Over the old fort near the river the British flag drooped limply. Many
years had passed since it had last hung there. Nowadays, the place was
not used. The country was too peaceful to need forts, and the district
officer lived in a corrugated iron bungalow just beyond the remains of
the stockade.
It was getting on towards evening. The mist still rose from forest and
shadow valley, as it had risen sixteen years before when Barclay first
came to these parts. And in the stunted cliffs another generation of
baboons swarmed.
On the roof of the old fort Pansy stood with her father, watching as
she had often watched during her months in Africa, the sunset that each
night painted the world with glory.
A golden mist draped the horizon, its edge gilded sharply and clearly.
Across the golden curtain swept great fan-like rays of rose and green
and glowing carmine, all radiating from a blurred mass of orange hung
on the world's edge where the sun sank slowly behind the veil of gold.
The mist rolled up from the wide shallow valley, in banks and tattered
ribbons, rainbow tinted. And the lakes that, in the dry season, marked
the course of the shrunken river, gleamed like jewels in the flood of
light poured out from the heavens.
The constant change and variety of the last few months had eased
Pansy's pain a little.
With her father she had toured the colony. She had slept under canvas,
in native huts, and iron bungalows. And there were half-a-dozen
officers on the governor's staff, all anxious to entertain his daughter.
But for the nights, Pansy would have enjoyed herself immensely.
"Give me the nights, Pansy, and the days I'll leave to you."
Very often Raoul Le Breton's words came back to her, as she lay
sleepless. It seemed that he had her nights now, that man she loved
yet could not marry. Often her heart ached with a violence that kept
her awake until the morning.
Pansy tried to make her nights as short as possible. She was always
the last to bed and the first to rise, often up and dressed before
Alice--her plump, pretty, mulatto maid, a Mission girl Pansy had
engaged for her stay in Africa--appeared with the early morning tea.
And whenever it was possible, she was out and away on her old
racehorse, with some member of her father's staff.
And the day that followed was generally full of novelty and interest.
There were new people to see; a wild country to travel through; some
negro chief to interview; a native village to visit.
As the journey continued, the Europeans grew fewer. Until that day, it
was nearly a week since Pansy had seen a white face, except those of
her father's suite.
Only that afternoon the furthermost point of the tour had been reached.
A mile or so beyond was French territory.
With her father Pansy often went over the maps of the district and the
country that lay around it. She knew that beyond the British
possessions lay a sparsely populated and but little known district;
vast areas, scarcely explored, of scrub and poor grass, that led on to
the Back of Beyond, the limitless expanse of the burning Sahara.
But, interested as Pansy always was in all connected with her father's
province, and all that lay about it, she was not thinking of any of
these things as she stood on the roof with him, but of her old
playmate, Captain Cameron.
The Governor, his staff, and the district officer were going the next
day to visit some rather important negro chief. Pansy was to have been
one of the party, but on reaching their journey's end, Cameron had
suddenly developed a bad attack of malaria.
"I don't think I'll go to-morrow, father," she was saying. "I don't
like leaving Bob. I know his orderly can look after him all right.
But he says he feels better when I'm about, so I promised to stay and
hold his hand."
"Just as you like," Sir George answered. "In any case the pow-pow will
be very similar to a dozen others you've seen. And Bob needs keeping
cheerful."
"He takes it very philosophically," Pansy answered.
"It's the only way to take life," her father answered, a trifle sadly.
Pansy rubbed a soft cheek against his in silent sympathy.
She loved and understood her quiet, indulgent father more than ever.
But the dead girl he still grieved for was only a misty memory to his
child.
"Yes, Daddy, I've learnt that too," she said. "It's no use grousing
about things. It's far better to laugh in the teeth of Fate."
George Barclay's arm went round his daughter.
She had followed out her own precepts, this brave, bright girl of his.
As she went about his camp, no one would have guessed her life was a
tragedy. And even he knew no more than she had told him on her
unexpected return from Grand Canary.
She was fighting her battle alone, as he in past years had fought his,
in her own unselfish way, refusing to let her shadows fall on those
about her.