issed them for the present, and turned into the hut which
he used as a dining and general sitting-room. This was a large,
circular hut, rough and ready of aspect outside, with its plastered wall
and high conical thatch, but the interior was not without comfort and
even tastefulness. It was hung around with a dark blue fabric commonly
called by the whites "limbo," being a corruption of the native name
"ulembu," which signifieth "web." Strips of white calico constituted
the ceiling, and thus both thatch and plastered walls being completely
hidden, the interior, hung around with framed photographs and prints,
wore a comfortable and homelike aspect. Two small glass windows let in
light and air when the door was closed, which it seldom was. Four other
huts similarly constructed stood within the compound, doing duty for
office, bedroom, kitchen, and store-house respectively, and the whole
were enclosed by a palisade of woven grass, standing about breast high.

The life was a lonely one, and there were times when John Ames would
feel very tired of it. The place being more than a long day's journey
from anywhere, visitors were few and far between, and beyond Inglefield,
the police sub-inspector, he rarely saw a social equal. Inglefield was
a married man, but his wife, a soured and disappointed person, had made
herself so disagreeable to John Ames on the few occasions they had met,
that the latter had dropped all intercourse which involved associating
with Inglefield at that worthy's own home. If Inglefield wanted to see
him for social purposes, why, he knew his way up; and truth to tell, it
was a way Inglefield not seldom found, for if there is one state more
lonely than the man who lives alone in an out of the way locality, it is
the man who lives in it with an entirely uncongenial partner. But even
with Inglefield the position was occasionally strained, by reason of
their official relations Inglefield thought the force under his command
could do no wrong; Ames knew that it could, and not infrequently did.

The latter sat down to his solitary meal, which on the whole was a good
one; for the game laws were not at that time rigidly enforced, nor had a
combination of rinderpest and prospector decimated the larger kinds; and
steaks of the roan antelope, hot and frizzling, are by no means
despicable. Add to this brown bread and tinned butter, the whole washed
down with a couple of glasses of whisky and aerated water from a