Over the old fort near the river the British flag drooped limply. Many years had passed since it had last hung there. Nowadays, the place was not used. The country was too peaceful to need forts, and the district officer lived in a corrugated iron bungalow just beyond the remains of the stockade.
It was getting on towards evening. The mist still rose from forest and shadow valley, as it had risen sixteen years before when Barclay first came to these parts. And in the stunted cliffs another generation of baboons swarmed.
On the roof of the old fort Pansy stood with her father, watching as she had often watched during her months in Africa, the sunset that each night painted the world with glory.
A golden mist draped the horizon, its edge gilded sharply and clearly. Across the golden curtain swept great fan-like rays of rose and green and glowing carmine, all radiating from a blurred mass of orange hung on the world's edge where the sun sank slowly behind the veil of gold.
The mist rolled up from the wide shallow valley, in banks and tattered ribbons, rainbow tinted. And the lakes that, in the dry season, marked the course of the shrunken river, gleamed like jewels in the flood of light poured out from the heavens.
The constant change and variety of the last few months had eased Pansy's pain a little.
With her father she had toured the colony. She had slept under canvas, in native huts, and iron bungalows. And there were half-a-dozen officers on the governor's staff, all anxious to entertain his daughter.
But for the nights, Pansy would have enjoyed herself immensely.
"Give me the nights, Pansy, and the days I'll leave to you."
Very often Raoul Le Breton's words came back to her, as she lay sleepless. It seemed that he had her nights now, that man she loved yet could not marry. Often her heart ached with a violence that kept her awake until the morning.