e side. Sometimes he
would warn her.

"For your own sake, dearest," he would say on such rare occasions when
they were alone together. "For your own sake try and keep up
appearances a little longer; at any rate until we are out of this
infernal back-biting, gossipy little hole. Remember, you are supposed
to be plunged in an abyss of woe, and here you are looking as absurdly
happy as a bird which has just escaped from a cage."

"Oh, darling, you are right as usual," she would reply, trying to look
serious. "But what am I to do? No wonder people think I have no
heart."

"And they think right for once, for you have given it away--to me. Do
keep up appearances, that's all. It won't be for much longer."

Eustace had secured a couple of rooms for his own use in one of the
neighbouring cottages. The time not spent with Eanswyth was got through
strolling about the camp, or now and then taking a short ride out into
the _veldt_ when the _entourage_ was reported safe. But this, in
deference to Eanswyth's fears, he did but seldom.

"Why on earth don't you go to the front again, Milne?" this or that
friend or acquaintance would inquire. "You must find it properly slow
hanging on in this hole. I know I do. Why, you could easily get a
command of Fingo or Hottentot levies, or, for the matter of that, it
oughtn't to be difficult for a fellow with your record to raise a
command on your own account."

"The fact is I've had enough of going to the front," Eustace would
reply. "When I was there I used often to wonder what business it was of
mine anyway, and when the Kafirs made a prisoner of me, my first thought
was that it served me devilish well right. I give you my word it was.
And I tell you what it is. When a man has got up every day for nearly a
month, not knowing whether he'd go to bed between his blankets that
night or pinned down to a black ants' nest, he's in no particular hurry
to go and expose himself to a repetition of the process. It tells upon
the nerves, don't you know."

"By Jove, I believe you," replied the other. "I never knew Jack Kafir
was such a cruel devil before, at least not to white men. Well, if I'd
gone through what you have, I believe I'd give the front a wide berth,
too. As it is, I'm off in a day or two, I hope."

"I trust you may meet with better luck," said Eustace.

One day a considerable force of mounted burghers started for the
Transkei--a good typical force--hardened, seasone