“It has nothing to do with Godovius this time . . .”
“Then why did you frighten me?” she said.
“It’s war . . . there’s a war somewhere. I don’t know where. In Tripoli, perhaps. The Waluguru know something about it; but I don’t suppose they know more than I do. I don’t suppose Godovius knows.”
When he first spoke she had gone very pale; now her colour returned.
“It was too bad of you to frighten me like that,” she said. “I thought you had heard something terrible about . . . him . . .”
They took breakfast together in the little room, and the atmosphere of that meal had a peculiar quality of lightness; as though, indeed, they had just weathered a violent thunderstorm, and were talking together in a silence which made their voices sound small and unreal. By the time they had finished their breakfast the sun had risen and filled the air with golden light. They stood on the stoep together gazing out over the newly awakened lands. Beneath the sun these lay in a vast and smiling lethargy. Thus would they awake to-morrow and for many weeks to come. Thus had they awakened for countless centuries before the ships of Sheba came to seek their gold. M‘Crae gazed fondly: there was no wonder that he loved Africa: but Eva was far less conscious of this revelation of beauty than of the presence of the man at her side. Neither of them broke the silence: but from within they heard the wailing sound of James’ voice, raised in complaint:
“A voice was heard upon the high places . . . weeping and supplication . . . weeping and supplication . . .”
Eva turned and left the side of M‘Crae. As she passed him she laid her hand gently on his arm.
II
Into the heat of the day the rumble of war-drums never ceased. Their sound contributed an uneasy background to the wanderings of James. It was no matter for surprise that his night of exposure in the forest had awakened the activities of the hosts of fever which slept in his veins. Perhaps this was a blessing; for now his body was so shaken with ague or burned with the alternate fire that the hot reality of his last horror no longer filled his brain. Eva sat beside him. In the rare intervals of lucid thought his mood was merely childish and querulous. M‘Crae, seeing that there remained for him no sphere of usefulness in the house, retired, as if by habit, to the shade of his banda, and began to busy himself with the notes of his book.