hers was pleasant too, full and rather
low, with just a suggestion of something foreign about it). "A
shot through the foot prevents me at present."

"Who shot you?" she asked quickly.

"Oh! only a Kaffir."

"I am so sorry, I hope you will get well soon. Forgive me now, I
must go to look for my father."

"She is uncommonly pretty," remarked Anscombe, "and a lady into
the bargain. In reflecting on old Marnham's sins we must put it
to his credit that he has produced a charming daughter."

"Too pretty and charming by half," I grunted.

"Perhaps Dr. Rodd is of the same way of thinking. Great shame
that such a girl should be handed over to a medical scoundrel
like Dr. Rodd. I wonder if she cares for him?"

"Just about as much as a canary cares for a tom-cat. I have
found that out already."

"Really, Quatermain, you are admirable. I never knew anyone who
could make a better use of the briefest opportunity."

Then we were silent, waiting, not without a certain impatience,
for the return of Miss Heda. She did return with surprising
quickness considering that she had found time to search for her
parent, to change into a clean white dress, and to pin a single
hibiscus flower on to her bodice which gave just the touch of
colour that was necessary to complete her costume.

"I can't find my father," she said, "but the boys say he has gone
out riding. I can't find anybody. When you have been summoned
from a long way off and travelled post-haste, rather to your own
inconvenience, it is amusing, isn't it?"

"Wagons and carts in South Africa don't arrive like express
trains, Miss Marnham," said Anscombe, "so you shouldn't be
offended."

"I am not at all offended, Mr. Anscombe. Now that I know there
is nothing the matter with my father I'm--But, tell me, how did
you get your wound?"

So he told her with much amusing detail after his fashion. She
listened quietly with a puckered up brow and only made one
comment. It was,--

"I wonder what white man told those Sekukuni Kaffirs that you
were coming."

"I don't know," he answered, "but he deserves a bullet through
him somewhere above the ankle."

"Yes, though few people get what they deserve in this wicked
world."

"So I have often thought. Had it been otherwise, for example, I
should have been--"

"What would you have been?" she asked, considering him curiously.

"Oh! a better shot than Mr. Allan Quatermain, and as beautiful as
a lady I once saw in