The Vampire of N'Gobi

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RIDGWELL CULLUM

THE VAMPIRE OF N'GOBI

First UK edition: Chapman & Hall, London, 1935
First US edition: J.B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1936

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2023
Version Date: 2023-06-15

Produced by Roy Glashan

All content added by RGL is proprietary and protected by copyright.

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PUBLISHER'S SYNOPSIS

A thrilling story, packed with fast-moving action, telling how Col. "Dick" Farlow traced out the mystery of the ancient race of savage yellow men who lived near the great mountain, N'Gobi, somewhere in the center of Africa. When Dick receives a map showing him how to reach the secret hiding place of the tribe and their seductive queen, he starts off from England, accompanied by his faithful servant and friend, Larky. In their launch, especially constructed to withstand the attacks of the fiercest savages, they take with them an African tribesman who has served Dick before, a man whose only desire is to kill as many of his fellow men as possible. The intrepid three venture far into the hills and encounter appalling horrors and dangers until at last Dick meets Queen Nita, the Vampire of N'Gobi. Even then it seems as if they will never emerge alive. How they face these savage yellow people and what they find in this amazing country is one of the most exciting stories that Mr. Cullum has ever written.

TO THE READER

THE story here set out is entirely a work of imagination. It has been written without purpose other than entertainment. It contains no portraiture of any person or persons, living or dead. Neither does it contain any representation of any business organization that ever existed. If any title has been applied to any business organization, in the process of the story, which may have counterpart in real life anywhere in the world, it is due to the inadvertence of chance selection, and is entirely without intent to represent such business.

The story is founded entirely on recollections of ancient ruins existing in Central Africa, which, in the course of trading expeditions, the author not only encountered but explored in an amateurish way. And on the curious geological fact that provides Africa with a network of flowing underground rivers.

The "caverns of Umdava" in the story are an expression of many of the vast water caverns in which Africa abounds, a number of which the author has found it possible to enter, while yet possessing insufficient hardihood to attempt real exploration.

While Zimbabwe in Southern Rhodesia has created no little controversy in archaeological circles, there are a multitude of monuments, deep buried in the heart of Africa's remoter jungles, far more enlightening as to the higher civilizations which have flourished when the world was thousands of years younger.

Prologue
Part I
Chapter I. The Kopje
Chapter II. Slaughter
Chapter III. Raamanita
Chapter IV. At Gobabi
Chapter V. In the Bay of Biscay
Chapter VI. "Yellow Perils"
Chapter VII. Elstane Valley
Chapter VIII. The Floodlight
Chapter IX. The Queen's Highway
Chapter X. Holding the Baby
Chapter XI. Castle Elstane
Chapter XII. Doings in the Night
Chapter XIII. Departure
Part II
Chapter I. Chutanga Bay
Chapter II. Larky at Work
Chapter III. The Marshes
Chapter IV. Whither?
Chapter V. Passing the Barrier
Chapter VI. Larky Encounters a Barber
Chapter VII. Uncovering History
Chapter VIII. White Death
Chapter IX. Omba Functions
Chapter X. The Third Steep
Chapter XI. Queen of the Highway
Chapter XII. Hunter or Hunted?
Chapter XIII. When the World Was Young
Chapter XIV. Hospitality
Chapter XV. The Double-Cross
Chapter XVI. Gleaming Eyes
Chapter XVII. The Tigress
Chapter XVIII. The Gold Slaves
Chapter XIX. The Glory of the World
Chapter XX. The Idol
Chapter XXI. Dementia
Chapter XXII. The Vampire
Chapter XXIII. The Roll of the Dice
Chapter XXIV. Inferno
Chapter XXV. The Deeps of the Lake
Chapter XXVI. The Haunt of the Vampire

PROLOGUE. — AN IRON CITY

THE heat was intense. It was oven heat. The sort for which the city of Kimberley became notorious from the moment the first sheets of corrugated iron took possession of its roofs and walls. It was nearing noon. And the burden of the city's life was something Hadean.

Kimberley, in the earliest eighties, was frankly a city of makeshift. It was not alone in its design and building. It was in its life. In its complete disregard of spiritual and man-made law. An iron city, it was without soul.

It had, however, individuality. It lured with irresistible fascination, asking no question, and wholly unconcerned for credential. It simply absorbed, digested, and flung out its waste. For its morals matched a sanitation whose foulness involved a night-army prowling its unlit streets.

If Kimberley possessed no soul, there were those who regarded its open market-place as its heart. A mart which had advanced nothing since the old-time Boer farmers had founded it. Like the rest of its iron-clad body, it was quite inflexible in its mundane purpose. It afforded no more than lip-service to the commonest forms of honesty. And every day saw its well-defined lanes, between well-stocked booths and stalls, and tented ox-wagons, crowded with a throng of unscrupulously chaffering cosmopolitan humanity.

Every colour and almost every race found place in its traffic. Colours ranging from sun-blistered white to the ebon of Basuto. Tongues were a chaotic confusion. And fashions ranged multi-hued from Victorian frills and amplitudes to the scant utility of the hide moocha of pristine savage.

Despite oven-like temperature, the market's life was athrill with the sweating bustle of traffic and bargain. Even to its uttermost fringe, a remote corner, where the auction of an emigrant's fantastic personal belongings was in rapid and harshly vocal progress.

The auctioneer was a small Hebrew. He had the emaciated cheeks of ill-health or debauchery. But his sickly features were lit by the quick, bright eyes of undaunted spirit and racial acumen. Alternately wheedling and jesting he produced a flow of salesman's patter like to the stream of the eternal brook. And his magic was reaping a rich harvest.

The owner of the wares was there close to the elbow of the gesticulating salesman. He was big and lean, and youthful. He was darkly good-looking. He was buttoned in tightly-cut tweeds in the London fashion of the moment. He was oozing sweat under the fore and aft peaks of a "deer-stalker" cap. And a none too clean, high, starched collar was already wilting. He remained quite impervious to any discomfort.

It was the bidding for his goods that completely preoccupied him. He was watching the eager throng gathered about the many lots spread out on the sun-baked ground, and the manner of it was hard, and cold, and calculating. A careful note was made as each sale was completed.

It should have been pathetic, this dispersal of an adventuring youngster's last assets. But somehow Lionel Garnet invited no pity. Young as he was he displayed a cold indifference which utterly forbade. He simply watched his salesman lynx-eyed. And he knew a keen satisfaction as prices soared far above original costs.

Lionel Garnet's final triumph was reached when a young Boer farmer claimed a stout chest of bright, new, carpenter's tools. They had cost some eight or ten pounds. The salesman banged one fist into the palm of the other at a bid of twenty-five pounds.

Lionel Garnet forgot the gnawings of a breakfastless stomach. He forgot weeks of weary tramping of red-hot roads, questing livelihood and finding only cold unresponsiveness. He had lost the overshadowing of an unpaid board bill, and concern for his next night's lodging. His whole mind was given to the sums in his note book, and a harvest of cash that was to find place in his empty pockets.

Ben Marta's hotel was a landmark in the older Kimberley. It was also known widely under a less flattering designation.

Ben's economics were his own. And they were based on a passionate desire for profit. His bar, being fundamental of his traffic, was designed for capacity and the simplification of earnest drinking. His requirements in his barmaids were by no means original. He asked for speed that was not necessarily confined to physical activity.

Gladys fulfilled Ben Marta's ideal. She was generously figured, and complete with Victorian curves. She bejewelled liberally, as became a diamond city. Her facial work possessed the dashing art of the painter who substitutes the pallet knife for the brush. Then she had a warm sort of enveloping heart, which, if it aggravated her frailties, possessed a powerful profit-earning appeal with the more youthful who came within the orbit of her good-natured smile.

It was mid-afternoon, when Kimberley worked or slept. Gladys was in sole service at the bar. She was leaning appropriately. And she was smilingly regarding a lone customer across her counter.

"How'd it go, boy?" she enquired, with an eye on the long brandy and soda she had just served. "Usually a kango or 'Billy-stink,' eh? Mamma's outfit must have realized well to run to B. and S.?"

"Didn't know there were so many English sovereigns in the world, Glad," he replied contentedly, setting his glass back on the counter.

"Don't forget he had the goods to sell." Garnet's black eyes framed a cold smile. "Never saw such stuff. Didn't know I'd got it myself, till I unpacked it."

The girl watched him drink again. She decided it was all too greedy for his years.

"I don't know," she sighed regretfully. "Like selling keepsakes. You wouldn't get me selling the clothes off my back, neither. Your poor Ma's sitting back there in London, or somewhere, thinking she'd given you all you need to help you along in the life she made for you. Expect you haven't a stitch but what you're standing in now. I don't know. Men are queer. You wouldn't get a girl doing it. And now, I s'pose, you'll blow it all on that stuff."

"No," he assured indifferently. "I need it for business. They won't let me work for a wage, so—"

He spread out his hands. Gladys saw they were shapely, and free from any sign of heavy toil. She looked up into the cold eyes and speculated as to the mischief behind them. A boy. Just a nice, big kid. Probably with the sense of a rabbit.

"Still packed in swaddling clothes. Or you wouldn't be drinking brandy and soda," she added.

"You'd like it to be mother's milk, I s'pose," Garnet jeered back, as he finished the remainder of his drink. "You're a dear, good sort, Glad," he went on quietly. "You mean well. But you run to heart in a city that never heard of things of that sort. What's troubling, my dear?"

"What does a fellow usually mean?" he asked. "Make profits, of course. Make a living. The thing they won't let me make working with two hands."

"And they'll skin you like a silly rabbit." The retort exploded. "Gracious, boy, haven't you any sense? This city's a cesspool. And the only thing to be found in it is human muck. Bank your sovereigns and forget 'em. Get on to the road again. And wear out the soles of your London boots till some one'll let you do the work you say they won't. I've known Kimberley since the Boers grew mealies on it, and I tell you the sharps'll leave you hungry in a week if you flash your stuff. I tell you I don't like to see a nice boy riding to hell at the gallop. Leave the drink alone. Even when you're thirsty. Try water. Leave the bars like they were pest houses. There's no honest living in Kimberley without using two hands. Besides—"

"You're nervy, Glad," he said. "Too much indoors. You want to get out in the air, and laugh, and play. You're built for that. Much too pretty to stand there lecturing a boy when you ought to be snatching his money. You make me want to pillow my head on your bosom and weep. Give me another 'Protestant.' I've a desert thirst. And I mean to quench it now I've got the money. Besides—what?"

Gladys goggled angrily. She snatched his glass, set a fresh one, measured brandy closely, and prised the cork of a large soda.

"Ulmar Niebaum was in here this morning," she announced in a tone of unconscious awe. "Emmie Smith's his mash. She served him. I was dusting down."

"He asked Emmie if you were around." Again awe had crept into the tone. "Who you were. What game you were up to hanging round Malta's."

"You give me a pain in the stay-busk," she complained snappily. "Emmie said you were out on the market selling up your mamma's outfit to pay your board bill. You were new out from England. You were a kid looking for a job to give you three meals a day and a place to sleep. And Niebaum told her, with that grin that's like a she-cat's. Said: 'You tell him Kimberley's no place for fellows hanging around bars. If he can't get a job —best get out. It's safer!'"

"He can go to hell," he snarled, with a lift of the lip. "Let him mind his damn business."

The gracious shoulders lifted. Garnet's second empty glass was swept away and plunged into the water tank under the counter.

"You make me savage," Gladys went on in disgust. "What's the use trying to help a feller without sense? Don't say I never told you. When Niebaum starts asking questions it's time to wonder what's back of them. You watch that 'business' of yours. Niebaum's got about one idea of business. If you aren't working with your two hands you're buying stones, that haven't been registered, from someone without a licence to sell. And if you don't happen to be buying them he'll see you do. I tell you, boy, there's many a man, woman, and kid down there on that breakwater who're no more I.D.B.'s than I am. And it's Niebaum who found 'em their jobs. He's hell's angel is Ulmar Niebaum and Emmie Smith can have him for me."

Gladys was completely awed by the terror of the new I.D.B. laws in the hands of Niebaum. The man was a frank agent provocateur. The trap stone offered cheaply to innocent and guilty alike. A method which appealed to a ruthless Teutonic mind. But Gladys had misjudged the youth she sought to save.

Lionel Garnet possessed unusual character. He possessed keenness of purpose and shrewd observation. Gladys was warning him out of the sheer kindness of her emotional heart. And he had absorbed her warning very completely.

His decision was taken on the instant. The girl's warning had been swiftly given. And it took Lionel Garnet the least possible time to liquidate his outstanding board bill and remove himself from the precincts of Ben Marta's notorious hotel. He forthwith betook himself to stifling, cheap lodgings in the corrugated iron home of an elderly widow in a remote part of the city.

But his main purpose remained unchanged. His decision had been coldly taken. It was almost as though the forced sale of his possessions had shattered his youthful ideals. He made no pretence of seeking honest employment. But, instead, flung in his lot with those whose wits were their stock in trade. And which they exercised nightly in the brilliantly lit bars of the Angle Hotel.

Had he desired to avail himself of it a secret defensive organization operated amongst his new associates. But Garnet saw risk, even deadly danger, in so doing. He would travel alone. If Niebaum had marked him down an intended victim he would stand the racket, and defend himself with such wits as he possessed. Then the idea appealed to a nature unusually headstrong. And soon he found himself actually looking forward to the great detective's attentions.

But oddly enough the Angle Hotel did not appear to come within the orbit of Niebaum's operations. Perhaps its clientele knew the game of the trap stone too well. Perhaps, even, it was not safe ground on which to trust a diamond of any sort. In any case, for weeks Lionel Garnet found respite. He remained entirely unmolested, unapproached.

Then came the late close of a long night's gamble when Garnet's luck had been phenomenal. It was a perfectly straight game in a company of unscrupulous tricksters. Garnet had acquired astuteness and skill far beyond his years. He had drunk with scrupulous moderation. And, somewhere about an hour short of dawn, he was leaving his playground to return to his modest lodgings uplifted by the knowledge that, after weeks of outgoings, his original capital was not only intact, but had been augmented by nearly forty golden sovereigns.

The loose cash weighed heavily and pleasantly in a trouser pocket as he bade his envious companions a cheerful good night. And so he passed out of the comparative brilliance of lamplight, and plunged into the unredeemed darkness of Kimberley's night.

The hotel lights were faint behind him when Garnet received the challenge out of the void. There had been no sound. No stirring. Not even the rumble of a night-soil cart on its unsavoury mission. He had been closely hugging the deeper shadow of the roadside, where the iron buildings lined it.

He halted. Peered. And all his big body was alert and ready for action. It was a Kaffir hail. And he understood. Niebaum was at work. He chuckled inwardly as he thought of the fulfilment of a good-natured woman's prophecy. He was even glad.

In the inky darkness a tiger grin lit the youth's cold eyes. Yes. Niebaum. So crude. So clumsy. He wondered where the eager, secret watchers were stationed.

He reached into his coat pocket and produced matches. Pie struck one. The light revealed the weazened features of an aged, diminutive Griqua. It was a poor, mean body he could have felled with a blow.

"Show me!" he ordered. And he struck a second match, which flamed up in the still night air.

The fingers relaxed cautiously. They opened slowly. A largish, dull, uncut diamond revealed itself in the crumpled palm.

"Ten poun'," was the Griqua's dogged grumble. Garnet reached. It was swift in its surprise action. "Let me see," he cried.

It was all a part of Garnet's long considered plan of action. With the stone in his possession his arm flung back to throw. It was a valuable gem. They always were, those trap stones. He would throw it far into the night. And Niebaum would make a double loss.

But Gladys was right in her estimate and awe of the hated Niebaum. As Garnet's big arm went back it was seized and held from behind. Assailants leapt on him from out of the darkness. He was almost helpless.

But not quite. His immense strength helped him. He tore his arm free. And, on the spur of the moment, clapped his hand to his mouth. His hand opened. The stone passed. He swallowed it.

As the rough stone seared its way down a sensitive throat a laugh jeered close behind.

"Not so good." It came derisively. "They all try it. We don't lose valuable stones that way. There's croton oil. Then there's years on a breakwater to get over it."

The man's weary gaze searched the mountain's glittering summit. In his physical extremity the vision of it awed. It overwhelmed. It oppressed him with a feeling of dire insecurity. So near. So tremendous. A vast spread of snow and ice lifting thousands of feet above a broken sea of barren crags. He shrank from the spectacle of it. He lowered his gaze. Ahead of him, at his own level, was that which inspired no awe. Only incredulity, and—a stirring of hope.

He searched the glowing shadows of a tremendous kloof. Its jaws were wide flung. Jaws of grim granite, footed by an armour of vicious thorn-jungle. The white bed of a broad, dry sand river streamed down out of it like an inviting roadway.

The man's big shoulders drooped heavily. His massive frame was gaunt. He was leaning on a staff that looked to have been cut for a less merciful purpose. And his whole attitude told of bodily exhaustion. In happier circumstances he should have been a giant among his fellows. As it was Ms flesh would scarcely have gorged a single assevogel.

He was halted with his three laden asses on the river bed. Sun-scorched and blistered, his white flesh looked out unashamedly through the rents in his clothing. Shut of fine flannel. Breeches of close-woven cord. His feet were unshod, like those of a Kaffir. But unlike the Kaffirs' they were scored with sand-cracks oozing the pus of fester. His asses were in no such desperate case. Their resilient backbones were sagging under a burden that was mainly water. But they were well fed. And still capable of mincing their way on dainty hoofs.

The gloom of the kloof held the man fascinated where the glory of N'Gobi's tremendous peak had awed. Weariness was fading out of eyes which had rebelled under months of sun-glare. They grew bright with the greed of hope dawning above an horizon of despair. But he remained unmoving, as though fearing lest reality should prove only mirage.

N'Gobi! At long last. Africa's mountain outlaw. A thousand miles beyond the last pretence of man's civilization. The trackless Thirsts left behind him. And even the dreaded Chikana, and his cannibal impis, no more than a nightmare memory.

The asses were off-saddled. They were kraaled in a makeshift laager of thorn-bush. A water hole had been scooped in the river's sand. And pack-saddles had been set in place to defend the laager's opening.

The man had moved on up the river bed with his staff replaced by a sporting rifle across his shoulder, and a slung haversack packed with biltong and soft-nosed shells. He was carrying a battered lantern fitted with a fresh candle. For all his festering feet he was pressing forward eagerly to complete the last stage of an enterprise he told himself was mad.

The overshadowing kloof swallowed him up. Its gloom wrapped about him. Sun-glare passed, and a vivid sky cut down to a narrow ribbon of steel blue above his head.

The ease of the river bed's sand gave place to water worn shingle. Shingle gave way to moraine. Which, in turn, yielded to a tide of boulders that bespoke the bed of a fierce mountain torrent.

The man sought a fairer footway. There was none. Lacerating thorn-bush banked on either hand with only the rocks between. There was no alternative. It was press on over every obstruction or defeat. Defeat was unthinkable.

It was a goal like the miraculous reality of some fabulous dream. The man was standing on a chiselled paving of ancient setting. Interstices were grown with lichens and fungus. A slimy damp cooled his fevered feet. It was the uttermost end of the great kloof.

The boulder-laden river of sand flowed away behind him through a widening passage of malignant thorn-bush. Above him rose hundreds of feet of sheer granite, streaming with a moisture that glistened in the scant sun-light. In front of him gaped a curtained tunnel-mouth, draped with a gauzy network of trailing creeper.

It was no natural cavern. Like the paving on which he was standing it was the labour of human hands. Evidence was there in every detail of it. Its surmounting arch was truly scribed. Its supports were carved pillars. And both arch and pillars had nothing in common with the granite about them. They were of built stone that was rose-tinted.

He opened the bosom of his shirt and produced a linen tracing. He unfolded it. He studied it, verifying. Then he returned it to its place of concealment. While his mind flung back to days already remote and almost forgotten.

He recalled the horror and despair with which he had faced years of purgatory on a breakwater where the day's work was washed away at night by a relentless sea. He remembered a poor stricken fellow convict whose lungs were eaten out by incurable disease. But whose reckless laugh was a melancholy joy. He thought of his impulse to befriend the man. And of its consequence.

He had listened to an incredible story which had N'Gobi for its setting. It had been told in the man's dying agony while ghastly spasms of choking tore the last remains of life out of him. Then had come the moment when a tracing had been thrust into his hands. It had come to him accompanied by a hoarse whisper which was all the voice the man had left. One whispered word. N'Gobi! But for the fascination of that name the whole incident would have been forgotten.

He recalled the day of his own release from penal bondage. Hardened to the condition of drawn steel he had begun a furious struggle for decent existence. There had been Zoutpansberg's alluvial gold. A wasted period at the much boomed Malmani fields. Then Tati, where he had found his luck. And all the time he had known the haunt of that hoarsely whispered word: N'Gobi!

Now he had proved a poor, generous creature's verity. And so the logic of it all must be accepted. Somewhere beyond that tunnel mouth a secret was lying hidden. A secret for his discovery.

He searched for matches and lit the candle in his lantern. Then with a thrust of his rifle he parted the tangle of creeper. Almost on the instant it fell back into place. It was behind him.

As the puny light of his candle battled with inky darkness there was a sound in the trailing creeper behind him. There was violent movement accompanied by a threatening hiss. One long green tendril writhed into active life. It swung, it slashed. And the poison glands of a deadly green boomslang emptied their virus into the dirty canvas of the man's slung haversack.

PART I

CHAPTER I. — THE KOPJE

THE two men were climbing the steep slope of a sand-dune not unlike a miniature mountain. It was a surface of tufted, wind-swept, sun-scorched grass and soft red sand into which feet sank deeply. The goal of its summit would mean a measure of relief from the torture and foulness of swarming black flies.

"Awful damned going, Larky," he complained, as he recovered himself. "What with sun, and flies, and sand—"

His complaint trailed off as he turned to observe the outfit strung out behind him.

"Never had no use for sand, sir," Larky replied, sucking his teeth. "Give me Somme mud every time."

Larky had halted with something like military precision. But his interest was with the northern distance rather than that which was meandering up the hill behind them.

Larking Brown was a batman. A factotum. And something rather precious in human friendship. He also came from the Holloway Road, which he usually reminded everybody was "London North 7." His whole horizon was bounded by his service with Colonel Richard Farlow. In point of fact he had almost forgotten any life before that association.

He had started his career with the drums of a famous regiment. He had become batman to a newly joined second lieutenant, who was Farlow. He was still his batman. Serving with him throughout the protracted South African campaign in the Great War the Armistice found them still together on Europe's Western Front. Since then years of big game hunting, and exploration of some of the least desirable remotenesses of Africa, had made up a life originally designed for the narrower scope of city dwelling.

Despite flies, and sun-glare, and a desert thirst, Farlow's narrowed grey eyes smiled as he watched Ms outstrung outfit. He understood the leisureliness of it. The disregard for any military formation. A fighting force, it had its own peculiar ideas about campaigning which were mainly concerned with a maximum of labour to be avoided. His sympathy went out to his Bantu warriors whose head-loads were made up of weighty armaments. Then the herders of his string of ten laden asses. Who could blame if they laboured up to their ankles in hot, red sand and left the donkeys to their own devices. His bearers, weighted down with precious camp outfit, stirred pity.

But his smile broadened to a real grin as he contemplated the slim, active creature bringing up the far rear. It was the Basuto headman, Omba. He was equipped with a Winchester sporting rifle across his shoulder, butt uppermost. And he was clad in a suit of vivid pyjamas which he, Farlow, had bequeathed to him. He was belted with ammunition in every direction.

Farlow turned back to the man beside him, over whom his six feet odd somewhat towered. And he decided there was little to choose in the matter of attire between his black friend and his white. Larky was wearing a khaki tunic that was button-less and devoid of its sleeves. A pair of service cord breeches were puttee-less, and flapped loose about sockless ankles and laced highlows.

"Can't think why you still wear it, but that khaki of yours reminds me, Larky," he said. "Do you know what today is? Fifteenth of October. Do you remember? On this particular day in 1918 we were both killing Huns as if we liked it. Rather like potting bunnies in fresh cut stubble. On the run for dear life. Do you remember scrounging food because the rations couldn't keep up with us? A bloodsome time, come to think of it. Still, it was the end of a dirty business. Queer how dates come back to you. Remember the general's magnum of bubbly?"

"Bit out of your reckoning, though, sir, if I may say so," he went on. "It wasn't till the eighteenth that I pinched old goat-whisker's magnum, and them chicken sangwiches he was hell on. Pommery! Cor! Filled out the corners all right, sir. Can't understand a greedy blighter like him wanting to eat chicken sangwiches with us blokes nigh starved. See it in my diary day before we started out on this goose chase that I 'spects is going to get us down before we're through with it."

"Beastly exact, aren't you?" he grumbled. "But they were good days to—look back on. When does the next war start?"

"Quick, I'd say, sir." Larky cocked a gloomy eye. "They've drawn a new map of Europe. And a new map of Africa. War to end war! And they do that. I ask you, sir. Would you stand for it? Hun colonies. A corridor drove right through their country. If I was a Hun I wouldn't let up till I'd got my own back. Same as us Britishers did when our politicians did their dirt down there at Majuba. Before we was born."

Farlow grinned at the grotesque figure ploughing along through the sand with tireless energy.

"Topping spirit, of course," he chuckled. "But you've got it wrong this time. They've been drawing new maps of Africa since the world began. And Africa doesn't care a hoot. No impression, what? Africa just swallows up every fresh civilization when it feels like it. Man and his works don't count in Africa. There's a wonder temple of Angkor, or something, in Cambodia, or somewhere. Took man hundreds of years to build it. Jungle just swallowed it up. Crawled all over it. That's Africa, too. Air liners. Railroads. Motor cars. International boundaries. In a thousand years some scientific bug'll be digging up a locomotive or something and classifying it as some sort of dead saurian. Take you and me, Larky. Crawling over this red-hot Balbau veldt because a fool government's lost track of a commission it sent to investigate mineral resources. A pair of ants crawling over Africa's sleeping carcase like doss-house fleas on a casual. Well, Africa just gets fed up with that sort of thing. Presently she'll roll over, get rid of us, and go to sleep again."

They reached the hill-top. A wide plateau of deep sand and lean, wind-driven grass. Farlow thrust back a wide-brimmed hat that might have belonged to a back veldt Boer farmer. He breathed relief and swished flies with an ox tail. Larky snatched a half burnt cigarette from behind an ear and lit it. But his watch on the northern distance remained unremitting.

"Hell of a country, sir," he observed casually and inhaled smoke. Then: "Ain't it?"

Larky's appreciation of the ill-reputed Balbau veldt was well founded. A grim steep-land where sand-storm cursed and water had no surface existence. It was part of the outlaw region associated with the hill-country of N'Gobi, to its north. But it yet possessed merits which the fly-tortured mind of a cockney refused to recognise.

It was just another variation of Africa's magic. Its heat was blistering. But it was braced by the cool Benguela current that rarely failed to make itself felt. Its network of sand rivers contained ample water deep buried in their channels. Its broad, hidden savannahs were stocked with game browsing and sheltering in countless thousands. Then there were hidden wonder valleys like that which now opened out beyond the sand dune's plateau. It was deep, and wide, and far-reaching. It was gorgeous with rich pasture and park-like luxuriance.

The Balbau had been hunted by Farlow for years. Its secrets were his intimate knowledge. Its lures and repulsions were commonplaces to him. The valley now opening out before him held memories of particularly deep interest. That was the reason of its present approach.

It was at the moment the pyjama-clad Omba ranged up beside his white baas, having shepherded the trailing outfit before him, that Farlow flung out a pointing arm at the meandering course of the sand river centring the valley.

It came with the sharpness of an order. And Larky turned from the valley's high northern shoulder where the alabaster summit of an ice-clad N'Gobi frowned like a thunder cloud in the purpling distance.

Farlow was indicating an ironstone kopje far down in the heart of the valley. It was on the north bank of the river. And it stood up like a watch-tower. Its summit was crowned by the laid stone walls of a kaffir kraal or fortress.

"See them, Larky?" he asked. "What about goose chases? Look. Their sort don't waste time where there's no carrion." He reached his field glasses and peered. "Hundreds. I can't think of anything but a Government commission to provide the banquet."

It was a gathering of vultures. There were loathesome creatures heavily a-wing above the kopje. Others were huddled hideously, perched on walls and rocks. Some were actively engaged. Savagely active.

"I think you're right though, Larky," he admitted grimly. "It is a goose chase."

Larky watched the lumbering birds with a feeling of physical sickness. Then he turned sharply back to the northern heights of the valley.

"All I hope, sir, is they picked them Gover'ment bones clean. We ain't looking for typhoid or enteric. Got to think of getting home for Christmas. The Cup Ties'll be starting. You can't—"

But he broke off. And the silence on the plateau was not without omen. Omba was leaning on his rifle with eyes and every other sense alert. The asses cropped at grass that scarcely seemed worth while. Farlow smoked a cigarette, and watched the circling assevogels.

"I don't like none of it, sir!" he exploded. "Not a little bit! And that's a fact."

Omba sang it in his deep bass while his big eyes grinned meaninglessly. Farlow glanced from one to the other.

"And I'm smelling the bones of a Government commission on that kopje. We're not so far south of our rascally N'Gobi. What does it mean? Massacre by yellow men for assevogels to feed on. I'm afraid it means funeral business, too. Quite a night of it."

There was real humanity in it. A mute sympathy that lost nothing for the casual manner in which the work was carried out. Kaffir and white man worked for half a day and the best part of a night collecting and burying vulture-ravaged remains, and erecting a rock cairn to mark the grave of gallant men who had died fighting with the sort of inadequate equipment with which only a Government could have provided them.

Farlow knew at the instant of arrival at the kopje. And Larky was there to add his understanding of the massacre that had been committed. A camp had been stripped of every weapon. Every article that might serve the despoilers. And the rocky slopes of the kopje were littered with the white-man remains which the assevogels had broadcast. Nothing was left to tell but bones and a few fragments of clothing which proclaimed white identity.

The only satisfaction was the discovery of black and yellow remains amongst the ghastly litter.

It was left to Larky at the end of the night's work, after disposing a night guard of Bantus at the stone defences of the kopje, to sum up the situation. It was shorn of any nicety of language.

"'Tain't any use us talking, sir," he declared, as he endeavoured to transform a small, ancient, stone-built hut into something fit for his chief to sleep in. "Those yellow shysters copped 'em out proper. The Gover'ment thinks it's got the laugh on us when it comes to yellow blokes. Well, it's not going to laugh itself dizzy after this. Fancy sending a crowd of highbrow mining experts up on to the Balbau. Betcher there wasn't a machine-gun among the lot. Like as not they handed 'em pop-guns. D'you know what, sir? There's a crowd of them, thick in the forest on the northern slopes. Black as well as yellow, if I know anything. And we'll cop it plenty come daylight. Dirty yellow snakes. Hundreds of 'em, or I'm dippy."

Farlow removed some of his clothing preliminary to occupying the blankets Larky had laid out for him on a camp trestle.

"There's no argument, Larky," he said quietly. "If your word weren't sufficient we have Omba's. And you can't beat a Basuto's guess when it comes to what's hiding in jungle. But we must get a spot of sleep and be ready for 'em. Good night."

Farlow watched a reluctant retreat beyond a dirty Kaffir blanket which Larky had hung over the stone doorway of the hut for his chief's better comfort. Then he extinguished a candle which Larky had set up on a spill of grease. He was well enough aware that he would be watched over by a sleepless pair of mournful eyes concealing a fighting spirit that was frankly yearning for that battle which Larky had promised for daylight.

Farlow was buried beneath a leopard-skin korross despite the heat of the night. There were a couple of kaffir blankets between him and the canvas of his camp bed. His pillow was a canvas kit bag which contained his wardrobe. The hut was singing with flies and alive with white ants when Larky pulled aside the blanket strung over the doorway.

Farlow cursed. He sat up, propping his lean body against his kit bag. And he blinked resentfully at the red-head and unattractive face with a week's stubble of beard that loomed in at him.

"You're a damned depression, Larky," he growled, reaching his cigarette case lying on the up-turned box beside him, "off Iceland, or somewhere. That face. Can't you kick it? It's a blot on the skyline. I haven't had half enough sleep."

Larky gloomed unsmilingly. Any other sort of morning greeting would have disappointed.

"There's ignorant blokes at home said worse about my face than that, sir. But I don't take notice of them that hasn't no manners. Omba's had the boys hot up yesterday's hash for your breaker. Flies must have got at it in the night. Told him he'd have to eat it himself. You need a couple of them bottled rashers before the fun starts. The forest's on the move like. Have to eat quick."

Farlow inhaled a cigarette luxuriously. A gleam of affection looked out from under the lids of narrowed eyes.

"You're a blighter, of course," he observed cordially. "I'll eat whatever you choose to bring me if you'll only get to hell out of this. Go and run a mower over the bottom of your head, and clean off that red fungus. Omba at the walls?"

"All over 'em, sir. Sar'nt-majoring the Bantus like he was on parade. Rifles laid ready and magazines filled. Them eyes of his is grinning murder. Can't understand how that bloke fancies killing like he does. Pity he's a black. Win the King's Prize at Bisley he would."

It was two shots in rapid succession. There was a momentary silence. Then a deep bass boomed. And Larky and Farlow listened. It was a language of clicks which seemed to tap-tap like machine-gun fire.

"Oh, telling them what he thinks of 'em. And praising his own skill," Farlow explained. "Must have hit something. Throw me my pants."

"We'll make a clean up today, Larky, or go under," he grinned, tucking an unclean shirt into his old service cords. "You know. What you like. Getting our own back. Those boys were white if they were Government lambs. And we don't leave this dump without cleaning things up to their memory."

"Got to be a sound job. The old machine-guns," he went on. "The yacht's waiting at the coast, and if we make a good job of it you ought to find yourself at a Cup Tie or something on Boxing Day. Got the Lewis guns set?"

"Merry as a grig, sir. I dunno," Larky demurred. "Unhealthy. That's what the Balbau is, sir. Here we are. Set up a fair cockshy on top of this kopje. Makes you feel like those boys in the Zulu War. Isandhlwana, wasn't it? Still, Zulus is Zulus. The blarsted cocoa-nibs hereabouts fancies you best in the pot. I'm all for the bright side of things, myself. You know, sir. Knock back a couple of pints and look for a laugh. But I can't see it would set a cat laughing stewin' in a pot to make hash for a lousy lot of cannibal savages. I ask you?"

Larky found himself outside the hut with Farlow sluicing in a bucket with no more than a pint of water in it.

"The trouble with you, Larky," Farlow complained while he washed, "is you never will see the dark side of things. Too much sense of humour. That pot business is no darn joke. I'd hate like the devil to be made into pea-soup. And I'm not going to be if I can help it. We're just going to turn this beastly valley into a sort of skittle alley. Us rolling the balls. And your cocoa-nibs the skittles. See? But I can't do it on an empty stomach. See what I mean?"

"Well, there it is, sir," he said preparing to depart. "Can't help the way a bloke's born, can you? I always was a rare one for seeing the comic in things. But I'm telling you, sir," he gloomed with dire earnestness, "if you should have to go into that bleeding pot I'm with you. And that ain't comic neither!"

CHAPTER II. — SLAUGHTER

THE laid stones of the old kraal walls were burning hot. The ironstone footing of the kopje's summit was punishing even to the calloused soles of kaffir feet. The sun was beating down into the heart of the valley untempered by any breath of the cool Benguela current.

Away below the grey-green veldt was empty of all but its colonies of white ant-heaps standing up like giant fungus. But at the valley's far slopes of jungle forest it might well have been different. In particular the northern bush which was in the direction of N'Gobi.

Farlow peered through levelled glasses. He was leaning on the hot stone of the northern wall. His sun-scorched, bare elbows remained indifferent to the burning. Farther along his fighting Bantus were ranged down the wall under Omba's charge. Each was a skilled rifle shot. And each had his rifle laid ready to his hand with its magazine full. Omba was in fighting-array. His black body was bare of all but ammunition belts and a hide moocha. Larky was beyond. His charge was the eastern angle of the kraal wall. And he was accompanied by many armaments.

The morning was wearing on and the enemy still clung to the shelter of the northern forests. There had been sporadic firing. There had been sniping from the bush. But there had been no attempt at that storming attack which Farlow felt confident was yet to come. Overhead, high enough to be only just visible against a brazen sky, vultures were already circling. It was an indication that a measure of success had fallen to the fort guns.

Farlow turned and beckoned the Basuto. He was searching again through his glasses when the man hurried up.

"It's coming," he said, using the man's own tongue, without lowering his glasses. "It's coming quick. A big lot. Impis. A big kill. Listen. Not a shot till I say. Understand. That's important."

The man marched back to his fighting squad. And he passed down its line admonishing.

Omba was an instinctive killer. He had inherited from forebears in direct descent from the fierce Moshesh, and he asked no better than that the odds should be heavy against him. But that was because of the machine-gunning he had acquired during the African campaign of the Great War. The new white man "med'cine" pleased him mightily. He could kill so many with so little effort.

He finally took his position up beside a gun he would ply and feed till it ran hot or seized.

Farlow knew his man. Hence his firm order. But there was uplift for him in Omba's instant promise of obedience and savagely grinning eyes. Already, on his way up to the Balbau, Farlow had lost two of his best Bantu fighters, sniped in the bush. He was more than glad of any opportunity to wipe out that score.

Omba turned from his own machine-gun to beam as Larky came hurrying from his wall angle to approach Farlow. He grinned after the sturdy figure anticipating results. And he remained between watchfulness and listening.

"Here, sir," he cried. "Have you got it? What I said. Yellow. It's yellow perishers and cannibal savages mixed this time."

He flung out a bare arm knotted with muscle. It was pointing at a narrow break in the bush-lined slope.

"That's where I see 'em. Two yellows and a bunch of blacks. And they stood while I got a line on 'em. But they'd hopped it before I could loose off. Yellow, sir. Khaki, too. Shirt, and pants, and puttees. Reg'lar white outfit. But yellow as a 'jimmy' we don't never see these days. What d'you know about it, sir?"

"It's no laughing matter." Farlow nodded slyly. "But there's more than two. Get back quick. We're going to have storm-troop waves over again, if I make a right guess. Hun-trained show. Or copied."

"It's been mausers every time with them so far, sir," he reminded doubtfully. "What if it's machine-guns the same as us—this?"

"Wait for it, Omba!" he ordered sharply. And was just in time to discover the meaning of the Basuto's activity.

It was there at the foot of the bush slope. A long scattered line of black warriors. It had broken cover, and was advancing under the futile protection of white hide shields and bristling with numberless murderous blades of assegais gleaming in the sun. It was the awaited offensive. A surging black wave that came leaping, crouching, and even snaking its way through the tall grass.

"Get after it, Larky. The real thing. Have to draw our fire with those poor black fish. Understand? Just kill. With care. Mark your men. And count each shot a 'bull.' Don't waste a shot. And have the Bantus and Omba do the same. Just rifles. Hold up machine-guns till you get word. It's the yellow men we're to wait for. And they won't show themselves till those poor darn blacks reach storming contact."

Instantly began a sniping that was the deadliest form of cold murder. The target was there like buck in the high veldt. Rifle fire sprayed with the precision of target practice with half a score of men behind it who were artists in the business.

It should have been pathetic. A senseless line of befeathered magpies, white of breast under cover of hide shields. They moved and postured. And one by one they went down to each truly sped bullet.

A second wave emerged from cover. It came on in the wake of the thinning front line. It came voicefully and urgent. Boastfully triumphant. But it was ignored by the defence which went steadily on with its decimation of the leaders. A third line broke from the bush.

The valley's bottom had become alive with perhaps a thousand reckless, lusting savages in all their war paint. They pressed on towards the kopje, utterly disregarding. The fresh waves closed up on the enfeebled front line and Farlow knew nauseation as he thought of that which would presently befall.

But he remained all unrelenting. He continued starkly painstaking in destroying front line life. It was a simple strategy of delaying contact while he waited for his real moment. He knew the "pot," with which he had twitted Larky, was a most unpleasant reality. These were Chikana's warriors. And the game was kill or cook. He had no intention of enduring eternal darkness within the disgusting purlieus of a savage belly.

Despite the merciless and accurate rifle fire the shattered remnant of the foremost wave reached the foot of the kopje. It was the psychological moment upon which Farlow had gambled, and for which he had waited. Merciless joy leapt as he beheld. The far bush fringe had become a strung-out line of perhaps five hundred khaki-clad figures. It advanced on the run in wide skirmishing order and it belched a hail of mauser bullets to sweep over the stone kraal and beat upon its ironstone.

Farlow shouted his order. Those only waiting for it rushed gladly to obey. Repeating rifles were flung aside. Half a score of machine-guns were fed and came into action to despoil a poor imitation of a Hun offensive on Europe's Western Front. It was defeat of yellow purpose to ride to victory on the shoulders of savage sacrifice. The machine-guns blasted a fire that staggered and withered.

The counter offensive of it was devastating. It was rout almost instant. The hail swept the black and white field. It lifted to the yellow behind it. There was no mercy. There could be none. Defenders were few and the enemy many. Hand to hand conflict was unthinkable. It was long range slaughter or follow in the wake of a Government commission.

Larky stood up from his kneeling. A thoughtful finger passed across the snub of his nose. In one hand was a Mauser automatic. In the other was a long, keen-bladed knife. It was a curved blade and its sheath was attached to a belt which had been taken from the body of the man at his feet.

Dick Farlow was still on his knees beside the wounded man. He was completing a rough examination of shattered ribs.

They were out on the open of the valley's bottom. A slaughter yard they had created. It was a nauseating carnage aggravated by the circling presence of lumbering vultures.

Omba and native bearers were moving swiftly from one dead body to another, with orders to collect for disposal, and to succour, if possible, the wounded. But Omba and his men knew little of human kindness where the dreaded Chikana and his savage impis were concerned.

Farlow stood up from the wounded yellow man and hailed the preoccupied Omba. The man came on the run.

"Get him up to the kraal," he ordered. "Get some of the boys. He's alive. And we want him to talk. See what you can get out of him when you've made him comfortable. You'd better get all the boys back up there, too. We haven't time to be human."

It was said in plain English on purpose. And while he spoke Farlow watched the face of the man on the ground. The expression of pain-racked features told him that which he wanted to know. He had been understood.

There was a moment while Omba and two of his boys handled the man. Then Farlow and Larky looked after them as they bore their burden up the ironstone hill.

"Sheffield," he spurned contemptuously. "Hun gun and British knife. What the hell? They aren't Totties. They're not blacks. Wouldn't say they were Chinks, neither. Nor those Basta blokes. They're in khaki, like they were white. They're yellow. I ask you, sir? Mongrels of some sort. Must be. Rotten curs anyway."

Farlow returned the knife and gazed thoughtfully at the far line of the bush-clad slope.

"Not mongrels in your meaning of it, Larky," he demurred. "Just a race we don't know about." He raised his eyes in the direction of the distant N'Gobi. "It's always in N'Gobi's neighbourhood," he went on. "Directly that unwholesome hill comes into view we make contact and they try to wipe us out."

"Never did like that hill, sir," Larky mourned. "Shuts itself in with marshes and thorn-bush like it had something to hide. Must be lousy with 'em. Like to bet a tanner Omba doesn't get nothing out of that bloke."

"Looking for easy money," Farlow objected. "We've tried third degree on them before. Someday we'll have to look into N'Gobi. Whoever these people are they're in touch with world affairs. For instance, that attack. Hun storming badly done. But we'll get ready to trek back if we don't get a counter attack. Peter van Ruis will want our news down at Gobabi. Then we'll make Chutanga. Pick up Karl with the Oompee and run down to Cape Town. We ought to make the trip in time to catch that Delta Line's Olivarria. I think you'll get Boxing Day at Highbury after all."

"Yessir. But how about the mail boat," Larky suggested shrewdly. "Might get some of the League matches earlier, too."

CHAPTER III. — RAAMANITA

THE terrace was high up on a precipitous hill slope. It was a notch cut in its stark face just above the limits of the tropical vegetation luxuriating in the heat below. A veritable eyrie, it commanded a view over lesser hills. Over hidden valleys and gorges. It looked down upon a great lake which shone like a mirror in the sunlight.

It was basking in a passionate tropic glare. But heat was pleasantly tempered. Cooling breezes were mercifully drifting down off an icefield far above it; an icefield whose ages-old glaciers were lost under a cloud-drift forever on the move, forever changing shape and density.

The ledge of it was cut deeply into the hillside. The instruments of man had driven far into the cold heart of grey granite to level an area of many acres. There was half a mile of its length. With a depth of several hundred feet. A staunch parapet defended it against an abysmal drop below.

There was nothing rough-hewn in its quarrying. Its granite background was smoothly sheer and ribbed at regular intervals by buttress columns, admirably carved, cut deeply out of its face. Nor was the parapet of inferior workmanship. It was stone-built. A softly rose-tinted stone. And none of the material of its construction was rectangular. The stones had no uniformity in size or shape. Yet, without bonding cement, each stone seated in its place with such precision and closeness that interstices were almost unapparent.

The object of such an aloof terrace was there in ample evidence. Once it had been called upon to support a magnificent structure set up on super-imposed terraces of a similar stone to that of the parapet. It had been reduced to a sprawl of ruins. Decapitated columns stood up in ranks at regular intervals, like the stumps of decaying teeth. Their sculptured bases were buried deep in a mass of shattered rubble which once had formed the roof they had supported. There was carving on almost every stone. And the keynote of its ancient decoration was an elaborate drawing of a deified sun.

An architectural triumph of remote times dedicated to the worship of the Sun-God. Now it was gone. All its craft and artistry wrecked. And, in its place, in place of chiselled beauty belonging to the days when labour and costliness were of small account, crude, modern utility had been enthroned. A single-storeyed dwelling of colonial type had replaced it. Verandahed, spaciously enclosing a wide courtyard, and built of the stone of its predecessor, it nevertheless possessed the unmodern modesty to dispose itself at the far end of the terrace.

A girl was leaning over the coping of the parapet. It was a pose only to be dared consciously by a woman of perfect slimness. She was deeply absorbed. And her preoccupation found expression in the nervous clasping of attractive hands whose bejewelled fingers were tightly interlaced.

She had all the freshness of early years. Her black eyes had the almond shaping of the East. And they were gazing unflinchingly at a westering sun. But, unlike condor or eagle, dark, curling fringes were there to defend against blinding light.

She was beautiful in a modern way. Make-up had been deftly applied to features of an already perfect face. A chaplet of priceless jewels adorned a brow that was broad and smooth. And it encircled a head of raven-black hair that was smoothly centre-parted and coiled in dainty plaits over ears of shell-like beauty. She was wearing a closely-fitting, sheath-like gown of glittering sequins which shone like burnished steel armour. It was a single piece affair which cunningly revealed those slim curves it pretended to conceal.

Within a yard or so a man was dizzily seated on the coping over which the girl was leaning. He was aged. He had snow-white hair that was uncovered to the sun, and which was close cropped to reveal the massive shapeliness underneath it. His eyes were as black as his daughter's. But there was nothing Eastern in their shaping. He was a deeply sunburnt white man of British origin whose frame and stoutness of limb denied his many years.

He was observing watchfully. And his daughter's gripping hands warned him of a mood approaching explosive climax. There was cold warning in the shake of his cropped head.

"Why now, my girl?" he asked levelly. "You've never found it necessary before. Why interfere in things outside a woman's province? I agree the position's not all I hoped for. But, politically, I can't see that it's worse than it has been for a long time. No. I'm not worried. Farlow's been a thorn in our sides for years. There's danger in his activities. But there always has been. Ankubi made a rotten mess of it when he should have wiped him out. That's true enough. But it's no more than the fortune of war. One day we'll get him. And meanwhile I'm not squealing over spilt milk. If there's nothing more I'll get on down to the batteries."

But he knew there was more. It came with the swift swing round of a lithe young body.

"Spilt milk!" It scorned hotly. "I wonder, Father. Is it age? Is it senility? Or are you just thinking with a mind that belongs to forty years ago. 'One day we'll get him.' And I tell you it will be too late if you don't get him now. At once."

The girl flung back to her leaning. But her angry eyes avoided the sun and gazed below her.

Hundreds of feet below she beheld tiny craft with vividly coloured sails scudding over the shining waters of the lake. There was a glittering mist far down its northern shore which seemed to deaden the thunders of a mighty cataract it concealed. She saw a busy traffic moving over a red-sand roadway. Then the multitude of habitations. They looked like infinitesimal cubes of rose-tinted stone. Each with a uniformly flatted roof supporting a sort of "beehive" dome. Her gaze settled upon a small enclosed aerodrome where two planes were standing before their hangars.

"I think you're viewing the whole thing extravagantly," he said patiently. "The mind that belongs to forty years ago has thought very successfully for all that time."

"To finish up at last with an act of complete, blundering stupidity. It's—it's—damnable!"

The girl's eyes were full of hot challenge. Tire father's were calmly appraising.

"Is this getting us anywhere?" he asked without seeming umbrage. "But what can Farlow do? What does he know of us here? Believe me, Raamanita, if Farlow knew anything more than he's known for years he would be very literally knocking at our doors. Ankubi blundered. But there it is. Beyond that I can't see anything to disturb."

Raamanita pondered the big creature. She had suggested age. Senility. And she knew there was no sign of these things in this father whose ruthlessness had always been a matter for her admiration. But her woman's mind was set upon a definite purpose. And now she felt she had prepared the ground sufficiently. All her heat abruptly evaporated.

"Sorry, Father," she regretted coolly. "Feelings run away with me. But, anyhow, I don't think you fully realize Dick Farlow. I do. I've watched him so long through the press accounts and stories of him. It began years ago when I was a child in England with Uncle Tony. He was my hero then. I'm not sure he isn't a bit of a hero to me now. But the thing that seriously matters is that when he talks in Africa Governments listen. One word from him in the right quarter and good-bye to your forty years' work. Good-bye," she went on with a cunning slant of watchful eyes, "to your years' old dream of unearthing a fabulous lost reef of almost solid gold. And even, perhaps, good-bye to life itself. You and Ankubi between you have turned Dick Farlow loose upon his world with a complete story of the massacre of a dozy Government Commission. You've shown him who did it. Massacre may be merely political to you. In common law it's murder. And usually murder finds a hangman at the other end of it. Farlow can turn a hornet's nest loose on N'Gobi."

"But that's only one aspect of it," she went on. "The aspect as it affects you, personally. There's another. And it's of serious concern—to me. Ankubi's left hundreds of dead or wounded for the assevogels out there on the Balbau. Half the wives and mothers in these hills are grieving. The people are savage, father, I'm their queen. You made me their queen. They're looking to me in their trouble. They're even blaming me. And when people start to blame their ruler it's time to do a lot of thinking. That's what I've been doing."

It was irony. And it was devastating in its biting cold. The man's black eyes steadily regarded the girl whom a woman of yellow skin had born to him nearly thirty years before. Never before had he found it necessary to regard her as other than a beautiful pawn on the chess-board of his scheming. But now he knew she was to be considered. And seriously considered.

"Twenty-seven, aren't you, Nita?" he nodded. "No longer a kid, anyway. Have you thought that you've never known worry or difficulty ever since you were born? You've had everything any reasonable girl could desire. You can't complain of the life I've given you. You can safely leave the people to me. I'm afraid I don't usually fancy plans other than my own. But I'll admit no sane mind ever evolved a plan that didn't possess some features worth consideration. Now this of yours. Of course—"

"When I was much younger than you are, I, too, worked out an infallible plan," he went on grimly. "I knew it all. Much better than those who had had years of experience. My supreme confidence cost me years of penal servitude on a breakwater the sea washed away as fast as I and my fellow convicts built it. Those years taught me that no game can be successfully played until you've learned the rules by heart. Go on."

"They taught you more than that, Father," she cried. "They taught you about N'Gobi. A fellow adventurer, less fortunate than you, told you of ancient gold-workings that would yield you fortune. He told you of a people, all that were left of an ancient race which once was the dominant people of Africa. Of a great Queen who ruled over them thousands of years ago. But most important of all he told you of a fabulous lost reef which had once been the chief source of the ancient world's gold supply. And he gave you a chart of how to come to your Eldorado."

Raamanita turned to watch a flight of huge birds winging across the evening sky. She saw them approach the overshadowing of N'Gobi's snow-crowned peak. She pointed to them.

"Assevogels, glutted with the carrion you and Ankubi left for them out on the Balbau."

"You know, Father, I don't think your understanding of women is in the least extensive. I fancy women never occupied their rightful place in your man's life. I even doubt if you knew the least spiritual urge in your parenthood of me. Of course my modern mind isn't deluded by the old-fashioned hypocrisy of such a thing as 'spiritual urge' in the matter of offspring. Parenthood, at its best, is a matter of service, utility. Even cannon-fodder. At its worst, or most commonplace, it is the mere satisfaction of sexual desire comparable with that of any dumb animal. But in your case I'd say the animal has always been subservient to material considerations. I was necessary for the furtherance of your plans here in N'Gobi. So I had to be born to the only woman you found amongst our people who claimed direct descent from that queen who reigned thousands of years ago. Her claim was naturally as fabulous as other things. But it suited you."

"So I've nothing to complain of! So you think you've provided me with everything a reasonable woman could desire! And yet you've held me here since ever I reached full womanhood, extravagantly educated in England, mewed up with a lot of yellow creatures whose blood I share. What do you know of a woman's mind? What do you know of her desires? Nothing. All you understand is that N'Gobi's gold is unsuspected by the rest of the world. And, somewhere, these hills contain a solid mass of precious metal whose discovery will shatter gold values the world over. Man, claim for yourself astuteness, courage, determination, imbecilic credulity, if you will. But don't let your conceit tell you you know the first thing about a woman or her desires.

"Here, Father," she hurried on, "before I reveal my plan to you let me bare things to the bone. I've got to show you once and for all you're not dealing with a child or a puppet. You're not dealing with one who's content to eat out of your hand, furthering your schemes for the few gauds with which you have decked her. Remember, I'm the daughter of a clever, unscrupulous man. And part of my blood goes back to great people, who, supposedly, once ruled a vast tract of this old, old world.

"We can leave the story of N'Gobi as you first heard it from a handful of yellow survivors, who, when you first came here, forty years ago, were ready to welcome anything that wasn't black. I'll only remind you that the story came down from father to son through countless generations telling of a race of millions. Telling that N'Gobi had once possessed its wonderful reef which had made gold almost as common as our iron is today. Telling of tragic, volcanic disaster that swallowed up that reef. And of black, conquering hordes who over-ran the country, and wiped out our yellow ancestor's rule. It also told that a poor human remnant was dragging out a benighted existence here only waiting for a return of that old queen who would recover for them their lost wealth, and, by her might and genius would restore them to their original greatness."

A second flight of returning assevogels sailed heavily towards N'Gobi's peak and vanished. The girl went on:

"The only detail of that story that interested you was the— gold. You swallowed the bait of it. And you've been held ever since with your whole mind one supreme note of interrogation. Where? But more important still how could you become possessed of a gold reef that would stagger the world?

"You quickly found an answer to the second question. The how of it simply leapt at you. You had found only a handful of our yellow people which was insufficient for your purpose. Seven or eight hundred. And mostly women. You wanted more. Legions. So you set to work to operate the old galleries as best you could and preached polygamy to the people. The whole thing would take time. But you were young. You spent your winnings from the old galleries on equipment. And demanded huge reinforcements of babies if the promise of our people's faith were to be given effect. The women were three to one in excess of the men. They set to work. And the result was comparatively staggering. Births almost became litters.

"Your plans went well. While repopulation was in progress the old workings yielded far in excess of your hopes. And you very wisely spent your winnings in fostering our people. You brought them out of the dark places into a world of sun-light. You fed them such food the like of which their stomachs had never known. You clothed them as white men and women. You drilled and equipped them into an army for modern warfare. And all this you did under the reassurance that the day of their old queen's return was near at hand.

"Meanwhile, of course, my birth had to be arranged. You selected my mother with the greatest possible discrimination and saw to things. And at last your great day arrived when you were in a position to announce the old lady's reincarnation. Their queen had returned in my infant body. Then the next step. When I was sufficiently grown I was given a great part in the pantomime you were preparing. I had to become the centre piece of your culminating transformation scene. Europe. I was sent to Uncle Tony in England for education and to be made over into your fairy queen. Under the influence of rapidly growing fortune Uncle Tony put his heart into the job. And at long last I returned over our secret highway a youthful, modern vision of a queen militant determined upon world conquest. I came complete with perfect English education. A mirror of modern fashion. And I was accompanied by all the marvels of modern mechanical science, a wealth of war-like instruments, and masses of gold-working machinery. Your triumph was complete. But—"

"Over eight years ago, Father," the girl sighed extravagantly. "You were asking for a life-time's lease of these hills that you might dedicate your remaining days to your task. You obtained that lease. It mattered nothing to you that the old galleries had already yielded you and Uncle Tony a fortune of millions shrewdly disposed amongst the safest banks of Europe. That fabled reef. It had become your obsession, insanity. Everything had to be sacrificed to its pursuit. Even me. You had won out. There was nothing left but to go steadily on until your supreme goal was reached. Then you blundered. A blunder of such magnitude that the whole structure of forty years' labour is even now tottering. You've massacred a Government commission which could never have caused you serious hurt. And you've failed in a senseless attack upon the one man in Africa you should have avoided like a pestilence. Richard Farlow."

"A superfluous recital, my girl, and with a faulty conclusion," the man replied coldly. "The one man in Africa who must be got rid of at all costs."

It was only with difficulty the girl restrained expression of relief. It was the retort she had intended to provoke.

"Quite," she agreed. "All that is the matter is the way you set about it. A blundering Ankubi. A ridiculous and beastly massacre. My plan is different."

"I personally shall muzzle Dick Farlow like any other troublesome dog. But in my own way. He will come here to me. He appeals to me. You assure me you have given me everything a reasonable woman can desire." She shook her head. "Not until you have given me—Dick Farlow."

It was there in her eyes. The hot light of them. The father read it plainly. Without scruple in the affairs of life his whole Victorian manhood nevertheless revolted. The hideous sexual frankness nauseated.

"Does it matter? Is Nature sane?" she mocked. "At least it will leave you with an easy mind to pursue your will-o'-th'-wisp. Do you want more? My desires are my own. Farlow shall come here. And he shall learn all N'Gobi can tell him."

It almost shouted as the man leapt from his seat on the coping. He towered threateningly. His eyes were aflame. One great fist was raised as though about to strike. Raamanita remained unimpressed.

"Just silly," she scorned. "An accusation on a par with other stupidity. You forget that I am queen of N'Gobi. You forget that I—not you—am responsible for the crime that the fighting force of N'Gobi has committed. Sit again, man, and don't flourish a childish fist or I shall begin to believe in that senility. Use the nimble wits which have served you so well in—the past."

There was no return to the man's seat. But the threatening fist fell to his side.

"Then for God's sake cut out your modern sex beastliness and come to your plan."

The girl's quick mind read the yielding. And with sound generalship she restrained the impulse to mock.

"It's so very simple," she explained, "if we put our feelings aside and consider politically. The position is quite clear. Farlow will tell his story if left at large. And that, of course, will rob you of everything you have laboured for. Then there are those other consequences. But like all the rest our hunter man has his price if it's in the right currency. Dick Farlow is first and last a hunter and explorer. He's got his insanity just as we have ours. He lives for the secrets of Africa. And the remoter, the more difficult they are to obtain, the more hotly he pursues them. Our yellow people have intrigued him for years. He would rather discover them than anything else in the world. I propose he shall discover them. Once he's learned of our 'Queen's Highway' nothing on earth will keep him from it. And, just as surely, nothing will induce him to tell his story of the Balbau lest the Government should interfere with his plans. Then think how the policy will react on our people. How it will strengthen our hands. My prestige. I possess such magic that my enemies are brought suppliant at my feet."

"Need you ask? You?" she protested. "Listen. This is the way of it. I've prepared a careful plan of our 'Highway.' I've titled it alluringly. I've drawn it so that only Dick Farlow may read it. I shall entrust it to Chiabwe. You see, Chiabwe and Ankubi are rivals for my favours. I can play them one against the other. He will set out well equipped. He will follow Dick Farlow until the map is safely in his hands. If necessary to Cape Town, or even England. Farlow will swallow my bait. He will come here hot-foot. And he will find—me."

The girl turned away far-gazing. Then she went on without even a glance in her father's direction.

"Once here he'll never be permitted to leave—alive. He'll play the part he's cast for or—" Again came the girl's shrug of contempt. "On the other hand should he prove tractable he can live until I lose my interest in him. Then I'll hand him over to you. Or, better still, perhaps, to our gentle Ankubi."

"I don't know, girl," he said doubtfully, but in a tone that was almost too easy. "I once thought I knew it all. But—" he gestured. "Still, I agree the man has to be dealt with. If you can bring it about, well and good. You'll certainly be a worthy successor to that precious ancestor of yours. To my way of thinking Ovrana's knife or automatic would be the better way. But if you think you can put it over well and good. If you fail don't blame me if I leave you to stand the racket. It looks to me as if you'd better remind yourself that your life depends upon your success. When?"

"Then—" There was a gesture of flattened hands. "—I'll get on down to the batteries and close up."

He moved away. Raamanita watched him go. And she remained gazing after him till his big figure reached the head of a broad roadway at the far end of the terrace which had been engineered up the precipitous hillside from below.

Then she, too, moved away. She hurried towards the single-storeyed modern building which was her royal palace.

The man went on down the steep roadway. It wove zig-zag path down the hill by means of many hairpin bends. He strode easily, vigorously. And there was no sign of advancing years in his robust gait.

Half an hour later he was closeted in a rock-bound chamber which was his office. The crashing of many stamp-batteries could be heard faintly in the distance. The apartment was a natural cavern in the ironstone. It had been adapted, and furnished, and lit by electricity.

He had two men with him. They were clad in modern linen boiler-suits. Both were of yellow skin. Two slim, athletic creatures who spoke the good English only to be learned in its homeland. Their talk was earnest. But it had nothing to do with the batteries, of which these men were engineers. Nor had it anything to do with closing down a day's work.

CHAPTER IV. — AT GOBABI

THE stoep of Captain van Ruis's bungalow at the Police Headquarters at Gobabi was deeply shaded by a curtain of tropic creeper. A cool breeze was swaying it gently, rustling its large, fleshy leaves. It was the beneficent Benguela current which made life even better than merely tolerable, and kept malarial mosquitoes close to their breeding hollows.

The two men were lounging in capacious cane chairs. A small table stood between them. So did a bottle of brandy, and two long glasses, and an assortment of mineral waters.

