As it was impossible now for both to remain longer under the same roof after a fracas of this kind, Hammersley proposed at once to take his departure for the south by a morning train; but Lord Fettercairn, who, with all his selfish shortcomings, had been shocked by the episode, and by several other ugly matters connected with his newly found 'grandson,' would by no means permit of that movement; and in this spirit of hospitality even Lady Fettercairn joined, pressing him to remain and finish his visit, as first intended, while Shafto, in a gust of baffled rage and resentment, greatly to the relief of Finella and of the domestics, betook himself to Edinburgh, thus for a time leaving his rival more than ever in full possession of the field. 'Whether she is influenced by Captain Hammersley I cannot say,' were the parting words of Lady Fettercairn to this young hopeful; 'but you seem by this last untoward affair to have lost even her friendship, and it will be a dreadful pity, Shafto, if all her money should be lost to you too.' And Shafto fully agreed with his 'dear grandmother' that it would be a pity indeed. As a gentleman and man with a keen sense of honour, Hammersley disliked exceedingly the secrecy of the engagement he had made with Finella, and felt himself actually colour more than once when Lord Fettercairn addressed him; but his compunctions about it grew less when he thought of the awful escape he had made from a perilous accusation, that might have 'smashed' him in the Service, and of the trickery of which Shafto was capable--a trickery of which he had not yet seen the end. CHAPTER XVIII. AT THE BUFFALO RIVER. The evening of the 10th January was closing in, and the blood-red African sun, through a blended haze of gold and pale green, red and fiery, seemed to linger like a monstrous crimson globe at the horizon, tinging with the same hues the Buffalo River as its broad waters flowed past the Itelizi Hill towards Rorke's Drift. There a picquet of the Centre or Second column of infantry (of the army then advancing into Zululand), under Colonel Richard Glyn of the 24th Regiment, was posted for the night. The main body of the picquet, under Lieutenant Vincent Sheldrake, a smart young officer, was bivouacked among some mealies at a little distance from the bank of the river, along the margin of which his advanced sentinels were posted at proper distances apart, and there each man stood motionless as a statue, in his red tunic and white tropical helmet, with his rifle at the 'order,' and his eyes steadily fixed on that quarter in which the Zulu army was supposed to be hovering. To reach the Buffalo River the various columns of Lord Chelmsford's army could not march by regular roads, as no such thing exists in Zululand, and the sole guides of our officers in selecting the line of advance through these savage regions were the grass-covered ruts left by the waggon-wheels of some occasional trader or sportsman in past times.