eason to believe that the last
remaining route of the spies had been discovered. Brave hearts sank at
the thought of their probable fate when they tried that route again.

But, thank God! the birds had flown--for the time at least.

That afternoon, when Hansie cycled to Mrs. Joubert's house, the
streets were quiet and practically deserted. She was quite sure that
no one followed her, for she dropped her handkerchief once and had
suddenly to turn and pick it up.

Carlo was some way ahead of her and did not notice the interruption
until she was on her bicycle again, when he came tearing back to find
out what had happened, furious with himself for having missed the
smallest piece of excitement. After that he did not leave her side
again, but trotted quietly along, watching her every moment from the
corner of his eye.

When Hansie entered the house in Visagie Street, Carlo stretched
himself as usual beside her bicycle, ostensibly to sleep, but in
reality on guard and alert with every nerve in his quick body. Hansie
was thankful to find van der Westhuizen in; in fact, he was expecting
her and wished to see her, but did not think it advisable to go to
Harmony.

"Tell me all about last night," she said. "Tell me everything, and
then I have something to tell you too."

"Well," he said, and the inscrutable face was for once turned to her
in frank confidence, "after we left Harmony last night things did not
go as smoothly as we expected. It was all right as long as we were in
the bush, and we were able to get our heavy parcels through safely,
but when we came to the drift we found it strongly guarded. We
retreated at once without a sound and lay down in the thick shrubs to
wait. The men were nervous and impatient, and after a little while
Brenckmann borrowed my residential pass from me and walked on ahead to
see if the coast were clear.

"He soon came back and said it was impossible to get through.

"After a short consultation, Naude advised me to come home. They would
stay in the bush and wait until the moon went down, he said. I hated
leaving them in such a plight, but Naude insisted, and I only came
away when he said he thought there would be more chance for them to
get through unobserved if they were fewer in number. How they managed
without residential passes and handicapped by those parcels, I do not
know."

"God only knows how they _do_ manage," Hansie answered sombrely.
"Well, I have nothing good to relate eit