raising my hat
as they were borne away, for as I have said somewhere, it is best to
leave natives alone on these occasions. Indeed, I lay down, reflecting
that strangely enough there seemed to be something in old Zikali's tale
of a wonderful white Queen who lived in a mountain fastness, since there
was the mountain as he had drawn it on the ashes, and the servants of
that Queen who, apparently, had knowledge of our coming, appeared in the
nick of time to rescue us from one of the tightest fixes in which ever I
found myself.

Moreover, the antique and courteous individual called Billali, spoke of
her as "She-who-is-everlasting." What the deuce could he mean by that,
I wondered? Probably that she was very old and therefore disagreeable to
look on, which I confessed to myself would be a disappointment.

And how did she know that we were coming? I could not guess and when I
asked Robertson, he merely shrugged his shoulders and intimated that he
took no interest in the matter. The truth is that nothing moved the man,
whose whole soul was wrapped in one desire, namely to rescue, or avenge,
the daughter against whom he knew he had so sorely sinned.

In fact, this loose-living but reformed seaman was becoming a
monomaniac, and what is more, one of the religious type. He had a Bible
with him that had been given to him by his mother when he was a boy, and
in this he read constantly; also he was always on his knees and at night
I could hear him groaning and praying aloud. Doubtless now that the
chains of drink had fallen off him, the instincts and the blood of
the dour old Covenanters from whom he was descended, were asserting
themselves. In a way this was a good thing though for some time past
I had feared lest it should end in his going mad, and certainly as a
companion he was more cheerful in his unregenerate days.

Abandoning speculation as useless and taking my chance of being murdered
where I lay, for after all Billali's followers were singularly like
the men with whom we had been fighting and for aught I knew might be
animated by identical objects--I just went to sleep, as I can do at
any time, to wake up an hour or so later feeling wonderfully refreshed.
Hans, who when I closed my eyes was already asleep slumbering at my feet
curled up like a dog on a spot where the sun struck hotly, roused me by
saying:

"Awake, Baas, they are here!"

I sprang up, snatching at my rifle, for I thought that he meant that
we were bei