tire
which should not be too conspicuous in cover--an important
consideration--and all were well equipped in the way of arms and other
necessaries. They asked for no pay--only stipulating that they should
be entitled to keep whatever stock they might succeed in capturing from
the enemy--which in many cases would be merely retaking their own. The
Government, now as anxious as it had been sceptical and indifferent a
month previously, gladly accepted the services of so useful a corps.
The latter numbered between sixty and seventy men.

This, then, was the corps to which Carhayes had attached himself, and
among the ranks of which, after two or three days of enforced delay
while waiting for orders--and after a characteristically off-hand
farewell to the Hostes and his wife--he proceeded to take his place.

They were to march at sundown and camp for the night at the Kei Drift.
All Komgha--and its wife--turned out to witness their departure.
Farmers and storekeepers, transport-riders and Mounted Police, craftsmen
and natives of every shade and colour, lined the roadway in serried
ranks. There was a band, too, blowing off "God Save the Queen," with
all the power of its leathern lungs. Cheer after cheer went up as the
men rode by, in double file, looking exceedingly workman-like with their
well filled cartridge belts and their guns and revolvers. Hearty
good-byes and a little parting chaff from friends and intimates were
shouted after them through the deafening cheers and the brazen strains
of the band, and, their numbers augmented by a contingent of mounted
friends, who were to ride a part of the way with them, "just to see them
squarely off," the extremely neat and serviceable corps moved away into
a cloud of dust.

There was another side to all this enthusiasm, however. A good many
feminine handkerchiefs waved farewell to that martial band. A good many
feminine handkerchiefs were, pressed openly or furtively to tearful
eyes. For of those threescore and odd men going forth that evening in
all the pride of their strength and martial ardour, it would be strange,
indeed, if some, at any rate, were not destined to leave their bones in
a far-away grave--victims to the bullet and assegai of the savage.

The days went by and grew into weeks, but there was no want of life and
stir in the little settlement. As Carhayes had remarked grimly during
his brief sojourn therein--life appeared to be made up of bugle calls
and lies