"Ah!..." The exclamation escaped him quickly, unheedingly—sharp, short, abrupt. It was as though she had struck him suddenly in a vulnerable place. It told her, as perhaps nothing else could have done, she had gauged rightly when she remarked to Diana that sometime something had hurt him very much.

For a moment there was a tense, pulsing silence, and then he turned aside towards the sacred enclosure which stood behind them. Meryl turned also, and ventured as she did so to glance into his face. It was stern again now, but she knew for a brief moment as he made the exclamation it had not been so, and for a reason she did not seek to fathom her heart was strangely glad.

XIV

THE ANCIENT RUINS

When Carew had started up into the Acropolis Hill an hour previously, he had not had the faintest intention of fulfilling his engagement and going in search of Meryl. On the contrary, he had gone there to avoid her.

All day long, as Stanley described, he had been grinding away at his native report in a gruff, determined silence: a silence even gruffer and more determined than usual. Because of his thoughts the previous evening and of his decision in the morning, he had finally made up his mind not to visit the temple with Meryl Pym, and not to run any further risk of slipping unconsciously into the friendly attitude he was so anxious to avoid. When Stanley set out towards the tents, he mentioned casually that he was going up the valley to the store, which is also a most attractive and comfortable hostel for Zimbabwe visitors, and should ask the two girls to go with him. A little later, glancing in the valley direction, Carew saw the khaki figure for a moment going up the pathway, and the flutter of a light dress, or possibly two, just ahead. He took it for granted that Meryl and Diana had both accompanied Stanley, and that his escort was no longer expected. He told himself he was glad, and decided to go into the Acropolis Hill, about that point of interest still unravelled between himself and Grenville, and so avoid any chance encounter.

But when he found himself among the ruined fortifications, he became conscious of a flagging interest wholly unlooked for. Something seemed to have gone out of him, or out of the ancient stones, and he knew himself in some vague way not in tune. He gazed at the amazing walls, erected upon granite boulders two hundred to two hundred and fifty feet above the valley, and the marvel in him that never seemed to die was, at any rate, less arresting than it had ever been before.

Here, on an isolated hill, rising to a height of three hundred and fifty feet, were fortifications which in their ingenuity, massive character, and persistent repetition at every point of vantage had astonished the highest experts of modern military engineering. Rampart walls, traverses, screen-walls, intricate entrances, narrow and labyrinthine passages, sunken thoroughfares, banquettes, parapets, and other devices of a people thoroughly conversant with military engineering and defence, and not one word, not one line, not one clue as to the identity of the builders nor the object of their colossal labours; labours which one felt could only have been achieved through the compulsory service of many slaves, for thousands of tons of granite blocks had been transported up the precipitous kopje to a height of no less than two hundred feet, which a careful examination of the rocks on the hill proves must mostly have been quarried from granite about twelve miles distant. And all this in spite of the fact that Nature alone had made the hill already impregnable, it being inaccessible on three sides and very difficult of ascent on the fourth. It is one of Rhodesia's mysteries, and one also of its fascinations; those mysteries and fascinations which so far have effectually baffled all efforts to find the clue and read the closed book. Who was it came for gold in those old, old days? Who was it built the line of forts to Solfala on the coast to guard the route along which the gold was undoubtedly carried, and of which remains may still be seen at regular intervals the whole distance? Where was the gold taken to from Solfala, and by whom?

And no less strange perhaps is the absence of all clue to the burial-ground of this stalwart race; for only a stalwart people could have built those temple walls and those amazing fortifications. Where then are the bones of their dead? Strange and incomprehensible as it may seem, no excavations have yet unearthed human bones, or brought to light any spot that might be supposed to have been a burial-ground.