With an air of good faith, he opened a correspondence in cipher with Brennard, who, at his suggestion, placed an agent on the Stormberg mountains, and thus increased his contraband traffic by disposing of arms and ammunition to the Boers, who, assisted by these traitors, grew sanguine in their hopes and determined in their preparations. So blind, indeed, was the colonial government to the real state of affairs, that wagons containing guns actually passed the outskirts of the frontier garrisons, on their way to the Modder and Bilt River settlements, while smaller arms were landed at the Umtata, and conveyed to a depot at the foot of the northern extremity of the Stormberg mountains. The Dutch soon felt the influence of a master mind at work. A secret communication was set on foot between Lee and the rebel leader; but Lee was cautious in his policy, since, to be suspected by the Kafirs as anything but a trader, would be to draw down attention from the missionaries, who were, when permitted, in communication with the tribes most distant from the colony. Those within the border were becoming every day more lawless. It was said by some of these teachers, in after times, that they had had an idea of some men of suspicious character living among Umlala's people; but having no tangible proof of their existence, having only the word of Kafir spies to depend on, they could take no steps in the matter, either by offering advice to the Kafirs, near whom the poor missionaries and their families were living in dread and peril of their lives, or by giving information to the authorities, who were too remote to act. Lee liked the life he led; the form of government so favourable to the doctrine that "might is right," though tempered in some measure by general opinion, in which he succeeded in gaining a voice; the total absence of all moral discipline except as regarded women, with whom Lee, as he said, had no mind to trouble himself--a life of ease, yet of excitement, the spacious and beautiful country, all conspired to render his temporary location desirable; but while he thus rested on his arms, his mind was ceaselessly at work. With that shrewdness which stands bad men in stead of deeper knowledge, Lee had long penetrated the weaker outworks, so to speak, of Gray's heart; keenly susceptible, of facile mind, and imbued with a vanity as natural to men as to women, he had easily yielded to the gentle influences and watchful solicitude of Amayeka. Lee at once profited by this "fancy," as he called it, to turn it to his own account, and used every means to encourage it.