“Peter Simon Halket, cry to the white men and women of South Africa: ‘You have a goodly land; you and your children’s children shall scarce fill it; though you should stretch out your arms to welcome each stranger who comes to live and labour with you. You are the twin branches of one tree; you are the sons of one mother. Is this goodly land not wide enough for you, that you should rend each other’s flesh at the bidding of those who will wet their beaks within both your vitals?—Look up, see, they circle in the air above you!’”

Almost Peter Halket started and looked upward; but there was only the black sky of Mashonaland over his head.

The stranger stood silent looking downward into the fire. Peter Halket half clasped his arms about his knees.

“My master,” he cried, “how can I take this message? The Dutchmen of South Africa will not listen to me, they will say I am an Englishman. And the Englishmen will say: ‘Who is this fellow who comes preaching peace, peace, peace? Has he not been a year in the country and he has not a share in a single company? Can anything he says be worth hearing? If he were a man of any sense he would have made five thousand pounds at least.’ And they will not listen to me. Give me another labour!”

And the stranger said: “Take a message to one man. Find him, whether he sleep or wake, whether he eat or drink; and say to him: ‘Where are the souls of the men that you have bought?’

“And if he shall answer you and say: ‘I bought no men’s souls! The souls that I bought were the souls of dogs?’ Then ask him this question, say to him, ‘Where are the—’

“And if he cry out, ‘You lie, you lie! I know what you are going to say. What do I know of envoys? Was I ever afraid of the British Government? It is all a lie!’ Then question him no further. But say: ‘There was a rushlight once. It flickered and flared, and it guttered down, and went out—and no man heeded it: it was only a rushlight.

“‘And there was a light once; men set it on high within a lighthouse, that it might yield light to all souls at sea; that afar off they might see its steady light and find harbour, and escape the rocks.

“‘And that light flickered and flared, as it listed. It went this way and it went that; it burnt blue, and green, and red; now it disappeared altogether, and then it burnt up again. And men, far out at sea, kept their eyes fixed where they knew the light should be: saying, ‘We are safe; the great light will lead us when we near the rocks.’ And on dark nights men drifted nearer and nearer; and in the stillness of the midnight they struck on the lighthouse rocks and went down at its feet.