no idea you were going in
their direction."

"I meant to if possible," her father said; and so the trip was decided
upon.

Three days later the cavalcade started off from Gwelo with great
_eclat_. Two ambulances: one containing the two girls, a driver, a
fore-looper, and a small black boy named Gelungwa, who was everything
from ladies' maid to general adviser; and the other containing Mr.
Pym, his engineer, driver, fore-looper, and the engineer's black
cook-boy, who proved himself an invaluable asset.

Each ambulance was drawn by eight mules, and carried its share of the
paraphernalia necessary to a long sojourn in the wilderness, and being
thoroughly well equipped, they had decided to dispense with any
further railway service until they reached Salisbury.

They started from Gwelo, with its wide, tree-lined roads, in the
freshness of the morning, and leaving the surrounding bare,
uninteresting common quickly behind, dived straightway into a track of
Rhodesia that is like a vast, undulating park. The red road wound
across a wide, breezy stretch of veldt to wooded hills and valleys,
and beyond this was an enchanting vista of dreaming blue kopjes on a
far horizon. Even Diana found nothing to grumble at. Like Meryl, her
eyes rested often on that dreaming distance, and the unique charm of a
journey into the unknown, independent of railways and hotels, held her
senses. When two graceful buck sprang up in the grass near them, stood
a moment to investigate, and then fled away, leaping and bounding to
safety, she drew a deep breath of delight.

"Di, it's going to be a glorious trip!" Meryl exclaimed in low-voiced
ecstasy.

Diana paused before she remarked in answer:

"It seems so natural somehow, to be journeying out to an unknown
bourne in this primitive fashion. I wonder if, in another existence, I
was one of the wives or handmaidens in Abraham's caravanserai? Perhaps
I was his favourite concubine!... How interesting!... I'm sure I've
journeyed like this into a far land before."

And again:

"How jolly to have two drivers who don't understand a word we say,
instead of a chauffeur who is all ears and an Aunt Emily who is all
prejudices!"

"Still," said Meryl, "you couldn't very well have a coachman in
England wearing a sky-blue felt hat that was obviously meant for a
lady, and with a large blue patch upon brown trousers."

"He's just a dear," was Diana's laughing comment. "I love his awful
solemnity. He's like