nearer. To this horrible place,
miscalled the Free State Hotel--a mere jumble of corrugated-iron
buildings, wattle and mud-walled stables for horses, and a barbed-wire
waggon-enclosure--he had brought his beloved at the end of their last
journey together. He shuddered at the thought.

The waggons were halted and outspanned before the tavern. The drivers went
in to get drink, and Bough, the man who sold it, leaving the women to
serve them, came forth. He ordinarily gave himself out as an Afrikander.
You see in him a whiskered, dark-complexioned, good-looking man of
twenty-six, but looking older, whose regard was either insolent or
cringing, according to circumstances, and whose smile was an evil leer.
The owner of the waggons stood waiting near the closed-up foremost one,
the yellow-haired child on his arm. He looked keenly at the landlord,
Bough, and the man's hand went involuntarily up in the salute, to its
owner's secret rage. Did he want every English officer to recognise him as
an old deserter from the Cape Mounted Police? Not he--and yet the cursed
habit stuck. But he looked the stranger squarely in the face with that
frank look that masked such depth of guile, and greeted him with the
simple manner that concealed so much, and the English officer lifted his
left hand, as though it raised a sword, and began to talk. Presently
Bough called someone, and a smart, slatternly young woman came out and
carried the child, who leaned away from her rouged face, resisting, into
the house.

The English traveller would take no refreshment. He needed nothing but to
know of a graveyard and men to dig a grave, and a minister or priest to
read the Burial Service. He would pay all that was asked. He learned that
the nearest village-town might be reached in three days' trek across the
veld, and that the landlord did not know whether it had a pastor or not.

Three days' trek! He waved the twinkling-eyed, curious landlord back, and
went up into the foremost waggon, drawing the canvas close. He faced the
truth in there, and realized with a throe of mortal anguish that the
burial must be soon--very soon. To prison what remained of her in a
hastily knocked-together coffin, and drag it over the veld, looking for
some plot of consecrated earth to put it in, was desecration, horror. He
would bury her, and fetch the minister or clergyman or priest to read
prayers. Later, if it cost him all he had, the spot should be consecrated
for Christia