ty little animal turned a
most beautiful somersault, and lay kicking convulsively, struck well
forward in the head.

"Well done, well done! _Maagtig kerel_! but you can do something with
shot!" cried Stephanus, approvingly.

Presently the metallic grating cackle of guinea-fowl was borne to their
ears. They were near the banks of the Sneeuw River, where the mimosa
cover and prickly pear _klompjes_ were a favourite haunt of those
splendid game birds. By dint of manoeuvring Colvin got right in among
them, their attention being diverted by the other horseman. Up rose
quite a number. Bang, bang! right and left, down they came. More rise.
Bang, bang! One miss, one more bird down. Then they get up, more and
more of them, by twos and threes, and by the time there are no more of
them, and Colvin has picked up eight birds and is beginning to search
for three more that have run, he is conscious that life can hold no
improvement on the sheer ecstasy of that moment.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

And then, when they return to the homestead in the roseate afterglow of
the pearly evening--and the spoils are spread out:

"Five bucks, and eighteen birds," cries Stephanus, counting the bag.
"Not so bad for a mixed shoot--and only one bird gun among us. Aletta,
this is an Englishman who can shoot."

Colvin is conscious of enjoying this small triumph, as the girl's bright
face is turned towards him approvingly, and she utters a laughing,
half-bantering congratulation.

"Where is Adrian?" he says, looking around.

"Adrian? Oh, he went long ago--soon after you did."

Keenly watching her face, while not appearing to, he does not fail to
notice the tinge of colour which comes into it as she answers. So
Adrian has been trying his luck then; but, has he succeeded? How shall
he find out? But why should he find out? What on earth can it matter
to him?

Yet throughout the evening the one question he is continually asking
himself, and trying to deduce an answer to, is--

Has he succeeded?

CHAPTER TWELVE.

"THE ONLY ENGLISH GIRL."

May Wenlock was in a temper.

She had got up in one, and throughout the morning her mother and brother
had had the full benefit of it. Why she was in it she could not have
told, at least with any degree of definitiveness. She was sick of home,
she declared; sick of the farm, sick of the very sight of everything to
do with it; sick of the e