tle frightened, white-faced things were sly, and kids remembered more
than you thought for....

Grown up a beauty, too, and with the manners of a lady. He swore again,
the thing seemed so incredible, and spat upon the dust. A pretty green
shining beetle crawled there. He set his heavy foot upon the insect, and
its beauty was no more.

XXXVII

As the Captain's heavy cavalry stride shakes Nixey's roof, the upright,
lightly-built soldierly figure in khaki turns and comes towards him,
giving the binoculars in charge to the Sergeant-Major of Irregulars, who
is his orderly of the day.

"I want a word with you, Wrynche. Rawlings will take the glasses. Come in
here under cover."

He leads the way. The cover is a canvas shelter, perhaps a protection from
the blazing sun, but none at all from shell and bullets. There are a
couple of wooden chairs under its flimsy spread and a little table. The
Chief sits down astride on one of the chairs, accepts a cigar from Captain
Bingo's enormous crocodile-leather case, and says, as the first ring of
blue smoke goes wavering upwards:

"You'll be glad to know that Monboia's Barala runner has got through with
good news _for you_." The last two words are rather strongly emphasised.
"Just before dawn and after Beauvayse relieved you at Staff Bombproof
South."

Captain Bingo swallows violently, runs a thick finger round inside his
collar, and his big face goes through several changes of complexion,
ranging from boiled suet-dumpling paleness to beetroot red. He looks away
and blinks before he says in a voice that wobbles:

"Then my wife's--all right?"

"Lady Hannah and her German attendant, as far back as the day before
yesterday, when Monboia's man saw them, were in the enjoyment of excellent
health."

"Poof!" Captain Bingo blows a genuine sigh of relief, and the latent
lugubriousness departs from him. "Good hearing. I've had--call it
hippopotamus on the chest this two months, and you'll about hit the mark.
Uncertainty and suspense get on a man's nerves, in the long-run. Bound to.
And never a word--the deuce a line--all these---- Poof!" He blows again,
and beams. The Colonel, watching him out of the corner of one keen eye,
says, with a twitching muscle in the cheek that is turned away from him:

"My good news being told, I have a slice of bad for you. But first let me
make an admission. Since Nixey's pony pulled Nixey's spider out of
Gueldersdorp with Lady Hannah and her maid