e thick red blood surged fiercely through his
veins--drummed deafeningly in his gross ears at the thought of seeing her
again....

And the tail of the Division was going by. A Field Telegraph Company, a
searchlight company, the Ambulances, and a train of transport-waggons,
with the mounted infantry, brought up the rear. The Advance had galloped
forwards in haste, the group at the gate lingered. A voice rang out
clearly, giving some order. It said:

"And if abandoned, carry out instructions, previously warning the inmates
of the farm to retire out of----"

The lean, eagle-eyed, keen-faced Colonel bent lower in the saddle to reach
the ear of the dismounted officer of Royal Engineers, who stood with one
dogskin gloved hand resting on the sweating withers of the brown Waler. He
answered, saluted, and drew away. Then the Staff rode on, into the ginger
yellow dust-cloud, leaving the officer of Engineers standing in the beaten
tracks of many iron-shod hoofs and many iron-shod wheels.

He was not left alone. A little cluster of mounted Cape Police had
detached itself from the rear of the Division. They were deeply-burned,
hard-bitten men, emaciated to a curious uniformity, mounted on horses as
gaunt as their riders. A sergeant was in command of the party, and a
drab-painted wooden cart drawn by a high-rumped, goose-necked chestnut
mare, pitifully lame on the near fore, had an Engineer for driver. His
mate sat on the rear locker, and a mounted comrade rode by the mare's lame
side. The rider's stirrup-leather was lashed about the cart-shaft, and
thus the mare was helped along.

Obeying some order unheard of the man who was hiding in the old stone
chimney, the party of Cape Police divided into two. One half patrolled the
outward precincts of the homestead. The rest, dismounting in the
courtyard, thoroughly searched the place. The Engineer officer took no
part in the search. He stood by the stone-coloured cart, busy at the
locker, the sapper who had sat upon it being his aid. Very soon he
returned to the yard, and stood in the middle of the litter motionless as
a little figure of pale, dusty bronze, holding a cigar-box carefully in
both his dogskin-gloved hands. In spite of his patched khaki and ragged
puttees there was something dandified about him. His red moustache, waxed
to a fine point, jutted like the whiskers of a watchful cat, the whites of
his eyes gleamed like silver as he turned them this way and that,
following the