t Gueldersdorp.

They parted at the Women's Laager, and as the khaki bicycle grew small in
the distance, Saxham realised with a shock that he was happy, that life
had suddenly become sweet, and opened out anew before him in a vista, not
of shining promise, but with one golden gleam of hope in it, to a man
freed by the force of Will from the bondage of the accursed liquor-thirst.
Freed! If freed in truth, why should the sight and smell even of Brooker's
sticky loquat-brandy have set the long-denied palate craving? Saxham put
that question from him with both hands.

And then he frowned, thinking of that adaptable instrument that had
thrummed an accompaniment to the arias of the Opera soprano, as to the
Society drawing-room duets sung with the frisky married ladies who liked
nice boys, and had made tinkling music for the twinkling small feet, and
the strident voice of Lessie Lavigne of the Jollity Theatre, and now must
serenade outside a Convent-close in beleaguered Gueldersdorp, where the
whitest of maiden lilies bloomed, tall and pure and slender and unharmed,
in a raging tempest of fire and steel and lead.

XXXI

Pray give a thought to the spy, Walt Slabberts, languishing in durance
vile under the yellow flag. Several times the first-class, up-to-date,
effective artillery of his countrymen, being brought to bear upon the
gaol, had caused the captive to bound like the proverbial parched pea, and
to curse with curses not only loud but fervent the indiscriminating zeal
of his brother patriots.

He was, though lost to sight behind the walls of what Emigration Jane
designated the jug, still fondly dear to one whose pliant affections,
rudely disentangled by the hand of perfidy from the person of That There
Green, had twined vigorously about the slouching person of the young Boer.
Letters were received, but not forwarded to suspects enjoying the
hospitality of the Government, so communication with the object of her
dreams was painfully impossible. Stratagems were not successful. A
passionate missive concealed in a plum-pudding--before it was put on to
boil--had become incorporated with the individuality of a prison official,
who objected on principle to waste.

On Sundays, when you could go out without your 'art in your mouth an
account of them 'orful shellses, a fair female form in a large and
flamboyant hat, whose imitation ostridge tips were now mere bundles of
quill shavings, and whose flowers were as wilted