on the other side of the river, from behind which you say the sun comes
up every morning like a world on fire."

"You talk foolishly," Von Ragastein protested. "If there has been
tragedy in your life, you have time to get over it. You are not yet
forty years old."

"Then I turn and consider you," Dominey continued, ignoring altogether
his friend's remark. "You are only my age, and you look ten years
younger. Your muscles are hard, your eyes are as bright as they were in
your school days. You carry yourself like a man with a purpose. You rise
at five every morning, the doctor tells me, and you return here, worn
out, at dusk. You spend every moment of your time drilling those filthy
blacks. When you are not doing that, you are prospecting, supervising
reports home, trying to make the best of your few millions of acres of
fever swamps. The doctor worships you but who else knows? What do you do
it for, my friend?"

"Because it is my duty," was the calm reply.

"Duty! But why can't you do your duty in your own country, and live a
man's life, and hold the hands of white men, and look into the eyes of
white women?"

"I go where I am needed most," Von Ragastein answered. "I do not enjoy
drilling natives, I do not enjoy passing the years as an outcast from
the ordinary joys of human life. But I follow my star."

"And I my will-o'-the-wisp," Dominey laughed mockingly. "The whole
thing's as plain as a pikestaff. You may be a dull dog--you always were