you are
well rid of him. Frank is a good fellow ordinarily, but he can make
himself most infernally objectionable at times--as yesterday, for
instance."

He thought it politic to make no allusion to the death sentence. But at
heart he was overjoyed.

"_You_ it was who helped him to escape," said Schoeman, and the tone,
and the look of fell menace on his face, suddenly revealed to Colvin
that he was standing on the brink of a yawning abyss. It behoved him to
keep his head.

"Look now, Mynheer," he said, "I would ask how I could have helped him
to escape when I never left my tent the whole night."

"That we shall see," rejoined Schoeman.

"But how could I have left it, when I was kept in it by an armed guard
placed there by your own orders?" retorted Colvin.

"I know nothing of such a guard, and I gave no such orders. It is now
time for prayers, also for breakfast. There are those here who are
ready to prove that you helped the prisoner to escape. In an hour's
time I shall require you here again. I warn you, Mynheer, that unless
you can disprove the statements of these, things will be very serious
for you. Retire now to your tent."

Escorted, as before, Colvin went; and as he went he reflected. The
extreme gravity of his position became plain in all its peril. It
occurred to him that somebody or other desired to be rid of him. Yet,
why? He had no enemies in the camp that he knew of. True, he had
somewhat wounded the Commandant's self-esteem at first, but surely
Schoeman's vindictiveness would not be carried to such a length. Well,
there was no telling. Either Frank Wenlock had been allowed to escape,
in order that the charge of aiding and abetting might be fastened upon
himself, or he had been quietly made away with--always with the same
object. And looking at it in this light, Colvin realised the trap he
was in, and that his own life was in very considerable danger.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

TO TAKE HIS PLACE.

It was a curious court-martial this before which he was now convened,
thought Colvin, the ridiculous side of things striking him, as an hour
later he stood once more before the Commandant's tent, having washed and
got some breakfast in the interim. This old Dutch farmer, clad in
greasy moleskins, and crowned with a weather-worn, once white
chimney-pot hat, was his judge, with absolute power of life and death,
and looked moreover as solemn as though he thoroughly realised it.
Those other