Dick Farlow was smoking his cigarette. His well-stocked case was lying open on the table, Piet van Ruis was smoking an ancient pipe charged with his native Boer tobacco.

Farlow considered his stocky friend whose enjoyment of his pipe was quite obvious. He was without envy. He lay spread out at his ease with a twinkle of amusement in his grey eyes.

"Someday I'll have to give these things up, Peter, and go all hygienic, or something, like you," he said. "To watch you sucking the end of that reeking pipe suggests that I'm missing a terrible lot of joy. I'll have to talk to Larky, about it, too. This Kango of yours possesses a fruity kick."

Van Ruis's whiskered face grinned responsively. And he reached to replenish his guest's glass. He was short, broad. And he probably rode at no more than ten stone. His bullet head was cropped close. But a fair whisker flowed neatly round his face. His uniform fitted trimly and it was sufficiently worn to suggest hard work. A Chief of Police of a region whose area was comparable with half of Europe, his job was no sinecure. Especially as it embraced the trackless Thirsts, and the approach to the steep-lands of the Balbau Veldt.

His headquarters at Gobabi was never less than a hive of activity, where red-tape was reserved for his contact with superior Government officials elsewhere. His methods were unconventional. And only slightly less than that of Colonel Farlow was his concern for the well-being of the slumbering giant of Africa.

"You're an amusing cuss, Dick," he retorted, as he settled himself again in his chair. "If I didn't know you so well I'd never believe you wrote that ghastly report of yours I've just finished trying to digest. Man, I'm glad my district ends just clear of that foul Balbau Veldt."

The policeman's sun-scorched hands registered helplessness. He shook his bullet head.

"You needn't talk to me of game after that report of yours. Bloody massacre. An important Government commission. Not casual big-game hunters like you. The nerve of it. Who?"

Farlow drank with the appreciation of a man who spends his time in thirsty places.

"It's there in the report," he replied, with a sharp glance across the table as he set his glass down and inhaled his cigarette.

"It puts me in a dilemma, Dick. The sort of dilemma that irritates me, and makes me want to tell someone a few unflattering opinions of themselves. But I can't do it because I have no first-hand knowledge. You see, I'm only the official medium between you and Cape Town. And I wish I weren't. Why the devil can't you do your own foul work?"

"I have, Peter. You'll remember Cape Town's urgent request came to me through you. It asked that I should keep a look out on the Balbau for their outfit. And pass them any word if I discovered it—through you. You've got that word. You see, I'm a free citizen. I'm not a servant of Cape Town. Besides, I've had a lot of dealings with Cape Town on the subject of—Dr—yellow men. And I haven't the least intention of tickling Cape Town's risible faculties any more. It's your pigeon."

"Yet you'd be doing me a real kindness, Dick, if you looked in on them on your way home."

"And myself anything but kindness, Peter," he snapped. Farlow viciously flung away his cigarette end. "You know I don't like being treated like a well-meaning imbecile. As far as I have any job in the world it's a complete and intimate study of the bowels of Africa. It's like yours. Only, being voluntary, it's an unfettered study, and possibly, in consequence, goes further than yours. I never commit myself to any statement on the inside of this country of ours that is in any respect a figment of the imagination. I need cold, direct evidence. Not circumstantial. And that's precisely the basis of that report I've inflicted on you after about three hours of mental sweat. You've got your report and I'm through."

Van Ruis smoked on in the meditative manner of his countrymen. He sat staring out through the gently swaying creeper at the golden radiance of the sunset. He was under no illusion. Dick Farlow would never yield on the subject of Cape Town. For years now this lone hunter had talked of his yellow men to have the subject treated as a traveller's tale. And that despite the splendid service his inexhaustible knowledge of the remotenesses of Africa had been during the protracted campaign of the Great War. He, Van Ruis, personally had no doubts whatever of the existence of an obscure yellow people associated in some way with the red sand desolation of the Balbau. He had seen nothing of them. Heard nothing of them, except through Dick Farlow. But Farlow's word was all sufficient for him. Besides, his own intimate connection with the country's interior had long since taught him that not only had the real map of Africa yet to be drawn. But the story— the true story of its inside—had still to be told.

He bestirred and sipped his Kango and ginger ale. And he eyed the elongated sprawl of his friend.

"It's a thousand pities that wounded yellow man died on your hands, Dick," he said. "If only you could have got him down here he'd have talked. We've—"

"Nothing suitable to a report that was to be pigeonholed down in Cape Town," he said. "What was it?"

"Omba gruelled him. And when Omba starts on Third Degree he's usually effective. If Omba isn't a liar the patient told him, and all the rest of us, to 'go to hell' in the sort of excellent English there was no misunderstanding."

"Quite. The sort of English I'm unvocally addressing to your superiors in Cape Town at this moment."

There was a stirring of the police body that was more than eloquent. Farlow helped himself to a fresh cigarette and lit it. Then he leant over towards the table.

"It's no use, Peter," he said, pushing his glass aside with the care of a man who values its contents. "I've been at great pains to write a report that ain't pretty or dazzling literature. But it's just plain truth by a man who has no leaning towards fiction. It tells you, and anyone else, that a Government commission, all good and brainy men no doubt, and well equipped with everything but a means of defence and an elementary knowledge of warfare, was trapped on the top of a fortified kopje, like the twenty-fourth regiment at Isandhlwana in the Zulu War. They were presumably attacked by what my man calls 'cannibal savages.' And, to the last man, and the last donk— if they had any with them—they were massacred. I anticipate large portions of them were no doubt made into a savoury stew. It gives you a plain account of the sort of thing a number of well-placed and well-handled Lewis guns can do to a mass attack numbering two thousand or so. There are no frills to that account. And if you, or anyone else, don't want to believe we wiped out two hundred, or thereabouts, of my pet yellow men, then you can just make spills of the paper I've written on to light your most offensive pipe. In that way you'll save Cape Town from a burst of hilarity. Your Government asked me to go chase up their lost commission because they couldn't think of any other darn fool yearning for suicide. Well, I've done it. I've located the thing Cape Town wanted to know, and a lot of stuff that won't interest anybody but me. You can entirely please yourself what you do about it. Because, as I've already told you, I'm finished with it all as far as Cape Town is concerned. I may offer you a humble suggestion. You might tell your high muck-i-mucks that the next time they are possessed by homicidal impulse they'll find it far less expensive for the common taxpayer if they stand their victims up against a perfectly good Cape Town wall and provide an adequate firing party. It's not playing a white man's game turning a herd of bleating sheep loose on the Balbau without experienced shepherds. I've not a word to add to or subtract from my report, unless it is to remind all and sundry that white, black, and red are not the only colours vouchsafed to the human or inhuman races."

For all Farlow's habitual lightness of manner there was a sting in every word he uttered. His grievance was very real. And the policeman was aware of his justification. Van Ruis suddenly removed a pipe that was almost integral of his facial equipment. And he pointed with its stem.

"Your report will go down, Dick, just as it is. But it will have a covering letter stating my own conviction on the subject of these yellow devils. You see, old friend, the whole subject leaves us guessing. You are guessing, too. We know Hottentots, we know Griquas and Namaquas. Then there's the Bastas, and one or two more who approximate yellow. It comes hard for folks down at the coast to visualize others who speak English, and who seem to have their habitat on the Balbau. I shall do my utmost to convince. I've a mind to take an outfit up to your kopje, although it's out of my district."

"Thanks, Peter," he said. "I feel good I've convinced one man." He laughed. "But if you should go up there, just one spot of advice. Indent for not less than a dozen machine gunners. You'll need 'em."

"Worse." Farlow drank the remains of his liquor and stood up, lean and straight, and smiling in the friendliest fashion at the stocky policeman. "They've got to be made to believe," he went on. "Cape Town. Until they do we'll never get anywhere. Meanwhile I cut out. I'm not available for any more service till February. Or until Cape Town is impressed to seriousness. I've an engagement in England for Christmas. And my man, Larky, has an important fixture at the Highbury football ground for the Christmas holidays. I'm picking up the yacht at the coast and running down to Cape Town where I hope to be in time to catch the Delta Line's packet, Olivarria. It should get us to London the week before Christmas. You've got my home cable address if you want me. But you won't— after that report."

Farlow held out a farewell hand. But, for the moment, Van Ruis ignored it. He, too, stood up.

"Not on your sweet life, Peter," he said, with irrevocable finality. "Besides," he added more lightly, "I'll have all I can do to pick up that Olivarria. I must do that at all costs."

"I know. That's what Larky said. Just fancy of course. Larky and I have had a pretty stiff gruelling for eight solid months. It'll be good to laze on a cargo packet before facing the rush of an English Christmas."

"I've known you something like a thousand years or so, Dick. We've fought together, rode together, played together. And never in all that time have I got back of that long head of yours. I'd give a lot to know what's there now. You laze on a cargo packet! Try something better."

Farlow dropped his cigarette end into the dregs of his glass on the table, and picked up his case.

For a moment the two men stood searching each other's eyes. Farlow's were narrowed with a shrewd grin. The policeman's face was blankly astonished. Finally he shrugged his broad shoulders.

"I'm not supposed to know. But I do. It's the Rand magnates on the buck. They put it up to the Government. You see, they've got the world's gold market at their fingers' tips. They pay heavy taxes, and licences, and royalties, and things. And they know there's millions of gold flowing out of Africa that doesn't contribute a penny piece to the Government. They've had their suspicions turned to the region of N'Gobi. And they want to know. They're also interested in the old stuff at Zimbabwe. The two are more or less on the same lateral. All that commission were expert gold men."

"Thanks, Peter. By-bye. See you sometime after Christmas. I'll trot along. We're hustling before sun up. I'm glad they were only gold men."

Peter van Ruis stood at the edge of his stoep watching the easy swinging gait of his departing friend. He was smiling. He watched Farlow reach the outskirts of the sprawling kaffir location below, and vanish in amongst the adobe walls of its buildings. Then he returned to his chair and his Kango. And he withdrew from a pocket the folded paper of a troublesome report. He settled himself to read every word of it over again.

CHAPTER V. — IN THE BAY OF BISCAY

THE Bay was belying its sinister reputation. Its detested roll had flattened out. Those abysmal sea-troughs which break the heart of all but case-hardened seafarers. The deck of the homeward-bound Olivarria was rising and falling almost imperceptibly. For the midnight sea, under a misted moon, was not unlike a swaying surface of black glass.

The night air was raw. But Larky, leaning over the main deck's forward rail, was quite impervious to it. Besides, he was whole-heartedly meditating disparagement of a tramp steamer that also catered for human passengers. He was sucking a final cigarette before he adjourned to a miserable stateroom whose only recommendation lay in the fact of his sole occupancy.

Who the hell wanted to buy half ripe oranges cold-stored so they wouldn't rot? he asked the distant night-shrouded coast of France. Asking for cholera, or dysentery, or enteric, or something. That's wot it was. Fair asking for it. And why mix your cargo with a lousy lot of humans who hadn't better manners than to sick up their guts promiscuous on the deck every time a stinking tramp, that ought to be sunk without a trace, took one of its drunken lurches? Couldn't see why them sort of blokes was ever born. And fancy the governor being particular to sneak 'ome with a lot of oranges, and Lascars, and coal dust when he could buy up a whole perishing mail boat.

Knock-out! That's what it was. And it wasn't as if he liked the skipper's map, neither. Hated the sight of it, he did. Said he was a rotten crook that daren't show his face in Scotland again, ever. Crook! What the hell was he up to? An' wot was the governor getting after? Seems like-But the tide of Larky's uneasy feelings was abruptly stemmed. It was a sound that broke sharply on the rhythmic plugging of the vessel's engines. It came from somewhere in the vault of an alleyway aft of where he was standing. And it was the sound of a human cry that was half smothered.

Larky jerked upright. All the London pavements in him had given way to those instincts he had acquired on Africa's veldt. His cigarette still depended forlornly from the corner of a now clean-shaven mouth. But he had turned peering along over the darkened deck.

For visual service there were practically no lights. Just the regular port and starboard lights. A light on the vessel's bridge. And a radiance in the windows of the chart room. For the rest it was midnight darkness. Larky was forced to a more or less blind search. It was quite hopeless. He could discover nothing indicating human disaster. So he turned back to the rail to continue his leaning.

But it was not to be. Precisely as his elbows again found contact with the cold iron an ugly human gurgle, like a man choking and endeavouring to cry out, came from aft. His every nerve was set tingling. In a moment he was running in a pair of felt soled slippers that gave out not a sound.

He plunged at the opening of the alleyway. And he raced on towards where a shaded electric light was radiating a faint glow. In that glow he could see something. There were figures. There was movement. If there were moving figures, and the choking gurgle in a human throat, Larky's natural pessimism indicated "dirty work." Larky was of that type which realizes that swift action has won more battles than any caution.

In seconds he discovered two living figures beside a prostrate body that was sprawled on the deck. One was holding something up to the dim light. The other was crouching over the body as though searching it.

It flashed through Larky's mind as he came up without a sound, and he hit. He drove a mighty assault with callous knuckles at the chin of the man standing under the shaded light. He went down like a log. He swung a right at the temple of the crouching figure, and saw it sprawl under the violence of impact. Larky's savage onslaught had all the cordiality of the Londoner who makes a fetish of his love of fair play.

The man who had been standing lay quite still where he had fallen. The other had not been so completely dealt with. He had sprawled. But, in a flash, he was up and haring off down the alleyway into the obscurity beyond.

Larky's native persistence was all for pursuit. But a groan stayed him. Instead, he bent down over the victim on the deck and entirely forgot the man he had felled.

The dim of the nightlight made it difficult. But Larky collected a sound working observation. The body was huddled. It was deadly still. And, sticking up in its chest, somewhere above heart or lung, was the yellow ivory handle of a knife which looked by no means unfamiliar. Its blade had been driven into the body right up to its hilt.

Larky grasped the position. He had no doubt. That last groan had been the finish. Murder. Certainly bloody murder. And his conclusion was simultaneous with the sound of unanticipated movement. It was the man he had felled. There was a leap. And the patter of unshod feet. Like his confederate, he was haring off into the far obscurity of the alleyway.

It was disconcerting. But Larky's quick brain became beset. There was sound on the life-boat deck above him. It was the sound of heavy, hurrying footsteps. And he was alone with an obviously murdered man.

It was not so good. He glanced down at the man's face and saw that it was definitely yellow. He looked at the ivory-handled knife and remembered where he had seen one that was similar. He looked further and discovered it lying on the deck. It was an old leather pocket-book. And he realized it to be that which the man had been examining in the nightlight.

But someone was coming. Someone had heard, too. Someone would find him with a dead man with a knife stuck in his chest. Why was he not in his miserable stateroom and sound asleep?

Again that nimble London mind. Larky stooped. He grabbed the fallen pocket-book. And he, too, was haring down the alleyway. But in an opposite direction.

Captain Angus McGregor set down his glass on a table covered with charts laid one on top of the other. He returned a long cheroot to the corner of a greedy, clean-shaven mouth. His eyes twinkled knowingly at the "lone-hunter" of Africa.

It was a well-found chart room. And the skipper had ornamented it with a few South African native trophies. The captain of the Olivarria was distinctly African-minded. But Dick Farlow liked the hospitality of the chart room better than he liked his host.

Farlow was privileged to an intimacy rarely accorded to the few passengers the Olivarria carried. But then he was not only an important personage in African life. His presence on the ship appealed to her captain as intriguing.

"He's made the fruit trade his own. And its potentialities for dividends are enormous." McGregor went on expansively, settling himself back in his capacious swivel chair. "In a way it was a gamble. I mean the cold storage. It was an enormously expensive experiment. Then you couldn't be sure how the fruit market would respond. But he was right. It's going to be like the banana trade. It's my belief that we—Africa—can collar the world's trade. He certainly deserves the profits our line's making for him when half the world's tonnage is laid up. Of course he's a great friend of yours. And neighbour."

Farlow passed a hand back over his sleek fair hair. He nodded. Homeward bound, to the county life to which he was born, Dick Farlow was different from the "lone" hunter Africa knew. He was clad in heavy brown tweeds that originated somewhere in the neighbourhood of Bond Street. His shoes were the brogues of the country-man. His linen was costly. He had no occasion for evening clothes on the Olivarria.

"You know, skipper, I have the greatest admiration for industrialists who succeed," he replied pleasantly. "In a way they're the biggest gamblers on earth. Every fresh ground they break is a gamble. And, no matter how great their monopoly in any direction, there's always a flock of imitators dogging their footsteps, and ready to jump in on them. That monopoly." He shook his head. "I don't believe in it. Alan's just a pioneer showing the way. And for the moment his dividends are all he can desire. But—"

"You forget long contracts," McGregor grinned shrewdly. "I'm looking forward to anything from fifteen to twenty years plying between Cape Town and London. With my only worry the engineer in charge of cold storage."

He replenished his glass, and set the bottle within Farlow's reach. It remained ignored.

"Only passengers, as a sort of makeweight to our dividends. Lots of folk like you prefer a lazy sea journey to the smart speed of a mail boat."

"I s'pose it was passengers we hove-to for somewhere off Benguela? When the engines shut down for nearly six hours after midnight?"

McGregor was regarding the glass he was holding. There was a quick flash of enquiry that merged into an amiable grin while his head shook.

"That wasn't off Benguela, Colonel," he said easily. "Farther south. More like Tiger Bay, I fancy. It was that worry I was telling of. We had to shut down the works while we got the temperature right. You see, our cold storage plant runs off our engine room. If we hadn't got after it we'd have landed with enough rotten fruit to give a pig farm cholera. We haven't taken any passengers aboard since Walvis Bay."

Farlow smiled as he replenished his glass. "You mean your whole cargo would have been spoiled?" he enquired.

"Precisely that." Captain McGregor gestured expansively. "Oh, it's a nightmare all right. Almost a fractional degree would wreck a whole cargo. You've no idea what we went through with the earlier installations. Cargo after cargo went west. And we skippers are responsible to our owners. It's almost easy now. But not quite sure. McClintock's a first rate man. Couldn't have a better. But temperatures on a passage like this vary almost every minute. And even the cleverest engineer is only hu—"

He broke off with an ear turned towards the door of the chart room. It was a sound which broke above the monotonous pulsing of the machinery so far below them. Farlow heard, too. And there was a swift narrowing of his eyes.

A human cry. Even though muffled by distance. Both men heard and recognized. It seemed to come up through the deck from directly under their feet. It came and passed on the instant.

Farlow was not looking at the chart room door. But at the man who was. He said nothing. But, still listening, became aware of a second cry that told more.

"Doesn't sound too good to me," he said and bestirred. McGregor avoided his passenger's gaze as he lifted his glass hastily and drank.

"Not good, skipper." He stood up. "Things like that don't fool ears trained to Africa's forests. That's death. Sudden, and— violent. Coming?"

The manner of it was compelling. Captain McGregor yielded with ill-disguised reluctance.

The steerage alleyway was fully illuminated. A steward had been summoned. So had the ship's doctor. Captain McGregor and Dick Farlow were standing over a dead body lying on the deck, while the doctor, and the steward, knelt beside it. There was congealing blood on the deck. A pool of it.

The captain and Farlow were examining a long, bloodstained knife directly under an electric light bulb. It had a razor edge. A needle point.

"Vicious!" he snapped. "Strangled him, too. There's the finger marks. Makes you think of a crazy man. Where did this come aboard? I don't remember it."

"Nigger blood. It's in the kink of his hair. But he's yellow." The doctor shook his head. "Must be a Tottie boy, only-yellow as a golden guinea." He glanced up at Farlow. "Make anything of that knife, Colonel?"

"Sheffield made. That's all," he said. "Maker's name might tell the London police something. The handle's homemade out of raw ivory. It's banded with pure gold."

"That first cry was a strangle-hold," he said. "The knife came afterwards. What do we do?" McGregor's small eyes lit hotly.

"The swine!" he cried. "My ship! Blood-letting aboard my ship! Do? Why, get the muck of it cleared out of sight. Get him to a bunk. And we'll fix up enquiry. Then we'll have to dump him. The swines. Sir Alan'll go raving mad with a murder aboard this ship."

"Get the purser. Tell him to get along lively." Then, as the steward hurried off, he flashed at the doctor: "He's yours and Richards's. See and get on with it. Enquiry in the morning."

"You're wrong with that nigger stuff, Doc," he contended. "Look at that suit. Tweeds. And good. He isn't Tottie colour either. Dago. That's what he is. Portuguese or Spanish. Looks like he might be a Spanish Moor. Knifed aboard my ship. Christ!"

"That's all right, skipper," he observed amiably. "Everybody to his opinion. But he is nigger of some sort. And don't forget it."

The purser hurried up accompanied by two deck hands. They had brought a stretcher. The captain watched them lift the dead man. Then he turned to Farlow.

"Come on, Colonel," he cried, in a tone that was almost a command. "We can leave that nigger stuff till morning. A rotten stowaway don't signify. Only the foul muck he's made of my ship."

"That nigger stuff seems to bother you, skipper," he said pleasantly. "Does it matter?"

"Doc can't put that over. That colour. Those clothes. On his way to England at—Christmas time. Don't hang together. You don't get Satan quitting his fireside to freeze in the Arctic. Making Europe to blow in his stuff. And somebody wanted it."

Farlow refused a night-cap. He passed on to his boat-deck stateroom. And he spent several hours considering a knife; and a McGregor. The knife was almost the twin of another he remembered. McGregor was deeply concerned that the man was—yellow.

CHAPTER VI. — "YELLOW PERILS"

FROM the moment of the Olivarria's arrival in the Thames estuary mists descended upon it. It was not true fog. Just London's peculiar grey, with which it so often decides to welcome the Christmas season. It persisted and deepened as the vessel proceeded up the river. And a mass of overhead fog steadily began to descend about the time she tied up.

In ordinary circumstances Larky would have known a glow of mournful happiness in the general prospect of it. He would have discovered in it the ideal conditions for Christmas football in London. Or at least that to which he was accustomed. But the circumstances were not ordinary. And he hardly gave the matter more than casual heed.

For Larky was beset. He had witnessed the murder of a yellow man by yellow men on the deck of the Olivarria. And as a result of an irresistible propensity for "scrounging" he found himself possessed of someone else's pocket-book packed with far more money than he had ever possessed in his life, together with sundry other most intriguing items.

The effect of discovering the murder, and the amazing contents of the pocket-book, was a characteristic reaction in Larky. His mouth closed tighter than any oyster. While every wit he possessed was brought into play. Night-time, until he reached London, found his stateroom defended like a fortress. And, in the day-time, always a pair of shrewd, unsmiling eyes looked out watchfully from under the red thatch of his hair.

Then Larky saw to it that Captain McGregor's enquiry into the tragedy did not involve him. Farlow was told nothing, lest knowledge might handicap him in his deposition. He contented himself with an outward seeming of complete ignorance of anything that might have occurred while he sleuthed the vessel from end to end in defence against the possibility of personal disaster involving him.

But, to his complete disappointment, nothing violent occurred to break up the monotony of the vessel's daily life on the passage from the Bay to London. Larky knew that somewhere aboard two murderers were lurking who were probably watching his every movement day and night. Yet no one seemed to have the least desire to do him hurt of any sort. Why? He came to the reluctant conclusion that in some way he must have got it all wrong. Instead of a brace of competent murderers he was dealing with cowardly "blighters" who must be shivering in hiding somewhere in the vessel's cold storage.

But Larky remained persistent to the end. And when the vessel tied up at the quayside he resorted to a last card in an attempt to discover the miscreants.

Landing home from Africa was a matter of orderly routine with Larky. It was quite a recognized process. He never failed to be the first man ashore for the securing of two available taxis. He disposed of his chief in one. And dispatched him to the Occidental Club. Then he loaded the other with the baggage and accompanied it to the same destination. For once, however, he varied the organization. He delayed his own departure. Instead of following directly behind Farlow's cab he took up his station on the quay to observe the departure of every passenger, and even every member of the ship's company who came ashore.

It was a long hour of dreary waiting which yielded no other result than a big bill on the taximeter. Larky stood there in his raglan-shouldered overcoat and bowler hat, with hands thrust deep in his pockets, and one of them fingering the heavy head of a friendly knobkerri. It was his favourite weapon of defence where fire-arms were impossible. But in the end he was forced to abandon his vigil at the protest of his taximan at the thickening of the fog. Clearly his yellow murderers had no intention of showing themselves.

It was disheartening. And Larky sat back in his cab and searched for a consolatory cigarette. He searched in vain.

Finally he cursed. Then he let down the window and pushed his shock of red hair out to hail the driver.

"Here, cully," he bawled, as they emerged through the dock's gateway. "Got to get some 'Yellow Perils.' Pull up at the first shop you come to."

"Yeller Perils?" he scorned amiably. "Looks like peril enough in this 'ere pea-soup comin' dahn on us. Righto, mister!" And he laughed.

Larky found himself laughing too. But it was without any visible expression. The man had reminded him. But he was not thinking of cigarettes. Nor was he thinking of any fog.

The windings of dockland were sufficiently confusing, but the taximan seemed to know them all. He was taking the shortest cut he knew in view of the fog. And the way of it lay through a labyrinth of small, desolate streets that were mainly shopless and devoid of traffic.

Larky forgot his disappointment in his general looking forward to the holiday. He had made up his mind. They were clear of the ship. Therefore there was no longer need for his secrecy. The "Governor" would have to get that pocket-book now and the story of it. And he could do what he liked about the whole thing. It was, of course, the conclusion he had contemplated from the start.

Larky observed a misty beam of headlights playing on the back of his cab. His cockney curiosity was aroused. He turned in search of the back window. But at that moment his cab slowed and sidled into the pavement. It came to a halt opposite a faint glimmer of light shining in a small, dirty shop window.

"'Ere y'are." The taximan's face grinned round. "There's your 'Yeller Perils.' Better 'urry, mister. This 'ere pea-soup's goin' to come down proper. We'll get an 'ell of a time crawlin' through the city."

Larky got out to find himself flashed by the misty beam of the headlights of a car pulled up at the same pavement some twenty yards behind them. He turned regarding it. The taximan scorned.

"Private car. Scared of the fog. Usin' me for 'is buffer. Cor! That's all the use them sort 'as for us."

Larky made no reply. He hurried into the shop. A few moments later he emerged well stocked with cigarettes. He paused at the cab door to look back at the car behind. His driver's explanation had left him wholly unimpressed. Pie knew those lights had been behind them ever since they left the dock gates.

The deepening fog left the car little more than a hazy blur in its gloom. But the headlights were unusually powerful. Even in the mist they were almost blinding. Larky had an impression of a low saloon body. Pie could hear the running of the engine which suggested high power. He could just make out something vague that might be a driver at the wheel behind the low windscreen. But he was not very sure. He thought the car's doors were open. But, again, he only thought so.

All the business of that bulging pocket-book had come back to him. He moved up to his driver.

An unlit cigarette was drooping from the corner of his mouth. He struck a match and lit it.

"Here, 'Enery," he said, with a sort of sad geniality. "Those coves behind." He jerked his head at the car. "They're waitin' on us. See? Give 'em a razzle and see what happens. They're nosing. It's a quid in your pants pocket if you lose 'em."

There was momentary suspicion. The taximan's small eyes blinked as he considered a fare who had called him "'Enery."

"Get that in your kicksey. And—lose 'em," he said shortly. And a nasty suspicion became instant goodwill.

"I'm on." The taximan grinned. "Get in quick, mister. An' if I don't show you round London in a fog my name ain't—"

But Larky never discovered the man's name. And the driver, himself, even seemed to forget it.

Instead, the taximan discovered that protection against the weather could serve in other directions. He was there in his narrow driving seat. He was bundled almost to the eyes, belted in a stout leather coat. His knees were embraced by a confining waterproof wrapping. To say nothing of a rain-shield reaching above his shoulders from his dashboard. So he remained where he was, goggling round at a swift and vicious little scene that was all over in a matter of seconds.

It was two indistinct figures from the region of his rear number plate. They came round the back of the cab with a rush. They leapt at his still standing fare. And they landed on him with the sort of impact that suggested murder.

Murder was further impressed by the dull flash of steel. A long, curved-bladed knife was caught in the beam of a headlight as it went up. It descended with slashing force. There was no hope, could be no hope, for his fare in the driver's mind as he began a belated effort to release himself from his winter impedimenta.

Then happened something which the taximan never forgot. A knob-like weapon went up and crashed down. Its crash was literal. It struck something with an ugly sound of smashing. It went up a second time in the flash of an eye. And again it struck. And the taximan became aware of a sprawled figure on the pavement, a running man, lit by the beam of a headlight, and his fare leaning, supporting himself against the door of his cab.

The position only remained for an instant. Then his fare, still with a great knobbed weapon in his hand, leapt at the open door. It was not a clean leap. But it was sufficient, and set the vehicle rocking. The door slammed to and an order bawled.

"Horspital! First one you know, cully. The blighters got me. Knifed my bleedin' shoulder open."

"Horspital, I said," Larky bawled back at him. "And step on it, or make it the cemetery."

CHAPTER VII. — ELSTANE VALLEY

THE Occidental was an expression of post-war social development. Vast premises, it contained every luxury and pastime modern youth could desire. And it possessed residential accommodation comparable with the largest of London's hotels. It was founded to meet the requirements of a large army of youthful manhood which had been broadcast over the face of the British Empire by the World War and left scattered.

Colonel Farlow had been a prominent member since its foundation. With his fair Tudor home on the downlands of Brackshire Farlow used the Occidental as his town headquarters. And on his returns from Africa it never failed to become his first objective.

His room was the last word in spacious comfort, part sitting-room, part bedroom. It was on the seventh floor. And from its three wide windows he had a pleasant view over St. James's as well as the Green Park.

Towards three o'clock on the afternoon of his arrival he was gazing out of one of the windows wondering. The dull, yellow, foggy prospect was not his concern. He was wondering, not without unease, what had become of Larky and the baggage. Larky should have reached the club within a few minutes of his, Farlow's, arrival.

Farlow was debating 'phoning the docks. But he dismissed the idea in favour of Charles, the club's head-porter. It was with an uneasy recollection of a murdered yellow man at the back of his mind that he moved over to a small desk and took up the house telephone. Charles, himself, replied to his ring.

"Oh, Charles, I'm getting a bit bothered," he said. "Any sign of my man yet? I'm beginning to think he must have got caught up in some football match, or something. Should have been here hours ago. Eh? What's that? Just driven up? Good. Quite good. Thanks. Eh? Oh! Bandaged! Arm in a sling? Not so good. Not nearly so good. He's not on a stretcher or anything is he? Oh, I see. Had a fall. You'd better send him up with someone, just to see he doesn't fall by the wayside again. Keep the baggage down there. I shan't be wanting it. I've got to get off down to Brackshire more or less at once. Eh? Oh, has he? Put a shoulder out. Now, that's too bad. Sounds like— Well, pass him along up anyway."

Farlow hung up. He turned, surveying the pleasant room with a thoughtful frown. He was thinking of that fall. That shoulder. It was a story that carried no conviction. His eyes had become a gleam of cold steel.

Farlow's smile had that in it which was only to be witnessed by the overcoated back of Larky, as the man closed the door with unusual care for its fastening. It was focussed on an ugly stain on the coat's somewhat loud-patterned tweed, and on a neat rip in its material.

When Larky turned to him it was to reveal a sickly pallor under his sun-tanning. His up-standing shock of hair made it the more impressive. But his eyes were alight with a satisfied expression of unhealthy gloom.

"I'm guessing, Larky," Farlow said at once. His smile with no meaning beyond goodwill. "Better relieve the mental strain for me. That shoulder stuff was quite good to get past Charles with." He kicked the desk chair round invitingly. "A couple of facts, I think. Sit, Larky. It's easier for a sick man."

"Yessir," he agreed. "But I'm not sick really. Just sore like. And I wouldn't say it's my shoulder only, neither. You see, sir, I wasn't just as quick as I thought. But I thought I'd best have Charles thinking I'd been knocking back a couple. It was them yellow blighters, sir. The same like you're guessing."

"Precisely. Tell me." He held out his cigarette case. "You need a smoke," he went on. "Settles the old nerves." He lit and held a match for this servant who was something more. Larky inhaled.

"It was along of that fog, sir," he said. "Or maybe I'd got to get it anyway. It was them two yellows that put over the alleyway job in the Bay. I'd know 'em anywhere. They tailed me from the docks in a high-powered bus. And they got me when I pulled up to buy me a couple o' 'Yellow Perils.' It was in a back street most as dark as night with the fog. Yellow Perils? Cor! I run into a couple orl right."

"When we pulled up they was lined up twenty yards behind us at the same pavement with their headlights on. And when I come out of the shop they jumped on me from behind the cab with a knife. Scratched my shoulder, they did. Left. And lucky. But I got 'em with my old knobkerri—right. Hell of a cosh, sir. Sweet as a nut. One went down. An' the other ran. Same as they did before with my fists. I got along to the horspital. That's wot made me a bit late, sir. I'm sorry, sir. They was after this."

Larky produced a bulging pocket-book. Farlow considered the blood-drained face. He took the pocket-book and pitched it on the bed beside him.

"Cor!" he exclaimed, with healthy disgust. "If I couldn't have done no better with one of their Sheffield-made knives I'd blinkin' well drown myself, sir. Scratched. Just scratched. That's all, sir. Couple of spots of blood. An' six or seven stitches that set me feeling like I was under a sewing machine working awkward. It don't seem right to me, sir, letting a bloke handle needle an' thread if he ain't a tailor. That feller at the horspital must have thought he was hammerin' a five inch spike into a chunk of wood. But he made a neat job. And that's a fact. Feeling fine, sir. Will I go and see if Horace is up with the car yet?"

"No," he repeated. "Charles'll see to all that. Your job just now is to talk. If—you're not too sick."

"I'm not sick, sir, nor nuthin' like it. You don't have to get a wrong impression from this sling. It's so I shan't get tearing out them stitches, using my left. Won't you get a dekko at that Docket-book?" he went on eagerly. "It'll give you a big laugh."

Farlow crossed over to a cheerful open fire. He turned his lean back to it and grinned.

"I'm not looking for a laugh just now. Only information. You've kept yourself well muted since that night in the Bay. Tell me where you came in on that alleyway racket. You outed them with your fists?"

"I wasn't so clever there neither, sir." Larky sighed. "If them blokes had had the guts I ought to be dead, too. I was for'ard when I 'eard what I expect you did. I jumped in in time to find two yellows searching the corpse they'd knifed and strangled. I just hit and didn't care a lot. One of 'em went down deado. The other padded like a streak of dizzy lightning. He'd been hit, too, sir. But it wasn't too good. I started to look over the corpse to see what I could do. And it was while I was looking the other up and ran, too. He'd dropped that pocket-book he was looking into when I hit him, sir. And when he ran he was in such a hurry he forgot it. I scrounged it. Then I heard you and the skipper moving on the deck above. That didn't look good to me. You see, sir, I was alone with a corpse with a knife stickin' in its chest."

"'Ad to, sir." Larky sighed again as though his regret were unspeakable. "Couldn't see no way else. There was that enquiry with that crook McGregor runnin' it. If I'd come along to you, sir, with my stuff I'd have likely spoiled any pattern you were making. As for the skipper I wasn't lifting a hand to make things right for him. And besides I wasn't looking for no trouble personal. So I just sat on it. You see, sir, when I find a couple of yellow blokes stowed in cold storage aboard the same ship with you and me, I ain't guessing even five seconds. There's a dirty game afoot. An' you're in it, sir. Up to your neck."

"And you up to the—shoulder. You know, Larky, it looks to me as though we're in for a nice quiet holiday with two yellow men hunting us. You'll have to be very particular who you sit next to at Highbury."

Larky stood up. It was the gesture of the servant who felt it to be unseemly that he remained seated while his employer stood.

"Well, sir," he replied keenly, "they won't be able to hang me for murder till the match is over. Not proper. What'll the orders be, sir?"

Farlow moved across to the desk where the telephone stood. "Horton Spires. And at once. That is if the car has got in and you feel you can travel." Larky scorned.

"Like lying abed, sir. Some beds," he admitted. "A Rolls ain't no taxicab, sir. But that pocket-book. Won't you get time to get half a dekko, sir? It's worth—"

"Not even a fraction of a dekko, Larky," he grinned. "We'll attend to that, and everything else, when we get home. You go and scrounge some food for yourself. I'll deal with Charles. You're on sick leave till we reach Horton Spires. So enjoy yourself as much as your busted back'll let you."

It was bitterly cold on Brackshire's downlands. It was no more than just after five in the evening. Yet a full moon had well risen and gleamed frostily. A cloudless sky was lit from end to end by the sparkle of myriads of stars.

The car was moving swiftly up a steep hill. It was a road without hedgerow or tree to obscure the night view of the rolling downs. It was just grass-lined. A secondary road that was perfect of surface.

They were ascending the northern shoulder of Elstane Valley which still belonged to the days of mediaeval England. It contained three great estates, each one of which had contributed to its country's history. Horton Spires claimed one bank of a romantic downland stream. Ashlea Meads's broad acres the other. And, to the westward, high up on a hillside, Castle Elstane's feudal walls frowned out upon its world, dominating the countryside at the valley's head.

"I think I'll drop off at Ashlea Meads, Horace," he said, glancing at the clock on the dashboard. "It's quite early yet. Drop me at the gates. No need to take the car in. Then slip on home as quickly as possible. And tell Mrs. Fraser I'll be over in time for dinner."

He turned back to the damaged Larky propped up on cushions amidst a mass of baggage.

The car topped the ridge of grassland, and its headlights flung their beam down at the wooded depths below. Farlow lowered his tone to the chauffeur.

"Tell Mrs. Fraser I shall be gratified if she'll do everything she can for Larky's comfort, Horace. And tell her to be sure and take his temperature. If it's at all up she's to send at once for Doctor Norris. He's been badly cut about."

In three directions there was a glimmer of bright lights amongst the trees below. Ashlea Meads showed up plainest. The great house was there nestling at the foot of the hill which the car was descending. Away to the far eastward two window lights only marked the ancient domain of Horton Spires. But to the westward it was different. Castle Elstane displayed no lights of its own. But its grim, castellated ramparts were floodlit by the searchlights of a stationary car somewhere below it.

Farlow's whole attention became concentrated upon the uncommon spectacle of such enormously powerful lights left switched on in a stationary car.

CHAPTER VIII. — THE FLOODLIGHT

THE home of Sir Alan Forrester was typical of an older England. Sheltered in the deeps of Elstane's Valley its Tudor walls nestled in a gracious parkland. It was a parkland of superb oaks, many of which, in their vastness of girth and sublime decay, must surely have endured for little short of seven or eight centuries.

But then there was little enough in Elstane's Valley that did not carry the mind back over the ages. Its primitive villages were treasure pictures to gaze upon. Its spacious uplands were rich with beauty. Its meandering river, with its bustling shallows, and its shadowed pools, told of that pastoral serenity which knows nothing of the grim struggle of modern city life.

But Ashlea Meads, like its contemporary, Horton Spires, even though eight miles of rolling downs intervened between it and the terminal of a single line branch railway, knew no detriment in its great age. On the contrary. Its mellow beauty masked the sort of complete equipment which was the inspiration of its owner.

Sir Alan was deeply immersed in world affairs. And his daughter, Jill, had all a woman's healthy desire for that which she counted as modern. Sir Alan was a leader in Britain's shipping industry. He was wealthy. A shipowner, who, even at a time when half the world's tonnage was laid up, still contrived to produce satisfying balance sheets. He was Member of Parliament for his own division of Brackshire, and was already standing at the threshold of a strong Conservative Cabinet. He raced and bred bloodstock, and was Master of the Elstane Hunt. But none of these local preoccupations committed him to anything but the latest modern science in the task of cultivating the rich acres of his estates.

Captain McGregor of the Olivarria had claimed for his owner that he was a "live one." But Sir Alan was better than that. He was a sound, modern Englishman who expressed himself in the simple decency of his home-life at Ashlea Meads, which he shared with his motherless daughter, Jill.

Jill was ensconced in a high-backed grandfather chair. She was in the library, before a blazing log fire which illuminated the depths of an almost cavernous Tudor fireplace. Her dainty feet were thrust up inelegantly on a chair-high tapestried stool. And sprawled on a rug before the fire was a superb St. Bernard.

Sir Roger was basking and did not care. Jill, absorbed in the latest thriller, and happy in the exciting knowledge that Dick Farlow had returned from Africa, and had landed that noon, and would be of the party for tomorrow, Sunday night's dinner, saw no reason in the world why she should care either.

Jill was attractive. It was in a dark, staid way that was staunchly abetted by those arts which are woman's legitimate heritage. Her slimness was pronounced. And she was almost lost between the embracing wings of her capacious chair. She was frowning with excitement as she read. But, when interruption came, it was with a rather beautiful smile in wide grey eyes, whose jet black lashes were entirely innocent of any eye-black, that she looked up from her enthralling book.

The room was lined from floor to ceiling with books. Its three tall windows were heavily curtained. Its length was rather gallery-like. And the loft of its heavily beamed ceiling was unusual.

Jill's only light was that which came from the uncertain flames of a hearth fire and the more stable rays of an electric stand lamp set close beside her chair. So she peered searchingly into the far shadows to discover the soft-footed approach of the white-haired butler, Jebb.

The old man's punctilio was historic of Ashlea Meads. He had grown up and old within its aged walls. So far as he admitted there could be no real world beyond them.

"It is Colonel Farlow, Miss Jill," he announced, although all his life he had been accustomed to regard the visitor as "Master Dick." "I have shown him to the drawing-room. He—"

"Dick?" she cried, without attempt to conceal her gladness. "Oh, Jebb! The drawing-room! Why? Why must you plant the poor dear in that wilderness of chill discomfort when I'm here with Rogerkin and a glorious fire? Run! Run for your life, man! Tell him I'm here, before he becomes an iceberg. And don't dare to bring him yourself either. He knows Ashlea Meads better than you do your—"

"Quite, Jill. And I never did like your drawing-room, anyway. Sorry, Jebb. I refused to stay put."

Two slim hands were outheld. Two sun-browned hands met them. Rogerkin was standing hugely on four massive legs. He was making little sounds of welcome in a cavernous throat, and the while remaining in imminent peril of singeing a busy tail. Jebb retreated in complete defeat.

Sir Roger had sprawled again. Jill had once more returned to the embrace of her winged chair. But her feet were no longer supported on ancient tapestry for the reason that the lean length of Dick Farlow occupied it.

Farlow was different. His lazy eyes were wide and shining. When it came to man's desire Jill was all he wanted of the world. It had been so from boyhood up. And now, after three decades of his life had gone by, he wanted her more than ever.

"Oh, Dick," she laughed, "you're such funny things, you men. So—so casual. Your cousin Jerry's just flown over from the Upper Nile on leave. I 'phoned him for dinner tomorrow night. Said he was full up with things and couldn't, till I told him you were home and would be with us. Then he brazenly said he'd come along. And you. You just wired 'Sunday dinner.' Not another word. And here you are without giving me a chance. So terse, after eight months away. Tell me things."

"Didn't seem to me there was need to spend more pennies," he grinned. "You see, old thing, this is December. Our annual battle is due. That dinner business was just formal. This is personal. Couldn't wait longer than I had to. Would have reached you for tea. Landed about noon. But Larky went and got a knife in his back just outside the docks. Ought to be dead. Murdered. But isn't. Sort of cat's life, Larky. They sewed him up. That delayed me. When do we marry?"

Jill's laugh had passed. Larky, whose gloom she adored. Larky, whose devotion to Dick gave him a special place in her heart.

"Larky?" she cried. "But why? How? Murder! Dick, tell me. And don't be ridiculous about—marrying."

Farlow negatived thoughtfully. He stroked the golden silk of Sir Roger at his feet.

Farlow flinched. It was the tone. That incredulity which he always encountered on the subject of his yellow men.

"Queer, ain't it?" he said airily, looking up from the dog. "But it seems to be fact, old thing. They left me alone. Only Larky this time. I think they must have wanted Larky badly. And there's a reason. He's going to be all right though. He's over at Horton. And Kate Fraser's trying his temperature, or should be. I'm not ridiculous. When, Jill?"

There was no pretence in Jill. Where Dick was concerned no coquetry. Her eyes replied to him frankly smiling. And they contained a warmth that told. Jill had dozens of men friends. She was twenty-nine. And she had come through all those best years of her youth single because of Dick Farlow. There could be only one man in her life.

"Not yet, dear, I think," she said, with a sigh that yet bespoke no weakening. "It's all in your hands, Dick. We've threshed it threadbare for eight consecutive Christmases. And it still remains threadbare. Africa is your mistress. And I will not share you with any mistress, even if she be only Africa. Abandon her and I won't wait to buy me a trousseau. Even if it finds you the grey-headed squire of Horton, and me the white-haired mistress of Ashlea Meads. Meanwhile, no man shall make me his grass widow for some ten months in the year. You can't have us both, Dick. And it's no use asking me like the Americans to 'get acquainted.' I'm not going to wander over a country where I have to air my clothes on a bush in the sun, and brush them instead of washing them. I don't like tropical heat. And I don't want to kill game that's never done me any harm. But, most of all, I don't want a country that's bred you your yellow men who tail you to London and push knives into Larky's back. That, dear, is as reluctantly final as it always has been. So now we can leave it, I s'pose, till you come back next Christmas and ask me again in your shockingly persistent way. If—you do come back." There was no smile.

Jill sat up. She leant towards him. There was a great light in her eyes. It was not a light of hope that he was about to yield. It was ardent conviction.

"I know you will, dear," she cried, with a little thrill of passion. "And that's why I'm content to refuse, and to go on refusing. It's not you who'll be unfaithful to your—mistress. It's she. She'll turn you down cold—ultimately. And when she does I'm here waiting for you. Oh, Dick, I love you so very much. That's why I say go on. Whatever it is that holds you to Africa go on with it till she's finished with you. All I pray is that it will not be too late for the happiness we both desire. Now, tell me, dear. What is it that's brought these yellow creatures tailing you to London?"

"You needn't ask that, Dick. Absolutely. I know. You've come to hate speaking of them, because—I believe absolutely. And I want to hear."

The man made a sudden movement as though to come to her. But Jill saw and smiled a gentle negative.

"No, dear," she said. "We'll play the game while it lasts. I'm determined to be an iceberg till the summer sunshine melts me. No artificial warmth, dear. You see, I'm a bit perishable and know it. I'll take no risks. Now be a dear and tell me. Sit there just where you are and stroke Rogerkin. He's asking for it."

Farlow smiled down at the great dog and resettled himself to obey. He had that calm balance of mind which is strong in control. For once he had no desire to press Jill further. And the reason of it was a decision which had been taken on the summit of a kopje on the Balbau Veldt. He had told her he would return to her again. And he meant it to be that final return which was to give him the crowning happiness of his manhood. Jill. Jill would be waiting for him. Jill should have her way. And he liked to think that that was so. There was only his one remaining task in Africa when he intended to turn an unpleasant laugh on the official sceptics in Cape Town.

"Very well, little girl," he smiled. "Till next Christmas. Or maybe before. It's going to be all different then."

Jill laughed. Then her shingled head inclined. "I can do a lot of shopping between now and next Christmas. Or even—before." Farlow chuckled. "Then do it."

It was a moment when Jill's iceberg was in sudden peril of dissolving. But Farlow made no move now to follow up his advantage. He sat quite still gazing into the fire.

"You were going to tell me, dear. About—about Larky," she said with something like reluctance.

Farlow bent down over the dog. His smile was hidden. He stroked as he had been bidden.

"We came back on your father's Olivarria" he said. "Just caught her at Cape Town. Left the yacht there to be overhauled. There were stowaways aboard the Olivarria. Yellow. Seems like there were three. Two of them murdered the third in the steerage alleyway. And Larky butted in on the job. The two dodged. They hid again. When Larky came ashore they were waiting for him outside the docks. Stuck that knife into him."

Farlow sat up again. Jill saw the familiar narrowing of his lazy eyes. She laughed happily. For she understood that he had really told her nothing.

"You're a funny old thing, Dick," she said. "And I won't ask you anything more about it."

They were steadily gazing. For Jill it was a moment of mute panic. Relief came in the distant sound of a beaten gong.

"That's your dressing gong," he said. "I'll get home to see what they've done to Larky."

But somehow all Jill's concern for Larky seemed to have merged into a far greater concern. She sprang up from her chair. And Rogerkin bestirred.

"Oh, Dick darling!" she cried distressfully. "You'll be careful. Very careful." Then she laughed. It was a little nervous laugh in an attempt to disguise her feelings. "Remember Christmas. Or even before."

For reply there was movement. Two arms reached and held. There was a moment of passionate caress. And Jill knew that her iceberg had dissolved.

Five minutes later she was standing in the great entrance doorway looking after a shadowy figure vanishing into the night.

Dick Farlow was standing at the summit of a low rising ground with the wood-lined river somewhere below him. He had a clear night view of the upper reaches of the valley. Clouds were screening the moon which had been so frostily clear. The chill of the night remained. But the threat of frost was passing.

But Farlow was not concerned for weather conditions. He was gazing far at the grim walls of Castle Elstane, which still remained flood-lit by the fierce searchlight beam of a standing motor's headlights. He was wondering, speculating. He must have been quite an hour with Jill since he had first discovered those lights. And they were still burning.

CHAPTER IX. — THE QUEEN'S HIGHWAY

KATE FRAZER was stately. She belonged, of course, to a generation that was passing. She had reigned the comely and privileged nurse, and, later, housekeeper, of Horton Spires since the first day that Dick Farlow had opened his wondering eyes. She remained a servant in the house in name only.

Adoration was the quality of regard she had for "Master Dick." His abrupt homecomings were the happy milestones of her peaceful life. And only his sudden departures, and prolonged absences, formed the burdensome cross which her ample shoulders were called upon to bear.

The earlier arrival of Larky had been a disappointment. But Kate had dealt with him faithfully. She had shepherded him to bed in those quarters of his which adjoined those of the man he served. The temperature business, she had, so to speak, taken in her stride. And a normal condition left an overworked country doctor in peace. It also afforded her an opportunity of reassurance in her own, blunt, friendly fashion.

She warned Larky that his sort never got killed with a knife. Only with a rope. And she sincerely trusted that a long-suffering Providence would not be called upon to teach him a further lesson.

Larky obediently absorbed the contents of a medicine glass which she offered him. Then he went to sleep. And his last waking reflection was that it took a woman to blame Providence for "yeller dirt."

Kate had sat herself before a blazing winter fire in the great hall to await the long desired arrival and perform due ceremonial. But somehow it all sadly missed fire. There was no stately greeting. There was no ceremony of any sort. In fact she was awakened from a pleasant doze in a high-backed chair by the press of a strong brown hand which affectionately squeezed one of her ample shoulders.

"Why, Kate, dear," Farlow grinned down at her, "I haven't seen anything so good to look at for eight long months. Not a day older. Only eight months younger. I'm glad to be back home again with you. How's Larky?"

Kate's round face was deeply flushed. She patted her carefully-dressed, snow-white hair to help things out, while startled mentality struggled for composure. But her best verbal effort was an expression of blank astonishment.

"Left something in the car. Just went round and fetched it. And came in through the rose garden. About Larky's temperature?"

"Oh, you mean Larky!" Kate exclaimed, a smile dawning behind her gold-rimmed glasses. "Of course, to be sure. He's quite normal that way. But it's a nasty wound. He must have lost a lot of blood. How did he come by it? I didn't like to ask him. But if I had my way I'd close up all the publics. That I would."

"No, Kate. It wasn't drink. Not Larky. Just attempted robbery with violence outside the dock gates." He detained the passing Ashton. "A swift cocktail, Ashton, I think. In my den, will you? Give it a sound kick of absinthe. I've some heavy thinking on hand." Then again to Kate: "I've got an hour. I'll be ready for dinner at half-past eight. I won't be changing. With one thing and another it's been a long day and I don't feel like it."

"It's a mercy of Providence it wasn't you, Master Dick," she said earnestly. "You couldn't ever have stood up to a wound like Larky's got. But those docks. Dreadful places, to be sure. Specially when there's a fog like there is in London today. I remember when I was a girl—"

"Quite, dear. It was very tough in those days," Farlow laughed quickly. "But I'm glad Larky's all right. I'll go and see him after dinner. I must trot along and attack that cocktail."

With a friendly pat on a silk-clad shoulder Farlow was gone. Kate looked after him with smiling eyes, wholly unconscious of the fact that she had been gently but firmly dismissed.

"Good, Ashton. Quite good. Your art never fails you." The man's eyes brightened.

"Thank you, sir. Will you require anything else before dinner?" Farlow's grin broadened.

"Nothing, I think, Ashton," he said. "Except another of these in half an hour's time."

"Very good, sir." Then, with a momentary relaxing of old military habit, the man added: "We're all very glad indeed to see you back home again, sir."

"Now that's very nice of you, Ashton," Farlow replied warmly. "I'm not expecting to leave again till after the end of January. Unless, of course, anything unexpected should crop up," he added, as an afterthought.

Ashton took his departure to carry his glad tidings to the servants' hall. And Farlow set his glass down on an open bureau desk. He possessed himself of the well-worn, ancient chair before it, and groped in a pocket while he regarded the snug familiarity of a room, part smoking-room, part office, which had been his den from his early days.

Farlow found the thing he had recovered from the door-pocket of his car. It was the battered pocket-book of which Larky had rid himself. It had been one of those swift thoughts which displayed something of Farlow's genius in affairs. That pocket-book had undoubtedly cost Larky an ugly knife thrust. Farlow was walking over from Ashlea Meads through a dark and lonely countryside. So he had not carried the pocket-book with him.

He opened its leather folds which he noted to be of excellent but battered morocco. And, as he did so, emitted a low whistle. One pocket was literally stuffed with English bank notes and Treasury currency. He took the roll out. He opened it. Then he started counting. He reached a sum little short of two thousand pounds, and emitted another low whistle. He counted no further. He finished his cocktail instead.

It was a photograph. A mere postcard-sized snapshot. But Farlow sat back staring amazedly. It was a full length portrait of a beautiful woman with the eyes of an Oriental. A dazzlingly beautiful woman. The sort of wonderful creature to upset any man's balance. He promptly decided that she was something of a cross between the photographic representation of some famous film star and the alluring picture of a devilish siren emanating from the profound imagination of a clever artist. He was held fascinated.

She was dark. Distinctly brunette, despite the colourless print. She was equipped with perfect slim curves. And she was gowned so that no charm she possessed should be lost upon the seeing eye. For the moment Farlow was unconcerned for those details which no woman's eye would have missed. But contented himself with deciding at once that here was a woman's favourite picture which had been posed for at great pains. And as he so decided a mental reservation flashed. The amazing, almost indecent beauty of the picture suggested a single word. Vampire.

After some moments he turned the picture over. And that which he discovered on its back was scrawled in a woman's dashing handwriting.

He inhaled deeply as he gazed at the two words. And his mental faculties were never more active. It was for the fact that he had discovered in the woman's dark beauty that which was by no means unfamiliar.

It was with something very like reluctance that he laid the picture aside and continued his explorations.

There was only one other item contained in the pocket-book. It was a carefully folded sheet of white paper. Opened, he found it to be a map of sorts. It was done in ink. And it contained a wealth of detail.

It was obviously the map of a river. And the tide in black letters at the top of the paper proclaimed it "The Queen's Highway." Farlow set his elbows on the desk and gave himself up to its study.

The compass points were set out. And on the western extremity of the map there was an obvious coastline, with the drawing of a marshy river delta that had the name Sebar inscribed upon it. At the eastern extremity there was the careful drawing of a great, elongated lake set in the dense etching of a mountain range. Beyond that was another intriguing title. "The Glory of the World."

But it was that which lay between these extremities which mainly impressed. It was the meandering course of a river.

Valleys were marked clearly. Gorges were darkened in contradistinction. Then there were more titles, all of which were significant. Three of these especially claimed his attention. One was "Living Weed." Another was "Gorge of White Death." The third was "The Vale of Fire."

Farlow was still deep in the study of the drawing when the door opened to admit his second cocktail followed by the person of Ashton. For a moment he received them both almost without interest. Then, as Ashton paused and manipulated his shaker with expert skill, and finally began to pour into a glass, a whimsical gleam found its way into his employer's eyes.

"Ashton?" Farlow questioned smiling. "What would happen to you if you suddenly found your every desire in life had been fulfilled?"

The cocktail filled to the glass's brim. Ashton held his tray. Farlow took the glass with care. He drank. And as he set the glass down on his desk, and Ashton removed the empty one beside it, he shook his head.

"Quite, sir," he agreed, preparing to depart. "There would, of course, be a—Dr—snag in it."

Farlow watched the man depart. Then he sat back in his chair and left his map unheeded while he meditated, and consumed his second cocktail with appreciation. He smoked, too. And in the process of these things he reached a decision. Setting aside his emptied glass, and stubbing out his cigarette, he became active.

He returned the banknotes and Treasury currency to their place in the case. Queen Raamanita's picture he carefully returned to its compartment. Then he pulled out the drawers in his desk in succession and searched.

Awhile and he found. It was a thin roll of linen tracing. With a sharp penknife he detached the exact amount to cover the outspread map. Then, with a fine-pointed fountain pen, he began the laborious task of tracing. It was work to which he was unaccustomed. But he persisted. He went on until his exact tracing was complete in every detail. He found it a monumental task.

Larky was wide awake and sitting up in bed. He was sombrely regarding his chief lounging on the foot of the bed. But Larky's regard was no indication of his feelings. He was feeling refreshed and strong. He had had the best part of three hours sleep. And it had had splendid reaction on a constitution as hard as nails. He was entirely unimpressed with the necessity for remaining in bed. And he made the matter clear.

"It's fussing and finicking, sir. That's a fact," he moaned peevishly. "Miss Frazer means well. She always does, sir. But I ask you. How the hell's a bloke to argue with a woman who blames Providence for yeller dirt? I ain't even malingering now, sir. Fair bilking. That's what I am. Bilking!"

"No, you aren't," Farlow assured easily. "You're just laying in a store of 'beans' so you'll be right to travel back to town tomorrow morning by the nine-two from Aspminster. I've been thinking about knife wounds. And what they need most is good, clean air. You know. Not winter fogs, and damp, and the sort of chill you get looking on at a Cup Tie. They want that ether stuff, or whatever it is, where the B.B.C. park their spare wave-lengths. What you really need is to be up in the air. You know. Starting from Croydon. And landing at Lisbon to catch the mail boat."

"Back again to Africa? Us, sir? You mean I ain't going to see that match on Boxing Day?"

Farlow lit a fresh cigarette and inhaled. His dinner alone had afforded him ample time for swift planning.

"That's about it," he went on. "At once. You must blame yourself though. It was you getting into that mix-up in the steerage alleyway. But cheer up. You certainly gave me a great laugh with that pocket-book that—busted your back!"

It was the right manner, at the right moment, to the right man. Larky sighed as the last roseate vision of a Highbury match vanished.

For some moments they regarded each other. Then Larky's depression settled more heavily.

"'Gorge of White Death!'" he moaned. "'Valley of Fire!' 'Living Weed!' 'Spect they couldn't think of no more. Gives a bloke the willies. But," he added, with the swift cocking of a knowing eye, "we know about that weed, sir, don't we? Can't tell us about that. Cor! Mind that time when it came nigh getting the motor boat down? And them blighted savages reckoned we was their cold meat? Must have sunk fifty of 'em. Wonder why they didn't write Umdava on that map instead of Sebar? 'Spect us are the only ones who know that name, Sebar."

"Not as yet, sir," Larky agreed. "But you can't ever tell what's goin' to 'appen, can you? Looks like a catch somewhere to me."

Farlow crossed to Larky's dressing table and deposited his cigarette end. Then he came back to the bed, tapping a fresh one on his case.

"Larky, my friend," he said, his eyes narrowing. "I wondered if you'd get it. Sort of wanted confirmation, if you know what I mean? You've given it me. Now you lie back on those pillows and take it easy. You've done your bit of talk. Just listen while I do some."

Larky obeyed without demur. But his quick eyes were watchful under their red canopy. Farlow reseated himself, lit his cigarette and nursed one knee in tenacious hands. He began to talk without regarding the wounded man.

"It's that catch," he said. "Oh, it's there all right. And it's so damned clumsy it leaves me a bit wondering. That map was meant to reach me. I'm sure of that. And the fact of it seems fairly easy to arrive at. The only thing I don't understand is the way it actually did reach me. That pocket-book contains a challenge. But the money in it was never intended for me. Something went wrong somewhere. And I wonder why?"

"Looks to me there were two schemes at work which didn't harmonize," he demurred.

"He was ratting on his yellow pals to those who've been after 'em ever since the war. Them others wasn't having it. So they—"

"It might be so. But it doesn't get over with me. Not altogether. The boy ratting doesn't worry to carry a woman's favourite picture mixed up with what he wants to sell. And he doesn't usually carry a small fortune in liquid cash. He doesn't disguise his chart of N'Gobi so only you and I can recognize it. It's no case of ratting. It's just a plain trap to catch us two so someone can put a satisfactory termination to a nuisance. And we're going straight into that trap."

"Quite," Farlow smiled at the gloom of it. "That map was intended to be planted on me. That man was taken aboard the Olivarria there, when we hove-to south of Benguela off the marshes of Umdava. And McGregor shipped him knowingly. Maybe he shipped the others knowingly as well. I can't say. And I don't care. It doesn't matter anyway. It's a challenge. And we're accepting it. It's the caves of Umdava where we first found that weed, and sunk that native war-barge. We're going to explore them and find that river. The Gorge of White Death, too. The Vale of Fire. And we're going to run a vampire to earth at The Glory of the World."

"Yes. That Queen Raamanita, whoever she is. She ought to be at Hollywood. Not at N'Gobi. And when we're through, if my judgement's sound, I rather fancy the work of a poor benighted Government Commission will have been duly accomplished."

For one flashing moment Larky came out of his habitual gloom. His eyes brightened.

"Have to find what's left of us first," he said. "But there it is. You've done it on us. And we're going through with it—at once. No Cup Ties. You go up from Aspminster tomorrow morning on the nine-two. And you'll take two suitcases. Monday we run down to Croydon and charter an air bus. I shall drive up with my cousin, Jerry, tomorrow night, after dinner at Ashlea. If he fails me Horace will drive me up. It's going to be better than a Cup Tie."

