d her without even
having asked her consent to the bargain. Leigh held out his hand.

"Won't you say yes, darling?"

"Oh! yes, yes," she sobbed, taking his hand for one brief instant.

Winfield smiled feebly.

"God bless you both, my children;" then with a wild choking cry, "Dora,
my child, where are you? All grows dark with me, and I go--I go to her
I love. Yes, my own sweet wife, I come--at last;" and choked by another
awful rush of blood, poor Jack Winfield fell dead.

Who can describe the anguish of the poor orphan girl? Her father had
for years been all in all to her, and the love which had lately sprung
up in her heart towards Alf Leigh was still too young to act as a
consolation to her; in this dread moment she felt as if the world for
her was at an end.

Gently and tenderly her lover led her away, whispering words of comfort,
and handed her over to Rose, who was weeping mournfully in concert; then
leaving the girls sobbing in each other's arms, he returned to the
others, to find the body covered with the British ensign, and Grenville
sternly examining the locality from which the death-shot had been fired.

"Alf," he said, "they have burrowed a hole in the ground, put up an
earthwork overhead, and thrown three rifles into it. One is dead, and
now you shall see Jack Winfield avenged." As he spoke a rocket directed
by Amaxosa was fired straight into the cover chosen by the enemy, which
in one second more was enveloped in a sheet of flame, the foolish
Mormons having built it amongst the dried grass. Unable to stand the
heat and smoke, both marksmen made a dash for life, but were tumbled
over by the cousins before they had run a dozen yards.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

STORMED AT WITH SHOT AND SHELL.

The next few days passed slowly and sadly on the plateau. Winfield was
quietly buried close by, his grave being concealed from view, as it was
most desirable that the Mormons should be kept in ignorance of the fact
that the little band had lost a man.

The gloom of Winfield's untimely death hung over all, and it was all
Leigh could do to keep poor Dora from breaking down entirely; and when
the Mormons, a week later, made a desperate attack on the plateau, it
was a relief to the party to feel that the call for prompt and unanimous
action had taken them out of their thoughts, and brought them back to
their old ways of living and working.

The attempt of the Mormons proved utterly futile, as the main body n