In mid-Africa about the beginning of March, the greater rains having passed, the green veld suddenly grew pale.

Prelude.

Monk's Norton, as seen from a great height by the cuckoo's eye, is a reasonably compact little village, its irregular shape of thatch and lichened tiles resembling nothing so much as a splash of faded ink on green blotting-paper or a shadow of motionless cumulus dappling a green field.

I. The cross.