nature and had caused a mirage that may not fade wholly away, perhaps
for several years.

I tried to establish by questions the truth or reverse of this story,
but the two men's tempers had been so spoiled by Africa that they were
not up to cross-examination. They would not even say if their
camp-fires were still burning. They say that they saw the London
lights all round them from eleven o'clock till midnight, they could
hear London voices and the sound of the traffic clearly, and over
all, a little misty perhaps, but unmistakably London, arose the great
metropolis.

After midnight London quivered a little and grew more indistinct, the
sound of the traffic began to dwindle away, voices seemed farther off,
ceased altogether, and all was quiet once more where the mirage
shimmered and faded, and a bull rhinoceros coming down through the
stillness snorted, and watered at the Carlton Club.




HOW THE OFFICE OF POSTMAN FELL VACANT IN OTFORD-UNDER-THE-WOLD

The duties of postman at Otford-under-the-Wold carried Amuel Sleggins
farther afield than the village, farther afield than the last house in
the lane, right up to the big bare wold and the house where no one
went, no one that is but the three grim men that dwelt there and the
secretive wife of one, and, once a year when the queer green letter
came, Amuel Sleggins the postman.