s and wilder men of the border were
mine to watch and battle with, not hers.

She had seen nothing; evidently she feared nothing, and so was resting,
resting in mind as in body. And as I glanced again over my shoulder and
saw how entirely content she seemed, I was glad. Surely she depended
entirely on me; on my watchfulness and my courage. And this made me more
watchful and more resolute and stout of heart. A man likes to be
trusted. A true man likes a true woman's trust, much indeed. A strong
man likes to be leaned upon. It makes him stronger, braver, better. Let
women never forget this. Admit that she, too, has her days of strength
and endurance; and admit that she, too, has her peculiar fortress of
strength and courage, and these also man respects and regards with
piteous tenderness. But man, incapable of her finer and loftier courage
and endurance, resents her invasion of his prerogative.

It is only a womanly man who can really love a manly woman. But to
continue: Looking up a third time to this woman at my side, I saw that
she had let her head sink low on her leaning arm. She was surely
sleeping. How I liked her trust and her faith in me? And how I liked her
courage, too, and her high quality of endurance. It was her courage that
had brought me up here this night to the contemplation of awful and
all-glorious Africa. Silently and without lifting a finger, she had
shown me a world of burnished gold. I had surely seen God through her.
We stood nearer together now than ever before. This single hour of
indescribable glory should forever stand as an altar in the desert. Our
souls had melted and flown and tided on, intermingled like molten gold
in the golden atmosphere and the yellow scene that wrapped us round
about, and no word had been said. When God speaks so audibly let man be
silent.

I must have looked longer on the sleeping and trustful woman at my side
than I ought to have looked, for on turning my eyes again to the
horizon, there distinctly on the yellow sand and under the yellow moon
moved, stealthily as a cat, yet graceful and grand, the most kingly
beast I ever beheld. He did not look right nor left, but moved along
with huge head in the air, slow and stately, and triumphant in his
fearful symmetry and strength.

CHAPTER IV.

I half arose and felt for a trusty six-shooter. This pistol was not one
that had been purchased for this or any other occasion, as the worthless
pistols of the time are u