that
they never did. Thanks to my idea of keeping our nags always saddled
and bridled, and to April's bravery and smartness, we escaped with our
lives.

"Poor dead Mapana! I shall never cease to mourn her as a good, and
true, and most bewitching woman. I admired her beauty and her kindly
heart. May she rest in peace!

"Well," ended Cressey, "that's my yarn. It's a curious one, isn't it?
If you are as dry as I am, you must want a whisky and seltzer. After
that, if you'll come to my bedroom, I'll show you the relics--the two
coins, the sword, and the book--I brought from Umfanziland."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Touching these same relics, which have proved undoubtedly to have once
belonged to Prince Maurice of the Rhine, they now adorn the collection
of a great personage, and are greatly treasured.

As for the descent of poor Mapana--whether she and her forefathers truly
sprang, as she claimed, from Prince Maurice himself--that is a mystery
dead with her dead self, never to be clearly explained on this side the
dark portals.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE TAPINYANI CONCESSION.

At the hour of noon the straggling main street of Vryburg, the village
capital of British Bechuanaland, lay bare and shadeless beneath the
merciless glare of a February sun. The few straggling saplings in front
of the corrugated-iron shanty known as the Criterion Hotel, and a
forlorn blue gum-tree here and there in other parts of the place, served
but to accentuate the utter nakedness and lack of shade.
Notwithstanding the sun's fierce assault, the air was crisp and nimble,
for the plains here lie high--nearly four thousand feet above sea-level.
There had been recent rain, and the sea of grass stretching everywhere
beyond the village had now assumed a garb of fresh green in lieu of the
wearisome pall of pale yellow which for months had masked the red soil.
Two Boer horses stood with drooping heads tarrying patiently for their
masters, now shopping inside a store on either side of the broad street;
and a span of oxen lying and standing on the left hand, waiting for a
load to the wagon behind them, were the only indications of life in the
centre of the Bechuanaland capital. Beyond and behind these, however,
north and south, the two hotels--canteens one might rather call them--at
either end of the street showed, by noisy laughter and a gentle flow of
humanity, that there the place was alive,