were open, a costly set of graduated scales missing, with their
plush-lined box....

With a certain premonition of what would next be missing, he went into the
surgery. A case of silver-mounted surgical instruments had vanished from a
shelf, with a presentation loving-cup, given by admirers among De
Boursy-Williams's patients to that gifted practitioner. A roll-top desk
was partly broken open, but not rifled, the American boltlocks having
defied the clumsy efforts of the thief, Koets, the Dutch dispensarist, who
had cleared out of Gueldersdorp, under cover of the previous night,
crossing, with the portable property reft from the accursed Englander, the
barbed-wire fence that formed the line of demarcation between the British
Imperial Forces and the Army of the United Republics. He had meant to wait
yet another day, and take many things more, but the coming of those
verdoemte soldiers of the Engelsch Commandant to fetch away the carboys of
carbolic acid and the other medical stores had roused him to prompt
action.

Later, wearing the brass badge of a Surgeon on the sleeve of his greasy
black tail-coat, Koets ruled a Boer Field-Hospital, fearlessly slashing
his way into the confidence of the United Republics through the tough,
wincing brawn and muscle of Free Stater and Transvaaler. It speaks for the
enduring qualities of the Boer constitution to say that many of his
patients survived.

* * * * *

But the brandy in the decanter....

How it beckoned and allured and tempted. And the throat and palate of the
man were parched with the desire of it. And yet, a moment before, with the
toils about his feet, Saxham had wondered at the thought of these degraded
years of bondage. He shook his head sullenly as Taggart repeated his
question, and went away to wash and get dressed.

Then he meant to shake off his companions and go where he could quench
that inward fire. He loathed them as they followed, chatting
pleasantly....

But above the hissing of the hot water from the faucets over the basins
came presently another sound, most familiar to the ears of the gossiping
Celts....

"Rifle-fire! Out on the veld over yonder." McFadyen's towel waved North.
"Do ye hear it?"

"Ay, do I! First bluid has been drawn. And to which side?"

_Boom!..._

The Hospital quivered to its foundations at the tremendous detonation.
Shattered glass fell in showers of fragments from the roof of the
operating-the