n formed already, mines are being laid down
far in the front, and every male of the population who has a pair of
capable hands has had a rifle put into them."

She looked at him, and approved the male type of energy and action. "If I
had been a man," she thought, "I should have wished to be one like this."
But she bent her head silently, and he went on.

"We have an armoured train in the railway-yard, with a Maxim and a
Hotchkiss. We have a Nordenfeldt, a couple of Maxims more, four
seven-pounder guns of almost prehistoric date, slow of fire, uncertain as
regards the elevating-gear, and, I tell you plainly, as dangerous, some of
'em, to be behind as to be in front of! One or two more we've got that
were grey-headed in the seventies. By the Lord! I wish one or two
Whitehall heads I know were mopping 'em out this minute. Ahem! Ahem!"

He coughed, and grew red under his sun-tan. Her eyes were elsewhere.

"Ma'am, you must try to recollect that the Boer forces are armed with the
newest Krupps and other guns, and that it is more than possible they may
attempt to shell the town. In that case artillery of tremendous range, and
a flight almost equal to that of sound itself--I won't be too technical, I
assure you!--will be mustered against our crazy pieces, only fit for the
scrap-heap, or for gate ornaments. Understand, I tell you what is common
knowledge among our friends--common jest among our enemies. And another
thing I will tell you, ma'am. Those enemies shall never enter
Gueldersdorp!"

She was radiant now, with that smile upon her lips, and that glow in the
great eyes that met his with such frank approval. Confound it, what
business had a nun to be anything like so beautiful? Would she pale, would
she tremble, when he told her the last truth of all?

"Your Convent, ma'am, unluckily for your Community, happens to be, if not
the biggest, at least the most conspicuously situated building in the
place, lying as it does at a distance of four hundred yards from the town,
on the north-east side. Like the Hospital, of course, it will be under the
protection of the Red-Cross Flag. But the Boer is not chivalrous. He does
not object to killing women or sick people, nor does he observe with any
standing scrupulousness the Geneva Convention. Any object that shows up
nicely on the skyline is good enough to pound away at, and the Red-Cross
Flag has often helped him to get a satisfactory range. If they bombard us,
as I have reason to