All the rest of the night the men sat up round the fires, discussing what had happened, dreading an attack.
But the Englishman and the Colonial went to their tent, to lie down.
“Do you think they will make any inquiries?” asked the Colonial.
“Why should they? His time will be up tomorrow.”
“Are you going to say anything?”
“What is the use?”
They lay in the dark for an hour, and heard the men chatting outside.
“Do you believe in a God?” said the Englishman, suddenly.
The Colonial started: “Of course I do!”
“I used to,” said the Englishman; “I do not believe in your God; but I believed in something greater than I could understand, which moved in this earth, as your soul moves in your body. And I thought this worked in such wise, that the law of cause and effect, which holds in the physical world, held also in the moral: so, that the thing we call justice, ruled. I do not believe it any more. There is no God in Mashonaland.”