Part 99 (2/2)

”Off we go then,” and mounting the little thing on his shoulder, where she sits half timorously, half exulting in the unwonted alt.i.tude, Claverton makes his way to the entrance hall. The said hall is a perfect museum, being hung all over with trophies of war and of the chase collected by its master during his wanderings. Here, the huge frontlet of a buffalo scowls down upon the grinning jaws of a leopard, whose crafty eyes in their turn glare thirstily towards the heads of various antelopes, tastefully arranged opposite. Then there is a brave show of armoury. Great savage-looking ox-hide s.h.i.+elds, flanked by circles of grim a.s.segais, formidable k.n.o.bkerries, and grotesque war costumes of flowing hair and swinging cow-tails, combine to render this trophy barbarous and picturesque in aspect. To the children, the adornments of this hall are an unfailing subject of interest, not unmixed with awe.

And now Claverton halts in front of the war-trophy for Dots to look at ”the big points,” as she calls the a.s.segais, and even gingerly to touch them, for it is one of her little pleasures in life to be hoisted up on her father's shoulder, as in the present instance, to inspect them closely, when they look even more awful than from the far distance of the floor. So, with a thrill of awe, little Dots' hand is put tentatively forth, and the baby fingers play upon the cruel blades of the grisly weapons and pa.s.s wonderingly down their dark, spidery hafts.

But nothing on earth will induce her to touch the ox-hide s.h.i.+elds, which she is convinced must be alive.

”There. Now then, Dots. By-by's the next thing.”

So, reluctantly, and with a final hug, the little one resigns herself to be carried off, _en route_ for the land of Nod, and Claverton, relighting his pipe, rejoins his friend on the verandah, just as his wife approaches from the garden at the same moment.

Time has dealt very kindly with Lilian. The soft, serene beauty of that sweet face has not one whit abated its charm; and the attractiveness and winning grace of her manner is just the same as it was in the Lilian Strange of former days. Payne, as he responds to her greeting of cordial surprise, thinks that, lucky dog as his friend always was, the day he went to Seringa Vale was the very beginning of his real luck.

”Unexpected pleasure?” he answers. ”Oh, yes, I like astonis.h.i.+ng people.

But this, as a surprise, don't come near the day I picked up our friend, there, wandering about the _veldt_, and ran him in to Fountains Gap, just before the war. Eh?”

”Picked _me_ up! Well, I like that,” is Claverton's reply, cutting short the other's satirical chuckle. ”It strikes me, friend George, that if there was any 'picking up' in the case, you were the party who underwent the operation, and that considerably damaged by a Kafir k.n.o.bkerrie, too.”

Payne, of course, was ready with a bantering rejoinder, and much chaff followed. A soft blush had come over Lilian's face at the recollection.

She stood for a moment, gazing at the purple peaks of the distant mountains, standing steely against the sky from which all the afterglow had now faded. Then, with a bright laugh, she turned to enter the house, saying:

”Well, I shall leave you to fight out the question between you.”

Reader, we will follow her example, even as we have followed her through her joys and sorrows. We must now part company with all our friends whose fortunes and reverses have entertained us throughout this narrative, but with none more reluctantly than with these two. Yet what better moment can we choose than this, when we leave them surrounded by every happiness the world can afford, here in their beautiful home, in that bright and sunny land which to them has been the scene of so many marvellous and stirring experiences?

The End.

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