'That's what my "boy" said when we struck it. I didn't believe a path so well-used and hard-beaten could be anything but human-made.'
'There's not a human for miles,' said the other. 'Except ourselves,' he added, glancing round the enclosure, where the firelight picked on a cheekbone or a line of teeth, an eye-ball or the protuberance of a hip to suggest rather than reveal the presence of a dozen natives.
'There must be rhino by the score,' persisted Dick, 'to flatten out a path like that.'
'Zebra do a lot. The hoofs of a herd of zebra working regularly between two drinking places.'
'Anyhow, neither was much help to me. So I decided to push back to ... to my base and try again to-morrow. Just before dark I saw your fire.'
'Lucky we lit it early. They're frightened of lions. Always are in uninhabited country.' He jerked his head in the direction of the palisade which surrounded the camp. The farthest glint of the red fire revealed a sort of ragged fence of saplings, eight or ten feet high, sharpened and staked into the ground with leafy boughs laced in between.
'You alone?' asked the stranger.
'I had only one "boy" with me, and I sent him back to camp,' prevaricated Dick.
In telling his story he had avoided mention of Norah. This was only prudent in a country, the affairs of whose tiny white population are common property; but the result had made his tale a little like the Book of Genesis without Eve, and he realised that to maintain this discretion would be increasingly difficult. For the moment, however, he temporised.
His first emotion on catching sight of that point of light through the trees had been unqualified delight. His spirits, which his intimate friends called 'mercurial,' had shot from the depths of despair, where a day of futile wandering had lodged them, to an almost arrogant elation. He only waited to scribble a line to Norah before he plunged across country in the direction of the light.