time in it, and my escape had
taken many hours, whereas at the most they had occupied two. It was
little more than dawn, such a dawn as walks only on the hilltops.
Before me was the shallow vale with its bracken and sweet grass, and
farther on the shining links of the stream, and the loch still grey in
the shadow of the beleaguering hills. Here was a fresh, clean land, a
land for homesteads and orchards and children. All of a sudden I
realized that at last I had come out of savagery. The burden of the
past days slipped from my shoulders. I felt young again, and cheerful
and brave. Behind me was the black night, and the horrid secrets of
darkness. Before me was my own country, for that loch and that bracken
might have been on a Scotch moor. The fresh scent of the air and the
whole morning mystery put song into my blood. I remembered that I was
not yet twenty. My first care was to kneel there among the bracken and
give thanks to my Maker, who in very truth had shown me 'His goodness
in the land of the living.'

After a little I went back to the edge of the cliff. There where the
road came out of the bush was the body of Henriques, lying sprawled on
the sand, with two dismounted riders looking hard at it. I gave a
great shout, for in the men I recognized Aitken and the schoolmaster
Wardlaw.

CHAPTER XXII

A GREAT PERIL AND A GREAT SALVATION

I must now take up some of the ragged ends which I have left behind me.
It is not my task, as I have said, to write the history of the great
Rising. That has been done by abler men, who were at the centre of the
business, and had some knowledge of strategy and tactics; whereas I was
only a raw lad who was privileged by fate to see the start. If I
could, I would fain make an epic of it, and show how the Plains found
at all points the Plateau guarded, how wits overcame numbers, and at
every pass which the natives tried the great guns spoke and the tide
rolled back. Yet I fear it would be an epic without a hero. There was
no leader left when Laputa had gone. There were months of guerrilla
fighting, and then months of reprisals, when chief after chief was
hunted down and brought to trial. Then the amnesty came and a clean
sheet, and white Africa drew breath again with certain grave
reflections left in her head. On the whole I am not sorry that the
history is no business of mine. Romance died with 'the heir of John,'
and the crusade became a sorry mutiny. I can fan