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Rh Beddingfeld. "I shouldn't have seen this if I'd gone last night to Durban, should I?"

"No," said Colonel Race, smiling. "You'd have waked up to-morrow morning to find yourself in the Karoo, a hot, dusty desert of stones and rocks."

"I'm glad I changed my mind," said Anne, sighing contentedly, and looking round.

It was rather a wonderful sight. The great mountains all around, through which we turned and twisted and laboured ever steadily upwards.

"Is this the best train in the day to Rhodesia?" asked Anne Beddingfeld.

"In the day?" laughed Race. "Why, my dear Miss Anne, there are only three trains a week. Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Do you realize that you don't arrive at the Falls until Saturday next?"

"How well we shall know each other by that time," said Mrs. Blair maliciously. "How long are you going to stay at the Falls, Sir Eustace?"

"That depends," I said cautiously.

"On what?"

"On how things go at Johannesburg. My original idea was to stay a couple of days or so at the Falls—which I've never seen, though this is my third visit to Africa—and then go on to Jo'burg and study the conditions of things on the Rand. At home, you know, I pose as being an authority on South African politics. But from all I hear, Jo'burg will be a particularly unpleasant place to visit in about a week's time. I don't want to study conditions in the midst of a raging revolution."

Race smiled in a rather superior manner.

"I think your fears are exaggerated, Sir Eustace. There will be no great danger in Jo'burg."

The women immediately looked at him in the "What a brave hero you are" manner. It annoyed me intensely.