A low titter ran round the group. Even the man under the bushes, though his eyes were still closed and his arm across his face, let his mouth relax a little, and showed his yellow teeth. “I’m always expecting,” said the big handsome man, “to have a paper come round, signed by all the nigger chiefs, saying how much they love the B.S.A. Company, and how glad they are the Panjandrum has got them, and how awfully good he is to them; and they’re going to subscribe to the brazen statue. There’s nothing a man can’t be squared to do.” The third man lay on his back again, lazily examining his hand, which he held above his face. “What’s that in the Bible,” he said, slowly, “about the statue, whose thighs and belly were of brass, and its feet of mud?” “I don’t know much about the Bible,” said the keen man, “I’m going to see if my pot isn’t boiling over. Won’t yours burn?” “No, I asked the Captain’s boy to keep an eye on it--but I expect he won’t. Do you put the rice in with the mealies?” “Got to; I’ve got no other pot. And the fellows don’t object. It’s a tasty variety, you know!” The keen-faced man slouched away across the square to where his fire burnt; and presently the other man rose and went, either to look at his own pot or sleep under the carts; and the large Colonial man was left alone. His fire was burning satisfactorily about fifty feet off, and he folded his arms on the ground and rested his forehead on them, and watched lazily the little black ants that ran about in the red sand, just under his nose. A great stillness settled down on the camp. Now and again a stick cracked in the fires, and the cicadas cried aloud in the tree stems; but except where the solitary paced up and down before the little flat-topped tree in front of the captain’s tent, not a creature stirred in the whole camp; and the snores of the trooper under the bushes might be heard half across the camp. The intense midday heat had settled down. At last there was the sound of someone breaking through the long grass and bushes which had only been removed for a few feet round the camp, and the figure of a man emerged bearing in one hand a gun, and in the other a bird which he had shot. He was evidently an Englishman, and not long from Europe, by the bloom of the skin, which was perceptible in spite of the superficial tan. His face was at the moment flushed with heat; but the clear blue eyes and delicate features lost none of their sensitive refinement. He came up to the Colonial, and dropped the bird before him. “That is all I’ve got,” he said. He threw himself also down on the ground, and put his gun under the loose flap of the tent. The Colonial raised his head; and without taking his elbows from the ground took up the bird. “I’ll put it into the pot; it’ll give it the flavour of something except weevily mealies”; he said, and fell to plucking it. The Englishman took his hat off, and lifted the fine damp hair from his forehead.