ke her for a ride
outside the settlement, for in those early days the enemy was daring,
and did not always keep at a respectful distance. It would not do to
run any more risks. In the next place, all the "talking big," and
indeed the talking at all, that went on, morning, noon, and night, on
the well-worn, and threadbare topic was wearisome to him. The thing had
become, in fact, a bore of the first water. But the most distasteful
side of it all was the notoriety which he himself had, all
involuntarily, attained. A man who had been reported slain, and then
turned up safe and sound after having been held a prisoner for some
weeks by the savage and ordinarily ruthless enemy they were then
fighting, was sure to attract considerable attention throughout the
frontier community. Friends, neighbours, intimates, people they had
never seen or heard of before, would call on the Hostes all day and
every day--literally in swarms, as the victim of these attentions put
it--in order to see Eustace, and haply, to extract a "yarn" as to his
late captivity. If he walked through the township some effusive
individual was bound to rush at him with an "I say, Mister, 'scuse me,
but we're told you're the man that was taken prisoner by old Kreli.
Now, do us the favour to step round and have a drink. We don't see a
man who has escaped from them black devils every day." And then, under
pain of being regarded as churlish to a degree, he would find himself
compelled to join a group of jovial, but under the circumstances
excessively unwelcome, strangers, and proceed to the nearest bar to be
cross questioned within an inch of his life, and expected to put away
sundry "splits" that he did not want. Or those in charge of operations,
offensive and defensive, would make his acquaintance and ask him to
dine, always with the object of eliciting useful information. But to
these Eustace was very reticent and proved, in fact, a sore
disappointment. He had been treated fairly well by his captors. They
were savages, smarting under a sense of defeat and loss. They might
have put him to death amid cruel torments; instead of which they had
given him his liberty. For the said liberty he had yet to pay--to pay
pretty smartly, too, but this was only fair and might be looked upon in
the light of ransom. He was not going to give any information to their
detriment merely because, under a doubtfully administered system of
organisation, they had taken up ar