“Aye,” she went on, “I know that thou art there; from ten thousand leagues away I felt thy presence and broke from my own place to welcome thee, though I must pay for it with burning chains and bondage.  How did those welcome thee whom thou camest out to seek?  Did they clasp thee in their arms and press their kisses on thy brow?  Or did they shrink away from thee because the smell of earth was on thy hands and lips?”

I seemed to answer that they did not appear to know that I was there.

“Aye, they did not know because their love is not enough, because they have grown too fine for love.  But I, the sinner, I knew well, and here am I ready to suffer all for thee and to give thee place within this stormy heart of mine.  Forget them, then, and come to rule with me who still am queen in my own house that thou shalt share.  There we will live royally and when our hour comes, at least we shall have had our day.”

Now before I could reply, some power seemed to seize this splendid creature and whirl her thence so that she departed, flashing these words from her mind to mine,

“For a little while farewell, but remember always that Mameena, the Wailing Wind, being still as a sinful woman in a woman’s love and of the earth, earthy, found thee, whom all the rest forgot.  O Watcher-in-the-Night, watch in the night for me, for there thou shalt find me, the Child of Storm, again, and yet again.”

She was gone and once more I sat in utter solitude upon that ruby stone, staring at the jewelled flowers and the glorious flaming trees and the lambent waters of the brook.  What was the meaning of it all, I wondered, and why was I deserted by everyone save a single savage woman, and why had she a power to find me which was denied to all the rest?  Well, she had given me an answer, because she was “as a sinful woman with a woman’s love and of the earth, earthy,” while with the rest it was otherwise.  Oh! this was clear, that in the heavens man has no friend among the heavenly, save perhaps the greatest Friend of all Who understands both flesh and spirit.

Thus I mused in this burning world which was still so beautiful, this alien world into which I had thrust myself unwanted and unsought.  And while I mused this happened.  The fiery waters of the stream were disturbed by something and looking up I saw the cause.

A dog had plunged into them and was swimming towards me.  At a glance I knew that dog on which my eyes had not fallen for decades.  It was a mongrel, half spaniel and half bull-terrier, which for years had been the dear friend of my youth and died at last on the horns of a wounded wildebeeste that attacked me when I had fallen from my horse upon the veld.  Boldly it tackled the maddened buck, thus giving me time to scramble to my rifle and shoot it, but not before the poor hound had yielded its life for mine, since presently it died disembowelled, but licking my hand and forgetful of its agonies.  This dog, Smut by name, it was that swam or seemed to swim the brook of fire.  It scrambled to the hither shore, it nosed the earth and ran to the ruby stone and stared about it whining and sniffing.