more convincing manner than to find employment for me--I shall die
of inactivity in a short while. As for my birthright--it is in
good hands. Clayton is not guilty of robbing me of it. He truly
believes that he is the real Lord Greystoke, and the chances are
that he will make a better English lord than a man who was born and
raised in an African jungle. You know that I am but half civilized
even now. Let me see red in anger but for a moment, and all the
instincts of the savage beast that I really am, submerge what little
I possess of the milder ways of culture and refinement.

"And then again, had I declared myself I should have robbed the
woman I love of the wealth and position that her marriage to Clayton
will now insure to her. I could not have done that--could I, Paul?

"Nor is the matter of birth of great importance to me," he went
on, without waiting for a reply. "Raised as I have been, I see
no worth in man or beast that is not theirs by virtue of their own
mental or physical prowess. And so I am as happy to think of Kala
as my mother as I would be to try to picture the poor, unhappy
little English girl who passed away a year after she bore me. Kala
was always kind to me in her fierce and savage way. I must have
nursed at her hairy breast from the time that my own mother died.
She fought for me against the wild denizens of the forest, and
against the savage members of our tribe, with the ferocity of real
mother love.

"And I, on my part, loved her, Paul. I did not realize how much
until after the cruel spear and the poisoned arrow of Mbonga's
black warrior had stolen her away from me. I was still a child
when that occurred, and I threw myself upon her dead body and wept