d benches, and in a corner the pots and pans I
had left against my next visit. I unlocked the cupboard and got out a
few stores, opened the windows of the bedroom next door, and flung my
kaross on the cartel which did duty as bed. Then I went out to find
Laputa standing patiently in the sunshine.

I showed him the outhouse where I had said he might sleep. It was the
largest room in the store, but wholly unfurnished. A pile of barrels
and packing-cases stood in the corner, and there was enough sacking to
make a sort of bed.

'I am going to make tea,' I said. 'If you have come far you would
maybe like a cup?'

He thanked me, and I made a fire in the grate and put on the kettle to
boil. Then I set on the table biscuits, and sardines, and a pot of
jam. It was my business now to play the fool, and I believe I
succeeded to admiration in the part. I blush to-day to think of the
stuff I talked. First I made him sit on a chair opposite me, a thing
no white man in the country would have done. Then I told him
affectionately that I liked natives, that they were fine fellows and
better men than the dirty whites round about. I explained that I was
fresh from England, and believed in equal rights for all men, white or
coloured. God forgive me, but I think I said I hoped to see the day
when Africa would belong once more to its rightful masters.

He heard me with an impassive face, his grave eyes studying every line
of me. I am bound to add that he made a hearty meal, and drank three
cups of strong tea of my brewing. I gave him a cigar, one of a lot I
had got from a Dutch farmer who was experimenting with their
manufacture--and all the while I babbled of myself and my opinions. He
must have thought me half-witted, and indeed before long I began to be
of the same opinion myself. I told him that I meant to sleep the night
here, and go back in the morning to Blaauwildebeestefontein, and then
to Pietersdorp for stores. By-and-by I could see that he had ceased to
pay any attention to what I said. I was clearly set down in his mind
as a fool. Instead he kept looking at Colin, who was lying blinking in
the doorway, one wary eye cocked on the stranger.

'You have a fine dog,' he observed.

'Yes,' I agreed, with one final effort of mendacity, 'he's fine to look
at, but he has no grit in him. Any mongrel from a kraal can make him
turn tail. Besides, he is a born fool and can't find his way home.
I'm thinking of getting r