John Ames, Native Commissioner: A Romance of the Matabele Rising. Mitford Bertram

upon their words. “I only hope they don’t represent the sort of people we shall have to put up with if we stay here.”

      “Don’t you be alarmed about that, Mrs Bateman,” said the man on her right. “That stamp of Britisher doesn’t stay here. It melts off into boarding-houses and situations in Cape Town or Johannesburg. Just rolls up here because it’s the thing to run out to Cogill’s and have tiffin first thing on landing; at least, so it thinks. It’ll all have disappeared by to-night.”

      “That’s a comfort, anyway, if we do stay. What do you think of this place, Nidia?”

      “I think it’ll do. Those views of the mountain we got coming along in the train were perfectly lovely. And then it seems so leafy and cool. You can get about from here, too, can’t you, Mr Moseley?”

      “Oh yes, anywhere. Any amount of trains and trams. And I expect you’ll wear out the roads with that bike of yours, Miss Commerell.”

      “By the way, I wonder if they brought our bicycles from the station?” said the other of the two ladies. “You saw them last, Nidia.”

      “Yes. They are all right. They were standing outside when we came in.”

      Now, utterly workaday and commonplace as all this was, not a word of it escaped the silent stranger. This girl, seated at his right, had riveted his attention from the moment she came in, and indeed there was that about Nidia Commerell’s face which was likely to exercise such an effect. It had a way of lighting up – a sudden lifting of the eyelashes, the breaking into a half smile, revealing a row of teeth beautifully even and white. She had blue eyes, and her hair, which was neither brown nor golden, but something between, curled in soft natural waves along the brow, dispensing with the necessity of any attempt at a fringe; and her colouring was of that warm richness which gave the idea that Nature had at first intended her for a brunette, then got puzzled, and finally had given her up in hopeless despair, which was perhaps the best thing that could have happened, for the result was about as dainty, refined, alluring a specimen of young womanhood as the jaded glance of the discriminating male could wish to rest upon.

      This, at any rate, was the mental verdict of the stranger, and for this reason he hailed with inward satisfaction the recently expressed decision of the two as to taking up their quarters there for a time.

      “You ought to remain here a few days, and show us about, Mr Moseley,” said the elder of the two ladies, after some more desultory conversation.

      “Wish I could, Mrs Bateman. No such luck, though. I’ve got to start for Bulawayo to-night. They are hurrying the soul out of me as it is.”

      “Isn’t the journey a frightful one?” asked Nidia.

      “It isn’t a delightful one,” laughed the man, who was just a fair average specimen of the well-bred Englishman, of good height, well set up, and well groomed. “Railway to Mafeking, then eight days’ coaching; and they tell me the coach is always crammed full. Pleasant, isn’t it?”

      The stranger looked up quickly as though about to say something, but thought better of it. Nidia rejoined —

      “What in the world will we do when our time comes?”

      “I am afraid you must make up your minds to some discomforts,” replied Moseley. “One of the conditions of life in a new country, you know. But people are very decent in those parts, and I’m sure would do everything they could to assist you.”

      A little more conversation, and, lunch being over, the trio withdrew. John Ames, left alone at the table, was lost in all sorts of wild imaginings. Something seemed to have altered within him, and that owing to the proximity of this girl, a perfect stranger, whom three quarters of an hour ago he had never set eyes on. It was really very absurd, he told himself. But when a man has had fever, he is bound to be liable to fall a victim to any kind of absurdity. Fever! that was it – so he told himself.

      Now, as he sat there, dreamily cracking almonds, he began to regret his reticence. The very turn of the conversation favoured him. He might have volunteered considerable information for the benefit of the man who was going up-country, he suspected, for the first time. The conversation would have become general, and might have paved the way to an acquaintanceship. There was no necessity for him to have been so reticent. He had lived too long stowed away, he decided. It was high time he came out of his shell.

      He had applied for and obtained his leave, and had come down there to spend it. The sea breezes blowing across the isthmus of the Cape Peninsula, the cool leafiness of the lovely suburbs, were as a very tonic after the hot, steamy, tropical glow of his remote home. But the effects of the fever, combined with a natural reserve, kept him from going much among people, and most of his time was spent alone.

      “I wonder who that man is who sat at our table,” Nidia Commerell was saying; for the trio were seated outside trying to converse amid the cackle and din of one of the livelier parties before referred to.

      “He looked awfully gloomy,” said Mrs Bateman.

      “Did you think so, Susie? Now, I thought he looked nice. Perhaps he wasn’t feeling well.”

      “He had a look that way, too,” said Moseley. “Up-country man perhaps. Down here to throw off a touch of fever. I’ve seen them before.”

      “Poor fellow! That may have accounted for it,” said Nidia. “Yes; he’s quite nice-looking.”

      John Ames, meanwhile, was smoking a solitary pipe on the balcony in front of his room, and his thoughts continued to run on this new – and to him, supremely foolish subject. Then he pulled himself together. He would get on his bicycle and roll down to Muizenberg for a whiff of the briny.

      The afternoon was cloudless and still, and the spin along a smooth and, for the most part, level road exhilarating. A brisk stroll on the beach, the rollers tumbling lazily in, and he had brought his mind to other things – the affairs of his district, and whether the other man who was temporarily filling his place would be likely to make a mess of them or not, and how he would pull with Inglefield – whether Madúla had recovered from the sulky mood into which the action of Nanzicele had thrown him – and half a hundred matters of the sort. And so, having re-mounted his wheel, and being about halfway homeward again, he could own himself clear of the foolish vein in which he had set out, when – there whirled round the bend in the road two bicycles, the riders whereof were of the ornamental sex; in fact, the very two upon one of whom his thoughts had been chaotically running.

      One quick glance from Nidia Commerell’s blue eyes as they shot by, and John Ames was thrown right back into all that futile vein of meditation which he had only just succeeded in putting behind him. The offender, meanwhile, was delivering herself on the subject of him to her companion in no uncertain terms.

      “Susie, that’s the man who was sitting at our table. I think we’ll get to know him. He looks nice, and, as he bikes, he’ll come in handy as escort to a pair of unprotected females.”

      “How do you know he’ll appreciate the distinction you propose to confer upon him? He may not, you know. He looks reserved.”

      “Oh, he’s only shy. Say something civil to him to-night at dinner. We’ll soon get him out of his shell. He only wants a little judicious drawing out.”

      The other looked dubious. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not sure we hadn’t better leave him alone. You see, I’m responsible for your good behaviour now, Nidia; and really it is a responsibility. I don’t like being a party to adding this unfortunate man’s to your string of scalps.”

      We regret to record that at this juncture Nidia’s exceedingly pretty mouth framed but one word of one syllable. This was it:

      “Bosh!”

      “No, it isn’t bosh,” went on her friend, emphatically. “And, the worst of it is, they all take it so badly; and this one looks as if he’d be no exception to the general rule, but very much the reverse. I don’t know what there is about you, but you really ought to be cloistered, my child; you’re too dangerous to be at large.”

      “Susie, dry up! We’ll exploit our interesting stranger this