a Boer woman
lives alone with her little children. Perhaps she can give him some
idea of the safest route for him to take. But no, the woman turns from
him in extreme agitation, refuses to answer his questions, and is so
evidently distressed at his appearance that he turns away and
withdraws to the veld to think. What now? What now?

He is sitting on the outskirts of the great bush-veld, that endless
stretch of forest-growth, dense and dark as far as the eye can reach.
Shall he enter that, unarmed, without provisions or water and totally
ignorant of the direction to take? He shudders. The blackness of the
night is creeping over the scene, and over his soul desolation and
despair.

"I must return to the mission station," he decides at last. "Surely
they will give me refuge for the night!"

Slowly he drags his weary limbs across the veld, hesitatingly he
presents himself, falteringly he proffers his request. A moment's
hesitation and the family circle opens to receive him, its members
crowd round him with words of comfort and small deeds of love. They
are not doing _right_, but they will do _well_. Nothing is left undone
to restore and refresh the exhausted fugitive, who soon finds himself
in a perfect haven of domestic happiness and luxury.

As the evening wears on, the small harmonium is opened, and while the
younger members of the family are singing sweet part-songs together,
our hero turns over the leaves of a small book he has found lying on
the table, a book of German quotations. His eyes are attracted by the
following lines by Dessler:

Lenkst du durch Wusten meine Reise,
Ich folg, und lehne mich auf Dich
Du gibst mir aus der Wolken Speise
Und Traenkest aus dem Felsen mich,
Ich traue Deinen Wunderwegen,
Sie enden sich in Lieb und Segen,
Genug, wenn ich Dich bei mir hab.

They are like balm to his troubled soul, and he commits them to memory
for future use. God knows the future looks desperate enough to him,
for he feels that he cannot remain in this haven of rest.
Consideration for the safety of his kind friends forbids this. He soon
departs, having heard that, for the present at least, the western
direction is open to him, and, in taking this, his tribulations begin
afresh.

Unused to exercise as he has been during the long months of his
confinement, this traveller, in pursuing his course with so much
patience and steadfast determination, now finds himself hardly able to
w