“How long have you worked at this?”

“Nine months.”

From his pocket the stranger drew his pocket-book, and took something from it. He could fasten the post to his horse in some way, and throw it away in the sand when at a safe distance.

“Will you take this for your carving?”

The boy glanced at the five-pound note and shook his head.

“No; I cannot.”

“You think it is worth more?” asked the stranger with a little sneer.

He pointed with his thumb to a grave.

“No; it is for him.”

“And who is there?” asked the stranger.

“My father.”

The man silently returned the note to his pocket-book, and gave the carving to the boy; and, drawing his hat over his eyes, composed himself to sleep. Not being able to do so, after awhile he glanced over the fellow’s shoulder to watch him work. The boy carved letters into the back.

“If,” said the stranger, with his melodious voice, rich with a sweetness that never showed itself in the clouded eyes — for sweetness will linger on in the voice long after it has died out in the eyes — “if for such a purpose, why write that upon it?”

The boy glanced round at him, but made no answer. He had almost forgotten his presence.

“You surely believe,” said the stranger, “that some day, sooner or later, these graves will open, and those Boer-uncles with their wives walk about here in the red sand with the very fleshly legs with which they went to sleep? Then why say ‘He sleeps forever?’ You believe he will stand up again?”

“Do you?” asked the boy, lifting for an instant his heavy eyes to the stranger’s face.

Half taken aback, the stranger laughed. It was as through a curious little tadpole which he held under his glass should suddenly lift its tail and begin to question him.

“I? — no.” He laughed his short thick laugh. “I am a man who believes nothing, hopes nothing, fears nothing, feels nothing. I am beyond the pale of humanity; no criterion of what you should be who live here among your ostriches and bushes.”

The next moment the stranger was surprised by a sudden movement on the part of the fellow, which brought him close to the stranger’s feet. Soon after, he raised his carving and laid it across the man’s knee.

“Yes, I will tell you,” he muttered; “I will tell you all about it.”

He put his finger on the grotesque little manikin at the bottom (Ah! that man who believed nothing, hoped nothing, felt nothing; how he loved him!), and with eager finger the fellow moved upward, explaining over fantastic figures and mountains, to the crowning bird from whose wing dropped a feather. At the end he spoke with broken breath — short words, like one who utters things of mighty import.

The stranger watched more the face than the carving; and there was now and then a show of white teeth beneath the moustaches as he listened.