en as for Kreli
himself. Common report had killed him over and over again, but somehow
there was no satisfactory evidence of his identification. Then a wild
rumour got about that he had been sent by his chief on a mission to
invoke the aid of the Zulu King, who at that time was, rightly or
wrongly, credited with keeping South Africa in general, and the colony
of Natal in particular, in a state of uneasiness and alarm. But,
wherever he was, like his chief, and the "bold gendarmes" of the
burlesque song, he continued to be "when wanted never there."

All these reports and many more reached Eustace Milne, who had taken no
active part in frontier affairs since we saw him last. He had even been
sounded as to his willingness to undertake a post on behalf of the
Government which should involve establishing diplomatic relations with
the yet combatant bands, but this he had declined. He intended to do
what he could for certain of the rebels later on, but meanwhile the time
had not yet come.

Moreover, he was too happy amid the peaceful idyllic life he was then
leading to care to leave it even for a time in order to serve a
potentially ungrateful country. And it was idyllic. There was quite
enough to do on the place to keep even his energetic temperament active.
The stock which had constituted the capital of their common partnership
and had been sent to Swaanepoel's Hoek at the outbreak of the war
required considerable looking after, for, owing to the change of
_veldt_, it did not thrive as well as could be wished. And then the
place afforded plenty of sport; far more than Anta's Kloof had done.
Leopards, wild pigs, and bushbucks abounded in the bushy kloofs; indeed,
there were rather too many of the former, looking at it from the farming
point of view. The valley bottoms and the water courses were full of
guinea-fowl and francolins, and high up on the mountain slopes, the vaal
rykbok might be shot for the going after, to say nothing of a plentiful
sprinkling of quail and now and then a bustard. Eustace was often
constrained to admit to himself that he would hardly have believed it
possible that life could hold such perfect and unalloyed happiness.

He had, as we have said, plenty of wholesome and congenial work, with
sport to his heart's content, and enjoyed a complete immunity from care
or worry. These things alone might make any man happy. But there was
another factor in this instance. There was the sweet compan