! A sort of cosmopolitan rover without ties; isn't that
what you were saying just now? Without ties? Ho, ho, ho!" And the
jolly Dutchman shouted himself into a big fit of coughing.

"He is one of us now, is he not, Piet?" went on the girl, a tender pride
shining from her eyes. "Yet he talks about going to fight against us.
Yes, you were saying that, Colvin. I heard you when we came out."

"Little termagant!" he rejoined lovingly, drawing one of the hands which
was linked round his arm into his. "I wasn't talking about fighting
against anybody. I said I might go and _see_ some of the fighting. You
may go and see a bull-fight, you know, but you needn't necessarily be
taking part in it. In fact, the performers on both sides would object,
and that in the most practical manner, to your doing so. Now, I meant
to go as a non-combatant. Sort of war-correspondent business."

"Well, we are not going to let you do anything of the sort," answered
Aletta decisively. "Are we, Piet? Why don't you make a prisoner of war
of him, then he can't do as he pleases?"

"`He is one of us now,'" quoted Colvin, innocently. "I believe those
were the words. How can `one of us' be a prisoner of war?"

Piet laughed at this deft turning of the tables.

"Go away and get your traps, man," he said, "then you'll be all snug and
fixed up here by lunch-time. Here's the buggy," as the sound of wheels
came through from the front of the house. "I must get back to office.
So long?"

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

Every day some fresh news from the seat of war came flowing in--
beginning with the capture of the armoured train at Kraaipan, historical
as the first overt act of hostility, the investment of Kimberley and
Mafeking, the reverse at Elandslaagte, and the death of the British
general, and, later on, the arrival of a good many British prisoners.
And over and above authenticated news, of course wild rumour was busy,
magnifying this or that skirmish into a Boer victory, diminishing
losses, and playing general skittles with most of the facts of the
particular event reported, as is invariably the case on either side of
the contested field. But what struck Colvin Kershaw after the first
week of excitement was the calm, matter-of-fact way in which it was
received by the crowd at large. News which would have thrown Cape Town
or Durban into a perfect delirium, was treated in Pretoria as so much