spected the agony I
was undergoing. We were riding a little ahead of the patrol, and
therefore were alone together.

"Look here, Glanton," he said. "Abuse us as much as ever you like and
welcome if only it'll relieve your feelings. I don't resent it. You
may be, in a measure, right as to Hensley. We all thought--and you
thought yourself if you remember--that the old chap had got off the
rails somehow, in an ordinarily natural if mysterious way. But now I'm
certain there's some devilish foul play going on, and the thing is to
get to the bottom of it. Now let's keep our heads, above all things,
and get to the bottom of it. This is my idea. While we go on with our
search to-morrow, you go and find Tyingoza and enlist his aid. He's a
very influential chief, and has a good reputation, moreover you're on
first-rate terms with him. I believe he could help us if anybody could.
What do you think?"

"I have thought of that already," I answered gloomily. "But an
_isanusi_ of Ukozi's repute is more powerful than the most powerful
chief--at any rate on this side of the river. Still it's a stone not to
be left unturned. I'll ride up the first thing in the morning. No,
I'll go before. I'll start to-night."

But I was not destined to do so. On returning to the house I found that
both the Major and his wife were in a state of complete prostration.
They seemed to cling to the idea of my presence. It was of no use for
me to point out to them that the police patrol was camped, so to say,
right under their very windows, not to mention Falkner and Kendrew in
the house itself. They would not hear of my leaving that night. Edith,
too, begged me to fall in with their wishes. A refusal might be
dangerous to her father, she put it. Utterly exasperated and amazed at
the selfishness, as I deemed it, of the old people, I seemed to have run
my head against a blank wall.

"Look here, Edith," I said. "They are simply sacrificing Aida by
throwing obstacles in my way like this. What am I to do?"

"This," she answered. "Fall in with their wishes, till they are asleep.
They will sleep, if only through sheer exhaustion, and if they don't
I'll take care that they do, through another agency. Then, carry out
your own plan and God bless you in it."

"God bless you, for the brave resourceful girl you are," I rejoined.
"Manvers and I have been knocking together a scheme, and nothing on
God's earth is going to interfere with it. W