others had not. For it soon became manifest that
such events as the massacre of the Hollingworths and the Inglefields,
and the fight and resolute defence at Jekyll's Store, were but samples
of what had taken place--or was still going on--all over the country.
Haggard fugitives, gaunt with starvation, stony-eyed with days and
nights of deadly peril for close companionship, nerves shattered by the
most horrible recollections, and apprehension worked up to the acutest
phase thereby--continued to arrive, each and all bringing the same tale
of treachery and ruthlessness and blood, deepening on every hand the
gloom and anxiety of the situation--anxiety on behalf of those not yet
accounted for, mingling with an apprehensive looking forward to how it
was all going to end, and when. The necessaries of life went up to
famine prices, and then the enemy began to invest the town.

Southward, crouching lion-like, among the Matyamhlope rocks; on the
north, occupying the site of the old Bulawayo kraal, and in possession
of the "Government" House which the presumptuous white man had erected
upon the former seat of the departed king, overhanging, like a dark
cloud, the township beneath, or again making fierce dashes upon traffic
which should attempt the eastward way, he mustered in all his savage
might--an ever-present menace. But the way to the west, for some
unaccountable reason, was left open.

Those in charge of the safety of the township had their hands full.
They might sally forth in force, as they frequently did, with the object
of rolling back the danger that threatened; an object sometimes
accomplished, sometimes not, for the rolling back was not invariably all
on one side. But whichever way the attempt would go, the wily foe was
sure to be in position again almost immediately, whence, massed around
the very edifice that symbolised the domination of those threatened, the
defiant thunder of his war-song would reach their ears.

Of all the narrow escapes from the widespread massacre which at that
time were in everybody's mouth, none perhaps commanded general attention
so much as that of Nidia Commerell. It was so fraught with the dramatic
element, being in fact not one escape, but a series of them. Her
personality, too, imparted to it an additional interest; this refined
and attractive girl, brought up amid every comfort, suddenly to be
thrown by rude contrast from the luxurious appointments of her peaceful
English home i