"Course it is, sir. Cup Ties is all right when you haven't got nothin' better. But I 'spect Miss Frazer was right though. Only it don't look like bein' the rope. Vampires? Sucks your blood don't they, sir? Horrible blighters. Wonder what sort of monument it would be, sir? What d'you think they'd write on it? Indent, I 'spects. Farlows, Richard, Colonel, D.S.O. one. Browns, Larking, Private, one. Corfins two. Varnish pints one. Cor! No. They wouldn't run to no varnish. Not the Gover'ment. There's a packet of 'Perils' on the mantelpiece, sir. Miss Frazer said I wasn't to smoke in my bedroom. Would you mind, sir?"

CHAPTER X. — HOLDING THE BABY

THERE was only one unfortunate circumstance to mar Jill Forrester's complete happiness in her little Sunday night party.

It was quite absurd of course. But then Jill had her own very definite ideas of welcoming Dick Farlow home.

At dinner she had Dick on her left, with the cheerful Jerry Wallace on her right. She asked no better than to face Colonel, "Uncle," Jim Halter, Chief Constable of the county, quite the most intimate friend of the family, across the little polished refectory table. Her father, with his sleek, iron-grey hair, was admirable at the head of his table. And Aunt Susan, her father's spinster sister, naturally occupied the other end. But the "unfortunate circumstance" was the presence of the misanthropic owner of Castle Elstane, Anthony Garnet.

She had had no say in the matter, however. It had been her father's own doing. The aged bullion-broker, reputedly the wealthiest man in the county, had been invited. And, wonder of wonders, he had accepted. So it came that Jill had to gaze at, and smile upon, a dead white face she detested, and an emaciated body clad in evening garments whose fashion was surely decades old. She revolted at rat-tails of silver hair, and pale, expressionless eyes which she felt should belong to some dead fish.

The Sunday night gathering at Ashlea Meads was something approaching ritual since Sir Alan Forrester had permitted himself to become preoccupied by office and State. It was always a meeting of intimate friends and neighbours, the one weekly occasion when the famous banqueting hall came into requisition.

The room was superbly panelled from floor to eaves which supported the roof of the house. Its minstrel gallery was as fine as anything of its kind in the kingdom. Its mullioned windows were characteristically curtained. And all these things were left in the shadows beyond the radiance of carefully shaded table lights which were the wax candles of older days. It was all tastefully lavish. The service had the old-world perfection understood by the white-haired Jebb and his two underlings.

Jill Forrester refused to countenance anything which could be accounted "stuffy." And her favourite Aunt Susan cordially abetted her. Sunday evening always provided a cheery dinner to be followed by execrable bridge for which both had a passion.

It was entirely due to a sort of mutual understanding between Dick Farlow and his host that the subject of the Olivarria's murder was not broached amidst the rapid-fire talk that went on during the meal. But then there was so much of more cheerful interest.

Sir Alan himself was agog with the prospects of the coming week. He had built and endowed a new wing to the famous hospital for seafarers in the East End of London. St. Margaret-of-the-Seas. And it was to be opened in three days' time by royalty.

Dick Farlow was, so to speak, the guest of the evening and a chief centre of interest. In view of his having come from Africa, it was natural enough that Anthony Garnet should ply him with acute questions as to the position of Africa with regard to the gold standard, and other matters pertaining to Africa's basic traffic.

As for "Uncle" Jim Halter, he had his own well-worn axe to grind. And he lost no opportunity of grinding it. It was the curtailment of police powers in its reaction upon crimes of violence. Jerry Wallace, too, brought illuminating stories of Egypt and the Nile as an interesting addition to Africa's contribution, to the general talk.

Jill and her aunt were more than content to have the men entertain each other in the way that men can, and then to claim those they required for their evening bridge. And so, eventually, Uncle Jim and Jerry Wallace were shamelessly carried off as their victims while the others were left to their port.

With Jebb and his assistants also departed, Sir Alan turned abruptly to Dick Farlow while the emaciated body of Anthony Garnet sidled itself into the chair left vacant by the Chief Constable.

"I was glad that pretty beastly murder on my ship didn't crop up while the women were here," Sir Alan said seriously. "Not, of course, that women mind that sort of thing nowadays. It was Jim Halter being with us. You see, Dick, he's police. Local, of course, but still police." He shrugged massive shoulders. "It was pretty damned ugly. And I'm not a bit pleased. Queer, too. McGregor's report was very much the seaman. And not as clear as I would have liked. I wonder if you feel like giving me your impressions—version—of it. McGregor's a good skipper. To be relied on thoroughly. But— Well, I've people in our organization who don't always see eye to eye with me where he's concerned. I should rather like your story of things. I—"

"It would be interesting to know just why some of your people don't share your opinion of McGregor," he said quietly. "You see, sir, I took the slower journey home in your boat in preference to a mail boat, because—personally—I don't regard McGregor with any more favour than those others."

"Perhaps for the same reason that you'd like to have my report of what occurred."

"A most excellent riposte, Colonel," Garnet said. And his dead eyes had developed full life. "One cannot be too careful in dealing with a man's reputation. Even a sea-captain."

The tone of it had an old man's modulation. But it had something else. And Dick Farlow was not quite sure what it was. Sir Alan nodded approvingly.

"Quite, Garnet. I certainly agree," he smiled. "We are better without loose talk." He turned back to Farlow. "We'll stick to your story of the crime, Dick. Just go ahead in your own way. And tell me anything you feel you may. You see, there will be an official enquiry. It's up to me to know all the facts."

"Only too glad, sir," he replied at once. "Fact is I came here this evening with the full intention of doing just that. You've heard of that expression of 'holding the baby.' At the present moment that's precisely my position. And I'm afraid I don't like holding a 'baby' that isn't my own. The 'baby' in question, I think, should be yours. And with your permission I should be glad to pass it on to its rightful guardian."

Sir Alan laughed. Garnet watched and smoked. The play of it seemed to amuse him.

"I don't know what McGregor reported to you," he demurred, accepting his host's lighter. "But the whole thing was just nasty blue murder with a knife and strangling. We were in the chart room. McGregor and I. We just heard a couple of shouts coming up to us from the steerage. We hurried to investigate. And we found the poor blighter in an alleyway with a knife in his chest and strangling marks at his neck. He was a yellow man."

"Spare me that, sir," Farlow grinned. "I get it from everybody. But it was. Though McGregor wouldn't have it at any price in spite of the ship's doctor's entire agreement with me. The knife I recognized as a yellow man's knife. Apparently a stowaway. A yellow stowaway on his way to England in winter. Why? The knife, seeing there were no yellow men on the passenger list, suggested other yellow stowaways. Also coming to England."

"Those are the simple facts," he went on. "Nothing more aboard ship. Nothing more, in fact, until we landed. And then I was left unaware of it. It was my man. Larky was on his way to the Occidental in a cab with the baggage. Pulled up to buy cigarettes just outside the docks. Two men set on him and slashed his shoulder open. Larky's not an easy man to stick a knife into. Rather quick, if a little sad. Generally carries an old knobkerri. He had it with him. And he told me with some satisfaction that he thinks there's only one yellow man loose in London now instead of two. He called at your hospital and got stitched up. Then he told me. And left me to 'hold the baby.'"

"That's the queer thing," Farlow chuckled. "Larky hadn't a ghost of an idea he was holding any 'baby' until that attack by two men he recognized as being yellow. Then, however, his up-take came into play. You know, Larky's a born army scrounger. And after that murder on your boat he chanced to pick up an old, battered pocket-book from the deck. And, most reprehensibly, he refused to take it to Captain McGregor. It was literally packed with money. English bank notes and currency. And some other odds and ends. Larky had a deeply rooted objection to doing anything that might be of assistance to Captain McGregor. After the attack on him, and he reached the Occidental, he handed me the pocket-book just as he found it, giving me to understand pretty clearly he'd had quite enough of its possession!"

Farlow reached a hip pocket. He produced the bulging case and laid it on the table in front of Sir Alan.

"That's it, sir," he said, and his lazy eyes were watchful. "Seems to me that in some queer way that 'baby's' connected with murder. Can't say how. And anyway I haven't interest in it. All I know is Larky found its possession unhealthy. And if there's to be official enquiry those making it should be aware of its existence. Know what I mean, sir? Your ship. Your enquiry. Your murder. Your 'baby.'"

There was a moment of silence while Sir Alan considered the bulging morocco. Farlow drank his port. It was Anthony Garnet who broke the silence.

"Most interesting, Colonel," he nodded. "You intrigue me. Your yellow men. I've not heard before. Who are they? African? Hottentots, I suppose."

"The argument's overwhelming, Dick. 'Your ship. Your enquiry. Your murder. Your "baby,"'" he quoted. "I suppose I'll have to turn my back to the knife in the cause of responsibility. Now I wonder. What's best to be done with it till that enquiry?"

"Be rid of it as quickly as you know how, sir," Farlow replied sharply. "Remember, it's an affair of my—yellow men."

"You have Colonel Halter here," he said. "The police. Why not? At any rate," he added, with cold sarcasm directed at Farlow, "you too, will have passed on the danger."

"I think the library safe until tomorrow morning," Sir Alan demurred. "Then Scotland Yard—first thing. Better than local police. Now I wonder what it means? What it contains?"

"According to Larky mainly money. Bank notes should be traceable. But," he laughed, as he rose from the table, "its contents must be dealt with by those concerned. I must get hold of Jerry and fix up, if Jill hasn't killed him during a bridge inquest. I want him to drive me back to town tonight. I've a lot of business to put through tomorrow."

Sir Alan picked up the pocket-book. He stood considering it. Anthony Garnet rose from his chair. And Farlow noted his agility of movement. Garnet's eyes were alive as he murmured his question.

"I suppose, Colonel," he said, "you have not troubled yourself to ascertain the contents of that very dangerous—Dr— 'baby'?"

Like Jill's, Farlow's distaste for the old man's dead eyes was a revolting. He turned on a shrunken form that left old-world evening clothes loose and ill-fitting. The eyes had died once more.

"But why should I concern myself with affairs which are obviously matters wholly for the police?" he asked coldly.

CHAPTER XI. — CASTLE ELSTANE

THE car topped the northern ridge of Elstane's Valley and dropped below. It was swallowed by the night. But its progress was there to witness in the moving beam of its headlights.

The headlights were of no more than normal power. The car was inconspicuous, except that it suggested extreme age. It had an open body. And its ancient canvas hood was by no means weatherproof. The tires, however, were good. And the engine was more than ordinarily powerful.

At the approach to the valley's deeps there was fierce braking. And its effectiveness bespoke mechanical efficiency. In moments the vehicle was doing no more than grope its way through the old-world hamlet of Elstane on its way to the battlemented fortress standing high on the valley's southern slope.

The double row of downland cottages faded away behind into the night. The little village store and post office went with them. The shadowy forms of barns, belonging to two large farms, dropped back. And so, too, with a small church and vicarage, both of which were roofed with heavy thatch.

The car picked up as its solitary occupant stepped on the accelerator. It bumped lightly over the crown of a stone bridge across the river, which, at that point, was no more than a burble of shallows. Then it began to climb with supreme ease towards wrought iron gates which stood wide open. With only a hundred or so years behind them they were comparatively modern.

Elstane's grey stone keep was approached through a park whose woodland density was almost forest. It was a long and meandering drive that was in perfect order, and lined on either side by oaks, and beech, and elm, which formed a masking of all that lay beyond.

The Norman archway of the keep gave on to a spacious courtyard designed for the muster of men-at-arms. The car crossed it. And it drew up, a grievous anachronism, at the bolt-studded doors which provided the castle's main entrance.

Captain McGregor of the Olivarria switched off both lights and engine. He alighted. And he was admitted without summons of any sort.

The lofty, oak-roofed hall might once have been the seat of a justice, which, in the far back feudal days, smacked more of unstable human whim than any real equity.

Its spaciousness was lost in shadows. For its only lighting at the moment came from a generous hearth-fire, and an oil lamp that was heavily shaded. There was a vague loom of tapestry wall-coverings, of heavy oak furniture. And the stone flooring was thickly laid with rush matting.

It was a huge apartment frowning with stark dignity. It even sensed the sinister. It was little enough removed from that which had obtained when William was a conqueror. Even though the emaciated form of Anthony Garnet was huddled in a capacious oak chair, and the burly back of Captain Angus McGregor was warming before the hearth fire.

McGregor's small eyes were narrowly regarding his host. There was little enough that was friendly in them. But there was awed deference behind them. He was watching, waiting. For he knew that the summons which had brought him to Elstane at one o'clock in the morning was not for the pleasure of his company.

Garnet's manner was that habitual to him. He sat there beside the heavy table with its shaded lamp, and a long tumbler of amber liquid, staring at his visitor with dead eyes that told nothing. His way of speaking was coldly precise. No emotion seemed to have power to thaw its frigidity.

"It's wreckage, if we cannot repair the damage they have done the other end," he said, in the low voice of a man incapable of infusing vitality into it. "It's the sort of blundering I can scarcely credit my brother with. He had no right to send out these savages on a mission of such vital importance. And, anyway, you should have seen to it that they did not make a mess of things. Lionel's wireless was all too vague for clear understanding of what has happened. How it came about that the man, Chiabwe, was allowed to get away with plans of the 'Highway' to pass them on to Colonel Farlow is quite beyond me. And then, when those two got him and his wretched paper, under your very nose to go and lose it to the man it was intended for. In all my life I have never known such tragic incapacity."

There was a gesture of thin hands that had the appearance of effort. But the dead eyes were unchanging.

"However," the smooth voice went on, "I didn't bring you here to deplore incapacity, whether it's yours or anyone else's—"

"Here, let's get it clear!" It broke in sharply. A dark flush dyed the seaman's hard face. There were swelling veins at his forehead. There was a lift to the upper lip of his greedy mouth. "There was no damned incapacity on my side of things. My orders were clear enough. I was told to do nothing but what I did. I took the men aboard and hid them up. Chiabwe knew nothing of the other two. All I had to do was to see that nothing, and nobody, interfered with their doings and movements aboard my ship. The two got Chiabwe. They got that paper, I presume. How they lost the blamed pocket-book was a matter of chance no one could have foreseen. And why the hell they didn't get that bloody batman of the Colonel's leaves me amazed. If your yellow men are no better than that all I can say is the sooner you and your brother give up cold murder as a pastime the easier I'm going to sleep. You've brought me down here on the rush so that I hadn't time to eat. And being hungry I'm in no mood to listen to talk about incapacity. Cut the blame stuff. And get to the sense. I'm still hungry—and thirsty."

Garnet had the measure of the bluster of it and remained unmoved. He sipped his brandy and water. The momentary process of it livened his eyes. He set the glass back on the table.

"You can eat when I've finished. And you can drink when the job's done," he answered, collapsing back in his chair.

There was a moment's pause for the other to retort. But no reply was forthcoming. Savage reply was in the Captain's face. But the expression went no further.

"A miracle has put the game into my hands," Garnet went on presently. "My hands, McGregor. And I intend to see that we do not lose it. That batman, they don't seem able to kill, passed the pocket-book intact to Colonel Farlow. Colonel Far-low's only concern seems to be to rid himself of it. And so to save his own skin. He, in turn, gave it tonight to Sir Alan Forrester for the purpose of the official enquiry. It is to be lodged in Sir Alan's library safe for the night. And to be handed over to Scotland Yard first thing tomorrow morning. We have got from now till daylight to clean up the mess made on—your ship."

McGregor turned to face the fire. And his eyes were hidden as he questioned sharply.

"Who can tell?" he said, meditatively eyeing the broad back. "If he did—" The cold voice trailed off. But only to come again. "If he did then the worse disaster has happened. And that, too, will have to be cleaned up. But my concern of the moment is to recover Chiabwe's plan. The other must be dealt with later."

"You're wrong," he snapped hotly. "Later's no time to deal with a 'busy' like that colonel man. Take it from me it's better to put him to sleep before we get after the other."

"Farlow can't be dealt with until tomorrow. If then," he demurred, the bones of his shoulders moving slightly under his ill-fitting jacket. "Your work, until then, is that paper of Chiabwe's."

They remained for a while eye to eye and silent. McGregor knew that only in appearance Anthony Garnet was half dead from some obscure and malignant disease. He knew that his expressionless eyes concealed a mental activity extreme in its acuteness. He knew, too, that no human soul occupied that frame of a body. So he awaited with no sort of pleasure for what was yet to come. He saw the eyes turn to an old-fashioned hand bell on the table.

"I am not impressed with your grasp of the situation any more than I am with my brother's, and the work of his men," Garnet mused. "I could almost think that Lionel is getting past his work. Or had developed some sort of megalomania which makes him think his orders, and their execution, are infallible. I have never yet believed that reliance can be placed for the execution of important given orders without supervision. Loyalty does not exist without gross self interest. Payment is needed, too. Payment that is higher than anyone else will make. To be successful one must believe that ethical integrity is only for the young or very foolish. My brother, Lionel, for all his years, and bitter experiences, seems to have missed much of these truths. Chiabwe should have ceased to exist while he was still at N'Gobi."

He paused. And McGregor shrugged indifferently. To him such talk was no better than waste of time. But Garnet went on in his steady monotone.

"The things which matter to us are the recovery of that pocket-book and its contents, and—Farlow. The former you and others will deal with tonight in the manner I direct. And I shall personally see there is no second incompetence in that direction. So you may now eat the food which will be prepared for you. And you will please abstain from any liquid stronger than coffee."

Garnet's claw-like hand reached towards the hand bell. It beat the knob of it with surprising force. While the seaman, at the prospect of food and action, found an easier mood.

"Most of that stuff's horse sense all right," he admitted with a grin. "Though I could add a bit of my own that would leave yours cold. But as regards the order of going I still claim nothing matters so much as Colonel Farlow. You see, no plan of the 'Highway' would be intelligible to anybody but Farlow. Certainly not to Scotland Yard."

Garnet watched the seaman's sudden reaction of confusion and liked the triumph of it.

"The Government knows what Farlow knows," he went on. "Therefore Farlow, personally, has not the importance for us at the moment which that paper has. I—"

He broke off. It was the sound of a heavy door closing somewhere behind him in the shadows. McGregor peered to discover the approach of a slim, dark-haired man in sober tweeds. He came noiselessly over the rush matting to pause at Anthony Garnet's table.

The old man looked up. There was an inclination of his white head with its lank, wispy hair.

"Get a chair, Malcolm," he said, in his soft tones. "There's urgent work to be done at once. There will be no sleep until it is successfully dealt with. Captain McGregor is badly in need of food. So while he obtains it I wish to discuss the plan of things with you." He turned to the watchful Captain. "If you will kindly go along to the dining-room they will provide anything you desire, except alcoholic liquor. When you have satisfied your hunger, if you will be good enough to return here, I think I can convince you that our organization lacks nothing that will make for your success. You will find it completely efficient. And I shall be on hand to assure its loyalty."

"I'm not doubting, Garnet," he grumbled. "And I hope when it comes to handling Farlow it'll be the same."

Garnet's dead eyes followed the movements of the departing seaman till the shadows swallowed them up. Then he turned to his youthful chief of staff.

CHAPTER XII. — DOINGS IN THE NIGHT

JEBB'S autocracy in the servants' hall at Ashlea Meads was absolute and sufficiently salutary. At any rate it imposed strong discipline and appropriate dignity. So it came that the events of Monday morning had the effect of a violent earthquake in the placid life of Jebb. For he awakened to a crashing as though the very heavens themselves were falling about his devoted head.

It was Annie Koo. The emotional second housemaid. She had staggered to a halt before the door of the room sacred to the celibate state of the butler. And was beating out a violent summons on its ancient timbers with both dustpan and brush.

Jebb's reaction was extreme disapproval, which yet failed to give him sufficient pause to disguise vivid flannel pyjamas. Jebb blinked incredulously as he opened his door. Then, after a speechless pause, a mild thundercloud settled upon his smooth brow.

"You're forgetting yourself, Annie," he censured. "This is most unseemly. Most improper. I—" Annie's torrential panic broke.

"I can't help it, Mr. Jebb," she shrilled. "It ain't really improper. It's burglars! Trewth it is. They're in the lib'r'y. Was. I went in to 'do' it. And—and you never saw. Oh, dear sakes! Whatever will we do? Burglars! Fair cracksmen! They been at the safe. At the master's desk, and all. You can't move for the books they've throwed out of the book-cases and chucked about the floor. The cupboards, too. It's awful. That's what it is. You never didn't. Will you please come? I daresn't to go back alone. They'll murder— I— O-oh!"

It was as nearly a faint as the doorway would permit. But the bump of the girl's head saved the situation. She rallied, and the butler's bemused wits were saved the further tragedy. He realized the position. Annie Koo must be pacified. She must be restored to her normal indifferent state of intelligence. He cleared his throat.

"You must calm yourself, Annie," he soothed. "It is most astonishing. We have never had burglars in the library—ahem— on the downs. Never. Now just try and tell me quietly. The library. Just begin at the beginning. And don't start fainting again."

"But there isn't no beginning, Mr. Jebb," she cried hysterically. "It hasn't got one! It's just m-muddle! Anyhow! With all the books chucked— It's those burglars what we don't have on the downs. The master's papers, too. They're hiding. That's what they are. They're in there waiting to spring out on me When I set brush to the floor. If they was to catch me kneeling! I—I couldn't go back there alone if it was ever so—"

And his flannelled figure thrust the girl on one side as it passed out into the corridor.

The library, which was Annie Koo's early morning charge, was in a state of chaos. The girl had not exaggerated. To Jebb's horrified mind the scene of it under the electric light suggested high-explosive. Chairs were up-turned. Cushions were flung about. Rugs were rolled back. The great safe stood wide open in its recess, and the litter of its contents had been thrown upon the floor. The desk had been ransacked. Its drawers were pulled out with their locks wrenched. And their contents, too, had been broadcast. A large ink-well had been upset, and its black flood was still moist.

Worst of all, to the butler's mind, however, was the wreckage of books. A vast, calf-bound mass was sprawled in every direction.

Annie Koo stood triumphantly terror-stricken in the midst of it all drawing comfort from a man's presence, however ineffectual it might be.

The old man's feelings took complete charge of him. He forgot authority. He forgot flannel pyjamas. A cold dew stood on his white forehead. And he gestured unmeaningly.

It was unfortunate. Annie was caught in a wave of contempt. She sniffed. And sloe-like eyes lit with scorn.

"I d'no," she snapped. "Seems like it'll be a pailful if we don't do something. What we want is Scotland Yard. They always does when crime has been committed."

The animated jelly to which Jebb had been reduced suffered under a tone to which he was unaccustomed. His sense of propriety was outraged.

"Miss Jill must be notified—at once," he ordered in a voice that had lost its usual authority.

He turned to a fallen clock on the desk which, miraculously, was still functioning. And as he considered its dial, and worked out an accurate reading of the time indicated, something of his usual poise returned to him.

"Half-past six," he muttered. "Most indelicately early. In the circumstances, however, I trust Miss Jill will overlook it."

"If I know Miss Jill," she said, "when she sees what they done she won't half ramp off. She'll just swear proper. And she won't care neither if it's half-past six or Sunday church time."

"You will please to remember you're speaking of your betters, miss," he snorted. "And you will do your duty by remaining here—alone—and doing what you can to straighten the room before Miss Jill sees it. I will, myself, convey the bad tidings to her."

But Annie Koo's mind flung back to the Talkies in Asp-minster. And to the crime books which went the round of the servants' hall. Besides, she had no intention of being caught kneeling.

"They don't never clear up nothing till they've photographed the finger prints," she warned with conviction. "Edgar Wallace don't ever let 'em. Besides, I wouldn't get murdered horrid for twice the money."

Jill Forrester rolled over in her bed and opened one sleepy grey eye. A sound had disturbed her. A sound, which, in the darkness of a December early morning, was sufficiently familiar not to be a figment of imagination. Her single eye peered in the darkness at the spot where she knew the door of her room to be.

Jill sat up. She groped for an electric switch and pushed it. The sudden light revealed a peevish frown.

"If the place is on fire I can't help it," she bawled impatiently. "Who is it? And it's no use rattling that handle. The lock's a Brahma, or some other paultry thing."

"It's me. Jebb, Miss Jill." The muffled answer came back through the heavy timber. "I regret to say the library has been invaded by burglars. I should be glad to know your wishes."

Jill moved quickly. She swung a pair of shapely calves and dainty white feet from under the bedclothes. She snatched a gossamer bed-gown from an adjacent chair. And she started to giggle at the manner of Jebb's information.

"That's easy, Jebb," she called back, wrapping her slim body preparatory to advancing upon the Brahma lock. "Offer them light refreshment. And tell them their timing's altogether faulty."

Jill flung open the door and stared at the flannelled splendour. Nor did the torrent of its information completely banish her grin.

"It's the library, Miss Jill," the old man proclaimed in a welter of agitation. "Annie found it when she went in to 'do' it a few minutes ago. You never saw such a state. It has been completely ransacked. Even the master's safe. It is a most indelicate hour to disturb you, Miss Jill. But what would you like me to do?"

Fresh moisture was steadily developing on the old man's brow as he sought to avoid the vision of girlish charms which Jill's wrapper scarcely concealed. Jill felt if relief were not quickly forthcoming the poor old boy would be in peril of an unsought bath. Mischief twinkled as she pondered.

"Let me see," she said. "The appropriate gesture would be, of course, gun, goloshes, and overcoat. Scour the park. Fire above malefactors' heads when discovered. A lantern, I think, to show you the way."

"Indeed it's not a laughing matter, Miss Jill. All the master's papers! The safe! His lovely books—"

"Of course not, Jebb," she cried. "I'm not really laughing. Just hysteria. Now let me see. How about some breakfast on a tray. A kidney, I think. A spot of bacon, and a rack of toast. Marmalade. Coffee might help, too. Have it sent up. Meanwhile I'll tub and dress. Nothing like a suitable foundation in the tummy, Jebb, in matters of emergency. Then I'll come down and look into things. Ah! Bright idea. Wonderful how one thing suggests another in the early morning. Tell Wells to lay my baby on the doorstep. I might run over to Aspminster and collect some of Uncle Jim's blue boys. Now what else? Nothing, I think. Except you're simply wonderful in emergency, Jebb. You know just how and when to produce the goods in a difficult situation. Don't let them spare that breaker."

Jill Forrester was energetic and determined. She possessed an odd little courage that had its own cheerful manner of expression. Her laughter at Jebb, her manner, had been quickly calculated. It was unthinkable to leave the old man's distress unrelieved.

Whether she ate her breakfast and tubbed before dressing remained unrevealed. But she was fully garmented when she dashed to Annie Koo's rescue, whose courage only permitted a hovering in the neighbourhood of the library.

Jill's presence acted as a tonic at once. She listened to the girl's horrific account of things, and her suggestions as to a proper course of action, while Jebb was discarding his flannel in the privacy of his room. Then she led the way to the scene of the disaster.

"I don't think we need concern ourselves with finger prints, Annie," Jill said, as they stood surveying the wreckage of her favourite apartment. "You see, this isn't murder. What I mean, if Jebb, or somebody, was lying with his head bashed in on that pile of books, of course, finger prints would be indicated. No. This is burglary all right. And I expect we shall just collect the insurance. Looks like being an enforced, and unusually early, spring cleaning."

"But they must have left finger prints on the safe, Miss Jill," Annie persisted, disappointed, at the other's casual disregard for the rules of the game. "You can't ever open a safe without leaving finger prints, 'less you wear gloves. And they wouldn't be wearing gloves on the downs, would they? You know, Miss, they shake powder on 'em. Then they set the camera man to work. And there you are. That way they get a 'fair cop,' because Scotland Yard has all the crooks' finger prints. Knows 'em all."

"Yes. And it's very clever of you to think of those things," she said. "You've all been splendid. You'll be quite safe here now. They've gone. That's quite clear. So you can just get on clearing up these books, while I trot along and tell my father the glad tidings. Then I'll take the baby, and get some of Colonel Halter's police from Aspminster."

"Oh, Miss Jill," Annie cried, all her disappointment transformed into delight. "Won't it be wonderful. Real tecs. Not flatties. Them sort bungle everything. And will they put us through the Third Degree? Fair sets you all ticklin' down the back, don't it, Miss?"

"But if I should pick up a few finger prints among the books, how'd it be if I just laid 'em aside?" she questioned eagerly.

"Of course. It would be a most important clue," Jill nodded seriously. "You're really wonderful. We shall have you featured in the London papers as the girl who tracked down the murd—I mean the burglars at Ashlea Meads."

For all the lightness of it Jill's eyes steadily regarded the wide open safe, and the confusion of papers littered in front of it. She was wondering. She was seriously perturbed. She knew of nothing in that room, in that safe, which could have been of any real value to any burglars. Neither money nor valuables of any sort were ever kept in a safe that was one of very old pattern.

As Annie began her search of the strewn books Jill hurried off to rouse her father.

Jill went up the great oak staircase without hurry. In fact, she went up quite slowly. A queer puzzlement preoccupied her. For all she had treated the whole matter of the burglary with apparent lightness she was a prey to some form of misgiving for which she could not account. Even while she had been listening to Annie's ideas on the subject of detection, and while she was considering the amazing fashion in which the library had been ransacked, there had leapt into her mind Dick Farlow's telling of the extraordinary attack upon his man Larky.

It was not that Jill saw the faintest glimmer of any connection between the two things. But the memory had leapt at her. It had remained. And, making her way to her father's bedroom, she found herself thinking of nothing else.

Where the carved handrail and balusters of ancient oak came to an end at a wide landing, with uneven floor, and the corridors of the east and west wings of the house opened off it, she paused. Jill knew definite reluctance to proceed farther.

It was a finely carved newel post. And Jill's hand came to rest on it while she argued with herself. Why call her father? Why not run over to Aspminster in her baby-car? Or, better still, why not 'phone?

It was no more than momentary, however. Jill realized the stupid weakness of it and urged herself to prompt activity. Of course she must rouse her father. That, obviously, was essential.

She crossed the landing quickly in the direction of the east wing corridor. She hurried down the wide passage of it. And a small clenched fist beat knuckles on the panel of a bedroom door.

"Ho! Daddy, dear!" she cried, and her grin returned. "Is our insurance policy all right 'cos we've had burglars? Looks like they've wrecked the library and everything in it."

Jill awaited the inevitable sleepy protest and continued to grin. But as it was not forthcoming she hammered again. This time she raised her voice to a bawl.

"Wake up, Daddy, darling," she yelled, while her fist pounded. "It's burglars! And Jebb's dithering! You've got to do something about it!"

There was no reply. And Jill's grin faded out. She turned the old brass handle of the door and thrust it open.

The room was in complete darkness. The curtains were closely drawn. As the door swung open Jill felt a cold draught of December air streaming in through open windows. She reached for light switches, and pressed the first her fingers encountered. It was that of the central ceiling chandelier. As it flashed on the girl's cry broke.

It was one little cry of startled panic. Then Jill remained staring mutely and wide-eyed at the old four-poster bed, with its massive bulging posts and brocaded hangings. The bedclothes were flung back as though her father had been startled into urgent activity. And he was there, half in and half out of bed, lying over sideways, fallen back on his pillow with his unshod feet resting on the floor.

The girl bestirred. Haltingly she approached the bedside. And as she did so she beheld. The silk of her father's pyjamas was hideously stained with congealing blood. And thrusting up from his chest was the ivory handle of a knife that had been driven into his body up to its very hilt.

Jill gazed mute and paralysed with the horror of what she beheld. Her father. Dead! Stabbed to death! Murdered!

Presently came reaction. It was involuntary. It was even mechanical. Jill turned away with a shudder. She noted the indented pillows where her father's head had lain. She saw the oak bedside table, with an open book on it laid face downwards. There was his clock with illuminated dial. A glass was still half full of water. Then there was something she did not recognise.

A threefold wallet lay wide open on the table. It was of morocco. It looked to be empty. It was old. And badly worn.

It was small and inarticulate. A sound warning of deep emotion. Jill turned about. In a moment she was running, fleeing from a horror she could no longer endure.

The heavy door slammed shut behind her. She fled down the corridor. At the head of the staircase she clutched the newel post for support. Then her voice shrilled down to the great hall below.

"Quick!" she cried. "The 'phone! Colonel Halter! Father! He's dead! They've—they've murdered him!"

A wail moaned through the landing and reached the hall below as Jill collapsed on the topmost stair.

CHAPTER XIII. — DEPARTURE

FARLOW was at the desk in his room at the Occidental when Larky returned from his mission. His blue linen tracing was spread out before him. He was studying it closely. For the rest, immediate departure was in evidence everywhere. Suitcases were closed and locked. His bed was just as he had got up from it. Heavy overcoats were laid ready to go down with the rest of the luggage.

Farlow grinned round as Larky, complete with a black arm sling, but with an unattractive face bettered of sun-tanned sickliness, closed the door behind him.

Farlow pondered the man's neat figure under an overcoat that was without bloodstain or rip in its back.

"Anyone else, sir?" Larky gestured. "I'd hope not, sir. Not after that one to Captain Petersen. My word. Like a chapter out of the Holy Bible. Ten pound thirteen, sir! Looked it over to see if I could save you a bob or two. But it was a fair crossword. Ten pound thirteen." He sighed. "Still Captain Petersen ain't like some blokes. 'Spect he's worth it."

"He's worth it, all right," he said. "Got a lot to do before we reach Cape Town. No small job getting the motor-boat overhauled."

"What about it? We've a minute or so before the cab. That back of yours. If I was a doctor man I'd prescribe you a gasper. Light up. And don't worry about the Club's carpet. Nothing exciting out, I s'pose? Too early. Your yellow friends for instance? Didn't get a sight of them again?"

"Not a hope, sir." Larky gloomed. "But then you want to see the pavements with 'em all running about like white ants getting to their offices. No. Nothing what you'd call exciting. Only a news boy hollering the murder of an M.P. First edition of an Evening Paper in the morning! I ask you, sir?"

"Pity it wasn't murder of a yellow man. Only they'd be after you." Farlow lit a cigarette. "I expect you didn't hit that boy as hard as you thought. It's queer to think you might have got hanged for killing a yellow man."

"Course I s'pose they could hang a feller for killing their sort," he admitted. "But it don't seem right to me, come to think of it. But there ain't no rope in my horoscope. Only water, 'cording to the gipsies down at Epsom. Marvels those gipsy coves, sir. Ever had yours told? Wonderful what they can tell you for five bob. Said I wasn't gifted in the field of learning. Told me I wasn't half acquisitive, which means scrounging. Said I was short on sex appeal. And hadn't none to put over. Said my hair wasn't the colour, and my face wasn't the goods. And anyway Venus didn't come into my orbit, which—"

It was the telephone and Charles. Larky took the message. He nodded at his chief.

PART II

CHAPTER I. — CHUTANGA BAY

CHUTANGA Bay suggested the slash of a knife down Africa's western coastline. A wound that remained unhealed. A huge gash some ten miles in length and upwards of four miles in width. Its anchorage was a perfect haven, with a rugged limb of barren, granite hills defending against a storming southern Atlantic.

Colonel Farlow's Oompee was lying at anchor at the bay's extreme northern limit. The yacht's mooring was close in under the lee of the protective hills. It was close enough under their shelter to suggest peril. But the tropic calm was glassy. And the only motion the vessel knew was that induced by the running of a strong ebb-tide.

The Oompee had lost the snow-white seeming beloved of her owner. While the craft's perfect lines remained her colour-scheme reminded of war-time camouflage. She had been "jazzed" with paint, until, lying there at anchor, with her bows heading up the bay, she became almost indistinguishable from the nature-scene which was her immediate background.

Farlow desired obscurity. The far township at the southern head of the bay, which was responsible for the harbour's title, remained totally unaware of the yacht's presence.

There was a full hour before sunset. Under Benguela's merciful air current heat was pleasantly tempered. Haze hung over the southern distance and misted vision. But the two men, leaning at the open weather-screen of the yacht's bridge, persisted in their endeavour to penetrate it.

"Smoke, Karl," he said. "There. See it? Beyond where that eastern shoulder comes down to those chain rocks. Yes. I think so. It's the main channel, too. I rather fancy Van Ruis has timed it with his customary caution. If that's the tender he should make the return journey from here well after nightfall."

Captain Petersen continued his search for some moments longer. Then he turned a pair of vivid blue eyes on his chief.

"Yes. That iss the tender," he agreed, with his peculiar Scandinavian hiss. "I think, too, our friend Larky the first to discover it wass."

He pointed down at the forward deck, where Larky, assisted by Omba and three of the crew, was already lowering a gangway to set it in place over the vessel's side. Farlow smiled.

"Trust Larky," he said. "He's not the sort to miss much when the game's called. I'll get below. Best not show myself. It's already got out I'm back in Africa. Publicity can be the very devil. There she is, just rounding those rocks. One day some poor darn craft'll tear her bottom out on 'em. Someone ought to do something about it."

"You know, Karl, this business is going to be big and— dirty. There are ramifications to it I haven't begun to fathom yet. We're not simply dealing with our yellow pestilence. I've got an idea there's a lot more involved. Certainly there's a deep-sea skipper. And when you get men whose life-dependence is on the sea mixed up with pretty foul crime you can take long odds the dirt in it all is mighty profitable."

Farlow took binoculars from the other's hand. He watched the tender's speedy oncoming.

"It iss queer, chief," Petersen meditated. "But it seems to me there are more secret and crooked organisations operating in the world since the war, than ever before it were. You are on the track of the big crime. That I know. But I also know nothing wholesome iss in Umdava's marshes. And I would much like it if your destination personal was different. That iss Van Ruis with the skipper, standing beside the tender's telegraph."

"That's Peter all right," he agreed. Then he laughed. "The one thing in this that's more certain than anything else, Karl, is, whatever my ultimate personal destination I certainly couldn't make it without your skill in those same unwholesome marshes."

The Scandinavian's eyes lit. There came a little thrust to his rather long lower jaw.

"Don't you get mournful, too," Farlow smiled, "or I'll believe you and Larky are in league against me. Those marshes are hiding something. I want to know. I'm going to know. Oh, about Larky. He's got his orders. I mean about that gangway. No one comes up it but Peter van Ruis. And no one goes down it but Peter van Ruis. Just leave Larky to put his orders over in the way he fancies."

There was something happy in Karl Petersen's regard as he watched the big frame of his employer move to the companion that came up from below.

Farlow was lazily regarding from one of two divan chairs in his private stateroom. Captain Piet van Ruis, his fair whisker never more neat, and his bullet head never more closely cropped, clad in the light civilian clothing common to the coast, was lounging comfortably in the other.

Van Ruis was puzzled that he had been called upon to make a rush journey down to the coast. Farlow was considering his right to claim help in the name of friendship. Farlow spread out his hands.

"One way and another I'm pretty deeply in your debt, Peter," he said. "And it's marvellous how you stand for it. Condemned you to a foul journey through a sickly territory at the worst time of year. No more than an urgent cable that explained nothing. Wonderful. But I couldn't help it. Got to be still deeper in your debt before you leave this yacht. How about it?"

"Make the account as big as you like." Peter remained undisturbed. "I'm not worried, Dick."

"Thanks. I've simply no alternative. And, in a way, it's a penalty for your faith in me and my—work. Still, I don't feel too badly. You see, when I've finished imposing on your good nature it looks as if every paper in Africa will be shouting your name to your infinite honour and material advantage."

"Quite." There was no responsive laughter in Farlow's lazy eyes. "I'll shame the devil," he went on. "I want to use your official pull. Do I make myself quite clear?"

"As a desert waterhole when a rhino's done with it." Peter lounged over on one arm of his chair. "What about that Christmas at home? I'm all curiosity."

"The schemes of mice and men, you know. No Christmas fare in the old home place. No football for Larky. Just one dam sea-trip after another. With the devil chasing our tails the whole way. Can you bear a crook yarn that's still got to have its final chapter written?"

There was comforting interruption. It was Omba on his due occasions, immaculate in duck. He came with tray, ice, drink, and cigars. He deposited it on the table between the two men and grinned a velvet-footed departure.

Peter ignored cigars and produced his pipe which he packed with Boer tobacco. Accepting a long, well-filled glass he drank with avid interest.

Farlow tapped a cigarette on the cover of his case while he marshalled his facts. He had to convince this man. Peter had the police mind. Then he was a good friend. And he wanted the "good friend" most just now.

Farlow lit his cigarette. He had decided. It had to be a brief diary of events from his moment of leaving Gobabi. He told it with precision and sparing. There was his rush trip to Cape Town. And his catching of the Olivarria, whose skipper he distrusted. He told of a prolonged heave-to, south of Benguela. Then his own version of the murder in the Bay. He came to arrival in England. And the arrival of a damaged and disgusted Larky at the Occidental.

Peter's closest attention was held all the way until Farlow came to his home arrival at Horton Spires, and his hour before dinner when he explored the contents of the wallet Larky had handed over to him. At once Farlow detected an unusual restiveness.

"I was startled to find a vast sum of money bulging it, Peter," he said. "Bank notes and currency. Masses of 'em. I could have counted far beyond two thousand pounds, but got fed up. Much more interest in the picture of a woman. Ye gods! The sort of lovely thing to set a policeman dizzy. Gorgeous! And signed herself on the back of it, 'Queen Raamanita.' Then, of course, there was the most important—"

"One moment," he said quickly. "That wallet? Morocco? Old?" The questions rapped.

"Precisely. And battered." Farlow wondered. "The fifth, wasn't it? You landed the fifth of December? Saturday?"

Peter dismissed the matter with a gesture. "Doesn't matter," he said roughly. "Checking up." He sat back heavily in his chair. Farlow had become watchful.

But he went on, apparently absorbed in the affair of it all. "I wonder if you can know what it means to have your big desire suddenly and unexpectedly fulfilled, Peter," he said.

"Something your heart was set on. Something you'd worked for for years. Dream come true. Mine came true when I set eyes on that last item in the wallet." He drew a sigh of supreme content.

"A map," he went on. "A fantastic map. And it featured N'Gobi's massif with the Umdava marshes playing opposite to it. A river. A riverway to get past N'Gobi's armour of thorn jungle and find its heart. It was called The Queen's Highway' and it's something I've been hunting the marshes for for years. It's the key to my yellow men, Peter, and I'm convinced that, in some miraculous fashion, that map reached the exact destination for which it was intended."

"Get a look at it. It's a tracing. But it's exact. When you've heard the rest you're going to agree the whole thing was drawn for my benefit or—undoing."

There was no reply. Peter unfolded the linen and smoothed it out. Farlow watched. Peter read out.

Enquiring eyes flashed across the table. But they dropped again to the drawing. And Peter's examination went on. Far-low was anticipatory when the policeman refolded the linen and passed it back.

"It won't do, old friend," he replied coolly. "You aren't thinking that. Clever. It's damnably clever in its way." He grinned. "Never intended for a mind accustomed to sorting evidence and examining facts. Meant for a mind of lesser quality. The credulous hunter, explorer, who's always trying to translate mirage into reality. But you've seen that as clearly as I have. That map was meant for me to read. There are three reasons for it. One. All distance is marked in days and hours. The only thing for a man on my job. Two. The marshes you call Umdava. There's just two men on the coastline—white men—who know Umdava is the Basta for 'marsh.' And that the marshes cover the site of a once world-famous seaport called 'Sebar.' That map marks Sebar. And Larky and I are aware that Sebar is your Umdava. Three. The yellow man murdered on the Olivarria. He was brought aboard a London bound vessel on which I was travelling. Why? To carry that map to England to sell it? To advertise a beautiful woman? Not a bit of it. To see I got that map and portrait. He was paid heavily for the job. It was his murder that diverted the route by which I was to receive them."

Farlow returned his possession to his pocket. He replenished the other's glass. And went on as though any change in Peter's manner had been wholly unobserved.

"That poor darn fish." He shrugged. "Murdered. And by two of his own people. Pretty plain there were two schemes at work in opposition. Someone wanted me to get those things. And someone determined I shouldn't. What then? If Larky and I were to see the tiling through we had to be rid of that wallet and its contents. And the tiling looked easy to me. No one could know that Larky had passed it on to me, especially in view of the negotiable cash it contained. Very well. Scotland Yard. How? Without detaining me a witness at a Board of Trade enquiry? You know. Counsel, and all the rest. Larky and I wanted to be away by air to intercept the mail boat. The man to hand the wallet to Scotland Yard was obviously Sir Alan Forrester who owns the Delta Line."

"It was on the Saturday of our arrival in London that Larky got damaged and gave me the wallet. I was due to dine with Sir Alan at Ashlea Meads on Sunday night. We are great friends. I told him Larky had picked the wallet up on the deck after the murder. He readily relieved me of it, and—"

"Sorry, Dick. But just that. Forrester was murdered sometime during Sunday night." Peter drew a deep breath as he removed his pipe. "On Monday morning his daughter found him dead on his bed. Stabbed by a long knife with an ivory handle banded with gold. The sort of knife we know about. Left in his chest as though to advertise the murderer. There was an empty wallet on his bedside table. It was morocco. It was old. And—battered."

But Farlow had not waited for the end of it. He was on his feet and pacing the limits of the cabin. Peter saw the havoc he had wrought. But he went on in the inexorable manner of a policeman producing all his evidence.

"But you ought to have got it on your ship's wireless, Dick. If not before you left Croydon," he argued. "Why, I got it right up at Gobabi. Then it came up in the Cape Town papers. Columns of it. Red hot sensation. You see Forrester was not only next door to the Cabinet, but closely connected with Africa through his ships. Scotland Yard are suspecting political crime. There was his library ransacked. His safe. Nothing seemed to be stolen. And no clue but an empty wallet, and a knife with an ivory and gold handle."

Peter watched the man's uneven gait. Something had gone out of the lean body's easy carriage. Peter forgot his glass. His pipe. All he could do was to watch his friend's distraught movements. It was the mention of Jill's name. The tone of it. Peter was no longer the policeman.

Farlow halted in the mechanical manner of a soldier obeying orders. He stood gazing down at the neat, troubled figure in the chair. His eyes were frigidly bright. It was he who spoke.

Farlow turned from him. He stood stock still. He was thinking, thinking. It was at feverish speed.

Then of a sudden he bestirred. He turned to his chair and dropped into it. For some moments he regarded the decanter on the table without being aware of it. Then one hand reached it and he poured. He gulped down the neat liquor.

"If I'd known do you think I'd be here now, Peter?" he asked, in a tone that almost snarled. "Of course I didn't know. We weren't aboard any mail boat to advertise ourselves. We kept to our cabins. And you can't rush an air trip and stop to read papers. We saw a contents bill before we started 'Murder of an M.P.' But we never— But this is not going to get us anywhere. It won't help Jill. And it won't bring Alan back to life. But it's made my job the sort of relentless thing that'll use all my lifetime if necessary. I don't finish till these yellow hounds are dead. Exterminated."

"Anthony Garnet. Bullion broker. Millionaire. The only witness to my giving Alan that wallet."

"No, Peter," he decided at last. "That murder comes from N'Gobi. Those who knifed Larky. N'Gobi."

Farlow stood up. The sun had gone and the room was darkening. He switched on light. His eyes had become needle points. His strong jaws were tensely set.

"Listen, Peter. The other has deflected us. That mustn't be. You must give me the help I want if you never do another thing for me in all your life—now."

Larky was standing against the yacht's rail. He was peering after the noisily receding tender. Just two yellow spots of light on the smooth waters of the bay.

The yacht's steam winch was hauling the anchor cable. There were many sounds of human activity. Farlow was leaning at Larky's side. Larky sucked his teeth.

"I dunno, sir," he observed. "Can't seem to mind a time when I fancied the 'cops.' You can't ever tell with them. Don't see thing's the same like us. But that bloke's straight, I'd say. Anyway it's a chance and we've got to take it. Him being p'lice."

"We're chancing nothing with Peter," he denied. "And anyhow he's about the only thing we've got to depend on once we get beyond those marshes."

CHAPTER II. — LARKY AT WORK

THE Oompee was rapidly steaming northwards. Karl Petersen was leaning over the rail of his bridge, his hands clasped in easy contentment. Behind him a man of his own country was handling his wheel with that skill which comes to the Norseman as part of his heritage.

A long, low coastline was in misty view on the starboard bow. And it faded away, in deeper mists, where the wind-driven cloud came down to the northern horizon. The Oompee was two days out from Chutanga Bay. And, by sundown on the morrow, Karl Petersen looked to be engaged in critical negotiation of the deep main channel of a marshland, whose malaria-laden mists left it a desolation shunned by every coasting skipper; a poisonous coast which, for its survey, official topographers, in their dread of it, trusted to imagination.

Petersen's contentment was the seaman in him. Beyond that it was different. He knew the work before him. And he feared none of it. But he knew his owner contemplated an expedition the end of which he could neither foresee nor imagine. And he feared it all.

The famous air current of the coast was drifting pleasantly on its way southward. And the fiercest effort of a westering sun was without undue effect. Petersen was buttoned in his sea-going reefer jacket, and was glad of it.

The course was set out of intimate experience. And the man behind him was to be relied upon. So Karl Petersen watched the work going on below him on the yacht's forward deck.

The ungainly steel hull of a motor craft was unclad. Her covers, which were as much to secrete as to protect, had been removed. Where she lay, occupying most of the port deck, under mechanically operated davits of unusual make and strength, was a scene of activity under the personal supervision of Farlow. Stores were being stowed. Equipment of every sort. And, standing up in the queer, capacious well of the boat, beneath the steel canopy of a stream-lined shelter not unlike the protection cab of a locomotive, Larky, his bare head flaming in the evening sunlight, was directing the work of the Bantus who were doing porterage. A mass of equipment was spread out on the deck. And the observing seaman found approval in the thoroughness with which his chief's preparations were being carried out.

The work went on in the unhurried fashion which belongs to tropic life. No Bantu carried more than a single item on the mat of hair which protected a skull whose thickness suggested that its whole purpose was weight carrying. They ascended the short ladders set up against the steel side of the boat and vanished into the well to join the directing Larky below. And their movements rather gave the impression of moderately busy black ants pursuing their occasions about their nest.

The evening sun was submerging beyond the western horizon when the last of the equipment had been stowed. Six Bantus had dropped to their haunches on the deck, where they sat awaiting further orders.

Farlow pushed back an ancient and discoloured topee, and smeared an ooze of sweat from his forehead. He pointed to the short ladders.

"Leave one of them and clear the rest below," he ordered, using the Bantu tongue, which is one of the oldest in Black Africa. "Roll those covers and get them away, too. Then tell Omba to come to me here. After that you boys are finished till tomorrow night."

Farlow watched the work of it without interest. He saw the covers rolled in the casual manner of the unskilled. Then, as the sun finally dropped below the horizon, and the last of the Kaffirs had left the deck with his burden, he abandoned his old topee and smoothed back his sweat-moist hair.

The change in Farlow was profoundly marked. All his easy humour had given place to cold, hard purpose and eager impatience. The entire ship's company was aware that there was something amiss. But only Larky had been admitted to the full story of tragic disaster which had robbed Jill Forrester of a father.

Larky had a shrewd understanding of just what the murder of Sir Alan Forrester meant to his chief. There was, of course, the part Farlow had all unconsciously played in the tragedy of it. But even of deeper significance was the fact that Larky was well enough aware that a time would come when he would be called upon to yield Jill Forrester the same loyal service which Farlow had always known. In his queer foreboding way, in the midst of his chief's disaster, Larky felt "it was up to him." Farlow needed watching. He must be handled. Even nursed.

As Farlow flung aside his topee Larky's flaming head appeared above the motor-boat's rail. He saw the far gaze over the fairweather swell through which the yacht was driving at speed. And he made haste to engage the mind behind it.

"There's nothing but your kit now, sir," he said briskly. "I'll get that packed tonight and stowed. We've vittles, ammunition, and juice for a month or more. And I hope to Gawd we'll live to use the stuff. Looks to me like we ought to test out since those Cape Town blokes messed her about. You can't ever tell. Likely we'll be living on them bilge pumps. How about it, sir? When do we?"

"You're fussing, Larky," he complained, as he legged over the boat's rail and dropped into the well. "Waste of time when we can't spare it. One way and another it would mean half a day. I'm sparing no half days. Karl Petersen and Fergusson supervised the overhaul. They made trial runs, too. Ought to satisfy even you."

"It does, sir," he agreed, without conviction. "Bound to be waste of time, come to think of it. I haven't a word to say about them two. Mr. Fergusson's a Scotch engineer from Aberdeen. And that says a packet. The skipper's the sort you can put the whole tanner on to win. They'll know when pumps are pumpin' the way they ought to pump. But when pumps don't pump the way they ought to pump it's not going to be them that gets pumped full of the sort of bilge that would drown a cran of goldfish. What I mean to say, sir!"

It was probably Farlow's first smile since leaving Chutanga. Larky registered the fact. But the shake of Farlow's head remained definite refusal.

Farlow turned to the boat's controls and looked them over. The fore and aft searchlight switches, the feed gauges, the dials and levers of the motor pumps, and all the various gadgets of a complicated dashboard. He examined the covered machine-guns in their emplacements. Then he nodded in the casual fashion to which Larky was accustomed.

"Seems all right, Larky," he said. "Now we'll look over the stores and truck. You've got her in sound shape."

And he looked aft over steel decking at the twin stern searchlights standing up like a pair of goggling, dead eyes.

It was a grim, rangy craft of grey steel. It had little enough resemblance to any ordinary motor-boat. But then it was designed for its own peculiar purposes. And Larky's ingenious mind had largely contributed to its peculiarities. As a matter of fact it owed its whole inception to a riot of foreboding, to which, in a moment of panic, Larky had given way.

It had occurred at the moment of an early and unfortunate contact with a race of cannibal head-hunters, far up on a remote tributary of the Congo. One of those ugly moments when Farlow had endured the sort of defeat which threatened complete annihilation. When, only under fairly desperate conditions, his whole outfit had escaped providing mummified skull decorations over doorways of wattle and adobe huts to proclaim triumph, while their carcases supplied good roast long-pig.

On an almost interminable and somewhat disorganized retreat Larky had visualized his splendid dream. Hobbling on festering feet, half-starved and almost thirst-demented, he had pictured a craft which would have spared suffering and provided security on the many waters of the Congo Basin.

It had to be a motor-boat driven with oil. It had to be armoured. It would be streamlined with a protective armoured cab covering the controls and the greater part of an open well. It must be capable of partial submerging by means of water ballast tanks, which, empty, would permit of skimming at great speed. Forward, the bows would be equipped with twin adjustable searchlights. Astern it would be similarly equipped. The armour would be bullet and assegai proof. And when the lights were switched on, and duly adjusted, and the craft was comfortably settled down in the water, the pristine savage would discover in it some dire amphibian of the tropic forest with monstrously gleaming and baleful eyes at both ends of it.

Farlow had made Larky's nightmare creation come true. And it had proved a creation which had provided them with safe passage over thousands of miles of inland water.

But the boat as it now existed went far beyond Larky's early vision. Caught in the appeal of the bizarre the designers had produced a diminutive cruiser, with housing for four, galley, and storage place of comparatively immense capacity. Its streamlined midship hump of armour was a veritable fortress of machine-guns. While the adjustability of the fore and aft searchlights was capable of producing a malignant squint, an horrific astigmatism, or a leering wink designed to be thoroughly reprehensible.

For upwards of an hour Farlow examined the careful preparations. He missed nothing, no detail that could in any way jeopardize the success of his expedition. And finally he demonstrated the mechanism of the pumps for Larky's pacification.

While they functioned with due precision a second smile crept into Farlow's steady eyes.

"Makes you feel better, Larky?" he asked, with a friendliness that meant much. "Of course she's not pumping water. But your mechanical ear will recognize the rhythm with which they're working."

"Can't find anything amiss. You've got her in great shape. And I've every faith in your junk box. If Karl puts us safely through the marshes I haven't any doubt you'll do your bit with her."

"Course I shall," he complained. "You betcher, sir. Never see an engine you couldn't lick into shape with a couple of good spanners and a grease rag. I'll see them pumps pump all the bilge they fancy. I never was one to waste time neither when we're getting after the blokes what done it."

"Quite. We'll be off Umdava this time tomorrow. And ready to make a night on those marshes. Sebar at dawn. Then the Queen's Highway while Karl and the Bantus deal with the sort of interference we're going to get. That way—"

"Them savages?" he broke in aggrievedly as the cab lit. "Ain't we in that with the skipper? We owe 'em a couple still, sir. Seems a pity."

But Farlow turned to the craft's rail and legged over the side. And Larky was left to deplore the chance they were missing.

A bare-bodied Omba loomed up against the deepening of the tropic night as Farlow dropped on the yacht's deck. Larky detached half a cigarette from behind his ear. He lit it and smoked, pondering while he considered the boat's controls. With the last fraction of his smoke consumed Larky trod out its wet end, and groped in a box under the driving seat.

"No use the governor taking no chances with them pumps," he muttered. "Gorge of White Death! Valley of Fire! Cor! Look like hell we would if the works was to jamb, which I 'spect they will. We'll have 'em down and see what we know about it."

CHAPTER III. — THE MARSHES

KARL PETERSEN had passed a night of blind groping in dense fog. He had worked in a temperature registering almost unendurable humidity. He had journeyed over miles of a world's desolation without guide of either sight or sound. The nerves of him were well nigh threadbare.

It was the passage of Umdava's marshes. And his navigation of it had been single-handed. Only his skill, and intimate knowledge, had stood between him and a miry bottom whose avid grip would have clutched until time had obliterated the last trace of man's handicraft.

He turned wearily from his muffled anchor-winch which had ceased to function. He was glad, relieved. And he moved away hardly daring to admit relief lest he should voice it with a seaman's blasphemy. His anchor was deep buried in the reedy bottom. Even as he moved off the Oompee was swinging. She was setting her stern to point a tide-drift whose streaming waters remained completely hidden in the fog.

He passed to the companion ladder for which he had to feel. He hurried aft under the guidance of groping hands. And as he moved along the forward deck he became aware of Larky, and Omba, and bare-bodied Bantus, making the motor-boat ready for departure at the hour before the dawn.

He gave them no heed. He had had all he wanted of the blinded night, and was yearning for the rest awaiting him in his chart room. The Oompee was lying at anchor at the precise spot for which his owner had asked. Just beyond gunshot of the mountainous sand-dunes of Umdava, which were founded on the ancient site of a once great city.

But even in his weariness Petersen knew great pride. He knew he had come very near to performing a miracle. In Farlow's service he had learned Umdava's marshes by heart. But on this occasion the passage of them had been infinitely more difficult than anything asked of him before.

The uncertain channel with its treacherous forests of giant reeds. Blinding fog. Every light had been masked or extinguished far outside on the open sea. And he had been called upon to negotiate the surf-hammered silt barrier to make the channel of the marshes in the ink of a pitch-black night. He had known a purgatory of anxiety.

As he stepped into his chart room and flung himself into his chair, under the spot light of a closely screened lamp, and with a whisky bottle and water within his reach, Petersen's confidence was never more serene. There was a difficult tomorrow. He knew that. But it would be child's play compared with that which he had just come through.

Larky paused at the narrow mouth of the darkened alleyway. It led to Farlow's quarters. He stood considering, raking the damp red of his unkempt hair. He had completed a long night's work without sleep. He could think of nothing left undone that should have been attended to. It was only left for him to call his chief and wait upon him.

Larky's knock on Farlow's door was in the nature of an assault. His entrance of the room was almost an invasion. His violence in slamming closed the deadlights of the ports and his switching on the light had something of the violence of a drill-sergeant on the barrack-square.

At Farlow's bunkside he stood at a sort of "Attention." But he jerked a dirty thumb to indicate direction.

"Be up in an hour, sir," he announced in a tone calculated to destroy the sleep of a hibernate.

"Sun of course, sir," Larky complained. "'Spects these rotten marshes ain't hot enough without it. Drawn your bath, though it don't seem a lot of use mucking about with lukewarm water when you won't get another for weeks unless we get drownded. She's lying alongside with her engine hotted, though why the hell I hotted it I dunno. Omba's aboard nursin' his machine-guns like they was babies. If there ain't nothing else, sir, I'll go and hot the coffee Omba left ready for you. 'Bout the last taste of coffee I 'spects we'll ever get."

"Might as well go to hell, too," he growled, and turned the cheerful back of his pyjamas.

Larky evacuated his position confident that his chief was finished with slumber.

A quarter of an hour later Farlow made his way back from a bathroom which had been steaming despite the water intended to be cold. He began a rapid dressing. And bestowed each item of dressing equipment in a holdall.

Farlow pulled on an old pair of flannel slacks. "Said something about a sun getting up, or something, didn't you?" Larky registered surprised reproach.

"Not yet, sir. You said we get away before daylight. Anything else for the holdall?" Farlow sipped his coffee.

"No hurry. Thinking about that map. It's got to be our caves. Everything says Umdava, these marshes. Remember how they tried to put us down when we nosed up to 'em?"

"Can't be nothing else, sir," he said. "Sebar. That settles it with me. Most of this swamp comes down out of them caves. What don't come in from the sea. There's a river or something back of 'em. But it's time, sir, or we'll be having that 'orrible sun licking up the fog."

"You know, Larky, you're the sort of uncomfortable blighter they'll find queued up outside old man Peter's gate when they open it," Farlow grinned, with tolerant impatience. "I think you're right about the caves. Anyway, that's our route, whatever happens."

"'Spect you're right, sir," he sighed. "What we got to worry with is the hell they'll take us to." He shook his head. "There's Church folk along the 'Olloway Road what reckons the road to hell is clear marked for the backslider. But they don't never tell us what like it is when he gets there. Seems like that's how it is with us."

"What about the schedule on the map?" Farlow smiled, replenishing his cup with the last of the coffee.

"Christ! 'Gorge of White Death.' 'Valley of Fire,' or something. What do we know about that?"

"Bit of a beauty, our Africa, Larky," he went on. "Heart of a she-devil, of course. Best not to speculate. Liable to show us anything. Think back. Some of the stuff we actually know. Laps up surface water and stores it in a network of flowing underground rivers. The Sahara. Dry as a morning thirst on top. An inland sea below. Delagoa Bay. Swamp. Living Weed, like we've got here. The Tangi headwaters on the Upper Congo. Pouring out of the bowels of Ruwenzori, over eighteen thousand feet of snow and ice high. Then south again. Malmani. Caves and marshes and swamp river. We know those caves. Miles of 'em. So many we hadn't the nerve to explore farther. That unholy Wondergat. Bottomless. Drown in it and they'll find your gas-filled carcase floating on the surface of some vlei hundreds of miles away. No. We don't know, Larky. But we're going to. And I'll take a bet we find more than fog and reeds and infernal sweat. Ready?"

Larky's gloomy eye had remained on the clock built in above Farlow's bunk. It lightened.

"Slap on time. Right on the tick, sir. May as well go quietly, as the cop says. Don't need to pinion our arms, sir, before they fix the rope. I'll take the holdall. And I hope to Gawd you'll still be needing your shaving tackle again tomorrow morning."

