ut, is known to the landlady, to whom, nothing
loth, Roden now consigns her, and hurries back to witness the crossing
of the others. The colonial man is the first to arrive, half-buried in
mail-bags, and smoking his pipe as philosophically as ever. Then the
inanimate contents of the cart being sent over, Henry, the driver,
follows.

"Well, gentlemen," is the first thing he says. "Better get dinner as
soon as possible. We must start soon as the new cart's inspanned."

"The devil!" says Roden. "Why, it's going to be the beastliest night on
record."

"Can't help that; I've got to get on, or get the sack. So on it is."

"But the lady! She won't be fit to travel as soon as that."

"Can't help that either, mister. If she can't travel she must stay
here. I can't wait for nobody."

And so eventually it turns out. On reaching the hotel they find that
their fellow-traveller is unable to proceed. They find, too, that she
is known to the people who run the place, and will be well cared for.
So Roden and the colonial man, having got outside a good dinner and a
few glasses of grog, take their places in the new cart which has been
inspanned--now more comfortable, for some of the mail-bags have been got
rid of here, and with a crack of the driver's whip, away they go
careering into the night, under the pitiless pelting rain--to meet with
more adventures and mishaps or not, according as luck befriends them.
For luck has a great deal to say to the safety, or otherwise, of
post-cart travellers in South Africa.

CHAPTER THREE.

PETER VAN STOLZ, R.M.

"Before Peter Van Stolz, Esq., R.M., Gonjana, a Tambookie Kaffir,
charged with stealing one sheep, the property of his master, Charles
Suffield, farmer," scribbles the reporter of the _Doppersdorp Flag_, who
indeed is proprietor, editor, reporter, and comp., all rolled into one.

The Doppersdorp Court-house is a large and spacious room. The "bench"
is represented by a green baize-covered table upon a raised dais, a
similar table beneath providing accommodation for the clerk. In front
of this again, and facing the bench, a couple of rows of desks
accommodate the men of law and their clients, and a few forms, the usual
contingent of loungers behind. The witness-box stands on the left of
the Bench, and on the right the dock. This latter is now occupied by a
thick-set, forbidding-looking Kaffir, clad in a pair of ragged moleskins
and a very dirty shirt.

Roden Musg