untains,
unmarked, unknown to any but myself. I once had a heart, John Ames,
strange to say, and it lies buried there. But every time I return
thence it is with the fire renewed within me; and the flames of that
fire are the hate of hell for those you were just now describing as `my
own countrymen.'"

The hopeless pathos, the white-hot revenge running side by side,
silenced the listener. There was a fury of passion and of pain here
which admitted of no comment. To strive further to drive home his
original protest struck him now as impertinent and commonplace. For a
while neither spoke.

"This is not the first time `my own countrymen' have felt my unseen
hand," continued the narrator. "They felt it when three miles of plain
were watered with British blood, and a line of whitened bones, as the
line of a paper-chase, marked out a broad way from Isandhlwana to the
Buffalo drift. They felt it when British blood poured into the swollen
waters of the Intombi river, and when the `neck' on Hlobane mountain was
choked with struggling men and horses fleeing for dear life, and but few
escaping. That was for me. They have felt it often since. That was
for _her_. They felt it when the hardest blow of all was dealt to their
illimitable self-righteousness a year later; and, in short, almost
whenever there has been opportunity for decimating them this side of the
equator, my hand has been there. They would have felt it three years
ago, when they seized this country we are now in, but for a wholly
unavoidable reason, and then even the strong laagers and parks of Maxims
would have counted for nought. That was for _her_. The malice of the
devilish laws of `my country' drove me forth, and with me went that one.
In the malarial valleys of the foothills of the Lebombo she died. I
still live; but I live for a lifelong revenge upon `my countrymen'--and
hers."

Listening with the most vivid interest, John Ames was awed. The
narrative just then could not but appeal to him powerfully. What if his
own wanderings had ended thus, substituting Matopo for Lebombo? He
shuddered to think that but for their signal good fortune in being
blessed with fine dry weather, such might not inconceivably have been
the case. The earlier and more tragic of the historical events referred
to had taken place during the period of his English education, but now
there recurred to his memory certain tales which he had heard on his
return to his native