ball ... till my muscles were as sore as if I had fought through the two
halves of a foot-ball game....

Out of all this play between us there grew a series of Cave Poems.

One of them I set aside to read at the sing, beside the camp-fire.

* * * * *

They had chorused _Up With the Bonnet for Bonny Dundee_ and _You Take
the Highway_....

There ran a ripple of talk while they waited for me.

In the red glow of the camp-fire I towered over the stocky little
husband as he introduced me. Hildreth was sitting there ... I must make
a good impression before my mate. All I saw was she--too patently, I
fear.

I went through poem after poem, entranced with the melody of my verse
... mostly delicate, evanescent stuff ... like this one ...

"THE EMPEROR TO HIS LOVE

"I've a green garden with a grey wall 'round
Where even the wind's foot-fall makes no sound;
There let us go and from ambition flee,
Accepting love's brief immortality.
Let other rulers hugely labour still
Beneath the burden of ambition's ill
Like caryatids heaving up the strain
Of mammoth chambers, till they stoop again ...
Your face has changed my days to splendid dreams
And baubled trumpets, traffics, and triremes;
One swift touch of your passion-parted lips
Is worth five armies and ten seas of ships."

Hildreth's applause was sweet. My heart almost burst with happiness
within me, as those tiny hands, that had run through my hair and been so
wonderful with me ... hands that I had kissed and fondled in
secret--joined in unison with Penton's and Darrie's and Ruth's
hand-claps.

"And now I will finish with the _Song of Kaa, the Cave-Man_," I
announced ... it seemed that the poem was not, after all, in the bunch
of MSS. I had brought along with me....

At last I found it--and read:

"THE SONG OF KAA

"Beat with thy club on a hollow tree
While I chant the song of Kaa for thee:
I lived in a cave, alone, at first,
Till into a neighbouring valley I burst
Wild and bearded and seeking prey,
And I came on Naa, and bore her away ...
Away to my hole in the crest of the hill,
Where I broke her body to my fierce will....

* * * * *

"My fellow cave-men, fell in a rage:
'What hast thou done?' cried Singh, the Sage,
'For I hear far off a battle-song,
And the tree-men come, a hundred strong ...'
Long the battle and dread the fight;
We hur