He drew his hand from Jeremy’s, and stretched out his arms towards the voice. It would have been easy to avoid them—one never need be kissed by a blind man—but she did not avoid them. On the contrary, she placed herself so that the groping arms closed round her, while a voice said: “Dolly, where are you?” “Here, Ernest, here!” and in another moment he had drawn her to him, and kissed her on the face, and she had returned the kiss. Then she kissed Jeremy too, or rather Jeremy lifted her up two or three feet and kissed her—it came to the same thing. And then Mr. Cardus wrung them both by the hand, wringing Ernest’s the hardest; and Mazooku stood by, and, Zulu fashion, chanted a little song of his own improvising, about how the chiefs came back to their kraal after a long expedition, in which they had, &c.; and how Wisdom, in the shape of a shining headed and ancient one, the husband without any doubt of many wives, and the father of at least a hundred children, &c.; and Beauty, in the shape of a sweet and small one, &c.; and finally they all went very near to crying, and dancing a fling on the quarter-deck together. And then they all talked at once, and set about collecting their things in a muddle-headed fashion. When these had been put in a pile, and Mazooku was seated, assegai and all, upon the top of them, as a solemn warning to thieves (and ill would it have gone with the thief who dared to meddle with that pile), they started off to inspect Ernest’s great black horse, “The Devil.” And behold, Dorothy stroked “The Devil’s” nose, and he, recognising how sweet and good she was, abandoned his usual habits, and did not bite her, but only whinnied and asked for sugar. Then Ernest, going into the box with the horse, which nobody but he and Mazooku were fond of taking liberties with, felt down his flank till he came to a scar inflicted by an assegai in that mad charge through the Undi, and showed it to them. And Dorothy’s eyes filled with tears of thankfulness, as she thought of what that horse and its rider had gone through, and of the bleaching bones of those who had galloped by their side; and she would have liked to kiss Ernest again, only there was no excuse. So she only pressed his hand, feeling that the sorrow of the empty years which were gone was almost atoned for by this hour of joy. Then they went ashore to the hotel, and sat together in the pleasant sitting-room which Dorothy had chosen, and made sweet with great bunches of violets (for she remembered that Ernest loved violets), and talked. At length Mr. Cardus and Jeremy went off to see about getting the things through the Custom House, where they arrived to find Mazooku keeping half a dozen gorgeous officials, who wanted to open a box, at bay with his knobsticks, and plastering them with offensive epithets, which fortunately they did not understand.