Still, dripping, blinding fog which Larky could have described far more appropriately.

Dawn was evident as the motor boat stole away from the side of the yacht. The black of a fog-bound night had changed to the impenetrable grey of a fog-bound day. Larky's tanks had taken in heavy ballast. The craft was lying low in the water. Her unlit, goggling searchlights ahead and astern, and her streamlined hump of armour amidships, gave her the appearance of some fearsome amphibian prowling the waters under cover of elemental favour.

Farlow was at the driving wheel, peering through his port into a hopeless pall of grey. Larky was under the aft decking. His red head flared unseen. He was piebald with engine grease. And he was nursing his engine from a seat on an up-turned bucket. Omba was a vague black outline behind a stern armour shield, squatting on lean hams bound about by an old moocha. He was almost caressing a stern-laid machine-gun with which he lusted to slay.

Daylight was growing. But visibility was completely blind. The world of reeds and water was sightless and soundless. The boat had seemingly launched upon a dead world that was yet full of every pitfall of which it was possible to think. Myriads of waterfowl haunted Umdava's marshes. Every reptile and carnivora known to tropic waters found lair in the reed forests. Yet nothing was a-wing. And no wingless creature seemed to be astir.

The engine was functioning at half speed or less. The risk was a gamble with dice loaded heavily against the players. They were at the mercy of depth and direction, both of which were unascertainable. Farlow knew that depth was mainly plenty with perilous shallows. Always under his keel was a bottomless mire only waiting to clutch and hold. For the rest his one guide was a heavy head-stream into which he must nose the boat.

He was without any illusion as to the recklessness of that which he was attempting. But his purpose was to accept every risk while he put all possible distance between him and the yacht before the sun revealed. It was a chance against heavy odds. And within an hour it won out.

Revelation came with a sudden leap of temperature. It was almost at the moment the hidden sun cleared an unseen horizon. Wind came with the added heat. The first gust flung the shroud of fog swirling. A second churned it into wraith-like wisps whose spectral arms were set waving like the wind-tossed locks of an aged grey head. In a few minutes billowing clouds of moisture were hurtling afar over reeds and gleaming water.

Farlow glimpsed the loom of the overshadowing cliffs ahead. And he spoke to the man behind him.

As speed increased Farlow glanced this way and that, searching, watchful, as the welter of driven fog swept across his path. But it was not till the whole broad channel of the reed-bound river was freed of the night mists that he discovered. He was within twenty yards of the northern reed forest with the boat boring in towards it at speed!

He cleared on the instant. And as he did so he beheld. It was luck of the most amazing kind. He was abreast of an opening in the reeds with a narrow sun-glinted stretch of open water beyond. Without a moment's hesitation he swung hard over. And the craft drove through an opening which afforded no more than the barest clearance.

It was a small reed-grown lagoon. A precious pool snugly overshadowed by the giant reed forest. The risen sun lit its westerly surface to intensify its eastern shadows. Farlow circled round it for reassurance. And so he came again to the channel opening. He cut out his engine and turned.

"Couldn't have found better if it had been made for us," he said. "Drop hook, Larky. You've got to make a firm bottom. There's the yacht, lying away off, in full view. They'll spot her in a while. And Karl'll get his hands full. Looks as if we're going to have a front seat."

The kedge hurtled and splashed to the depths. There were a few moments while the craft remained unchecked. Then it swung. And Larky hauled on his light cable.

Larky went on hauling till the boat's forward ports focussed directly on the distant yacht, with a wide view of the sand dunes away to its right.

The sun got up with that blazing arrogance which drives men to insensate hate and blasphemy. Smoke was drifting from the yacht's funnels. She was making ready for departure.

Farlow and Larky were at the forward ports which were wide open. Omba had shifted his position to a machine-gun covering the opening to the main channel. The slaughter-lusting Basuto ignored the yacht. His whole interest was for the sand-dunes which stood up like immature mountains. He grinned fiercely at the hummocks while Larky and Farlow smoked.

Farlow dropped a cigarette end overboard. And as he did so the rich diapason of Omba's voice rumbled his white man's jargon.

"Much man's mak big hurry. Oh yes," he boomed. "War barge mak ready too. Come quick. Us kill much."

Larky passed back to the open well, adjusting an ancient felt hat as he went. He stood over Omba. "You 'eard!" he snarled.

Omba's submission was almost child-like. His reluctance was evident. Disappointment. He removed his hands from the weapon and pondered the dunes. Larky was using field glasses.

It was hurried activity. There was no need for explanation. The men of Umdava had awakened to the Oompee's presence and meant to deal with the situation.

The dunes had become like an ant colony. Goings and comings seemed to have no definite purpose. But, unlike an ant colony, the sound of much war-like shouting was carried on the breeze.

Farlow took the field glasses. He gazed through them till he beheld the rapid movements of the lofty prows of four great war vessels amongst the reeds. The prows were shaped like the head and elongated neck of some monstrous birds of prey.

"Four of 'em, sir, this time," he observed glooming. "Mean to make sure of the job, the blighters!"

"Only they haven't seen us," Farlow objected lowering his glasses. "It's Karl's show, unless—"

He broke off. It was the foremost warship. It came at amazing speed. Clearly an open channel. It debouched upon the main river from the southern reeds. It was less than two hundred yards west of the motor-boat's place of concealment. Larky pointed.

"See that, sir?" he asked sharply. "Bit of luck, that. If we'd see that turning—cor!"

"About that luck." Farlow's eyes had narrowed. "They're turning up stream. This way."

It was a galley-like craft crowded with fighting men fore and aft. It had many long sweeps. And even against the stream it came at a great pace. Omba swivelled his gun to keep it trained on the speeding craft.

The barge came on. Three others were following close in its wake. And even in an anxious moment Farlow had time to remark on a make and shape that flung his mind back to Roman history. These boats were typical of the ancient galley as he remembered drawings of them. Nevertheless they were of present-day building.

The leading barge drew abreast of their hiding. It passed on with the regular beat of its many long sweeps telling of speed that remained unslackening. The second, third, and fourth vessel passed in swift succession.

"Get it, sir?" he asked. "Taking no chances, them. Getting a look-see for us up at them caves. What happens when they don't find us?"

"They'll find Karl." Farlow was peering through his glasses. "Get a look, Larky," he grinned. "Karl's got imagination."

He pointed at the yacht which was being decorated with every flag at her skipper's disposal.

"Telling the world of Umdava, I think," Farlow went on. "Colonel Farlow 'at home.' Will they fall for it? I wonder. Or will they look for us by the way. We've got some spare time until they come back. Better stand by your engine, Larky. And be ready to up-hook. You, Omba, keep your hands off that gun till I say."

Farlow lit a fresh cigarette and went back to his wheel. But the return of the boats came sooner than was expected. It was Omba whose bush-trained ears first heard the faint beat of the oars.

The return came in a rush. The barges were swept on by the full flood of the river's stream. They almost flashed by in "line ahead" formation, and bore down on Petersen's bedecked yacht.

Farlow returned to the well as the boats passed. The view of it was perfect. The leading barge ran within gunshot of its camouflaged quarry. But Petersen remained unresponsive. Nor did the barge open fire. Instead it swung away. It ranged off, and passed round the yacht's bows to vanish behind it. The second barge deployed in an opposite direction. It passed round the stern of the anchored vessel. The two remaining barges headed straight on. Bearing down on the yacht's exposed beam.

Farlow saw the eager righting men crowding the high prows. He knew something of thrill. Something of pity.

It was rifle fire. The familiar rattle of musketry. A little touch of white man's hypocrisy, perhaps. Just that cue which Farlow and his skipper had planned to await. The barges had opened a futile rifle fire on steel plates which were quite impervious to it.

Reply was instant. The yacht's hidden deck ports clanged open so that the metal crash of it carried far over the marshes. They opened to release a veritable hail of machine-gun fire. It swept the attackers' exposed prows. It was devastating. It withered. It blasted havoc and confusion.

Gust after gust rained upon the absurd open barges, and swept the galley oarsmen as well as the crowded fighting decks. As Farlow beheld the carnage of it he visualized the glee of his savage Bantus behind their guns. He was without scruple. He knew these people to be the watchdogs of a forbidden world. They, too, were killers without mercy.

The slaughter went on without cessation. Then came headlong flight. The two exposed barges swung away and headed for the shelter of the reed forest. And they were followed by those which had sought to outflank.

"Up-hook, Larky!" he ordered. "The going looks good. They'll need quite a time to lick their wounds."

CHAPTER IV. — WHITHER?

DICK FARLOW'S generalship was tactically casual. It was no more than the simple practice of the skilled hunter who knows the quarry with which he is dealing. He had set out to provoke blind, unthinking attack, and had achieved. The while he had himself nimbly stepped aside. It was strategy which left him free to proceed without fear of further immediate molestation.

But there was no dallying. Farlow was without illusion. The confusion into which Umdava's watchdogs had been flung would straighten out. There would be savage desire for swift retaliation. The ruse would have been seen through. So, while he, in the clear light of a brilliant day, was untroubled for depth, direction, or anything else, Larky saw that his powerful engine gave of its best. It was speedy. But less speedy than had been the movements of those powerfully manned barges. Under fog the marshes had been a dead world. In the blaze of a merciless sun there was complete resurrection.

As the boat raced its way towards the frowning line of N'Gobi's first great steep the incessant frog chorus became the fundamental of all vocal expression. There were punctuations which were the heavy splashings of reptilian bodies hurtling to the depths of their hunting grounds. Then the poisonous humidity of the super-heated atmosphere was a-flutter with wing. And noisy with the raucous screaming of sea and land fowl.

But Farlow's whole interest was in the hills looming' before him. His mood was implacable. The crime for which, all unwittingly, he had been responsible back in England had had its inception somewhere within the heart of those hills upon which the supreme glacial summit of N'Gobi had been founded. His whole desire was to reach them, to pass beyond their barrier, and to come to grips with the evil which had robbed Jill Forrester of a father, and himself of a friend.

Larky served his engine with precise assiduity. The mighty hills they were approaching, ill-omened caverns, living weed, and other things in the unwholesome world beyond, concerned him deeply. But his concern left his personal efficiency quite unaffected.

Omba, while regretful of a hope which seemed dead beyond the ruffling wake of a busy propeller, was nevertheless ready for any eventuality. He remained squatting, surrounded by a varied assortment of weapons, still hoping for the sort of slaughter that was all he desired in life.

For nearly an hour the boat drove through the heavily silted waters. It was a silent journey of deadly monotony. Reeds. Water. Desolation. Then the sudden passing of sun glare.

The boat had plunged into dense shadow. It was startling. Omba's inevitable grin flashed round ahead in a look of urgent enquiry. Larky stood up from his engine and raked under his wide-brimmed hat. His gaze challenged some eight or nine hundred feet of scored and riven granite that looked to go on up to the sunlit heavens. It had cut across the slanted path of the morning sun.

Larky flung his hat aside, and passed across the well to Omba's pile of weapons. He selected one. It was a stabbing assegai. And its double-edged blade was huge, and heavy, and of razor-like sharpness. He passed up to Farlow at the driving wheel and took up his position at the second open port-light.

These men knew many of the great steeps by which Africa lifts herself high above her ocean shores. The baboon shelters of their gaping kloofs. Their often abysmal rifts. Their footings of thorn-jungle packed with big game. Their barren inaccessibility was never less than a problem upon which to practice ingenuity. Science might find interest in these sterile granite formations. But Farlow and his servant were not scientists.

The steep they were approaching now was one of the biggest they had yet discovered. It ran due north and south. And it went on, and on, until its wide-flung flanks became lost in the haze of distance. Farlow knew its range to cover nothing less than two hundred miles. He knew it to be unriven by kloof or krantz. And, so far as he could tell, it nowhere provided opening but through the ominous portals on Umdava's marshes. He gazed up at the overwhelming mass of it with less than awe. For his mind was alive with vivid memories and keen anticipation. Larky found foreboding interest in the cavern at its foot.

The cliff rose sheer from the water's edge, grim, stark, without a sign of relieving vegetation. Its grey immensity should have inspired. It should have reminded of natural forces beyond the understanding of the human mind. It should have warned of a might whose competence to build was no less than its competence to destroy. But the mind of the London-bred Larky was not subject to Nature's sublime forces. Only to those things which could bestir an imagination steeped in gloom.

Straight as Farlow could lay his course they were heading for the monstrous mouth of a black vault which bored into the foot of the cliff, and amazingly undermined the mass of granite above. Larky was aware of a gaping mouth that was threatening with a festooning of pendant, eroded fangs of rock which he saw as bared teeth ready to snap shut. At the highest elevation of the cavern's rough arc there was perhaps some hundred feet. And it spanned an open stretch of a full quarter mile. It was almost entirely floored by the drool of the blackly reflecting waters streaming out of it. And its profundity of inner blackness was haunted by a legion of ghostly shadows whose ranks seemed to fade away as darkness enveloped them.

"See 'em, sir!" he cried, in an awed undertone. "Them horrible teeth. Them shadows. Nice cup o' tea, that little lot. Fair gives you the willies. How'd we look if them unhealthy grinders was to clamp shut with us inside of 'em? Silly-looking lot of corpses, if you know what I mean. Proper 'Traitors' Gate.' Leaves the old Tower of London looking like a mouse-trap. Makes you want to laugh, don't it, sir? Fair comic. And that's a fact."

Farlow's wheel had become heavy in his hands. It was almost immovable. It took all his strength to handle. But his fair head inclined.

"Quite," he agreed. "Just needs the writing over the top. 'Abandon Hope,' or something. Dante, or someone, wasn't it? But the weed's got us. Fouling the rudder. Got your propeller, too. Slowing down. It'll be after us on the decks in a minute. Better see about it. And when it comes aboard for God's sake see it doesn't get that black blighter by his foolish heels."

Larky's awe was banished by the magic of a keen fighting spirit. He turned and shouted his orders to Omba.

"Here, cully," he bawled. "Over the top, and see about it. Stinking weed. Kill it with one of your stickers or it'll kill us. You get out on to her nose, and clean up them searchlights. That's your packet. And see the crawling muck don't get a holt on them black legs of yours, or you'll be for the 'big drink' quick."

A half smile flickered in Farlow's lazy eyes as he listened. He reached and started up the pumps, and fought the hold on his rudder. The weed's grip had tightened. With every moment, his wheel became more difficult of movement. And he tried acceleration. There was only the faintest response. And, as Larky vanished from beside him, he abandoned his efforts and sat back, sweating.

The pumps functioned smoothly. But the boat's lift was hopeless against the strangling clutch of the weed. Only the wholesale slaughter of soft, white, clinging flesh could help. Larky had climbed over the stern shield to free the boat's rudder. Omba's unfolding from behind his gun was his preliminary to forward slaughter.

To him it was no more than a repetition of unpleasant history. They had fought out a similar battle once before. It had been won then. And it must be won now. It had been the occasion when the watchdogs of Umdava had thrown their fighting weight in on the side of the weed. He did not underestimate the danger. Nor did he exaggerate it. He was fully alive to the almost uncanny menace of soft, white embracing arms. Living, thread-like tendrils, that groped towards their victim, blindly perhaps, but almost sentiently. Only a ghastly hewing of a mass of living vegetable flesh could save them from being drawn down to whatever fate might be awaiting them at the marsh's bottom. Farlow watched the battle of it through his port and found it good seeing.

The slim body of Omba was like black lightning leaping hither and thither. It was a joyous task of wholesale slaughter. He had begun where a white mass lay twisting and writhing and sliding up over the vessel's sides. He slashed it with his razor-like weapon, leaving it flooding the water with its life sap of milky whiteness. Every blow of his savage blade, glancing down the smooth steel sides, was sheer butchery of horrible flesh. And it was accompanied by fierce expletives of hate and murderous purpose.

Farlow delighted in the man's savagery. It was an expression of the killer born in him.

It was all grotesque yet deadly. The man's furious antics. His every gesture as he smote. It was the Kaffir extended by fear, but with savage will to die fighting. He was stamping out a war dance on the deck that might have been performed to the beat of war drums.

Omba knew. And feared. And hated. The writhing arms were reaching to bond his dancing feet. Swarms of them had lifted from the surface of the water. Swarms were snaking their way towards him over the steel. He danced his way to and fro, avoiding. He was up, and down, and across the deck where escape or slaughter urged him. And he reaped a rich harvest. Finally he came to the twin searchlights and released them from their pulsating bonds.

There was little discrimination. He hewed and slashed with the impulse of a thousand years of the dread of evil spirits in every blow that fell. He was convinced that failure meant perdition for soul as well as body.

Farlow nauseated as he watched the masses of flesh fall back streaming their milky life-blood in the water. It was a sight whose foulness revolted. Too sick to smoke he flung his cigarette through the port.

He reached his switchboard ready for the finish. Already his tanks were nearly empty, and he could feel the pressure of lifting under him. He cut out his pumps. And, as the last of the weed lumped helplessly back into the water under Omba's final blows, the boat's bows shot high out of water. Omba sprawled, clinging to the searchlight stanchions on the unrailed deck.

"Aft!" he cried. "Larky's not clear yet. We're badly down by the stern. Get her rudder cleared, and we'll be out of the hellish muck in minutes."

The Basuto's response was heartening. Leaping to his feet Omba ran down the inclined deck. The next minute there was the slithering of a body passing over the armour roofing. In a while Farlow was listening to a duet somewhere astern. It was a deep bass and cockney staccato.

The rudder and propeller freed abruptly. The engine responded to the accelerator. There was a surging of water aft, and Farlow sat back, handling his wheel and correcting his course. He drove head on for the vast black mouth of the cavern gaping to receive him.

The boat was racing. Skimming with half its hull lifted above the weed-massed water. And something of the manner of it flashed a memory into Farlow's mind. He recalled the high prows of Umdava's barges. And he understood.

Larky had returned to the well. He reached and took his seat at the second forward port as the darkness of the cavern engulfed them. Farlow switched on his searchlights. In a moment he was pointing ahead.

"There, Larky?" he said. "The shadows we saw from outside. Stalactites joined up with stalagmites. What a show."

It was a pillared forest of tremendous extent. Vast columns that looked as though they had been set up in thousands to support the expanse of a granite roof.

For some moments they sat gazing while the pumps took in ballast, and the boat settled to a level keel and crept its way through the labyrinth of the stone forest. Then Larky smeared a finger across his nose.

"Stalactites? Yessir," he agreed. "And pulling ugly mugs down at us. Some of 'em."

But Farlow had already discovered for himself. His searchlights were shining full on a monstrous face and head hewn out of one of the pillars. It was set on the grotesque body of some winged animal monstrosity. The figure was an entire pillar that had been sculptured down to its water base. The searchlights revealed a second figure beyond the first. Then another and another. Each figure was identical. And reminded of an ancient world.

"Marking the way, I think, Larky," he said. "A river channel, or something. 'Queen's Highway,' isn't it? Deep water. Best see where they lead us."

"Yessir," Larky agreed doubtfully. "Horrible looking blighters, though. Never seen worse, come to think of it. Lions' bodies with wings. And blokes' heads set a-top of 'em. Looks to me like most of 'em are dripping stone tears all over themselves like they was sorry about it."

CHAPTER V. — PASSING THE BARRIER

THE motor-boat was low in the water with four flaming eyes showing the way. The stern-lights had been swivelled round and focussed outside the headlights' beam. It was a blinding glare, wide-flung and searching. It ranged far amongst the glittering stalactites, but always failed to reveal the cavern's limits.

Farlow had little interest in that which lay beyond the light. He was more than preoccupied with a channel so carefully defined by its double lines of monstrous sculpture. The strangeness of that avenue fascinated him.

Some of the pillars were of greater girth than others. But the figures never seemed to vary in any detail. Height and bulk, and ugliness, remained identical. They suggested some ancient form of Demon worship. There was a savage, leering grin on each semi-human face. There was a long, hooked nose, like the beak of some bird of prey which reminded of ancient Egypt and other Eastern countries. There was a huge blubberish mouth whose revolting greed was appalling. But the real evil in the hideous faces was in the frown depressing the heavy brows overhanging pupilless eyes. In conjunction with winged lion bodies Farlow found them peculiarly reminiscent.

"Makes you try to remember your classical history, Larky," he said, with a gesture. "Who was it built that Hall of a Hundred Columns? Darius, wasn't it? Or the Hypostyle of Xerxes, or somebody."

"Quite. Before your time, I expect. Persia, I think it was. Not Highbury. Alexander broke 'em up. Had to show his lady friend, Thais, what a big lad he was."

"Queer cattle, women," Larky meditated, with more interest. "Us men are easy-like. Women? Hard as hell and twice as wicked."

"Damned old," Farlow went on, ignoring. "Must be thousands of years. See the erosion of their ugly faces? Their manes, too, and their wings. Worn almost smooth. Then look at their monstrous tears of calcium. They're uglier than church gargoyles."

"Gloomy enough, sir, anyhow," Larky pondered. "Queer, come to think of it, the way religion always has to be gloomy. Makes me wonder sometimes what sort of a hell of a time the blokes up above gets listening to the hymns the folks round 'Olloway way gloom up at 'em. Wouldn't half fancy a bit of jazz, I 'spects. Look at those faces, sir. If they're to do with religion do you wonder? I ask you. Face of the devil, bodies of a mangy lion, and wings that wouldn't fly 'em across Croydon Aerodrome. I dunno."

They relapsed into silence as the boat swung to a sharp turn. Farlow peered down his path of light. It was a long, straight, widening stretch of shining water for not less than a hundred yards. He could just make out an array of images cutting across his line of vision.

It had become a vast netherworld that looked to be without limit. Water in every direction. Water, and seemingly thousands of monstrous pillars. There was never a sign of dry land anywhere. Never a sign of anything beyond the range of lights.

It was nearly an hour since the marsh daylight had blacked out behind them. Already the fever-ridden marshes, the galley-like barges of Umdava's watchdogs, the ruthless slaughter of the sickly white flesh of the Living Weed, were no more than memories that had lost interest. The yacht, that was probably heading seawards by now, had almost lost itself in the limbo of memory. It all seemed far off. All part of another life. Another world. And this black and silent netherworld had no connection with it.

Farlow made no attempt at secrecy. In any case it was impossible. The soft purr of an almost silent engine awoke violent echoes amongst the pillars. Then the blaze of searchlights. Far-low had achieved tactical advantage over the watchdogs. And the thought of pursuit gave him no unquiet moments.

Navigation under the guidance of ghastly images, and in a searchlight blaze, was of the simplest. And Farlow found himself speculating idly on the meaning of it all.

He knew nothing of the chemistry of geological formations beyond those concerned with gold. He had only the vaguest knowledge of the necessary conditions for producing stalactites, and more particularly stalagmites. But that which he did know was that water was not conducive to the founding of the latter. Rather it was calculated to erode. Where were the rocks upon which the fantastic columns about him had set themselves up? Submerged? That, of course, was all wrong. Stalagmites would never have reared themselves up out of these waters.

It was a truth whose realization became of urgent significance. He must be surrounded by flood-water from the channel he was navigating. Outside the channel of the beast-men must be shallows. Therefore his beast-men were, after all, beneficent malignities.

He considered the figures at the level of the waters and claimed Larky's attention.

"Anything queer about our friendly guides?" he enquired, as he swung the boat at the ultimate bend out of the long-straight. It was a fresh direction. An avenue of beast-men, the width of which had opened extravagantly.

"Nothing much, sir, only they must have wore diving suits to carve them blokes' feet." Farlow nodded.

"Thought so. Ought to be a beachcomber. Never miss a thing. I've only just discovered what you've found elementary. There wasn't any water here when they carved 'em. Highway. Not Waterway. This has been a road. I expect Her Majesty's private road from her capital at N'Gobi to her famous seaport at Sebar. Mustn't get too clever, though. Keep an eye for snags. When the world began I suppose the earth slipped and made this a cave. Then our lady friend came along, knocked the back end out of it, built her highway, and set up her royal emblems to give it distinction and show her the way through this tunnel. Then something happened. A river barged into it and washed the road out. And so it's been ever since."

"Fancy the sea rampaging a bit, myself, sir. But what's that, ahead? Light, ain't it? Do you make it daylight, sir? Swing the boat a bit. Or the lights. We'll see it clearer."

Larky was pointing. And there was eagerness, and not a little relief in the manner of it.

Farlow cut out his engine and switched off the lights. Instantly a grey glimmer of daylight loomed in the far distance.

"Hope I am, sir. Feels like the stream's got us and setting us aback. Likely we'll be sitting in them shallows if we ain't nippy."

Farlow laughed as he started his engine afresh and switched on light. He saw, at once, how near a thing it had been. The boat's stern was running down on the foot of one of the great pillars. But the prodigious weight of the stream was enlightening.

"No sea about this," he said, as the boat regained way, and drove ahead, centring the channel. "Coming down out of the hills. And I rather think it's narrowing or something. The river, I mean. What was it the map said came next? I—"

It was Omba. He had moved up from the back of the well without a sound. He was leaning forward between the two white men. And his grin was alight with savage anticipation.

"All the man come," he rumbled in the depths of a bass whisper. "Beat much water, quick. You hear him, too. Baas say, and Omba kill plenty man."

Omba had splendid visions. But Farlow failed to impart the desired order. Instead, Larky received cool, but swift, instructions.

"Your hook," he snapped. "A mooring to a pillar. I'll pull in. Be ready. They've got to lose us."

Omba had the infallibility of any watchdog. There was no questioning his information. Larky went back to clear his kedge, while Farlow bored in on the line of scowling images. In the careful glide of it the boat passed three monstrous figures. Then Farlow passed word and Larky's hook hurtled. The line encountered a bulk of stone and the hook circled about it. It dropped in the water beyond the next pillar. Larky reached with a boat hook, picked it up, and hooked it over his cable. Farlow's hand was on the light-switch. And as the boat gently strained on its mooring the engine ceased to function, and every light went out. In a moment three guns were manned in readiness.

But the inky silence was broken. There was the faint plash of oars in the far distance. It was uncanny. Hammering rowlocks and the splash of dipping sweeps seemed to pervade the cavern in every direction. But the glow of a small white light was far away in the distance almost directly astern. It was a dead white beam that inclined upwards.

"Acetylene," he muttered. "Not much more than a bike lamp. Picking up the faces to guide them. They'll have seen our lights. Heard our engine. Yet they're coming on with their own light full on."

Farlow watched the play of the on-coming light beam amongst the forest of pillars. It was almost like the twinkle of a star as the pillars intervened.

"No," he decided at last. "They don't want us," he said. "Shouldn't be surprised if they're more worried about things than we are. It's the glad tidings going up the river to someone waiting for them."

There was no further word. Just the abysmal darkness with a tiny light flashing through it, and the rhythmic echoing beat of swiftly plied oars. The advantage was all with the moored onlookers. The night blackness was a perfect cover with the oncoming light focussed on the faces of the towering images. The barge would make a perfect target for machine-gun fire if need be.

The acetylene beam was growing in range and power. The sound of far off voices echoed faintly. The knock and splash of oars was louder.

Quite suddenly the moving light changed direction. And Farlow knew. The barge had swung to that turn he had, himself, recently made. It was coming down that hundred yard straight. He waited till he discovered the vague loom of a high, familiar prow. Then he spoke under his breath.

"It's got to be those glad tidings, all right, Larky," he whispered. "They're keeping their light high."

Larky crouched over his gun. He was missing none of it. He realized the speeding of that bulky shadow.

"Moving, sir," he whispered from a corner of his mouth. "Don't make nothing of this stream. Would they have slaves chained to them oars?"

"Can't hear the drum-beat," Farlow whispered back, his eyes grinning in the darkness.

The barge had swung again. It had entered the reach of the motor-boat. The light came on, flashing from one image to another. It lit the face of the figure at the foot of which the mooring had been made. It passed on.

They watched the loom fade out. The craning neck of the bird-like stern. They could even make out the group of navigators or fighting men crowding it. Just one hurrying, monstrous shadow and the sound of dipping oars. And it was gone, leaving behind it a wake which rocked the moored boat perilously.

CHAPTER VI: — LARKY ENCOUNTERS A BARBER

THE sun was flaming overhead, burnishing a cloudless sky. All its noon fury looked to be concentrated upon charring a world of low scrub to a cinder.

Farlow pulled down the wide brim of his hat. He was seated at a small table that was socketed in the deck of the well. A tiffin had been served on a tray and the nicety of its setting was not a little incongruous. He had eaten. Now he was smoking and gazing. And even regretting.

A broad savannah rolled away on either hand of a cleanly banked river. Its scrubbed undulations were deadly in their monotony. They were hazed with noon heat. And they went on, and on, into the far distance, a shadeless plain of tufted, tawny growths and monstrous anthills. There was no end on either side of the river until the far hill boundaries, with which N'Gobi surrounded itself, barred the way. The river ahead and astern of the boat was reduced to no more than an iridescent ribbon of burnished silver.

Farlow was gazing back at the far loom of the immense barrier they had passed. Already the plains' red haze was obscuring a bulk reaching far to the north and south, and lifting well nigh to the brazen sky. He knew relief that it was there behind them. But the whole thing was almost too fantastic. Two hours earlier they had been groping with the blindness of moles. Now—

He had left the speeding barge with a full hour's start. Then he had cast off the mooring and pursued it. It had been a characteristic gesture. If the barge were merely carrying "glad tidings" it did not matter. If he came up with it again, somewhere in the open, it did not matter, either.

He had visualized reaching Larky's loom of daylight and emerging upon some narrow and gloomy gorge. It seemed the natural approach to an awesome underworld. Instead he had found himself almost blinded by sun-glare on a wide open river, with no other living thing in sight but herds of browsing game.

Farlow turned from the barrier and searched the far distance of the plain. He knew all a hunter's emotion. Despite the sun-scorched treelessness of it it was littered with broad vleis of floodwater, surrounded by belts of emerald grazing. It was teeming with game in every direction.

Never in his life had Farlow witnessed such a concourse. Wherever he gazed it was the same. Buck. They were there in droves. Steenbok and duiker. The mule-framed hartebeeste.

All were there browsing about the green-pastured water-holes. Tens of thousands of them. Herds of a single kind. Almost as if the animal kingdom found common brotherhood as difficult as did the races of man. Blesbok and blauwbok refused to fraternize. Riedbok and springbok had nothing in common. Eland and hartebeeste eyed each other from afar. While red war was instant at foreign invasion of the territory of the wildebeeste.

Nor did mere buck complete the vision of it. Elephant and rhino loomed in the distance, ranging the foot of timbered hills. Vaguely gazing giraffes towered loftily. Zebra was plentiful. And even the rarer quagga. While droves of ostrich raised dust clouds with their sudden, unmeaning winged rushes. The air was alive with every vivid hue of feather.

It made the suggestion that N'Gobi had been set apart to provide sanctuary for the game of an entire continent.

Omba appeared in the immaculate duck of his true office. The fixety of his grin was mild as he retreated with the table beneath the low aft deck. Farlow considered the back of Larky at the driving wheel.

"Seems a pity, Larky," he said aggrievedly. "Where have we ever had to pass up a show like this. Looks like there's a powerful lot of live ivory waiting for us over by those southern hills."

"I ask you, sir," Larky replied with deep feeling. "Gives you the sick, in a manner of speaking. Got to miss a packet like that for a Gorge of White Death. If it wasn't comic I'd cry like a kid."

Larky stamped on his accelerator while Farlow balanced himself against reckless speeding. He grinned as he watched the sharply cut river bank slipping past them.

It was no natural river bank. It lifted well above the level of the plain beyond it. It was an artificial embankment against flooding. In places it had been washed out. And an audience of basking crocodiles watched the boat go by.

Farlow noted that wherever the washouts occurred hewn, rose-tinted stone lay flung about on the foreshore. Great slabs of coping which once had topped the defending banks. The work of it intrigued him almost as much as the sculptured images of the caves of Umdava.

Regardless of Larky's preoccupation with the boat he pointed a more extensive washout.

"Those banks," he said. "Do you see the stuff lying in the washouts? Stone. Rose-tinted. Chiselled. Masses. Someone wanted a job banking this river, or canal, right across this plain. Monumental. Must have been almost a towpath."

"Reminds you of the old Ship Canal at home, only it smells different." Larky sniffed. "Fine bit of engineering that, sir, if you holds your nose."

"Wouldn't put nothing past the blokes who carved them images, sir," Larky went on. "That Gorge of White Death. Ought to be a winner, come to think of it."

"It's all right theorizing, but this plain makes it all different to me now," he said. "We arranged about what this river must be back there in the caves. Now we'll have to reconstruct. This plain ought to be the bed of an old-time lake. Which might account for the banking. Know what I mean? Lake drying up. Conserving its water. Matter of dates, perhaps. But look at the soil. Red alluvial. Copper in it. This isn't only a game country. Gold."

"The blokes on the Balbau was chasing up a gold prospect for the Gover'ment. What d'you know about that, sir?"

"The gold crowd at the Rand, sir! A nosey crowd when it comes to gold. It was them behind the Gover'ment. Some of them blokes would smell gold a mile off."

"Ye-es. But it's never as easy as all that. You may smell it. But others may be there first. For instance, our yellow men. Those boys were on a hot scent. Probably it was getting hotter. We don't know. Then—"

"Go and eat. I'll take her till sundown. We've got to be done with this plain by sundown if the map's right. Then you can get the sleep you need. I've an idea we don't make camp ashore on this trip. You can't tell. There's a deal too much human handiwork about this river. And even ghosts of a dead-and-gone past are liable to be amenable to Omba's work behind a machine-gun. Feel good about it?"

"Merry and bright, sir." Larky sighed, as he slid out of his driving seat. "Queer, though, what blokes'll do, sir. Us. Throwing down a packet of live ivory. And turning a gold mine down cold. All so we can get on quick to reach a Gorge of White Death they've got waiting on us. Make a cat laugh, wouldn't it, sir?"

Sundown saw the completion of the day's stage. The drive of it had been unremitting. There had been no pause or slackening. Farlow had asked everything of an engine which had known all of Larky's best care.

Sun-glare and heat had been pitiless. The hours of it, nerve exhausting. Not a breath of wind stirred on the seemingly endless plain. And only hot drift-air, through open ports, had afforded the slightest relief.

During the long journey of it Larky remained obediently invisible. Under Farlow's orders he did his best to make up his leeway of sleep in a locker-like bunk where mosquitoes and flies had no detrimental effect upon his heavy slumbers. Omba squatted and dozed behind his machine-gun quite impervious to the heat. It had all been uneventful. And, for Farlow, the only interest had been in the varying aspect of the game herds, and the speed at which the loom of N'Gobi's second steep had grown upon the horizon ahead of him.

But the end came as the dying sun transformed the western sky into a furnace of cloud-fire. The canal-like river went on to rive the heart of a forest-belt, which was the final approach to a steep that was even more vast than that which rose above Umdava's marshes.

It was no mere thorn-jungle, stunted, dense, even impenetrable. It was swamp forest of precious timbers and sinuous creeper. It was rank, and overpowering with the cess-pits of tropic drainage. And its riot of gloomy beauty possessed all that subtle lure and repulsion which is not unlike the reaction of pernicious drugs upon their addict.

Superb mahogany towered darkly above the tangle of it. Rosewood, and stinkwood, and ebony jostled in lesser state, each seeking breathing space above the choking gases of the swamp which nourished them. A network of fleshy creeper bonded it all to seal it against trespass. It was all gloomy and shadowed, a fever-laden riot of poisonous Nature, alive with strange sounds that echoed eerily, and even threatened.

The river cut a broad path into it, its waters a flaming highway under the glory of a fiery sunset.

The boat was moored in mid stream, widely clear of the broad tracts of mangrove lining the river's banks. She was riding high in the water for safety, and steadily straining at her anchor under pressure of the stream. Farlow was standing alone on the narrow limits of the forward deck, gazing up river at the revelation of the floodlight of the setting sun. It was the vividly lit ruins of a massive stone bridge.

There was a sound of tinkering somewhere astern of him. It was a sound to be expected when Larky found his engine coldly defenceless. There was an appetising odour of cooking from Omba's tiny galley aft. But Farlow was only concerned for the amazing thing he beheld in the dying rays of the sun.

It was perhaps a mile on up the river. Three massive stone piers standing up from the river bed. In the sunlight they, too, looked to be rose-tinted like the coping of the river's banks. Each supported monstrous shoulders, which at sometime must have prolonged into formal arches. But all upper structure was gone. The bridge's traffic way. And only there remained the piers, and inclined approaches, on either bank of the river, rising from somewhere deep within the swamp forest.

It was unmarked on his map. He could find no explanation beyond the fact that a bridge was a bridge. And, obviously, it was the connecting link of a roadway through the jungle which at some time must have known heavy traffic.

He looked beyond for his further progress, which was the passage of N'Gobi's second great steep. He beheld at once. It was there towards where the river was directly heading.

The second barrier was more or less a repetition of that which contained Umdava's cavern. It looked to be of greater height, but similarly sheer. But, unlike the other, its sterile face was riven by a wide flung kloof. It was gaping at him in the far distance beyond the forest. A shadowy passage of tattered rock, which even the direct blaze of the setting sun was powerless to lighten.

He regarded it without favour. And his thought went back to his map. Was that the entrance to the ill-omened Gorge of White Death which had become Larky's nightmare? He could not tell. It might well be, if distances had been truly marked on his chart. In any case one of Umdava's barges had passed on ahead of him, which was comforting.

He turned back and made his way to the boat's well. And it was at the moment of Omba's appearance with the results of culinary adventure.

Farlow awakened next morning to a vocal commotion. It was a confusion of a Londoner's angry voice and deep bass explosions in a Basuto throat. He listened, and grinned. Then he sat up in a bunk that might well have been intended for his coffin.

"Stop it!" he roared. "The pair of you. If you're going to cut throats go up on deck and do it decently so the crocodiles can clean up the mess. Never heard such a damned row in my life. Stop it!"

The commotion ceased on the instant. Farlow pushed up the deck-light over his head and drank in such fresh air as broad daylight afforded him. A moment later his mosquito curtains parted and he stared in blank amazement. It was Larky. But a different Larky. A Larky with bald patches in several places where only fiery red hair had been.

"It ain't murder, sir," he snorted. "Not as bad as that. But that savage has got to know his manners. That's what I was telling him. I'm not the sort that minds a laugh on himself, sir, ever. But when a 'barber' gets aboard in the night and eats off half your blasted hair it ain't the sort of joke for a grinning savage to laugh at. And that's a—"

"Of course it's a fact," Farlow lit a cigarette. "But what's that about a 'barber' coming aboard when we're lying in midstream. Can't be done, Larky. He can't fly. And doesn't swim."

Farlow's eyes were serious. But Larky's triumph was there as he raised a hand and considered the dead thing he was holding between finger and thumb. It was some sort of large spider with a hairy brown body and legs. The smashed body was bigger than a two shilling piece. Farlow revolted.

"I dunno, sir," Larky doubted complacently. "But I got him. Two more as well. In my bunk. Swatted 'em. But not before his shears had done their rotten job. Look at 'em, sir. If I hadn't woke in time he'd have snatched me bald to the eyebrows. You know, sir, this ain't a country. Bleeding menagerie. That's what it is. I ask you, sir."

"Take the beastly thing out of here," he said. "You didn't get him out of this swamp," he denied, swinging his legs over the side of the bunk. "Must have put them aboard with your stores. Made a mess of your beauty though." His eyes twinkled. "We'll get food and go through the boat with a hair comb. Better put your hat on. And—yes—I should keep it on."

CHAPTER VII. — UNCOVERING HISTORY

THERE followed an extremely active morning in pursuit of lurking "barbers." The boat was ransacked from end to end. The stores were gone through almost microscopically. But Larky's slaughter of three of the loathsome pests seemed to have cleaned the intruders out. So the boat was forthwith moved up that some sort of examination of the ruined bridge might be made before passing on.

Farlow had no intention of wasting valuable time. His laid plans would admit of no delay. Working in conjunction with Piet van Ruis, he dared take no chances. Only by keeping to the schedule of day-distances laid down so carefully on the map of the Queen's Highway could he look to achieve the result he had set out to accomplish.

Larky threw out his anchor just short of the central of the three piers. It contrived to avoid the full force of the stream driving down between the ancient buttresses. Then, while Omba stared up indifferently at something his machine-gun could not hope to destroy, he and Farlow stood together in the boat's well studying a problem which left them both amazed and uncomprehending.

Farlow made no attempt to land and explore the bridge's creeper-smothered approaches. That was entirely out of the question. It would take too long. They were, too, amply lost in the swamp forest. From midstream, however, he was able to see they were founded on a series of low arches, which, in turn, pointed that they had been so designed to admit of the passage of swamp water. Then their easy gradient and prolongation could only indicate one thing.

His conclusions were obvious. The swamp forest had always been. And the selection of so difficult a site for the erection of a bridge pointed the tremendous importance of the roadway in which it was a connecting link.

He gave the puzzle of it up and turned to a close examination of the pier's stonework. His immediate impression was of skill and foresight. He discovered that granite had been passed over for a rose-tinted stone whose hardness had completely defied erosion by water. And the vast blocks were chiselled as though the work had presented no more difficulty than the carving of a softer, more amenable rock.

The only weathering was above the water level. There were fragments of carving peeping out from amidst the lichens and self-sown forest growths which crowded the interstices where the original arches had broken away. And, where the superstructure had once carried a broad and massive roadway there were upstanding stone blocks still deeply carved with elaborate picture work which might well have told something of the bridge's story to the understanding mind.

It was Larky who helped matters. Almost excitedly he pointed the exactness in the jointing of the masonry.

"Can you beat that little lot, sir?" he asked, with an air of unsmiling triumph. "The joints. The way them stones fit each other. Cut like they was sawed clean. Close as postage stamps. An' set with no gum. No cement nor nothing. Ain't fastened anywhere I can see. Stood a-top of each other. And in this stream. Makes you wonder, sir. It ain't the way they set up them pill-boxes the blokes at home calls 'economy 'omes.'"

"You know, Larky, you're uncovering a spot of history," Farlow nodded cordially. "Ancient history, too. Something big. Important. It started when you first spotted those images at Umdava. And it's been running all along the banks of this river. The murder of it is we haven't the brains between us to understand. Archaeology? I don't know. But those jointings are something pretty common to lay knowledge. They piled up those blocks before the world learned to spell cement. And a devil of a long time before the Romans, or someone, showed the world how to bond stone with iron staple things embedded in lead. Ever read your Bible?"

Larky slanted a doubting eye. He turned back to the cementless masonry. Then he looked across at the crowding jungle about the bridge approaches as though seeking appropriate reply.

"I dunno, sir," he pondered. "Fancy Edgar Wallace myself. Makes things snappy, if you know what I mean. 'Spect the Bible's all right for them who's got the time. But with half the world on the crook, and the rest full of machinery and whatnots it don't seem to me Noah's old barge was better than a museum piece. Come to think of it, if you was to tell an artillery 'rooky' about blowing down a city's walls with a mass attack of tin trumpets he'd laugh to bust himself. Then take that 'oly prophet feller. Him who claimed the height record in a pair-hoss bus with its tank afire. And 'ad the sense not to come down again and talk about it. I ask you, sir. You couldn't get past a woman air-pilot with stuff like that. One way and another it stands to common sense. How the 'ell's a bloke to keep off the dole queue, and dodge the London traffic if he spends his time Bible reading? You was saying, sir?"

"Oh, I don't know," he shrugged. "Spot of curiosity, I expect. Nothing really, of course. Wondering about that queen. Think she built this highway? Did she reign hereabouts? Was it about six thousand years ago? Did she travel with masses of jewels, and gold, and spices to give away? And was she yearning for the silly sort of wise sayings of a potentate who hadn't the sense to act up to them? But I'm afraid even Edgar Wallace couldn't help us about it."

"But someone can. And intends to, though," he went on seriously. "In fact I rather fancy we're going to get a lot of enlightenment whether we want it or not." His big shoulders lifted. "So just hop along and collect that kedge of yours. I'm taking the wheel till sundown."

Within a few minutes of Larky taking up his anchor the scene changed with miraculous abruptness. The river disappeared. It merged into an islet-dotted lake that spread out for miles. There was no longer a confined and definite channel.

Immediately beyond the ruined bridge the mangrove tracts turned away to the north and south. Stretches of them vanished altogether, as though the bottom had dropped out of the flood waters. But forest remained. It was there on countless mud islets wherever roothold could be found. And always it sprawled far out over the maze-like network of open water channels as though seeking to close them against intrusion.

Farlow understood. The old bridge had been set up on the last solid to be found under the shadow of N'Gobi's second steep. And its roadway skirted a swamp that might well be bottomless.

For a brief while he found himself at a loss. A hundred channels seemed to meander off in almost any direction. There was no sign or landmark to guide. And the confusion of it looked to be insuperable.

But Farlow's experience in the swamps of the Congo basin stood him in good stead. Always he knew there was a single main channel responsible for all the rest. A sort of parent stream carrying the main burden of water. It was a matter of persisting until it was found.

But it was not easy. Blind, groping with many false starts, and the deadly peril of miring. Some of his digressions were a lamentable waste of time that was becoming precious. But at last he floundered into a head stream that kept his engine's throttle wide open.

Once in the main stream his last concern vanished. He risked no deviation whatever. He simply clung to it. There was the barrier cliff always ahead of him frowning in its ever increasing might. There were the wide flung jaws of his objective kloof which rived it. That, he felt confident, was the source of the stream with which he was contending.

It was gruelling. Humidity under the armoured shelter saturated and exhausted. Farlow was driven to discarding every garment but his silken underwear. Larky, beside him, had become a bare body with a red head closely hatted, and a middle covered by army shorts. Omba alone seemed impervious to a saturating torture that was truly Hadean.

Yet it was a riot of Nature's loveliness no artist hand could have reproduced. It was a dream world of vivid hues, of luxuriant growths and glittering water. But a dream that was a nightmare of tropic evil.

The waters were alive with menacing, gliding shadows. The tangled forests were crowding with a merciless preying life. Evil shapes rose in the boat's path, eyed malevolently and vanished whence they came. And the uncanny hush of the forest was intensified by sounds that came and passed in cadences of unmistakable threat.

So the miles were covered and the hours lengthened till a second sunset blazed its fervour to light a grey monotone of granite, and fling into sharp relief the gloom haunting the profundity of a yawning kloof.

Throughout the whole passage of it Farlow never left the boat's helm. He gave heed to nothing but the task in hand. His lazy eyes never wearied in their unceasing search for indication. He asked nothing but the smooth purr of a perfectly running engine and the whole weight of a heavy head stream.

But in those long, silent hours of watchfulness and strain, sweltering in a suffocating moist heat, driving his way across a miry world he knew to be packed with the ugliest forms of disaster to human life, he knew something of the wear of nerve which tropic jungle can produce.

He knew all that queer feeling of reckless abandon which drives even the strongest to go completely "native." It was there in the call of gorgeous woods. It was there in the queer enervation of spirit which humidity induces. It was there in the great silence of it, and in its awful loneliness. And he feared it.

They were high up on a great slope of broken, unclothed rock. They were facing westward, looking into the rapidly passing glow of evening light. The hated sun had just vanished. And a watery world of forest was painted with a myriad of softening hues.

Larky's hat was canted to shade unappreciative eyes. Farlow's eyes were narrowed against the sunset afterglow.

Far below them was the infinitesimal grey outline of the boat straining at its mooring on the broad flood of a shining river. Omba was with it, stationed to see that nothing went amiss with all that stood between them and irreparable disaster. He was in full view, squatting in the boat's open well.

The rugged sides of the kloof went up to dizzy heights. They were without a vestige of foliage. Not even lichen or fungus found a hold. The grey of granite had given way to a basaltic blackness.

The swamp forest through which they had groped for so many hours was not a little appalling to look down upon in the evening light. Its immensity was beyond estimation. And it looked to be enmeshed under a golden net as the evening light played upon its waters.

Farlow flung out an arm pointing the channel they had travelled. Larky failed to react to the beauty of an ever-changing scene.

"I dunno, sir," he replied at last. "Makes me feel the 'Ighbury football ground's a better place, even if there does happen to be a bit of fog."

"See the river?" Farlow went on smiling. "Clear as daylight all the way. Cutting across almost as straight as an engineered canal. I wonder. Can't think how I missed it at the start. Up at this height it looks easy. Down there, in a devil's playground of that sort, it's different, of course. That's where the earth crawler comes in. 'Fraid we're not as clever as we'd like to think. Or, maybe, seeing she built us, Nature's bigger than we are."

He shrugged and turned to search the gloom of the kloof out of which the river flowed.

The passage of the kloof bored into the great steep between wide-set walls that were something like two thousand feet high. Down below the evening light still found reflection in the river's waters. But it was not for any great distance. Its course turned away abruptly and became lost behind a shoulder of rock. Beyond that all was shadow. Farlow searched. Then he lifted his gaze to the evening sky. And he fancied the rift narrowed sharply.

"Wasting our time up here, Larky," he said at last. "It's too late to see. And it'll be dark in a matter of minutes. Better get down to the boat while the light lasts. Looks to me we may find ourselves burrowing our way underground again tomorrow."

"Tomorrow, sir? I wonder how many tomorrows there's going to be for any of us?" he gloomed. "This ain't no kloof. It's a hell of an ugly looking gorge. An' I don't mind but one gorge bein' named on that map I hadn't better sense than to scrounge aboard that death ship."

CHAPTER VIII. — WHITE DEATH

FROM his seat on a locker Farlow peered up at a slowly passing, narrowing pathway of brilliant blue sky. It was all the daylight visible between overhanging crags. And the vision of it peeved him.

Ahead the narrowing continued. The meandering streak seemed to be pinching out altogether. It was an unpleasant truth which warned Farlow that his overnight prophecy of subterranean burrowing seemed about to be fulfilled.

Less than an hour back it had all been so different. The start from the junction of the kloof and the swamp forest had been made under circumstances more heartening than had seemed possible overnight.

Dawn had revealed a broad open passage with monstrous barren shoulders of basaltic rock almost graciously laid back under a dome of cloudless sky. The river was wide and without obstruction. Its current was diffused. And, with the boat well ballasted to a level keel, the whole prospect had looked to be a flat contradiction of overnight foreboding. Yet, within the time it had taken for a newly risen sun to transform the dawn sky into a day of tropic splendour, the entire prospect had changed. And the boat looked to be heading for the gloomy bowels of another underworld.

It had come without warning. Within two miles of the start it seemed as if the reposing slopes of the ravine had discovered the intrusion upon their domain. Metaphorically they stood up and scowled displeasure. Then they leant forward. And, in a final decision to overwhelm, they developed a prodigious overhang threatening to close upon each other like the shell of some monstrous bivalve.

Farlow tried to estimate the dizzy heights. He submitted fifteen hundred feet, but could not be sure. But that about which he remained under no illusion was that his precious craft was moving up a heavy stream under threat of possibly millions of tons of rock which looked to be wholly unsupported.

He withdrew his gaze to the level of his own surroundings to discover little that offered encouragement.

It was a deepening twilight. The river's width had increased itself enormously by eroding the cliffs confining it. The passage of it had become a series of vast bays so far eaten into the foot of the cliffs that their depths remained unascertainable. The spread of their amazing roofs was quite beyond calculation. But their real threat lay in the appalling fact that they were entirely unsupported except at dangerously protracted intervals. Far in the gloom ahead he could just see the vague outline of huge abutments of rock reaching out into midstream and masking all that which lay beyond.

Farlow sought for some reasonable solution to the riddle of Nature's indifferent architecture and found none. So he abandoned the problem of it and lit a cigarette.

For a while he sat listening to the smooth purr of the engine, which, for the time being, was his charge. Its steady drone was comforting, as was the vision of Larky's homely back-view under the shelter of the boat's armour. The man was hunched over his wheel. He was immovably peering out of his open port. And Farlow felt there was no more concern in him than if he were driving a motor car over the tarred surface of an English country road.

Farlow looked down over the well's side at the oily surface of the water speeding against the boat's headway. It was a ponderous stream that told of great depth. It was heavy with silt. And he wondered at the weight of moraine which it must be washing down from the far glacial field of N'Gobi's distant summit. The thought prompted and he reached into the hip pocket of his slacks. But his hand remained there. And he sat listening acutely while his lazy eyes slowly widened. For prolonged moments he sat quite still, his whole attention riveted. Then his hand withdrew from his pocket to produce his folded linen tracing. He spread it out on the locker in front of him.

There, in clear block letters, was the ill-famed Gorge of White Death with which Larky had never ceased to threaten him. It was set somewhere between the second and third day-markings. But, even so, verification was practically impossible. Farlow felt that it might easily be as Larky had promised. That they were entering his nightmare gorge. Larky had a disconcerting knack of being right when his pronouncements were sufficiently unpleasant. But there was the matter of speed. The day-markings were probably based on other craft than a motor-boat. He remembered the many long sweeps of Umdava's barge.

Again he sat listening. And his brows drew together in a frown. Then he refolded his map and returned it to his pocket while he glanced across the boat's well at the far-leaning black figure of Omba craning over the vessel's side. Farlow understood the man's attitude—now.

"Does the son of the mighty Moshesh fear?" he asked sharply, using the Basuto's own tongue the better to deride. "Are his ears hearing the sounds that come out of the dark places? Is he longing for the med'cine of the wise ones of his people? Has he abandoned his faith in the white man's 'hurry-shoot'?"

Farlow pointed the abandoned machine-gun as Omba swung about with a start. The man's eyes still wore their unmeaning grin which Farlow knew to be mechanical. But there was a look in them which belied the smile.

"The son of Moshesh not fear, baas," he denied simply. "The elephant hears. The assevogel sees from far. The running buck smells the hunter. Oh, yes. Omba likes not the med'cine of the wise ones. Only the 'hurry-shoot' that kills much."

There was a moment while Omba's grin flashed this way and that. The man was seeking expression in a tongue the use of which he refused to forgo.

"It is as the baas hears," he said at last. "The white evil speaks from far. It is the sound of the wind on the waters."

"The elephant hears truly. It is the sound of the wind on the waters. But the elephant does not fear? Baas Larky talks much. But he fears not the 'White Death.' He drives on where the evil calls far into the dark places, like the young warrior hurrying to the moon Incuna where all the lovely young girls await his choice among them."

"It is the white man's 'hurry-shoot.' Baas Larky knows. It kills yellow men. It kills all things. Omba will kill the White Death, too?"

Farlow was fearing generations of forebears who had passed on their dread of evil spirits. Omba's eyes lit at the challenge of it. The passion for slaughter had ousted the last vestige of the worry Farlow had seen in his eyes.

"Omba will kill," came the cordial retort. And a savage leer slanted down at the machine-gun.

There was a moment of silence while the engine's purr echoed far down the ravine. Then Omba moved over to his weapon and folded himself behind it.

Larky at his wheel had been listening acutely to the talk. Omba's was comprehensible. But Larky's knowledge of Basuto was a mere smarter. Still, he had heard his name spoken and guessed. And he felt it to be up to him. Without turning his head he adopted the method natural to him. He spoke from the corner of his mouth.

"It's the blinkin' gorge, sir," he asseverated. "And no mistake, neither. There's light coming through from the top right along. Got a dekko at it just now. See it clear if it wasn't for them blarsted rocks butting in every time. 'Orrible 'ole! A bloke needs the eyes of a mangy tom-cat. We'll be hitting something directly. Will I give her a spot of juice and clear 'em?"

Farlow pitched the remains of his cigarette overboard. He moved up beside Larky and possessed himself of the second seat and port.

"Better switch on some light if you want to push her," he said. "Keep clear of those groins as you value life. You won't find any submerged stuff if one can judge by the stream of it. It's too heavy. And it's deep."

The headlights flashed, and Farlow searched down the path of their light. He felt the impulse of Larky's accelerator.

"You've got Omba worried with your moan about White Death," he reproved sharply. "Had to scotch it. Can't have him catching those 'willies' of yours. Told him you were having the time of your life, like going to a moon party of young black beauties."

"Lumme! If that ain't a good one, sir," he cried sadly. "Moon party! Me! Betcher life!"

Larky swung the boat abruptly but with care. It was an immense groin that trailed out into midstream in a succession of upstanding rocks. In a moment the boat's course developed a letter S. A second buttress came from the opposite side of the river to overlap the first. It was a near thing which left Larky unruffled.

The boat emerged to become no more than a lost shadow in a gloomy vault. It looked to be without limits. The bays had receded. They had passed out of the searchlights' beam. The daylight above was blinded by electric brilliance. The far distance ahead remained hidden.

Farlow searched the immensity down the lights' path. And he replied to Larky's exuberance.

"Had to do something about it, of course," he explained. "If we've got to have a beastly gorge, because you insist, we don't want panic to develop. Omba's got to do a spot of slaughter. Can't have him worried by evil spirits. See what I—"

"Crikey! Tore it proper, ain't I, sir?" Larky broke in, glooming through his port.

"Quite," Farlow agreed drily. "So you best watch your step with him till we get into daylight again. Hear anything?"

Farlow was leaning forward. The open port framed his face. Larky sucked his teeth.

Silence fell while both men sat listening. The sound of wind was quite distinct. It was a curious soughing, and often shrill whining, such as Farlow associated with telegraph wires and a blowy winter's day. Yet not a breath of wind was really stirring down there so far below the narrow rift between the overhung cliffs. It was Larky who broke the silence.

"Hell of a show this, sir, and no error," he went on, peering. "Can't see no end to it anywhere. Worse than that gallery of 'orrible images. That daylight up there. Looks so far away we're never going to get to it again. Looks to me like N'Gobi's so full of— 'Ere! That out there, where the light cuts across it? There," he pointed. "Couple of hundred or so ahead. Mud, ain't it, sir? Must be a shore to the— 'Oly Crimes! What's that there?"

A spasm of emotion affected Larky's steering. The boat yawed under his hands. The headlight beam slashed across the far gloom. He straightened the craft on the instant. But it was a different creature who searched beyond his open port.

Larky's eyes had lost their gloom. A white-ringed stare was glaring ahead. He was leaning farther over his wheel. His jaw had dropped. And his mouth was agape with a mixture of panic and amazement.

There came a sharp, whistling intake of breath. It was a preliminary to speech. For a moment his words were held up. Then his hoarse whisper came, crowded with awe.

Farlow's only response was to reach a groping hand. It was the second light switch. He depressed it. His hand moved below to the control of the stern lights. He swung them ahead. Their beams ranged themselves outside the beam of headlights as they had done in Umdava's cave. Bay-like erosions of the cliffs had given place to far flung shores.

No vision of mud, whatever the nature of its ooze, was calculated to stir a pulse in Larky. Larky had always known the Thames in its lower reaches. In the days of early childhood low-water had provided him with his most treasured playground. Mud had been a viscid delight that even now was more likely to arouse happy recollections than anything else.

But all thought of the mud he had first discovered had been swept from Larky's mind by that which the added lights had revealed. He was fascinated. He was revolted. All he could do was to sit and stare. And the while a usually callous stomach turned over, nauseated in its pit.

They were in a broad water avenue completely encompassed by a seemingly unending growth of livid forest.

It was spectral. It was utterly unlike anything of which, even in his worst nightmare of forebodings, Larky had ever dreamed. Every growth of it was of a deathly white and glistening under the boat's lights with a sort of reeking death-dew. Every growth suggested nothing so much as dead, human flesh before the discolouration of decomposition had set in.

But the death in it all was illusion. It was a living forest of uncanny vitality. The river banks were crowded with it. It overhung them. It ranged far back to lose itself in the remoteness beyond the rays of the searchlight. And it contrived to transform electric radiance into something of a pallid, supernatural blue.

Without a breath of wind life expressed itself in movement. It was a forest of bare tree-trunks with a lofty top-hamper of branches webbed together like the feet of waterfowl. Every limb was rhythmically swaying. The vast webbed fans were never still. There was menacing life in myriads of quivering laterals, like clumsy, misshapen digits, which took the place of foliage at the prolonged tips of the branches. Then a moaning whine, rising and falling in desolate cadence as the fans waved, became a living voice of awesome portent.

There was no undergrowth. There was neither scrub, nor weed grass, nor even lichens to be seen covering the black ooze of the forest's foundations. But the searching gaze of Larky was swift to discover, and to translate according to his own peculiar understanding, an ugly litter surrounding the foot of almost every tree. There were masses of it. And Larky saw it as the only real suggestion of death to be discovered anywhere.

The intensity of Larky's preoccupation was sharply disturbed by the sound of stealing movement behind him. He turned slanting an apprehensive eye to discover Omba. Omba had crept in under the protective shelter like the withdrawing of some crustacean at the approach of a danger it was powerless to combat. The man was breathing heavy fear. He was seeking comfort in human companionship.

Farlow turned from his port at the same instant. But it was only to smile easy encouragement at the troubled Basuto.

"Just forest, Omba," he said quickly. "Nothing to worry about. Can't grow leaves, and isn't green, because there's no sunlight. We'll be clear of it in a while. The same as the barge of yellow men, who went ahead of us. No evil spirits. And if there were white-med'cine could deal with 'em."

It was in the Basuto's tongue again. But it seemed to miss its purpose. Omba's reply warned.

"Yet the evil ones speak together," he protested forgetting his white man tongue. "The arms stretch out. Shall the 'hurry-shoot' speak quick? The arms stretch out. And all man are lost."

"The 'hurry-shoot' will speak if need be. But not now," Farlow retorted sharply. Then his big shoulders lifted contemptuously. "The white man is Omba's father. He is wise like those others. And he has spoken."

Larky considered his course. The river was some fifty yards wide. He held fast to exact mid-stream. With elaborate unconcern he put his enquiry.

The boat went on. But the plugging of its engine was lost in the sad-hearted wailing of the forest. Larky clung to his exact course with the tenacity of frank apprehension. But his curiosity was even greater than his fear. He searched the gloomy depths of the ghostly white woods fascinated by the queer litter which bestrewed the black ooze over which long trailing roots sprawled everywhere.

An ejaculation broke in the region of Farlow's port. Larky flung a hand pointing vaguely in his excitement.

"Here, sir!" he cried. "See it? It's moving under them branches. Cor! Look at its shape. Ravin' mad it must be crawling about among them 'orrible trees. What'll it be, sir?"

There was no sign of any leg or foot movement. In fact it looked to be a creature without limbs of any sort. No head. No tail. Just a queer mass of something huge and invertebrate. In the transformed light of the boat its colour was a dull grey, and its shape something arched like a great cushion. Farlow had a vague sense of sickening slime.

