ck were chatting together at the time.

"All up," he said resignedly. "Told you so."

The Commandant was seated in front of his hut. An express had just
ridden in, and, together with Inspector Chambers, he was going through
the correspondence. He looked up.

"Corporal Sandgate, yes," he said, as the other saluted in silence.
"Well, I can hardly call you that now. You are relieved of your rank."

"Yes, sir. I expected no less," answered the poor fellow, saluting
again, and making as if to withdraw.

"One moment. Read that," said the Commandant, handing him a folded
letter in blue official foolscap.

Sandgate, again saluting, took it mechanically. As he glanced down the
sheet, he gave a start, and his handsome sun-browned face lost all its
colour, then flushed, as he mastered, in cold official phraseology, that
on account of his heroic endurance, which had resulted in the saving of
vitally important despatches entrusted to his care, from falling into
the hands of the enemy, and by reason of his general efficiency and
zealous service, he was appointed to the rank of Sub-Inspector in the
room of the late Sub-Inspector Francis Madden of D. Troop, killed in
action at the Qora River.

Sandgate entertained no clear idea of what happened when he had grasped
the purport of this announcement, only a confused recollection of not
being quite responsible for his actions. In point of fact he sprang
forward impulsively, and, seizing the Commandant by the hand, shook it
again and again without ceremony.

"Oh, sir! This is all your doing," he cried. "And I--can't say
anything."

"Then don't try," was the answer. And a kindly smile lurked in the
ordinarily imperturbable face. The joke was one which appealed to its
owner.

Just after this, troop after troop of armed and mounted levies came
pouring into the Transkei. Every part of the Colony had responded to
the call, and the Gcaleka country was swept from end to end, its
defeated inhabitants retreating sullenly across the Bashi, there to
billet themselves, more or less by force, upon the weaker tribes which
occupied the country further to the eastward. But these reinforcements,
relieving the Police, enabled the latter to withdraw to the frontier,
where it might be that in the near course of events their services would
be even more urgently needed.

And Sub-Inspector Sandgate went to join his new troop, in a state of
mind representing that there was hardly anythi