"But," said Lady Cantourne graciously, "if you are determined to go
away you must at least come and say good-bye before you leave."

"Thanks; I should like to do so, if I may."

"We shall be deeply disappointed if you forget," said Millicent,
holding out her hand, with a smile full of light-heartedness and
innocent girlish friendship.



CHAPTER VI. UNDER THE LINE



Enough of simpering and grimace,
Enough of vacuity, trimmed with lace.

"Curse this country! Curse it--curse it!" The man spoke aloud, but
there was no one near to hear. He shook his skinny yellow fist out
over the broad river that crept greasily down to the equatorial sea.

All around him the vegetable kingdom had asserted its sovereignty.
At his back loomed a dense forest, impenetrable to the foot of man,
defying his puny hand armed with axe or saw. The trees were not
high, few of them being above twenty feet, but from their branches
creepers and parasites hung in tangled profusion, interlaced,
joining tree to tree for acres, nay for miles.

As far as the eye could reach either bank of the slow river was thus