muffled voices talking Dutch. The enemy
had made a sortie. The defences had been rushed, the town surrounded! Yet
there were only two of them--a big, slouching villain and a short thin
one, who wore a giant hat. The chirping sound of a kiss damped the fierce
martial ardour of William, and greatly reassured Billy. It was only a
townsman taking a night walk with his girl!

Crushed and discouraged, W. Keyse relaxed his grip upon the trusty rifle,
and slunk back into the shadow, as the tall and the short figures halted
at the angle of the fence.

"'Ain't it a 'eavenly night?" came from the short figure, who leaned
against the tall one affectionately. "An' me got to go in. A crooil shyme,
I call it. 'Ain't it, deer? Leggo me wyste, there's a love. You've no
notion 'ow I shall cop it for bein' lyte."

He sportively declined to release her. There was the sound of a soft slap,
followed by the smack of a kiss. She was very angry.

"Leggo, I tell you! Where's your manners, 'orlin' me abart! If that's the
way you be'ayve with your Dutch ones ...!"

He spat and asseverated:

"Neen! I no other girls but you heb got."

It was the Slabberts with Emigration Jane.

"Ho! So you _can_ talk English a bit--give you a charnce?"

"Ja, a little now and then when it is useful. But when we are to be
married, you shall only to me talk in my own moder Taal."

"Shan't I myke a gay old 'ash of it!" Recklessly she crushed the large hat
against the unwieldy shoulder. "There, good-night agyne, deer! Sister
Tobias--that's what they call the one that 'ousekeeps and manages the
kitchen--Sister Tobias 'll be sittin' up for me, thinkin' I've got meself
lost or bin run away with." She gurgled enjoyingly.

"Tell me again, before you shall go, about the Engelsch Commandant who
came to visit at the Convent to-day?"

"Lor! 'Aven't I told you a'ready? 'E stopped 'arf an 'our or more ... an'
She--that's the Reverend Mother, as they call her--She took 'im over the
'ouse, an' after 'e'd gone through the 'ouse, an' Sister Tobias--ain't
that a rummy name for a nun?--Sister Tobias, she showed 'im to the gyte,
an' 'e says to 'er as wot 'e's goin' to 'ave the flagstaff rigged up in
the gardin fust thing to-morrow mornin', an' 'e'll undertake that the
workin'-party detached for the purpose will know 'ow to be'ayve
theirselves respectful. An' then 'e touches 'is 'at an' gets on 'is 'orse
an' ..."

"Listen to me." The Slabbertian command of that barbaric lan