uth, yet her heart misgave her. There
was something baffling, something almost sinister to her, in the
very carelessness of his attitude. She turned her horse's head and
walked soberly away.

He did not immediately follow her, and after a few moments she
glanced back for him. He had dismounted and was scratching
something on the trunk of the blasted tree with a knife. The
withered arms stretched out above his head. They looked weirdly
human in the sunset glow. She wished he would not linger in that
eerie place.

She waited for him, and he came at length, riding with his head up
and a strange gleam of triumph in his eyes.

"What were you doing?" she asked him, as he joined her.

He met her look with a directness oddly disconcerting. "I was
commemorating the occasion, he said.

"What do you mean?" she said.

"Never mind now!" said Burke, and took out his pipe.

The light still lingered in his eyes, firing her to something
deeper than curiosity. She turned her horse abruptly.

"I am going back to see for myself."

But in the same moment his hand came out, grasping her bridle. "I
shouldn't do that," he said. "It isn't worth it. Wait till we
come again!"

"The tree may be gone by then," she objected.

"In that case you won't have missed much," he rejoined. "Don't go
now!"

He had his way though she yielded against her will. They turned
their animals towards Brennerstadt, and rode back together over,
the sun-scorched _veldt_.

PART II

CHAPTER I

COMRADES

Some degree of normality seemed to come back into Sylvia's life
with her return to Blue Hill Farm. She found plenty to do there,
and she rapidly became accustomed to her surroundings.

It would have been a monotonous and even dreary existence but for
the fact that she rode with Burke almost every evening, and
sometimes in the early morning also, and thus saw a good deal of
the working of the farm. Her keen interest in horses made a strong
bond of sympathy between them. She loved them all. The mares and
their foals were a perpetual joy to her, and she begged hard to be
allowed to try her powers at breaking in some of the young animals.
Burke, however, would not hear of this. He was very kind to her,
unfailingly considerate in his treatment of her, but by some means
he made her aware that his orders were to be respected. The Kaffir
servants were swift to do his bidding, though she did not find them
so eager to fulfil their du