edients!" I repeated after
him, adding, "Why not call it hell's broth at once?"

Then he became serious, dreadfully serious.

"Look here," he said, "I love Heda, and whatever her family
history may be I mean to marry her and face the row at home."

"You could scarcely do less in all the circumstances, and as for
rows, that young lady would soon fit herself into any place that
you can give her. But the question is, how can you marry her?"

"Oh! something will happen," he replied optimistically.

"You are quite right there. Something will certainly happen, but
the point is--what? Something was very near happening when I
turned up on that stoep, so near that I think it was lucky for
you, or for Miss Heda, or both, that I have learned how to handle
a pistol. Now let me see your foot, and don't speak another word
to me about all this business to-night. I'd rather tackle it
when I am clear-headed in the morning."

Well, I examined his instep and leg very carefully and found
that Rodd was right. Although it still hurt him to walk, the
wound was quite healed and all inflammation had gone from the
limb. Now it was only a question of time for the sinews to right
themselves. While I was thus engaged he held forth on the
virtues and charms of Heda, I making no comment.

"Lie down and get to sleep, if you can," I said when I had
finished. "The door is locked and I am going on to the stoep, so
you needn't be afraid of the windows. Good-night."

I went out and sat myself down in such a position that by the
light of the hanging lamp, which still burned, I could make sure
that no one could approach either Heda's or my room without my
seeing him. For the rest, all my life I have been accustomed to
night vigils, and the loaded revolver hung from my wrist by a
loop of hide. Moreover, never had I felt less sleepy. There I
sat hour after hour, thinking.

The substance of my thoughts does not matter, since the events
that followed make them superfluous to the story. I will merely
record, therefore, that towards dawn a great horror took hold of
me. I did not know of what I was afraid, but I was much afraid
of something. Nothing was passing in either Heda's or our room,
of that I made sure by personal examination. Therefore it would
seem that my terrors were unnecessary, and yet they grew and
grew. I felt sure that something was happening somewhere, a
dread occurrence which it was beyond my power to prevent, though