John Ames smiled queerly. He was not especially proud of the extension of the Empire; he had seen a few things incidental to that process which had killed within him any such incipient inflation. "Oh yes; there's a good deal of sound about most of the doings of `the Empire,' but there--I must not get cynical on that head, because the said extension is finding me in bread and cheese just now, and I must endeavour to be `proud of' that." "You must have great responsibilities holding the position you do. Tell me, are you able to throw them off while you are away, or do you lie awake sometimes at night wondering if things are going right?" "Oh, I try not to bother my head about them. It's of no use taking a holiday and thinking about `shop' all the while. Besides, the man who is in my place is all there. He has been at it as long as I have; and if there is one thing I may say without conceit I do know--in fact, both of us know--it is the wily native and his little ways." Ah, John Ames, so you thought, and so thought many others in those boding days! But at this moment the man who is in your place is drinking whisky and water and smoking pipes with the Police sub-inspector in a circular hut on the Sikumbutana, and you are dallying beneath a radiant moon upon a fir-shaded road at Wynberg, with more than one lingering glance into the eyes of the sweet-faced, soft-voiced girl beside you. But one could almost read a leering derisive grin into the face of the cold moon, for that moon is now looking down upon that which would give both yourself and `the man in your place' something very serious to think about and to do. It is looking down upon--let us see what. CHAPTER SEVEN. THE VOICE OF UMLIMO. It is probable that the Matopo Hills, in Southern Matabeleland, are, as a freak of Nature, unique on the earth's surface.