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bought him in London, before they had sailed, and which she had been saving him for Christmas—a silver lighter, bought out of the cheque her father had given her. An attractive, glinting thing shaped like an eagle. When Ross thanked her there was a twinkle in his eye.
    “ Do I put you in mind of an eagle?” he queried. She nodded. He always had, from the very beginning, and she thought of that old adage about eagles always flying alone. She hoped to the soul of her that he wasn’t , in the end, going to prove the adage a true one.
    N ow the mists cleared by breakfast time and a savage sun shone from a white-hot sky. Clare arranged and rearranged the newly arrived furniture till the b oys were on the point of striking. Her fingers raced madly over the keys of the piano and she sang the dizziest of modern songs. When she grew tired of singing and playing, out would come the gramophone records, and she would dream blissfully through Delibes, Debussy and Lehar, a long citrus drink nearby and sometimes a cigarette between her lips. Ross said it was like living in a one-man night club.
    I n time her excitement grew less girlish, and she was content to sit in the comparative cool of late evening and stitch at curtains and cushions and new clothes for herself. Chintzes at the windows and bright mounds upon the loungers and chairs, embroidered linen mats beneath bowls of breathtaking flowers, and a bookcase filled with bright new novels drew from Ross the remark that he had never had it so good out here in the bush.
    I n the slightly cooler weather between the ‘little heat’ and the ‘great heat,’ Ross was away all day in the farther reaches of the plantation. It was then that Clare experienced the first drag of monotony. Left to her own resources for all the daylight hours, she would try to plan the time carefully. So many hours exercise, so long at the piano, so many chapters to be read—rationing this delight for fear the books would give out—a quiet rest in the midday heat. But the lack of companionship was a severe test.
    O ne day she tackled Ross. “Would I be horribly in the way if I came out with you for a few hours each day?” she asked.
    “ Not horribly,” he answered. “If it would give you a change, be ready at sunrise tomorrow in your riding kit. You can go with me in the lorry.”
    I t was grand to get away from the house for a while and to jolt with him along the baked red rut to the river. Clare was surprised at the shortness of the track that had taken so long to traverse on the journey out.
    I t took two hours by lorry, and then they were at the river, a mere runnel compared with the Niger. It was dark and murky, and mangroves grew thickly on each bank, meeting over the water in places to form sinister black tunnels.
    T hey left the lorry and found the clearing where the natives were temporarily camped. The men were already at work among the timber, felling, lopping, heaving the logs on to the timber rollers and dragging them by chains down to the dump near the landing stage. Ross left her with instructions not to stray, and to fire the rifle he had thrust into her hands if she was scared.
    T he sun got up, and she sat on a tree stump, eyes alert, watching the dart of gay-plumaged birds and the myriad movements of grass life, almost unconscious of the eternal hum of the jungle. The massive trees shut out the sun, but as the heat of the day increased the atmosphere became moist and steamy.
    A t the hottest part of the day they broke for food. The men gathered round their cooking pots and ate a mess of plantains and herbs. They squabbled among themselves with lazy goodwill.
    B ack in the lorry Clare and Ross ate their own lunch, and washed it down with tinned orange juice. Then Ross said: “You’d better go back to the house now, honey. Can you walk it?”
    “ Yes, I’ll be glad to.”
    “ A couple of boys can go with you. Send them back when you reach the compound.”
    “ Can you spare the men