deep-toned voices of the burghers
buzzed forth on all sides. As he stepped outside, a figure looming out
of the dusk barred his way.

"Stand! Go no further."

"What is the meaning of this? You hardly seem to know me," said Colvin.

"I know you, Mynheer Kershaw," was the reply. "But the Commandant's
orders are that you do not wander about the camp to-night."

"The Commandant's orders?"

"_Ja_, the Commandant's orders," repeated the Boer. "Go in again, if
you please."

There was nothing for it but compliance. As he re-entered the tent,
Colvin realised that he was indeed a prisoner, and guarded by an armed
sentry. What did it mean? Why, simply that for any power he might have
to help Frank Wenlock that night--by fair means or foul--he might as
well have been in Patagonia or Pekin. More, a very uneasy feeling had
come over him that he might ere long stand sorely in need of aid
himself.

These precautions seemed to point that way too. Here he was as much a
prisoner as the man to whom death would come with the morning light. It
struck him in a passing way as singular that the men who shared this
tent with him were not here to-night, and he was alone. Hour after hour
wore on, and still he racked his brains. Once before he had saved Frank
Wenlock's life in the heat and excitement of warfare. He could not save
it now. That wily old fox Schoeman had seen to that.

Colvin was very tired. The strain of the previous day had told upon
him--the strain of those long night hours too. He could not have told
approximately at what hour his eyes had closed, and a whirling round of
confused dreams were chasing each other through his slumbering brain.
Now he was back again in peace and quietness at Piet Plessis' with
Aletta, radiant and happy. Now he was at Ratels Hoek, but Aletta was
not there. A cold blank void seemed to take her place, and then into it
floated the form of May Wenlock, her face turned from him in horror and
loathing, as though requiring her brother's blood at his hands. Then he
awoke with a cold start, wondering confusedly whether all that had
happened the day before were but a dream--awoke to the light of another
day, with the beams of a newly risen sun pouring into the tent--awoke to
behold three armed burghers standing over him. Even then he noticed
that the expression of their faces was grim and ominous, and that they
replied to his morning salutation as curtly as possible.

"So! You ar