Part 15 (1/2)

”Itseen a Frenchman inwhatever to do with them, and I am quite sure that I never heard any of these words before, yet at the same time I find them all fareed My Dear

It was about this tiht a letter that, when she learned the contents, filled Merielish ladies and gentlemen had accepted My Dear's invitation to spend awith theers be like? Would they be as nice to her as had Bwana and My Dear, or would they be like the other white folk she had known-cruel and relentless My Dear assured her that they all were gentle folk and that she would find them kind, considerate and honorable

To My Dear's surprise there was none of the shyness of the wild creature in Merieers

She looked forward to their co with curiosity and with a certain pleasurable anticipation when once she was assured that they would not bite her In fact she appeared no different than would any pretty youngof cohts, but it aroused now a less well-defined sense of bereaveht of hi no longer goaded her to desperation Yet she was still loyal to him She still hoped that some day he would find her, nor did she doubt for afor her if he still lived It was this last suggestion that caused her the greatest perturbation Korak ht be dead It scarce seeencies of jungle life should have succu; yet when she had last seen him he had been beset by a horde of arain, as she well knew he must have, he le handed, slay an entire tribe

At last the visitors arrived There were three estexhausted all the possibilities for pleasure offered by the capitals of Europe, had gladly seized upon this opportunity to turn to another continent for excites un-European as rather more than less i the novelty of unaccustoenous thereto, however unspeakable they ht have seemed to him at home In manner he was suave and courteous to all-if possible a trifle more punctilious toward those he considered of meaner clay than toward the few he mentally admitted to equality

Nature had favored him with a splendid physique and a handsoht enjoy the contemplation of his superiority to theequally entranced by the sa a most democratic and likeable fellow, and indeed he was likable Just a shade of his egotism was occasionally apparent-never sufficient to become a burden to his associates And this, briefly, was the Hon Morison Baynes of luxurious European civilization What would be the Hon Morison Baynes of central Africa it were difficult to guess

Meriem, at first, was shy and reserved in the presence of the strangers Her benefactors had seen fit to ignore e past, and so she passed as their hose antecedents not having been uests found her sweet and unassu, vivacious and a never exhausted storehouse of quaint and interesting jungle lore

She had riddenher year with Bwana and My Dear She knew each favorite clu the river that the buffalo loved best She knew a dozen places where lions laired, and every drinking hole in the drier country twenty-fiveprecision that was alest or the s that baffled them all was her instant consciousness of the presence of carnivora that others, exerting their faculties to the utmost, could neither see nor hear

The Hon Morison Baynes found Meriehted with her from the first Particularly so, it is possible, because he had not thought to find companionshi+p of this sort upon the African estate of his London friends They were together a great deal as they were the only unmarried couple in the little company Meriem, entirely unaccustomed to the companionshi+p of such as Baynes, was fascinated by hiay cities hich he was familiar filled her with admiration and onder If the Hon Morison always shone to advantage in these narratives Meriem saw in that fact but a most natural consequence to his presence upon the scene of his story-wherever Morison irl

With the actual presence and coe of Korak became less real Where before it had been an actuality to her she now realized that Korak was but a ht has areality?

Meriem had never accouests She never had cared particularly for the sport of killing The tracking she enjoyed; but theshe could not find pleasure in-little savage that she had been, and still, to soone forth to shoot for meat she had always been his enthusiastic co had deteriorated into hter the host would not permit; yet the purpose of the hunts were for heads and skins and not for food So Meriem remained behind and spent her days either with My Dear upon the shaded verandah, or riding her favorite pony across the plains or to the forest edge Here she would leave him untethered while she took to the trees for the moment's unalloyed pleasures of a return to the wild, free existence of her earlier childhood

Then would co and swinging through the trees, she would stretch herself comfortably upon a branch and dream And presently, as today, she found the features of Korak slowly dissolve and ure of a tanned, half-naked tar pony

And while she dreamed there came to her ears fro of a kid Meriem was instantly alert You or I, even had we been able to hear the pitiful wail at so great distance, could not have interpreted it; but to Meriem it meant a species of terror that afflicts the ruminant when a carnivore is near and escape impossible

It had been both a pleasure and a sport of Korak's to rob Numa of his prey whenever possible, and Merie so of beasts Now, at the sound of the kid's bleat, all the well remembered thrills recurred Instantly she was all exciteame of hide and seek with death

Quickly she loosened her riding skirt and tossed it aside-it was a heavy handicap to successful travel in the trees Her boots and stockings followed the skirt, for the bare sole of the human foot does not slip upon dry or even wet bark as does the hard leather of a boot She would have liked to discard her riding breeches also, but the motherly adood for a hunting knife Her rifle was still in its boot at her pony's withers Her revolver she had not brought

The kid was still bleating as Merieht toward a certain water hole which had once been famous as a rendezvous for lions Of late there had been no evidence of carnivora in the neighborhood of this drinking place; but Merie of the kid was due to the presence of either lion or panther

But she would soon know, for she was rapidly approaching the terrified animal She wondered as she hastened onward that the sounds continued to come from the same point Why did the kid not run away? And then she caht of the little animal and knew The kid was tethered to a stake beside the waterhole