re, Fred chattering
volubly. But he could not sit still for long, any more than he had been
able to before, and presently he was off again.

"You are wondering why I let that snake go," said Blachland presently.
"Did you think I was afraid of it?"

"Well, no, I could hardly think that," answered Lyn, looking up quickly.

"Yet I believe you thought something akin to it," he rejoined, with a
curious smile. "Listen now, and I'll tell you if you care to hear--only
don't let the story go any further. By the way, you are only the second
I have ever told it to."

"I feel duly flattered. Go on. I am longing to hear it. I'm sure it's
exciting."

"It was for me at the time--very." And then he told her of the
exploration of the King's grave, and the long hours of that awful day,
between two terrible forms of imminent death, told it so graphically as
to hold her spellbound.

"There, that sounds like a tolerably tall up-country yarn," he
concluded, "but it's hard solid fact for all that."

"What a horrible experience," said Lyn, with something of a shudder.
"And now you won't kill any snake?"

"No. That _mamba_ held me at its mercy the whole of that day--and I
have spared every snake I fell in with ever since. A curious sort of
gratitude, you will say, but--there it is."

"I don't wonder the natives had that superstition about the King's
spirit passing into that snake."

"No, more do I. The belief almost forced itself upon me, as I sat there
those awful hours. But, as old Pemberton said, there was no luck about
meddling with such places."

"No, indeed. What strange things you must have seen in all your
wanderings. It must be something to look back upon. But I suppose it
will go on all your life. You will return to those parts again,
until--"

"Until I am past returning anywhere," he replied. "Perhaps so, and
perhaps it is better that way after all. And now I think it is time to
round up Fred, and take the homeward track."

"Yes, I believe it is," was all she said. A strange unwonted silence
was upon her during their homeward ride. She was thinking a great deal
of the man beside her. He interested her as nobody ever had. She had
stood in awe of him at first, but now she hoped it would be a long time
before he should find it necessary to leave them. What an ideal
companion he was, too. She felt her mind the richer for all the ideas
she had exchanged with him--silly, crude ideas, he must have tho