"No. That _mamba_ held me at its mercy the whole of that day--and I have spared every snake I fell in with ever since. A curious sort of gratitude, you will say, but--there it is." "I don't wonder the natives had that superstition about the King's spirit passing into that snake." "No, more do I. The belief almost forced itself upon me, as I sat there those awful hours. But, as old Pemberton said, there was no luck about meddling with such places." "No, indeed. What strange things you must have seen in all your wanderings. It must be something to look back upon. But I suppose it will go on all your life. You will return to those parts again, until--" "Until I am past returning anywhere," he replied. "Perhaps so, and perhaps it is better that way after all. And now I think it is time to round up Fred, and take the homeward track." "Yes, I believe it is," was all she said. A strange unwonted silence was upon her during their homeward ride. She was thinking a great deal of the man beside her. He interested her as nobody ever had. She had stood in awe of him at first, but now she hoped it would be a long time before he should find it necessary to leave them. What an ideal companion he was, too. She felt her mind the richer for all the ideas she had exchanged with him--silly, crude ideas, he must have thought them, she told herself with a little smile. But if she was silent, Fred was not. He talked enough for all three the rest of the way home. CHAPTER SIX. CONCERNING THE UNEXPECTED. "How do, Earle?" cried George Bayfield, pulling up his horses at the gate of the first named. "So, so, Bayfield. How's all yourselves? How do, Miss Bayfield? Had a cold drive? Ha--ha! It must have been nipping when you started this morning. Just look at the frost even now," with a comprehensive sweep of an arm terminating in a pipe over the dew-gemmed veldt, a sheeny sparkle of silver in the newly risen sun. "But you--it's given you a grand colour anyway." "Yes, it was pretty sharp, Mr Earle, but we were well wrapped up," answered Lyn, as he helped her down. Then, as an ulster-clad figure disentangled itself from the spider--"This is Mr Blachland, who is staying with us." "How do, sir? Pleased to meet you. Not out from home, are you?" with a glance at the other's bronzed and weather-beaten countenance. "No. Up-country," answered Bayfield for him. "Had fever, obliged to be careful,"--this as though explaining the voluminousness of the aforesaid wrapping. "So? Didn't know you had any one staying with you, Bayfield." "By Jove! Didn't I mention it? Well, I wrote that _brievje_ in a cast-iron hurry, I remember." "That's nothing. The more the merrier," heartily rejoined Earle, who was a jolly individual of about the same number of years as Blachland. "Come inside. Come inside. We'll have breakfast directly. Who's this?" shading his eyes to look down the road.