, Mr Ames, as soon as ever it can be managed. Don't you think
it the best plan?"

"I think you are both far safer where you are, since you ask me," he
answered. "Any amount of reinforcements are on their way, and meanwhile
the laager here, though uncomfortable, is absolutely safe, because
absolutely impregnable. Whereas the Mafeking road, if still open, is so
simply on sufferance of the rebels. Any day we may hear of the Mangwe
being blocked."

"I disagree with you entirely," came the decisive reply. "I hear, on
first-rate authority, that the coaches are running regularly, under
escort, and that the risk is very slight. I think that will be our best
plan. I suppose you will be joining one of the forces taking the field
as soon as possible, won't you, Mr Ames?"

If there was one thing that impressed itself upon John Ames when he
first entered, it was that this woman intended to make herself supremely
disagreeable; now he could not but own that she was thoroughly
succeeding, and, as we said, he had instinctively seen her bent. She
was, in fact, warning him off. The tone and manner, the obtrusive way
in which she was mapping out his own movements for him, stirred within
him a resentment he could hardly disguise, but her suggestion with
regard to disposing of those of Nidia struck him with a pang of dismay,
and that accentuated by considerations which will hereinafter appear.
Now he replied--

"My plans are so absolutely in the clouds that I can hardly say what I
may decide to do, Mrs Bateman. I might even decide to cut my
connection with this country. Take a run home to England, perhaps.
What if I were so fortunate as to come in as your escort?"

This he said out of sheer devilment, and he was rewarded, for if ever a
human countenance betrayed disgust, repressed wrath, baffled scheming,
all at once, that countenance belonged to Susie Bateman at that moment
Nidia came to the rescue.

"You have not told us your adventures yet," she said. "I want to know
all that happened since you left me. I only hope none of these tiresome
men will come in and interrupt."

_All_ that happened! He could not tell her all, for he had pledged his
word to the Umlimo. The latter had predicted that he would meet with
every temptation to violate that pledge, and here was one of them. No,
not even to her could he reveal all. But he told her of his fall from
the dwala, his unconsciousness, and, leaving out that strange and
s