"The cook is preparing you some luncheon," the doctor announced, "and
it will do you good to eat. I cannot give you whisky at this moment, but
you can have some hock and seltzer with bay leaves."

"Send it along," was the enthusiastic reply. "What a constitution I must
have, doctor! The smell of that cooking outside is making me ravenous."

"Your constitution is still sound if you would only respect it," was the
comforting assurance.

"Anything been heard of the rest of my party?" Dominey enquired.

"Some bodies of Askaris have been washed up from the river," the doctor
informed him, "and two of your ponies have been eaten by lions. You
will excuse. I have the wounds of a native to dress, who was bitten last
night by a jaguar."

The traveller, left alone, lay still in the hut, and his thoughts
wandered backwards. He looked out over the bare, scrubby stretch of
land which had been cleared for this encampment to the mass of bush and
flowering shrubs beyond, mysterious and impenetrable save for that rough
elephant track along which he had travelled; to the broad-bosomed river,
blue as the sky above, and to the mountains fading into mist beyond.
The face of his host had carried him back into the past. Puzzled
reminiscence tugged at the strings of memory. It came to him later on
at dinner time, when they three, the Commandant, the doctor and himself,
sat at a little table arranged just outside the hut, that they might
catch the faint breeze from the mountains, herald of the swift-falling
darkness. Native servants beat the air around them with bamboo fans to
keep off the insects, and the air was faint almost to noxiousness with