It was there, ahead of them, about a hundred yards on. And it was progressing slowly, sombrely, towards the water's edge, where the shore was overhung by swaying white fans. Drink. Or perhaps seeking its natural element.

Farlow decided it must be some queer water creature. What was it? A hundred yards, perhaps. It would be in the water, and maybe waiting, by the time the boat had come abreast. He felt a qualm of anxiety.

Then he knew sudden relief. It was drink it wanted. The repulsive, swollen body had reached the water's edge. It had become still. It had settled lower on the mud. Clearly its fore part had submerged in the water.

It was incredible. It was almost unthinkable. The fleshy fans with their hideous laterals had changed their movement. It was right above the drinking mass. They had begun to sag. From their upright positions they were falling rapidly. And in their fall they were writhing as though fearful at their own descent.

Below them was no movement. The thing at the water seemed unaware. It sat there, or lay there, half buried in the slime.

The descent of the great wings became more rapid. They were lowly overshadowing. And, like fleshy blankets, they were reaching with every horrible digit inclined in a downward direction.

Lower. The enveloping folds were just above it. In a moment there was lumping movement on the mud below. It was too late. The falling wings smothered. And they, and their victim, remained a writhing mass.

The wail of the forest had changed to a shrill. And every fleshy fan was in violent movement.

The boat was drawing abreast when the struggle came to its end. The writhing mass disentangled. A single wing of the tree detached itself from the rest. It lifted in a sort of drunken movement. A second detached itself. Then another and another. Almost in moments the entire tree was erect again, shaking and swaying and shrilling in the general forest chorus.

Farlow made no reply. A hand reached the pump switches. In a moment the ballast pumps were driving at full speed, and helping to drown the gloating shrill of the forest.

"Give her the juice," he ordered harshly. "All she'll take. Another five minutes of this hell and I'll be raving mad."

CHAPTER IX. — OMBA FUNCTIONS

THE night sky was ablaze from end to end. Monstrous diamonds shone out coldly. Stabs of ruby softened here and there. Even sapphire was to be discerned in the cloudlessness of it all. A full moon had just cut the skyline over a far hill-top.

The sounds of night were many and even harmonious. They were both intermittent and unceasing. Distant rumblings boomed in the night hush. Sometimes they gurgled and spluttered. At others there were sharp detonations telling of explosion. A night chorus chanted about the river's waters. And the staccato yelp of prowling jackals found echo in menacing roar and snarl of more deadly marauders.

Riding high in the water the boat was lying well out from the river's mud shore. The kedge had been sunk in deep water well beyond the reach of anything that could not swim.

It was a suffocating night of humidity and sulphur reek. But even so there was rest for body. Certainly Farlow found welcome ease at the end of a long day that had been by no means perfect.

Farlow was lounging on one of the well's lockers under the light of a hurricane lantern. His long limbs were spread out. And he was smoking. Somewhere in the bowels of the boat there were sounds of Omba dealing with the instruments of an ample evening meal. Larky was near by at his engine. He was accompanied by an array of tools. Soon he would get sleep. Later he would be on watch. Meanwhile his engine was cold and defenceless.

Farlow was unconcerned for his man's operations. He was vainly trying to straighten out a tangle of speculation which seemed to have no beginning and certainly no end. It was the riddle of the nightmare jungle in the appalling gorge from which it had taken so many hours to escape.

For ten hours they had fled with the engine running at high pressure and with ballast tanks empty. And Farlow calculated they could hardly have covered less than about eighty miles.

Nightmare? Farlow knew of no nightmare that could create a horror comparable with those swiftly descending, livid webbed wings armed with their hateful, groping digits. The sickening memory of them still haunted, even though the revolting vision of the gorge had been replaced by the open of a starlit night. It had been no nightmare. He had seen. He had witnessed something in Nature which cold sense warned him must be sheer hallucination.

It was all impossible, unthinkable. Such a thing could not have been. Not even in Africa. He thought of the fairy tales of childhood, and remembered the credulity with which he had devoured them. And here he was asking himself to believe that which was far less credible. He spurned himself. He flung his cigarette end overboard and yielded to scorning derision.

"We're just as mad as any pair of hatters, Larky," he tried to laugh. "We didn't see any of it. Couldn't have. It wasn't there. We imagined the whole horrible thing because of your foreboding moanings. If we aren't careful we'll qualify for a mental institution. I've thought of everything I've ever read, or heard about. You know. Man-eating cacti. The silly hoop-snake that bites hold of its tail and bowls along over miles of country chasing anyone who's disturbed it. Fairy tales. Both. White Death? Just damned nonsense. As mad as the other yarns. I'm going to forget it."

Larky sat back on his heels. He eyed his chief, askance. He did not like the sound of it. His spanner gestured.

"I dunno, sir," he sighed heavily. "Don't feel like I'm ravin' mad myself—yet. Only sick in the stomach. But you're right. We got to forget it. Should be easy, too. They won't ever let us see it again. Would they be them man-eatin' cactuses, sir?"

Farlow enjoyed it. And relief was instant. Larky had not failed him. He shook his head.

"I don't know. Fungus, I expect. But I hadn't seen your aspect of it," he grinned. "Think you'll have to be right."

"Course I will, sir." Larky's retort was almost indignant. "Think them blokes are going to let us get away with it? Not half they won't. And we ain't letting them get away with it, neither. We've been asking for trouble gratis. And now I'm looking for it proper. Some of them blokes'll pay for turning over my guts. A packet of yeller 'nasties' '11 have to get sunk before they sink me. And I don't care the sort of trace they leave behind 'em. There's Omba, too. Queer the way that feller fancies killing yeller men. Destructive sort of bloke. Can't understand that sort of mind, myself. Unwholesome. That's what it is. If I'd a bloody mind like Omba I'd want a doctor quick."

"Course I would, sir. Only thing to do." Larky slanted a shrewd eye. "Still, we don't want Omba cured yet. I've always reckoned when it comes to machine-gunning there's nothing amiss with you and me, sir. But Omba has talent. Genius. Ought to make a nasty killing between us."

"Same as that show at Dolfari, when we were making the Upper Congo from Uganda, sir." He gestured broadly at the darkness. "Blow-holes. Bubbling and sizzling. Red-hot mud and muck. 'Ot as 'ell. This'll be the fire show on that map. Must be ahead of schedule."

"By the soot on these plugs I can't think why the old kettle didn't conk when we was mucking about with that 'orrible forest," he went on, unscrewing another plug. "Cor! makes you want to laugh, come to think of it. Wouldn't half have messed us up if she had. Hit the mud bank, we would. Them crawling boughs with their nasty fingers. Come down kerflop on us. Done us in, proper. Remember what they left of it, sir?"

"Better take that foul mind of yours and scrape it like those plugs. I'll be sick in a minute."

Larky screwed home his last plug. He shot a quick glance at the man for whom he had been concerned. He saw the grin and was satisfied.

"That's all right, sir," he agreed readily. "Hasn't been firing too well lately. The thing I'm wondering is why haven't our yeller blokes showed up yet? Would you think they don't know about us? Course they do, sir. That barge ain't got back yet. And it's got to. What's the game? Betcher sweet life there is one. And they ain't told us the rules. Looks like we'll be playing 'off-side' if we ain't careful. Referee'll blow his whistle on us just as we think we're putting one through."

"What a mind. Must have a rotten time with it. Always looking for trouble. Like a man I knew. Burnt a letter because he was scared to open it. Missed a big winner. You trot off and scrape your works with a spot of sleep. Relieve me at midnight."

"Can't help them works, sir," he sniffed amiably. "Always doing overtime they ain't paid for. 'Spect I was born with a worry. But I don't get the wind up like that bloke with the letter. Matter of scrounging-like. Hate to miss anything and have to go back for it. Pass me a shout, sir, if anyone starts putting things over on us. I don't never bat more than half an eyelid."

Larky crouched off under the deck. And he left Farlow feeling glad of his presence on the boat. He gazed after the retreating figure with a smile of real affection. Then he climbed out on to the forward deck to keep his watch.

The night remained undisturbed by anything worse than the ominous Nature sounds ashore. And dawn broke without any promise of comfort for the day's journey.

There was no wind to rid the air of sulphur reek. The perfect night sky had developed a smoke haze that threatened obscurity. Furious heat was there already. And, somehow, with daylight, the fiery eruptions ashore seemed to have increased in violence.

Farlow and Larky were together on the forward deck, while Omba was producing smells aft with the aid of his oil-stove. The sun had just cut the sky line to flash a blinding light upon the world.

Farlow pointed and gripped the arm of the man beside him. "There, Larky," he cried. "N'Gobi! And nearer than ever before."

High in the misted heavens, away in the far eastern distance, a glittering rampart of snow and ice shone like some monstrous precious stone suspended between earth and heaven. Mist was below it. Mist was above it. The sun's blinding flame had transformed the grey of alabaster into a radiant gem of dazzling loveliness.

It was no more than a momentary glimpse. It came. And it vanished. A wrack of cloud descended. It rolled in dense billows. And it linked itself with the haze which shrouded the great peak's lower slopes.

The haze veiled the sun's glare and roofed a red sand plain whose only vegetation was a sparse growth of cacti. It was a dead world, marked with grey-green tombstones, smouldering with Hadean fires.

Vomiting geysers were smoking vent holes of an explosive netherworld. They were broadcasting sulphurous fumes. Thunderously detonating as hot bowels disgorged. The sense of it was suppressed fury, a threat that was potential of Nature's destruction.

Like all the rest the river had transformed. There was no longer trace of man's handiwork in the rose-tinted stone coping of its banks. There were no cliffs to contain a gorge. No swamp forest to contain and conceal lurking life. It was wide, sprawling, reed contained, with low mud banks littered with the inert bodies of basking crocodiles. It meandered on interminably to lose itself in the red haze of remoteness.

There was no grace. No beauty anywhere. A steely grey ribbon of water split its way across the fiery red of a smoke-shrouded plain that suggested nothing so much as a world's beginnings.

For miles, of which there was no reckoning, there came no change. Red monotony went on endlessly. The sun remained unseen. But its heat beat unrelentingly. No wind rose to clear the smoke and dust laden air. And with belching fiery vent holes fuming in every direction a day's dreary progress was followed by a second night of hellish discomfort.

In consultation with his chart of the river he decided that Omba's bush-trained senses would best serve from midnight to dawn.

Omba on watch was a different creature from the white man who paced, or sat, or simply stood listening and straining to see. Omba became a creature of the forest.

Not for him the white man's restless unease. Sheltering behind the boat's twin headlights he sprawled on his belly with his two hands supporting a grinning black face. He lay there all his watch with scarcely a movement. But he was sensing with those faculties of which the white man knows nothing. Night cloaked his black body. And in the work of it he simply did not exist.

Omba was unconcerned for the sounds of the plain, or those Nature sounds chanting about the river. If he heard them he gave no heed. His senses were tuned to a pitch known only to the hunter or the hunted.

In the last hour of darkness there came a sudden weather change. It was the first gust of wind which had stirred the night. It came with the first warning of dawn and from the same direction. It was almost cold. It soothed the flesh of a superheated body. And as it came Omba stiffened. His grin found different expression.

But there was no movement. The man lay tensed. There was something which no individual sense could distinguish. But it was instantly recognizable to a combination of them all.

The wind came again, increasing in strength. The dawn spread and brightened. But it was not till the latter revealed the wind's beneficent work upon the atmosphere of the plain that the man bestirred.

It was swift and soundless. A snake-like contortion. Omba's head had assumed the place where his beringed ankles had lain. And he was moving back along the deck on his belly.

Farlow sat up on the locker where he had endured a sweaty night in the boat's well. Larky, huddled under Omba's stern gun emplacement, blinked open a single sleepy eye. Omba was between the two, a creature of rippling muscle. There was a great light in the roll of his eyes.

"Us smell 'em, baas," he announced. "Oh, yes. Far. Bimeby baas hear 'em, too. Far, yes. So. Not so far. All man make big hurry quick. Splash much water. Us shoot quick? Oh, yes?"

The battle light in Omba's eyes was sufficient. Farlow asked no question. He turned to the now wide awake Larky.

"Get your hook up," he ordered. "Then uncover the mid-ship guns. You and Omba stand by. I'll take the wheel." He turned again to Omba and nodded. "Good man," he commended.

In minutes the kedge was hauled inboard and the engine was turning over with a sweetness that Larky, at least, appreciated. Farlow at the wheel was heading the stream, while the intake of ballast restored the craft to a level keel. Larky transferred his gun to the second forward port. Omba saw to ammunition belts. It was all methodically rapid. There was no apparent hurry. But haste was there.

With the air cleared of all mist Farlow saw the loom of N'Gobi's third steep in the far distance. He knew it to be more or less due. But he found little interest. For the time being he was thinking of Jill Forrester at home mourning a murdered father. Omba had warned him of a returning barge he knew to be laden with a yellow fighting force. He wanted sight of it.

He held a midstream course of definite purpose. He had mechanism at his service. The barge would have long sweeping oars that gave it speed but added nothing to its ease of handling. He knew the game would be in his hands.

The risen sun was something blinding. Farlow was driving into the eye of it. So it came that Omba's bass music told him of that which his eyes had not yet discerned.

It was the approach to a steep, right hand bend of the river. Omba had a wide view from behind his starboard gun. There was a deep belt of reeds which yielded to low rocks and heavy mire. And beyond them was a big craft, with high prow and stern, each adorned with its bird-like figurehead. It was speeding with the double impetus of stream and man-power.

"All the man come quick, baas," Omba boomed excitedly. "Plenty yellow man. Us shoot?"

Farlow refused as the boat took the bend with a wide throttle. Beyond it the barge was bearing down on him half a mile away.

The speed of the approaching craft was fully double that of the motor-boat. Farlow calculated. And he was glad that the bend and reeds must have held his own low craft well-concealed. One swift scrutiny reassured him. The barge's prow and stern were packed with uniformed yellow men equipped with rifles, which were doubtless mauser repeaters. Those aft were fewer in number. And he remembered the Ions-armed tiller with which the boats were fitted. He spoke a sharp order.

"That forward lot when I say, Omba. Yours the stern command, Larky. Upset the steering. And leave the rest to me."

There was not an instant's hesitation. The oncoming boat was riding in midstream. Farlow held a midstream course. The two boats were riding for a crash. Farlow held his place with cold determination. And the will of it achieved. Distance had shortened to less than a hundred yards when the barge inclined away to clear. And at that moment a rattle of musketry peppered the motor-boat's armour.

Two machine-guns swept the barge fore and aft. The avoiding vessel had laid itself wide open to men of will, and eye, and hand. Farlow changed course as though to ram.

The barge was left with no alternative. The two boats were closing on each other. The light timbers of the barge would crumple on impact with steel. So the sweeps plied furiously while the boat headed away farther towards the rock-strewn mud.

The rifles continued their fruitless hail under a paralysing machine-gun fire. It should have been pathetic. The barge's yellow cargo was going down like defenceless nine-pins.

But the end came as Farlow had designed. Larky had achieved destruction about the boat's tiller. In the hopeless confusion into which the navigation had been flung the heavy stream took charge. Like an arrow the bird-like prow of the doomed vessel drove head on towards the mud and rocks of the river's bank.

All firing ceased on the barge in the rush to stave off final disaster. Sweeps flogged furiously against the heavy stream. The tiller had been forced hard over. But it was all too late.

The high prow lifted. It slid over the mud. It crashed amongst boulders that would have wrecked steel. There was a rending of timbers. The boat lay over helplessly, while the stream buffeted and surged about a submerging stern.

Farlow had cleared with only a few feet to spare. He drove on without heed for that which he left behind him.

"Proper beanfeast, that, sir," he said. "And the crocs there, basking theirselves, won't have had their breakfasts yet."

CHAPTER X. — THE THIRD STEEP

THE encounter with the Umdava barge meant more than its mere wrecking on an unfriendly river bank. There was appeal in a merciless battle with a ruthless adversary. But that was a matter of temper. The real significance lay in the thing which the encounter told. And in the severing of an enemy's communications with the coast. That which Farlow had learned from it was that N'Gobi's third steep was the final approach to his destination.

It was a simple calculation. There was the known moment of the barge leaving Umdava. There was a shrewd estimate of its speed. The sum worked out clearly, showing that unless the third steep was the final barrier to the heart of N'Gobi the barge's return could not yet have been.

The second long day on the sulphurous, super-heated plain, was a grim endurance that seemed never ending. It was a day of hard driving against a stream that was gathering weight with every mile of its ascent. It was a day when depressing doubt sought to undermine the stoutest confidence. At the close of it the third steep still remained on the horizon. And another night had yet to be endured upon the unlovely plain.

It was accepted without complaint. Farlow had driven throughout the whole day and needed rest. Larky was glad enough to cool and overhaul his engine with the final stage of the journey at hand. Then Omba was sufficiently happy in a night-long vigil searching for the approach of some enemy whom he might hope to slaughter. Daylight produced a refreshed and more confident crew.

It was noon when the last of a Hadean plain fell away behind to the unutterable relief of all. It ended as it had begun. Its red, fiery, cactus-grown desert remaining to the very foot of a steep which was without forest or swamp approach. A thousand or more feet of sheer cliff frowned down on a densely reed-grown river. It lifted above a chaos of monstrous granite wreckage which the ages had piled about its foot. Like those others, it outflung to the north and south in an unbroken, impenetrable wall. And, in a way, it almost duplicated the great barrier of Umdava.

But there was significant difference. It was in the river itself. And in a great drain-like tunnel at the foot of the cliff out of which its waters were streaming.

The flow of the river had developed almost torrential speed and weight. And the boat was held moored something less than a quarter of a mile below the barrier while the position was examined.

Farlow and Larky were out on the swaying forward deck while Omba prepared a noon cold meal. They were silently regarding a tunnel mouth which possessed nothing of the natural formation which had belonged to Umdava's cavern. Every detail of it was obviously the work of human hands. And clearly it was work contemporary with that at Umdava.

The river streaming out of it was nearly fifty yards wide. The tunnel contained it much in the fashion of a huge main drain. It even seemed to compress its flood. For, at the point of emergence, the torrent flushed widely to cascade over the fallen rocks.

But the marvel of it was in its consummate engineering. And in the artistry of twin, monumental figures forming decorative supports at its either flank. The arc of the tunnel had been chiselled in solid rock, with its extremities shouldered on the vast bodies of beast-men crouched sphinx-like on elaborate pedestals. They were the same winged creatures as those at Umdava. But, unlike those monstrous erect figures, they were crouched in animal pose.

While the arc of the tunnel remained sharply clean-cut it was not quite the same with its supporting figures. Time had eroded. The repulsive human faces had lost much of their original horror. They still leered out over the plain. But it was out of gaping cavities. Their noses had been consumed to the bridge. Their mouths were formless, gaping apertures. Outspread forepaws, too, had been eaten away almost to the shoulder.

Crouched on colossal pedestals of ancient forming, the figures were a superb expression of days when revolting stone images were all-powerful in their influence upon the benighted human mind. They were evil, forbidding sentries guarding the passage of the river. And perhaps threatening those who dared it. As Farlow gazed at them a wave of comprehension surged over him.

His eyes lit. His gesture became an expression of self-condemnation. His words came sharply.

"I know now, Larky," he cried. "Can't think why I only questioned before. It's her country. Hers. You want to remember she came 'from the uttermost parts of the earth.' Man, this is the biggest thing of our lives."

"Who come from the uttermost parts of the earth, sir?" he asked, as the duck-clad figure of Omba made his way over the boat's armour to join them.

"That stuff. See it? No modern chisel did that any more than the rest. That's picture-writing." He levelled his field-glasses and stood examining closely for some moments. Then he lowered them. "Old as anything Egyptian. Older I think. A lot. Pity we can't read it. There's nothing Kaffir about it. You know at a time you and I didn't exist winged lions, with human or inhuman heads, were a specialty for putting a draught up the ignorant. And besides that, one way and another, a lion's always been a royal emblem in Africa as well as Britain. This is getting big enough to set a scientist imagining all sorts of things."

He searched the flood of water disgorging from the tunnel. He gazed up at the might of the sheer overshadowing cliff that made the world below it look so insignificant.

"Queer," he went on, as a deep sound rumbled in the throat of the Basuto behind him. "You know, Larky, in some way I seem to have missed a whole lot. That work. Like all the rest we've seen. Thousands of chisels. And probably many generations of operatives. Think of drilling a passage through a mass of granite by hand. This is an old, old world.

"You want to remember Zimbabwe," he went on. "Its latitude. Right in the heart of the country. Would you think this helped to answer Zimbabwe's riddle? I think so. We're right on the world's great gold belt where gold was mined and refined in the earliest days with no less skill, if cruder tools, than that of the Rand mines today.

"Mediaeval Portuguese!" he scorned. "Kaffir culture! Not if we know the inside of this country, Larky. This all happened when the world was thousands of years younger. The same with Zimbabwe, which I'm pretty sure is part of it. The unimaginative, who've looked over Zimbabwe from the seats of motor cars and talked mediaeval Portuguese and Kaffir culture, would have said a lot of different stuff if they'd seen our beast-men and picture-writings. N'Gobi's the heart of a kingdom or queendom. But it was too far away for those responsible for the Old Testament to bother about it. 'From the uttermost parts of the earth?' And they'd have you think of Arabia or Abyssinia. Psha! It's all too narrow. Too hide-bound by the world's ancient geography. They had far-sailing navies long before the Phoenicians. And Sargon I. And Babylon, and all the rest. They didn't bound themselves by the Pillars of Hercules. They traded all over the world as it's known today. All down the African coasts. Britain. And across the Atlantic. America. They even knew of the Polar ice and snow. You want to remember that our Sebar, down on the coast, was once a busy and thriving ancient seaport." Farlow shook his head.

"The idea that Arabia could ever be counted 'the uttermost parts of the earth' is about as credible as is the story that Moses and his Israelites spent forty years walking from Egypt to Palestine, a distance no greater than from your Holloway Road to the Scottish Border, and invaded and conquered innumerable countries by the way. Sheer rubbish, Larky. As I warned you, you're uncovering history. This is her country. That's been hidden for thousands of years. Hers! And it's the biggest thing you've—"

It was a patient Larky who felt himself overburdened by too much credit. Farlow laughed and shrugged. And a sound made him turn swiftly.

Farlow listened obediently. Larky turned an attentive ear in a vague direction. There was nothing they could discover but the dull murmur of the river's stream and the frog chorus which was unceasing.

"Us hear 'em," he rumbled. "Big water!" He gestured with a fist pounding the empty air with extravagant force. "Boom! Boom!" he chanted. "Much angry water. All man die, quick. Oh, yes."

There was no doubting the man's meaning. Farlow was impressed. Larky raked under his hat. "Falls?" Farlow questioned. Omba rolled his eyes.

"Much big fall," he agreed. "Us hear 'em." Farlow turned to gaze at the flood streaming from the tunnel-mouth.

"That's all right," he said. "Another boat's negotiated that tunnel. There and—back. We'll eat. And then up-hook."

CHAPTER XI. — QUEEN OF THE HIGHWAY

LARKY'S unease was not confined to physical discomfort. Pie had difficulty in balancing himself on an upturned bucket. He was lurching and swaying, and often bumping himself. But his greatest unease was his concern for his engine in a torrent that flung the boat floundering like some progressing porpoise. His foreboding made him doubt the sweetness of its running.

The engine had been going with monotonous perfection for upwards of five hours in its passage of the third steep. It had been hard driven the whole time, urging a storm-tossed boat against a fierce stream. Its power should have afforded the deepest satisfaction.

Larky's reaction, however, was entirely otherwise. He was beset with fears of "hotting." He had ugly visions of irreparable "seizing." He thought of every possible disaster to shatter the last vestige of his peace of mind. He was confident there would be a complete "conk-out."

Seeking relief, he turned from the machine to glimpse the sleek, black body of a leaning Omba. The man was there under the well's single lamp, craning far out over the boat's side. The vision added to Larky's peeve.

Omba! It was Omba who had foreseen and warned. "Much angry water!" "All man die quick!" Jolly little fellow, Omba, when he really got going. Larky sucked his teeth.

He saw the radiance of four massed searchlights shining-ahead to reveal the turmoil of heaving waters. He watched the panorama of jagged, water-slashed rocks gliding slowly away behind them. He saw the pitchy blackness which they had left behind. And he felt they were not better than water-rats heading up a main-sewer in flood time. Then the pandemonium of it all with Omba's falls roaring down at them out of the far distance ahead.

He turned back to his engine, wondering about their chances of that final "big drink." What a hope in a flooded sewer! Well, there was one thing about it: there would be no rising to the surface three times before getting properly drowned. Meanwhile he might as well try and squeeze out a few more revolutions to the minute before the end came.

Farlow had been seriously impressed by Omba's warning. Besides, before they had committed themselves to the tunnel, as they approached it, he had heard for himself.

But there had been no wavering. Aware that a less well-equipped boat had made the passage lying ahead of them, and returned from it in safety, Farlow had driven his boat between the monstrous guardian sentries at the tunnel's mouth to plunge it into the twilit forerunner of a black night of elemental chaos.

And what chaos! Above his head a perilously low vault of threatening rocks echoing and reechoing with thunders like the angry voices of a netherworld's gods. An avalanche of water boring down to defeat progress, and churned to impotent fury by the narrow confinement of the tunnel's walls. Outer darkness shrouding a passage that well might have been the main approach to the bowels of the earth.

There was never a moment when his boat was riding its keel with any semblance of evenness. It was tossed like a shuttlecock, rearing and plunging, and rolling at every perilous angle. More often than not its entire programme of acrobatics was performed in one single, comprehensive movement. Farlow knew no respite from any of it. And he found his confidence put to a gruelling test.

His first thought was to skim the flood in speedboat fashion. With his ballast tanks emptied, and a good half of the boat lifted high above the deluge, he argued for easier and more rapid headway. But the instant result was that the torrent took possession of the rest of the boat, and the thing became as ungoverned as a wind-drifted feather.

Reduced speed, as a second experiment, produced almost similar results. A violent multiplicity of acrobatics set in with the propeller expending its energies more than half the time out of water, and racing madly.

Back at full speed he turned from his mid-stream course in search of easy water. There was none. Larky's main sewer contained a flood whose bore was uniform in violence. Every appeal to its clemency only carried the groping vessel within perilous range of the battle raging along the tunnel's flanks.

There was no alternative but to drive straight ahead with all the power available. And for five anxious hours Farlow had been forced to put his trust in man and machine.

The struggle had gone on with the lights telling a story that contained nothing helpful or pleasant, and whose only thrill was the hope of victory of mechanism over the elemental. That was more than enough. And his wonder grew that a man-driven barge had accomplished a result, that, for his steel boat, looked perilously near hopeless.

But now, in the interminable night journey of it, an added anxiety had developed. Omba's falls! They no longer remained a remote threat. Their thunders no longer rolled down out of the distance. With every mile of progress their voice had become louder. Till, at last, it seemed to Farlow that a mighty cataract was deluging somewhere almost directly overhead. Then, of even graver omen, the ocean swell of the river had broken up into a violent popple and swirling eddies.

He laboured under no misapprehension. He knew that unless there was some ease up of conditions he, and his men, and his boat, were going to find themselves landed in some such boiling pot as he had witnessed in the deeps of the vast canyon of the Zambesi's Falls.

Leaning over his wheel, drenched by sprays which slashed in through his open port, he sought in every direction. A silly sort of word haunted him. "Haven." He was seeking some sort of haven which must certainly be reached swiftly or— There simply had to be shelter somewhere, or he would never have had the satisfaction of beaching a barge full of yellow freight amongst basking crocodiles.

He leant farther forward till his face almost framed itself in the port. Something had happened. He had to make sure. It was that lowering roof of depending rocks. Those walls, where the angry wavelets slashed so impotently. They had passed beyond the range of his lights. Gone. Vanished. He was driving on an open sea of black night!

He reached for his light dials. He found the stern-light lever. He turned the lamps from their forward focus, and swung them to the right and left. Their beams shone out at right angles to the boat.

Nothing! They revealed an illimitable void. Black as night. His boat centred an island of light that was drifting on a sea of outer darkness.

Farlow's search went on. So far as his light told anything at all there was no beginning and no end anywhere. There was no limit even above. Just a wide spread of turbulent water, impenetrable darkness, and the roar of falls crashing right over his head and threatening a maelstrom only waiting to wreck.

In that moment Farlow knew the groping helplessness of a man lost in the arid heart of a trackless desert with the vultures circling over him.

It was the last thing he had anticipated. It was so unlooked for as to be incredible. Yet it was there. Unless, of course, it was a man's desert mirage. It was away to his right on what he guessed to be the southern side of the river. Vague. Grey.

He never took his eyes off it. He headed the boat so his lights passed it by. Then, of a sudden, he took fresh decision. And, swinging his wheel he headed directly for it, widening his searchlights that their separated beams might pass it on either side.

But miracles were still abroad. No sooner had he changed his course than the boat settled to the ease of slack, smooth water. And he was forced to throttle down as it began to race. He turned and bawled at the man behind him.

Again Farlow was startled. It was the loudness of his voice. Was it fancy? Was it mirage? Or was the thunder that had beset him for so long lessening in violence?

Larky leapt from his bucket seat. Automatically he grabbed a stanchion for support. It was unneeded. He pulled his hat down over his moulted hair, and went forward with the sort of alacrity he might have displayed had he been bidden to a football match at Highbury on a complimentary ticket.

As Larky reached his chief's side, and took possession of the second port, Farlow pointed.

But the bidding was unneeded. Larky had discovered at once. And his keen wits had become engaged. He found himself gazing out between the twin lanes of light, held by a ghostly spectacle reminding him of a fog-bound dawn.

He studied it with all the peculiar mental machinery that was his. And his conclusion seemed something irrelevant.

"Sort of secondhand, sir. Not direct. Coming through from somewhere that's got it first. But we're in slack stuff, too. What's happened?"

"Dunno exactly," he replied. "Omba's falls fading out somewhere, I fancy. Looks like we've hit the parting of the ways. Know what I mean? River turned off somewhere, taking those falls with it. And we're heading into a slack water bay. What's that just come under the searchlights to the right? Looks like the platforms of a railway terminus."

"Yessir. St. Pancras or something. Only there's daylight the far end of it instead of bookstalls and baggage."

They fell silent, searching a scene that was a little unclear at the far limits of the searchlights' range.

The first hazy daylight had dropped away behind them into obscurity, as Farlow nosed the boat towards the platforms. His lights were streaming into a high, vaulted, rocky tunnel that looked to form a deep bay. It was a vasty cavern of natural formation. But clearly it had been adapted to man's purpose.

Two long stone piers ran down its whole length. They ran parallel to each other. There was a broad water passage between them. And there was water on their outer sides. Far on, where the searchlights found the tunnel's limits, there was daylight. A perfect disc of it sharply outlined which proclaimed itself at once. It was the footing of an upward-sloping tunnelled ramp. A daylight approach outletting from a subterranean world.

"Beats hell, sir," he sighed. "Chisels again. See the quays. Built. Blocks of stone, like all them things we've see. Here, sir. And see there between 'em. Aren't they lock gates folded back open, like you see 'em on the river at home? Can't see no 'orrible images, though."

But Farlow was not concerned with any stone, images or otherwise. He was not even concerned for the lock entrance for which he was heading. It was that great disc of daylight beyond. And that which his lights had picked up in the centre of it. It was something shining, glittering, as though his lights were playing on a cluster of jewels. He reached a hand down to the light dials. And, in a moment, the four lights were forming one focus on the shining object.

It was a woman! She was standing stock still facing them, apparently gazing straight back into the blinding glare that had focussed on her. She was clad in a costume that was closely-fitting. Almost sheath-like. And it shone as though studded with thousands of glittering gems.

For some moments Farlow stared at the exquisite revelation heedless of everything else. Then, at last, as the boat crept in between Larky's lock gates, and glided on its way in search of a mooring, he indicated with a nod of the head.

"See her?" he asked. "There at the foot of that ramp. Waiting for us. Our Queen of the Highway!"

CHAPTER XII. — HUNTER OR HUNTED?

OMBA was distributing fenders along the boat's sides. Larky's short boat-hook was caught in a pendant ring-bolt that was heavily leaded into the stone of the quayside. Farlow was still at his wheel, gazing down the lane of the boat's lights at the vivid picture framed at the foot of the distant ramp. The splendour of that which looked like glittering jewels; the slim grace of a youthful figure in its closely fitting gown; the beautiful face, which Larky had proclaimed to be yellow. The unexpected vision of these things held Farlow fascinated.

Except for the now distant rumble of Omba's falls a sepulchre hush was prevailing. The nerve-destroying roar which had been endured for hours had become muffled as though shut away in some far off compartment of the subterranean world. With Larky's engine no longer functioning the grave-like stillness had become charged with awe.

The bay was high and monstrously vaulted. It was a natural cavern that was not quite dark. The daylight streaming down the ramp at its far end created a soft twilight to reveal thrusting rock formations. And a sense of vast emptiness prevailed. There was that lifelessness which never fails to tense the human nerves.

The boat had crept into the empty waterway like some felonious intruder. It had held a middle course till the wide-flung stone watergates had been left behind. Now it was lying lost under a high quayside, halfway down the length of the piers, a mere speck in the immensity of its surroundings. The water was as stagnant as a streamless pool in summertime.

Larky watched the swift movements of the Basuto depending his fenders. He became peevishly impatient. At last he turned to the man at the wheel.

"Do I make fast, sir?" he asked. And his question seemed to find a dozen echoes.

"No," he replied decidedly. "Just keep her in to the quay while I shift into clean kit, and pack a gun. I'll be ready in two minutes."

Larky watched the tall figure crouching away beyond the engine under the decking. But he retained his hold on the ringbolt. He turned to the busy Basuto.

"No use, Omba," he snapped. "We ain't parking in this 'orrible 'ole. Better unsheet the machine-guns. Looks like we'll need 'em all. Get spare shells too. Plenty."

Larky groped behind an ear. He produced an atom of cigarette to jab it into the corner of his mouth. Farlow reappeared while he was still groping for a match to light it.

But his search was abandoned as he noted the hard light in Farlow's unsmiling eyes. He knew that look. He saw that sharply-creased grey flannel trousers had replaced the oily slacks Farlow had been wearing. He hated the cleanness of a soft-collared shirt. Then the wide-brimmed felt hat that had been adjusted over carefully brushed fair hair. The omen of it all informed him.

"I'm not too sure, of course, Larky," he explained, his gaze on the distant figure at the foot of the ramp. "Can't be sure about anything much. But we'll do no parking. No use tying up here. Might have to make a quick getaway. Can't tell. No. The moment I've climbed ashore you'll cut out your lights and start up your engine. Then be ready to act as circumstances suggest. And act quickly. See what I mean? I rather fancy you'll have plenty of time, though. Nothing'll happen till I reach that ramp."

"There's quite a lot of things I'm not enthusiastic about," Farlow went on coolly. "For instance that patch of daylight we discovered and left away behind us. Then there's too much confounded cordiality in the way those lock gates were left open for us. Watch them. And does it occur to you this place is too beastly lifeless? I don't suppose there's anything in any of it, of course," he added. "But you've got to remember you're my one line of retreat. Whatever happens to me nothing must go wrong with you." He gestured expressively. "Follow me?"

"Quite," Farlow approved. "Now your whole-time job—you and Omba—is to defend the boat at all costs. Fight like the devil to keep retreat open. And then be hovering hereabouts to pick me up when I return. There's nothing else to concern yourself about. I don't know when I shall get back. Maybe hours. Possibly days. But if it runs to a week get off as fast as the stream'll take you, and holler 'help' to Karl Petersen. That quite clear?"

But Larky forgot his duty. He made no movement to obey. Instead, as an expression of deep emotion, his cigarette end spat out over the boat's side.

"I certainly am," he declared sharply. "You forget. I've accepted an invitation. She's there, waiting for me. I shall certainly pay my respects to Her—Majesty."

"Fair tore it, that has, sir," he almost wept. "Her Majesty! Yeller! They'll gut you with one of them Sheffield-made knives, and shoot you up with mausers. That Jane down there? Bleedin' vampire! That's her!"

Farlow nodded and grinned. And the manner of it was full of understanding and appreciation.

"Just keep a hold till I get that ring-bolt," he said quietly. "And don't forget any of it. Lights out and engine running at once. Put your side of the show over and you'll be back home well in time for the Cup Final."

Larky watched the other's agile movements. The top of the quay was three feet above his head. Farlow stood on the boat's rail. He reached tenacious fingers to grip the moist stonework. Then he set foot on the ring-bolt and vaulted.

Larky exploded it as long legs vanished over the top of the pier. And he hurried forward to extinguish his lights.

There was not a moment's delay. Larky started up his engine. He listened till it settled to its rhythmic purr. Then he became aware. A profusion of starry lights had broken out in the roof of the cavern.

He stared up at them. And knew them instantly for electric bulbs. They created the impression of a night sky.

But orders were orders. And Farlow's wishes were almost a religion to Larky. He hailed Omba.

If Larky knew how to accept orders he lacked nothing in giving them to others. Omba listened to an ear full. And he got the gist of it.

"Here, you black mike!" Larky cried. "There he goes. With her waitin' to lead him up the blinkin' garden. It's up to us. See? You got four machine-guns for your little packet. I've got the boat for mine. You're goin' to blow the guts out of things when I say—mind, when I say. And if you can't muck up the water in this blasted sewer with gallons of narsty yeller blood when I hand you the word you ain't the killer son of a murderin' father I take you for. See?"

The intelligent grin of Omba's big eyes were better than any acknowledgment in his use of the white man's tongue. And Larky found comfort in the savage lurking behind it. He leant over the steering wheel to ejaculate amazement.

A huge arc lamp was blazing over the foot of the ramp. It was high up amongst the electric stars. But it was shedding its rays, rather like a stage spot light, on that which was directly below it. Larky caught a sharp, whistling breath. Loveliness!

He forgot his spurning. He was gazing at a young and lovely woman the sight of whom flung his mind back to dream visions of early adolescence. He could see a radiant smile about lips and eyes that ravished him. And he saw that it was for the clean flannels and immaculate shirt approaching on the lean frame of a man he was ready to follow to the ends of the earth. Of a sudden his world seemed to crash about him.

"Christ!" he muttered. "She'll get him. And she'll leave him nothing but a sack of bones and a mouldy bunch of hair."

The massive stone blocks under Farlow's feet were moist and slippery. But the rubber soles of his shoes found firm footing. A quick glance at the scored and rutted surface of the pier told him that which he had come to expect. This cavernous dock was no modern construction. Its stones had been laid and chiselled somewhere about the time the world's history had begun.

For the moment, however, he found no great interest in anything but the vivid creature waiting there at the foot of the ramp. He saw the stars light as Larky extinguished the boat's lights. He saw the cold flame of the great arc lamp flash out as the softer light was withdrawn. But all that they mattered was that the woman he was approaching had become even more clearly revealed.

Observing closely Farlow knew a grim humour. He understood something of what had been arranged for his own particular benefit. There was a glitter in it all that reminded him of the tinsel of the stage. He even thought of the gaud of pantomime designed to impress the child mind. He wondered at the picturesque folly of it. And began to appreciate Larky's harsh appraisement.

But the woman under the arc lamp's light was young and amazingly furnished. Her slim grace had all the fineness which women of every age strive to retain. Then her whole pose. Was it arrogance? Or was it intended to support regal claim? She certainly had girlish loveliness. But she had a mature woman's understanding of the value of streamlined curves under a sheath-like gown that was entirely scaled with glittering, silver sequins.

The artificiality of it, however, did not detract from the woman's beauty. It even enhanced. A wide band of jewels encircled hair of raven blackness whose smooth gloss seemed to shine under the white light. The oval of her face was smoothly perfect. Her complexion had that warm richness which Larky had proclaimed to be yellow, but which, with cynical humour, Farlow attributed to something rather precious contained, perhaps, in a bottle. In any case the result created a responsive thrill as he drew near to the picture of it all.

He looked neither to the right nor the left as he approached. He had to discover. And to discover swiftly. This woman of a yellow people. This woman with whom he had contended indirectly for so long. This woman who claimed dominion over a mysterious and long lost territory. Of what manner was she?

He came to a precise halt before her. His hat was removed automatically. And his heels closed in a military fashion which had become almost habit. He found himself held by a smiling mockery in coal-black eyes whose almond shaping was certainly Oriental. He thought of the name which had been scrawled across the back of a photograph. "Raamanita."

They came together in complete silence. There was no conventional greeting. Perhaps the taking of measure was mutual. But when at last the silence was broken it was by the sound of rich, musical tones which told of perfect English culture and modern education.

Farlow had looked for some personality which was of a race of ruthless savagery. A personality with nothing of grace beyond, possibly, the external. Instead he found himself listening to speech whose ease and refinement could only have been acquired by years of sojourn in his own homeland.

"For once the position is reversed. The hunted Welcomes the hunter." Raamanita made no movement. No gesture. She remained a statuesque creature who yet pulsated with glowing life. "It should come oddly to Colonel Richard Farlow. But the pursuit has not been swift, has it? There's been lagging. Perhaps indifference. Yet I designed a map which I thought would intrigue to impetuosity. However, early or late, willing or unwilling, it makes no difference to my cordial welcome of so distinguished a visitor to the capital of my ancient kingdom."

It was wholly unexpected. Farlow remembered foul and wanton murder. He thought swiftly. And he rolled his dice.

"Thanks awfully," he grinned, with a fatuity which might well have disturbed Larky. "But the rest of it. Retainers. Royal escort, and whatnot. Good stage-work, of course. Lighting perfect. But why only a woman whose loveliness is anachronism in the bowels of the earth?"

"The trappings of state would have been another anachronism at such a moment, Colonel," Raamanita admitted frankly. "But may I be told where my map lacked that it failed to urge so keen a hunter? Was there difficulty in reading it? I made it as plain as I dared. There was risk, of course. Wrong hands, you know. As it was, none but you could have found the entrance to our country."

The woman's eyes had narrowed. Her smile had passed. She was appraising the lean-framed man a woman desired. Farlow's mind had cast back to the Olivarria. He decided that this woman knew nothing of the events which had happened aboard that vessel. He shook his head.

"Sorry," he said quietly. "Your map urged all right enough. I was all for it, hotfoot. The delay wasn't mine. No. Your messenger." He shrugged. "Someone didn't like him, I'm afraid. Maybe they knew of the money you'd equipped him with. Anyway they murdered him. You know. Knifed him with one of those jolly little Sheffield-made weapons your people operate so well. Far as I can make out there were two on the job. Both yellow. The map wouldn't have reached me at all, only my man found it by chance. After the killing. You see, he interrupted them on their job. But he didn't tell me anything about it till we reached England. Curious he should have been murdered on Captain McGregor's ship. McGregor being in your pay."

Farlow watched. And he wondered if the loading of his dice were adequate. He saw a swift tightening of the woman's painted lips. Then he watched them relax again as she lifted slimly rounded shoulders.

"Your McGregor assumption is unfounded," she replied coldly. "It must have been the money. Chiabwe was not too well used to a large sum of money." Then her smile returned. "So you came as swiftly as plane and mail boat could bring you. And then Karl Petersen with your Oompee. You are a wonderful adventurer, Colonel Farlow."

Farlow was listening as he withdrew his cigarette case from the breast pocket of his shirt. It was a sound the hunter recognized instantly, for all the distant rumble of Omba's falls. Bare feet were stealing over the stones behind him. He offered his case without turning. But Raamanita rejected with a gesture. Farlow helped himself.

"Jolly little terminus you've got here," he observed casually, as he lit his cigarette and returned his case to its pocket. "Most efficient. But of course I expected something of the sort. That barge that came to tell you I was on the river. It naturally had to find some sort of tie-up."

Farlow saw advantage in playing an open hand. There were cross-currents at work behind this woman. Perhaps the frankness of it caught the woman off her guard. At any rate she laughed and admitted: "So you met them?"

"Of course. Had to pass us on their way back." Farlow inhaled and breathed smoke. "Speedy craft and well manned. But why such light build in this torrent? A pity. I use armour steel."

It came sharply. Again there was the faint padding of bare feet near at hand behind him. Farlow still ignored.

"So easy to crash, of course," he said, with a shrug. "And a most unpleasant stream to crash in."

"Can't be sure," Farlow pretended. "But I rather think they made a forced camp. An unholy mud bank with basking crocodiles. Sounded as if they ripped the bottom clean out."

Farlow remained listening to the sounds behind him. "You didn't stop, I s'pose, to help them—pick flowers?"

"We're wasting time," she said at last impatiently. "It's neither hospitable nor healthy holding an honoured guest talking in this dank hole. My father's waiting. We'll go up where the sun's shining, and my car is waiting. We mustn't deny my father the pleasure of welcoming you. But first there's a little ceremony to be performed. Unless you— It would be unreasonable to suppose that Colonel Farlow is unarmed."

"Quite." Farlow's grin was nonchalant. "But this party? How if I gallop back and shed my arms, and see my man about the old glad rags? I—"

"You're not so clever, Colonel," Raamanita went on coldly. "We'll stop play acting. You've no alternative but to obey. You've been a worthy adversary in the past. And I have all a woman's admiration for the man who is unafraid. But you've over-reached. You must accept the consequences. Your men and the boat will be dealt with. You will no longer have the advantage of their services. And the men behind you will deal with your arms, unless—"

"Been there quite a while, haven't they?" he asked coolly. And stooped to pull up one of his immaculate trouser legs. It exposed a weapon strapped just above his ankle. He unfastened it.

"Spot of melodrama, I think," he went on. "Heavy villain. Or is it hero? Reckless abandonment of defences. Yields to young and lovely villainess. Or is it heroine?"

He straightened up, permitting the trouser-leg to fall back into place. He offered a holstered automatic butt first.

"A little token of submission, your—Majesty," he mocked. "Complete with cartridge clips. There's no risk. The catch is at—'safety.'"

Perhaps it was relief. Raamanita smiled as she possessed herself of the weapon in the casual fashion of one accustomed to handling such things.

Raamanita turned to ascend the passage of the ramp. "Continue to follow you," Farlow corrected cheerfully. But he moved up quickly, and fell in close beside the woman as though fearing her escape.

It was a beset Larky who gazed down the pier. It was a savagely hopeful Omba who trained his machine-gun through the second forward port with a young woman for the bull's-eye of its aim. As Farlow became silhouetted against the fierce white light of the arc lamp Larky found speech to be imperative.

"Here, Omba," he said without turning, "you know what's the matter? Barmy! Never knew the baas like that before. Queer, ain't it? Flash a skirt and the old head-piece starts to rattle. Look at him. Just the same as if he was raking the 'Olloway Road, to scrounge a bit of orl right. A licker, ain't it? That's where you blokes gets it on us. You don't have to chase 'em up and act like they'd got wings and halos. Just hand their pas and mas a coupla mouldy goatskins or something and slap 'em in the pants—if they'd got any—and set 'em growing your mealies for you, and hauling water while you get around murderin' the blokes looking nasty at you. Know what I think of that dame what thinks she's a Christmas pantomime? She's— Here, look at 'em. There! And there!"

Larky was pointing. A number of figures were silhouetted against the white light. They were behind the man whose back was turned.

"Cor! See 'em, Omba? 'Orrible murder! That's wot they're after. Sure as hell! Christ!"

Omba's black head lowered over his weapon. But Larky grabbed. He jerked the groping hand away from the weapon.

"Here! Wotcher think you're doin', cully. When I say. And not before. I won't never get sense into that head of yours. Look at 'em. Right behind him. What's goin' to happen to the gove'nor when you loose off. Now you just listen with them ears of yours. The baas said—"

But the black arm was torn from Larky's restraining hold. Omba had swung about from his gun. It was those ears with which Larky had bade him listen. The man pointed aft.

It was the lock gates. There was the grinding of machinery. They had moved out of the recesses in which they had been laid back. They were closing to cut off retreat. Larky stared. Then in a moment his engine was speeding astern and the propeller churning. The dead water of the lock had become a rough sea.

Larky spared nothing. He called on his engine for all it could do. And the boat was set driving astern in a race against brief time. The gates moved slowly, ponderously. But their closing knew no check. Larky measured and prayed with all the blasphemy at his command.

Larky's orders were to defend the boat at all costs. He and the boat were his chief's one line of retreat. Those orders must be carried out. He switched on the stern lights while Omba did the only thing he knew. He squatted behind another stripped gun.

Larky obtained a full sight and breathed a shade more easily. The boat was rushing straight at the narrowing opening between the closing gates. He held it to an exact middle course. And his one comfort was that the gates could move no quicker while the boat was gathering speed with every moment that passed.

He measured with a shrewd eye while he pressed his engine. He saw twenty yards between him and the narrowing passage. Twenty yards! And the gates had still an opening of a little more than twenty feet. Twenty yards dropped to fifteen. To ten. The gates narrowed to something like ten feet. Larky knew his boat's beam to be more than six feet. It looked impossible.

It was that tremendous gathering of speed that saved the situation. It was quite beyond estimation in the slack water. All Larky could do was to drive, and hold his course, and curse as he had rarely cursed in his life before. But when he saw his stern lights between the closing gates, with water on either side of them, he knew.

There was no more than an ugly scrape of grey paint amid-ship as the boat shot out into the open and safety.

Larky switched on his forward lights in time to witness the final closing of those deadly stone jaws. And in a burst of relief he bawled round at Omba.

"You ain't half quick, Omba, my lad. Another half a tick and— But here! What the hell do we do next?"

CHAPTER XIII. — WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG

FARLOW and Raamanita emerged from the ramp's tunnelled entrance, which was hewn out of living rock. Two more time-worn, winged beast-men sentried it, crouching on mighty bases. But they remained unnoticed. It was the glare of evening sunlight after the twilight of the underworld.

A luxurious saloon car was in waiting. It was there on a perfectly-cambered sand roadway. Its engine was turning over almost soundlessly. Its door was wide flung in invitation. And it was held by a slim, uniformed youth, who, in spite of his yellow skin, was good to look at.

The invitation remained unaccepted. Farlow had become deeply preoccupied. The girl at his side was observing him. His eyes were narrowed against the glare of daylight, while he gazed at a spectacle of Nature in triumphant mood.

The roadway circled about the hither shore of a great stretch of water, which took the form of an immense channel, of sheer direction, troughed in the stark lap of ironstone cliffs. It went on far to the eastward to terminate at the actual fort of N'Gobi's great summit. The mountain's massif dominated everything. Its crest and bald shoulders were deeply hidden in the mists of evening. But its lower, jungled slopes were brilliantly lit by the dying sunlight.

It was the far foot of the mountain that held Farlow's interest. It was sprawled with rose-tinted stone which bespoke human abode. While, near to it, the surface of the lake was dotted with sailing craft, whose many coloured sails were bellying and lying over under pressure of a stiff mountain breeze. They reminded of progressing water-fowl arrayed in vivid plumage.

The rose-tinted buildings of the city were strongly reminiscent. Farlow's memory flung back to recall some ancient ruins he had once discovered on one of the many upper tributaries of the Nile where the river streamed down out of Uganda and the neighbourhood of the great Ruwenzori. He remembered them to have been built of a gneiss of rare quality, even in Africa. They, too, had possessed that softly harmonious, rosy glow which time and weather had been unable to obliterate.

Halfway down the ironstone cliffs northernly confining the waters of the lake he beheld a densely churning mist. It was spray rising heavily, and drifting and dispersing slowly. He recognized it instantly. Here and there it broke and cleared, revealing nothing but the evening skyline beyond. It was the site of Omba's falls pouring an overflow from the lake. The drone of distant and persistent thunder rolling over the lake was almost pleasant. It seemed to belong to the scene of it all.

He turned at last to the girl beside him and his manner had lost some of its usual lightness.

"Africa never seems to tire of surprises," he said. "A real showman for theatrical effects. Thousands of years hence I s'pose she'll still be doing it. Your city?" He pointed. "I've only seen that coloured building stone once before I embarked on your Highway. And then it was in ruins that had been a city thousands of years ago. Your—ancient—capital. I wonder if I've already guessed something of its origin?"

The girl had abandoned all air of command. She was satisfied. She felt that this man had already been caught in the net she had spread for his ensnaring. She indicated the waiting car.

"I can tell you as we go," she said, in an easy, companionable fashion. "We mustn't delay. You aren't clad for the mountain night. Neither am I. There'll be sharp cold when the sun goes. See. The boats are running for their moorings already. Come."

"Please get in," she said. "Take the far seat. The road skirts the lake most of the way. The view may interest you till it gets dark."

Farlow crouched into the vehicle. Raamanita turned at once to the uniformed youth.

The man's deference in assisting his sovereign lady into the car restored all Farlow's humour. The car door closed firmly without any of the customary slam. Pie became aware of the girl's subtle perfume as she took her seat beside him. And, as the car moved off, he gave himself up to noting the scene through which they were passing.

Their way lay along the south shore of the lake. Farlow at once became interested in the unusual formation of the cliffs walling it. Nature appeared to have cut them sheer, with a precision that was almost incredible. There was no vegetation. No basic soil, other than the made road, footed them. Then, too, a low embankment protected the road from the waters of the lake.

Suddenly Farlow faced round to find Oriental eyes smilingly observing him. He smiled back unfeignedly. In spite of the gaud of her make-up Raamanita was a very lovely creature. He spread out expressive hands.

"Quite impossible," he chuckled. "What I mean, you're a queen and all that. But we've been fighting each other too long. I can't 'majesty' you, or any of that stuff. It's got to be 'Raamanita,' or even something shorter. You were going to tell me as we drove. But first let me ask you a quick one. All the pantomime? Why? That—Dr—tinsel you're wearing? Is it part of the ancient capital?"

"Uniform!" she announced. "Show, of course. And none of it for your benefit. To grasp its meaning you want to think of the cheap-jacks of present day. European Dictators. Politicians. Some create a vogue in shirts. Some prefer meaningless salutes. Some seek a wholly ridiculous badge. Some even, I shrewdly suspect, requisition the services of a mirror for the purpose of adjusting the mediocrity of facial equipment. You see, you can't be the reincarnation of a famous lady ancestor without transforming yourself into a 'show-piece.' I rule over an unsophisticated people just lifted out of savagery who prefer to be dazzled. And if I'm to continue putting it over I've got to go on dazzling. Like those Dictators. Anything else?"

"Re-incarnation!" he cried. "I like it. You must tell me of the ancestor. Needs a steady nerve. I mean the reincarnation business. But you've got it, of course. I s'pose I needn't tell you that while we were at the foot of your ramp, talking, two fairly capable gunners probably had you under the bull's-eye aim of their machine-guns. You'd have made a nasty mess on those damp stones if they'd turned savage."

"No, my dear man," she admonished. "I'm not going to make any extravagant claim to cast-iron nerve. There are those who maintain that all women are born adventurers. Don't you believe it. It's only a man who can stand smiling and talking with his back turned upon stealing murder, aware of the fact all the time. All the time, down there, you were within inches of death. It took all my authority to save you from it. But you smiled and talked as though such a thing as death simply didn't exist. You rather intrigue me, Dick Farlow. You know, for quite a long time I've intended to feed you to the assevogels. And I've no doubt you would scarcely have bothered to give me a decent burial. Yet here we are sitting together in the same car chatting quite pleasantly. It's true I have your automatic. But your hands are powerful. Why don't you strangle me, or something. Try it."

The oval of the girl's smiling face went up suddenly to expose a perfect, whitened neck, adorned by pearls in triple rows. It was barefacedly provocative. But Farlow only grinned. Something seemed to fade out of the girl's smile. Her chin lowered.

"Just as well, perhaps," she admitted drily. "Pulati has a mirror. And I think it's quite likely he's an even more skilful gunner than those men of yours."

Farlow watched the face in repose. Its beauty was beyond question. But there was something about the dark eyes which reminded him of the burning light to be seen in the intently gazing eyes of the creatures of the jungle.

"You've been educated in England," he said, ignoring her threat. "You lived there long enough to absorb the ways and fashions of our women. You're beautiful. But you're not white. Young, of course. But you're different from the yellow fools you send to massacre and be massacred. Let's leave our own private murder while you tell me about that map you sent me. I accepted the challenge of it as you wanted me to. But it was because I mean to know why a peaceful Government Commission is massacred to the last man on the Balbau. And why someone objects to the fact of it becoming known. I assure you that's the simple explanation of my exploring a ghastly man-eating forest, and the type of volcanic inferno that rightly belongs to hell. Your voice is quite charming. Please let me listen to it."

Farlow watched the sudden widening of the girl's eyes. "White Death!" she exclaimed, in a hushed tone of awe. "Did you see it—kill?"

"I don't quite know what I saw," he said. "There was something alive there on the mud. It was drinking at the river. Then it—wasn't."

"We don't know," she went on in a suppressed tone. "We never have known. I don't think we want to know the truth of that ghastly gorge. I suppose there's a natural explanation of it. But—it's alive! Sentiently alive! It's been there haunting the darkness of that gorge within the knowledge of every soul in these hills, and down at Sebar. It's believed always to have been there. Growing. Growing with infinite slowness. And spreading wherever there's sufficient darkness and dank to foster it. The old ones say it was still there when my ancestor ruled. And that she used it as an instrument of shocking death for offenders."

"But how clever of you to—diagnose—me," she cried. "Do you know Brighton? I was educated near there. Do you know the southern counties? I have relatives somewhere there. England? The loveliest of all countries. But you're quite right. I'm not white. England's my father's country. You see, my mother was in direct descent from that great old queen you should have read about."

The sun had passed abruptly. It seemed to extinguish as though a light switch had been turned. Night began to close with incredible swiftness. Pulati's headlights flashed out.

The smoothly gliding car cleared the last of the perpendicular cliffs which were the lake's confining walls. The road plunged itself into a lofty and dense-growing jungle. Down the lane of the car's lights Farlow saw no meanderings ahead. The road cut straight through the tangle of vegetation with the precision of a ruled line. Somewhere in the distance was a steep hump that suggested a bridge. And beyond that numberless lights flashed out on a far hillside.

"You make it so very easy dealing with you, Dick Farlow," she laughed. "I don't know why I didn't think of personal contact before. Of course, I ought to have. You've been such a terrible nuisance to us. We naturally did our best to be rid of you. But you're a big hunter and good fighter. You were far too much for a people only just emerged from thousands of years of complete obscurity. It's taken my dull wits a long time to find the right answer to it all. But I've done so at last. And it's so pleasantly simple. I'm terribly bucked to find you my voluntary—"

"Physically, at any rate. And now you're going to see— everything. Now you're going to satisfy that deplorable curiosity that's been such a burden to us. And when you've done so I'm hoping you'll decide to remain with us—indefinitely. But let me tell you of those things you've already seen, other than our terrible gorge. It'll save such a lot of explanation later. For instance Sebar's caverns, with their grim images. Once they marked a built roadway that was for royal progress thousands of years ago. Upheaval turned it into a river. Instead of a royal highway it had to become a common waterway. The bridge, or the remains of it, that you saw, once knew the tramp of armed legions. And the passage of merchandise intended for the ends of the earth. But all that was before my revered, but unfortunate, ancestor skidded on the orange peel." The girl's laugh was reckless.

The car switchbacked over the steep crown of a bridge. A glance beyond the window showed Farlow a torrent, presumably surging down to the lake from N'Gobi's summit.

"You know I feel a bit sorry for the old darling really," she went on. "Dead and gone now. But she was all sorts of sportsman in her royally reckless way, according to the lore of our people. The world being younger then things ran on a broader track I expect. Her name was Raamanita too, of course, and she seems to have been endowed with the political genius of an epileptic Caesar, all the unscruple of a modern titled industrialist, and the sexual frailties of an unattached lady rabbit. With the pious scruple of all historians it's claimed that it was the latter which led to her ultimate undoing. The lady's morals are said to have worried her wise men. They found it to be all very well. They were quite liberal in their views. But they could discover nothing profitable, or even amusing, in a spinster queen broadcasting promiscuous progeny who could never hope to assume her throne. They decided upon respectable matrimony for her. So that she would be free to exercise her maternal talents in an appropriate direction. I think wise men must be funny things."

"But these particular wise ones seem to have been determined and efficient. They lost no time. And having selected their victim—a wise and powerful foreign potentate, whom they seriously feared—they forthwith got after our naughty philanderer. So well did they do their work that they persuaded her. For she promptly perfumed herself, collected a lavish trousseau, availed herself of all the beauty culture of the day, and, freighted down with untold gold and silver, with spices and precious stones, she set off down her private highway to the sea, and sailed forth upon her manhunt."

"Alas! History's record is most dismal. Man has a lot to answer for. The best result of my ancestor's campaign seems to have been a dizzy whirl. At any rate she ultimately returned home, having lavished all her wealth in presents, to report that, so far as matrimony went, her journey had been a wash-out. She reported that the foreign potentate was all sorts of a lad, and a very, very wise man who had entirely pleased her. He had graciously accepted all her presents of gold, and spices, and precious stones, and permitted it to be known that he was already deeply involved with legions of attractive lady friends, none of whom saw any sense in his adding to their numbers.

"That, according to all accounts, was the start of a trouble that accomplished the downfall of the world's richest and most powerful empire, and incidentally deprived it of a source that made gold, thousands of years ago, almost as common as is iron ore today. One doesn't know how the thing came about. Or where lay the link between it and my ancestor's lavish indiscretions. The only thing that seems tolerably clear is that the wise ones completely failed to tame the lady, and, being perfectly good politicians, they probably abandoned the unequal contest and forthwith sold their queen and country to the envious black hordes of the north. At any rate, the end came horridly. They say there was a violent terrestrial upheaval, which completely swallowed up a reef that was practically solid gold. And shattered our capital here, which was one of the great cities of the world. Then came the black legions, or impis, from the north. Blood and slaughter devastated an already despairing people. There was death, outrage, torture, slavery, and even literal devourment, to make things still more unpleasant. And, in the end, out of millions, a handful of seared life was left clinging to the dark places of N'Gobi's hills.

"For thousands of years it remained so clinging, fostered and supported by a stupid faith that was more powerful than the worst disaster. The remains of a race of millions, only a few hundreds, lived on, believing that one day at last, cleansed of her old time sins, and more powerful than ever, their old queen would return to them, and once more lead them to greatness, wealth, and their old-time world power."

It was a moment when derision leapt behind Farlow's eyes. He wanted to laugh. He realized that the girl's mockery had been largely sham. And that vanity inclined her to believe in the story she had told. But he suppressed the impulse. The years had taught him that Africa was Africa. Unreality anywhere else might well become absolute reality in—Africa.

"And the 'greatness'? The 'wealth'? The 'world power'? How far have you carried them along on that sublime road? The cleansing?"

