It did not seem a pompous speech to me.

“If I doubted that,” she said, “I had rather pass the knife you wear around my throat than trouble myself to oblige you.”

Her words, and the quiet, almost childish voice, seemed so oddly at variance that I almost laughed; but changed my mind.

“I should never ask a service of you for myself alone,” I said so curtly that the next moment I was afraid I had angered her, and fearing she might not keep her word to me, smiled and frankly offered her my hand.

Very slowly she put forth her own — a hand stained and roughened, but slim and small. And so I went away through the dripping bush, and down the rocky hill. A slight sense of fatigue invaded