e. Others still there were who, having done evil all
their lives, knew that they could not retrace their steps, and yet
shrank from a continuance of the old bad things.

Some indeed, in the red futile sacrifice, had found what they came to
find; but some still were left whose recklessness did not avail.
Comrades fell beside them, but, unscathed, they went on fighting.
Injured men were carried in hundreds to the hospitals, but no wounds
brought them low. Bullets were sprayed around them, but none did its
work for them. Shells burst near, yet no savage shard mutilated their
bodies.

Of these was Ian Stafford.

Three times he had been in the fore-front of the fight where Death came
sweeping down the veld like rain, but It passed him by. Horses and men
fell round his guns, yet he remained uninjured.

He was patient. If Death would not hasten to meet him, he would wait.
Meanwhile, he would work while he could, but with no thought beyond the
day, no vision of the morrow.

He was one of the machines of war. He was close to his General, he was
the beloved of his men, still he was the man with no future; though he
studied the campaign with that thoroughness which had marked his last
years in diplomacy.

He was much among his own wounded, much with others who were comforted
by his solicitude, by the courage of his eye, and the grasp of his
firm, friendly hand. It was at what the soldiers called the Stay Awhile
Hospital that he came in living touch again with the life he had left
behind.

He knew that Rudyard Byng had come to South Africa; but he knew no
more. He knew that Jasmine had, with Lady Tynemouth, purchased a ship
and turned it into a hospital at a day's notice; but as to whether
these two had really come to South Africa, and harboured at the Cape,
or Durban, he had no knowledge. He never looked at the English
newspapers which arrived at Dreitval River. He was done with that old
world in which he once worked; he was concerned only for this narrow
field where an Empire's fate was being solved.

Night, the dearest friend of the soldier, had settled on the veld. A
thousand fires were burning, and there were no sounds save the
murmuring voices of myriads of men, and the stamp of hoofs where the
Cavalry and Mounted Infantry horses were picketed. Food and fire, the
priceless comfort of a blanket on the ground, and a saddle or kit for a
pillow gave men compensation for all the hardships and dangers of the
day; and the