s, the men stolid but scared. Trent and
the boy came out coughing, and half-stupefied with the rank odour, and a
little murmur went up from them. It was a device of the gods--a sort of
madness with which they were afflicted. But soon their murmurs turned
again into lamentation when they saw what was to come. Men were running
backwards and forwards, piling up dried wood and branches against the
idol-house, a single spark and the thing was done. A tongue of flame
leaped up, a thick column of smoke stole straight up in the breathless
air. Amazed, the people stood and saw the home of dreadful mystery,
whence came the sentence of life and death, the voice of the King-maker,
the omens of war and fortune, enveloped in flames, already a ruined and
shapeless mass. Trent stood and watched it, smoking fiercely and felt
himself a civiliser. But the boy seemed to feel some of the pathos
of the moment and he looked curiously at the little crowd of wailing
natives.

"And the people?" he asked.

"They are going to help me make my road," Trent said firmly. "I am going
to teach them to work!"

CHAPTER XXX

MY DEAR AUNT ERNIE,--At last I have a chance of sending you a
letter--and, this time at any rate, you won't have to complain about
my sending you no news. I'll promise you that, before I begin, and you
needn't get scared either, because it's all good. I've been awfully
lucky, and all because that fellow Cathcart turned out such a funk and
a bounder. It's the oddest thing in the world too, that old Cis should
have written me to pick up all the news I could about Scarlett Trent and
send it to you. Why, he's within a few feet of me at this moment, and
I've been seeing him continually ever since I came here. But there, I'll
try and begin at the beginning.

"You know Cathcart got the post of Consulting Surveyor and Engineer to
the Bekwando Syndicate, and he was head man at our London place. Well,
they sent me from Capetown to be junior to him, and a jolly good move
for me too. I never did see anything in Cathcart! He's a lazy sort of
chap, hates work, and I guess he only got the job because his uncle had
got a lot of shares in the business. It seems he never wanted to come,
hates any place except London, which accounts for a good deal.

"All the time when we were waiting, he wasn't a bit keen and kept on
rotting about the good times he might have been having in London, and
what a fearful country we were stranded in, till he alm