"Well, this is a friendly way to begin the New Year," he said,
cheerily, taking her hand. "You certainly are none the worse for our
little unrehearsed drama the other night. I see by the papers that you
have been repeating your triumph. Please sit down. Do you mind my
having a little toast while we talk? I always have my petit dejeuner
here; and I'm late this morning."

"You look very tired," she said as she sat down.

Krool here entered with a tray, placing it on a small table by the big
desk. He was about to pour out the tea, but Byng waved him away.

"Send this note at once by hand," he said, handing him an envelope. It
was addressed to Jasmine Grenfel.

"Yes, I'm tired--rather," he added to his guest with a sudden weariness
of manner. "I've had no sleep for three nights--working all the time,
every hour; and in this air of London, which doesn't feed you, one
needs plenty of sleep. You can't play with yourself here as you can on
the high veld, where an hour or two of sleep a day will do. On-saddle
and off-saddle, in-span and outspan, plenty to eat and a little sleep;
and the air does the rest. It has been a worrying time."

"The Jameson Raid--and all the rest?"

"Particularly all the rest. I feel easier in my mind about Dr. Jim and
the others. England will demand--so I understand," he added with a
careful look at her, as though he had said too much--"the right to try
Jameson and his filibusters from Matabeleland here in England; but it's
different with the Jo'burgers. They will be arrested--"

"They have been arrested," she intervened.

"Oh, is it announced?" he asked without surprise.

"It was placarded an hour ago," she replied, heavily.

"Well, I fancied it would be," he remarked. "They'll have a close
squeak. The sympathy of the world is with Kruger--so far."

"That is what I have come about," she said, with an involuntary and
shrinking glance at the sketches on the walls.

"What you have come about?" he said, putting down his cup of tea and
looking at her intently. "How are you concerned? Where do you come in?"

"There is a man--he has been arrested with the others; with Farrar,
Phillips, Hammond, and the rest--"

"Oh, that's bad! A relative, or--"

"Not a relative, exactly," she replied in a tone of irony. Rising, she
went over to the wall and touched one of the water-colour sketches.

"How did you come by these?" she asked.

"Blantyre's sketches? Well, it's all I ever got for all Blantyr