d as she pressed to her side the arm that encircled her,
she gazed forth upon the weird scene of storm and terror with a kind of
ecstasy, and, in her heart, blessing it. But for it she would now be
alone--alone and heart-wrung. The evil hour was only postponed--but it
was postponed--and they stood thus, close together in the darkness,
silent in their sweet, sad happiness.

"We'll be able to ice our grog to-night, Le Sage," said Warren presently
in his breezy way.

"Why, yes. We'd better have some too--and we may as well have some
light upon the scene. See to it, Lalante."

"All right, father," said the girl, cheerfully, but inwardly furiously
anathematising Warren for breaking up her last solitude _a deux_. For
she instinctively realised there would be no further opportunity of its
renewal--either to-night or to-morrow.

Nor--was there.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

BULLY RAWSON--GENERAL RUFFIAN.

Bully Rawson lay in his camp in the Lumisana Forest in north-eastern
Zululand. He was playing cards with himself, and as he played he
cursed.

Primarily he cursed because he could not quite bring off a move in the
game which, with a real adversary, would inevitably give him an
advantage--profitable but wholly illicit. Secondarily he cursed merely
by way of something to say. Thirdly and generally, he cursed from sheer
force of habit; but whichever way he did it, and from whatever motive,
Bully Rawson's language was entirely unprintable, and, in its relation
to the higher Powers, rather bloodcurdling even to those who were by no
means straight-laced.

Now, blowing off a fine stream of such expletive, he rose to his feet,
and flung the whole pack of cards high in the air. Naturally they would
descend in a wide and scattered shower, then he would make his Swazi boy
pick them up again, and kick him for not doing it quick enough. This
would relieve his feelings some; and would be consistent with the
methods he usually adopted to justify his _sobriquet_.

Seen erect he was a heavy, thick-set man, with a countenance that was
forbidding to the last degree. His nose had at one time been broken,
and his eyes rolled fiercely beneath shaggy black eyebrows. He wore a
long black beard, just turning grey in parts, and plentifully anointed
with tobacco juice; and his hands, knotted and gnarled, seemed to point
to enormous muscular strength. He looked round upon the sunlit forest,
cursed again, then turned to enter a circula