the floor,
drowsed and blinked through the proceedings; while now and again two or
three natives would enter noiselessly, listen for a few minutes and then
as noiselessly depart.

The morning was drawing to an end, for which Elvesdon was not sorry. It
was very hot, and the Court room was becoming unpleasantly redolent of
native humanity. He was about to adjourn, when he became aware of the
entrance of somebody. Looking up he beheld Thornhill.

The latter stood leaning against the wall just inside the door.
Elvesdon, while putting three or four final questions to a voluble and
perspiring witness, found himself wondering whether Thornhill was alone,
or whether his daughter, preferring the shade and open air to the heat
and stuffiness of the Court room, was waiting for him outside. So he
sent down the witness and adjourned the Court straight away.

Thornhill crossed the room to shake hands with the clerk, whom he knew,
and who was gathering up his papers, then he adjourned to the
magistrate's office.

Thither Elvesdon had gone straight on leaving the bench. If he had one
little weakness it was--well, a very adequate sense of his official
position, but only when not off duty--and this weakness suggested to him
that it might impress the other more if he received him there, instead
of going forward to greet him in the emptying Court room. As a matter
of fact Elvesdon did show to advantage to the accompaniment of a tinge
of officialdom, but, we are careful to emphasise, only at the proper
time and place.

"Come in," he called out in response to a knock. "Ah, Mr Thornhill,
I'm so glad to see you," and there was no official stiffness now about
his tone or his handshake. "Anything I can do for you? But unless it's
of first-rate importance it'll keep till after lunch, which you are
going to take with me. So let's go and get it."

They went out into the fierce noontide glare, but even it was an
improvement after the stuffiness within. Elvesdon called to a native
constable to take Thornhill's horse, and wondered if he felt a twinge of
disappointment as he saw there was only one horse to be taken care of.
Groups of natives squatting about in the shade, fighting all the points
of evidence over again, saluted as they passed.

The clerk joined them at table. He was a thick-set stolid youth, with a
shock of light hair, and a countenance wooden and mask-like; without
much conversational ability, but a first-rate man a