‘Go, my Lord, go, and quickly; thou may’st be missed, and remember, he is a devil--yes, a _devil_. In three weeks thou wilt return.’ She looked full in his face. ‘Go, and by this--and this--do not forget thy servant.’ She put her lips to his and kissed him passionately twice. ‘No, my darling, no.’ There was a husk in his throat, and the careless gaiety of his voice was shaken. He mounted and rode away, looking back at the slight figure leaning against the tree, with hands clasped to her breast in a dumb agony. After he lost sight of her, he rode for some time silently, his head drooping; then, as a man will who has been much on the _veldt_, he began talking to himself disjointedly: ‘Poor little thing!--I don’t know--I don’t know--am I a most awful brute, or what am I? What am I going to do? Devil only knows--this is a mess, my boy, whichever way you look at it. She’s a sweet child, but--my God, for always, and then--my people--and then--the world--and then--her people, umm--Boers, bah! Brutes! Too many “and then’s”--Strikes me I’ve been a fool--a dashed fool. Well, can’t be helped; what’s to be done now, that’s the point?’ The grey tossed up his head and neighed--they were fast nearing the rocky island in the desert of sand and scrub. ‘What’s to be done? cut and run? My Gad, it’s blackguardly, but _que voulez vous_? it’s wise.--Go back to her? Poor little thing! I’d like to, fast enough, I’m fond enough of her now, _but_--always a d----d “but,” and this time a devil of a d----d “but.”’ The grey stumbled, and his thoughts were jerked into another train. ‘That swine Pietris! The impudence of the brute! Leave her--that means--to him--By gum! I can’t stand that--it’s not on the cards at all--to him, the blackguard! By George, no! I shall _have_ to go back to her, oh! decidedly I shall have to go back, and the sooner the better, and, d----n it, I’m glad of it.’ He urged the tired horse forward with voice and heel, and entered the narrow passage between the giant rocks. * * * * * There was silence where the venerable Cokerbôm tree, from under its grim red-grey protectors through unnumbered centuries, laid a gnarled and fantastic shadow across the moonlit track. That little world of rocks and sand, of scanty brush and tree, held its breath. In the death-like stillness the spirit of the Pass seemed to be straining to catch an approaching sound.