An hour passed, and the voices of the two men had ceased. The howling
of the animals had lessened with the paling of the fires, and a slow,
melancholy ripple of breeze was passing through the bush and lapping the
surface of the river. It was Von Ragastein who broke through what might
almost have seemed a trance. He rose to his feet, vanished inside the
banda, and reappeared a moment or two later with two tumblers. One he
set down in the space provided for it in the arm of his guest's chair.

"To-night I break what has become a rule with me," he announced. "I
shall drink a whisky and soda. I shall drink to the new things that may
yet come to both of us."

"You are giving up your work here?" Dominey asked curiously.

"I am part of a great machine," was the somewhat evasive reply. "I have
nothing to do but obey."

A flicker of passion distorted Dominey's face, flamed for a moment in
his tone.

"Are you content to live and die like this?" he demanded. "Don't you
want to get back to where a different sort of sun will warm your heart
and fill your pulses? This primitive world is in its way colossal,
but it isn't human, it isn't a life for humans. We want streets, Von
Ragastein, you and I. We want the tide of people flowing around us, the
roar of wheels and the hum of human voices. Curse these animals! If I
live in this country much longer, I shall go on all fours."

"You yield too much to environment," his companion observed. "In the