red by in England.'
'Yes,' he said, 'It's there I reckon the Southern Cross comes in,
and people going south make a mistake not to notice it. When
one's out of sight of the old compass-point of English opinion
one feels the want of believing, if one's to make any sort
of a show. It's a bad look-out if, when one lives under the
Southern Cross, one can't understand it. Fear God and keep His
Commandments. Do you think God would have put that cluster of
stars to south if the South did not need it most?'

A LION IN THE WAY*

* This tale may seem obscure, I suppose, if read in modern
English. It may be interpreted in the light of two ideas:

(1) The African idea about leanthropy or transmutation of man
into lion, an idea likely to linger on, I should think.

(2) An idea prevalent as it seems in our Europe of old '. . . the
idea that when a witch in animal form is wounded, say by a blow
or a shot, the natural wound will appear on the human body when
the witch returns to her own person.'

But I have topsy-turvied (2) in my tale. A.S.C.

I saw the lion with my own eyes, his shaggy head haloed by the
rising moon. The Mashona who was with me had far sharper eyes
than mine. He saw a dark scar across its brow. He would know that
lion again, he told me. It was not a gun-shot wound it carried.
Surely it was the caress of a brother lion.

The trader's road led down from the half-deserted kraal to the
drift. It forked into two wagon ways with a huge rock to part
them. There on the rock stood the lion expectant. That may not be
a heraldic term, but it is a true description of him as I saw
him. We watched him from the height above for what seemed a
longish time.

Then in haste I stole back to the desolate kraal that I might
find Trooper No. 2. Had he not the chance of his life now to
shoot a lion? I found him in the kraal, angry with himself and
swearing at his Black Watch boy who suffered him silently. While
he swore at him I gave him some idea of what I was thinking, as
to his need of humility. Had I not seen him run ten minutes
before? All this took time. When at last his flow of words dried
up and he came with me, we were too late. The lion was no longer
against the sky-line. He had taken cover in the bush below. We
heard him there once or twice, but we saw him no more. This is
how these things came about.

I had traveled into that forlorn country the day before, looking
for Carrot. He had been a pioneer and a repute