“I don’t see it,” he said; and Luttrell stopped abruptly and turned to him.

“Don’t you, Martin?” he asked gently.  All the merriment had gone from his face and voice.  “If you were with us for a week you would.  It’s just the value of a little familiar joke always on tap.  Here are a handful of us.  We eat together, morning, noon, and night; we work together; we play polo together—­we can never get away from each other.  And in consequence we get on each other’s nerves, especially in the months of hot weather.  Ill-temper comes to the top.  We quarrel.  Irreparable things might be said.  That’s where Sir Chichester Splay comes in.  When the quarrel’s getting bitter, we refer it to his arbitration.  And, since he has no opinions, we laugh and are saved.”  Luttrell resumed his walk to the Governor’s house.

“Yes, I see now,” said Hillyard.

“You had an instance to-night,” Luttrell added, as they went in at the door.  “It’s a serious matter—­the order of a Province and a great many lives, and the cost of troops from Khartum, and the careers of all of us are at stake.  I think that I am right, and it is for me to say.  They disagree.  Yes, Sir Chichester Splay saved us to-night, and”—­a smile suddenly broke upon his serious face—­“I really should like to meet him.”

“I will arrange it when we are both in London,” Hillyard returned.

He did not forget that promise.  But he was often afterwards to recall this moment when he made it—­the silent hall, the door open upon the hot, still night, the moon just beginning to gild the dark sky, and the two men standing together, neither with a suspicion of the life-long consequences which were to spring from the casual suggestion and the careless assent.

“You are over there,” said Luttrell, pointing to the other side of the hall.  He turned towards his own quarters, but a question from Hillyard arrested him.

“What about that message for me?”

“I know nothing about it,” Luttrell answered, “beyond what I wrote.  The telegram came from Khartum.  No doubt they can tell you more at Government House.  Good night!”

CHAPTER VII

IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Just outside Senga to the north, in open country, stands a great walled zareba, and the space enclosed is the nearest approach to the Garden of Eden which this wicked world can produce.  The Zoological Gardens of Cairo and Khartum replenish their cages from Senga.  But there are no cages at Senga, and only the honey-badger lives in a tub with a chain round his neck, like a bull-dog.  The buffalo and the elephant, the wart-hog and the reed-buck, roam and feed and sleep together.  Nor do they trouble, after three days’ residence in that pleasant sanctuary, about man—­except that specimen of man who brings them food.