n, and God was his
witness that he had forgotten everything that Bronckhorst Sahib had told
him to say. Between his terror of Strickland, the Judge, and Bronckhorst
he collapsed weeping.

Then began the panic among the witnesses. Janki, the _ayah_, leering
chastely behind her veil, turned grey, and the bearer left the Court. He
said that his Mamma was dying, and that it was not wholesome for any man
to lie unthriftily in the presence of 'Estreekin Sahib'.

Biel said politely to Bronckhorst, 'Your witnesses don't seem to work.
Haven't you any forged letters to produce?' But Bronckhorst was swaying
to and fro in his chair, and there was a dead pause after Biel had been
called to order.

Bronckhorst's Counsel saw the look on his client's face, and without
more ado pitched his papers on the little green-baize table, and mumbled
something about having been misinformed. The whole Court applauded
wildly, like soldiers at a theatre, and the Judge began to say what he
thought.

* * * * *

Biel came out of the Court, and Strickland dropped a gut trainer's-whip
in the veranda. Ten minutes later, Biel was cutting Bronckhorst into
ribbons behind the old Court cells, quietly and without scandal. What
was left of Bronckhorst was sent home in a carriage; and his wife wept
over it and nursed it into a man again. Later on, after Biel had managed
to hush up the counter-charge against Bronckhorst of fabricating false
evidence, Mrs. Bronckhorst, with her faint, watery smile, said that
there had been a mistake, but it wasn't her Teddy's fault altogether.
She would wait till her Teddy came back to her. Perhaps he had grown
tired of her, or she had tried his patience, and perhaps we wouldn't cut
her any more, and perhaps the mothers would let their children play with
'little Teddy' again. He was so lonely. Then the station invited Mrs.
Bronckhorst everywhere, until Bronckhorst was fit to appear in public,
when he went Home and took his wife with him. According to latest
advices, her Teddy did come back to her, and they are moderately happy.
Though, of course, he can never forgive her the thrashing that she was
the indirect means of getting for him.

* * * * *

What Biel wants to know is, 'Why didn't I press home the charge against
the Bronckhorst brute, and have him run in?'

What Mrs. Strickland wants to know is, 'How _did_ my husband bring such
a lovely, lovely Waler fro