and presently the other man rose and went, either to look at his own pot or
sleep under the carts; and the large Colonial man was left alone. His fire
was burning satisfactorily about fifty feet off, and he folded his arms on
the ground and rested his forehead on them, and watched lazily the little
black ants that ran about in the red sand, just under his nose.

A great stillness settled down on the camp. Now and again a stick cracked
in the fires, and the cicadas cried aloud in the tree stems; but except
where the solitary paced up and down before the little flat-topped tree in
front of the captain's tent, not a creature stirred in the whole camp; and
the snores of the trooper under the bushes might be heard half across the
camp.

The intense midday heat had settled down.

At last there was the sound of someone breaking through the long grass and
bushes which had only been removed for a few feet round the camp, and the
figure of a man emerged bearing in one hand a gun, and in the other a bird
which he had shot. He was evidently an Englishman, and not long from
Europe, by the bloom of the skin, which was perceptible in spite of the
superficial tan. His face was at the moment flushed with heat; but the
clear blue eyes and delicate features lost none of their sensitive
refinement.

He came up to the Colonial, and dropped the bird before him. "That is all
I've got," he said.

He threw himself also down on the ground, and put his gun under the loose
flap of the tent.