"And when did you propose to begin?" asked Carew.
"Well, I suppose a moonlight night would be best, when you're rolled up in your den or else when you've gone off to a distant kraal."
"You would see a ghost in about half an hour," from Meryl, "and fly for your life."
"O, are there ghosts?" looking suddenly dubious. "Did your diviner divine any ghosts while he was about it?..." turning to Stanley. "You never told me that. Of course, I shouldn't much like to be handling a corpse, and feel its ghost put a cold, clammy hand on my shoulder. What a horrible idea! Do you think there are any?"
"There might be;" and The Kid's eyes twinkled. "Of course, I supposed you would imagine we ran risks of that sort."
"Ugh!..." with a cold shudder. "I believe I can see one now. It must have overheard me saying I coveted those gold ornaments. Come away quickly. I want ... I want ... now don't look shocked, Meryl; I want a whisky and soda!..."
They followed her out from the gathering gloom of the walls into the quick-coming darkness, and as she and Stanley pressed on ahead, Carew and Meryl could only follow. As they did so they spoke little. It was as though some bond of sympathy between them had slipped into being of itself outside their consciousness altogether, and with a blessed sense of quiet understanding neither attempted to make conversation; and neither questioned as yet whence came this unsought bond, this link forged as by a power outside themselves. The time for probing was near, but it lingered yet a little.
As they approached the tents and joined the other two waiting to make their adieux, Diana's voice again broke in upon their quiet, dispelling its curious sense of unreality.
"It wasn't you I was afraid of, Major Carew," she called lightly. "Baboons and owls and bears I dare tackle any day; but a ghost three thousand years old!... ugh!... I give it up!... You will not need to add to that precious native report another one, concerning the daring theft of a corpse from the ancient ruins of Zimbabwe by a well-known young lady from Johannesburg."
He smiled into her laughing eyes in a manner that surprised her, and made his face extraordinarily attractive in a way she had not yet seen it.