‘My dear, you are too modest. You may be sure Lady Inverbroom would be only too glad to get somebody to interest and amuse the Princess, for she has no great fund of wit and ability herself. I saw the Princess laughing three times at something you said to her, and I dare say I missed other occasions. Did you see her pearls? Certainly they were very fine, and I’m sure we can take it for granted they were genuine, but I saw none among them, and I had a good look at them before and behind, that would match my pearl pendant.’ "Of course," was the reply; "buffaloes were far more numerous then than now, and sometimes the herds were so large that it took an entire day, or even longer, for one of them to cross the road. Twice we were unable to go on because the buffaloes were in the way, and so all of us who had rifles went out for a hunt. I was one of the lucky ones, and we went on in a party of four. Creeping along behind a ridge of earth, we managed to get near two buffaloes that were slightly separated from the rest of the herd. We spread out, and agreed that, at a given signal from the foremost man, we were to fire together—two at one buffalo and two at the other. We fired as we had agreed. One buffalo fell with a severe wound, and was soon finished with a bullet through his heart; the other turned and ran upon us, and, as I was the first man he saw, he ran at me. Just then I remembered that I had forgotten something at the camp, and, as I wanted it at once, I started back for it as fast as I could go. It was[Pg 42] a sharp race between the buffalo and me, and, as he had twice as many legs as I could count, he made the best speed. I could hear his heavy breathing close behind me, and his footsteps, as he galloped along, sounded as though somebody were pounding the ground with a large hammer. Just as I began to think he would soon have me on his horns, I heard the report of a rifle at one side. Then the buffalo stumbled and fell, and I ventured to look around. One of the men from camp had fired just in time to save me from a very unpleasant predicament, and I concluded I didn't want any more buffalo-hunting for that day." "Why so?" Fred asked. "We have seen many temples—so many, in fact, that it is difficult to remember all of them. One of the most impressive is the Temple of Heaven, which has three circular roofs, one above another, and is said to be ninety-nine feet high. The tiles on the top are of porcelain of the color of a clear sky, and the intention of the builder was to imitate the vault of heaven. On the inside there are altars where sacrifices are offered to the memory of former emperors of China, and on certain occasions the emperor comes here to take part in the ceremonies. "That was almost an adventure, itself," laughingly murmured my companion, as if adventures were what we were in search of. While she spoke we came out into a slender road and turned due north. "Did you," she went on, childishly, "ever take a snake up by the tail, in your thumb and finger, and watch him try to double on himself and bite you? I have, it's great fun; makes you feel so creepy, and yet you know you're safe!" "I am going to my room now," she said. "I feel better. Hetty, I have done a foolish thing tonight. I--I did it for the sake of another. It was a plot to rob and perhaps murder me, but I didn't know it. Promise me on your honour that you will never speak of this to a soul." "All right. Only that you are an angel of goodness. If I could only tell you----" 149 "I prohibit all shooting in the towns without the order of an officer. “He must have hit himself trying to get out,” Larry surmised. The pilot turned up a slope and climbed the smooth turf. He came a few steps back into the room.... Reuben struggled untiringly—he tried manure as in his first enterprising days, and a horrible stink of guano told traffic on the road it was passing through Odiam territory. Spades and ploughshares and harrows scored and pulped the earth. Sometimes with breaking back and aching head, the sweat streaming over his skin, he would lift himself stiffly from the plough-handles, and shake his fist at the desert round him. He had never had such a tussle before, and put it down to the fact that he was now for the first time on the high ground, on the hard and sterile scab of the marl, where it seemed as if only gorse would grow. He felt as if now for the first time he was fighting against odds, his earlier struggles were tame compared with this. His return had been complete. All that she had ever had and lost of empire had re-established itself during that hour at Cheat Land. He wanted her as he had wanted her before he met Rose, but with a renewed intensity, for he was no longer mystified by his desire. He no longer asked himself how he could possibly love "a liddle stick of a woman like her," for he saw how utterly love-worthy she was and had always been. For the first time he saw as his, if only he would take it, a great woman's faithful love. This love of Alice Jury's had nothing akin to Naomi's poor little fluttering passion, or to Rose's fascination, half appetite, half[Pg 327] game. Someone loved him truly, strongly, purely, deeply, with a fire that could be extinguished only by death or—he realised in a dim way—her own will. The question was, should he pay the price this love demanded, take it to himself at the cost of the ambitions that had fed his life for forty years? 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