st not stop, as they will
be wanting to know at home what has happened."

Dismounting, Harry hurried into the house, while his younger brother led
his tired steed to the paddock.

Harry had just made his report, and Mrs Hugh was busy in preparing some
food for their expected visitors, when Mr Hayward, accompanied by a
young officer, rode up to the door, closely followed by a dozen black
troopers, in dark blue and red uniforms. Mr Hayward introduced
Lieutenant Bertram, who explained his reasons for coming.

Mrs Berrington was profuse in her thanks. "We have had a dreadful
fright, Mr Bertram, and I hope that you and your men will remain here
until the blacks are driven out of the country. I shall get no rest,
night or day."

"I am afraid, madam, that will not be so easy an operation as you
suppose," answered the lieutenant. "The blacks have an idea that they
are the owners of the soil, and that we are intruders, and they are not
very willing to decamp. Our business is rather to keep them in order,
and prevent them from attacking the whites."

As Harry explained that they had been a good many hours without eating,
supper was immediately placed on the table, while provisions were
carried out to the troopers, who sat down in a circle on the
grass-plot--it could not be dignified as a lawn--with their horses
picketed near them. The ladies went out to see them as they sat in the
sunlight, not at all inconvenienced by its glare. They seemed merry,
careless fellows, laughing and chattering away in their own curious
lingo--a mixture of English and native words.

Mr Bertram said they were all blacks from a distance, composed of two
or three different tribes who could not understand each other's original
language. The captain was grieved to find that there was little doubt
that his shepherd had been murdered, although his body had not been
discovered. The flock had been driven to a station nearer home, where
two of the police had been left to watch the hostile natives, although
it was not at all likely that they would for the present make another
attack.

Poor Mrs Berrington saw, with much regret, the lieutenant and his men
take their departure. They were going, he said, to make another
thorough search for the hostile natives, and to advise them to remove to
a distance from the white men's stations.

CHAPTER SIX.

PLEASANT RIDES THROUGH THE COUNTRY--MAGNIFICENT VEGETATION--HECTOR STUNG
BY A NETTLE--A HURRIC