ave been in my hand in like manner, and--the hand has
closed on them. You will soon learn how few have escaped."

The grim relentlessness succeeding to the even, almost benevolent tone
which had characterised the first part of this extraordinary statement
impressed John Ames. At the same time he felt correspondingly reduced.
He had prided himself, too--in advance--upon bringing Nidia safely in,
alone and unaided; now he was done out of this satisfaction, and others
would take to themselves the credit. Then he felt smaller still because
thoroughly ashamed of himself. How could he harbour such a thought amid
the great glad joy of hearing that her safety was assured?

"Are you influencing these rebels, then?" he asked, all his old
repulsion for the other returning, as he saw, as in a flash, the fell
meaning of the words. "It seems strange that you should aid in the
murder of your own countrymen."

"My own countrymen!" and the expression of the speaker became absolutely
fiendish. "`My own countrymen' would have doomed me to a living death--
a living hell--long years ago, for no crime; for that which injured
nobody, but was a mere act of self-defence. Well, `my own countrymen'
have yielded up hundreds of lives in satisfaction since then."

"But--great Heavens! you say `would have.' They _would_ have done this?
Why, even if it had happened, such a revenge as yours would have been
too monstrous. Now I begin to see. Yet, in aiding these murderers of
women and children, you are sacrificing those who never harmed you. But
surely you can never have done this!"

"Ha, ha! Really, John Ames, I am beginning to feel I have made a
mistake--to feel disappointed in you, in thinking you were made of very
different clay to the swaggering, bullet-headed fool, the first article
of whose creed is that God made England and the devil the remainder of
the world. Well, listen further. To escape from this doom I was forced
to flee--to hide myself. And with me went one other. We wandered day
after day as you have wandered--we two alone."

In spite of his repulsion John Ames was interested, vividly interested.
Verily here a fellow-feeling came in. A marvellous change had crept
into the face of the other. The hard steely expression, the eyes
glittering with hate, had given way to such a look of wondrous softness
as seemed incredible that that countenance could take on.

"There is a lonely grave in the recesses of the Lebombo Mo