THE APPIAN WAY "Cape to Cairo be damned!" The words were almost spat out.

The man to whom they were addressed slowly drew himself up from a half-recumbent position in his desk-chair, from which he had been dreamily talking into the ceiling, as it were, while his visitor leaned against a row of bookshelves and beat the floor impatiently with his foot.
At the rude exclamation, Byng straightened himself, and looked fixedly at his visitor.

He had been dreaming out loud again the dream which Rhodes had chanted in the ears of all those who shared with him the pioneer enterprises of South Africa.

The outburst which had broken in on his monologue was so unexpected that for a moment he could scarcely realize the situation.

It was not often, in these strenuous and perilous days--and for himself less often than ever before, so had London and London life worked upon him--that he, or those who shared with him the vast financial responsibilities of the Rand, indulged in dreams or prophecies; and he resented the contemptuous phrase just uttered, and the tone of the speaker even more.
Byng's blank amazement served only to incense his visitor further.
"Yes, be damned to it, Byng!" he continued.