"Moorer, Jim!"
After a few moment's silence a voice from one of the beds was heard.
"Is the file-past of the Decrepits over? May one now sleep for a while?"
"This place ought to be called des Invalides," grumbled another.
Clive laughed her large, blithe laugh.
"At any rate, there's nothing wrong with me," she proclaimed, and sprang with one leap into her top-boots. Passing April's bed she touched the girl's eyelids tenderly, and her finger-tips came away wet.
"Nor with our little April, I hope—except a passing shower! You had better come up the lands with me this morning, and plant trees."
That was Clive's cure for all ills of the body and soul: to plant trees that would grow up and benefit Africa long after the planters were dead and forgotten. No one ever left Ho-la-lé-la without having had a dose of this medicine, and many an incipient forest lay along the valleys and down the sides of the Qua-Quas. So behold April an hour or two later, faring forth with a pick and a basket full of saplings, followed by Clive leading the Kerry cow, who was sick and needed exercise.
They lunched in the open, resting from their labours and savouring the sweetness of food earned by physical labour. Care was stuffed out of sight, dreams and ghosts faded in the clear sun-beaten air, and again April realized what life could mean in this wonderful land, given the right companionship, and a clean heart. But Clive, with arms clasped about her knees, sat munching apricots and staring with a strange sadness at her forests of baby trees. There was an unfulfilled look on her face, spite of living her own life, and following her star. Neither Africa nor life had given her all she needed.
Later they wended their way back full of the happy weariness engendered by honest toil. But nearing home Clive lifted her nose, and sniffing the breeze like a wild ass of the desert sensing unfamiliar things scowled bitterly.