came out the other day."

"Well, Milne's `blanket friends' have paid him off in a coin he didn't
bargain for. Wonder what he thinks of 'em now--if he _can_ think," said
someone, with an ill-natured sneer--for Eustace, like most men with any
character in them, was not beloved by everybody.

"Ah, poor chap," went on the old man. "Milne was rather too fond of the
Kafirs and Carhayes was a sight too much down on 'em. And now the
Kafirs have done for them both, without fear, favour, or--"

"Tsh--tsh--tsh! Shut up, man alive, shut up!"

This was said in a low, warning whisper, and the speaker's sleeve was
violently plucked.

"Eh? What's the row?" he asked, turning in amazement.

"Why, that's her!" was the reply, more earnest than grammatical.

"Her? Who?"

"His wife, of course."

A Cape cart was driving by, containing two ladies and two young girls.
Of the former one was Mrs Hoste, the other Eanswyth. As they passed
quite close to the speakers, Eanswyth turned her head with a bow and a
smile to someone standing in front of the hotel. A dead, awkward
silence fell upon the group of talkers.

"I say. She didn't hear, did she?" stage-whispered the old man eagerly,
when the trap had gone by.

"She didn't look much as though she had--poor thing!" said another whom
the serene, radiant happiness shining in that sweet face had not
escaped.

"Poor thing, indeed," was the reply. "She ought to be told, though.
But I wouldn't be the man to do it, no--not for fifty pounds. Why, they
say she can hardly eat or sleep since she heard Tom Carhayes was coming
back, she's so pleased. And now, poor Tom--where is he? Lying out
there hacked into Kafir mince-meat." And the speaker, jerking his hand
in the direction of the Transkei, stalked solemnly down the steps of the
_stoep_, heaving a prodigious sigh.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

"THE CURSE HAS COME UPON ME..."

The party in the Cape cart were returning from a drive out to
Draaibosch, a roadside inn and canteen some ten or a dozen miles along
the King Williamstown road. Two troops of Horse, one of them
Brathwaite's, were encamped there the night before on their way
homeward, and a goodly collection of their friends and well-wishers had
driven or ridden over to see them start.

It was a lovely day, and the scene had been lively enough as the
combined troops--numbering upwards of two hundred horsemen, bronzed and
war-worn, but "fit" and in the highest of spirits, h