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Tired as he was, Rolls hardly slept that night, there in the reign of rayless darkness between the creepers and the hollow of the rock, noting when the man-eater roared afar, when the mouth of the ounce yowled to the universe for food, when sentries went out, came in....

The question was—to tell Cobby, or not to tell? and toward morning Rolls answered, "No—not now; after the happening of what has to happen." Cobby would command: "No killing!" and Rolls would obey, but Macray, who was out for killing, would not obey. Rolls, too, now, was all for killing. There are venoms, there are wrongs, which only blood can wash out, which only death can solve.

"One attempt on my life in that Exchange Bar at Johannesburg ... two in London ... one on the steamer. Low-down thug-work. If I forget, may God forget me."

At dawn he shook Cobby with a rollic, "Out of it, lazy bones"—rollic and tender, for where he loved he loved, and hated where he hated.

And at breakfast all was as usual, save that both Rolls and Macray tended to more than usual merriment, which, in the case of Macray, may have been due to the absence, for the first time, of the plate in his mouth; à propos of which Cobby asked: "What is different about you, Macray? You are like a man who has shaved off a moustache."