as spreading a murky
cloth on a murkier table. The inhabitants of the room were mostly
flies, and, incidentally, Lucy and Clare. But they were used to these
little defects of detail, by that time.

"Can't give you anything but tinned stuff, ladies," said Langrishe,
gruffly apologetic. "Everything fresh has died of the drought or the
rinderpest."

That too, did not afflict them, and they discussed Paysandu tongue in
that rough-and-ready veldt shanty with an appetite not always present at
the most dainty and glittering of snowy tables. Then after a brief rest
the mules were inspanned again. "Going to outspan at Skrine's?" said
Langrishe, as, having settled up, they bade him good-bye.

"Don't know," answered Wyndham; "I'd like to get on to the Kezane."

"You can't. It's too far and too hot. You'll bust them mules."

"Oh well, I'll see how they get on. So long, Langrishe, we'll look in
on the way back."

Poor Langrishe! he was a rough pioneer in a rough country, but a good
fellow enough according to his lights. Little they thought, that gay
and light-hearted party, as they bade him good-bye--little he thought
himself--that not merely his days, but his hours were numbered--and that
not even two figures would be needed to write the number of them; for
one of the awful features of that ghastly rising was that it whirled
down upon its victims as a veritable bolt from the blue. And its
victims were scattered, singly or by twos and threes, throughout the
length and breadth of the land.

Craftily Wyndham had manoeuvred that Clare should share the front seat
with him. She could see the country better, he declared, and if there
was more sun there was more air than in the back seat. Clare herself
was nothing loth, and moreover the move met with Fullerton's approval.
That sybaritic engineer, feeling genial after a plain but plentiful
lunch and two or three long whiskies-and-sodas, felt likewise a little
drowsy; and the back seat was more comfortable for the purpose of forty
winks. Wyndham was actuated by another motive. He was proud of his
driving and he wanted the girl to witness and appreciate it. And she
did, and said so, thereby raising Wyndham to the seventh heaven of
delighted complacency.

More than once he stole a glance of admiration at the beautiful,
animated face beside him. The heat, and a modicum of dust, seemed to
affect her not one whit. Poor Lucy Fullerton in the back seat, not less
drowsy th