come and help me find
him."

The men stared, electrified at her appearance. White as a bone, her
beautiful violet eyes full of haunting fear; her hair, torn down by the
wind and flickering in long black strands about her face, far below her
waist, she looked like a wraith of the storm.

"Roddy lost!" McNeil and the storekeeper turned mechanically as one
man to Saltire. It was only the girl who would not turn to him.

"Come quickly!" she urged. "He may be drowning somewhere, even now, in
one of the swollen streams." She imagined the tragedy to herself as
she spoke, and her voice was full of wistful despair.

"Get her a hot drink." Saltire, flinging the command to the
storekeeper, spoke for the first time. "I'll round up the boys and get
lanterns for a search." In a few moments there was a flicker of
lanterns without, and the murmur of voices.

"Come along, Niekerk!" commanded Saltire, and the storekeeper began to
put his lights out. "McNeil, you take Miss Chaine back to the farm."

"No, no; I must come, too!" she cried.

"Impossible," he said curtly. "You will only be a hindrance."

"Then I will go home alone," she said quietly, "and free Mr. McNeil to
accompany you."

"Very well--if you think you can find your way. Here is a lantern."

She took it and went her way while they went theirs. Long before she
reached the garden round the house, the lantern in her unskilful hands
had gone out and she was groping by instinct.

All the weariness and strain of the day had suddenly descended upon her
in a cloud. She knew she was near the end of her tether. This life at
Blue Aloes was too much for her, after all; she must give it best at
last; it was dominating her, driving her like a leaf before the wind.
These were her thoughts as she crept wearily through the garden, but
suddenly she heard voices and was galvanized into hope, tinged with
fear. Perhaps Roddy was found! Perhaps her terror and suffering had
been unnecessary. She listened for a moment, then located the speakers
close to her in the stoep.

"Dick," a voice she knew was saying, "I am sick of it. Bernard _may_
die down in East London, but we shall never get rid of the boy while
that English Jezebel is here. And she knows too much now. We had
better go. Blue Aloes will never be ours to sell and go back to our
own dear island. Everything has gone wrong."

"Nonsense, Issa. You are too impatient. Van Cannan will never come
back. He