h imperceptible motion through the smooth waters of Table Bay.

It is a perfect morning, cloudless in its dazzling splendour. In front,
the huge Table Mountain rears its massive wall, dwarfing the mud-town
lying at its base and the bristling masts of shipping, its great line
mirrored in the sheeny surface. Away in the distance, the purple cones
of the Hottentots Holland mountains loom thirstily through a glimmer of
summer haze. A fair scene indeed after three weeks of endless sea and
sky.

"And what are your first impressions of my native land?"

Laurence turned.

"I was thinking less of the said land than of myself," he answered. "I
was thinking what potentialities would lie between my first impressions
of it and my last."

Just a suspicion of gravity came over Lilith Ormskirk's face at the
remark.

"And are you glad the voyage is at an end, now that it is?" she went on.

"You know I am not. It was such a rest."

"Which I was everlastingly disturbing."

"By wreathing those unholy spells. Lilith, thou sorceress, how long will
it be before those talks of ours are forgotten? A week, perhaps?"

"They will never be forgotten," she answered, her eyes dreamy and
serious. "But now, I must go below and finish doing up my things. We
shall be in dock directly."

A great crowd is collected on the quay as the steamer warps up, above
which rise sunshades coloured and coquettish, pith helmets and sweeping
puggarees, and more orthodox white "stove-pipes." Then in the
background, yellow-skinned Malays in gaudy Oriental attire,
parchment-faced Hottentots, Mozambique blacks, and lighter-hued Kaffirs
from the Eastern frontier. The docks are piled with luggage, for the
privilege of carrying which and its multifold owners Malay cab-drivers
are uttering shrill and competing yells. On board, people are bidding
each other good-bye or greeting those who have come to meet them; and
flitting among such groups, a mingled expression of alertness and
anxiety on his countenance, is here and there a steward, bent upon
sounding up a possibly elusive "tip," or refreshing an inconveniently
short memory.

Near the gangway Lilith Ormskirk was holding quite a farewell court. Her
"poodles," as Laurence had satirically defined them, were crowding
around--Swaynston at their head--for a farewell pat. The last, in the
shape of Holmes and another, had taken their sorrowful departure, and
now a quick, furtive look seemed to cross the smiling serenit