lishman, suddenly.

The Colonial started: "Of course I do!"

"I used to," said the Englishman; "I do not believe in your God; but I
believed in something greater than I could understand, which moved in
this earth, as your soul moves in your body. And I thought this worked
in such wise, that the law of cause and effect, which holds in the
physical world, held also in the moral: so, that the thing we call
justice, ruled. I do not believe it any more. There is no God in
Mashonaland."

"Oh, don't say that!" cried the Colonial, much distressed. "Are you
going off your head, like poor Halket?"

"No; but there is no God," said the Englishman. He turned round on his
shoulder, and said no more: and afterwards the Colonial went to sleep.

Before dawn the next morning the men had packed up the goods, and
started.

By five o'clock the carts had filed away; the men rode or walked before
and behind them; and the space where the camp had been was an empty
circle; save for a few broken bottles and empty tins, and the stones
about which the fires had been made, round which warm ashes yet lay.

Only under the little stunted tree, the Colonial and the Englishman were
piling up stones. Their horses stood saddled close by.

Presently the large trooper came riding back. He had been sent by the
Captain to ask what they were fooling behind for, and to tell them to
come on.

The men mounted their horses to follow him; but the Englishman turned
in his saddle and looked back. The morning sun was lighting up the
straggling branches of the tall trees that had overshadowed the
camp; and fell on the little stunted tree, with its white stem and
outstretched arms; and on the stones beneath it.

"It's all that night on the kopje!" said the Colonial, sadly.

But the Englishman looked back. "I hardly know," he said, "whether it is
not better for him now, than for us."

Then they rode on after the troop.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland, by
Olive Schreiner

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TROOPER PETER HALKET ***

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