Page:A Good Woman (1927).pdf/59

 of Lady Millicent Wimbrooke. Across her arm with an air of easy repose lay a rifle. Across her thin back was slung a second gun, and across her flat breast were slung bandolier after bandolier of cartridges. The pockets of her weather-beaten skirt and jacket bulged with more ammunition. She gave the effect of a walking arsenal. Before her, carrying the collapsible bathtub, walked the Arab, Ali, the muzzle of a third rifle pressed into his back.

Watching her, Philip wished that she had not returned, and Naomi, instead of feeling relief at the sight of a white woman, was frightened, more frightened and more resentful than she had been of the silence. It was a nameless fear, but because of that all the more dreadful. Naomi, who believed that all people were the children of God, hated Lady Millicent Wimbrooke.

The invincible spinster appeared to believe that they knew what was taking place in the forest and on the distant plain. She did not speak of the silence. Without greeting them she said, "I must have a bath now, but I can't leave Ali unguarded." She glanced at the three of them and then quickly, with the air of conferring an honor, she handed her rifle to Philip. "Here," she said. "You watch him. If he gets away, he'll make trouble and without him we're lost. He knows the way to the coast. He used to come here in the days of the slave-traders."

She explained briefly that the sound of drums had wakened her in the night and that when she rose to look about, she discovered that not one of her bearers remained. They had vanished into the bush. "They're like that, these damned niggers." She had caught Ali