HAPTER TWENTY THREE.

A CHANGE.

"Well, Musgrave, old boy, I'm glad to see you back again," cried genial
Peter Van Stolz, wringing his subordinate's hand, as the latter entered
the office just before Court time on the morning following the events
last detailed. "There are two or three drunk cases to polish off; they
won't take ten minutes, and then I want to hear all your adventures."

So Sannje Pretorius, and Carolus Dirksen, and two or three other worthy
specimens of the noble Hottentot, having been fined five or ten
shillings apiece, with the alternative of seven days hard, the
administrator of Doppersdorp justice lost no time in returning to be put
in possession of such more or less stirring facts as the reader is
already familiar with. Not altogether, however, for the narrator had a
strange repugnance to chronicling his own deeds of slaughter, which, in
fact, he so slurred over as to make it appear rather that they had been
done by Darrell--a vicarious distinction from which that worthy, at any
rate, would in no wise have shrunk. Nor, we hardly need say, did he
reveal his meeting with Tom. On that point his lips were sealed, even
to his friend. His word, once passed, was inviolable.

It happened that he had come straight into Doppersdorp, abandoning the
projected _detour_ by Suffield's farm, for a sort of nervous exhaustion,
supervening on the strain and hardships of that terrible and trying
night, had compelled him to take some hours' rest beneath the first
sheltering roof which he came across after his rescue by Darrell and his
party, who had escorted him on his road until beyond further risk,
returning then to the Main Camp. Hence, reckoning he had been away long
enough, he made up his mind to reach Doppersdorp in time for Court. He
would ride over to Quaggasfontein in the evening.

Then, at the midday recess, Roden found himself carried off to dine, in
order that Mrs Van Stolz might hear his adventures. At that point of
his narrative which touched upon the villainous behaviour of the
defaulting steed, they all laughed again and again, while recognising
that it was no laughing matter at the time.

"What will Miss Ridsdale say when she hears all about it?" said Mrs Van
Stolz mischievously. "I suppose you haven't seen her yet, Mr
Musgrave?"

Roden answered that he had not, and then a little more sly fun was poked
at him. Finally, it became time to return.

"You see, it's post day, Musgrave, old