suddenly, and all his pulses beat with swift longing at just that
heaven-sweet impression: "The hazy blue of her mountains, the waft of
the veldt-born scent...."

And she, the syren, lies there in her sunshine and her loveliness;
locked in the arms of the deep, luscious, dreaming nights, whispering
and murmuring softly under embracing, star-lit heavens; making wild
riot when the splendid storms fling after each other across her bosom,
while the thunders roll deafeningly amidst her kopjes, and the
lightning pierces brilliantly the riotous clouds and makes a glory of
the mighty scene. Sulky and colourless when she is waiting impatiently
for the delayed rains; resplendent, and with a colouring that is like
a Te Deum, when the renewing has come, and all her soul sings aloud in
the joy of spring, and all her flowers and trees lend her loveliness
past telling, and her hills a yet deeper blueness under yet intenser,
rain-washed skies. All this--all her moods and whims and
waywardness--going serenely on--splendidly, superbly indifferent to
the men who come to tame her and stay to love in silent enslavement;
as also to the men who come solely for gain and gold, and go away
shrieking their complainings to the four winds. Because, perhaps, the
enchantress has not troubled to show them her allurements, and
ruffled, discontented minds have discovered only the dust and heat and
pests.

But what of it to the syren?... There are others who stay, as many,
perhaps, as she wants, and to whom she puts out a shy hand of
friendship, and presently soothes and consoles as the strong, silent,
storm-tossed man who rode with so soldierly a bearing beside Mr. Pym;
suffering no stab of love and longing any more as he looked over her
fair bosom, because the shy hand was in his, because there was that
subtle sense of understanding in his heart which seemed to tell him
that even as he loved Rhodesia, Rhodesia loved him.

And so they came to the Saucy Susan Gold Mine, at least to the ridge
of the surrounding kopjes, and looked down to where a cluster of huts
like beehives told them humans dwelt down there in the hollow.

"It can't be a mine," said Diana. "It's just a hollow in the hills;
the sort of place giants hide in when they play hide-and-seek."

"But it is," Stanley assured her. "We shall see a little more as we
wind down."

And presently they came within view of a shaft, and two honest-eyed
young Englishmen, both old Charterhouse boys, c