"Pity you wouldn't let yourself be `persuaded' a week ago," rapped out the conjugal retort. "Or even more. You'd have been in the thick of the Buluwayo Club at this moment." "Yes, you took a deal of persuading, Dick," supported Clare. "It would have been much better if we had started a week earlier." There was an unconscious gravity in her tone that did not seem to fit the subject or the occasion. But she was thinking of the grave urgency of Lamont's warning--that they should remove at once; and of this, of course, the others were in complete ignorance. "Oh well, a week more or less doesn't matter a row of pins," returned Fullerton unconcernedly. "That's one good point about this jolly country, at any rate. No one need ever be in a hurry." "Nor ever is," appended Wyndham. "Hallo! Here are some police Johnnies coming along." Riding single file along a narrow path, which would converge with the high road a little farther on, they made out a small party of Mounted Police--a dozen in all. They gained the main road just at the same time as the mule-waggon crossed the path. The sergeant rode up and saluted. "Going to Buluwayo?" said Wyndham. "Yes, sir. And Captain Isard said we'd better keep with you for the way." "Sort of escort, eh?" "That's it, sir." "Escort!" echoed Fullerton. "Why, what the devil do we want with an escort? We haven't got the Administrator on board." "Well, sir," said the sergeant, "the niggers have been a bit sulky of late, over the wholesale shootin' of their cattle, and it's a wide stretch of country, and the captain said that as we were going to Buluwayo in any case, it'd do no harm if we kept with your waggon." As a matter of fact the men were not `going to Buluwayo in any case,' but had been specially told off by their commanding officer to escort this outfit thither. It--for all purposes in his eyes--spelt Clare Vidal. In spite of his former rejection he had not got over his weakness for that extremely attractive young person, and here was a right royal chance to ingratiate himself with her; for of course he would contrive to let her know later that it was solely upon her account that the escort had been furnished. Isard had accepted Lamont's warning with a considerable pinch of salt, still there was no doubt but that there was unrest among the natives, and where Clare was concerned it was as well to be on the safe side. The safe side! Well, Isard was steeped to the crown of his handsome and soldierly head in the British and military tradition of despising your enemy, wherefore, of course, the presence of a dozen of his Mounted Police was sufficient to overawe every squalid nigger in Matabeleland, or the whole lot of them put together. "There's something in that, sergeant," said Wyndham, "and it's very good of the captain to have thought of it." Then, as the sergeant having saluted again and dropped behind, he went on--