‘It seems rather a roundabout way, after all. Why not try to make ’em happy at home?’
‘Well, my friend, you cannot argue about these things, you must feel them. Civilisation is an acquired taste. Take your time, and let me know how you like the flavour, to-morrow night.’
Neither returned my parting salutation. The Ancient was lost in thought, and did not hear it: Victoria had stolen out to gossip with the stars.
CHAPTER XV.
REPENTANCE.
I found her next morning seated on the Peak, and looking out to sea. She turned at my approach, as I came up the steep path from the market-place.
‘That is where the fighting is to begin, then,’ she said, pointing north and north-east into the infinite blue. ‘We are to go there and look for something to kill—you said so. Father says you did not; I say you did. Oh, why must they always begin these things by killing something? Is there no new way?’
‘Only just a little killing, Victoria; it will soon be over; and only aborigines to kill! I believe they hardly mind it at all. It would make you a people in no time; you have no idea how soon it would change the look of everything here.’
She stood up and turning landwards, cast a wistful gaze over the settlement. ‘I suppose it would change things a good deal.’
‘You really would not know the place again.’
‘And yet——’