At the first turn he was brought to an abrupt halt. From side to side,
between two outjutting corners of rock, the ravine had been barricaded
with a twelve-foot _boma_ of thorn scrub. It was a fence high enough
and strong enough to stop even a hungry lion. In the centre was a low
opening, partly masked by the dry spiky fronds of a small date palm.

"Gad!" murmured the Englishman. "Some of Tom's engineering! And she
said he started without weapons or tools--on this coast! . . . Yet for
him to have won her--No, no, it's impossible! impossible! American or
not, she's a lady--thoroughbred! He's a true stone, but in the rough--
uncut, unpolished! A girl of her breeding--He's worth it, 'pon my
word, he is; though I never would have fancied that she, of all girls
--She's so different. No! it's impossible! it can't be! Must be pure
fancy on her part--gratitude. It can't be anything more!"

A heavy step sounded on the far side of the barrier, and a deep voice
called out to him: "Hello, there! That you, Jimmy? Thought it about
time you were due. What you doing?--telling yourself how to climb
over? Abase yeh noble knee to the dust and crawl through, me lud."

Without pausing to reply, Lord James stooped and crept through the
narrow passage under the thorny wall. As he straightened up on the
inner side, Blake caught and gripped his hand in a big calloused palm.

"Jimmy!" he exclaimed, his pale blue eyes glistening with the soft
light of deep friendship. "Jimmy boy! to think you beat 'em to it! I
figured ten to one odds that it was a tramp chartered by Papa Leslie--
And then to see you pop up in the sternsheets, spic and span as a
laundry ad! When you sang out--Lord!"