"By George, it's a woman. A white woman!" cried the officer in command, nearly dropping his glass from his hand. "She looks the worse for wear too, poor thing. Another of these awful experiences, I'll bet a dollar. She's seen us. She's coming down off the kopje. But we don't want to scare her with all our ugly faces, though. Looks like a lady too, in spite of her tatters, poor thing," he went on, with his glass still at his eyes. "Moseley, Tarrant--you might step forward and meet her, eh? We don't need all to mob her in a body." "We've met her before, I think, colonel," said the latter, who had also been looking through his field-glasses. "And that was at Hollingworth's." "No!" "Fact. When we got there she had disappeared, leaving no trace. Great Heaven, where can she have been all this while? Come along, Moseley." Great sensation spread through the troop, as it got abroad that this was the girl whose unknown fate had moved them all so profoundly. Several were there, too, who had been present at the discovery of the murdered family, and whose cherished thoughts of vengeance had been deepened tenfold by the thought of this helpless English girl in the power of the very fiends who had perpetrated that atrocity. Under the circumstances, it was little to be wondered at if the voices of Moseley and Tarrant were a little unsteady as they welcomed the fugitive, and if indeed--as those worthies afterwards admitted to each other--they felt like qualified idiots, when they remembered the bright, sweet, sunny-faced girl, with the stamp of daintiness and refinement from the sole of her little shoe to the uppermost wave of her golden-brown hair. And now they saw a sad-faced woman, wistful-eyed, sun-tanned, in attire bordering on tattered dishevelment. Truly a lump gathered in their throats, as they stood uncovered before her and thought of all she must have gone through. "Welcome, Miss Commerell. A hearty, happy welcome," was all that Moseley could jerk out, as he put out his hand. "Thanks. Oh yes. We have met before," with a tired smile, in answer to Tarrant's rather incoherent greeting. "But--where are the rest of you? Ah--I see--over there." Soon the officer in command was welcoming her, and the troopers gradually edged in nearer, for curiosity was great and discipline by no means rigid. "And I am among friends at last, and safe?" looking from one to the other, in a half vacant way, "But where is Pukele?" "Who is `Pukele,' Miss Commerell?" said Moseley. "A Matabele. He has guided and taken care of me for the last week. Where is he? Isn't he here? Didn't he bring you to me? He went out to find game. I thought I heard him fire two shots, just lately, and came out to see. Then I saw you all. Where can he be?" Where indeed? A strange, startled look was now on the faces of several of her listeners, including those in command. "Went out to find game." And the native just shot was in possession of a klip-springer.