try costume--silk shirt
and leather belt, and riding-trousers with gaiters--endowed his lithe
well set-up form with an air of freedom and ease, and looking into the
clear-cut face and full grey eyes, framed by the wide, straight brim of
the up-country hat, she thought she had never seen him looking so well.
"How glad I am to see you again!" she said, "Ten thousand welcomes. Do
you know, I have been feeling ever since as if _I_ were responsible
for--for whatever had befallen you."

"Yes? Imagine, then, what _I_ must have felt at the thought of you,
alone in the mountains, not knowing what to do or where to turn. I
wonder it didn't drive me stark staring mad. Imagine it, Nidia. Just
try to imagine it! Words won't convey it."

"I did have a dreadful time. But I knew nothing would have kept you
from returning to me, had you been able. And then your boy, Pukele,
arrived, and took such care of me. I sent him out to find you, and he
said you had been among the Matabele, but had been able to leave them
again--"

"Who? My boy? Pukele?" repeated John Ames, wonderingly.

"Yes. He brought me out of the mountains. One day he went out to hunt.
I heard him, as I thought, fire a couple of shots, and came up to find
myself among friends again."

"Nidia," called a voice from within--a voice not untinged with
acerbity--"won't Mr Ames come inside?"

John Ames started, and the effect seemed to freeze him somewhat. The
coldness of the greeting extended to him as he complied, completed the
effect. Instinctively he set it down to its true cause.

"We met last under very different circumstances, didn't we, Mrs
Bateman?" he said easily. "None of us quite foresaw all that has
happened since."

"I should think not. The wonder is that one of us is alive to tell the
tale," was the rejoinder, in a tone which seemed to imply that no thanks
were due to John Ames that `one of us' was--in short, that he was
responsible for the whole rising.

"And do you remember my asking if there wasn't a chance of the natives
rising and killing us all?" said Nidia. "I have often thought of that.
What times we have been through!" with a little shudder. "Yet, in some
ways it seems almost like a dream. Doesn't it, Susie?"

"A dream we are not awakened from, unfortunately," was the reply. "We
don't seem through our troubles yet. Well, as for as we are concerned,
we soon shall be. I want to take Miss Commerell out of this wretched
country