She started, slipped, fell; and without attempting to rise, listened,
terrified. She heard heavy breathing, a clatter of wooden clogs. It

stopped.
"Where the devil did you pass?" said an invisible man, hoarsely.

She held her breath. She recognized the voice. She had not seen him
fall. Was he pursuing her there dead, or perhaps . . . alive?

She lost her head. She cried from the crevice where she lay huddled,
"Never, never!"

"Ah! You are still there. You led me a fine dance. Wait, my beauty, I
must see how you look after all this. You wait. . . ."

Millot was stumbling, laughing, swearing meaninglessly out of pure
satisfaction, pleased with himself for having run down that

fly-by-night. "As if there were such things as ghosts! Bah! It took an
old African soldier to show those clodhoppers. . . . But it was

curious. Who the devil was she?"
Susan listened, crouching. He was coming for her, this dead man. There

was no escape. What a noise he made amongst the stones. . . . She saw
his head rise up, then the shoulders. He was tall--her own man! His

long arms waved about, and it was his own voice sounding a little
strange . . . because of the scissors. She scrambled out quickly,

rushed to the edge of the causeway, and turned round. The man stood
still on a high stone, detaching himself in dead black on the glitter

of the sky.
"Where are you going to?" he called, roughly.

She answered, "Home!" and watched him intensely. He made a striding,
clumsy leap on to another boulder, and stopped again, balancing

himself, then said--
"Ha! ha! Well, I am going with you. It's the least I can do. Ha! ha!

ha!"
She stared at him till her eyes seemed to become glowing coals that

burned deep into her brain, and yet she was in mortal fear of making
out the well-known features. Below her the sea lapped softly against

the rock with a splashcontinuous and gentle.
The man said, advancing another step--

"I am coming for you. What do you think?"
She trembled. Coming for her! There was no escape, no peace, no hope.

She looked round despairingly. Suddenly the whole shadowy coast, the
blurred islets, the heaven itself, swayed about twice, then came to a

rest. She closed her eyes and shouted--
"Can't you wait till I am dead!"

She was shaken by a furious hate for that shade that pursued her in
this world, unappeased even by death in its longing for an heir that

would be like other people's children.
"Hey! What?" said Millot, keeping his distance prudently. He was

saying to himself: "Look out! Some lunatic. An accident happens soon."
She went on, wildly--

"I want to live. To live alone--for a week--for a day. I must explain
to them. . . . I would tear you to pieces, I would kill you twenty

times over rather than let you touch me while I live. How many times
must I kill you--you blasphemer! Satan sends you here. I am damned

too!"
"Come," said Millot, alarmed and conciliating. "I am perfectly alive!

. . . Oh, my God!"
She had screamed, "Alive!" and at once vanished before his eyes, as if

the islet itself had swerved aside from under her feet. Millot rushed
forward, and fell flat with his chin over the edge. Far below he saw

the water whitened by her struggles, and heard one shrill cry for help
that seemed to dart upwards along the perpendicular face of the rock,

and soar past, straight into the high and impassive heaven.
Madame Levaille sat, dry-eyed, on the short grass of the hill side,

with her thick legs stretched out, and her old feet turned up in their
black cloth shoes. Her clogs stood near by, and further off the

umbrella lay on the withered sward like a weapon dropped from the
grasp of a vanquished warrior. The Marquis of Chavanes, on horseback,

one gloved hand on thigh, looked down at her as she got up
laboriously, with groans. On the narrow track of the seaweed-carts

four men were carrying inland Susan's body on a hand-barrow, while
several others straggled listlessly behind. Madame Levaille looked

after the procession. "Yes, Monsieur le Marquis," she said
dispassionately, in her usual calm tone of a reasonable old woman.

"There are unfortunate people on this earth. I had only one child.
Only one! And they won't bury her in consecrated ground!"

Her eyes filled suddenly, and a short shower of tears rolled down the
broad cheeks. She pulled the shawl close about her. The Marquis leaned

slightly over in his saddle, and said--
"It is very sad. You have all my sympathy. I shall speak to the Cure.

She was unquestionablyinsane, and the fall was accidental. Millot
says so distinctly. Good-day, Madame."

And he trotted off, thinking to himself: "I must get this old woman
appointed guardian of those idiots, and administrator of the farm. It

would be much better than having here one of those other Bacadous,
probably a red republican, corrupting my commune."

AN OUTPOST OF PROGRESS
I

There were two white men in charge of the trading station. Kayerts,
the chief, was short and fat; Carlier, the assistant, was tall, with a

large head and a very broad trunk perched upon a long pair of thin
legs. The third man on the staff was a Sierra Leone nigger, who

maintained that his name was Henry Price. However, for some reason
or other, the natives down the river had given him the name of Makola,

and it stuck to him through all his wanderings about the country. He
spoke English and French with a warbling accent, wrote a beautiful

hand, understood bookkeeping, and cherished in his innermost heart the
worship of evil spirits. His wife was a negress from Loanda, very

large and very noisy. Three children rolled about in sunshine before
the door of his low, shed-like dwelling. Makola, taciturn and

impenetrable, despised the two white men. He had charge of a small
clay storehouse with a dried-grass roof, and pretended to keep a

correct account of beads, cotton cloth, red kerchiefs, brass wire, and
other trade goods it contained. Besides the storehouse and Makola's

hut, there was only one large building in the cleared ground of the
station. It was built neatly of reeds, with a verandah on all the four

sides. There were three rooms in it. The one in the middle was the
living-room, and had two rough tables and a few stools in it. The

other two were the bedrooms for the white men. Each had a bedstead
and a mosquito net for all furniture. The plank floor was littered

with the belongings of the white men; open half-empty boxes, torn
wearing apparel, old boots; all the things dirty, and all the things

broken, that accumulatemysteriously" target="_blank" title="ad.神秘地；故弄玄虚地">mysteriously round untidy men. There was also
another dwelling-place some distance away from the buildings. In it,

under a tall cross much out of the perpendicular, slept the man who
had seen the beginning of all this; who had planned and had watched

the construction" target="_blank" title="n.建设；修建；结构">construction of this outpost of progress. He had been, at home, an
unsuccessful painter who, weary of pursuing fame on an empty stomach,

had gone out there through high protections. He had been the first
chief of that station. Makola had watched the energetic artist die of

fever in the just finished house with his usual kind of "I told you
so" indifference. Then, for a time, he dwelt alone with his family,

his account books, and the Evil Spirit that rules the lands under the
equator. He got on very well with his god. Perhaps he had propitiated

him by a promise of more white men to play with, by and by. At any
rate the director of the Great Trading Company, coming up in a steamer

that resembled an enormous sardine box with a flat-roofed shed erected
on it, found the station in good order, and Makola as usual quietly

diligent. The director had the cross put up over the first agent's
grave, and appointed Kayerts to the post. Carlier was told off as

second in charge. The director was a man ruthless and efficient, who
at times, but very imperceptibly, indulged in grim humour. He made a

speech to Kayerts and Carlier, pointing out to them the promising
aspect of their station. The nearest trading-post was about three

hundred miles away. It was an exceptional opportunity for them to
distinguish themselves and to earn percentages on the trade. This

appointment was a favour done to beginners. Kayerts was moved almost
to tears by his director's kindness. He would, he said, by doing his

best, try to justify the flattering confidence, &c., &c. Kayerts had