dead--I know that those Boers have shot
him--and it is all your fault! And if he is dead I will never speak to
you again."

The old man retreated, somewhat dismayed at this outburst, which was not
at all in Bessie's style.

"Ah, well," he said to himself, "that is the way of women; they turn
into tigers about a man!"

There may have been truth in this reflection, but a tiger is not a
pleasant domestic pet, as poor old Silas discovered during the next two
months. The more Bessie thought about the matter the more incensed she
grew because he had sent her lover away. Indeed, in a little while she
quite forgot that she had herself acquiesced in his going. In short, her
temper gave way completely under the strain, so that at last her uncle
scarcely dared to mention John's name.

Meanwhile, things had been going as ill without as within. First of
all--that was the day after John's departure--two or three loyal
Boers and an English store-keeper from Lake Chrissie, in New Scotland,
outspanned on the place and implored Silas Croft to fly for his life
into Natal while there was yet time. They said that the Boers would
certainly shoot any Englishman who might be sufficiently defenceless.
But the old man would not listen.

"I am an Englishman--_civis Romanus sum_," he said in his sturdy
fashion, "and I do not believe that they will touch me, who have lived
among them for twenty years. At any rate, I am not going to run away and
leave my place at the mercy of a pack of thieves. If they shoot me they
will have to reckon with England for the deed, so I expect that they
will leave me alone. Bessie can go if she likes, but I shall stop here
and see the row through, and there's an end of it."

Whereon, Bessie having flatly declined to budge an inch, the loyalists
departed in a hurry, metaphorically wringing their hands at such an
exhibition of ill-placed confidence and insular pride. This little scene
occurred at dinner-time, and after dinner old Silas proceeded to hurl
defiance at his foes in another fashion. Going to a cupboard in his
bedroom, he extracted an exceedingly large Union Jack, and promptly
advanced with it to an open spot between two of the orange-trees in
front of the house, where in such a position that it could be seen for
miles around a flagstaff was planted, formed of a very tall young blue
gum. Upon this flagstaff it was Silas's habit to hoist the large Union
Jack on the Queen's birthday, Christmas Day, and oth