e next day Plesser and two other Germans
came down overland for ammunition. Plesser said they had been attacked
by wild men and had exhausted a great deal of ammunition. He also
asked permission to get some dried meat and maize, saying that they
were so busy with the work of refining that they had no time to hunt.
I let him have everything he asked for, and never once did a suspicion
of their intentions enter my mind. They returned to the oil-well the
same day, while we continued with the multitudinous duties of camp life.

For three days nothing of moment occurred. Bradley did not return; nor
did we have any word from von Schoenvorts. In the evening Lys and I
went up into one of the bastion towers and listened to the grim and
terrible nightlife of the frightful ages of the past. Once a
saber-tooth screamed almost beneath us, and the girl shrank close
against me. As I felt her body against mine, all the pent love of
these three long months shattered the bonds of timidity and conviction,
and I swept her up into my arms and covered her face and lips with
kisses. She did not struggle to free herself; but instead her dear
arms crept up about my neck and drew my own face even closer to hers.

"You love me, Lys?" I cried.

I felt her head nod an affirmative against my breast. "Tell me, Lys,"
I begged, "tell me in words how much you love me."

Low and sweet and tender came the answer: "I love you beyond all
conception."

My heart filled with rapture then, and it fills now as it has each of
the countless times I have recalled those dear words, as it shall fill
always until death has claimed me. I may never see her again; she may
not know how I love her--she may question, she may doubt; but always
true and steady, and warm with the fires of love my heart beats for the
girl who said that night: "I love you beyond all conception."

For a long time we sat there upon the little bench constructed for the
sentry that we had not as yet thought it necessary to post in more than
one of the four towers. We learned to know one another better in those
two brief hours than we had in all the months that had intervened since
we had been thrown together. She told me that she had loved me from
the first, and that she never had loved von Schoenvorts, their
engagement having been arranged by her aunt for social reasons.

That was the happiest evening of my life; nor ever do I expect to
experience its like; but at last, as is th