The Amati was not silent in those dreary evenings, amidst the smoke of the fire that rose up towards the rough roof of the hut, where the lizards disported themselves among the rafters and rejoiced in the warmth. The voice of the fiddle was as lugubrious as the wailings of the native women for their dead. Funeral marches; Beethoven, Chopin, Berlioz, all that music knows of sadness and lamentation, were Geoffrey's themes in that solitude of two. The music itself had an unearthly sound; and the face of the player, sharpened and wasted by illness and by grief, had an unearthly look as the firelight flashed upon it, or the shadows darkened it. While those lonely days wore on, Allan began to have a curious feeling about his companion, the consciousness of a gulf that was gradually widening between them; a something sinister, indefinite, indescribable. It would be too much to say that he felt he was with an enemy; but he felt that he was in the presence of the unknown. He woke one night, turning wearily on his Arab bed--the mat spread on the ground, which use had taught him almost to like. He woke, and saw Geoffrey sitting up on his mat on the other side of the hut, his back against the wall, his eyes looking straight at Allan with an inscrutable expression. Was it dislike or was it fear that looked out of those widely opened eyes? Why fear? "What's the matter?" Allan asked quickly. "Have you just awakened from a bad dream?" "No. Life is my bad dream; and there is no awakening from that. There is only the change to dreamless sleep." "What were you thinking about, then?" "Life and death, and love and hate, and all things sad and strange and cruel. Do you remember Livingstone's description of a Bechuana chieftain's burial? His people dig a grave in his cattle-pen, and bury him there; and then they drive the cattle round and over the spot till every trace of the newly filled-in grave is obliterated. We are not as candid as the Bechuana men. We put up a statue of our great man--or, at least, we talk about a statue; but in six months he is as much forgotten as if the cattle had pranced and trampled over his body." "Primrose Day belies your cynicism." "Primrose Day! A fashion as much as the November bonfire. Of all the people who wear the Beaconsfield badge three-fourths could not tell you who Beaconsfield was, or how much or how little he did for England." "Do you remember something else in Livingstone's book, how the tribes who met him said, 'Give us sleep'? It was their prayer to the wonder-worker. Give me sleep, Geoff. I'm dead beat." "Why, we did nothing yesterday; a beggarly eight miles." "Perhaps it was the thunderstorm that took it out of me." "Well, sleep away. The tribes were right. There is no better gift. Would it help you if I played a little, very softly? I have a devil to-night which only music will cast out." "Yes, play, but don't be too lugubrious. My heart is one great ache."