the Bosphorus; and such mobility, which is the fruit of true cohesion, must be the ideal of our Empire if it is to survive. We are connected at present, but it is to the interest of us all, and especially of England, to be more closely related if we are to be secure against the future. Insularism must cease to dominate British policy, and be left only to the obscurantists and reactionaries. Such constitutional union as I propose is only a small and formal beginning, but it will make broad the path for the true spiritual change."

"Imperialism, then," said Lord Appin, "is to be defined from the English point of view as a kind of national old age pensions scheme?"

But Mr Wakefield, having had his say, and having secured, as he believed, the assent of his audience, was not to be disturbed by any epigram.

"I accept the definition gladly," he said. "That is Imperialism on the business side. The other sides—and I grant you they are many-I leave to people more competent to deal with them."

Carey walked to one of the shelves and took down a book.

in

"Do you remember," he said, "a passage which John Davis, the Elizabethan seaman, held

out a prospect for his countrymen? I fear he was actually talking of the North Pole, where his dreams have not been realised; but we can apply his words to the ideal of a united empire :

How blessed may we think this nation to be, for they are in perpetual light, and never know what darkness meaneth, by the benefit of twilight and full moons, as the learned in astronomy do very well know; which people, if they have the notice of their eternity by the comfortable light of the Gospels, then are they blessed, and of all nations most blessed. Why then do we neglect the search of this excellent discovery, against which there can be nothing said to hinder the same? Why do we refuse to see the dignity of God's creation, since it hath pleased the Divine Majesty to place us the nearest neighbour thereunto? I know there is no true Englishman that can in conscience refuse to be a contributor to procure this so great a happiness to his country, whereby not only the prince and mighty men of the land shall be highly renowned, but also the merchants, tradesmen, and artificers mightily enriched.' You see what an old creed ours is, and how catholic in its application. You will find cover under these words, Wakefield, for your practicality, and Marjory for her transcendentalism, and Teddy for his romance. I think we may close our discussion for the evening with John Davis, who makes a good tail-piece. For the next two days we shall let the matter rest, for

some of us are going hunting. On the evening of the day after to-morrow I propose that we take up another question of detail, and a very practical one-our tropical possessions."

Considine rose and marched resolutely from the room. "If you and Alastair," he said to Hugh, "expect to be ready at four to-morrow morning, you had better get to bed."

Lady Flora looked at him with stern disapproval. "Am I to be allowed to come?" she asked.

"My dear child!" said Mrs Yorke. "They are going after lions! Besides, what about the conventions?

The girl shook an impatient head. "You have broken our compact at the very beginning," she whispered to Hugh. "If I were not such a Christian and such a lady, I should be seriously annoyed. But you are quite wrong if you think that you'll have any adventures as good as I shall have here. I am going straight off into the wilds on the white pony to make friends with Prester John."

128

CHAPTER V.

THE stars, which had been shining with a frosty brilliance, were paling towards dawn before Hugh was sufficiently awake to see where he was going. He had been routed out by Alastair Graham in the small hours, and had somehow found himself on a horse, in a great blanketcoat, with half-a-dozen dusky figures trotting alongside. He had been jogging on for half an hour before he finally rubbed sleep out of his eyes, and, drinking long draughts of the electric air, roused himself to some interest in life. The sky was changing from black to some ineffable shade of purple, and the track among the mimosa thorns was beginning to glimmer ahead in a fantastic grey. Soon remoter objects distinguished themselves—a kopje, a big tree, a jag of rock. And then over the crest of the far downs came a red arc of fire, and the heavens changed to amethyst and saffron, and, last of all, to a delicate pale blue, where wisps

of rosy cloud hung like the veils of the morning. They were near the western edge of the escarpment, and, looking down into the trough, Hugh saw over the great sea of mist the blue fingers of far mountains rising clear and thin into the sky. The air was bitter cold, and the cheeks tingled with the light wind which attends the dawn. Lines of Theocritus - the

aλéкTwp ἀλέκτωρ

κοκκύζων νάρκαισιν ἀνιάραισι of the Seventh Idyll-ran in Hugh's mind from his reading of yesterday. He realised that his senses had become phenomenally acute. His eyes seemed to see farther, his ears to mark the least sound in the bush, while the scents of the morning came to his nostrils with a startling freshness. Pungent, clean, yet with an indescribable tropic softness in it, was the air of the desert, which he sniffed like the Scriptural wild ass. He looked round at his companions. Graham, a burly figure in a sheepskin coat, rode somewhat in the manner in which Napoleon is painted as retreating from Moscow, sitting squarely in the saddle with a meditative chin on his breast. Considine's long lean figure on a blue roan seemed wholly in keeping with the landscape. He wore an old khaki suit and a broad-brimmed felt hat, and sat his horse as loosely as a Boer. He leaned forward, peering