t perforce
dropped.

"Is Violet inside, Effie?" asked Marian.

"Inside? Not she. Not when somebody else is outside. She's spooning
away somewhere--as usual."

"That's a nice way for little girls to talk," said Marion, severely.

"Well, so she is," went on Precocity, with the abominable
straightforwardness of her tender years. "Wasn't it always too hot to
move, if any one suggested going out in the morning, until `somebody'
came? Now--ahem!"

"You're talking nonsense, you naughty child," said Marian, angrily. "In
fact, you don't know yourself what you're talking about."

"Eh? Don't I? If you had seen what I saw--only the day before
yesterday--"

"But we didn't see it, and we don't want to know anything about it,"
struck in Renshaw, sternly. "I never expected you to turn into a little
mischief-maker, Effie."

"You needn't be so cross, Uncle Renshaw," whimpered Miss Precocity, in
whose affections the speaker held a prime place. "I only thought it
rather good fun." (Boo-hoo-hoo!)

"I didn't mean to be hard upon you, dear--but spreading stories is
generally anything but fun--not unusually least of all to those who
spread them. Never repeat anything, Effie. Half the mischief in life
comes out of tittle-tattle."

But at that very moment, as though to turn the edge of the above highly
salutary and not uncalled-for precept, who should heave in sight but the
very pair under discussion, though in fact Christopher Selwood made up a
third. The sight seemed to dry up Effie's snivelling as if by magic.

"There! Didn't I say so?" she muttered maliciously, and judiciously
fled indoors.

"Still at work, Marian?" cried Violet, as the trio came up. "Why, what
a regular Darby and Joan you two look," she added, with a mischievous
sparkle in her eyes. For although she laid herself out to keep well in
with Marian, yet it was characteristic of her that she could not refrain
from launching such a shaft as this--no, not even though her life
depended on it.

And to her quick eye it seemed that there was ever so faint an
indication that the bolt had struck home.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

A TALE OF BLOOD.

The town of Port Lamport was picturesquely situated on a wide bend of
the Umtirara River. It contained a population of about fifteen
hundred--whites, that is--and was the seat of magistracy for the
surrounding district.

In former times Fort Lamport had been one of the more important of a
chain of military