'Have a drop more of the squareface--you can't be so rude as to refuse a lady,' she continued, filling up a long glass, which she put to her lips, and then to those of Florian, who pretended to sip and then put the glass down. He was at a loss to understand her and her advances. Vanity quite apart, he knew that he was a good-looking young fellow, and that his uniform 'set him off;' but he remembered the face at the window, and was on his guard against her in every way. Would she have acted thus with an officer? he thought; and in what relation did she stand to the truculent-looking landlord--wife, daughter, or sister? Probably none of them at all. Suddenly her mood changed, or appeared to do so, and seating herself at a rickety old piano, which Florian had not noticed before, she, while eyeing him waggishly, proceeded to sing a once-popular flash song, long since forgotten in England, and probably taken out by some ancient settler, generations ago, to the Cape Colony: 'If I was a wife, and my dearest life Took it into his noddle to die, Ere I took the whim to be buried with him, I think I'd know very well _why_. 'If poignant my grief, I'd search for relief-- Not sink with the weight of my care: A salve might be found, no doubt, above ground, And I think I know very well _where_. 'Another kind mate should give me what fate Would not from the former allow; With him I'd amuse the hours you abuse, And I think I'd know very well _how_. ''Tis true I'm a maid, and so't may be said No judge of the conjugal lot; Yet marriage, I ween, has a cure for the spleen, And I think I know very well _what_.' This she sang with a skill and power that savoured of the music hall, and then tried her blandishments again to induce Florian to drink of the fiery squareface; but he resisted all her inducement to take 'just one little glass more.' Why was she so anxious that he should imbibe that treacherous spirit, which he would have to pay for? And why did the landlord, who certainly seemed full of curiosity about him, leave him so entirely in her society? Suddenly the voice of the latter was heard shouting, 'Nan, Nan!' 'That is Josh,' said she impatiently; 'bother him, what does he want now? Josh is getting old, and nothing improves by age.' 'Except brandy,' said Florian smiling, as he now hoped to be rid of her. 'Right; and squareface, perhaps. Have one glass more, dear, before I leave you.' But he turned impatiently away, and she withdrew, closing a scene which caused Florian much suspicion and perplexity. He remembered to have read, that 'man destroys with the horns of a bull, or with paws like a bear; woman by nibbling like a mouse, or by embracing like a serpent.' And he was in toils here unseen as yet! The light faded out beyond the dark ridges of the Drakensberg, and Florian requested to be shown to his sleeping-apartment, which was on the upper storey.