormous diamonds. Tall, sparse grasses leant
over and whispered to each other outside the tent, and every ear and
every seed was hung with a lovely brilliant dewdrop. Out beyond was
that same vague, remote, fathomless horizon, painted now with
wonderful rose tints, where the rising sun caught the lingering mists
and merged the dark streaks of blackened veldt into the general scheme
with a softness of shading beyond all description. Meryl lay still,
gazing with her soul in her eyes, but after a time Diana sat up.

"It makes me ache almost like the Victoria Falls did. I wonder why God
painted such lovely scenes where no one ever came, or scarcely ever,
to see them?"

She was silent a moment, then ran on again, "We fight and sweat and
struggle for diamonds, and God hangs them on the dry grass, in the
wilderness. Meryl, I wonder if we shall ever see anything quite like
this again? And they told us to avoid the Charter Flats!... I suppose
God feels about it something as we do. He knows most people like
Brighton parades and Durban sea-fronts, so He lets them arrange their
own sights; and for Himself, in far wonderful places, He paints scene
pictures, and plants lovely gardens, and fills them with birds and
flowers and sunshine, and sp