lameless conversation, "dust-storms and flies are the twin
curses of South Africa."

The harsh voice spoke to him again. He looked round, and met Saxham's
eyes, hard and cold as blue stones. The Doctor said grimly:

"You may not be aware that your men are drawing fire."

It was undeniable fact. The bullets had begun to hit the ground under the
horses' bellies, spirting little columns of dust and flattening against
the stones. Coffee-drinking was over in the enemy's trenches, and the
business of the day had begun again. Beauvayse bade the ladies
good-morning, and swung himself into the saddle.

"Au revoir, Miss Mildare. Please get under cover at once." The
proprietorship in the tone stung Saxham to wincing. "Good-morning, ma'am,"
he cried to the Mother-Superior, "we know you ignore bullets. So long,
Doctor. Hope I shan't count one in your day's casualty-bag. Ready, boys?"

The chatting troopers sprang to alert attention. W. Keyse, pensively
boring the sandy earth with the pneumatic auger of imagination, in search
of the loved one believed to inhabit the Convent bomb-proof, was recalled
to the surface by the curtly-uttered command, and knew the thrill of
hero-worship as Beauvayse threw out his lightly-clenched hand, and the
troopers, answering the signal, broke into a trot. The hot dust scurried
at the horses' retreating heels. Corporal Keyse, trudging staunchly in
their wake with his five Town Guardsmen, became ghostlike, enveloped in an
African replica of the ginger-coloured type of London fog. And the
Mother-Superior looked at her well-worn watch.

"My child, we must be moving if you are coming with me to the Women's
Laager. I am nearly an hour late as it is."

"I am ready, Mother dear."

Lynette's eyes came back from following that dust-cloud in the distance to
meet the hungry, jealous fires of Saxham's gaze.

He had seen Beauvayse's ardent look, and her shy heart's first leaf
unfolded in the answering blush, and a spasm of intolerable anger gripped
him as he saw. He turned away silently, cursing his own folly, and
unhitched his horse's bridle from the broken gatepost. With the act a
crowd rose up before Lynette and a frightened horse reared, threatening to
fall upon three women who were hurrying along the sidewalk outside the
Hospital, and a heavy-shouldered, black-haired man in shabby white drills
stepped out of the throng and seized the flying bridoon-rein, and wrenched
the brute down. She recognised the h