on, caught Hansie's beloved Mauser instead,
killing her instantly.

No reproaches from her mother were added to her keen remorse as she
bent over the motherless kittens, whispering: "_I_ will care for you,
as _she_ would have done; but oh, remember this, that honesty is the
best policy, and all is _not_ fair in love and war."

* * * * *

Tragedy was in the air.

A bee-keeper came to Harmony one morning to help Mrs. van Warmelo to
take out honey from the hives, and this disturbance, combined with the
fact that the soldiers had unwisely set up a smithy near the beehives
under the row of blue-gum trees dividing their camp from Harmony,
enraged the bees so much with the noise and the smoke and heat of the
smithy fires, that they attacked man and beast in vicious fury.

[Illustration: THE APIARY, HARMONY.]

In a few moments all was confusion.

The servants rushed about frantically, in their endeavours to bring
the fowls and calves under shelter in time.

The two women took refuge in the house, closing the doors and windows,
while they watched the consternation and disorder in the camp.

Fortunately there was only one horse in the smithy at the time, a
beautiful chestnut mare belonging to the Provost-Marshal, Major Poore,
so Mrs. van Warmelo was told afterwards.

The soldiers seemed to lose their heads entirely. They ran away, not
into their tents, but right away into the "koppies" on the other side
of the railway line.

The bee-keeper cut the halter with which the unfortunate horse was
tethered to a post, then he too took refuge.

What followed was pitiful to behold and will never be forgotten by the
women, helplessly, and as if fascinated by the scene, watching from
their windows.

The infuriated bees, deprived of all other living things on which to
wreak their vengeance, turned, in their thousands, on the hapless
mare, which stood unmoved, as horses do, when lashed by hail or
panic-stricken under flames.

She made no attempt to save herself, but with bent head and ears laid
flat she stood still under the furious attack of countless bees.

One or two of the men, wrapped up to the eyes in the coats and
waistcoats of their comrades, cautiously approached the mare at their
own great peril, and tried with all their strength to move her from
the scene.

In vain. As if rooted to the spot she stood, with her four feet
planted firmly on the ground, and they desisted in despair