a spirit of adventure, or by persecution
elsewhere, or by the lust of gold, yet faithful always to the worship
of their race, and building at infinite, incomprehensible pains those
temples in the alien land. How they held him; how they fascinated; how
they soothed with infinite soothing the bitter sorrow, the gaping,
stinging wound that had driven him furiously away, all those years
before, from the flesh-pots of a modern Babylon! Had he cared for it
all very much then?... He wondered, looking full and deep into his
hidden memories. Had the lights and the music, the song and dance, the
laughing women and reckless men, the midnight orgies and morning
headaches, really given him so much pleasure that he must needs fling
it all aside with such bitter anger and harsh regret when the
thunderbolt fell and the searching dart stabbed him awake? Outraged,
hurt-maddened, he had flung away, as he believed, to outer darkness,
and to a joyless, purposeless, colourless life. And he had found?...

Ah!... when he looked at the ancient, mysterious ruins he had grown to
love, and around upon a country that was life-hope and life-interest
to him, he knew that it was the other life which had been purposeless,
and all of one colour, and the self-chosen exile that had given him
the things it is good to live and breathe and die for.

And thinking of it all, with that shy softness which sometimes stole,
as it were, stealthily into his strong face in moments of dreaming
thought, he remembered with growing regret the advent of the party for
which he was bidden to make preparations, and resented it yet more
forcibly. Why need they come?... these women ... these spoiled,
flattered, perhaps vulgar, heiresses. What did they want with ancient
rites and wonderful relics of antiquities? What were they doing in
Rhodesia at all, flaunting their finery and their possessions before
the eyes of the hardy settlers and the plucky women who shared their
difficulties and disappointments? In a young, struggling country what
place was there for the idly, gracefully rich?

In his goaded fancy he saw their elegant, costly garments, and he
heard strident voices exclaiming shrilly at his treasure, perhaps
calling it an interesting heap of stones. Was there still time to get
away, he wondered? Could a sudden call be arranged?... a sudden need
for hasty departure?...

Let The Kid laugh the hours away with them, and take his fill of gay
companionship; and let him r