ore, but
what seemed passing strange was that he refrained from any little
outward and natural act of affection, or even word, towards his child
who had just escaped a horrible death. No, that omission, indeed, he
could not understand.

"Why, of course," he answered. "But I'd better introduce myself. My
name's Elvesdon, and I'm the new magistrate at Kwabulazi, so we shall
not be very distant neighbours. I hope, too, that we shall become very
much better acquainted."

"Same here. I'm Thornhill, and I own about thirteen thousand _morgen_
[about double that number of acres], most of which you can see from
where we stand, and a good deal of which is of no earthly use except to
look at--or to paint," with a smile at his daughter.

"It certainly is very good to look at," said the stranger. "Does it
hold much wild game, Mr Thornhill?"

"Middling. See that line of krantz yonder?" pointing to a craggy wall,
about a mile away. "Well, that's all bored with holes and caves--I was
going to say it was filled with tiger [leopard] like bee-grubs in a
comb, but that's a little too tall. Still there are too many. Are you
a sportsman, Mr--Elvesdon? Though--you must be, after what I've just
heard."

"I'm death on it. Where I've come from there wasn't any."

"Where's that?"

"The Sezelani. All sugar cane and coolies. Beastly hot, too. I'm
jolly glad of this move."

"Well I hope you'll make up for it here. There's a fair number of
bushbuck in the kloofs--duiker and blekbok too, guinea fowl, and other
small fry. So be sure and bring your gun over whenever you can and
like."

"Thanks awfully," replied Elvesdon, thinking he would manage to do this
pretty often.

They had reached the homestead. The house was a one-storeyed,
bungalow-like building, with a thatched verandah running round three
sides of it. It stood on a slope, and the ground in front fell away
from a fenced-in bit of garden ground down a well-grown mealie land,
whose tall stalks were loaded with ripening cobs. Then the wild bush
veldt began. Black kloofs, dense with forest trees; bush-clad slopes,
culminating in a great bronze-faced krantz frowning down in overhanging
grandeur; here and there patches of open green as a relief to the
profusion of multi-hued foliage--in truth in whatever direction the eye
might turn, that which met it was indeed good to look at, as the
stranger had said.

The said stranger, as they entered the house, was exercise