g absently. In truth, he, too, was
conscious of a sensation of regret. He felt ashamed of himself for it,
but there it was; he was sorry to leave the place. For the last week or
so he had been living in a dream, and everything outside that dream was
blurred, indistinct as a landscape in a fog. He knew the objects
were there, but he could not quite appreciate their relative size and
position. The only real thing was his dream; all else was as vague as
those far-off people and events that we lose in infancy and find again
in old age.

Now there would be an end of dreaming; the fog would lift, and he must
face the facts. Jess, with whom he had dreamed, would go away to Europe
and he would marry Bessie, and all this Pretoria business would glide
away into the past like a watch in the night. Well, it must be so; it
was right and proper that it should be so, and he for one would not
flinch from his duty; but he must have been more than human had he not
felt the pang of awakening. It was all so very unfortunate.

By this time Mouti had got up the horses, and asked if he was to inspan.

"No; wait a bit," said John. "Very likely it is all nonsense," he added
to himself.

Scarcely were the words out of his mouth when he caught sight of two
armed Boers of a peculiarly unpleasant type and rough appearance, riding
across the veldt towards "The Palatial" gate. With them was an escort
of four carbineers. At the gate they all stopped, and one of the Boers
dismounted and walked to where John was standing by the stable-door.

"Captain Niel?" he said interrogatively, in English.

"That is my name."

"Then here is a letter for you;" and he handed him a folded paper.

John opened it--it had no envelope--and read as follows:

"Sir,--The bearer of this has with him a pass which it is understood
that you desire, giving you and Miss Jess Croft a safe-conduct to
Mooifontein, in the Wakkerstroom district of the Republic. The only
condition attached to the pass, which is signed by one of the honourable
Triumvirate, is that you must carry no despatches out of Pretoria. Upon
your giving your word of honour to the bearer that you will not do this
he will hand you the pass."

This letter, which was fairly written and in good English, had no
signature.

"Who wrote this?" asked John of the Boer.

"That is no affair of yours," was the curt reply. "Will you pass your
word about the despatches?"

"Yes."

"Good. Here is the pass;" and