"Think," he said, "beneath those forests are the ruins of cities, magnificent in civilization and art before a stone of Babylon was built, when Nineveh was unknown. What a heritage! What a splendid heritage, if only we can prove ourselves worthy of it!" "Why not?" Wrayson asked quietly. "Our day of decline is not yet. Even the historians admit that." "It is the money-grabbers of the world who belittle empire," Duncan answered. "It is from the money-grabbers of the Transvaal that we have most to fear. Only those can know what Africa is, what it might mean to us, who shake the dust of civilization from their feet, and creep a little way into its heart. It is here in the quiet places that one begins to understand. One has the sense of coming into a virgin country, strong, fresh, and wonderful. Think of the race who might be bred here! They would rejuvenate the world!" "And yet," the woman at his side murmured, the woman who had been a queen, "it is not a virgin country after all. A little further northwards and the forests have in their keeping the secrets of ages. Shall we ever possess them, I wonder!" In the darkness she felt his arms about her. Louise and her husband had wandered away. "One thing at least remains, changeless and eternal as history itself," he murmured, as their lips met. "Thank God for it!"