d to call himself one of the world's failures. Would that
there were more such failures. Every morning when his work was done he
would take his prayer-book and, sitting on the little stoep or verandah
of our station, would read the evening psalms to himself. Sometimes
there was not light enough for this, but it made no difference, he knew
them all by heart. When he had finished he would look out across the
cultivated lands where the mission Kaffirs had their huts.

But I knew it was not these he saw, but rather the grey English church,
and the graves ranged side by side before the yew near the wicket gate.

It was there on the stoep that he died. He had not been well, and one
evening I was talking to him, and his mind went back to Oxfordshire and
my mother. He spoke of her a good deal, saying that she had never been
out of his mind for a single day during all these years, and that he
rejoiced to think he was drawing near that land wither she had gone.
Then he asked me if I remembered the night when Squire Carson came into
the study at the vicarage, and told him that his wife had run away, and
that he was going to change his name and bury himself in some remote
land.

I answered that I remembered it perfectly.

"I wonder where he went to," said my father, "and if he and his daughter
Stella are still alive. Well, well! I shall never meet them again. But
life is a strange thing, Allan, and you may. If you ever do, give them
my kind love."

After that I left him. We had been suffering more than usual from the
depredations of the Kaffir thieves, who stole our sheep at night, and,
as I had done before, and not without success, I determined to watch the
kraal and see if I could catch them. Indeed, it was from this habit of
mine of watching at night that I first got my native name of Macumazahn,
which may be roughly translated as "he who sleeps with one eye open." So
I took my rifle and rose to go. But he called me to him and kissed me on
the forehead, saying, "God bless you, Allan! I hope that you will think
of your old father sometimes, and that you will lead a good and happy
life."

I remember that I did not much like his tone at the time, but set it
down to an attack of low spirits, to which he grew very subject as the
years went on. I went down to the kraal and watched till within an hour
of sunrise; then, as no thieves appeared, returned to the station. As I
came near I was astonished to see a figure sitting in my f