ing out that
a school was most necessary, and that after all they had grown quite
accustomed to the huts and were fairly comfortable in them.

On this point, however, Dorcas was firm; indeed, it would not be too
much to say that, having already been disappointed once, she struck with
all the vigour of a trade-unionist. She explained that the situation of
the huts on the brink of the river was low and most unhealthy, and that
in them she was becoming a victim to recurrent attacks of fever. He,
Thomas, might be fever-proof, as indeed she thought he was. It was true
also that Tabitha had been extraordinarily well and grown much ever
since she came to Sisa-Land, which puzzled her, inasmuch as the place
was notoriously unhealthy for children, even if they were of native
blood. Indeed, in her agitation she added an unwise remark to the
effect that she could only explain their daughter's peculiar health
by supposing that Menzi had laid a "good charm" upon her, as all the
natives believed, and he announced publicly that he had done.

This made Thomas very angry, admittedly not without cause. Forgetting
his conversation to a belief in the reality of Menzi's magic, he talked
in a loud voice about the disgrace of being infected with vile, heathen
superstitions, such as he had never thought to hear uttered by his
wife's Christian lips. Dorcas, however, stuck to her point, and enforced
it by a domestic example, adding that the creatures which in polite
society are called "bed-pests," that haunted the straw of the huts,
tormented her while Tabitha never had so much as a single bite.

The end of it was that the matter of mission-house _versus_ huts was
referred to the Bishop for his opinion. As the teeth of his Lordship
were chattering with ague resulting, he knew full well, from the fever
he had contracted in the said huts, Dorcas found in him a most valuable
ally. He agreed that a mission-house ought to be built before the school
or anything else, and suggested that it should be placed in a higher
and better situation, above the mists that rose from the river and the
height to which mosquitoes fly.

Bowing to the judgment of his superior, which really he heard with
gratitude, although in his zeal and unselfishness he would have
postponed his own comfort and that of his family till other duties had
been fulfilled, Thomas replied that he knew only one such place which
would be near enough to the Chief's town. It was on the koppie i