Things were now upon a good
understanding.

"Do they ride bikes much up-country--I think you said you were from
up-country, did you not?" said Nidia, artlessly, with that quick lift of
the eyelids.

"Oh yes, a good deal. But it's more for the hard practical purpose of
getting from one place to another than just riding about for fun. It
strikes one though, if one has any imagination, as a sample of the way
in which this aggressive civilisation of ours wedges itself in
everywhere. You are right away in the veldt, perhaps only just scared
away a clump of sable or roan antelope, or struck the fresh spoor of a
brace of business-like lions, when you look up, and there are two
fellows whirring by on up-to-date bikes. You give each other a passing
shout and they are gone."

"Yes. It is a contrast, if one has an imagination," said Nidia. "But
not everybody has. Don't you think so?"

"Certainly. But when a man lives a good deal alone, and sees
comparatively little of his kind, it is apt to stimulate that faculty."

Nidia looked interested. The firm, quiet face before her, the straight
glance of the grey eyes, represented a character entirely to her liking,
she decided. "Is it long since you came out?" she asked.

"Well, in the sense you mean I can't be said to have come out at all,
for I was born and bred out here--in Natal, at least. But I have been
in England."

"Really? I thought you were perhaps one of the many who had come out
during the last few years."

"Am I not colonial enough?" said John Ames, with a quiet laugh.

"N-no. At least, I don't mean that--in fact, I don't know what I do
mean," broke off Nidia, with a perfectly disarming frankness.

"Do you know Bulawayo at all?"

The diversion came from the third of the trio.

"Oh yes; I have just come from up that way."

"Really. I wonder if you ever met my husband. He is a mining engineer.
Bateman our name is."

John Ames thought.

"The name doesn't seem altogether unknown to me," he said. "The fact is
I am very seldom in Bulawayo. My district lies away out in the wilds,
and very wild indeed it is."

"What sort of a place is Bulawayo?"

"Oh, a creditable township enough, considering that barely three years
ago it was a vast savage kraal, and, barring a few traders, there wasn't
a white man in the country."

"But isn't it full of savages now?" struck in Nidia.

"Yes; there are a good few--not right around Bulawayo, though. Are you