s he bade the utterer of
this comforting prognostication farewell. He was a harum-scarum,
dare-devil sort of mortal, who was afraid of nothing, yet could be cool
enough when occasion arose.

Throughout the day they pursued their journey, passing now and then a
deserted farmhouse, whose empty kraals and smokeless chimneys, and
unreaped crops standing in the mealie lands, spoke eloquently to the
desolation that reigned. "The land was dead" indeed, as the native
idiom expressed it.

They had taken a straight line across the veldt, avoiding roads and
beaten tracks as likely to be watched by outlying parties of the enemy.
And now the farther and farther they advanced, the brighter the outlook
they kept.

"You'd better note the lay of the ground well, Musgrave, if you still
intend to carry out that lunatic idea of returning alone," said Darrell.

"That's the very thing I have been doing. It's easy country, this of
yours, to find one's way about in, Darrell. As for returning alone, I
shall have to do that, failing an escort. Can't stretch my rather
irregular leave to straining point."

It was late in the afternoon. They were riding along the side of a
slope which was irregularly sprinkled with clusters of thick bush.
Below ran a nearly dry river-bed, and beyond this rose a ragged ascent
covered with spekboem scrub. Suddenly both men looked at each other,
gently checking their steeds.

A sound was heard in front, at first faint, as of the displacement of a
stone, then nearer, till it resolved itself into a clink of shod hoofs
upon the stony veldt. Then the whistling of a popular air.

"Now what damned fool can this be kicking up all that shillaloo?"
exclaimed Darrell.

The horseman appeared round the corner of a cluster of scrub. On
finding himself thus unexpectedly confronted, he reined in
instinctively, with a startled movement. Then seeing that the others
were friends, he broke into a loud, jolly laugh.

He was a strongly built, broad-shouldered individual, bearded and
sunburnt. He was clad in a nondescript uniform coat, cord trousers, and
high boots, and on his head a pith helmet surmounted by a spike. He
bestrode a powerful chestnut horse with a white blaze. But--and this
was the first point that struck these two--he carried no firearm, not
even the inevitable revolver, unless it was in his pocket.

"Where's your gun?" said Darrell, with a grin, as soon as the first
greetings and explanations were