Pulati's gears were changing down. The car was slowing. And, as one after the other the gears dropped to their lowest, Farlow's questions remained unanswered. He glanced down the beam of headlights and he saw the tremendous hill rise in front of them. It looked almost precipitous. City lights were everywhere about and below him. He urged.

"Tell me," he said sharply. "She was to return 'cleansed of her old time sins.' So your early efforts are towards wanton war in the subjection of surrounding Kaffir tribes. To waging war upon those who have done you no hurt. To massacre. And to the sacrifice of poor mean lives that have waited so many thousands of years for your return. Does it all fit?"

"It's to cease all that, to banish its need in the future, that you are sitting beside me now. You are responsible for our campaign against you. We are at deadly war, by any and every means, against those who would rob our people of the wealth that rightly belongs to them."

"And the murder far outside your domain? Murder at sea? Murder in England? Murder that, to the lay mind, can have no influence upon the 'dark-places' of N'Gobi? That young man you sent to find me? Was he slaughtered by—your order?"

For moments while the car laboured and bemoaned its task on the heavy gradient they sat eye to eye. And Farlow's were granite hard and dominated the darker beauty. Raamanita became a troubled woman. The talon-like fingers relaxed.

It came impulsively. It came in the angry manner of a woman beset. Farlow was careful. By no word or look did he tell the girl how she had betrayed herself.

But Raamanita discovered for herself. And she sought to hide her failure by weak evasion.

"We've talked enough," she said coldly. "All I've told you belongs to a tragic past. And the past doesn't concern us. Only the future. My best answer as to what has been done since the queen has returned is to show you. The thing we've done to remedy the disaster of ancient days. Where once stood a vast city, a great metropolis of palaces and temples, and all that goes to express ancient greatness you will now find a city founded on electric power and lavish expenditure. The harnessed power of our great falls. You will see machinery in operation that has cost something like millions to set up. You will be shown a hive of industry. A people who enjoy a life which wealth alone can provide. People familiar with your own tongue and amusements. People who eat of the best, and sleep in comfort and cleanness. They're no longer a people clinging to the dark places of N'Gobi. Nor do they know fear of other than the intruder who would rob them of their birthright. There's not a yellow soul among them but is aware of swift progress towards power, wealth, and greatness. And none asks for leadership other than that which has so miraculously returned to N'Gobi."

The confidence of it was supreme. The pride of it exalted. But Farlow thought of pantomime, and wondered how much of it was real. Raamanita, he knew, had purpose behind every word of the story she had told.

Pulati's gears were changing again. But it was up. Farlow felt the pick up as the car gained an easier level. Speed increased smoothly. He became aware of passing something that looked like a cemetery crowded with monuments. On the other side of the car they seemed to be passing a low stone wall with only the darkness of the fallen night beyond it.

But soon after its increase of speed the car began to slow again. And Raamanita turned again with a radiant smile. They were approaching a low building which stood out sharply in the headlights' beam.

"Everything will be for your inspection tomorrow," she announced. "Now we're arriving at the palace of my ancestor's reincarnation. It hasn't the splendour of a royal abode. But it's comfortable and spacious. And it serves those who labour rather than indulge in display. When you wake in the morning your window will show you a view second only to 'The Glory of the World' which you saw marked on your map. Your quarters have been prepared with the greatest care for your comfort and—safety. Servants, headed by a distant relative of mine, Ankubi, and my father's personal guard, Ovrana, will be waiting to do your lightest bidding. You will know all the best hospitality N'Gobi can offer you. You see, your visit has for its object, from our point of view, the ending of all those disturbing conditions which have prevailed since the discovery of our yellow people became one of those secrets of Africa which has eluded you. When you're rested and refreshed my father will be more than honoured to extend you his most cordial welcome."

There was mockery in every word of it. And Farlow understood. As the brakes brought the car to a standstill he beheld the double doors of a wide entrance-way within the deep shade of a long, covered stoep. They opened at once. And a brilliant glare of light from within flooded the interior of the car. There was no time for close observation. A number of khaki-clad figures emerged and came running down the veranda steps. They lined themselves between the house and the car in double file. Each was belted and armed. And every man of them was yellow.

The car door was flung open, and Farlow was confronted by a human alleyway. He stepped from the vehicle and turned to assist Raamanita. But the car's door was deliberately slammed in his face.

CHAPTER XIV. — HOSPITALITY

THE slamming of the car door against him left Farlow unruffled. Everything that now occurred he felt to be part of the game. He knew how heavily were the dice of his opponents charged against him. They had thrown everything on to the table. And he was well enough aware that his future entirely depended for safety on his own ability to avoid faulty manipulation in the process of the game yet to be played.

It was a slight, uniformed man who had slammed the car door and remained standing before it for the vehicle to move off. Farlow beamed into a yellow face, lit by wolfish eyes, under the peak of a cap such as he, himself, had worn in the days of the Great War. Then he turned away in the direction of the house to find himself closely confronted by a much larger man.

He, too, was uniformed. Tunic, cord breeches and puttees suggested the purchase of surplus Government stores. But "Sam Brown" and officer's peaked cap were all that could be desired. The big creature was youthful. Pie was clean-shaven. He was well set up under the ill-fit of his uniform. Farlow approved him. And he smiled questioningly.

"I shall conduct you to the quarters which have been assigned to your use, Colonel," the man announced without preamble, and with quiet command. "They have been carefully prepared. You are to know no lack in our hospitality. Come."

There was no cordiality in it. The man spoke fluent English with just a suspicion of alien accent. "Thanks awfully."

The man turned towards the house. Farlow followed close on his heels. With the smaller man bringing up the rear he thought of a prisoner's progress towards Orderly Room, escorted by a file of the guard.

They cleared the human lane of the guard of honour, and mounted the broad, easy steps of the veranda. They passed through the open doorway to become engulfed by the immense-spaciousness of the brilliantly lit hallway beyond.

Stone. Everything was stone. Roof, walls, floor. All softly rose-tinted. The cold white glare of miniature arc lamps depending from a lofty ceiling found itself mellowed by the tinted, all-pervading radiance. There were no furnishings. But ancient carvings of human and animal figures had been cunningly contrived into decoration of no mean order.

Farlow missed no detail as they moved on down to its far end where a curtained archway barred the way. Here, again, he was careful to note. The material of the curtain was both costly and modern. It was withdrawn by an invisible hand to allow their passage. And he found himself in a wide, straight corridor out of which modern doorways opened on either side.

It was at the second doorway on the right of the corridor that the big man paused and produced his key.

The door and the key suggested a prison cell of sorts. Barred windows, perhaps. A hard truckle-bed. In any case Far-low was wholly unprepared for the reality.

It was a luxurious apartment. It was equipped with the heavy richness associated with an English home in Victorian times. Mahogany. It was full of mahogany. The carpet was heavy Turkish. Wall decorations were pictures in gilt frames. There were mahogany chairs in morocco. There was a mahogany desk under a curtained window. There was a mahogany central table set for a meal. At the far end of the big room an alcove opened out containing a bed ready for occupation. And beyond that, through a stone archway, loomed the glimpse of a modern bathroom. The whole was lit by a chandelier of electric candlelights.

Farlow thought of the English parent and wondered. Then, to his waiting escort, he pointed the lavish appointments set out on the dining table.

Farlow glanced from one yellow face to the other. The big man rested a powerful hand on the shining mahogany of the table, which was devoid of any linen cover.

"Queen Raamanita has willed that Colonel Farlow shall be served as she would be herself. That is her command. It will be obeyed—exactly. A bell on that desk is at his convenience day or night. The sentry posted at the door is there to answer it."

Farlow grinned into the man's cold face. "And this room? These quarters? Whose ordinarily?" he enquired.

The rebuff was without effect. Farlow went on, glancing at the wolfish face of the lesser man.

"It is permissible," he admitted coolly. "I am Ankubi. I am of the Queen's army. Its captain. He is Ovrana. We are of the Queen's household. Both."

Farlow remembered the names Raamanita had mentioned. And having ascertained their identity it seemed an appropriate moment for him to be rid of his warders.

"Thanks, Captain," he replied casually. "I quite gather the position of things. Queen Raamanita's orders are your Bible. Sort of what she says goes. And at the moment I'm to be—well looked after. I'm glad to know you are the famous Captain Ankubi. We've probably met before. I think, at long range. But before I take a bath, and you two boys shut and lock that door behind you, what about the big white chief? I'm supposed to hold pow-wow with him tonight."

"Quite." Farlow lit a cigarette and pondered its smoke. "I forgot. That bell, of course." He nodded dismissal as though dealing with servants. "That will be all, I think, thanks."

Farlow saw the man's rather fine face darken. He saw the flash of fury light Oriental eyes. And he saw, in a sudden lifting of the man's shoulders, that Queen Raamanita's will finally prevailed. The two passed from the room. And, behind them, the door was securely locked.

Farlow stared coldly at the locked door. Then he moved over to the desk under the curtained window. He saw that the bell-push with its flex was a temporary affair. He passed behind the desk and withdrew the window curtains. Latched casements that opened outwards were revealed. He lifted a latch and opened the window. He peered out into the black cold of the night.

For a moment or two he could discover nothing but a lightless void. Then he became aware of star-like twinkling. But it was not in the sky. It was below him. And somehow it impressed him that it might be shining thousands of feet below.

At any rate he understood how that particular room came to be assigned to him. It looked out over an abyss by way of which there was no escape. He dropped his cigarette-end, closed the window, and redrew the heavy curtain. Then he went to explore the bathroom.

Farlow had consumed a dinner of several courses. He found himself regretting Omba's limitations. It was a dinner which warned him that Queen Raamanita did herself well. It had had only one drawback. He had been waited on by a yellow-skinned creature who locked the door after every visit. The ostentatious and noisy locking of the door irritated.

Now he was lounging in morocco upholstery, meditating over coffee and a liqueur of brandy that was preciously soothing.

But no gastronomic contentment was permitted to interfere with the paramount needs of the moment. He drained the last of his liqueur, dropped his cigarette into the saucer of his coffee cup, and went over to the bell-push on the desk. He pressed it heavily.

A fresh face appeared. The man was khaki-clad and carried side-arms. Farlow spoke in a tone he would never have used to a servant of his own.

"I am to be received tonight by—" He shrugged. "I am ready. You will notify them at once."

A fresh cigarette was consumed before the door once more unlocked. This time it was flung wide. The armed man stood holding it.

Farlow felt the chill of the mountain night air as he crossed a spacious quadrangle that had been laid out as a garden. It was lit by a prodigal number of common arc lamps. They were suspended in clusters as though electric power cost nothing. And the result was something infinitely better than the most brilliant moonlight. The garden was a thing of beautiful order and neatness as far as casual observation revealed.

His guide led without pause. They passed into the eastern wing of the great square which the house formed. And at once there was a change of guide. A girl, clad in a modern knee-length costume, with a stenographer's pad and pencil in her hand, was waiting for them.

She was extremely pretty in her darkly yellow fashion. Her hair was shingled, and fell lankly over ears which it entirely concealed. It was centre parted but with a straight-lined fringe across her forehead that came down almost to her finely marked eyebrows. The only thing about her which Farlow regretted was her native blackness of eyes. He beamed upon her, nevertheless, as the girl took possession of him. And it came pleasantly that his beam found a pretty, smiling response.

Farlow's reply came cheerfully. And he parted from the other snide with a feeling that after all this ancient domain of yellow bandits still contained something more pleasant to contemplate than sheer murder.

"Who are you?" he enquired, striding beside the slim creature down a brilliantly lit corridor that was heavily carpeted. "Charming to see a pretty face and modern frock, what? Get tired of the lads in khaki. And Ambwani? Is that your big white chief?"

The girl smiled up at the man who took a single stride to two of hers. She displayed perfect white teeth.

Farlow would have explained. But they had reached the corridor's end to be confronted by double swing doors of polished black wood.

The girl signed to silence. Then she pushed through the doorway and held one of the doors for Farlow to enter. It was a small anteroom with heavy curtains screening that which lay beyond.

Farlow was standing in a completely empty chamber. Just walls and stone floor, and the curtains through which the girl had passed. He stepped over and fingered the surface of the stone of which the whole house seemed to be built. It intrigued him. He regretted his lack of knowledge. In some way he felt he was missing something. The stone was not unlike a sort of pink crystal. And he was quite sure that if only he understood these formations the softly gracious stuff would tell him something really important.

It was a scene that both startled and amused. He was passing down the great length, some hundred or so feet, of a magnificently proportioned apartment that was as starkly empty as the antechamber, except for a desk, and a shirt-sleeved man seated at it, facing him at its far end.

Farlow's rubbered shoes gave out no sound on the stone pavement. The distance was so great to the desk that he had time to glance up at the lofty ceiling, with its bowl lights, and classic, ancient carvings. He had an impression of a vast gallery such as he associated with a mediaeval castle. Or an audience chamber where old-world, summary justice was administered.

Finally he considered the desk, which was infinitesimal in the spaciousness about it. Its table lamp was not unlike a theatre's spot light shining down on the star actor. And, as the thought occurred to him, he wanted to laugh outright. He told himself that surely somebody amongst the people of N'Gobi should go down to posterity as one of the great theatrical producers of all time.

He halted before the desk. It was beside an upholstered chair set opposite the bowed figure of the white-haired man across the desk. He waited in silence for the white man they called §Ambwani" to look up. The man had a ledger open in front of him. And the figures it contained seemed to absorb him. After a moment a deep voice rumbled at him.

"Forgive me, Colonel," it said. "Do please take that chair. There's cigarettes to your hand, unless you prefer a cheroot. Help yourself. I expect you've never had to check up the figures of a people who're capable of anything except discriminating between credit and debit in simple book-keeping. I've just one more column to cast up."

The farce must play itself out. And Farlow was ready to play his part in it with all the skill of which he was capable. So he seated himself in a chair he noted was immovable under his hand. He was not deceived by any of it. He helped himself to a cigarette and watched. He saw a gold pencil move up a column of figures and pass down it again. And he decided that none of it was very clever. He was quite positive that this aged white man was no super-skilled accountant.

The gold pencil set down a total. The ledger closed. Two bare and sunburnt elbows planted themselves upon it. And as they did so, and two hands supported a heavy, prominent chin, Farlow discovered a new and startled interest.

It was his first full view of the man's face, and it flung memory into a fever of searching activity. Where? He asked himself where before had he seen eyes which had a detestable faculty of reminding one of death, or something? They were jet black, and stared levelly. And they seemed to pass through and beyond.

"Well, well! This is fine!" The man's tone was intended to convey pleasure and only contrived a sort of gloating. "To see Colonel Richard Farlow sitting in that chair! It's a great day when I find myself in a position to afford him the hospitality of N'Gobi."

"Hospitality?" Farlow laughed. Then he added: "Thanks. But you must let me claim pleasure, too," he said. "Can't say I'm enamoured of your Queen's Highway. Nor such overwhelming cordiality in a gang of pirates on one of your barges, whose best sense wasn't enough to keep 'em from asking for machine-gun trouble. But I'd have faced a good deal worse to sit—in this chair."

"Fine. We're both pleased. But you interest me. That barge. Are you going to tell me?"

"Oh, nothing much. I left them amongst basking crocodiles on a mud and rock shore."

"They challenged bullet-proof armour and machinery with inadequate pop-guns. Just silly. After I bustled them the stream did the rest. Landed them, bottomless, ashore. A lesser Balbau. Was it wise?"

"Wise?" There was a pious headshake. "You forget. You were to become our guest."

"Nevertheless we must remember that Balbau affair. Our people have a lust for revenge in their blood. It must have been that."

"Yes. And we can't spare lives." The man helped himself to a cheroot from the box on the desk. He went on behind a smoke-screen. "Of course you don't know the facts. But we've only about ten thousand effectives for everything. You see, when I first came here, forty years ago, there were less than eight hundred. Mostly women. But I saw possibilities, and got after them. It was a case of hurried building. Sort of jerry building. Persuaded them to intensive breeding. Almost mass production. A responsive lot. We still carry on polygamy. When I got to know them, and they learned my English, the whole thing was quite easy. But all that will interest you later. The thing that matters now is that we've got together at last. You've been playing your clever lone hand too uncommonly close to us for our comfort. Hence our invitation. We've simply got to come to a clear understanding."

"Obviously," he agreed. Then abruptly. "They call you Ambwani' here. I s'pose it comes easier to say for a native tongue than—'Garnet.'"

If Farlow was looking for reaction he discovered none. The long black cheroot was removed from between clamping jaws. And its ash was meticulously deposited in an ash-tray.

Farlow looked steadily into a strong face, which, in age, carried such a striking likeness.

"You see, I'm a Brackshire man, myself," he went on. "As you probably know my patrimony adjoins Castle Elstane. I often think family likeness as a scientific study could be made as informative, as, for instance, the study of finger prints. It's been reported that Anthony Garnet once had a brother, Lionel, who was supposed to have died abroad. Say forty years ago."

"Most interesting." It came suavely. "But, as you say, it matters very little. Whether or not my name happens to be Lionel Garnet doesn't affect our position. My concern is for your entertainment and personal safety while you're with us. My daughter is queen of these people for serious political reasons. Raamanita is all-powerful with them. And she is to be your cicerone for your better safety. You see, I'm anxious for you to discover every secret N'Gobi contains. I want you to go everywhere and see everything. I want you to ask any question that occurs to you. You'll get your answers in quite plain English. After that we'll be in a position to debate the situation between us with you in possession of full knowledge. That way understanding can be arrived at. I can promise you in Raamanita's hands you'll be perfectly safe."

"I s'pose so. And should account for your precautions here. What I mean. The inaccessible position of my very pleasant quarters. The turnkey responsible for my safe custody." Far-low's laugh was genial. "You know I detest locked doors. So deadly in case of fire."

"The sentry posted to ensure your well-being as our honoured guest," Garnet corrected patiently. "Perhaps you aren't fully aware of the hurt you did us on the Balbau. At any rate you'll appreciate that, with all the best will in the world, in forty years I can't hope to change the human nature that was founded thousands of years ago. Don't let suspicion disquiet. You're our guest, with all that implies. If there were ulterior designs against you there would be no need to delay execution. There's nothing to prevent my exterminating you at this very moment. I have only to press a button on this desk. You see, two German quick-firers are trained on your chair from either side of this room."

"I know. Or rather guessed." Farlow lounged comfortably back in the ominous chair. "I was convinced of something of the sort when I found the chair to be clamped to the ground. But, of course, I was also convinced of your goodwill or I should never have sat in it. So please understand I have no doubts about—anything."

"Good. We're clearing the ground," he replied with something approaching warmth and life. "I'll try and clear it further. I assure you I've no scruple in revealing secrets to you which have hitherto been closely guarded, because, even were you to attempt betrayal, which is unthinkable, you'd achieve-nothing. Maybe you'll count it wanton, dog-in-the-manger. Even diabolical. Anything you like. But you might try to remember I've given the whole of a man's life to N'Gobi. I've sacrificed every personal pleasure. All ease. The luxury that could have been mine. In fact all that manhood looks to enjoy. The moment my secret passes beyond my control, whether it reaches government or private corporation, forty years of work will go up in an upheaval comparable with Nature's utmost violence. We're mined here with high-explosive in a way that would make the land and sea mines in the Great War look like squibs. And the tremendous task of that mining has gone on unceasingly, against eventuality, from the first moment we could afford the expenditure on high-explosive. For instance, there's a thousand tons of high-explosive under the south shore of the lake. It will empty the lake and so destroy our waterway to the coast. Everything's been provided for. Now the work's completed. Its control is under my hand. When the moment of need comes I shall have no scruple. I should spare nothing. No one. Possibly not even myself. I've not had the best of life, Farlow. I've not even had my man's share of good fortune. I've had to fight as few men are called upon to fight for every step of my way. I'm an old man now. Nearly as old as my brother. And if I'm not to reach the goal I've set for myself no one else will ride to it on my shoulders."

Lionel Garnet stood up. And for the first time Farlow became aware of the magnificent manhood remaining to him. There was height and burliness. The man was in cords and puttees. He was belted about a lean waist. And a thin cotton shirt, with its rolled shirt sleeves, was wide open to bare a massive neck that should have been shrunken. In that moment Farlow recognized the epitome of human resolve, and deadly purpose. He, too, stood up. And the two men matched in height if not in bulk.

"I think I understand all that, Garnet," he said quietly. "Though I can't see anything in it that's not as heroically damnable as raw human nature can make it. Still, you've got to think as you will. And we'll leave it that way. We've all got to play the game as we know it. And stand the racket. Maybe you'll bring me to see things your way. I don't know. Meanwhile, as your guest, I'm going to claim my privilege. I don't like being nursemaided by armed sentries and locked doors." He slanted a shrewd glance of mockery. "What is it called? Parole? I'll give you my parole, which you can accept in perfect confidence. Believe me, there's nothing at the moment would drive me out of N'Gobi but that damnable upheaval of yours."

"I'm glad," he replied coldly. "Then we'll say good-night. I've hours of work to get through before daylight. We're on a fresh and promising lode." It came with a definite sigh. "You know, Farlow, the only things damnable that I can discover are the disappointments in a gold-man's life. They're heartbreaking. And Africa, in N'Gobi, can be particularly devilish in her cruel elusiveness. I've seen more promising reefs pinch out than I care to think about. If there's anything that can add to your comfort and convenience please name it. When you reach your quarters you will find no sentry at your door. And no key in its lock."

CHAPTER XV. — THE DOUBLE-CROSS

THE room was crudely bare. It was without the smallest semblance of luxury or even comfort. It reminded of a soldier's barrackroom in the days when the soldier was only cannon-fodder.

Three long, slit-like windows, almost mediaeval in their inadequacy, admitted the chill night air without glass obstruction. They were without hangings. The floor was bare stone slabs. There was a whitewood table equipped with writing materials and the odds and ends a man accumulates. Three whitewood chairs were its only seating. Then there was a bed of sorts. A trestle and board bed furnished with a hard palliasse and coarse brown blankets.

It was all an expression of the man they called "Ambwani," who was seated on the bed removing his khaki-hued puttees. He was preparing for the few hours sleep that he found to be all sufficient for him.

It was nearly midnight when there came a rap on the modern wooden door of the room.

Garnet stood up with a frown of impatience. He crossed to the door in his highlows and belted cord breeches and turned the key in the lock.

Raamanita entered the room, passing her father as though he were not standing there waiting to resecure the door.

The white glare of electric light revealed the stark furnishing for the girl's complete disapproval. She gazed about her before selecting one of the uninviting chairs. She blew a breath of disgust as she seated herself.

"The men quarrying in your mines live far better than you do, Father," she scorned. "You certainly possess the 'millionaire' mind." She eyed the bed, that suggested not a vestige of comfort, to which the big man had returned. "You sleep on a straw mattress that can't be better than dust for the years the straw's remained unrenewed, while your captive and archenemy luxuriates in a relic of your heavy Victorian times. There's something lacking in a mind like yours."

"I've no doubt," the father admitted. And readdressed himself to the neat rolling of his puttees. "What's amiss, Nita?"

Garnet considered the girl's slim body contemplatively. Raamanita was no longer equipped in the gaudy regalia which dazzled the unsophisticated. She was just a modern young woman in an evening gown of dull red, severely cut to match the hardness characteristic of modern feminine feature. Her eyes were smouldering behind her contemptuous smile.

"So you're a double-cross as well as other things," she said, with cold spurning. "You give me to believe you fall in with a plan that can't fail us. Then you set out to defeat it. Result? Murder on the high seas. Attempted murder in London. Absolute murder of an important Englishman, with the English police only waiting to hang someone. A really clever record. And utter failure to defeat my plans. In spite of a foul and stupid double crossing Dick Farlow is sleeping under this roof waiting to be dealt with. I'd like to know the workings of your brilliant mind."

"At the moment it's telling me that Dick Farlow's presence —alive—is just an added foolishness to the rest of what you've been doing, my girl," he replied, with the sort of cold calm that exasperated. "The trouble with your sex, my dear, is that it always tries to adapt its plans to fit personal desire. It's incapable of fitting the right piece into a puzzle unless it forms the picture its mind has erroneously visualized. Certainly I set out to double-cross you. And I should have saved an ugly situation had I had the intelligence of white men working for me, instead of the damned stupidity of the men of your race. My sleep's over-due. Have you come here with fresh plans? Or to talk sane business?"

"First I've come to remind you that a double-cross is about the foulest thing in the world of crime to which you belong," the girl retorted hotly. "Then to talk sane business as—I see it. I've no intention of letting a double-crosser upset my temper. You see, I've won out in spite of him. Dick Farlow's here. He'll serve his purpose or there will be an end such as even you will approve of. Why have you relieved Ankubi of his charge of him?"

The puttees were both set on the whitewood table. Garnet reached a box of cheroots and took one. He lit it before replying.

"And yet one you need—desperately. One who's made all your work possible. One without whom your show would collapse in about five minutes. You seem to forget the political aspect I've tried to impress on you. The people are hating the memory of the Balbau. Now they're waiting for the magic of their queen. They know Farlow is our captive. And they're full of marvellous visions and only waiting. I've been very busy with propaganda. Dick Farlow should be the biggest trump in your hand. And he would be but for the fact that British police want to hang someone. You and Uncle Tony are too old to handle this show's tricky complications."

"Is it? It seems to me you're only chairman and managing directors for the shareholders. There are ten thousand of them. And when it comes to a pull I think you'll likely find I hold the voting power. Get rid of that idea, Father. And the sooner the better. I've probably got another forty or so years of life that doesn't intend to crash at even a father's will. You haven't many more years. And their curtailment won't so greatly signify. You see, the work can go on with youthful capacity at its head."

"Cheap sneers won't get us anywhere. But that can pass. The thing I want to settle here and now, is the matrimonial card you've been holding in your hand to force upon me. I've watched your manoeuvres for many moons now. You've bonded one of the two most capable and savage men of our people to you by playing him against the other with me as the prize. Prize? I could laugh. Only I know the unscruple in you. With Farlow here there's only one man for me. And if you can bring yourself to grasp that fact, and honestly acquiesce, there'll be no difficulty. My cousin, Ankubi, and your wolf, Ovrana, will have to wait for the dregs. You've got to head Ovrana off until such time as I may be ready. Partner me in this and you'll find me amenable. Try to force your man on me for your political ends and there are ten thousand creatures of savage blood who'll take a hand on my behalf. Believe me, I understand political values here in N'Gobi despite any sneers of youth. And I'm ready to fulfil my destiny and support you to the limit. But so long as Dick Farlow remains here—alive—you'll have to suspend all matrimonial scheming in any other direction."

Garnet lounged back against a tightly stuffed pillow. He dropped cigar ash unconcernedly on his blankets. One hand supported behind the close-cropped head. And a vague glimmer of a smile lit his curiously dead eyes.

"I see," he nodded. "Marvellous how history's repeating itself. I represent the wise men. And you are that remarkable young-old queen who went her way in spite of 'em."

"Perhaps. But take care the further history doesn't repeat itself in its most unfortunate form."

There was the edge of hot resentment in it. And the girl leant forward in her chair.

"Will you partner me? Will you give me your honest promise? I want a free hand with Dick Farlow. I must be unhampered by conflicting elements. You've nothing to fear from it. The wealth of N'Gobi is as much to me as it is to you. Nor do I regard our people beyond their uses in the work of it all. You hold Ovrana in leash while I put over the greatest political coup of our enterprise."

For moments the man leant back on his pillow chewing the long cheroot and belching smoke. He was not meditating. He was perhaps acting. But at last there came an inclination of a splendid head.

"That goes, Nita," he agreed. "But always so long as you realize there's to be no third white man to demand dividends. I think I can bet on your self interest. Anyway I will bet on it."

The girl stood up. She stood there a creature of superb womanhood—in her modern gown. But even in her relief there was a slant of shrewd Oriental eyes that should have warned of reservation.

"That should be the turning of an ugly page, Father," she said coolly. "I hope it is. Double-crossing isn't pretty. And for the victim of it—" She shrugged. "Now you can get your overdue sleep, if it's possible on such a bed, and in such quarters. I've had a stiffish day. And there's a stiffer one coming tomorrow with—Dick Farlow. This time it's an honest promise, Father? I can rely on it?"

The girl waited. She received no more than a nod of the cropped white head by way of reply. And she knew she would have to be content with it. She gazed about the room preliminary to departure.

"Wonderful thing singleness of purpose," she scorned. "A driving force leaving its victim looking neither to the right nor left. I'm glad I'm no monomaniac. I'm glad wealth only appeals to me for its material benefit."

The man's cheroot was removed from his mouth. There was nothing in his cold eyes but their frigidity.

"But you'd sacrifice none of it, Nita," he said harshly. "You want it all—too. You're sneering because you only see through your own eyes. Some day you'll get a wider view. Some day —when the youth in you tames itself. If I wanted untold wealth for the reason you do I have it. Any millions N'Gobi may yield me now will only make for redundance. Your people hold the clue to the world's greatest mystery. It's hidden in these hills. Today the world's scratching for gold like gleaners in a field when the harvest's been carried. Thousands of years ago it possessed the main crop. Yes. Mine's a single purpose. And failure means the end of everything for me. But make no mistake, I shan't tolerate failure that is not my own. And should failure come I promise you no one else shall succeed. Good-night."

The dismissal was peremptory. And as Raamanita took a departure that was something ignominious she felt that she had looked closer at her parent than ever she had done before. But she had no thought of the need of rest at which she had hinted.

CHAPTER XVI. — GLEAMING EYES

THE rattle of gunfire on the boat's armour was like the intermittent peppering of wind-driven hail. It disturbed Larky's temper.

He gazed out into a night world. The stars of the cavern's roof had ceased to function. The white glare of the arc lamps had blacked out. The faint light prevailing was a glimmer percolating down the ramp, and the deflected daylight from a quarter which had been almost forgotten. Larky could just make out activity on one of the pierheads. The left one. That which had been the quay on which his chief had landed.

The engine had been cut out as the boat's sternway had carried it well clear of the narrow waters between the piers. The boat was adrift, lost in vague darkness, a glimmer of drifting light on an unlit sea.

Larky swung his wheel to keep head on to the hail of fire pouring from the pierhead. He reached the switch and shut off the single light under the armoured shelter, and spoke to the yearning gunman beside him out of one corner of his mouth.

"There's a dirty crowd of the ugly blighters camped on that pierhead amusing themselves with us for a cockshy. Reckon they think we're where they want us, or I don't know the 'Olloway Road from next Tuesday. Do we sit here doggo in a perishin' tunnel? Or do we hand 'em a packet of lead that won't make pencils? Lousy trick shutting the lock gates on us. Lay your gun. And I'll light up so you can see." Omba rumbled delight.

"Us kill 'em," he observed naively. "My brother make plenty light. Omba make all dead quick." Larky snorted.

"Not so much 'brother,'" he demurred sharply. "If you got to get familiar make it 'cousin.' You'll have me going all piebald or something. About this 'all-dead-quick' business. Get ready. Don't waste a shot. Them shells are all numbered. And the yeller blokes peppering the barge are numbered to match. All of 'em cokernuts. See? Get a clear eye on 'em. And—wait for it."

Larky reached. He dealt with the head and rear-light switches. And four lamps flashed out a tremendous blaze of light. It revealed the "cokernuts." A crowd of khaki-clad figures, armed with mauser repeaters, were in occupation of the pierhead, making steady and deliberate target practice.

Omba needed no further orders. He knew his work and loved it. It was an easy target but worthy. He laid to his machine-gun with savage affection. Never in his life had he so appreciated the white man's "med'cine." His sharp "rat-tat" began steadily.

Larky observed results. There came an immediate lull in the hail on the boat's armour. There seemed uncertainty on the pierhead. Then confusion. The "rat-tat" became more rapid. Omba was on his target and without mercy. In moments he was launching a withering fire. And the pierhead threatened to become a slaughter yard.

The effect was almost ludicrous despite the human slaughter of it. The foremost of the gunmen crumpled under a stream of fire they could not escape. And as they went down those behind received the withering blast of it. But only for a matter of seconds. Headlong flight supervened. And Larky thought of rabbits.

"Cor! Fair rabbits!" Larky sighed, as he watched the headlong retreat. "They'll make their holes. Here! Raise your elevation, Omba. Blast 'em and bustle 'em. The blighters!"

The bloodthirsty Basuto was without loth. Two full belts completed his pious work. And his gun ran hot. But he had achieved a slaughter to satisfy the most fastidious. When he ceased fire no living thing showed up in the beam of the boat's searchlights.

"Christ!" he exploded. "Not half! Some of the Bolshies ought to hand you a meal ticket to do their dirty work, Omba," he appreciated. "'Spect you'd clean up a counter-revolution in about two ticks. You wouldn't half wake up one of them abattoirs!"

Omba's eyes shone like those of a grateful hound. "Much rabbit," he gloated hugely.

Larky switched on his engine. The boat nosed ahead. He cut out the stern lights and focussed the headlights to a narrow super beam. It shone down the length of the left pier and reached the foot of the ramp.

Cautiously the craft came to the narrow waters. It passed the pierheads. Then it edged towards the left. As the boat closed up on the quayside Larky imparted fresh orders.

"Here, cully," he cried. "Get back to the well and grab the first ring-bolt. Just make fast with a light line you can slash adrift easy. See? I'm going to have a dekko. Nothing like dead men for telling tales. Ought to be able to scrounge an arsenal of useful weapons, too. When I've got ashore you can get behind your gun again and kill anything you see alive—except me. See?"

A few moments later Larky was emulating the landing of his chief. And as he stood up on the worn stone of the quay, and surveyed the litter of dead or wounded, he knew a world of satisfaction.

Larky moved cautiously and became systematic. The quay was some thirty or forty feet wide. He was outside the beam of his own searchlights, and visibility was none too good. As far as he could discover there were twenty or so bodies sprawled on the stones. And, by some of the vague and unpleasant sounds that reached him, he knew that they were not all dead. Farther down, towards the ramp, he saw a few more lying in the lane of the boat's light.

Larky had a passion for orderliness. So he made his way to the pierhead and dealt with each body as he came to it.

The first body was dead. He turned it over. It had a long sheath-knife, and an automatic stuffed in a big side pocket of its khaki tunic. There was a mauser rifle beside it. He collected the weapons, piled them, and decided that burial was indicated. He rolled the body to the quayside and dumped it. Then he passed to another victim who was badly wounded.

The same procedure was practiced. But he paused before deciding the burial question. He argued it out quite seriously with himself. The wounded man was yellow. The body was making most unpleasant noises. Any attempt to assist it would probably accentuate them. Then ministrations might even bring about revival. It was not likely, of course. But it would mean another yellow man alive in the world which would make for superfluity.

The body was quite close to the edge of the quay. Larky's foot placed it even nearer. As the sound of a heavy splash came up to him Larky turned away to a third victim of Omba's better shooting.

Larky found sombre entertainment. He visited each of the dead and wounded, and treated them all impartially. And, in the process of the work of it all, he collected an arsenal of weapons and other details which he hoped might prove informative. It was absorbing work.

The pierhead was entirely restored to its original nakedness. And Larky pondered the more scattered and fewer bodies farther down the quay. His lust for loot prevailed. The work of burial must go on.

He took his last risk and cleared the last body he could discover in the shadows. Then he returned to the boat, and, with Omba's assistance, collected the loot he had harvested.

With stern lights facing in their appointed direction and headlights extinguished, the boat slid away stern first from its temporary mooring. Larky craned round from his wheel in search of direction. Omba's gun was still trained through his port. But the Basuto was in the well making ready two other guns which might be brought into action at any moment. Larky knew the content of a man who has not unprofitably employed his time.

Searching the far distance Larky renewed acquaintance with the loom of daylight which had originally intrigued his chief. The vision of it brought inspiration.

As the craft gathered way his inspiration consolidated itself. He knew that vague patch of daylight to be well within the area of slack water. Its situation was appropriate. It could be seen from anywhere on the piers. And it commanded the river both ways. It only remained for him to find a safe mooring in a visibility that would be more than welcome. The vigil ahead of him would thus become less irksome.

He swung the boat. Then he summoned Omba. The lean black body slid into its place beside him.

"Here," Larky confided. "D'you know what we're going to do? Act strategic! You won't know about that. But strategic means you can kick the other bloke's pants but he can't kick yours. We're going to cut out our lights and make that mouldy spot of daylight where we'll see the river both ways. The baas'll be able to see us when we light up again—if he comes back. And the lights'!! show us him. See what I mean?"

The boat was speeding on a level keel. Both men were peering. Searching anxiously. As it approached the loom of daylight seemed to get brighter. And Larky drove straight for it regardless of all possibility of lurking disaster.

They discovered swiftly. It was a sharply defined outline of rock. A monstrous entrance to a daylit cavern. And just as it clearly revealed itself Omba's deep bass seemed to tear the bottom out of things. One word. But it was sufficient. "Weed!"

But Larky knew. He had felt the pull on his rudder. And the engine was slowing. Without hesitation he reached the pump switches and ordered sharply:

"Get aft! Keep her clear while I skim her. Christ! If it ain't one bleedin' thing it's another."

It was a different form of slaughter but one which appealed, nevertheless. Omba fought the writhing strands slithering over the deck with the fury of horror. He hacked and hewed with passionate desire to kill. And while the emptying ballast tanks lifted the craft he held the fort at the stern.

The struggle was brief. And while it lasted it left that upon which the boat was advancing wholly unobserved. But, as pressure relaxed, and the field of deadly Living Weed was crossed, Larky switched on his lights and his sombre eyes were quickened into the sort of staring life that ill-became them.

The boat passed under a mammoth archway to enter a lagoon of still water that was no longer beset by submerged terror. Its far reaches were shadowed. But, centrally, broad daylight streamed down through some vent far above to light a small island sloping smoothly and gently up from the water's surface. It was that island with its horrific occupant which had bestirred Larky to something akin to panic.

He stared for some moments as unmoving as that upon which he gazed. Then of a sudden he called:

Larky in panic was never less than savage. He was of the type that would die fighting furiously. And every murderous instinct he possessed was stirred in him as he watched the baleful creature for its slightest movement.

It was the biggest crocodile Larky had ever imagined in his most fantastic dreams. The mighty brute was standing high on grotesque legs that were almost trunk-like in their massiveness. Its jaws were widely agape, with its upper jaw lifted in a manner of ravening. And a pair of hateful green eyes reflected the light of the boat's searchlights with a glare of ferocious anticipation. It was the epitome of predatory aggression.

Omba trained his gun with deliberation. The monster was standing high. And its soft, unarmoured underflesh was open to his aim. A gust of fire rattled. A second. And a third. And the only result was a multitude of echoes which bespoke a shower of ricochets.

"Stone!" he cried, while the echoes flung the word back at him. "A blinkin' image. Cor!"

The boat steadily moved on towards the island. Larky sat quite still observing the growing immensity of the creature it supported. Then again he pointed.

"Them eyes, Omba," he said. "See 'em? Jewels!" Then in a tone of cupidity that was entirely lost upon the Basuto: "Emeralds! That's what they are. And big as eggs."

Larky's recovery was complete. A stone image! He felt the laugh to be on him. He gave the engine more juice in a quick resolve to get something of his own back. And he set the pumps taking in ballast to lower the boat to its level keel.

The lagoon appeared to be devoid of any foreshore. Larky saw sheer cliff in every direction. The containing walls rose out of the water. Black, basaltic rock that was deeply scored vertically as though blasted by the venting of subterranean fires. They inclined conically. And finally closed upon a circular apex of daylight. He felt as though his boat were moving over the shining surface of a great lens with the eye-piece of a telescope hundreds of feet above him.

But, beyond a swift, all-embracing glance at his surroundings, he only had eyes for the growing immensity of the grim image he was approaching. At that moment it meant nothing to him that the place was a deadly trap. He was wholly unconcerned that its only entrance and exit was by that which was defended by a field of submerged Living Weed. He had no thought for those strategic values he had explained so lucidly to Omba. Grimly baleful eyes were observing his approach. They were green jewels that he believed to be emeralds. And emeralds, the size of breakfast eggs, impressed him as bespeaking untold wealth.

"That bloke, Omba," he said. "Cor! Fair put the wind up me. 'Struth! Ought to be along with Charlie Peace in the Chamber of 'Orrors. Hell of a packet to scare kids with. Fair cop, though, ain't it? Enemy territory. Get back to the well. Get a long line ready. The long hook, too. 'Spect you'd better get the fenders over the side. You can't tell. Make it lively. We're going to tie up."

Omba passed aft. Larky gave his whole attention to a safe approach. The manoeuvre was simpler than he had anticipated. The water was currentless. It was as still as a pond. There was good depth. Then the circular island proved to be a clean-cut pedestal, a mass of humanly constructed masonry. The approach was like that of a quayside.

Larky set his wheel. Cut out his engine and relied on drift while he passed back to the well.

With the long hook he groped for hold in the interstices of the masonry. He hauled gently until the fenders made contact with the stone. Then, passing the hook to Omba in exchange for the line, he mounted the well-rail and took a flying leap.

Larky's rubber soles gripped the inclined surface and, paying out his rope, he hurried up the slope. He reached a flattened top and stood like some pigmy in the shadow of the monster towering above him. But it was not the overwhelming of the vast idol that brought him to a standstill. He was mired in a charnel of bleached human bones with the eyeless sockets of a multitude of human skulls grinning up at him from every direction.

One uncertain hand passed across his forehead. The hateful grin of those fleshless skulls nauseated. With an effort he pulled himself together. The emerald eyes were all powerful. Resolutely he floundered amongst the bones to reach the image's head, and make fast his rope about its foremost trunklike leg.

With that part of his work completed he breathed relief and stood up. He was under the mighty canopy of the creature's belly. Its aged carving was so realistic that Larky almost doubted.

For some moments he regarded the great head and the difficulties it presented. The lower jaw, with its age-worn stone fangs up-standing, was within his reach. It would provide him with a platform. The estimate of its twenty feet or so of length was not so far out. And its massivity was ample to carry his weight. He leapt for a grip on it and swung himself up.

To climb up on to the raised upper jaw was simple. He edged in towards the great stone head. And, in a few moments, was stretched prone peering into the malignant green of one jewelled eye.

Larky's understanding of mechanical skill promptly appreciated. The glittering, cut jewel was socketed in a chiselled stone setting. It was held firmly in place by an upper and lower rim of stone which had been carved to represent some sort of human eyelids. They were unworn. Perfect.

He decided on his needs in a moment. A cold chisel and a hammer. His tool-kit aboard the boat would have no difficulty in supplying them. He clambered back to the platform of the lower jaw. And finally dropped to the bed of human remains. Pie had quite lost any feeling of nauseation.

CHAPTER XVII. — THE TIGRESS

"THAT completes a day. Or does it?" The thought provoked a grin as Farlow surveyed his luxurious prison in search of any sign of intrusion during his absence. He had just returned from his interview with the man he knew to be Lionel Garnet, and was pretty confident of a life and death struggle lying ahead of him.

In a few brief hours Farlow had obtained a wealth of information. The spoken word had contributed its share. But observation had provided the greater part of it. And, of all he had discovered, two items stood out paramount in his estimation. He had made contact with those responsible for Alan Forrester's murder. And now, at last, he was aware of the amazing: meaning of N'Gobi itself.

That which he had learned of the latter told him that the gold interests of the Rand had been right. Only had the Government blundered. N'Gobi was the reality of the fantastic dreams which, since the first stamp-battery had been set up, had filled the waking thoughts of Africa's gold man. N'Gobi concealed the fabulous parent lode which fathered the wide-flung tributaries of gold with which Africa has had to be content for so long. Its secret was the possession of two skilful and unscrupulous men, and the amazing queen of a yellow race. It was being exploited feverishly. And such was its prodigious value that wholesale murder and ruthless massacre had become commonplace in its defence.

Much else of the secrets of N'Gobi he had uncovered. There was its linking with ancient history. There was the evidence of cross-currents warring in the enemy's camp. There was the fact that his own life was not worth a moment's purchase. But these were all of lesser interest.

The outlook ahead of him was certainly problematical. But the hunter in Farlow refused to pause. He had trailed the spoor of his quarry. He had come up with it. The final encounter must be fought out to its logical conclusion.

Farlow was no longer under the eye of a warder. And there was no detested key to turn in any lock. These things being so he passed on to his sleeping quarters to prepare for the night's rest to which he considered himself fully entitled.

He paused beside the mahogany bedstead to find amusement in the vision of a silken eiderdown here in the heart of N'Gobi.

He stripped it from the bed. And forthwith he passed on to the bathroom to revel in a luxury which for days had been denied him.

The need of night-clothes did not occur. Farlow returned from the bathroom fully dressed in his flannels and shirt. He passed again into his sitting-room to reassure himself. Then, satisfied that Garnet had kept his word, he switched off all lights and flung himself upon the immaculateness of his richly sprung bed. His defencelessness left him with not a moment's disquiet.

Farlow began his night's rest with amused concern for those he had left to defend the motor-boat. He rather wondered if he had not left them "holding the baby." But, drowsily, he reminded himself that detriment could not easily occur with Larky in command. Larky would certainly forebode calamity and defend against it.

His thought rambled drowsily over a wide field before the confusion of dreaming set in. But at last he slept. And it was with that lightness which is the hunter's surest defence.

Perhaps it may have been a matter of defensive, sensing which the human so easily reclaims from the fallows of savage heritage. At any rate Farlow awoke. Wide awake and listen-ing....

Despite falling water the night silence was intense. There seemed to be nothing to account for his waking. And yet he remained listening for that which he knew he would presently hear again. Stealthily he reached a hip pocket. It was for the torch he had thrust there before leaving the boat. He withdrew it. He was almost in the act of flashing it. Then he returned it to its place. He had picked up the sound he awaited. It was in the outer room. A mere brushing, as of undesired contact with furniture.

Farlow's movement matched the disturbing sound for stealth. Sprawled uncovered on his bed, still shod in his rubber-soled shoes, his long legs lifted and swung over. His danger lay in creaking springs. But there was no sound. In a moment, almost, he was sitting erect, treading the thick carpet runner at his bedside.

His movement was soundless. He stood up cautiously. He listened intently and sensed breathing. He moved off towards where the rug under his feet went on to the arched doorway of the bathroom.

He reached the bathroom archway and passed through it to shelter behind its wall. He stood peering back into darkness. There were moments of waiting that to Farlow were no longer soundless. He not alone sensed movement. He could hear something approaching the bed he had just vacated.

It caught Farlow craning round the archway. He was there in its full glare. Concealment was out of the question. So he stood out framed in the opening, his only defence two capable hands, and his lean activity and immense strength.

But no defence was required. The scene he beheld had no part in it for him. It just flashed at him in the light-glare. And its action was completed while yet he was staggered at its significance.

There had been a slim, khaki-clad figure standing at his bedside. It was the figure of the man he had come to know as Ovrana. There had been a long-bladed knife in his hand. It had not been raised to strike. It had just been gripped ready. Then the big bulk of another khaki-clad figure had leapt. And the scene had come to its bloody termination.

It was the massive bulk of the great Ankubi that had sprang at the other. He, too, was equipped with a knife. The light flashed on its gleaming blade as it descended with huge force into the hollow of Ovrana's left shoulder. There was the sound of heavy impact. The sound of scuffling feet. But that was all. Ovrana went down without even a groan. Just the dead sound of a falling body. He crumpled, sagged, and sprawled at the big man's feet.

Farlow's gaze averted as the wolf-eyed creature lumped to the ground. But it was nothing to do with revulsion at the spectacle of savage murder. It was an amazed realization of the figure standing framed within the far doorway of his sitting-room. A ravishing vision in the lightest of silken night attire! Raamanita! Clad in gossamer pyjamas!

Raamanita had seated herself on the edge of the bed. She sat there with shapely legs, under the flimsiest raiment, casually crossed. One knee was clasped by slim hands while she smoked a cigarette through a long, bejewelled holder.

The great Ankubi was standing over the remains of the man he had slain. He was not regarding them. He had eyes only for the slim beauty seated on the bed. Farlow was clear of the bathroom and standing just beyond Ankubi's shoulder. Living and dead almost filled the limited space which the bed furniture left.

Raamanita was staring down at the dead thing at her feet. At that moment Farlow realized beauty only in feature and figure. The girl's expression reminded him. Her Oriental eyes were ablaze with a baleful glitter. He felt as though she might be a tigress contemplating its prey. Her gaze was on the ooze of congealing blood that saturated the carpet runner about the dead man's shoulder.

For some moments no word had been spoken. Ankubi was waiting upon his queen with dog-like patience. Farlow saw no advantage in drawing attention to himself. He understood. It was those cross-currents again. Cross-currents which had murder for their main expression. His life had been the immediate objective. To salve and to destroy. These two were on the side of its salving.

Raamanita released her knee. She removed her cigarette from carefully painted lips. She raised a dark head decorated with the jewels on her forehead. The gleam of her eyes was infinitely cold as she looked into the face of her big servant.

"Good work, Ankubi," she commended unemotionally. "You've always considered him a ripe candidate for the knife. No one can serve two people without disaster to themselves. Ovrana was a cunning and greedy wolf. Take it away. Use my car. See that the crocodile has it before daylight. The weed will bury all trace."

She stood up. And her beauty of figure set her big servant's pulses racing. The man's eyes regarded hungrily.

"Then remove it at once. And this carpet must be replaced before morning. See to these things, my friend. You'll not go unrewarded."

Then Farlow waited while a swiftly flowing talk went on in a tongue of which he had no knowledge. He understood. It was his presence which had banned further use of English.

When the talk ceased he witnessed an exhibition which he found more than enlightening. Life and death to these people was a matter of supreme indifference. Ankubi picked up the dead Ovrana like a native bearer shouldering a dead buck. He jolted the body into a correct balance and strode towards the outer door as though the burden of it were nothing. Raamanita watched him till he vanished through the doorway. Then she turned to Farlow with a little mirthless laugh.

"The other room, Dick Farlow, I think," she said. "More savoury. Ovrana had a few good points in life. He had more bad points. Dead he's entirely unwholesome. The man was a cunning fool. He got less than he deserved. Still, I'm inclined to think you are something in my debt. But even more in Captain Ankubi's. I shall smoke a cigarette with you to steady my nerves."

She passed from the bedroom with Farlow close behind. He reached a heavy chair and set it for her. He remained standing to offer his cigarette case.

"I quite agree," he said, as the girl accepted a cigarette and waited for him to light it for her. "Your concern for me has been most gracious and—Dr—watchful. Not only are my thanks due. Perhaps admiration for such timely action. I can detect no unsteadiness of nerve."

Having lit her cigarette the girl lounged back in a chair sizes too big for her. And Farlow became aware of bare shapely feet encased in the daintiest of bejewelled slippers. He blew a gust of smoke from the cigarette he had just lit. And the manner of it lacked something of his usual calm.

"But you're right, of course," he went on quickly. "Ovrana certainly was a cunning fool who would not have succeeded in the killing he was after. I was quite ready for him. You see, I've had a lot of experience with those who saw no good purpose in leaving me alive. But isn't it going to be a bit awkward for you? What I mean: your father. He'll be wanting our dead friend's report. Won't he carry on shockin' or something when his wolf-eyed pet don't turn up with the scalp? You know I've come to feel your father's not by any means a light-handed man since he talked to me in thousands of tons of high explosive. Don't fancy he'll be a bit pleased."

"I see," she said at last. Then she drew a little breath of feeling. "You know, Dick, I'm beginning to wonder if we younger ones have anything on advancing years. I'm beginning to think the Victorian mind was a pretty sound proposition when it came to putting a job over. But we can leave all that. We're going to have a great time together tomorrow. Anyway I certainly am. I suppose about the most treasured moment life contains is when we contrive to startle the world. For the time being you will be my particular world which I intend to startle. Now tomorrow—"

"We can safely contemplate it—now. Looking forward to it. Hope we'll have a nice day for it."

The girl's darkly curling lashes lowered to hide that which her eyes might have betrayed.

"It's nice to think you're looking forward. But I want more. You know. Marvellous! Amazing! Stupendous! All the superlatives. Vanity, of course." She laughed. And her eyes were no longer hidden. "But it'll be great fun. The morning. That's for the old workings. Amazing galleries worked thousands of years ago. And now the most up to date mines in Africa. The city! My ancient capital. Sort of new type of Garden City. With all modern conveniences. In the evening. The falls, which can rival the Zambesi's. And our power house. The afternoon. Only 'The Glory of the World,' whose name was given thousands of years ago when they hewed mountain roads out of solid rock by hand, and counted no time. An eyrie from which, if you only had telescopic vision, you would behold a wide world which our people long to repossess. Early tea. And then you will be admitted to the actual heart of N'Gobi. The Temple of the Crocodile. Tomorrow is to be your day of revelation, my Dick. And unless you're made of the ironstone which encases the treasure of these hills you will, as the American says, fall for it."

The swift change in the girl's mood was there in the passing of her smile. And in the cold lifting of beautifully rounded shoulders under the gossamer that pretended covering. Farlow read threat in final words that apparently contained none.

Raamanita drew up her legs to tuck them under her. A slipper was left behind, displaying the crimson varnish used in exquisite pediculture. Farlow reached the shoe and restored it to its rightful place. The girl's smiling returned. She settled the shoe to her own satisfaction. And, in the process of leaning forward, the perfect contours of her bosom became thrust upon the man's gaze.

Farlow leant against the table. He inhaled deeply. His hands went to the table's edge and gripped. The girl's loveliness was well nigh irresistible. It was the dead of night. They were alone. And she— But, even in that surge of manhood's madness, he remembered the tiger he had seen peering down in gloating at the dead at its feet.

"Fall for it? Of course," he grinned. "Haven't I made the jolly little trip of your Gorge of White Death for that revelation? But I'm worried, my dear. You see, I've looked your father over with the eyes of a man. Then I remember all the sort of thing that travelled with the map you sent me. And —Ovrana. It don't seem to me you'd get an hour of life if Lionel Garnet didn't want you to have it. I don't yet know enough, of course. But, in a vague sort of way, I see you two pulling on a rope with an abyss at your end of it waiting for the rope to break." The girl's laughter became infectious.

"You're splendid, Dick," she breathed. "But of course you had to be. If you hadn't—!" She gestured. "You needn't concern yourself with any tug-of-war in which I'm concerned with Father. I've tried to tell you. To show you. You forget I'm a reincarnation. Without me here to bond his forces for him Father's dream would fall in dust about his head. A word from me and I should be an orphan, fatherless and motherless, in possession of a hidden wealth that couldn't be counted in figures."

She leapt from the depths of her chair with the agile strength and grace of a young panther. And she came close to the man at the table. She looked up into his face with the hot eyes of her kind.

"You've been a big man, Dick," she cried. "Your name has been one of the paramount names in this old country. If not the paramount. You've done the things only a man may do. And they fill me with envy and admiration. All that is denied to a woman whatever her spirit. But when you think of my father you want to remember that the sex which denies me the big things of life still makes me omnipotent in N'Gobi. Think it over. Good-night."

Farlow decided that of all the chances he had ever taken none had been comparable with the risk of smoking a cigarette in the dead of night with the pyjama-clad sovereign of a yellow race. He breathed profound relief with her departure after that abrupt "Good-night." He felt it had been a miraculous escape. Nor was it necessarily from Ovrana's knife.

He decided upon the big chair in which Raamanita had curled herself. And he spread himself out in it. J For nearly an hour he pondered the woman. Then came Ankubi. It was an almost soundless return. The man seemed to glide into the room. He glanced down at the recumbent figure in the chair without a word as he passed on into the sleeping quarters. In a few moments he returned shouldering a roll of bloodstained carpet.

Farlow forgot the night's disturbance in a grin of sheer delight. It was all grotesque. The big leader of Raamanita's army removing the carpet! He tried conversation. But Ankubi had no more love for a white man, in whom his mistress was deeply interested, than he had for the victim of his knife. Completely ignoring he passed from the room with his blood-stained burden leaving Farlow to sleep till daylight with all the soundness of a completely weary man.

CHAPTER XVIII. — THE GOLD SLAVES

FARLOW'S morning summons came while he was gazing down upon the wonder-scene beyond his window. He saw the mighty trough containing the prolonged lake, with its moored boats. He beheld buildings in all directions. Buildings that were quaintly designed homes. And others that were obviously factories of sorts. He saw the overhanging mists of the great falls. And, on the lake's foreshore he discovered the aerodrome with its hangars. In the midst of the absorbing interest of it all the voice of his messenger jarred.

It was a royal command that lost nothing in its harsh delivery. Queen Raamanita required Colonel Farlow's attendance forthwith!

Again it was across the gardened quadrangle of shrubs and flowers to be handed over to the charge of a young girl. But this time the direction was different. The girl was uniformed in an immaculate white frock that was knee length. And she was clearly of the domestic type. She led him into the shaded fourth side of the house which sheltered under sheer cliff. She left him waiting in an antechamber.

When she returned it was to hold curtains aside to admit him to Raamanita's presence.

Farlow discovered nothing in the nature of Lionel Garnet's hall of audience. On the contrary, he might well have been entering an ultra modern drawing-room, with bare, rose-tinted walls, but luxurious with flowers and rich sitting accommodation. It was intensely a woman's room, lavish with Oriental rugs to soften the tread upon stone flooring.

But there was no time for more than a swift, comprehensive glance, for a smiling queen, clad in a glittering costume of green sequins, and whose dark head was crowned with a mass of jewels to match, was waiting to receive him. She was surrounded with female youth whose looks made no pretence to vie with Raamanita's. These girls, like his recent guide, wore uniform white. And only did a single green jewel banded on their foreheads mark difference in station.

Raamanita was standing with her women. She was smoking a cigarette in the jewelled holder Farlow remembered. And as he approached he endeavoured to recall some glittering evil that found expression in the precise emerald hue in which she was clad. He watched the imperious manner in which she dismissed her entourage.

He thought of her in diaphanous pyjamas. But no word was spoken till the last woman had withdrawn. Then Raamanita developed a burble of mocking laughter.

"Well, Dick?" she cried, gesturing a beautifully manicured hand holding her cigarette. "How was it? Effective?"

"That wasn't in the scheme," she demurred. "In thousands of years our poor girls have been descending to a Kaffir caste. They've never had the uplift of white blood. I'd have been the same but for my father. It was a little set piece for your impressing. Acting. That's why you were brought here instead of joining me in the car. Besides, this is a new uniform of mine. I wanted your reaction to it. Rather effective I think."

"Couldn't have said anything more neatly satisfying, Dick. Devilish! Of course. Quite inappropriate equipping devils in red. Green's the real satanic colour. More green, more devil. But we mustn't keep them waiting. Our escort. We shall be conducted with ceremonial. I daren't relax before our people. Particularly now."

They passed into the antechamber to be taken possession of by a uniformed escort. They filed off at once. Two and two ahead. And the same ceremonial behind them. They crossed the quadrangle. They progressed in dignified state down the halls and corridors to the front doors of the house. Then a double line of the advance guard formed itself into a human lane. Ankubi was there. And there was no love for any of it in his smouldering eyes as he noiselessly closed the car door upon his sovereign.

No word was spoken as the car moved off. Farlow was observing in the golden light of a brilliant day. He saw the splendid ruins of an ancient temple, which, overnight, had suggested a cemetery. Then he beheld the abyss which the car was intended to negotiate. He realized hairpin bends declining at something like one in two. The dizziness of it was a little hair-raising. And he forgot everything else in his admiration for the nerve and skill of the slim youth in the driving seat.

"One needs the nerve of a parachutist, Dick," she said. "I'm inclined to think no mind but father's could have conceived that road and built it. I prefer its ascent. And then at night."

But Farlow had already forgotten the descent. He was gazing out on the township littering the lake shore.

Raamanita forgot her queen business. She pointed with the eagerness of one showing the sights.

"Rather priceless, I think," she declared. "I mean they're so completely different. The houses. Look at those domes. Oriental. The cube of the rest. No lean-to. No bay-window. I don't think, outside the real East, there's anything like our houses anywhere. But then, though they've all been built in the last forty years, those who built them used a design that their ancestors used, as likely as not before the Biblical flood."

She laughed at the sudden eruption of women and children from the doors of the houses they were passing.

"Royalty moving abroad," she mocked. "Attraction irresistible. Observe the prodigious number of children."

"At work. We've no unemployed." Raamanita's enjoyment was patent. "Every man is claimed for the mines, and to defend them. Many women, too. Those not busy with even more important occupation. These poor creatures have their hands full. So they are privileged to our royal progress. About that privilege," she laughed. "Where's the glad smiles and welcome? The acclamation? Can't see or hear any. Must be the Balbau. They know who's with me."

"Ought to please 'em," he said grinning. "Arch-enemy in power of beloved Queen. Her magic. What?" But the girl's mood had passed.

"I'm afraid not, though. The worst offence in the world's an idol's failure. It's not the man who robbed them of sons and husbands on the Balbau. It's the woman who let him do it. Their idol has failed them. But I think we shall be able to change all that."

Farlow ignored. He watched the scene of it. It was the centre of the little city. It was crowded with small buildings. There were bigger beyond. He saw smoke-stacks here and there, and wondered in a town founded on electric power. But he let the matter pass for a greater interest. There were patches of rose-tinted ruins. Then they were approaching the overnight bridge, which he saw to be like all the rest—rose-tinted. He gestured.

"What is it?" he asked, in a tone of peeved curiosity. "All this stone? Where do you get it? I've seen it before somewhere."

"Have you? I don't think so." She laughed shrewdly. "There's more than you, Dick, would like to know about that stone. I expect the Rand would pay millions for the secret. You've heard of Blue Ground? Where they get the diamonds? It's iron hard before the sun pulverizes it. This stone's precisely the opposite of that. It's a soft, pasty clay below ground. You can cut it and shape it with spades, as you please. Set it in the sun and it hardens at once, so that it becomes permanently indestructible. It's N'Gobi. Which means 'Red Clay.' It's the packing N'Gobi sets round its every auriferous reef. Father claims it to be the richest gold deposit in the world. He believes it could be treated and washed to show an enormous profit. But the ancients didn't need it. So they used it for building."

"Houses of gold! Streets of it! You know I rather think that's the biggest wonder you're going to show me. Ought to be a new one on the chemists and geologists, and upset them quite a lot. Outrages all the canons of gold formation."

Farlow would have liked to pursue the subject of the marvellous red clay. But the township was passing. And all his attention became centred on the thorn-jungle. He saw that it footed a range of lesser hills, which suggested the pedestal upon which the icy loom of N'Gobi's peak rested.

The car did not cross the overnight bridge. It turned sharply off to the right on a broad road scored by heavy traffic which was new to Farlow. It followed the course of a broad, rushing mountain torrent transporting N'Gobi's icy waters. And it mounted the right shoulder of a gloomy kloof.

