g chair
with a sweet smile upon her fat face and refused to interfere. It is
not every day that a Boer _frau_ has the chance of seeing a real live
English _rooibaatje_ baited like an ant-bear on the flat.

Presently, just as John in desperation was making up his mind to begin
shooting right and left, and take his chance of cutting his way out, the
saturnine Carolus, whose temper had never recovered the bowl of coffee,
and who was besides very drunk, rushed forward with an oath and dealt a
tremendous blow at him with the butt-end of his rifle. John dodged the
blow, which fell upon the back of the chair and smashed it to bits, and
in another second Carolus's gentle soul would have departed to a better
sphere, had not the old _frau_, seeing that the game had gone beyond a
joke, waddled down the room with marvellous activity and thrown herself
between them.

"There, there," she said, cuffing right and left with her fat fists, "be
off with you, every one. I can't have this noise going on here. Come,
off you all go, and get the horses into the stable; they will be right
away by morning if you trust them to the Kafirs."

Carolus collapsed, and the other men also hesitated and drew back,
whereupon, following up her advantage, the old woman, to John's
astonishment and relief, bundled the whole tribe of them bodily out of
the front door.

"Now then, _rooibaatje_," said the old lady briskly when they had gone,
"I like you because you are a brave man, and were not afraid when they
mobbed you. Also, I don't want to have a mess made upon my floor here,
or any noise or shooting. If those men come back and find you here they
will first get rather drunker and then kill you, so you had better be
off while you have the chance," and she pointed to the door.

"I really am much obliged to you, my aunt," said John, utterly
astonished to find that she possessed a heart at all, and more or less
had been playing a part throughout the evening.

"Oh, as to that," she said drily, "it would be a great pity to kill the
last English _rooibaatje_ in the whole British army; they ought to keep
you as a curiosity. Here, take a tot of brandy before you go; it is
a wet night, and sometimes when you are clear of the Transvaal and
remember this business, remember, too, that you owe your life to Tanta
Coetzee. But I would not have saved you, not I, if you had not been so
plucky. I like a man to be a man, and not like that miserable monkey
Carolus. There