the country; hostile niggers all over the shop, and all our fellows gone
home. Bright look out, isn't it!"

"We are two fools," answers Payne sententiously.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

A DARK RUMOUR IN KOMGHA.

There was rejoicing in many households when it became known in Komgha
that the Kaffrarian Rangers had been ordered home, but in none was it
greater than in that run conjointly by Mrs Hoste and her family and
Eanswyth Carhayes.

The satisfaction of the former took a characteristically exuberant form.
The good soul was loud in her expressions of delight. She never
wearied of talking over the doughty deeds of that useful corps; in fact,
to listen to her it might have been supposed that the whole success of
the campaign, nay the very safety of the Colony itself, had been secured
by the unparalleled gallantry of the said Rangers in general and of the
absent Hoste in particular. That the latter had only effected his
temporary emancipation from domestic thrall in favour of the "tented
field" through a happy combination of resolution and stratagem, she
seemed quite to have forgotten. He was a sort of hero now.

Eanswyth, for her part, received the news quietly enough, as was her
wont. Outwardly, that is. Inwardly she was silently, thankfully happy.
The campaign was over--_he_ was safe. In a few days he would be with
her again--safe. A glow of radiant gladness took possession of her
heart. It showed itself in her face--her eyes--even in her voice. It
did not escape several of their neighbours and daily visitors, who would
remark among themselves what a lucky fellow Tom Carhayes was; at the
same time wondering what there could be in such a rough, self-assertive
specimen of humanity to call forth such an intensity of love in so
refined and beautiful a creature as that sweet wife of his--setting it
down to two unlikes being the best mated. It did not escape Mrs Hoste,
who, in pursuance of her former instinct, was disposed to attribute it
to its real cause. But exuberant as the latter was in matters
non-important, there was an under-vein of caution running through her
disposition, and like a wise woman she held her tongue, even to her
neighbours and intimates.

Eanswyth had suffered during those weeks--had suffered terribly. She
had tried to school herself to calmness--to the philosophy of the
situation. Others had returned safe and sound, why not he? Why, there
were men living around her, old settlers