hern Cross. Take the cross as a symbol inclusive of
more than Christian symbolism. Take it as a symbol signifying
peine forte et dure. Is it not peculiarly characteristic of
Africa to deal with us as she is doing? Does she not truly follow
her star in banishing you, and shifting you, and detaining me'?

'That's all very well,' said Dick truculently, 'but I want to
know what WE are going to do. Are we going to take it lying
down?'

I sniffed. 'I suppose we had better,' I said. 'And if we want a
decent handbook of procedure I am told that the Imitatio Christi
is excellent.'

'Promise me you'll not leave the Station, so help you, at least
not till I come back.' Miss Moore plunged for a particular
shallow just when I was floating in gay generalities.

'Let me have till to-morrow,' I asked. Then I spoke in Africa's
defense, setting out her case as well as I could. 'She's
emphatically a feminine continent,' I said. 'I learned only the
other day from a modern novelist that a woman's possibly at the
height of her power with a man, just when her contact with him is
but one of hope and memory. Surely that is true enough of some
women and some men. Isn't Africa one of such women, and Dick one
of such men? She knows her own business, and sends him to a
distance, bidding him consecrate "a night of memories and sighs"
to her. It's a doom that tends to bitterness on his part now. But
trust him by and by to taste the bitter-sweet of it. It's the
same sort of thing that I wrote raw verses about after I left
Oxford behind: "Not until you go from her will she come to you"
you know the sort of thing.'

Dick grunted. Miss Moore complimented me on my preaching. My
lucidities, I feared, were missing fire.

A donkey saved the situation, one of the two that were not
harnessed up for the night, there being no trek-gear for them.
With a grassy mouth he was chewing at Miss Moore's pillow-slip.
After many and shrill cries, it was rescued, but not before it
had taken stains of a deep green color. After such a misfortune
had been properly keened for, we sat down by the fire again.

'Go on,' Dick said. 'Let's have your peroration.'

'Well, as to Miss Moore Africa has shaken her up by shifting her,
and by giving her a lesson in local values, just as the donkey
has done about linen or calico, I forget which.'

That started the keening again.

'O,' said the mourner, 'my poor pillow-slip! But I'd give it by
the dozen to get back just to the