Pansy tried to make her nights as short as possible. She was always the last to bed and the first to rise, often up and dressed before Alice—her plump, pretty, mulatto maid, a Mission girl Pansy had engaged for her stay in Africa—appeared with the early morning tea. And whenever it was possible, she was out and away on her old racehorse, with some member of her father's staff.
And the day that followed was generally full of novelty and interest. There were new people to see; a wild country to travel through; some negro chief to interview; a native village to visit.
As the journey continued, the Europeans grew fewer. Until that day, it was nearly a week since Pansy had seen a white face, except those of her father's suite.
Only that afternoon the furthermost point of the tour had been reached. A mile or so beyond was French territory.
With her father Pansy often went over the maps of the district and the country that lay around it. She knew that beyond the British possessions lay a sparsely populated and but little known district; vast areas, scarcely explored, of scrub and poor grass, that led on to the Back of Beyond, the limitless expanse of the burning Sahara.
But, interested as Pansy always was in all connected with her father's province, and all that lay about it, she was not thinking of any of these things as she stood on the roof with him, but of her old playmate, Captain Cameron.
The Governor, his staff, and the district officer were going the next day to visit some rather important negro chief. Pansy was to have been one of the party, but on reaching their journey's end, Cameron had suddenly developed a bad attack of malaria.
"I don't think I'll go to-morrow, father," she was saying. "I don't like leaving Bob. I know his orderly can look after him all right. But he says he feels better when I'm about, so I promised to stay and hold his hand."
"Just as you like," Sir George answered. "In any case the pow-pow will be very similar to a dozen others you've seen. And Bob needs keeping cheerful."
"He takes it very philosophically," Pansy answered.