'The darker the better,' she replied, still laughing.
I wondered if relief had made her hysterical; a queer exhilarated light shone in her dark eyes; there was something at once fey and fanatical about her. The pythoness at the oracle, the martyr at the stake must have had, I imagined, such eyes. Under the power of the inspiration, whatever it was, her beauty had bloomed again, like Africa when the rains have come.
But even so it seemed no reason to be caught by the fall of night on a motiveless walk to Abercorn. I said so.
She promised to take Changalilo, a gun and a hurricane lamp.
I said bluntly I could not see why she wanted to go. She became serious.
'I'm going to see Mr. Lavater,' she said.
I raised my eyebrows.
'What's the good?' I asked, 'what are you going to say?'
'I don't know yet. It depends on him.'
'But you must have some plan!'