That ended my desire for further exercise and solitude.  I made for the hotel as fast as fear of seeming afraid would let me, and spent fifteen aggravating minutes on the veranda trying to persuade Fred Oakes that I had truly seen lions.

“Hyenas!” he said with the air of an old hunter, to which he was quite entitled, but that soothed me all the less for that.

“More likely jackals,” said Will; and he was just as much as Fred entitled to an opinion.

While I was asserting the facts with increasing anger, and they were amusing themselves with a hundred-and-one ridiculous reasons for disbelieving me, Lady Saffren Waldon came.  She had, as usual, attracted to herself able assistance; a settler’s ox-cart brought her belongings, and she and her maid rode in hammocks borne by porters impressed from heaven knew where.  It was not far from the station, but she was the type of human that can not be satisfied with meek beginnings.  That type is not by any means always female, but the women, are the most determined on their course, and come the biggest croppers on occasion.

She was determined now, mistress of the situation and of her plans.  She left to her maid the business of quarreling about accommodations; (there was little left to choose from, and all was bare and bad); dismissed the obsequious settler and his porters with perfunctory thanks that left him no excuse for lingering, and came along the veranda straight toward us with the smile of old acquaintance, and such an air of being perfectly at ease that surprise was disarmed, and the rudeness we all three intended died stillborn.

“What do you think of the country?” she asked.  “Men like it as a rule.  Women detest it, and who can blame them?  No, comfort—­no manners—­no companionship—­no meals fit to eat—­no amusement!  Have you killed anything or anybody yet?  That always amuses a man!”

We rose to make room for her and I brought her a chair.  There was nothing else one could do.  There is almost no twilight in that part of East Africa; until dark there is scarcely a hint that the day is waning.  She sat with us for twenty or thirty minutes making small talk, her maid watching us from a window above, until the sun went down with almost the suddenness of gas turned off, and in a moment we could scarcely see one another’s faces.

Then came the proprietor to the door, with his best ex-missionary air of knowledge of all earth’s ways, their reason and their trend.

“All in!” he called.  “All inside at once!  No guest is allowed after dark on the veranda!  All inside!  Supper presently!”

“Pah!” remarked Lady Saffren Waldon, rising.  “What is it about some men that makes one’s blood boil?  I suppose we must go in.”

She came nearer until she stood between the three of us, so close that I could see her diamond-hard eyes and hear the suppressed breathing that I suspected betrayed excitement.