tikkies, finding the letter
written by the foreign lady-devil to the male one eagerly paid for on the
nail, had offered for half as much again to induce her for the future to
write two instead of one. Towing Tow, the smarting victim of feminine
duplicity came crashing down upon the guilty girl who had betrayed him.

"See 'ere! You know this 'ere young lady, and you remember what you've bin
and told me. Say it over again now," thundered W. Keyse, "so as she can
'ear you. Tell me before 'er as wot she wrote them--these letters"--he
rapped himself dramatically upon the breast-pocket--"and how you see her
doing of it, before I kick your backbone through your hat."

All was lost. The Chinaman had up an' give Emigration Jane away. Certainly
he had saved her trouble, but what was he sayin' now, the 'orrible
slant-eyed 'eathen? She could hardly hear him for the roaring in her poor
bewildered head.

"S'pose John tell, can catchee more tikkie? Plenty tikkie want to buy
chow, allee so baddee times."

"Always on the make, ain't you?" commented W. Keyse. With a strong,
imperious shove, he dumped the blue bundle down among the cowslips in
which the feet of the guilty fair were hidden, saying sternly: "I give you
three minutes to git it off your chest, else kickie is wot you'll catch
instead o' tikkie." He furnished a moderate sample on account.

"Oh, ki--ah. Oh, ki--ah!" moaned the tingling John.

"Don't you be 'ard on him, William"--he hardly knew the voice, it was so
weak and small--"it's Gawspel truth. To pay you out--at first, for juggin'
Walt, I did write them letters--every bloomin' screeve."

"An' sent the pipe and baccy for a birthday present, to make a blushin'
fool o' me?" yelled the infuriated Keyse. "All for the crimson sake of a
fat 'og of a Dutchman!"

The patriot to whom he referred, mounted on an attenuated mule, and
escorted by a Sergeant and six men of the B.S.A., under the
superintendence of a large pink officer of the Staff, was at that moment
being conducted at a sharp trot out of the lines, to meet a smallish
waggon pulled by a span of four that was being brought down from Tweipans
by half a dozen Boers in weathered tan-cord and velveteen, battered
pot-hats and ragged shooting-jackets, carrying very carefully-tended
rifles, mounted on well-fed, wiry little horses, and accompanied by a
White Flag. If she had known, what would it have mattered to her? All her
thoughts were centred in this furious little ma