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'I shall leave day after tomorrow,' Frank said with some force, and that was the beginning of the estrangement, for Mr. Rhodes realized with dismay that one of his young gentlemen had got himself seriously mixed up with a woman.

In the time he had stolen for himself, Frank demonstrated attractively his deep feelings for Miss Turner. He deposited her trunks at the local hotel, then escorted her about the town, showing her the mighty hole in the earth where he had worked, and the donkey engines which kept the water out. He took her into the countryside and to the local church, and as the second day ended he asked, 'Are you promised to anyone?' When she said, 'I am not,' he asked, 'Would you keep yourself free till I return from Zimbabwe?'

'And where's that?' she parried. When he told her, she wanted to accompany him on the safari, but this suggestion he rejected forcibly. 'I understand,' she teased. 'Mr. Rhodes wouldn't like it.'

'Conditions are far too rough, Maud.'

'I understand. Mr. Rhodes lays down very strict conditions for his employees. No women.' She expected him to say something, and when he didn't, she said boldly, 'But if I did wait, wouldn't Mr. Rhodes discharge you?'

'Yes. So when I married you, I'd have to find other employment.'

'Could you do so?'

'I'm a young man. I can work. I know diamonds and gold.'

Very quietly she said, 'I shall cancel my steamship.'

'What will you do?'

'I am going on an elephant shoot.'

'With whom?' he asked in amazement.

'With three gentlemen at the hotel.'

'My God, Maud!'

'I said I would wait, Frank. I didn't say I was going to sit on my hands.'

'But . . . but, three men from the hotel!'

'My uncle sent letters to two of them.' And then she kissed him, not a peck on the cheek, but the full passionate kiss of a liberated young woman who had found the kind of man she was willing to wait for.

From Pretoria, Frank took the new train leading down to Lourenco Marques on Delagoa Bay, but after a full day's journey he disembarked at the small station of Waterval-Boven, where a wagon awaited him. It was a fifteen-mile drive south, with a black man who gave his name as Micah Nxumalo. The first part came from the Bible, he explained in broken English, the second part from his grandfather, who had come here from Zululand in the time of troubles.

'Did Mr. van Doorn own the land then?'

'No. It was our land.'

'But how did Mr. van Doorn acquire it?' The word was too big for Micah and he asked what it meant. 'Get. How did he get the land?'

A puzzled look came over the black man's face and he said, 'At first it was ours, then after a while it was his.'

When they reached the town of Venloo, Frank expected to be dropped at a lodging place before visiting Vrymeer, but Micah informed him that he was to room at the lake. 'With whom?' Saltwood asked. 'The De Groots or the Van Doorns?'

'Nobody stays with the De Groots,' Micah explained. 'They have only a very small place.' And when the horses climbed to the top of the rise that separated Venloo from the lake, Frank understood, for to the north stood a mean collection of wattle-and-daub structures in the center of unkempt fields, while to the east unfolded a substantial farm with an interesting mixture of barns for animals, kraals for holding areas, a rambling whitewashed farmhouse with a corrugated iron roof, and at some distance a handsome collection of rondavels for the Nxumalos and the other blacks who worked the land.

The farm was obviously prosperous and looked inviting, but what captured Saltwood's eye was the inconsequential little stream that debouched from the hills, ran among the farm buildings and broadened out to a beautiful lake on which ducks abounded and flamingos. What Saltwood could not see, approaching by this road, were the two rounded mountains that gave the site distinction; as they came slowly into view, Micah pointed them out and said, 'Sannie's Tits.'

'Who's Sannie?'

'Girl that used to live here. My father's time. She loved a