e presence of a
fascinating reality?

Meriem had never accompanied the men upon a hunt since the arrival of
the guests. She never had cared particularly for the sport of killing.
The tracking she enjoyed; but the mere killing for the sake of killing
she could not find pleasure in--little savage that she had been, and
still, to some measure, was. When Bwana had gone forth to shoot for
meat she had always been his enthusiastic companion; but with the
coming of the London guests the hunting had deteriorated into mere
killing. Slaughter the host would not permit; yet the purpose of the
hunts were for heads and skins and not for food. So Meriem remained
behind and spent her days either with My Dear upon the shaded verandah,
or riding her favorite pony across the plains or to the forest edge.
Here she would leave him untethered while she took to the trees for the
moment's unalloyed pleasures of a return to the wild, free existence of
her earlier childhood.

Then would come again visions of Korak, and, tired at last of leaping
and swinging through the trees, she would stretch herself comfortably
upon a branch and dream. And presently, as today, she found the
features of Korak slowly dissolve and merge into those of another, and
the figure of a tanned, half-naked tarmangani become a khaki clothed
Englishman astride a hunting pony.

And while she dreamed there came to her ears from a distance, faintly,
the terrified bleating of a kid. Meriem was instantly alert. You or
I, even had we been able to hear the pitiful wail at so great distance,
could not have interpreted it; but to Meriem it meant a species of
terror that afflicts the ruminant when a carnivore is near and escape
impossible.

It had been both a pleasure and a sport of Korak's to rob Numa of his
prey whenever possible, and Meriem too had often enjoyed in the thrill
of snatching some dainty morsel almost from the very jaws of the king
of beasts. Now, at the sound of the kid's bleat, all the well
remembered thrills recurred. Instantly she was all excitement to play
again the game of hide and seek with death.

Quickly she loosened her riding skirt and tossed it aside--it was a
heavy handicap to successful travel in the trees. Her boots and
stockings followed the skirt, for the bare sole of the human foot does
not slip upon dry or even wet bark as does the hard leather of a boot.
She would have liked to discard her riding breeches also, but the
motherly ad