The stranger rose up as I came in, and I greeted him. He was a tall, fair boy, whose face I seemed to know. He told me that he had driven his mother down, as I sat over my supper. I glanced up at the wall curiously before I had finished. The picture was not there.
'I thought it was better out of the way,' Dick said when his guest had gone to bed. 'I didn't know how she might take it. It's the mother of those poor little Scotch children come to see the place. Wants to put up a gravestone or monument or something, poor lady!'
Then I knew where I had seen the stranger boy's face. It was the image of his dead brother's face in the picture, the white piccaninny that carried the Mashona baby. I whistled softly.
'Who painted that picture?' I said. 'I know all yon told me. But did that chap ever come down the road again? I never asked you.'
'No,' said Dick, 'I don't know to this day any more about him.'
I sat silent.
'She wants you to go over to the place with her to-morrow,' Dick said. 'You know the place, don't you? It's only about three miles away up the old wagon road; you've been there, haven't you?'
'Yes,' I said. 'There's a wooden cross where they're buried or should be. I had it renewed two years ago. Didn't I ever tell you about it? Haven't you been there yourself lately?'
'No,' said Dick. 'I don't fancy the place somehow. But I was asking about it only this afternoon. The boys tell me there are some trees there still; white men's trees.'
'Yes,' I said, 'yellow peach-stocks and one gumtree you get it against the skyline looking up from the spruit. The old pole and daub house dropped to pieces long ago. I do hope that cross is standing all right still. I blame myself for not having seen about it this last year or two.'