d, and forthwith began to make
himself at home in his free and easy fashion. He was not in the least
afflicted with shyness, and had no objection whatever to being drawn on
the subject of his experiences. He had plenty of stories to tell, and
told them well too, only perhaps it was rather mean of me to think that
he need not so uniformly have made himself the hero of each and all of
them. I don't know that I can plead in extenuation that when we sat
down to table the fellow by some means or other contrived to manoeuvre
himself into the chair next to Miss Sewin, a seat I had especially
marked out for myself, and in fact usually filled. Added to which, once
there, he must needs fill up the intervals between blowing his own
trumpet by talking to her in a confoundedly confidential, appropriating
sort of style; which I entirely though secretly resented. And I was on
the eve of an absence! Decidedly events tended to sour me that
evening--and it was the last.

"What's the matter? Did the old witch doctor tell you something
momentous that you forgot to pass on to me? You are very silent
to-night."

It was her voice. We had risen from table and I had gone out on to the
stoep, "to see if the storm was passing off," as I put it carelessly.
There was a chorus of voices and laughter within, Kendrew having turned
the tables on Falkner in the course of some idiotic chaff.

"Am I?" I answered. "I get that way sometimes. Result of living
alone, I suppose. No, Ukozi did not tell me anything stupendous.
Amusing chap, Kendrew, isn't he?" as another chorus of laughter went up
from within.

"He seems a nice sort of boy. And now--you start on Wednesday? Shall
we see you again between this and then?"

"I'm afraid not, Miss Sewin. Tyingoza's nephew has disappointed me over
the span of oxen he was going to hire me, and I shall have to spend
to-morrow and the day after riding Heaven knows where in search of
another span. Oxen--at any rate reliable ones--are precious scarce just
now everywhere."

"I'm sorry. I--we--shall miss you so much, Mr Glanton--and you have
been so kind to us--"

"That all?" I thought to myself bitterly. "Sort of `make myself
generally useful' blank that will create." Her next words made me feel
ashamed of myself.

"But you will come and see us directly you return, won't you? I shall
look forward to it, mind--and--I hate being disappointed."

Good Heavens! The voice, the gleam of white teet