of an easy-going, devil-may-care life in the _veldt_
had drawn from the more sober avocations of bricklaying and
waggon-building within the Colony, and who, it may be added,
distinguished themselves at the seat of hostilities by such a line of
drunken mutinous insubordination as rendered them an occasion of
perennial detestation and disgust to their respective commanders. These
now closed up around their bullying, swash-bucklering champion,
relieving their ardently martial spirits by hooting and cat's calls. It
was only one man against a crowd. They felt perfectly safe.

"Who sold his mate to the blanked niggers!" they yelled. "Ought to be
tarred and feathered. Come on, boys; let's do it. Who's for tarring
and feathering the Kafir spy?"

All cordially welcomed this spicy proposal, but curiously enough, no one
appeared anxious to begin, for they still kept some paces behind the
original aggressor. That worthy, however, seemed to have plenty of
fight in him, for he advanced upon Eustace unhesitatingly.

"Come now. Are you going to clear?" he shouted. "You're not? All
right. I'll soon make you."

A stirrup-iron, wielded by a clever hand, is a terribly formidable
weapon. Backing his horse a pace or two Eustace wrenched loose his
stirrup. Quick as lightning, it whirled in the air, and as his
assailant sprang wildly at him down it came. The aggressive bully went
to earth like a felled ox.

"Any more takers for the tar-and-feather line of business?" said Eustace
quietly, but with the light of battle in his eyes.

The insulting jeers and the hooting still continued. But no one
advanced. No one seemed anxious to tackle that particularly resolute
looking horseman.

"Get out of this, you cowardly skunks!" sung out a voice behind him,
which voice proceeded from another horseman, who had ridden up unseen
during the _emeute_. "Twenty to one! Faugh! For two pins we'll
sjambok the lot of you."

"Hallo, Errington! Where have you dropped from? Thought you were away
down in the Colony," said Eustace, turning to the new arrival, a fine
soldierly looking man of about his own age, in whom he recognised a
former Field-Captain in Brathwaite's Horse. The crowd had already begun
to melt away before this new accession of force.

"Yer--send yer winder to be cleaned! Stick it in yer breeches pocket!"
were some of the witticisms yelled back by the retreating rowdies, in
allusion to the eye-glass worn by the newcomer