and edged
the lonely, unmarked grave with a species of curly-leaved box common to
that part of the country and which grew rapidly. It was Roddy's fancy,
too, to cover this grave with portulaca--a little plant bearing starry
flowers of vivid hues that live for a day only. He chose plants that
bore only scarlet and golden blossoms.

"She liked those two colours," he told Christine, smiling. "She said
that when we were babies we were all like that--very red, with yellowy
golden hair."

Christine, looking at the bright head and the fresh cheeks so rare in a
South African child, readily understood. But she could not help
wondering, as before, at the loyal little heart that remembered so well
the words and fancies of a dead woman--when all others forgot!

Nearly always on returning from these morning excursions they met
Saltire, rapidly wreaking destruction upon the district. Already,
scores of the prickly-pears through which they must wend their way were
assuming the staggering attitude characteristic of them as the sap
dried and they died of their wounds. Sometimes, one side of a bush
would shrivel first, causing it to double up like a creature agonizing.
Some crouched like strange beasts watching to spring. Others thrust
themselves ominously forward with projected arms, as if ready to
grapple. Some brandished their flat leaves as the painter Wiertz, in
his famous picture of _Napoleon in Hell_, made wives and mothers
brandish their menacing fists at the man who had robbed them of their
loved ones. All wore a look that suggested both agony and revenge.
Christine understood, at last, why the Kafirs hated to go about the
land after dark, averring that the afflicted bushes threatened and
chased them. She began herself to experience an inexplicable feeling
of relief, as though at the overcoming of an enemy, when a great spire
of smoke betokened the final uprooting and burning of a clump of bush.
For fire was the ultimate element used to transform the pest from a
malignant into a beneficent factor, and, as aromatic ash, it became of
service to the land it had ruined so long. Almost, the process seemed
an exposition of Job's words: "When thou hast tried me with fire, I
shall come forth as gold."

It was a curious thing how the "personality" of the bushes appeared to
affect them all. Saltire at his work gave the impression of a fighter
concentrating on the defeat of an enemy. Roddy would dance for joy
before each