Now, God give good going to master o' mine, God speed him, and lead him, and nerve him; God give him a lead of a length in the line, And,--God let him boast that I serve him! THE dawn was barely breaking yet when things stirred in the little mission house.

The flea-bitten gray pony was saddled by a sleepy saice, and brought round from his open-sided thatch stable in the rear.

The violet and mauve, that precede the aching yellow glare of day were fading; a coppersmith began his everlasting bong-bong-bong, apparently reverberating from every direction; the last, almost indetectable, warm whiff of night wind moved and died away, and the monkeys in the near-by baobab chattered it a requiem.

Almost on the stroke of sunrise Rosemary McClean stepped out--settled her sun-helmet, with a moue above the chin-strap that was wasted on flat-bosomed, black grandmotherdom and sulky groom--and mounted.
She needed no help.

The pony stood as though he knew that the hot wind would soon dry the life out of him; and, though dark rings beneath dark eyes betrayed the work of heat and sleepless worry on a girl who should have graced the cool, sweet, rain-swept hills of Scotland, she had spirit left yet and an unspent store of youth.