?"

'His answer, coming from such a quarter, surprised me, and proved him a
regular controversialist. "It does nobody harm," he argued, "and we are
much more comfortable than we should otherwise be. There was nothing
hasty in what we did; every step was taken deliberately. Knowing we could
not re-enter the world, and there being no settlers, then, in these
parts, we considered: Could we not found a small nation ourselves? The
greatest nation of ancient times, cast in very similar circumstances, did
not feel it wrong to carry off, by force, the females of another people.
Thus, they acquired women to look after their homes, while otherwise they
would have been living in a pitiable state, with no ties. What that
nation did, we have done." Such was the word of the island chief, and no
appeal, in justification, to history, could ever have been made in
stranger circumstances.

'Was it not,' Sir George felt, 'extraordinary to hear the case of the
Romans and the Sabine women, pleaded in defence of a tiny outlawed
community, situate on the wild Australian coast, where another empire,
more magnificent even than that of Rome, was just planting itself? The
thing almost swept one's mind from the question itself--a difficult one
to answer as submitted.' Then, in this odd affair, the untutored far
south was springing to the support of Sir George's views as to cause and
effect. Imitators of ancient Rome, on an island of Spencer's Gulf,
Australia, many centuries later! The theory of the universe, expressed as
'cause and effect,' had been borne in upon Sir George from the moment he
turned thinker. It was a favourite text between him and Babbage, into
whose ear he poured his reasonings.

'Subjects occurred to me,' he said, 'which I believed had not been given
sufficient prominence, and this was one of them. I fancy Babbage wrote
about it.'

Every motion, every word spoken, they agreed, abode an eternal influence
in the world. Nothing, either in action or in reasoning, was lost; the
unborn ages made response. If we could go back far enough we should be
able to trace, by the influence it had wrought, that red streak, the
murder of Abel. Had we a divine intellect, we could see the whole
universe, a complete machine, at work. Sir George would marvel at the
splendour of that creation, asking himself, 'Might it, if fully revealed,
not be all too dazzling for human eyes?'

The Aborigine--Australian, Maori, and Kaffir--was to him a guarantee