the perfume of some sickly, exotic shrub.

"Why, you're Devinter!" he exclaimed suddenly,--"Sigismund Devinter! You
were at Eton with me--Horrock's House--semi-final in the racquets."

"And Magdalen afterwards, number five in the boat."

"And why the devil did the doctor here tell me that your name was Von
Ragastein?"

"Because it happens to be the truth," was the somewhat measured reply.
"Devinter is my family name, and the one by which I was known when in
England. When I succeeded to the barony and estates at my uncle's death,
however, I was compelled to also take the title."

"Well, it's a small world!" Dominey exclaimed. "What brought you out
here really--lions or elephants?"

"Neither."

"You mean to say that you've taken up this sort of political business
just for its own sake, not for sport?"

"Entirely so. I do not use a sporting rifle once a month, except for
necessity. I came to Africa for different reasons."

Dominey drank deep of his hock and seltzer and leaned back, watching the
fireflies rise above the tall-bladed grass, above the stumpy clumps of
shrub, and hang like miniature stars in the clear, violet air.