She gave his gun carefully to the barefooted child.

“He’s a little stunner, and so chivalrous.  I never met a boy I liked more.  Do give him a nice present, Dion, and let him feed in the camp if he likes.”

“Well, what next?  What am I to give him?”

“Nothing dressy.  He isn’t a manikin, he’s a real Doric boy.”

She slapped Dirmikis on the back with a generous hand.  He smiled radiantly, this time without any savagery.

“The sort of boy who’ll be of some use in the world.”

“I’ll give him a tip.”

Rosamund seemed about to assent when an idea struck her, as she afterwards said, “with the force of a bomb.”

“I know what he’ll like better than anything.”

“Well?”

“Your revolver, to be sure!”

“My revolver to be suren’t!” exclaimed Dion passionately, inventing a negative.  “I bought it at great cost to defend you with, not for the endowment of a half-naked varmint from the wilderness under Drouva.”

“Be careful, Dion; you’re insulting a Doric boy!”

“Here—­I’ll insult him with a ten-lepta piece.”

“Don’t be mean.  Bribe him thoroughly if you’re going to bribe him.  We go shooting together again to-morrow evening.”

“Do you indeed?”

“Yes, directly after tea.  It’s all arranged.  Dirmikis suggested it with the most charming chivalry, and I gave yes for an answer.  So we must keep on good terms with him at whatever cost.”

She cocked up her chin and walked exultantly into the tent.  A minute afterwards there rang out to the evening a warm contralto voice singing.

Dirmikis looked at the tent and then at Dion with an air of profound astonishment.  The quail dropped from his hands, and he did not even snatch at them as he listened to the remarkable sounds which, he could not doubt, flowed from his Amazon.  His brows came down over his fiery eyes, and he seemed to stand at gaze like an animal, half-fascinated and half-suspicious.  The voice died away and was followed by a sound of pouring water.  Then Dirmikis accepted two ten-lepta pieces and picked up the quail.  Dion introduced him to the cook, and it was understood that he should be fed in the camp, and that the quail should form part of the evening meal.

Very good they proved to be, cooked in leaves with the addition of some fried slices of fat ham.  Rosamund exulted again as she ate them, recognizing the birds she had shot “by the taste.”

“This is one!  Aren’t mine different from Dirmikis’s?” she exclaimed.  “So much more succulent!”

“Naturally, you great baby!”

“Life is glorious!” she exclaimed resonantly.  “To eat one’s own bag on the top of Drouva under the moon!  Oh!”

She looked at the moon, then bent over her plate of metal-ware which was set on the tiny folding-table.  In her joy she was exactly like a big child.

“I wonder how many I shall get to-morrow.  I got my eye in at the very start.  Really, Dion, you know, I’m a gifted creature.  It isn’t every one——­”