The ascent was steep and began at once. The broad track of it lifted clear above the dense jungle of the torrent's banks. It became almost a bare, rocky ledge. And it terminated, within a mile, in a gaping, natural portal.

Farlow had visions of subterranean wanderings with this lovely creature beside him. But, to his intense relief, he was spared that temptation. Just within the vast cavern entrance Pulati drew up the car and climbed down from his seat. He opened the door. And Farlow became aware of a small branching cavern, and the rumble of distant machinery which told of stamp-batteries. Raamanita pointed.

"You alight here," she said. And, apparently for her servant's benefit, her manner was again imperious. "I've given orders for you to see all you want to. The secrets of the mines. If enthusiasm sustains you, you can walk for many miles in galleries that were mined thousands of years ago. I shall remain in father's office until you return."

Farlow left the car with unflattering haste. But in spite of smiling thanks he eyed the three yellow creatures waiting to receive him with definite distaste. They were clad in familiar overalls with little enough clothing underneath. He wondered. Why three?

The car moved away. And he passed into a passage that was brilliantly illuminated to reveal its natural formations.

He hurried under the escort of the men whom he decided were his guards rather than guides. And he realized that the yellow people had little doubt as to his being a prisoner who must not be permitted to escape. The order of going was as it had been the night before, except that a double rear-guard was close behind him as they moved down the long winding passage.

The leading guard opened it to reveal a spacious rock antechamber. And at once the rumble of machinery developed into the thunderous crashing of many "stamps." They crossed the antechamber. A heavy steel door admitted them to the battery house. And Farlow beheld.

It was a startling revelation. The light was almost blinding. The crashing of the machines deafening. The hurry. The air of vast operation. It was a monstrous natural cavern. And hundreds of "stamps" were furiously at work wresting the secret treasure from under the adamant seal which Nature had set upon it.

In a first swift survey Farlow beheld grim facets of unhewn walls. They provided a demoniac setting for hurrying yellow figures. But in a moment he became absorbed in the activities of a gold plant of comparable capacity with anything in the world. A plant that was the last word in the older battery principle of the cyanide process.

His knowledge of gold mining was of a sound working order. He was more than capable of appraising the enterprise and capacity he found in operation. He had looked for the primitive, the makeshift of the unscientific, and found only an organization scientifically complete to the last detail.

Each stamp was crashing its weight of some fifteen hundred pounds with rhythmic precision. He knew each to be capable of ten tons or so of quartz every day of twenty-four hours. He knew the work went on day and night. And the sum of it flashed through his mind. The mass must be tremendous. Three hundred and sixty-five days every year!

He asked himself what manner of gold yield could be rewarding these people? It must be colossal since they could afford the greater waste of batteries instead of the better extraction of tube mills. Surely it would have to be fabulous for the "all-slimes" treatment to be ignored.

He missed none of it. He asked no questions. He realized the men in charge of him to be mere technicians. He just devoted himself to memorizing, to the weaving of a mental picture under starkly revealing light.

At the cavern's far end he beheld the "grizzlies" at the inlet from the mine galleries beyond. They were disgorging an unending stream of broken ore upon the broad travelling belts. He saw the trommels at work discharging the broken ore for selection by hand-picking. The conduits projecting wet pulp and slime from the stamps to pass it through graduated screens on to the corduroys. And he watched the tailing pumps taking up to the classification plant where tube-mills, with their cyanide solution, were waiting to dissolve out before discharge of the waste.

It all seemed unreal. A dream. This was the outlaw N'Gobi. Thousands of miles beyond the modern world of gold. And, at last, Farlow bawled at the man in the roar of the machines:

"Fine plant!" he shouted. "Batteries instead of all-tube mills. Corduroys instead of amalgamated coppers. But the galleries'll show me something worth while. Old enough to be new. Lead on."

The man's eyes expressed nothing but black coldness. "It is ordered that you shall see all," he shouted back. He led the way towards the disgorging "grizzlies."

Not the least amongst the marvels Farlow beheld was the prodigal use of electricity. It was everywhere. There was no darkness in the mine galleries, which, until Garnet had harnessed the water power of the lake's falls, had known no visibility of any sort for thousands of years.

Raamanita had said there were miles of N'Gobi's mine galleries. And Farlow discovered no reason to doubt her statement. They were labyrinthian. They meandered off at every angle to regions far too remote for exploration. At times he found himself like some infinitesimal insect crawling his way through mighty natural halls whose vastness looked to be well nigh immeasurable. At others he was thrusting through narrow, linking cuttings connecting up the honeycomb of it all. Everywhere he discovered age. It was there in the cutting of linking passages. It was there in the litter of cut stone, and the remains of implements. It was even in the smoke-grime where dead and gone workers must have cooked their fare.

Though the galleries possessed no real evidence of planning, one important feature of them impressed itself on Farlow's probing mind. He fancied that these far flung burrowings were sort of antechambers to a main hall. Perhaps they were the worked out veins of the earliest discoveries. For every meandering of the passages had westerly tendency. So definite was the tendency of it that he found himself thinking of the laterals of a parent tree-trunk. Or the network of blood-channels branching from the main artery of a living body.

His mind went back to the aged white man who was obsessed by the conviction of the existence of some lost main lode that was almost "solid gold." By the time Farlow had reached the objective he had almost convinced himself that Lionel Garnet was probably right.

He had asked for the new lode of which Garnet had spoken. And at last they came to it in a narrow tunnel which had been freshly blasted. It was at the extreme western limits of the galleries.

The tunnel was in a condition of clearance. It was low as well as narrow. But already the rugged facets of one side of a mass of reef had been laid bare of its moist packing. The lighting of the cutting was only temporary. But it was sufficient. Farlow saw that the new lode was no crystal quartz but richly red and copperous. Even in his lesser experience it looked promising. But beyond casual observation he gave it no real attention.

Farlow's whole interest became centred at once on a gang of perhaps forty spades. They were loading steel trolleys with cubically cut blocks of the soft mass of rose-tinted embedding clay being cleared from the face of the reef.

The stuff held him fascinated. He realized Garnet's economy in the working. Spades. These yellow creatures, stripped to no more than loin-cloths, were hewing out blocks suitably cut for building while engaged in the work of clearance. It was clever.

"That stuff," he pointed. "Ever tried it out? Washed it? Panned it before it hardens? Ambwani believes it to contain gold. And why not? It nurses the reef."

Cold fury leapt in a white man who was dealing with colour. Swift, hot retort hovered on Farlow's lips. But he restrained. He had almost forgotten. Sheffield-made knives. The remoteness of the cutting. Its narrowness. Its piled debris. Then there were forty or so spades in the hands of men who hated. He used his grin instead. Even a big game hunter might know the worth of discretion.

"I've certainly seen," he said, while his eyes narrowed to conceal. "I'll ask Ambwani when we get back. It had better be now."

There was no reply. The man turned from the toiling gold slaves and moved off. Nor was Farlow unrelieved when at last he found himself back where Pulati's car was waiting for him.

CHAPTER XIX. — THE GLORY OF THE WORLD

FARLOW'S return to his quarters found a light tiffin awaiting him. He ate. But its attention and admirable service left him unresponsive. There was still the second part of the day's itinerary for which he was eager. Food was no more than a necessity. He was filled with a grim sort of humour. He knew himself to be playing out a fantastic comedy designed to end in a stark tragedy with himself allotted the role of principal victim.

Pie was glad to eat alone, however. He desired no lovely distraction. He wanted to think.

The morning's explorations had impressed him. The magnitude of the thing he was uncovering confounded him. He was becoming conscious of genius in Lionel Garnet. He wanted to get his true measure. This man who was responsible for the murder of Alan Forrester.

He could have done with more time. But his schedule had been designed by a woman who was missing no opportunity. So again he found himself negotiating hairpin bends in a company he would have been glad enough to avoid.

This time royal progress was denied to an unsympathetic town. At the foot of the terrace the car turned away northward of the lake passing the aerodrome on its shore. It seemed as though the vast world of hills footing N'Gobi's peak had become their objective. The new direction changed again, however. It struck through a wide spread of jungle-grown ruins to mount a built road that knew nothing of the smooth grading of sand.

It was a steady climb through a wide desolation of thorn-jungle. The road had been elevated. It was a sort of viaduct with a surface of stone blocks. It was rough, uneven, in the condition to which ages of weathering had reduced it. But it was a feat of ancient road engineering which told of a slavery under the lash of the taskmaster. It was a long steady ascent. And Farlow pointed the wonder of its engineering.

"Russian imperial methods," he said. "A ruled line. Tropic growth meant nothing when this was built. Built to carry about a six line traffic when they hadn't motors. See how they bridge the hollows. And they hadn't an idea of anything as sticky as cement. Amazin'."

"Processional causeway." Raamanita knew subtle delight at Farlow's laudation. "Causeway of the Pilgrims to the Wonder of the World. Goes on to the foot of the sun-god's throne, if our back-axle permits."

"Millions," the girl laughed. "It's our Holy of ancient Holies. And it's survived the worst onslaughts of time. It's been left to the modern vandal to adapt it to other uses. Father keeps our private plane in one of its aisles. Outrageous sacrilege, of course. But your activities since the war have forced him to quite a lot of safety measures."

"I see. But I'm more interested in the way this causeway defeats the jungle. Not a root-hold on it anywhere. Look at it. Always below us. A thorny ocean only waiting to seize opportunity to smother. And has never found one. We moderns. Do we know anything that they didn't?"

Pulati's gears had been changed down. The car was labouring the great ascent over the uneven stone surface. The hill-top was coming slowly down to them. And the girl was eagerly awaiting it.

"Sometimes I think not nearly as much," she said. "Only when I'm using one of our planes, or find the evidence of this car underneath me, do I doubt. But even then I really feel our mechanical science isn't much more than a side-line. Rather like the cans we pack the sardines in, which, I've no doubt, were still eaten thousands of years ago."

"In any case I'm pretty sure they used the ether for the transference of thought," Farlow added seriously. "I—"

He broke off as Pulati changed his gears up. It was the hill-top. And a fierce descent lay below it. The girl's jewelled hand pointed. There was almost excitement in the gesture.

She was pointing far out over a veritable ocean of jungle that looked to fill a great valley with N'Gobi's tremendous slope forming one side of it. The mountain's crowning glacier was deep plunged in cloud wrack forever churning under a wind that was yet powerless to disperse. Pointing the peak's splendid vision Raamanita's eyes shone delight in its rugged magnificence.

But Farlow had no eyes for a hill he had always regarded as outlaw. Nor was he regarding; the ocean of unbroken bush that looked to go on for countless miles. He saw only a single towering rock standing up out of the waves of bush like a lonely lighthouse. It was monstrously dominating. And even in the shadow of N'Gobi its stupendous rigidity and height remained undiminished. It looked to have neither purpose nor reason for its being.

Its southern face was sheer, like that of another. Its summit was flatted into an inclined plateau upon which was perched a huge mass of building, dwarfed by altitude, cutting sharply against the steely blue of the sky. Its northern face sloped steeply towards N'Gobi's massif. The saddle of it suggesting reluctance to detach itself completely from a parent mountain. Proudly it towered over a world of lowly vegetation about its foot. And it was as starkly nude as the new-born earth when first its waters subsided.

"That!" Farlow's ejaculation came sharply. Then: "Ought to be one of the Pillars of Hercules. Gibraltar, or something. Not much lower than N'Gobi's snow-line."

"On its top. Do you see it?" she asked. "Open to every wind that blows. Victim of every tropic storm. Once the world's centre of the worship of the sun-god, Ra. Set up on something very near the roof of the world. Man's vain glory, which even the ages have been unable to mishandle. And now whose best use is a hangar for father's private plane."

"Quite simple," she replied. "They put over a skilful job, those old ones." She indicated the jungle coming up to them so rapidly, as the car took the valley's slope at increasing speed. "It's that northern saddle. The road winds up it to the very foot of the 'Stairway of Golden Light.' Extravagant title like the other. This is a pilgrim way made easy to the foot of a thousand granite treads chiselled in virgin rock by dead and gone human hands."

"Which we shall ascend with a minimum of effort. You see, the whole thing was built for the ease of those whose blind faith far surpassed their physical endurance."

The ascent had been made. The last of a thousand steps was below them. Farlow and Raamanita were standing at the edge of a terrace whose length and breadth made an expanse amply sufficient for the manoeuvres of an entire regiment of soldiers. They were gazing up at the northern face of a vast temple that might well have been fashioned to claim the devotions of a race of giants. It was an age-mellowed mass glowing with a rose-tint that had become commonplace.

Perhaps it had been the cunning of those old-time masons. Perhaps it was the simple matter of thinner air at a great altitude. At any rate, Raamanita's promise had been truly fulfilled. They had passed up a stairway between granite walls, that were perhaps a hundred feet apart, standing up like miniature sheer cliffs. They had mounted a thousand steps that were shallow and of generous footing. And all with little more effort than would have been needed to ascend an easy incline.

Now that which distance and altitude had dwarfed mightily overshadowed them in the reality of its splendid proportions. Its stateliness of architecture, its glowing beauty, its miraculous preservation made it irresistible. For Farlow the stairway behind him was forgotten. The treadmill of a thousand steps. He just stood there unmoving, and gazing from the spot where he had first stepped on to the terrace. He scarcely even remembered the shimmering green presence of the woman beside him.

There was a mighty central nave whose flatted roof, with widely out-thrusting cornices of sculptured stone, was supported on a double colonnade of hugely girthed pillars, adorned with calyx capitals. On either hand lesser aisles stepped down. Their similarly flatted roofs were also supported on the same styled pillars, but at a lesser height. There seemed to be no containing walls anywhere. But a great screen, pierced by a giant ceremonial portal of immense rectangularity, completely detached from pillars and roof, yet masked the temple's dimly lit interior. Great sphinxes footed each fronting pillar, crouched in characteristic pose. While twin winged colossi stood guard on either hand of the ceremonial entrance. The latter were the same beast-men Farlow already knew. He had no difficulty in recognizing in their hideous make-up monumental specimens of those he had encountered in the caverns at Umdava.

From the roof cornices down to the terrace footings every inch of the stonework looked to be deeply sculptured with reliefs of human and animal figures, and the picture-written inscriptions of the ancients. Much original colouring still remained to them. Their chiselling; still retained a marvellous sharpness. All that the ages had contrived was a pleasant mellowing. As Raamanita had told, time had failed to mishandle.

Farlow recognized the tripartite form of the whole structure. And as he considered the cathedral-like construction, which, in all the history of religion, has known so little variation, his mind went back to all he had read and been told of the vainglorious Second Rameses whose life was dedicated to magnifying the glories of Thebes, and the wonders of the Temple of Ammon-Ra at Karnak.

The riddle of it all leapt at him. He knew he was gazing upon that which was more or less a replica of the main body of Karnak's Temple. He knew the claims which the girl beside him made for her heritage. He knew that he was inclined to believe them to be not unreasonably founded. What then followed?

If Raamanita's story of the past was truth then here was a bolt from the blue to disgruntle the archaeologist. N'Gobi contained that which fore-ran the wonders of old Egypt and Northern Africa. The world-famed architects of the Eleventh Dynasty were no more than copyists of the wonders of an earlier world. Yet, he reminded himself, Thebes was no more than a splendid sand-buried ruin while here was no decay.

He remembered the moist, rose-tinted clay which hardened in the weather to an everlasting rock. He reminded himself of the supreme altitude at which he was standing, and recalled the indestructible monasteries of Thibet. And a glimmer of the reality showed in those two significant features. A material capable of resisting erosion for all time. A rarefied atmosphere denying the detrimental reaction of a lesser altitude.

Then the great old queen, whom history proclaimed to be no invention of benighted savagery. Of a certainty sun-worship must have been hers. Her merchants trafficked the world over. Surely they carried their culture to the ends of the earth. Yes. The fame of the "Glory of the World" must certainly have reached the banks of the Nile and the ears of a Rameses.

He turned abruptly to the girl observing him with eyes narrowed to conceal the man-hunger in them. He indicated the ceremonial portal with the shadows beyond it.

"That's for another time. Another day," she said with quiet finality. "You forget. There's the sun's lack of power at this altitude. In two hours we must be back in the warmth of Pulati's car. We've only just time for the Temple's southern view where you'll see, in its crude nakedness, something of the foundations of all human religion. Come. And bring your best nerve with you."

The girl set off without waiting for reply. It was without any of the dignity of the queen. Farlow was left without option but to follow. And he grinned as he sought to come up with her. But the girl was transformed into a will-o'-the-wisp. She might even have been some glittering bejewelled siren luring her victim to his destruction. Each time Farlow increased his pace Raamanita moved more swiftly to escape him. Always she contrived to keep her slimly-rounded green shapeliness before his eyes.

Her way was round the eastern aisle of the Temple. It was over paving that remained as smooth and closely set as when the old-time masons laid it. And, in a moment, as Farlow, in his pursuit, passed round the eastern angle of the building he forgot his objective. It was the building itself. Its array of giant pillars and sphinxes. The entire side of the temple was one long succession of them. He counted forty columns with their footing sphinxes. And he estimated that they ranged at not less than twenty feet apart.

There was no pause. The girl hurried on to reach the far limit of the terrace where it sloped away in a prolonged ramp till it fell to the level of the plateau. Then she stood and waited. As Farlow came up to her she prevented all chance of any backward glance by gesturing at the sunlit panorama of the world so far below them.

It was a limitless view that was without obstruction east, west, and south. And the splendour of it held Farlow as Raamanita intended it should. He remained far gazing, drinking in the hazy spectacle until he was forced to turn from the intolerable sun-glare.

His lean shoulders moved in a shrug of doubting. "'The Glory of the World'?" he grinned. "Man's handiwork? Or the work in which he had no part?" He pointed the far skyline.

"Does it matter?" There was impatience in the girl's scoff. "Of course not. Why should it? How? Those who named it are dead and gone, and their thoughts and ideas have died with them. They were once moderns like we are. Soon we shall be dead and gone. And our ideas won't concern the new generations following us. None of it matters. None of us matter."

She shook her head so that the evil of her green jewels flashed at him in the sunlight.

"Whether it's the glorification of their own handiwork, or whether the glorification of a greater labourer, doesn't interest me a little bit. The only 'Glory of the World' I can appreciate is its capacity to give me all I ask in the little time I have for the asking. Come, we're going to emulate those assevogels you fed so lavishly at our expense out on the Balbau. And you shall see the thing that has enslaved and made a monomaniac of Father."

CHAPTER XX. — THE IDOL

RAAMANITA moved off down the slope of the ramp. Farlow kept pace with her. She no longer displayed any desire to outstrip him. Finally they cleared the last of the paving and trod the weathered granite of the plateau which was thinly carpeted with lichens and mosses, and myriads of tiny alpine blossoms. They were moving straight on to the southern face of the rock. And Farlow wondered, not without a queer sense of unease.

It was a little more than a quarter mile. And the girl hurried the whole way of it. Eagerness was evident in her. She was gazing ahead as she walked, rapt and silent. To Farlow it seemed as if she were being drawn by some irresistible magnet. Even as though she were sleepwalking. Pie watched her askance. And the change in her manner afforded him an interest such as he had not known before.

There was not a breath of wind stirring. There was a steely sky, and the brazen fury of a sun that was steadily westering.

Farlow was not unmindful of the stillness. And, in view of their approach to the edge of the plateau, took comfort from it.

They came to a ridge beyond which the rock fell away steeply to its final extremity. The girl paused. Farlow waited for her to speak.

But Raamanita was gazing full into the eye of the sun, with only the protection of the deep fringe of eyelashes to defend against its blinding light. Abruptly she raised her arms, and held them out in a gesture of appealing adoration to the sun. She looked to be reaching to embrace a fire whose merciless rays transformed the whole western heavens into the hard burnish of blue metal.

The girl breathed the words ecstatically. They thrilled with passionate worship, adoration. Farlow sought for some trace of mockery. There was none. His steady mind crowded with apprehension.

But Raamanita's arms dropped again to her sides. Her moment had passed. The mockery Farlow had failed to discover again rang in her laugh.

"Oh, Dick, man! Isn't it wonderful?" she cried. "The all-seeing eye! There it is. There He is. Don't you understand? He's watching for our reactions. You know. Two wingless creatures perched here on the top of the world, filled to the brim with the desires and emotions He's experimenting with. Do you think He really cares? Not a bit of it. He's just some Godly professor, or maybe scientist, experimenting with the models He's designed. When He's played with us for a while He'll destroy with the callous indifference of the scientific mind moving on through its world of research. Isn't that the answer, the meaning of it all?"

Before the man had time to frame reply the girl was on the move. A figure of emerald green was passing down that dizzy final slope, as sure of foot as any winged creature. Farlow held his breath. One false step or stumble. And— He recovered from a momentary paralysis and bawled his fear.

But the warning was left all unheeded. The girl looked back while still moving on down.

"I love it," she smiled. "It's the thrill that compensates for a life mewed up-in these hills."

She went on down to the last foothold and stood poised at the brink of destruction.

On Farlow the vision reacted differently. His moment of panic was swept away by the recollection of the girl's demand for his nerve. He realized he had simply been made the victim of impish mischief. He delved for his cigarette case and began to smoke while he watched.

His prolonging silence had effect. The girl looked back to find the reason of it. Thousands of feet yawned below her, leaving her wholly indifferent. She stood there observing the light smoke on the unmoving air. And she laughed.

She turned back from the abyss and moved up to the ridge again with all the swift agility of some creature born to the perils of dizzy heights.

"I'd forgotten," she pretended, as she reached the ridge again. "But you know I can't help it, Dick. It's always that way with me. Every association of this old Temple claims me, and holds me. And I don't want to escape, even if I could. But I can't."

Her laughter passed. And the almond eyes widened to dark lamps of smouldering light.

"You see, I'm a reincarnation," she went on seriously. "I think, somewhere deep inside me, there's the old-time sun-worshipper. And it's stronger than all that's modern in me. Sometimes I tell myself that my ancestor used to come up here for her devotions, and perform them at that exact spot where I stood balancing myself." She drew a deep breath. "But you didn't climb that stairway to look on at a circus balancing act that I've practised ever since I was a child, did you?" she mocked. "You didn't come to have your nerve racked. No. I've still to satisfy a deplorable curiosity. Have your way, my dear man. Turn and behold. Gaze upon the splendid gaud which tells so much of the benighted littleness of man."

Farlow knew profound relief. But for some unexplained reason he knew he liked the girl better for the exhibition he had just witnessed. He turned at her bidding. And he knew full well he was turning from a fire that was perilously near, and threatening to sear.

But in that moment he forgot everything else. The revelation that came to him was something of which he had never even dreamed. It was the real face of the Temple. That face which forever was turned to the sun.

He had thought of the guardians of the ceremonial portal as colossi. They had been vast enough. But they were midgets to what he now beheld. A Pharaoh-like head-dress was at a level with the nave's flatted roof. Humanly shaped shoulders entirely obscured the whole breadth of the main structure. On either side of them the side aisles remained in full view, twin pillared canopies with flatted roofs, one of them sheltering the widespread wings of a heavy-engined, modern monoplane. The monstrous figure was squatted upon a golden throne that was wondrously moulded. And its leonine paws were planted widely apart on the terrace paving. Its lap became a golden bridge supporting a tremendous slab of blackened stone. But greatest wonder of all was a mighty disc of gold crowning the whole figure, with spear-like radiations of the precious metal set about its entire circumference.

Gold! From the uttermost tip of the radiating spear-points to the leonine paws on the terrace the king-winged beast-man of them all shone dully in the western sunlight.

Farlow estimated the height of it at some two hundred feet. He observed the regular feather embossing of widespread golden wings. And the craftsmanship in the malignant cruelty of the distorted features of its gilded face filled him with nothing but admiration. The art of the metal worker it displayed was consummate.

He pointed. And spoke without turning. "Gilded, of course. Modelled and gilt," he stated rather than asked.

"Plated with sheets of pure gold from half an inch to an inch thick. There's no alloy. And no gilding. Pure, virgin gold to the weight of many tons, laid over a model in our clay-stone. We've tested. The sun above it is solid metal a foot thick."

Farlow indicated the blackened stone, on the golden lap, that suggested a table at which the idol fed.

"Father? He estimates it at millions. Father would strip it naked if he, too, didn't fear. So long as his work remains uncompleted in N'Gobi our precious Sun-God is safe from Father. Superstition! The idol's gold is sacred till he's found its source. That's part of his foolish insanity."

He turned his back on the idol abruptly. He had seen enough. Heard enough. And he had felt the first chill of the sun's passing heat. He sprawled himself on the ridge. And invited in a fashion that was an order.

For some moments he gazed out over the western world where the burnish of broad day was softening to a ruddier glow. He was gazing afar over the lesser slopes of the way he had travelled from the coast. And suddenly his gaze became concentrated on one definite point. One object. It was like a bird, an infinitesimal creature of the sky, circling. His eyes were narrowed against the sun-glare. But there was a smile in them.

He turned to the waiting girl beside him as the winged speck faded out in the haze of distance.

"Now tell me," he said in a tone that had lost the last trace of lightness. "I want all of it. We'll have cards on the table. Here are mine. My stay finishes tonight, after you've shown me the haunt, or the temple, of that crocodile. I rescind my parole with all that implies. Renewal of hostilities, if necessary. You see, with your father in the game a parole is a bit one-sided. I'm here obviously to suit certain purposes. I'm going to hear about those purposes up here, now, where, as you suggested, we're no better than the assevogels I fed so lavishly out on the Balbau at your expense. Down below you have your father and your people. Your Ankubis. Your Pulatis. Up here—"

Farlow's grin was accompanied by a gesture. The lovely face of the girl was not without effect upon him. He shook his head as she gazed back at him, her slim body supported by a hand that crushed alpine blossoms beneath its palm.

"Sounds like a threat," he went on, and his manner had eased. "It's not. You see, I've nothing but a pair of hands to threaten with. I'm not a strangler. And the thrill of exploring untold depths with you in my arms doesn't altogether appeal. No. I simply want the works of it all so far as you can tell me. The inner works, of course. You're revealing secrets as if you liked the job. What about it? It's an easy one that I owe my presence here entirely to you, and a natural curiosity. Your father strongly disapproves. Your people, too. If you feel like telling me, now's the time. Things have a way of moving swiftly. My boat for instance."

"Your boat?" The girl laughed. Then she sobered. And her painted lips compressed. She negatived coldly.

"It would be lack of intelligence in anyone else," she went on enigmatically. "But you can have all the 'works' of it if they'll amuse you. They don't me. But first, your parole was never regarded seriously. You'll never leave N'Gobi."

Automatically the girl followed his gaze. And her even brows drew sharply together. From the tail of an eye Farlow became aware that she was sitting up, stiffly erect. He turned back to her and nodded.

"One of our vultures, I expect," he said, and his was the mocking. "Or is it an aeroplane?" Again he turned to the western distance. "I saw it just now. And it faded away in the haze. It's circling round. Rather think I can hear its engine."

They sat watching the distant speck. It was infinitesimal. But every once in a while, the sun seemed to light it up with a metallic gleam.

"It's a plane," the girl said quietly. "But you can hear the falls. Not its engine. We're high here," she went on, as though the matter needed explanation. "Sound rises. When there's no wind you can always hear the falls."

"Record hunters don't waste time circling in the neighbourhood of N'Gobi," she said, with a shrug. Her laughter came again.

"But to get back to our discussion. You're as much a prisoner as if you were behind steel bars. And no swiftness of any boat can serve you. In fact probably your boat no longer exists— above water. Better try and forget any idea of departure and make the best of such opportunities as N'Gobi affords you. You're quite right. Father entirely disapproves of you being here. Hence the Ovrana episode last night."

It rasped harshly. And the feeling behind it seemed to amuse the girl. But it was only a flash of the old mockery. In a moment it was gone. And Farlow beheld again that tiger he had watched regarding the slain Ovrana the night before.

And the restraint of it did nothing to conceal the bitter fury that was so very near explosion. "Tell me."

"You may as well know. It'll make no difference one way or the other. Father pretended agreement with my plan to end the senseless warfare that's been going on between us. He definitely accepted my proposals, allowed me to proceed with them, and secretly dispatched two men to intercept Chiabwe and prevent the map I sent you falling into your hands. You know what happened. But his double-cross missed fire. And you are here more than ever determined to bring about our undoing. Those are the inner works. And you're welcome to them."

"So that after all you're not all-powerful in N'Gobi? Looks like that old history over again. You know. The wise men. And that other queen."

He seemed to find the girl something off her guard. Farlow saw a look in the eyes which could reveal a tiger that suggested fear. But the look was gone almost as it was born. And again the tiger reasserted itself.

"I can deal with my father," Raamanita retorted coldly. "Make no mistake. I am all-powerful. The people are my people who look for their salvation in me. Father's only the white man administrator of my wishes. Last night should have told you that. Father's creature, Ovrana, was destroyed with no more mercy than you would show to a charging rhino."

Raamanita drew her gauzy green scarf closer about the open neck of her shimmering frock. It was the growing shudder of cooling air coming down off the mountain behind her. Farlow glanced up at the sky. In his light clothing he too felt the chill.

"That's the fundamental of the position," she said, with a little gesture that betrayed her. "But your claim for human nature in Father is wrong. He's obsessed. Insane. And it's an insanity that's frankly homicidal. For forty years he's thought gold. Lived gold. Not like any ordinary prospector. The story of our people has battened on to his every faculty. He can see nothing but a reef of solid gold, and those who would snatch it from him. He's already wealthy beyond dreams. But it doesn't matter. A reef of solid gold! So he's prepared to destroy utterly. And his insanity stands out for all to see in the cunning with which all his plans are laid. I've watched it all. And sometimes I get utterly weary and sick. Think of it. I'm twenty-seven. I'm the power that holds my people for him. And so I remain a prisoner of these hills just as surely as you are. Except for my years of schooling in England I know no life beyond the pantomime I am called upon to perform in these hills.

"Yes," the girl agreed, with naive simplicity. "However you may doubt I am still all powerful. A word from me and I doubt if anyone in these hills would live for a hour. Even my own father. You see, it's that reincarnation. I'm to restore my people to their old-time greatness, and power, and wealth. They forget Father. And only look to me. They saw failure out on the Balbau. So you were brought here by—me."

"That's not contemplated," she cried. "But you'll certainly be sacrificed if we don't get down off this plateau. The sun's losing its power. And pneumonia in N'Gobi's the easiest method of slaughter I know. We can't risk that till you've seen the Sacred Crocodile that belongs to another era in our history. And His Temple, or the ruins of it. Before I've done with those 'inner works' there's one little spot of truth you must be told. Insanity has been known to be hereditary. And I, too, am thinking of a reef of solid gold."

CHAPTER XXI. — DEMENTIA

RAAMANITA was standing at the big window that was mullioned with rose-tinted stone. It was at the eastern end of her private apartments giving on to the shining waters of the great lake so far below. Sails were moving down there upon the water. There were the tiny figures of people on the foreshore road. They gave the impression of insects moving over the sandy surface. But she was unheeding of what she beheld.

A frown had submerged every other expression. It was a lovely face that expressed all that which usually a ready smile or mocking laugh contrived to conceal. But then she was entirely alone, waiting for the response to her summons of her father. Behind her, on a low table set before a wide divan, tea was served for herself and another.

She had discarded her glittering uniform. It had been replaced by an ankle length gown of vivid red. High-waisted, its almost classical folds were girdled just below her rounded bosom. Her arms were bare. And above the low neck of the garment her skin was of alabaster purity under careful powdering. Jewels matched the colour of her gown. She had adorned her neck and arms with rubies. And her dark hair was similarly banded. She had become a creature of even more subtle lure.

There was a scarcely perceptible sound behind her. She turned with a swiftness which told how keenly her faculties had remained alert. And she faced the big form of her parent, as it passed through the room's curtained entrance, with her frown completely banished.

She studied the massive body in its cord breeches and khaki puttees. In its loose cotton shirt that was unhidden by any coat or vest. She eyed the heavy muscles of mahogany-browned fore-arms below rolled sleeves. And she marvelled at the vital physical condition of a creature of his many years. The cold unsmiling of his clean-shaven face was the last thing about him with which she concerned herself. She even forgot to remind herself of the convict-like crop of his snow-white hair.

She offered no greeting. But she moved back to the couch behind the tea-table and reposed herself for the service of the tea.

The man approached the table and steadily regarded her. Without any preamble he challenged her. "Tell me about—Ovrana."

It was without heat. It was without a vestige of emotion of any sort. Raamanita removed the silken cosy from a typical silver tea-pot, opened the lid, and stirred with a spoon before serving.

There was momentary hesitation. Then Garnet pulled a low divan chair up without seeming effort. He sprawled into it to betray a weariness of body.

A smile that almost suggested humour encountered unsmiling eyes which were not without a reflection of the tiredness of the man's body. Raamanita shook her head admonishingly.

"You're hopeless, Father," she retorted. "I don't think you could be loyal even to the devil that lives inside you. Ovrana? Where you've sent him, of course. Gone to the crocodile. By this time cradled in a mass of weed that'll never let go of his rotten body till the flesh of it's devoured. Where else do you suppose? Did you imagine I trusted you last night after what has gone before? But I can forgive you the more readily that I've settled once and for all that matrimonial purpose you've had in mind for me. One candidate has been disposed of. If you persist in thrusting your second choice on me don't blame me for what happens. Ovrana didn't tax my resources unduly. There's something wrong. And I'm afraid it's with you. Our camp's getting divided against itself. I've told you what you are. And now I've got to add to my charge. You're getting muddle-headed as well. Why not try sugar with your tea. It might help you to a better frame of mind."

She held out a cup whose daintiness looked like anachronism in the hand that reached for it. The man they called Ambwani simply looked into the set smile on the girl's face. None could have told of that which was passing behind his eyes. Raamanita had to guess.

"But I'm tired of it, Father," she went on, stirring her tea abstractedly. "I think it'll have to be open war between us. And, of course, I don't have to tell you just what that'll mean to you. I can offer that bait to Ankubi that'll leave you in complete isolation in these hills. It'll be one helpless man against the Frankenstein he's created. Will you have it that way? Or shall our board of directors work together for the goal we both desire? You can choose. And I'll abide by your choice—loyally. I rather think it's a matter of will. You've decided one way. I another. You can't bring yourself to submit. Dictatorial administration has turned your head." She shrugged. "I've no intention of giving up my man."

"They've let the boat slip through their hands. Half their numbers were left dead and wounded on the quays. Those who were dead were flung into the water. Those who weren't were just dumped with them. The boat's gone down the river carrying its story with it."

It was the first sign of stirring emotion. The challenge rasped at the girl. And dead eyes had come to life and were hot. The man knew a sudden surging in his head.

For a moment the girl remained silent. Then came a judicial negative movement of the bejewelled head.

"I think so. The boat will carry no story away with it while Dick Farlow remains here alive. If you think for a moment you'll realize it's under orders. But we've certainly underestimated. Barsaki? What of him? He had charge down there."

"Then his skin need be no longer saved. If you want to give vent to your obstinate will, father, you'd better vent your feelings on him. It's a setback in my plans. Not serious. But a setback."

Raamanita helped herself to cake and ate with heartiness of appetite. A flash of devilment crept into her eyes while she observed the silent man emptying his cup. As her father offered it for refilling she flashed a swift glance.

"There are planes flying out to the westward," she announced, with a pretence of unconcern.

"Of course. I naturally looked for you to say that." Raamanita passed the cup back. She saw the dead eyes come alive and blazing mockery smiled wickedly back at them. "But you're still wrong. Dick Farlow was without particular interest. A far off speck in the sky we shouldn't have seen if there'd been cloud about. He took it for an assevogel circling. It was I who showed him it was a plane. He regarded it as a stunter record-chasing. But I said—planes. It was as we were coming away. Dick Farlow didn't see. But I did. Or I thought I did. Several. A long way to the west. A squadron perhaps. Seemed to me to be flying in formation. Anyway assevogels don't fly in threes. It's not Farlow or anything to do with him. He's a lone hunter. It's a reaction from your Balbau folly. The Government. I wondered when they'd get after things. You see—"

But her venom was cut short. The cup in the man's hand went back to her table with a crash that overturned it. He leapt to his feet, towering.

"You're mad," he snarled, while the strong veins at his temples suddenly stood out like tangled cords. "God in Heaven! To think I've to deal with a woman who can't think beyond the sex in her. Government? Balderdash! It's Farlow! This man you've brought here out of your crazy desire! The man's blinded you and laughed at you. He's here. Defenceless. Unarmed of his own doing. Psha! Do you think he hasn't your measure? Do you think he hasn't figured out the last detail of the game he's playing? He's defeated us every time. And he means to defeat us again. If a squadron of planes is searching these hills it's because he's set them on to it. And he's timed their arrival by that cursed map of yours."

He was pacing under the drive of his fury of words. His big body had lost every sign of weariness. Passionate apprehension was battling with the consuming rage in him. All his anger was for the beautiful Frankenstein he had created. While his whole being was staggered by the appalling disaster he saw ahead of him. He paused for a second and stood over the table threateningly.

"But d'you think after forty years of the work I've done I'm going to stand for Farlow or any Government profiting by my work through your crazy folly? Never in your life. I'll crash things to eternity rather." He laughed furiously. "You and your damned man. You! You've shown him. He's seen. Then he'll know the thing he's lost. And the Government can find the ruins of it all. And you, too. You shall learn the thing you've done. Christ!"

In that moment she realized. The storm she had provoked was nothing ordinary. It was demented. She was appalled. With swift cunning she sought to pacify. But her skill was less in such a direction.

"Cut out the 'deep-end' business, father," she attempted, with a smile that did nothing to appease. "That won't get us anywhere. Sit, man! Sit. And leave an unoffending tea-table to do its job better than you're doing yours. Think! And you'll remember we've seen planes in the west before. And to the east. They've circled curiously over these hills as they were bound to do. And there's been nothing in it. I tell you Dick Farlow hadn't an idea of them. And I know. But you're squealing when you ought to be planning. I told you so that you might do so. What if it's a Government squadron spying the hills? They were miles away. What if they came over us? What if they were to try and land? Let them. It would be a good thing. I can see no more difficulty in dealing with any landing than I can see in Ankubi's method of handling that commission on the Balbau. They'll have no more chance of carrying their story away with them than Dick Farlow has."

The man's hands went up in a furious gesture of helplessness. "Do they need to land?" he cried. "God! Was there ever such a fool? They'll work their way through N'Gobi from one end to the other. They'll do all that Farlow has arranged with them to do. Then they'll make off. And—that's the end."

"Not quite, father," she cried. "If they're working to Dick Farlow's orders, they need him. We're going now to the Temple of the Crocodile. If Farlow returns from it he'll return as my man whose interest will be to withhold our secret. Don't you see? Nothing will be easier. His squadron will be induced to land. And then—"

The shrug was full of contemptuous confidence. And it contrived where all other persuasion had failed. The father's eyes resumed their cold deadness.

There was a moment while father and daughter regarded each other steadily. Then, without a word, the aged man turned and passed from the room.

Ankubi was standing before the great desk at the far end of the gallery apartment in which Lionel Garnet was wont to stage himself for matters of ceremonial. The afternoon sun fell athwart the big, yellow creature where it streamed down through windows set high under the sculptured ceiling. Garnet was seated. He was posed with a big cheroot, emitting much smoke. His whole attitude had that calm command which belied the storm raging somewhere behind his cold black eyes.

"The air's becoming more than a nuisance to me," he said, studying the man's yellow face that was almost negroid. "It's a menace. We can't afford to take risks. There's our queen who must be safeguarded at all costs. And you, of all our people, will surely appreciate that. There will have to be the same preparations as we've made before when aeroplanes came our way. The people must be ready to take to the hills. You'll stand by with all arms ready should there be any attempted landing. I shall look after the queen. I'm now going down to the mines to close down. And see that every man is available for defence. De you understand?" Ankubi gazed enquiringly.

There was the flicker of an eyelid. Garnet realized how surely the man anticipated precisely that which he did himself.

"No," he denied shortly. "They're probably passing planes. But the watchers must be stationed forthwith. And you must be ready for every emergency. As I shall be. If they land well and good. You can deal with them. If they pass on without coming near, all is well. If they pass low over us, and don't attempt to land, then—" He shrugged. "That's my fear. And that's what we must be ready for. Rush the people to the safety of the hills. Get about it. And leave nothing to chance."

He gestured dismissal. And he watched the yellow creature pass away down the length of the audience chamber. Once the curtains had fallen behind the departing man the mask that had served was cast aside.

CHAPTER XXII. — THE VAMPIRE

AFTER the lofty summit and golden extravagance of "The Glory of the World," in the evil haunt of an ill-famed crocodile Farlow realized something of anti-climax. That was the first impression as he and Raamanita, having left the car below, passed over the lip of a miniature crater which crowned a low hill away to the southwest, beyond the far extremity of the lake.

The crater itself was a mere saucer. It was lowly embanked by the grim and gloom of black basaltic rock that was deeply scored and blasted by the fires that once had been. Tropic jungle had invested and invaded. But it had done little to lighten the sepulchre shadows which even the sullen glow of a stormy westering sun failed to cheer.

Farlow stood on the rim gazing down into the pit of it while Raamanita passed on down to its bottom for greater foot comfort. She turned and smiled up at the lean frame of the man who meant so much to her.

The saucer of the crater was divided in two by a stepped terrace which had failed to resist the march of Time. Its northern half was the terrace foundations supporting a broken mass of fallen stone which once had been a characteristic building of wide extent. It was a mere shattered rubble, already overgrown by tropical vegetation.

Set up on a broad stone dais was the remains of what looked like a sculptured throne. It was of immense size. Its seat, which was comparatively intact, was semicircular. And it was centred by a raised step, as though to accommodate some exalted personage. It fronted on a declining ramp of stone, which went on down to a gaping circular hole in the crater's lower paving.

The mouth of the pit was contained by a stone balustrade about the greater part of its circumference. Only at the foot of the incline of the ramp was it left open and unprotected. The pillars and coping of the balustrade remained as sharply cut and sculptured as the day they had been set up. But there was a return on both sides of the opening, that passed up the ramp on either hand, to reach the level of the terrace overlooking, that had none of the perfect preservation of the rest. Broken pillars stood up like decaying teeth. And their copings lay crashed at their feet.

A laugh that was full of mischief echoed about the crater. "Does it tell you anything?"

He turned from the pit to gaze down at her vivid silhouette. The sun was almost blood-red. It was hovering low over the edge of an inky bank of storm-cloud rising out of the west. Its golden glory had dulled to a sullen gleam. And its light acted like a radiation from the vivid scarlet in which the girl was clad. The man in Farlow became hotly astir. It was calculated loveliness, no doubt. But it was loveliness.

Distraction came before he could reply. It was the slither of something moving at his feet. He looked down. And he avoided the writhing orange streak of a yellow cobra in full flight from human contact.

"I wonder how much? But you won't know it all till you've looked below. He lives down there. It's said he's lived there for thousands of years. The foolish even say he's the sire of all his kind. That he stocked the Nile of the Pharaohs. Will you accept the challenge of it?"

Farlow was at her side. And both gazed over at the ominous pit mouth. The girl turned back to the lure of the man beside her.

"Oh, Dick, man, I love you for it," she smiled. "You feared for me up on 'The Glory,' where there's God's world to gaze upon and only beauty. You've no fear for yourself where black night hides the hell waiting on mischance or cruel purpose. Ovrana explored that pit in the night. Now? Well, he might never have been."

The smile vanished from the girl's eyes. It was replaced by brooding in which there was no pretence.

"You know, Dick, horror makes no appeal to me," she went on, and the sunlight she was facing filled her dark eyes with a smouldering reflection. "I've passed to and fro through that dire Gorge of White Death and shivered till its peril was left behind. It's alive, sentient, incalculably evil. Maybe it's fungus, maybe it's just vegetable, like the green jungle under the sunlight. But, whatever it is, it seems to think and know. And its only desire is to devour all that strays within its reach. Oh, I'm not squeamish. I can be ruthless in destruction. I would have no mercy on an enemy. But creeping horror, the thought of strangling, devouring tendrils, fills me with a terror that turns my blood to water. That, too, is down there, somewhere at the bottom of that pit. It's not alone the dreaded crocodile. But Living Weed, which is as monstrously destroying as anything you beheld in the Gorge of White Death."

"Pretty foul," he agreed. "I've had to tackle that weed on several occasions. Don't know what it is, of course. You see, water and darkness breed all sorts of life we don't know a lot about. But it's no match for White Death, anyway. I shall have to deal with it again on my way back from here."

"Haven't I convinced you yet?" she asked. Then she gestured helplessly. And the mockery of her smile returned to her. "You won't have to deal with it again—on your way back," she assured pointedly.

Farlow's gaze was on the wreckage of balustrade which lined the paved incline. His eyes had narrowed and were grinless.

He moved away. And Raamanita looked after his flannelled figure as he approached the fallen balustrade. His rubber soles found foothold on the slabs of broken stone. He picked his way swiftly and unerringly. And he passed over the rubble of it to reach the inclined paving beyond.

The girl forgot everything but the man. The nerve. She watched. And almost held her breath as he walked swiftly to the lowest limits of the slope. With his feet at the last extremity of the stone he was leaning forward and peering below. She remembered her own poise up there on "The Glory." She remembered her mocking of him. But she reminded herself, as she watched the man upon whom all her passionate desire was centred, that this was "different." She wanted to cry out a warning. But it was her nerve that failed her.

He was craning so that only his profile was turned to her. His grey eyes were hidden. Those eyes that could grin so, or shine with granite hardness. They were lost to her while they strove to penetrate nothing but an inky void that looked to be uncontained and bottomless.

The moments passed in complete silence. Then, vaguely, the girl beheld a change in the profile. Almost, Raamanita thought, it was a return of the grin she had learned to look for. In any case the grin was certainly there when Farlow straightened up, and turned back from the perilous lip, just as the vivid streak of a searchlight's beam blacked out somewhere in the remote depths below him.

Instead of returning to the girl's side he turned up the slope, and moved on towards the semicircular throne. It almost seemed as if the satanic red beauty of the woman no longer had power to claim the manhood in him. As though the reincarnation of a profligate queen was something that no longer interested. He reached the throne and turned to survey the way he had come.

"Well?" she enquired, as she drew a quick breath after the ascent of the slope. "Just black horror down there with the evil of it hidden? You paralysed me standing there. I wanted to shout warning, as you did to me. But I couldn't. Did the terror of darkness satisfy your vulgar curiosity?"

"Quite." There was no doubt about the man's grin. "And completely impressed me with the power of its fascination for a human mind that's sufficiently gloomy."

But the girl gave no heed. She was absorbed in her purpose. She moved up to the ancient throne, and, tip-toeing to reach the seat of it, she sat herself on the central elevation as if in demonstration of her queenship.

"Fascination?" she reflected. "Of course. To us who can only speculate. But it's pretty plainly written for all that. It points the ancient rule by terror. Which is the only thing that's kept the world hanging together through the ages. Terror and cruelty. Ghastly fear. The methods of priestcraft, which, if permitted, would still prevail today. I think this was the original throne of justice. Justice!" She laughed without mirth. "Can't you see them at the whole abominable rite? The temple behind us where diabolical priests tried and sentenced their victim. This throne. My ancestor, for instance. Maybe she sat where I'm sitting now. With the priests and wise-men occupying the rest of it. The populace. The privileged populace. Filling the great arena to witness a spectacle of execution. Propaganda, of course. Then the victim paraded under guard before her. A sign. A wave of the imperial hand, perhaps." She gestured to illustrate. "Then down that ramp at the points of a dozen spears. Can't you see it? A fear-crazed victim driven to death. The final plunge below. Every soul of a lusting people aware of the horror waiting upon him. Or perhaps her."

Farlow watched her expression, and knew that her revolting was pretence. He remembered her claim to reincarnation. He shrank from it as a jewelled hand reached towards him and touched the mass of muscle that was his forearm.

But Farlow remained gazing down at the grim pit. He was listening with an acuteness which might have befitted a Basuto's ears. There were sounds in the air that did not belong to the distant drone of the falls. Faint but distinct. In that moment Farlow knew that the climax of his life was leaping at him.

In the passionate pre-occupation of her man-hunger the girl heard nothing. Realized nothing but the thrill of the moment for which she had planned, prepared. All she desired of life at that moment was there within her reach if only she could possess it. Imperiousness passed out of her. A queer humility took possession in its place. Pier command remained unreiterated.

"Now you know N'Gobi as we know it, Dick," she said, and there was caress in it. "We've kept nothing hidden. N'Gobi's a great and priceless treasure beyond dreams in its ultimate wealth. Father is aged. The work has far to go. It's for a younger man of vision, energy, and mentality, such as you possess. Do I need tell you the true reason that I sent Chiabwe with that map?"

"Surely not. You're a man. And I'm a woman. We're both young. There are years before us. Why should age be permitted to bar the way? One day we shall possess that reef that once supplied the whole world with its gold. It's here. And 'Gobi can be forced to yield its secret—to us. It's for you."

A cold-eyed man continued his gaze at the blackened opening that might have been the portal admitting to the bowels of the earth.

"I'm here now to make the present of it, Dick," she went on, with the urgency of disappointment. "I've always wanted you. You see, I've known and watched you all my life. There hasn't been a moment, in the years of struggle between us, when I've known personal antagonism. I think I've known you and longed for you all through those black ages since I ruled an empire that was once the greatest in the whole world. So, at last, I sent for you. It was mine to do so. I am the queen. You responded as I knew you must. You see, it's the fulfilment of our destinies. You can't leave me. You can't leave N'Gobi. Destiny is more powerful than any human purpose. In any case why should you? A treasure incalculable is here at our feet. Incalculable! And everything has been planned for its recovery."

There was a swift impulsive gesture of a jewelled hand as though the girl were sweeping away a last obstruction.

"Our old régime here has become impossible," she cried sharply. "It's done its work. Served its purpose. Now it's obsolete. Tonight sees its end. The plans are complete to the last detail. Father's aged. He thinks with a mind that belongs to his years. He's past his work. His day is over. It's time for— rest. And he will go to it. But that's all for me, and for my people. You'll have no part in it. You?" She paused. Then in a passionate outburst: "It's for you to awaken tomorrow—my king."

Hot passion was flaming in the Oriental eyes. Raamanita had passed beyond all restraint. She knew no shame, no pity. She was pleading for her desire with the insanity of sex in complete possession. Making her bid for a life perverted by long isolation from all that which the days of her childhood in England had shown her. She sat forward on her throne as though she would compel the man before whom she had humbled herself.

Farlow had turned. It was in open revolt and spurning. And with the knowledge of how well and truly his plans had shaped themselves. This creature of devilish loveliness had become utterly hateful. She was offering herself to him as unashamedly as any woman of the streets. She was telling him of a father she had determined to destroy in satisfaction of her animal lusts. This woman, whose doings had brought murder to Jill Forrester's home!

Feeling surged beyond his control. Sex? His last regard for it had been shattered.

"You want to pull yourself together, my girl," he warned, his lazy eyes cold with distaste. "Stark raving, I think. Button come undone, or something. But you've got a whole lot wrong. I didn't come here because you invited or ordered. Quite a different reason." He turned a swift glance at the western sky. "Patricide doesn't appeal to me a little bit. You'd best leave your precious father to get on with his dirty work and pile up the penalties coming to him. You've lived too long in these hills, absorbing the comic lore of your people. The best thing for you is to get out and find some damn fool who'll marry you before the crash comes, and a hangman does his job where it's most needed. Your 'king' business doesn't do more than make me sick."

He turned from her. He moved down the paved slope. And an arm was raised to point the glowing disc of the sun. It was almost obscured. Rising mists from deepening storm-clouds had robbed it of its splendour. Something more than specks were there against its background. Planes sailing evenly. And coming on at a great pace. Nine of them. And they were heading straight for N'Gobi's peak.

"See them?" he went on. "Not vultures. Part of the reason I'm here. A squadron of Government planes. Observers. Scientific blokes who'll do their job. And then carry the good news to those waiting for it. They'll fly low. They'll photograph. And they'll take with 'em a map that isn't your Queen's Highway. They'll carry the secrets of your ancient capital, and be away before your Ankubis and people can fire a popgun at 'em. But you're right. Your father's finished. 'Gobi's treasure's not for him. It belongs to a slow-witted but pertinacious Government who'll see it gets the last farthing of it."

The girl's reaction was instant. Farlow shot a swift glance to discover the tiger in her. But no storm broke. She retorted with the mocking of conscious power.

"You pathetic fool!" Raamanita's eyes glittered like jewels. "Have you thought up all your copy book says? You sound like it. Your planes, observers, photographs, and maps. Do you think they matter to me? As for your pertinacious Government that can go hang, too. They can't help you. And for me that's all that matters. You've made your decision. And you'll have no chance to retract. The purity of your manhood shan't be besmirched or sickened by any kingship of mine. That's why you're there standing before our old throne. It's not through any chance of circumstance. No. There's a pit behind you. And in its depths there are embracing arms more suited perhaps than mine to receive you. It will be an embrace that won't outrage your purity. The moment's propitious."

There was a laugh as the girl turned. Her hands smote together in a pathetic expression of authority.

Response was instant. It was at the outer rim of the crater. Pulati. He rose up from a place of concealment and stood. But that was not all. Twenty or more figures appeared over the crater's lip. They were khaki-clad, and were spread out, encompassing it. They came down its slope on the run, centring on the pit and throne in an ever closing ring. Farlow realized their knife equipment. But he gave heed alone to the unmoving Pulati.

"Wonderful the way they're making it," he observed enthusiastically. "Touching about two hundred to the hour, I'd say. The formation, too. Can't think how they keep it. Hear their engines? Can't hear the falls for their roar."

He moved, passing down the paved slope towards the pit. He was still pointing. He turned to look back.

A shot rang out. The bullet passed at the spot where Farlow had turned. He was no longer there. But he thought he felt the passage of it as it sung by. A second shot came at once. But again its objective was not in the bullet's path. Farlow had reached the gaping mouth of the pit where it was unprotected when a third shot cracked like a pin-prick of sound in the thunder of swooping planes.

A cry broke at the pit mouth. It was a shriek of man's mortal agony, or fear. It shrilled even in the din of the machines approaching. Then it wailed on down into the bowels of the earth as Farlow crumpled and pitched to the depths below.

Raamanita had missed none of it. She was utterly without mercy for the man who had spurned her. She saw the crumple of a lean body that had been her every earthly desire and gave no sign. She listened to the despairing cry of a doomed man and knew no pity. Even the final rush to the balustrade of her avenging people was something of which she was scarcely aware.

Finally it was the thunder of the low-flying, approaching planes which distracted her.

Like a vivid red statue she bestirred into active life. She turned to gaze up at the vast wing-spread of nine vehicles of the air. She turned again to the gaping pit as though to reassure herself. Then, in a moment, she was hurrying over the paved terrace to join her gunman, still waiting at his post on the crater's rim.

Halfway across it she was shocked into immobility. It was the air-squadron. It came with a rush that appalled. It swept over her head. And the wind of its passing blasted her. She cowered and gazed up. Was it a hundred feet above her? No. Perhaps fifty. Hypnotized, she found herself gazing after nine smoking exhausts, as the planes, like monstrous rising waterfowl, skimmed low over the shining waters of the lake.

Pulati watched the coming of the planes. Unmoved by the lowness of their flight he followed them on their way up the watercourse of the lake. Then he turned back to his queen, and reset the safety-catch of his automatic. He caressed its shining, flat sides with a yellow hand. He returned it to a pocket as his queen reached his side.

Devoted eyes adored as the vivid figure came up. But Raamanita saw nothing as she commanded urgently.

"'The Glory'!" she cried. "At once. And quick. Or we shall lose the sun. Is everything as I commanded?"

The man's black eyes were smiling with the confidence of one who knows his work has been well and truly done.

"The tanks are fuelled to capacity. The queen's grips are stowed. Her flying kit is set out ready. There is no more. Unless it be—Ambwani?"

Pulati searched a lovely mask fast yielding to the emotions of the woman behind it. He witnessed an instant gesture of spurning as the queen abdicated in favour of a furious woman.

"Don't dare to question!" Raamanita shrilled hotly. "You've done enough already. You've killed him. Shot him down to the hell he asked for. You! Get back to the car! And you'll get us to 'The Glory' with sunlight. It's finished. Do you understand that? Ambwani will see them. We must clear the lake road before he acts."

CHAPTER XXIII. — THE ROLL OF THE DICE

THE man they called Ambwani was on the wide stoep of the house on the terrace. His big body was leaning against a roof post. Busy jaws were masticating the defenceless end of a long cheroot. He was blowing furious smoke. His gaze was on the sprawled town far below him. And that which he beheld suggested a colony of veldt ant heaps that had been violently disturbed.

In spite of the fact that his was the responsibility for the disturbance the spectacle of it afforded him no satisfaction.

Age seemed to have robbed Lionel Garnet of none of the vital energy which had restored life to the aged heart of N'Gobi. It still burned fiercely behind his steady, cold eyes. It still urged muscles that rarely knew weariness. It still actuated a mentality that recognized no decision but its own. He had ordered evacuation of the town for the greater safety of N'Gobi's hidden places. And the progress of the demonstration of his authority hurt him.

Those yellow creatures down there, slaves of his inflexible will, had not been unlike children to him for forty years. He had cared for them, nursed and fostered them, educated them for his own purposes. If not dear to him he yet regarded them as belonging. And now he knew that their possession was to be snatched from him by a force of bitter circumstances, the possibility of whose arising he had always foreseen and prepared against.

Crisis. There was no doubt in his mind that crisis was at hand. A crisis which he told himself should never have arisen. It needed no debate to tell him that Raamanita's sighting of planes circling out westward of "The Glory" had close connection with the blind folly of admitting Richard Farlow to the secrets of N'Gobi.

He scanned the calmly shining waters of the lake, searching for those signs of a people's pastime which he had always encouraged. There were none. Every boat was lying beached, or at its mooring, with never a sail set. Not a living soul was to be seen near the water's edge. In every other direction it was frantically different. Commotion was everywhere on the roads and amongst the houses. There were pack-donkeys being heavily laden. There were hand vehicles of all descriptions being piled with poor household belongings. There were comings and goings in and out of the beehive habitations, both in the denser part of the town and the more scattered dwellings along the lake shore. Already a straggling procession was evacuating its homing in the direction of the mountain torrent which drained N'Gobi's glaciers. It was making for those hidden places which had served so loyally in a long distant past. Sound came up, breaking through the monotonous rumble of the great falls. And, to the man who listened, it was an echo of the angry lament he, himself, was mutely voicing.

The sight of the disruption of his life's work sent a tide of rage surging through the man's nerve centres. He turned from a spectacle which drove him to madness.

He gazed out to the west for a sight of Raamanita's returning car. It was that for which he was really waiting. And it was in a sort of frantic anticipation of that which his better sense told him could not possibly materialize. He wanted her news, however, be it what it might.

His best hope was news that the ancient crocodile had claimed its victim. Or that Pulati's gun had done its appointed work. He did not expect it. He merely hoped as a grudging concession. For, in his stubborn mind, there was the conviction that Farlow, as an enemy, was inevitable. He was not merely a red light of danger. The man had developed into his Nemesis.

The lakeshore road was starkly empty. He could discover neither car nor creature anywhere along its ribbon of sand. He searched it to its farthest visible extremity. And from that extremity his gaze did not withdraw. It was held, fascinated, while a thrill of furious anguish shuddered through him. His last grudging hope had shattered.

It was against the dull, misted burnish of a stormy sun. It even looked as though the sun was the open portal of a heavenly furnace which was emitting that which he beheld. Moving specks, sharply silhouetted and sailing towards him. They were darkened by the background of fire. Shape was lost. They just sailed on an even line that looked to be severed in two places. He knew. It was the illusion of head-on direction. Aircraft! A squadron! Nine planes sailing in military formation at headlong speed. Their direction was straight for where he was standing.

The commotion below was forgotten. The return of Raamanita could mean nothing to him now. The mangled remains of the man's cigar was flung from him. And hot eyes told of the tide of blood surging through the channels of an aged head.

The specks grew in size till identity was widely proclaimed. The planes were sailing at incredible speed. And as they came the man found himself stupidly counting. He counted nine. Not once, but over and over again. It was the mechanics of a brain something; out of control.

He became aware of changing tactics. The line seemed to close up. Then, from a higher altitude, the whole mass of planes seemed to swoop down to a lower level. They looked to be sailing only just clear of the low hill tops which ranged beyond the lake's western limits. He thought of the ruined Temple of the Crocodile and wondered.

But his wonder passed on the instant. The roar of on-coming engines dominated the steady drone of the falls as the bunched aircraft streamed into the cliffed channel of the lake. They were flying only a few feet above the surface of the water.

The rush of it became overwhelming. At one moment the aircraft were skimming the water at the lake's far limit. The next Lionel Garnet was gazing up at the swarm of them circling over the town below him, like gathering assevogels contemplating the carrion feast upon which they were preparing to alight.

But there was no attempt at landing. And the watching man understood. Observing! Camera shutters were probably snapping shut, and films recording. The pilots were circling that no detail should be missed. They were up there mapping everything below them that the story of N'Gobi might be carried on to those waiting to receive it. He thought of "The Glory" with its golden idol he had refused to loot. He thought of the jungle road whose making had been a labour of years, and whose head terminated to give entrance to the ancient galleries of old-time gold-seekers. He thought of a township whose houses and factories bespoke civilization and industry. Nothing would escape the prying lenses of those cameras. Nothing could be salved from the disaster of scientific betrayal. The hopelessness of it all froze the man's mind and purpose to dire expedient.

One plane detached itself from its circling fellows. It turned at an abrupt angle. Its silver body flashed as it headed for the sheltering stoep where Garnet was standing. It "zoomed" down. It swooped low. And it traversed the length of the ancient terrace head high to the man observing it. Garnet read. It was on the fuselage as well as under wing. A Government plane, with Government markings.

It passed. Its roar was deafening. It went on to spiral a steep ascent. Then it returned at leisurely speed. It was all so obvious. In imagination Garnet saw the cameraman at work. And his wit warned him that with the rest he, personally, had supplied a photograph.

In that moment feeling calmed to be replaced by that complete steadiness Garnet knew he would need. He even dipped a hand into the pocket of his shirt to extract his cheroot case. He lighted a fresh cheroot. Now it was he who gave himself solely to observation.

He watched the planes scatter, their work over his township completed. They passed widely afield. Two raced away in the direction of "The Glory" which they had spotted. Others took the line of the jungle road to discover the entrance to his mines. Others again turned back over the lake to pick up a record of all that which had been missed in the first onrush.

