out.

"_Ja, ja_. He will sign it now," cried several voices. "The paper!
The paper!"

But Commandant Schoeman was in a cold, quiet sort of rage. He was being
set at defiance in the face of his whole command, and that by a girl.
He rejected this way out of the difficulty--rejected it curtly and
uncompromisingly.

"Remove her," he said again.

One or two of the older men stepped forward, intending to try the effect
of remonstrance. But the revolver covered them instantly, aimed low,
they noted, and there was such a deadly gleam in Aletta's eyes that they
stopped short and retired. Schoeman was white with rage. But before he
could decide on what to do next, a diversion occurred, unlooked for and
startling.

The sound of many hoofs clattering up the road over beyond the _nek_ was
borne to their ears. Whoever the new arrivals were, they were advancing
at a furious gallop. The cry went up that the English were upon them,
and for a moment the assembly was in a state of tumult.

Only for a moment, though. Schoeman, as cool and brave a man as ever
lived, quelled the confusion by a word or two. For his ears had caught
the challenge of their own vedette on the ridge, and the answer thereto
in the _taal_. These were not enemies, he decided.

A few moments more a score of horsemen appeared on the _nek_, and rode
straight into their midst without drawing rein. A largely built man
with a full brown beard was riding at their head.

"_Maagtig_! It is Stephanus De la Rey!" was muttered from mouth to
mouth. Aletta heard it, at the same time that she recognised her
father.

"We are safe, sweetheart," she murmured, beginning to tremble now that
danger was over, as she supposed. "I said you should not die. Yes, God
is good. We are safe now."

But those there assembled had not reached the limit of their surprises
for that day yet. The party consisted of about a score of armed Boers
who had volunteered to accompany Stephanus De la Rey to Schoeman's camp,
but riding beside Stephanus was one who was not a Boer, being none other
than Frank Wenlock, the escaped prisoner.

The burghers crowded around the new arrivals, the general feeling being
that of intense relief. For now that the original offender was
recaptured, there was no need to shoot this other.

"Where was he caught? Who captured him?" were some of the questions
showered upon the party.

"Nobody captured me," replied Frank, in a loud clear voice. "I