ction, to an extent that rather prejudiced me
against her if anything, as likely to prove a spoilt handful. However,
it got him out of the gratitude groove, which was all I wanted just
then.

That couple of days' journey was quite one of the most delightful
experiences of my life. Our way lay over beautiful rolling country
dotted with flowering mimosa, and here and there intersected with a dark
forest-filled kloof; and bright-winged birds flashed sheeny from our
path, and on every hand the hum of busy insects made music on the warm
air. Yes, it was warm; in the middle of the day very much so. But the
evening was simply divine, in its hushed dewiness rich with the
unfolding fragrance of innumerable subtle herbs, for we took advantage
of a glorious moon to travel in the coolness. Now and again we would
pass a large Kafir kraal, whose clustering beehive-shaped huts stood
white in the moonlight, and thence an uproar of stamping and shouting,
accompanying the rhythm of a savage song, showed that its wild denizens
were holding high festivity at any rate; and the sound of the barbarous
revel rising loud and clear upon the still night air, came to me with an
effect that was wholly weird and imposing.

"Seems as if I had suddenly leaped outside civilisation altogether," I
remarked as we passed one of these kraals, whose inhabitants paused in
their revelry to send after us a long loud halloo, partly good-humoured,
partly insolent. And I gave my companion the benefit of my preconceived
notions of the Kafir, whereat he laughed greatly.

"It's funny how these notions get about, Holt," he said. "Now you have
seen a glimpse of your meek, down-trodden black--only he's generally
red--since you landed, and you can the more easily realise it when I
tell you he'd cut all our throats with the greatest pleasure in life if
he dared. There are enough of them to do it any night in the year; but,
providentially, there's never any cohesion among savages, and these
chaps won't trust each other, which is our salvation, for they simply
swarm as to numbers. What do you say? Shall we outspan and make a
night of it on the veldt? There's an accommodation house a mile or so
further on, but it's a beastly hole, and the people none too civil."

Of course I voted for camping, and as Brian's forethought had provided a
supply of cold meat and bread and cheese, as well as a bottle of grog,
we fared (relatively) sumptuously, and thereafter the las