He finished his breakfast calmly, and then asked Jocelyn whether she was coming out on to the verandah.

It was a habit they had unconsciously dropped into.

The verandah was a very important feature of the house, thickly overhung as it was with palms, bananas, and other tropical verdure.

Africa is the land of creepers, and all around this verandah, over the trellis-work, around the supports, hanging in festoons from the roof, were a thousand different creeping flowers.

The legend of the house--for, as in India, almost every bungalow on the West Coast has its tale--was that one of the early missionaries had built it, and, to beguile the long months of the rainy season, had carefully collected these creepers to beautify the place against the arrival of his young wife.