He watched for further development. And his cheroot was half consumed when the regathering came. It was to return to due military formation. Then to head away in orderly flight in a southwesterly direction.

Garnet watched them till the mists of evening swallowed them up and only a faint murmur of droning engines lost itself in the low thunder of the falls. Then he turned and passed back within the house.

It was no broken man who paced through the anteroom and made his way into the audience chamber which was almost a king's throne-room. On the contrary. Years seemed to have lifted from Garnet's massive shoulders. And there was a great thrust of indomitable resolution about the cold face under its close-cropped head of white hair. There was savage purpose in the set of jaws clamped on the mangled end of the half-burnt cheroot.

He moved down the length of the magnificent apartment looking neither to the right nor the left. He beheld none of the ancient sculpture which had intrigued Dick Farlow on his introduction to his host. He was only conscious that it was within his power to defeat those who would deprive him. In so far as it was humanly possible he intended to deny them, however dire the cost to himself.

He came to his desk with its litter, which was yet orderliness itself to him. And he paused. Almost it was as though, in the abruptness of it, he had encountered a bar to further progress. He stood gazing over at his own empty chair.

Perhaps it was memory. Perhaps it was a moment when the nakedness of ruthless purpose forced its ugliness upon him. At any rate, for some moments he stood quite still, blowing smoke, while the fierce light of mute fury in his eyes burned less hotly. After a while he found himself looking down at the chair near his hand, which was always bolted securely to the stone flooring. The sight of it came near to conjuring a smile.

He turned from it, and passed round his desk to his empty chair. Forthwith he yielded his big body to the embrace of well worn arms which had supported it for so many years.

He sat there unmoving and gazing. Pie smoked in heavy gusts. His gaze was straight out ahead of him down the softly lit room. But he saw none of it. None of the elaborate stage upon which he had always been wont to play the leading role. He was thinking. Searching. Looking back over long years that had gone. In that moment of disaster the arrogance of mind which years of achievement had fostered in him had become less dominant. A queer humility was at work; he was seeking some key-blunder which, at some time, he felt he must have made.

It was when he came to regard a big youth newly arrived in the old-time iron city of Kimberley that he discovered something of that which he sought. He beheld a vision of a warmhearted, frail, but kindly woman. It was a woman he had looked upon as a mere chattel. He remembered she had cared sufficiently to advise out of her worldliness, and to warn of serious danger. He remembered a youthful overweening confidence, conceit. He remembered ungracious resentment at interference. Then he remembered the blind folly of pitting inexperience against a machinery built up to defeat the wits of the most cunning. He sought no further. That key-blunder lay in his own personality. Driving for victory he had blindly ignored the machinery against which he was pitted.

He bestirred savagely. He stubbed out the last of his cheroot in an ash-tray. His mood was there in the sweeping gesture with which he flung aside the litter of books and papers to clear the desk.

Soon he was manipulating the pointer of a combination lock. It was set in the desk, in front of where he sat, just under its edge. He completed the combination. A key released the lock. Then the whole desk-top lifted and supported itself.

He leant forward and peered down into the cavity exposed. And the sight of a switchboard, and the complicated orderliness of a mass of insulated wires, if it gave no great satisfaction, at least stirred in him a sense of his own tremendous power for destruction.

The car was racing at breakneck speed. Pulati's foot was held down on the accelerator. Fear was urging. But not urging the man at the driving wheel. Pulati was humouring a woman's whim with a gladness that knew no measure. And, as he drove the car at its uttermost speed, he was contemplating a dream of the future which the latest events looked like translating into reality.

It was the smooth, even, lakeshore road heading towards the rose-tinted capital. Raamanita was without a moment's peace of mind while the upstanding cliffs remained flashing by her. Far behind her a big tropic storm was beating up out of the west. High up in the sky ahead she had watched the departing planes making off to the southwest. A signal there could be no misinterpreting. While under the wheels of her speeding car who could tell? Who could say when the madness of it all would shatter the world about her?

She huddled back in the corner of the car cowering in the warmth of a beautiful fur coat whose origin was somewhere in the West End of London. She was surrounded by other wraps that looked to be absurdly out of place in the tropics of Africa. She was pathetically silent while the world flashed by.

Ahead she beheld the last of the great lake's confining cliffs and the jungle road beyond. The break of it seemed to leap at her. And she sighed relief as she found herself gazing into the shadowed depths of tangled thorn-bush. She even knew a momentary warmth for the boy in the driving seat. At least she had escaped from one threat whose appalling nature had unsteadied her nerve.

Now the straightness of the jungle cutting carried her on at unlessening speed. There would be the bridge over N'Gobi's torrent. There would be the turn-off to the mines and the hill country beyond. Then there would be the city lying under threat of destruction. But after that the ancient causeway which would become her gateway of escape from a life that had become no longer endurable.

The girl knew well enough it was now or never. After her own dire act at the ruined Temple of the Crocodile she knew she must flee from a hell of her own creation. Her woman's dream was shattered. All that had gilded the bars of her prison had been destroyed at the dictate of the savage in her. Nothing now was left to her but to get away and seek such consolation and forgetfulness as might be possible in a world where the hurly burly of civilization flowed at its highest tide. England. London. There was still a dim reflection of the bright light of her childhood.

The bridge came at them with a rush. The turn-off flashed by. Then came a slow-down approaching the city. It was a stream of scowling, panic-stricken humanity fleeing to the hill country beyond the mines.

Again the savage leapt uppermost in the woman. She eyed the yellow life that flooded the road without affection. Without pity. She saw the hate in the eyes that peered as they hurried past the car. She heard the bitter imprecations flung at her person as men, women, and many children herded aside to escape a juggernaut that knew no pity. Raamanita callously urged the youth in the driving seat.

The delay of the passage of the city wrought fresh havoc in the girl's nerves. But at last the broad old causeway opened out ahead of the car, and tension eased. A second danger had been avoided as the last of the habitations dropped away behind. Now, at last, there was no more to concern but the storm rising out of the west.

But the storm had come on at tropic speed by the time the last tread of "The Glory's" granite stairway had passed underfoot. The toil of the endless ascent between granite walls had been little hardship. But the time it had taken had been a different matter. When Raamanita, with the youth beside her, confronted the leering temple sphinxes and dared the challenge of the beast-men colossi guarding the cavernous entrance of the central body of the building, thunder was rolling, and lightning was splitting the whole of the western heavens. The sun was hidden. And the whole world had developed a brooding evening twilight.

The girl hurried. She was undeterred by any elemental threat. She believed that from which she was fleeing to be of infinitely greater peril than any rage into which the elements could lash themselves.

She led on with Pulati keeping pace. The youth was laden with all those surplus wraps with which the girl had surrounded herself in the car. And his good looks were smiling a supreme content.

Pulati asked no better. There could be no better, as he saw it. He knew a supreme joy in his hot, wild soul. No golden idol had ever known a more passionate worship than was his for the lovely thing he was ready to follow to the ends of the earth.

Their present contact ravished him. He knew a growing sense of intimacy. He felt his adored queen to be almost dependent on him. Then Ovrana was no longer. Ankubi would lose himself with those others in the secret places of the hills. And as for a white intruder a gunshot had dispatched him to the place where he rightly belonged. There was nothing left to deter. Soon now, with the loveliest woman on earth, he would be far away. N'Gobi would be no more than a nightmare memory. Far out in a new world of their own they would be alone together with nothing but their simple humanity between them.

But a violent crash overhead imposed itself upon the youth's roseate dream. They had reached the beast-men guardians of the portal. Raamanita stood. And she stared out at the west. Blackness was fast spreading to fill the entire vault of the heavens. She pointed. While Pulati gazed with a frown of concern.

It seemed as if the girl were asking opinion. So the youth read it. He shook his head.

"It is best to make delay," he warned. "My Queen's skill is great. But—" He looked into the lovely slanted eyes which smiled mockery at him. "A hill storm," he went on. "It will quickly pass. Then there will be nothing that we may fear."

"Delay?" It was scorn with much more in it. "We wait for nothing. It's for you to get those things aboard. We'll be away and clear of the storm before—"

But she was shocked to silence. Nor was it the growing rage of the storm. It was another thunder from some subterranean source. It came like the bursting of a volcano's crater. The slabs of ancient masonry under the girl's feet almost jolted with the force of it. The whole rock of "The Glory" seemed to tremble to its foundations. The thunder of it rolled in muffled waves of sound. And the cadence of it suggested the heaving rollers of a storm-driven ocean.

Raamanita announced the verity of it with cold certitude. "That's the start of it, Pulati," she went on, almost without interest. "Forty years' work crashed beyond all hope of reclamation. A plant destroyed that's cost blood and sweat to set up. The next will be the southern lakeshore. A thousand tons of high explosive to wreck a barrier that Nature set up. An old way reopened. Our Queen's Highway draining itself into the sea. And a southern desert being transformed into fertility. An example of destructive human might. After that the pitiful meanness of deserted homes reduced to a rubble for which someone, someday, may find fresh use. That's Ambwani's schedule."

"That will remain. I needed it. So I made a strong point and dissuaded. Ambwani only cares for the secret of N'Gobi's gold. Hurry!"

That which she had forbade to Dick Farlow was known to her in its last detail. From early childhood she had scoffed at awe, and made sacrilege her plaything. Countless sculptured pillars, and effigies, and altars, and all the hundred and one relics of a prehistoric religion had provided her with toys to please a child mind. She passed on, hurrying down the immense darkened avenue contained by columns set at regular intervals.

There was no obstruction to bar the way, till half the length of the building had been traversed. Then appeared a stone dais that was broadly stepped. It filled the whole width of the hallway. A high altar was set up on it, supported on the backs of crouching beast-men. Behind it was the walling of a sort of sculptured stone reredos, vivid with the painted picture-figures which time had left unfaded.

Raamanita sidestepped out of the temple's nave between two vast pillars and passed into the western aisle. And as she continued southward on her way she gazed out between the lesser pillars, to watch the furious play of storm.

So they came to modern anachronism. A graceful monoplane, single-engined and slimly beautiful in its aluminium sheen. It was there at the utmost limit of the western aisle facing the terrace with its ramp approach. Its silver sharply contrasted with the dull gold of an idol under whose shelter it reposed.

The order came sharply as the girl halted beside the wooden ladder set up to reach the craft's cockpit. Had Pulati's adoration been less he might have recognized the old imperiousness of it. As it was he obeyed unhesitatingly. He ascended the ladder with his burden. It was all sufficient for him that he was there to serve.

As he disappeared into the machine Raamanita passed round to the far side of it. And when she reappeared, to find the man awaiting further orders at the foot of the ladder, she was fully clad in flying kit, even to helmet, and the goggles on her forehead.

She handed him her fur coat and the bundle of the wearing apparel she had discarded. And she waited while he reascended into the machine to obey her orders to bestow them. Then she, too, ascended the ladder and took her place in the pilot's seat.

All was in readiness. The man stood up from packing away the treasures which had so intimately contacted with his queen's lovely body. And an overhead crash of thunder almost drowned the girl's order. Its violence was rending. It split and crackled. And lightning flood-lit the whole of the southern sky.

"Swing over the propeller," she ordered. "Then get back in sharp, and kick away the steps. It's time we took the air."

The youth's mute obedience had all the pathetically beautiful subservience which adolescence so readily yields when the fires of sex impulse are hotly alight. He leapt to it on the run. In a moment, almost, the propeller swung. Then, in response to the flow of fuel, it was set roaring to the momentary obliteration of the storm. The echoes of the engine's race were deafening.

Pulati leapt up the steps. He kicked them away. He lay over the rail to swing himself to the cockpit. But he got no farther.

The roar of the engine almost smothered the sound of it. It was the vicious crack of Dick Farlow's automatic in Raamanita's hand while her narrowed, cold eyes looked over its barrel. Pulati fell back as the plane taxied forward. He crashed where the steps had been. Blood was streaming from an exact puncture between his eyebrows. And a hideous mess was made of the back of his head as he lumped heavily to the stone paving over which the plane was passing.

The plane raced into the open. It taxied past the golden idol as though eager to escape a detested contact. It took the slope of the paved ramp and tried to lift. Then, while the heavens crashed, it steadied to its work. Halfway across the plateau it took the air.

It rose gracefully, steadily, in the elemental din. The play of lightning on its aluminium yielded a ghostliness that was not unbeautiful. The storm seemed utterly without effect upon it.

It lifted clear of "The Glory" rock. It sailed out over the jungle depths below it. For moments it climbed like some glittering silver bird. Then the heavens opened above it as though to discharge the last reserves of devastating fire upon a vaunting intruder. A blaze of vivid light forked down upon it. The stricken thing stalled out of control. It dipped. Then, like some white-hotted meteor, it nose-dived to the jungle below, trailing flame and smoke behind it.

CHAPTER XXIV. — INFERNO

LARKY remembered a time when he had watched the furious antics of a puma raging up and down the bars of its cage, madly seeking a means of escape. He told himself he was like that puma. Even to its temper.

But he justified his peeve. Twenty-four hours! For twenty-four hours he had been caged in a subterranean pool big enough, it seemed to him, to contain the manoeuvres of a battleship. Its inlet was barraged by Living Weed with prehensile trailers that he felt were forever reaching out to pull his boat down. The place had no other outlet unless a man had wings. It gave housing to a horrible stone image standing in a charnel of human remains. It was on top of a mass of hand-built stonework founded on a bottom he had been unable to fetch with a hook attached to its longest line. And for twenty-four hours he had been lying in hiding from a yellow people for whom he did not care a snap of the fingers. For all that time he had been consumed by worry for the only man who mattered in his life.

Larky hated all of it but had done his best. At least he had done those things that had come naturally to him. First he had explored the stone crocodile to the tune of scrounging a brace of marvellous emeralds by prising them out of stone eye-sockets. Then he had set about satisfying an inordinate cockney curiosity. He had spent hours searching every nook and corner of the stone bars of his cage. And was even now at the last lap of his appointed task.

With searchlights ablaze he was prying into the rivings and cell-like honeycombings of basaltic rock. Cavern-like burrows gaped at him. Splits, capable of swallowing up his boat, invariably proved dead ends instead of outlets. Then, the whole time, it seemed to him he was avoiding thrusting groins of rocks finally submerging themselves to remain a deadly peril under the smooth surface of the water.

He kept the engine turning over at just sufficient speed to keep the boat nosing and acutely responsive to its helm. And the slow pulsing of it aggravated a dreary gloom in the whole business. Larky, himself, was incapable of anything calculated to relieve things. And as for Omba, clad only in a dingy loincloth, he became something black enough and noiseless enough to pursue a coffin to the grave.

Larky's native persistence was weakening. Had weakened. He had just made up his mind that if something did not happen soon he would "chance his arm" on the open of the river beyond the barrage of weed.

As Omba, pursuing his appointed avocation, insinuated his black shadow forward, and stood caressing the laid machine-gun beside him, Larky spoke at him from one corner of his mouth.

"Here! I'm fed up," he announced in bitter complaint. "We're going to get out and get another crack at the blighters outside. See what I mean? It ain't as if the baas knew what he was asking for chasing up that bit of yeller skirt. Course not. Now if this was the 'Olloway Road he was rakin' it would be different. He could pick his fancy. And it would be all Sir Garnet. See? He'd just blow into a cinema and spend a couple of bob on her, and hold her hand, or something. Then he'd buy her a couple at his fancy local just to make things pleasant-like. But when it comes to a yeller fairy-queen, and a crowd of yeller 'narsties' lookin' to cut the guts out of a bloke, I ask you. Like pickin' your fancy in a Chink dance hall with your month's wages packed in your kicksey. Fed up thinking of him, I am. Christ! Never been so fed up since that bloke ripped my shoulder open. Here! I've done with these blarsted rocks. We'll tie up again. It's better that than tearing the bottom out of her."

The deep bass acquiescent noise Larky's complaint provoked in the Basuto was sufficient. And Larky swung the boat and headed for the image basking in the circle of daylight pouring down on it from above. Omba folded himself into the seat behind his gun.

Larky focussed his light on the field of whitened human bones over which the image stood guard.

"Look at 'em!" he went on, in angry disgust. "Fed up? Cor! Blarsted sepulchre! That's what we're in."

"Wouldn't be so bad," Larky complained with less feeling, as they neared the daylight, "if it wasn't for what we're missing. Just you think of it. Us muckin' about in a murder dump of a sewer while the 'Ighbury boys are puttin' it over for the League Championship. Not to say a thing about Cup Ties. Fair makes me want to cry like a kid with its pants down. Here, Omba! You mark me. If ever you an' me get out of this blarsted mix up, which I can't see we ever will, you'll get that black body of yours covered decent, and I'll buy your sitting room at 'Ighbury so you can watch 'em at it. Time of your life, cully! The way they handle that ball with their feet! Miwies! Them! Betcher they win the Cup. Tcha! What's the use. How the hell can we get out— Here! What's that? There!"

Larky pointed. It was at the daylight reflected on the water. It was the edge of its wide circle. A shadow projected from the darkness beyond its outer edge.

Larky reached the light switch. He blacked out. Then, cutting out his engine, he craned a moulted head through his open port. With difficulty he faced above. Omba had leapt back to the boat's well.

Regardless of the boat's control Larky withdrew his head and passed back to the open of the well. He and Omba stared up at the circle of daylight while the boat drifted.

But there was nothing. Nothing at all. Farlow had withdrawn. And the circle of light remained unbroken. Larky readjusted his decaying hat.

"Him good baas." It rumbled deeply. "Yes. Us see him. Yellow devil not skin him alive. No." Larky spat.

Omba missed the argument of it. His keen senses were held in a fresh direction. He was listening to something he alone could hear.

"Watcher mean, up there? The blinkin' thing ain't beating at all. You're ga-ga."

Nevertheless Larky listened. He could hear nothing but the faint murmur of the distant falls. Omba gestured. "Fly plane!" he intoned.

But the boat's drift was carrying it head on to the pedestal of the crocodile. Larky hurried forward, started his engine and put it in reverse. Then he switched on every light.

Larky was in dilemma. He was more surely held to the pool than ever. His chief was somewhere above them. Omba had heard aeroplanes. Larky's foreboding launched itself on a wider sea of disturbing speculation. He cruised away, clear of the idol.

He moved in a wide circle round it while he brought every faculty he possessed to bear on the problem of that figure he had seen peering down from above. What was he doing up there? Why withdraw so suddenly? Why no sign to them below? Easy! Those bones lying about under the image. Of course. Stood to reason. He was for it. They'd got him up there in a lock up. And he was piking to see what was waiting on him. But what about it being daylight up—

It was a sound. Faint but familiar. It was up there somewhere. And Larky turned back to the man whose hearing was trained to the jungle.

While awaiting reply he heard it again. A surge of impotent fury leapt to Larky's red head. Shooting him up. His rage became blinding.

He turned again to speak. But there came a third shot and a yell that chilled the marrow in his every bone. He turned to gaze out into the beam of the searchlights as a piteous wail echoed and reechoed against the rocks about him. In a flash he beheld. It came hurtling down. Feet first. A man's body. And the grey flannels were unmistakable.

A great splash of water went up, only a few yards ahead. And the boat's nose cut into the ripples of a widening circle.

"Forgot to heat the bath water, I think, Larky." Never in his life had Larking Brown known such a moment of delirious gloom. Every emotion of which it was capable possessed his hardcase soul. Just that spluttering, ridiculous admonishment in the one voice he was glad to listen to. A streaming head had appeared above water, and two long arms reached up and grabbed the boat's rail.

Speech faculties were muted at that glorious, if moist, apparition. The best Larky could do was to reach down for Farlow to grab his hands. He was as near to laughing delight as he had ever been in his life.

But no word passed his lips until a big dripping body was standing in the well. Then came sharp concerned enquiry.

It brought a grin to the man who ran his hands down his flannels to squeeze out the water.

"We piked you 'angin' your 'ead over the 'ole, sir," Larky went on. "Heard the shots, too."

"On the run, all right," he admitted. "Had to chance it with them potting, and all that. Knew what it meant. The weed. And the crocodile, and things, of course. Couldn't be helped. But I'd seen you. Not so bad. But I'm damned glad you weren't on the end of Pulati's gun. 'Fraid their standard of shooting's not as high as ours. Missed me by inches. Three shots. So I just dropped. And hollered to let 'em think. Wanted to leave a satisfactory impression." He nodded a dripping head at the overshadowing stone image. "Jolly little fellow. Stone!"

"Can't see how you didn't crash into his cemetery, sir," he gloomed. "Right a-top of him, too."

"Saw, and didn't like it," Farlow chattered. "Took another route. Longer, of course. Seemed like a couple of hundred feet or so coming down. Hell of a long way coming up, too. Glad they taught me to swim."

"S'pose this is the first daylight we saw," he went on. "Don't know what made you lie up here, of course. But you want to get out quick. Back to the main river. Quick as hell'll let you. If you still want that Cup Final turn west down the river. Things are going to happen, I expect. And, I think, quick. I'll go and get rubbed down."

With a dozen questions remaining unasked Larky looked after Farlow as he crouched his way under the decking beyond the engine. Then he turned swiftly to recover control of the boat and carry out orders whole-heartedly.

Omba waited for nothing. He went to possess himself of his long-bladed stabbing assegai.

In a few minutes the boat was lifted high in the water. It was driving with throttle wide open. And Omba was dancing a war dance, slashing right and left at a hated, crawling adversary.

Larky saw to it that Omba's lone-handed battle was of the shortest possible duration. The boat cleared the weed barrage and raced out on to the smooth bosom of the river's slack water beyond.

While the boat sped on, and Larky waited for his chief's reappearance he contemplated those things that were going to happen "quick." What were they? What could happen to them that had not already happened?

Larky was in the act of sucking his teeth when his reflections were cut short by the sound of a prolonged booming rumble. It came in great waves of thunder rising and falling, and filling the whole vault of the underworld. It set the air of the place in some sort of commotion.

He was still wondering and searching in an anxious troubled way when Farlow, dry and freshly clad in old flannels, and smoking with precious enjoyment, slid his long body into the seat beside him.

"Fun's starting, I think," he sighed contentedly. "Sounds like thunder but isn't. Good stuff 'Three Star' when your bones and teeth are rattling. I'll take the wheel."

Farlow grinned while he listened acutely. "Yessir. Once we make the main stream it won't be long us getting into open daylight. Be easier for you, like." Farlow's big shoulders bestirred.

"You've got it wrong," he said coolly. "No daylight yet awhile. Quite a long time, I expect. If ever. You see, Captain van Ruis is overhead. Squadron of nine Government planes. And I rather fancy Lionel Garnet's just started to blow the world sky high. Just take this seat, and I'll see about that wheel. We'll cruise about and hope for the best. If nothing looks like doing we'll tie up at that pier again and see about it."

Larky's last hope of the coast and Highbury crashed. But even in the magnitude of the disaster his curiosity sustained him.

"Quite." It rasped. "His brother. Lionel. They're top, middle, and bottom of a murder gang. Between them they got Sir Alan Forrester, and nearly got you."

The exchange of seats had been made. And Farlow swung the boat back on its tracks. Larky stared ahead in a direction he had hoped to be done with.

"That old blighter at Elstane, sir? Cor! Him run a murder gang? Why he's three parts dead himself."

"And the rest's damnably alive. It was he who got Sir Alan in his bed for the map of this place you passed to me. But now tell me. I mean after I landed. All of it. It should be good hearing. They meant getting you."

"Not half they didn't, sir," Larky replied heartily. "And they would have but for that black savage, Omba. Quick as a flash, he was, sir. Chain-lightnin'. Spotted them gates closin' on us. And hollered it at me."

The generosity of it appealed tremendously. Farlow warmed to the man. He nodded approving. And somehow Larky failed to realize how his curiosity had been defeated.

For nearly an hour the boat cruised under Farlow's hands. The range of it was the wide expanse of slack water. And the whole time Farlow listened to a story the illumination of which was characteristically Larky.

Farlow smoked, gazed, listened. And his listening was by no means confined to the other's story.

For most of the time the rumble of distant thunder, whether elemental or subterranean, went on at intervals. So much so that it almost came to be accepted like the droning of the falls which it frequently drowned.

Larky's selection of the crocodile pool, as an expression of strategic genius appealed to his chief's humour. But the incident of "scrounging" two great green stones from the eyes of the image completely distracted his attention from everything else.

Larky produced two stones from two separate pockets. They were nearly as big as hens' eggs. Farlow took them. He examined them under the pendant light. His amazement was profound. It was the exquisite workmanship of skilful cutting. Both stones had one cut face. The rest was in natural state. The cut facets were perfectly polished, and glittered with the same evil lustre and sparkle which he remembered on Raamanita's forehead. Green, vivid emerald. He weighed them in his hands and marvelled.

"Amazing! That crocodile's eyes! Chiselled 'em out of their sockets! You've certainly had the best of the show!"

"I don't know a lot about jewels and things," he said. "But if those really are emeralds I don't know a bank safe enough to hold their price. You've scrounged a thing or two in your damned unsaintly life, Larky. But this time you seem to have done a spot better than pinching a general's bubbly for a thirsty colonel."

It was the fifth time the twin piers of the great docks had come under the beam of the massed searchlights. And Larky was watching the growing disc of light at the far end where the ramp came down from above.

"That's all right, sir," he said. "They ain't mine. I was just toting 'em around in case I tore the bottom out of her. Safer than packing 'em in your kit. But they're emeralds, sir. Betcher my life on that. Can't think of another green stone but jade. Jade? Don't sparkle like them. Ought to make the sort of weddin' present that'll fetch every camera bloke in England." He sucked his teeth in unsmiling content. "I'll keep 'em for you, sir," he said, returning the stones to his pocket. "Don't want to pass you no more trouble till we've finished with this blarsted—Holy Gawd!"

It was as if the whole world had riven to its bowels. The crash of it stunned. It left human faculties in a state of paralysis. Larky's face contorted. It convulsed under aural agony. His hands clasped his head in a gesture of defence. Farlow sat forward, his head lowered, cowering under the blow of it. His shouted retort was unheard.

A second crash came with a rending and tearing. A third followed directly on its heels. A fourth. A fifth. And each crash seemed to be progressing towards the boat from the direction of the lake. The boat shivered from end to end like a creature palsied. A rush of wind furied down the vault of the river. In a moment, it seemed, where had been the stillness of slack and streamless water an ocean fury was pitching the boat almost on its beam ends.

Climax leapt. There were a few seconds of lull in the storm of it. Then a thunder broke that left the rest forgotten. Larky flung forward in helpless mental anguish. Omba had sprawled his lean, black body huddled somewhere under the breech of one of his guns. Farlow thrust an uncertain hand, reaching towards his switchboard.

His wheel spun. Two of his lights blacked out. With reckless hopelessness he raced his engine. And the staunch boat miraculously responded to his will. It turned from the crash roaring down upon it.

Vaguely, as tenacious hands clung to his wheel, Farlow beheld. It was all momentary. There, where the disc of the ramp's daylight showed. The rock above it seemed to lift, to totter.

Then it split. Riven as though chiselled down from far above. In a moment it had fallen apart, wide and gaping, yielding a broad shaft of daylight to flood a havoc of crashing boulders.

It was gone. It was behind. The boat was racing through turbulent, spuming waters towards that western goal which had been Larky's hope.

CHAPTER XXV. — THE DEEPS OF THE LAKE

Thunder crashed and boomed in hot pursuit. It was above. It was on every hand. And its echoes roared on far ahead. Dislodged rocks were raining. The reality of that terror rarely absent from the human mind in the cavernous depths of the earth. Safety was nowhere but in the far distance. Somewhere in that open beyond the guarded portal of N'Gobi's third steep.

As the distance gained a slowly recovering Larky breathed a measure of relief. Absently he detached the remains of a cigarette from behind an ear. He stared at it stupidly. Finally, in disgust, he trod it underfoot.

Farlow did not seem to hear. In any case there seemed to be no need for elaboration.

They reached easier water. There was less commotion. Tension began to relax. Farlow volunteered the thing which passing confusion found in his mind.

"He's done what he promised," he said. "And it means he knows his game's up. Peter van Ruis, of course. With his planes. Naturally it has to be guesswork. But I fancy the whole show's gone up. A city full of helpless souls who looked to him for everything. Machinery. An industry that took him forty years to build up. Ancient galleries. Gold. Everything. And he's blown out the south side of the lake to flood a desert beyond. That storm, too. It was driving up when I jumped. It's no use. We must make the open and wait for it. Then we'll get back. You can't tell how Peter's fixed."

Larky pondered. Discomfort threatened vomiting. Finally he agreed with a sigh of resignation.

"'Spect you're right, sir," he said. "Can't leave Captain van Ruis to a crowd of murdering yellers. And with half the world gone sky high. Cor! My poor blarsted head's fair dithering with it. But it's queer the way it acts automatic-like. When the show started my mouth was open, talking. Kept it open like a poor fish. If I hadn't it would have tore my eardrums out."

"Quite," he agreed. And continued, musing. "A thousand tons of high explosive. That's what he said. Shoved under the lake's southern shore. It must have been that last shot. The one that wrecked the ramp."

"Yes. But I'll tell you when we get out of this burrow. There's a lot you don't know. And another lot I don't know. But we're going to know all of it between us. That's why we'll come back to it. How's her fuel?"

"Plenty. She don't burn a pint, if you know what I mean, sir. We got all the juice you need."

They relapsed into silence. Farlow had felt the pull of the heavy water streaming down from Omba's falls. But it was not the boat's increase of speed that preoccupied him. He was feeling physically sick. Just as was Larky. Concussion had done its work. Both knew something of that misery of unrelieved sickness.

The boat was fairly caught in the mill race. It heaved. It rolled like any porpoise. And it raced at a speed to satisfy panic. The thunders behind them were dying away. The sounds that reached them were at prolonging intervals. Larky found himself considering an entirely fresh cigarette. But it was only to give it lodgement behind an ear. In that moment not even a Cup Final could have aroused his enthusiasm.

Speed became almost furious under Farlow's hands. The channel was broad and deep, and every yard gained left chaos farther and farther behind. Farlow had no regard for machinery. That was Larky's affair. And a journey which had previously taken upwards of five hours against the heavy torrent now only occupied something less than two.

Emerged from between the beast-men guardians of the third steep there was no tying up to a bank that might provide them with night trouble. Larky simply pitched his staunch kedge overboard, paid out, and moored the boat in full midstream. It was a reaction to caution that might well have been laughable. Then he forthwith became the boat's mechanic.

Omba's reaction was recovery from native superstition. His evil spirits were no longer threatening. So he clothed himself in his duck and set about functioning in the direction of food.

Farlow detached himself from everything. He climbed out on to the cool steel of the boat's forward decking and sprawled himself behind the unlit searchlights. The peaceful starlight. The sweet clean night air which the storm had left behind it. No desert wanderer reaching a well-watered oasis could have welcomed the sweet of it more surely than Farlow welcomed the unease of steel plates.

It was a little curious. Farlow's weariness was not so much of the body. It was the spirit of the man. He felt as if he had endured a whole lifetime in twenty-four hours. Yet he dared not relax. A sense of great responsibility was weighing him down. And he wanted time and solitude to straighten out not alone thought but also feeling.

For an hour, in the refreshing cool of the night, he lay there unmoving. And not even smoking. But when, at last, a white vision of a black Omba appeared with his rumbling announcement of food Farlow had reclaimed peace of mind and his decision was finally taken. Curiously enough, sickness had passed with all the rest. And he was glad of an appetite that refused to fail him.

An undisturbed night, and profound sleep, yielded a morning frame of mind that was admirable. Farlow's decision of immediate return to Raamanita's ancient capital, or all that might be left of it, was put into effect at the lift of the sun.

Omba discarded duck for simple moocha, and grinned. If his great white baas were completely insane it was to be regretted. But it was for him to order. And for his servant to obey. Larky's attitude was frank transformation. Overnight he had absorbed the long story his chief had had to tell. And, metaphorically, his teeth had gnashed at the audacity of a "crowd," which, in his cockney confidence, he had always spurned. His philosophy had reminded him that in for a penny was also in for a pound. And anyway it would require more than a million pounds to deny a curiosity that was burning at fever heat. Captain van Ruis was excuse enough for him. He might need their assistance, or he might not. But whether or not, he was going to get it if Larky knew anything at all about it.

Almost as soon as the boat had reentered the passage of the third steep on the return journey, Larky, squatting over his engine, made a discovery which he took for granted his chief at the driving wheel had probably missed. He had noted the smooth running of his engine. It was all so easy. Too easy. Where was the pitching and tossing the boat had endured on the earlier trip up against a veritable torrent? There was none. His upturned bucket was a seat of perfect security. The boat was riding as smoothly as a liner. He turned to peer out over the well's rail.

The discovery came in the nature of a shock. The four blazing searchlights revealed that the rock facets of the subway's walls were passing at speed. Nor was there any sign of roughened waters about them. He bawled at the back of the man in the driving seat.

"Here, sir! What's amiss with them falls? What's that bloke done to 'em? Christ! We're running in slack water." Farlow's reply was terse. "Then we'll step on it."

Larky sucked his teeth. He brooded down at his engine, considering. Then his sad eyes brightened under inspiration.

"She's taking her juice nicely, sir," he replied. "Try lifting her. Better skin her. There ain't no police traps in hell."

The light in Larky's eyes was a revelation as he watched. He saw Farlow reach over his switchboard. He felt the lift. He listened to his engine's response. Then, in supreme content, he leant back against the boat's cool steel and lit the remains of a cigarette he extracted from the crown of his hat. The boat was rushing madly. And it soothed his spirit.

They were approaching the scene of over-night chaos. And it was a world reduced to deathly stillness. Not a sound broke it but that of an engine that was slowly turning over. It was a dead world. And it was crowded with wreckage.

Farlow had four lights blazing ahead and about him. The wide underground sea of it was studded with miniature islands which were in reality masses of fallen rock. He was threading a perilous way among them with Larky seated beside him, and Omba searching for an enemy that had existence only in his hope. Even Omba's ears could detect no sound of falling water.

A broad spread of daylight shone ahead. Hardly were the boat's lights needed in its direction. But Farlow kept them on. For the islands of rock were closing together where the fall of rock had been greatest.

He and Larky were eyeing a great moraine banking with no little awe. It looked to fill the cavern of the docks they remembered, piling right up to a summit lit by broad daylight. It formed a monstrous cairn filling every available atom of space. The ancient piers were buried. There were no treacherous lock gates visible. The water-channel, where they had originally tied up, no longer existed. Further progress became impossible. It was the deadly peril of the approach to floating ice. There was no telling what the still, shining surface of the water concealed. Farlow cut out the engine.

"Not an earthly, sir," he assured forlornly. "Just askin' for it, us going on. Anyway it's no use if we did. Have to be goats, or something, as well as fishes, if we're to climb up to that daylight. Sure as hell we'll tear her bottom out. I ask you, sir."

But Farlow put in his reverse and switched the engine on again. He had swung the lights and was searching aft. He made no reply while he retraced his way amongst the rocks.

"I dunno, sir," he gloomed. "Done in proper. You see, even if we could land and make it we couldn't leave the old barge with Omba muckin' about in a dump like this. That thousand tons of high-explosive. Million tons by the looks of it. And likely they've got that Captain van Ruis up there with us twiddlin' our thumbs down here. What do we do about it, sir?"

"If we'd had the brains of a rabbit between us we'd have known that thousands of tons would have barred this to us anyway. He was to blow out the lake on its south shore. And we've to make the length of the lake to reach the capital. Couldn't be done—this way. There is—or was—a powerhouse at the falls. There are no more falls. See what I mean?"

It was an expression of admiration and hope returned. And Larky attended the readjustment of lights while Farlow swung the boat to head for the passage up to the falls.

The gorge of the now dead falls had none of the depressing gloom that had prevailed in that earlier, grimmer gorge. Far-low estimated that its greatest height, where it opened above them after making the last mile or so of the underground passage, to be something less than two hundred feet. So open, so wide was it that tropic vegetation found more than scant root-hold to clothe its slopes. Masses of fierce thorn-bush flourished.

Creeper sprawled and festooned. Even aged trees stood up basking in the generous sun-light as though seeking to augment the rejuvenating properties of steaming humidity and the drench of falling spray.

Farlow drove the broadening channel with a confidence that was approaching certainty. He was convinced that he had found the solution to the problem of reaching the upper world of the lake. His faith was in a landing somewhere above the dead falls, in connection with Lionel Garnet's powerhouse. His only doubt was the possibility of its destruction. He was without the smallest hope that the powerhouse had been left standing.

The boat progressed rapidly. But there was no reason for it to do otherwise. There was great breadth of channel. There was great depth of water. Then there was no stream. The ease of it left Farlow with an unusual gladness in the spectacle of Nature's riot.

In a while, however, the aspect of the gorge entirely changed. Nature's generosity gave way to parsimony. Vegetation grew more and more patchy. Crags of granite thrust through it. Stark, and barren, and refusing life. Attenuated growths battled for bare existence. They clung to soil lodged in crevices, or resting on out-thrusting ledges. But, in the end, even that small mercy was denied.

The ultimate phase was inevitable. It was the grim canyon of the actual falls, where the crashing waters had swept everything but basic rock out of existence. The north wall had risen from its gracious slope. It frowned loftily. The south had bent itself into a tremendous overhang. Sunlight had narrowed to a frayed ribbon. Below, the boat was like a moving insect on the surface of water contained in the bulging depths of some witch's cauldron. The pool of it continued for nearly half a mile in a hush that echoed with the faint "chugging" of the engine. A monstrous pit which for ages had echoed only with the thunder of elemental tumult.

There was awe in the thought that that tumult had still existed only twenty-four hours before. That no living thing could have had place there. That no boat could have endured for a second in the deluge of it. But Farlow put the thought out of his mind, and gave his whole attention to the distance ahead.

The discovery was simultaneous. Farlow sighted the immense wreckage of it at the instant Larky's arm went up pointing. A sprawl of rose-tinted rubble. Piled about two miniature craters dug out of the level of a great step hewn in the hillside.

There was no spoken word. Both men sat peering, mutely vilifying one man's ruthless mischief. The sight of wanton destruction hurt. And here it was, a mass of rubble, and the twisted and broken steel of valuable machinery.

Farlow sought above and below it. And his best hopes were fulfilled. A ribbon of graded road wound its way from the wreckage up the face of the hillside. And below, at the water's edge, was a broad built landing that, happily, remained intact.

"Our luck's still running, Larky," Farlow said, in a relief that was concealed under a grin.

They had reached the hill-top where the road from below converged upon the lake shore. They had halted. It had nothing to do with weariness after their steep ascent. They were breathing crisp, cool morning air drifting down off N'Gobi's icefield. They were drinking deeply of it after the enervating humidity of the gorge. They had brilliant daylight, too. A cloudless, sunlit sky that should have been as welcome to them as vision to sightless men. But it was all unheeded. It was as completely forgotten as was a bare-bodied Basuto left below in charge of the boat and those guns that were all sufficient for him.

Larky had listened to Farlow's story of an ancient capital overnight. He had absorbed every detail of it avidly. He had heard of an intent to destroy. Of high-explosive in thousands of tons which was to blow a lifetime's labour sky high. But somehow it had conveyed little of reality to him. Larky found himself wrestling with amazed incredulity. Farlow was a victim of hot disgust and anger.

Farlow remembered a busy life. Sailing boats on smiling waters. The vision of quaint domed houses; of smoke-stacks; of smooth roads with life moving on them; of a great lake whose shape was like that of an immense trough, and whose waters lapped a low shore that was pleasant to gaze upon. He remembered misted falls, and stark granite walls concealing the whole as though it were a forbidden city. And then there was that torrent streaming down off N'Gobi, an unfailing source of cool supply.

The whole scene had painfully transformed. Destruction was in every direction but one. Eastward no city of domed buildings remained. The site of it was a wide expanse of ruin. A sea of rose-tinted wreckage marked its grave. Sailing boats clung to moorings on a sandy shore, keeled over in pitiful helplessness. Roads were empty. And all life had vanished. Farlow was gazing upon a desert waste.

The lake. It was an amazing spectacle of man's mischief. It had been reduced to a trough that was more than half emptied of its water!

It was there. Directly opposite where the men were standing. A stupendous gash of nearly a quarter mile in the granite cliffs. It had been torn out by explosion to a vast depth below the lake's original level. And through it was rushing a monstrous tide whose volume was draining the lake almost visibly.

It was raging its way down the widening passage of a jungle grown kloof. It was streaming on to flood the two banks of a broad sand river. It was spreading out to irrigate a desert. It was boring a way for itself washing out all vegetation, and dislodging great projections of granite cliffs which for ages had known no greater disturbance than tropic storm.

To Larky's incredulous mind the destruction of the lake was a sheer human impossibility. He stared at the vast flood streaming southward, and asked himself how a lot of yellow savages could have sapped those granite cliffs deep down below the water's surface. Held fascinated by the sight of flooding waters he spoke without turning from it.

"It just couldn't have been done, sir," he declared. "We got to wake up and turn over. I ask you? The blokes who built the Nile Dam. And them that cut the Panama through the mountains. Puzzle them, it would. Let alone a parcel of yellow savages."

Farlow was gazing out at the southwesterly distance, and listening. He turned from it. And demurred.

"Easier than it looks, I think," he said. "No. It's not a matter of waking up. You aren't dreaming. There's the story of these people. Upheaval thousands of years ago. That kloof was probably the original passage of N'Gobi's waters. A big river that fed the Balbau and made things grow. Upheaval dammed it. Filled up the head of the kloof whose bottom's far below the lake. See it? Our yellow boys are good miners. Garnet taught 'em. Can you hear?"

Larky flashed round, momentarily distracted from the fascination of flooding waters. He gazed in the direction to which Farlow had turned again.

"I thought it likely they didn't," he said. "Peter makes a habit of clear thinking and swift action. Still—"

"One doesn't give orders to Peter. I asked for a squadron to locate from our map. You know. Photograph. Record. And report to those who've never believed me about our yellow men. Anyway, I didn't expect we'd be in much of a position to report ourselves. He was here last night. I wonder," he went on thoughtfully. "Has he had time? Can't be sure, can we? Five hundred miles or so. Yes. I think so. And I'm glad. Unless he's wiped them out with the rest there's a few thousand fighting men under a white man who stands at nothing. Somewhere. And we've got two lives we regard as of considerable importance. Yes. There they come. Nine of them again."

But Larky was absorbed in a fresh direction. Down the entire length of the lake a chain of small islands were breaking the lowering surface of the water. He was watching them as they appeared and grew. It was almost miraculous. The speed with which their size developed. But then the fall of the water was rather as if the lake's bottom had been torn out. Larky spoke excitedly from a corner of his mouth.

"Here, sir!" he cried. "Get a look down there. Right along. Islands! What d'you know about that? Islands? Not half. They ain't no more islands than I am. Ridge of junk. That's what they are. All down the middle of it. See? D'you know what it minds me of? D'you mind that reef we saw running through that valley afoot of Ruwenzori? Crystal that was, though. This ain't crystal. Mostly mud."

Larky's excitement gave way to disappointment. Farlow gazed down into the deepening trough of the lake. He followed the outcrop of islands rapidly developing into a prolonged, continuous ridge of rugged, muddied rock. It went on to the lake's western end. Turning to the ruins of the city he saw that it continued to the eastern end, where N'Gobi's torrent had become a mighty waterfall.

"Bit ironical, I think, Larky," he said. "See those patches where the mud's washed away. You're right. It's not crystal. Red, copperous quartz, I think. You know. The sort of rich stuff they used to get down at Tati. And the Zoutpansberg. Damn queer."

He turned and pointed the only habitation that explosion had left standing. It was the eyrie on the hillside he had known as a queen's palace.

"I wonder where he is. Garnet," he went on. "I've an idea he made no getaway with that plane he kept up in the show they called the 'Glory of the World.' And he's crashed those two others in their hangars on the lake shore. I think we're going to find him. Somewhere up there. When Peter gets here to reinforce us."

He looked up at the western sky. Nine planes were speeding low. He looked again into the depths of the lake. And he chuckled as he went on.

"You know, Larky, she told me that thousands of years ago N'Gobi centred the civilized world. It supplied the whole ancient world with gold. Like we supply iron. Garnet believed that, too. The old mines and galleries never satisfied him. Somewhere a main reef. It was lost when the world upheaved. When that disreputable old queen came unstuck. So he murdered, and everything else, to keep everybody out while he looked for it. And then blew it all to glory when he saw his game was up. Judgment, what? He's laid bare the thing he's been looking for for forty years. A great reef that's almost-solid gold."

CHAPTER XXVI. — THE HAUNT OF THE VAMPIRE

THE skill of it appealed. Farlow, looking on, felt something of the smallness of earth-bound creatures. The men of the air were circling, banking, manoeuvring for a difficult landing. It was on the lakeshore where the wrecked hangar made it hazardous.

One plane detached itself from the rest. It glided down easily. It landed. It taxied away to a far extremity to make way for those behind. The sight of Piet van Ruis gladdened Farlow more than he knew. A world of relief was in the sight of that stocky, uniformed, bearded policeman. He hurried to greet his friend with Larky on his heels.

Greeting was characteristic. The policeman stared about him as though Farlow were of no real importance. An empty pipe was stuck in the corner of his mouth. Eventually a quick glance looked up into Farlow's face.

Farlow watched the other planes as each one landed its human freight of uniformed youth. He shook his head.

"Not so busy as you, Peter, I fancy. I did get a spot of sleep. No. I'm not a miracle man. And high explosive's not part of my equipment. Spent the night out of range wondering what they'd done to you. You see, I wanted to keep a whole skin. But that's part of a long story I'll tell you as we go along. What about you?"

It was a swift keen-eyed search. The policeman considered the crashed hangars and the twisted remains of two older patterned planes. He dwelt for a moment on the many acres of stone rubble that had once been a city of human abode. His gaze came to rest on the vast cavity of the draining lake, where he remembered an overnight vision of moored craft on smiling waters.

"Easy," he replied, producing a tobacco bag and starting to fill his pipe. "Got the last of the daylight for our camera work. Took everything. So impressed, and with storm rising, thought it best not to make a landing. Made back to Gobabi to use the long distance 'phone. Found Cape Town wide awake. Orders to return at once equipped for eventualities. To get under skin of things and make fullest report. Most of the night in the air. Looks like things have happened."

"Yes. But meanwhile those eventualities. I'm by no means sure this destruction includes some hundreds of fighting men equipped to kill at fairly long range. Glad they didn't leave you another Government Commission. What about a cruising party while Larky and I show you the stuff you'll have to report? It'll be the biggest scoop a policeman's ever made. Then you may be able to pick up a white man and his daughter who's nearly white and damned good to look at. They're both fairly poisonous. But I don't really think you will, somehow. The hanging of the man would certainly be a nice kill. We can talk as we go. What about it?"

Van Ruis held a match for Farlow and then lit his pipe. There was a jerk of his bullet head under his stained topee.

And he turned to his pilot who was steadily regarding the lone hunter he had heard of but had never before met.

"Hear that, Bashford?" he asked. Then: "Better meet Colonel Farlow. Going to see quite a lot of him, I expect. Have two planes up scouting. Ready for instant action. Have the others ready to take the air in case of need. No chances. You heard. Hundreds. All well armed. We only muster a score."

Farlow acknowledged the introduction and liked the unquestioning manner in which Bashford went off to detail the work. Peter regarded his friend in his steady way.

Farlow considered the lake where the great reef had already emerged monstrously from the waters. He turned from it to point the terrace on the hillside.

"The first objective, Peter," he said. "That house. It's the only thing left undestroyed. We've got to know why."

"'Fraid not. Have to hoof it. There's a car somewhere. But I don't yet know where." He shrugged. "Bit of a climb. But not too bad. We're terribly high here. Larky will go with us while Bashford keeps us covered. But I don't think our troubles lie there."

"One man must keep over us," he ordered. "The other had better circle wider out over where we saw that temple place last night. Pie might pick up something that way. That jungle valley looked like good cover. Let him get any pictures he can, too."

They set off at once. And a silent policeman smoked while Farlow talked. He told N'Gobi's story as he had read it. He told it in all its reference to ancient days. Pie made it brief. But it was an outline containing all that was necessary for full understanding. And he included in it a full account of personal happenings since he had set out from the marshes of Umdava.

Larky took no part in the story. He was entirely preoccupied with anticipation of their present mission.

Farlow's anticipation of things was founded on a shrewd appraisement of the man, Lionel Garnet. He had asked why the house on the terrace was the only thing left unscathed in a welter of destruction. He believed he knew the answer.

It was the memory of his reception by Garnet. The logic of Garnet's position afforded no alternative from the thing Farlow had in mind. He believed that the house had been spared of a definite purpose, and because it had to be. He looked to find Lionel Garnet still enthroned in his audience chamber. But, as he had told van Ruis, there would be no hanging.

Nevertheless, in the steep ascent of the hill there was never a moment when Farlow's eyes were not searching, and his ears were not listening. He knew there was always a woman to be reckoned with. A woman capable of anything of a diabolic nature. Then there was the brute Ankubi. And the youth Pulati.

Farlow had completed his story, and replied to every shrewd question van Ruis had put to him, by the time they had come abreast of the temple ruins. Van Ruis found interest in the tinted stone which Farlow briefly explained as they hastened on.

As they approached the broad stoep of the house it was seen that the main entrance doors had been left wide open. It was not unsuggestive of a trap. Farlow, however, interpreted it differently.

"Before we go in, Peter," he said quietly, "I want to remind you again I've promised you the scoop of a lifetime. Down at Chutanga I told you this job would make you famous from one end of the country to the other. But it's not going to be as a mere police officer whose done good work for his government. I'm more sure than ever now there's going to be no hanging of a pretty blood-thirsty set of criminals. It's going to be better than that. Neither of us are gold men, of course. And until the Government's had their experts here nothing is absolutely sure. You haven't seen it. At least not properly. You wouldn't recognize it if you had, I expect. But when you report what you've found 'under the skin of things' up here you'll have discovered for the world the long suspected main lode which is fundamental of Africa's gold resources. And, perhaps even, the whole world's. I'm entirely convinced of it. Shouldn't be surprised if they wanted to make you a Prime Minister, or something. Maybe they would if you shaved off your beard. And, anyway, if they don't give you something to wear better than the mouldy old uniform of a Captain of Police you'd better throw in your hand. I think we're going to find Lionel Garnet here. But your work as a policeman won't be needed. Pie's left his doors open to make it easy for you. But I think he's dodged the hangman."

"Why not? Wouldn't you, in his place? Aged. Robbed of all that held him to life by the discovery of his secret. A murderer's end waiting for him. Yes. I think so. And in his own forthright fashion."

Larky behind them sucked his teeth in supreme disgust. He nevertheless released the safety catch of his automatic.

They passed through the great hall to the corridor beyond. And as Farlow hurried on through deserted passages, and crossed an empty quadrangle to reach a curtained anteroom, which had vivid memories for him, no further word was spoken.

It was not anticipation of that which he looked to discover that impressed silence. It was just a queer feeling that refused to be thrown off. Every step of the way. Every familiar passage. Every curtain that had to be thrust aside. The whole place, for Farlow, was alive with an eerie haunting. The indomitable personality of a man of cold, almost insane purpose left him unaffected. It seemed to him that a woman's glittering beauty still filled the place. Every moment he expected to discover a vision of Raamanita's mocking smile. The subtle allure of passionate, black, Oriental eyes. It was as if the reincarnation that Raamanita had claimed for herself had created a veritable human vampire. And he was the victim it had marked down.

They had reached the far end of the audience chamber. That big desk where Farlow remembered Lionel Garnet had posed himself for the purpose of impressing. Its books and papers had been flung aside. Its top was raised and supported. The chair beyond it was empty.

But it was different across the desk. It was that chair which Farlow had so swiftly discovered to be bolted to the ground. A huge body was pitifully collapsed in it. A massive, close-cropped white head, shattered on one side of it in ghastly fashion, was lolling over sideways. Hands and arms hung limply. And the attitude of great nether limbs was utterly helpless. One big hand remained clenched. And from it trailed away a thin twisted flex.

They were standing over the dead man's chair. Farlow and van Ruis were to the left of it. Larky was to its right, morbidly examining the exposed interior of a shattered head. Far-low gripped Peter's arm. And warning came sharply.

"There's laid weapons beyond it exactly covering that chair from either side. The chair can't be shifted. Anyone seated in it is at the mercy of an electric switch. I sat in it at Garnet's invitation. But he didn't use the switch then. Saved it for better work."

Farlow was gazing down inside the open desk studying the orderly mass of wires and switches that occupied the whole of its interior. He drew van Ruis's attention.

"The simplicity of genius, I think," he said. "How many? Yes. Sixteen switches and—a wireless installation. I wonder if he used them all. From what we endured last night I'd say he did. And the wireless. I wonder if a message were picked up in England. A code message unintelligible to anyone outside Elstane. I should think it likely. Amazing purpose, Peter. Mad, of course. But not too mad. Think of the forethought. Of the engineering of it all. Ingenuity. Then the tragic nerve. Loosing devastating thunders upon all the work of a lifetime. Then calmly seating himself in a death chair and pressing a switch. But I wonder about the woman and one or two others. We've got to search this house from end to end. And we'll have to do it pretty cautiously if we're to save our skins. Better get a close note of all this for your report. Do you think you can detach that flex from his hand, Larky? Just in case of accidents. Better crouch as low as you can. You never know. This place seems to me full of that wretched female."

Larky's "Yessir" was followed by prompt activity. Van Ruis and Farlow watched the man's approach of the clasped hand. Larky went on all fours. He forced open the clutching fingers. Then with a keen sheath knife he severed the flex. But he still kept to his lowly attitude. He crawled round the desk towards the others before committing himself to an upright position.

"How do we go now, sir?" Larky asked. And somehow it had in it the eagerness of a hound in full cry.

"We'll have to draw this covert," Farlow replied. "It's the only standing building."

"If we don't find her here we'll have to see about that plane they kept up in that temple. Don't miss anything as we go."

But the house was empty. Completely deserted. There was no living creature of any sort within its precincts. Farlow thought of all the women in attendance on Raamanita. He thought of the rather dainty secretary, whose smile he had liked. And he marvelled at the skilful organization with which Garnet must have prepared for an end he had always foreseen.

The descent from the terrace was not without a sense of disappointment. Van Ruis, whatever the future had in store for him, was still a policeman. Farlow had no Christian virtue that demanded the turning; of the other cheek. While Larky's regret that his automatic still remained fully charged was quite undisguised.

The journey down was made in almost complete silence. Farlow watched the plane overhead and found casual interest in it. He saw the other plane returning from "The Glory" and speculated as to its news. Van Ruis smoked and gazed about him upon a scene that deeply absorbed him.

They rethreaded their way through the wreckage of the city, and moved on back to the lake shore with the planes parked ready for instant flight. Pilots and observers were there standing ready. As they stepped on to the hard smooth sand of it the plane covering them roared overhead circling. Its engine cut out. And it glided to a perfect landing. Then the second plane came down. And van Ruis waited for its news.

It was Bashford himself. And Farlow liked the thoroughness of the youthful squadron leader.

"Pretty blind job over that stuff," he said. "That jungle. Might be sheltering legions. Can't say. But we got a few shots with the camera." He turned to Farlow. "They ought to interest you, sir. That temple. Gosh! Marvellous. A golden idol like a mountain. But there's no plane housed there. Just below that rock we got an informative shot. About a square mile of jungle burnt out. There was a light smoke still drifting. It was centred by wreckage. A plane. Looks like somebody crashed. We flew low and got several shots at it. They should tell you something, sir."

"Sort of thing one should have expected. The woman, Peter." He turned to van Ruis. "Must be. No one but a woman would have taken the air in a hill storm." He shrugged. "There must have been a deluge in that storm to save the valley being burnt out. I wonder."

"I'm thinking of those yellow fighting men. And the wretched women and kids. I've an idea that a blazing plane in that jungle meant touch and go for them. Thanks, Bashford. Now, Peter, we'll get along over and see about it. The water should be a lot lower. This is a matter for you alone."

Larky remained with the squadron-leader. And there was a glimmer of humour in the sad eyes that looked after the two men whose build was so sharply contrasted.

"Makes you want to laugh, don't it, sir?" he said to the airman. Then he added enigmatically: "I dunno. Never did nobody any good that I can see. Bloody murder all the time. Look at the blinking mischief it got that old woman into, muckin' about looking for a bloke to marry her. Look at the dust-up it's made here now. Proper mess-up. Not half."

Farlow and the policeman had moved to the brink of the lake shore. They were contemplating a veritable chasm. Two prolonged trenches of deep water went on far into the western distance. A huge muddied outcrop was sandwiched between them. It went on in unbroken mass down the lake's entire length. Here and there rose-tinted mud had fallen, or washed clear of it. Great patches of reddish, copperous quartz were thus revealed, and responded warmly to the glowing sunlight.

"Your 'strike,' Peter," he smiled. "Yours. No delving and blasting. No weary prospecting. Just a couple of days in the air away from Gobabi, and the greatest gold discovery the world has ever known—yours. Nothing to do but to turn your cameras on it, and pin the pictures to your official report. And you'll get your legal rights. Look at it. Widening out as the water goes down. Hundreds of feet. And hundreds of millions of tons of a reef that's almost solid gold laid bare. The reef that gilded the ancient temples. Built golden calves and things. Founded the splendour of the man of many wives. The reef that Lionel Garnet spent a lifetime searching for, and discovered in the moment of his wanton destruction. Good luck, old friend. You deserve it for your faith in my yellow men. It's all yours. And you're welcome to every ton of it. But for the Lord's sake, get a shave before they commit your face to paper." Van Ruis removed his pipe.

"It's yours, Dick. Not mine," he denied. "You stood the racket. You took the big chance of it. I'm not stealing your thunder. I've just stood by to pass you a hand if you needed it."

He gazed into the chasm. And his steady eyes were alight with incredulous wonder. He shook his head.

"A child would recognize it," he said. "The whole pit of it is an old working. It must have been submerged when work was going on in full swing. I wonder what human remains are down there. It gets me. The sight of it. The reef the whole world's talked of. Dreamed of. Hunted. As you say, the reef that provided old world splendour—when they knew nothing of cyanide and stamp batteries. It's—amazing."

"It's no use, Peter," he chuckled. "Whether you like it or not you've got to have it. It's your—pigeon. You've landed here with Government permission. Under Government orders. You've got to make official report."

"I'm finished with Africa for good. I haven't a word to say about it. They wouldn't believe me if I had. I'm going at once. And the way I came. Get that into your head. Before the river dries up and makes the trip impossible. It's up to you. Or the whole thing can remain for a few more thousand years—lost to the world."

"Put that way I've no alternative. But it's like you, Dick," he said. "Crazy generosity. But I don't—"

"But if you think anything of it, Peter, you can still make me a slight return. Will you send a cable for me the moment you get back to Gobabi? It's important. Even urgent."

"Not on your life, old friend," he said. And there was something a little short in it. "There's three of us," he went on, more lightly. "For Larky it would be the last straw. For Omba it would be a challenge to all the evil spirits of his race. Besides, I have to pick up the Oompee at the coast so I can reach England before Cape Town scepticism can further annoy me. The motor-boat's down there below where the falls used to thunder. And it's waiting for me. So good-bye. And all the luck in the world to you." He laughed as he turned to rejoin Larky. "I want to be home in time for a Cup Final, or something."

It was tea-time at Ashlea Meads. Jill Forrester was alone in the great library, a black-clad, slim figure engulfed between the high wings of an ancient chair. A low tea-table was set in front of her. And Sir Roger was basking before a hearth piled hugely with green oak logs. Every curtain in the apartment was closely drawn. And beyond them were the wintry mists of Elstane's Valley.

The girl's dark beauty was unsmiling. Her grey eyes were narrowed against the leaping flames of the hearth fire. Pier tea was forgotten and cooling. And buttered toast was congealing. In that moment custom was being observed. But it was without appeal.

The shock of her father's murder had left its mark upon Jill. She was devoted to her home and life at Ashlea Meads. But all the cheer and calm happiness she had known in her father's lifetime had departed from it. She was almost desperately alone.

The hearth fire, crackling and spluttering as the sparks from the green oak flew upwards, held her. Her tea was ignored. Her mind was afar, searching in those places where log fires knew no place. Beyond the seas, where a tropic sun should be beating down upon the man whom she felt belonged to her, but yet remained outside her possession. And, as once before, she failed to discover the approach of the soft-footed Jebb until he suddenly appeared in the mild radiance of a stand-lamp.

The white-haired man paused and cleared his throat in preliminary. Jill looked up from the depths of her chair with something of a start.

"A cablegram, Miss Jill," the old man announced punctiliously, and proffered a silver tray.

But the old man's forethought was completely disregarded. Jill knew by the envelope that her cable was from Africa. There was only one person in Africa who could have sent it. She tore it open, and read with an eagerness that was devouring. It was brief, but all sufficient. Jill looked up at the waiting man and her eyes were shining.

"There will be no reply, Jebb," she said, with a smile that banished the last shadow from her eyes. "But I should like you to get me through to Colonel Halter, at once. It's important, I fancy. So please be sure and get him. If you can't get him, tell them to ring me the moment he's available. At once, please, Jebb."

The butler faded away into the shadows. And Jill read the cable a second time. She thrilled as she read.

Gobabi. Yes. She had heard of Gobabi. She remembered Dick had a great friend at Gobabi. Peter—somebody.

GET UNCLE JIM. WATCH CASTLE ELSTANE. GARNET. URGENT. RETURNING ENGLAND AT ONCE. FINISHED AFRICA FOR GOOD. WHAT ABOUT IT? DICK.

Jill remained gazing into the leaping flames. But it was different. She was smiling as she had not smiled for weeks. And when Jebb returned she was still smiling. Very, very happily.

"That you, Uncle Jim? So glad we were able to get you. It's Dick. Yes. Our Dick. A cable from him. I'll read the part that concerns you. He says 'Get Uncle Jim. Watch Castle Elstane. Garnet. Urgent.' Have you got that? Repeat it. Yes. That's it. Something wrong, I s'pose. Eh? Oh, dear. Dead? Old Anthony Garnet? In his chair? This morning? Oh, dear. I see. Your men are there now. I wonder. Yes. Of course. I see. Make excuses to keep someone there. I expect that will be all right. He's coming home at once. Finished with Africa for good."

"Finishes up by asking: What about it? Silly of him, isn't it? You asking what about it, too? Oh dear, dear. Must I tell you? Of course. If only my poor daddy were here I should be the happiest girl in the world."

THE END