with
a nail through it, lying hidden behind the post), only to be met with
an obstinate refusal from her daughter.

"How can you be so reckless and foolhardy, Hansie?" her mother would
exclaim. "We know that the men may come in any night, and we know that
the house and grounds are being watched, and yet you want me to let
our friends run right into the trap, without lifting a finger to save
them! It would be an unpardonable thing, and I do believe you are only
longing to have the excitement of harbouring spies again!"

Hansie laughed.

"Perhaps that is it! But think of the disappointment of the men to be
turned back at our very doors after having come so far through untold
dangers! Depend upon it they will not come in again for nothing. They
went through too much last time, and there will be work of some
importance for us all to do if they come in again, you may be sure of
that. No, dear mother, let us risk it, I beg of you. We are still in
the house, and Naude is no chicken. He will reach us in spite of
guards and fences, and----"

"Be followed right up to the house and be taken here like a rat in a
trap," Mrs. van Warmelo continued gloomily.

"I am not so sure," Hansie exclaimed, as cheerfully as her sinking
heart allowed, when this horrible picture rose before her.

"You know what our experience has been of English vigilance and
English sagacity; now, if they had some of Carlo's intelligence we
would have some reason to be anxious."

The danger-signal was not put up, but that things would have ended
exactly as Mrs. van Warmelo predicted I now have not a shadow of
doubt.

The spies would have glided into the house in the false security
occasioned by the absence of the danger-signal, they would have been
watched and followed to the very doors by the hidden foe, the house
would have been surrounded and stormed by armed men, and a fierce, an
unspeakably horrible encounter would have ended in death and
destruction--_if they had come_. But they were prevented on commando
from keeping their appointment that month--and at the very time when
they expected to be safely housed under Harmony's hospitable roof, the
place was surrounded, an entry forced and every corner of the house
searched for spies.

It happened "like so," and we must now turn our attention for a moment
to a matter of small importance in order to understand why Hansie was
from home at a critical time, and how she missed the keen enjoyment of
being