oblige me."

"There are some subjects that can't be dismissed so lightly," was the
answer. "You don't meet with cases of heroism so often as all that."

"Oh, Mrs Waybridge, do come to my rescue," laughed Dick. "Now I'm
going to take refuge in helping to outspan. Hallo! There's my little
friend, Florrie. How she's grown."

A pretty little girl came half shyly forward. She and Jacky constituted
the Waybridges' surviving family. Waybridge himself had not been
present on the occasion of the rescue, his wife and children having been
on a visit to Cape Town without him.

This Kaffrarian farm was pleasingly situated; in front and around an
undulating roll of mimosa-dotted plains, at the back a line of hills,
covered with dark bush. Now, as the sun dropped down to the horizon,
these were thrown out all green and gold. At the back of the house was
a large fruit garden, fenced in by hedges of quince and pomegranate.
The sheep kraals lay in front, at some little distance.

"I'm afraid you'll find it a bit slow here, Mr Selmes," said Waybridge,
as they were seated out on the stoep after supper. "I hear you're a
great sportsman, but there's nothing on earth to shoot here."

"Yet all that bush at the back ought to show something," said Dick.

"So it ought, but it doesn't. There are a sight too many Kafirs--and
dogs. They won't leave a hoof anywhere within reach. Clear
everything."

"That's very nearly what Mr Selmes did at Haakdoorn," said Hazel,
mischievously.

"Ah, that was a very paradise of a shoot," answered Dick, meeting her
eyes in the starlight; and she read into the words a meaning beyond what
they might on the surface convey, as he intended she should. It was
like old times sitting out in the still night with her beside him, he
thought. Then the conversation, as it was bound to do, got on to the
war, and Dick, being pressed to do so, told them about his adventures.
These, as a rule, he avoided talking about lest he should be suspected
of brag.

"You see," he now concluded, "you wanted to hear about things, but don't
imagine for a moment I'm particularly proud of any of those experiences,
because honestly I'm not. The more I look back on them, the more
convinced I am that I acted the silly ass; especially in running other
people into unnecessary risk to get me out. And if it hadn't been for
Greenoak, time after time, I never should have been got out."

"What about Gcalekaland now?" said Waybrid