hen it suddenly came to him.

"Aaron Phillips!" he exclaimed. "Now is it Luck that has sent you here,
or Coincidence?"

CHAPTER VII

A LEAF FROM THE PAST

Aaron Phillips was standing up with something like a smile upon his
face. He was a short, slim person, swarthy and foreign-looking, except
for the pair of keen blue eyes which bespoke the Anglo-Saxon in his
blood. From the roots of his hair across to his left temple was a long,
angry red furrow which looked like a comparatively freshly-healed wound.
As to the rest, he was fairly well dressed, with that indescribable air
of nattiness which usually pertains to those who belong to the _genus_
"horsey."

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Fielden," he grinned.

"I shall be obliged if you won't use that name here," Harry replied.
"For the present my name is Field, and I want you not to forget it. But
how did you manage to get home again? I thought you were dead."

Phillips indicated the scar on his forehead.

"It was a near thing, Mr. Fielden, I beg pardon, Field. It wasn't the
fault of those scoundrels, I can tell you. They left me for dead, and if
I hadn't been picked up by some of the boys I should have died of
starvation on the veldt. As it was, I had a very close shave, and so did
Copley and Foster, for the matter of that. Our friends chased them all
across the Colony and how they managed to escape was a mystery to me.
Still, perhaps it is as well. There are more ways than one of taking
revenge."

The little man's eyes gleamed as he spoke. He glanced meaningly at
Fielden and jingled a few coppers in his pocket.

"Make them pay for it, you mean," Fielden smiled.

"That's it, sir, you've got it first time. Now, as you know perfectly
well, there are a dozen or more people out yonder who would give a good
round sum to have Copley on the end of a rope, or within reach of a
revolver shot. They are not the sort to give information to the police,
because that is not the way we used to do things. Still, if I like to
open my mouth widely enough I could make it deuced hot for Copley & Co.
I could have them conveyed to Cape Town, and it wouldn't take me long to
find evidence enough to give those two chaps ten years on the
Breakwater. Yes, sir, I'd have done it, too, but there's a better way
than that. It took me the best part of a year or more to scrape enough
money together to pay my passage home. I had heard some queer stories
about Copley, and I wanted to find out if