“'They overtook the blacklegs far up country, and Peter tackled them. But they had Winchester repeaters, and Peter's boys didn't know the muzzle of a gun from the neck of a gin-bottle. So the big man of the gang cocked his piece at Peter, and shouted at him like a high bailiff, “You'd better go back the way you came.” “Not immajetly,” said Peter, and stretched him. Then there was smoke like a smithy on hooping-day, and “To your heels, boys,” shouted Peter. And if the boys couldn't equal Peter with their hands, they could bate him with their toes, and the last they heard of him he was racing behind them with the shots of the blacklegs behind him, and shouting mortal, “Oh, oh! All up! I'm done! Home and tell, boys! Oh, oh.”'” “Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy. When I fall I shall arise. Selah,” said Cæsar. Amid the tumult of moans which followed the reading, Philip, sitting with head on his hand by the ingle, grew hot and cold with the thought that after all there was no actual certainty that Pete was dead. Nobody had seen him die, nobody had buried him; the story of the returned Kaffirs might be a lie to cover their desertion of Pete, their betrayal of him, or their secret league with the thieving Boers. At one awful moment Philip asked himself how he had ever believed the letter. Perhaps he had _wanted_ to believe it. Nancy Joe touched him on the shoulder. “Kate is waiting for a word with you alone, sir,” she said, and Philip crossed the kitchen into the little parlour beyond, chill with china and bowls of sea-eggs and stuffed sea-birds. “He's feeling it bad,” said Nancy. “Never been the same since Pete went to the Cape,” said Cæsar. “I don't know for sure what good lads are going to it for,” moaned Grannie. “And calling it Good Hope of all names! Died of a bullet in his head, too, aw dear, aw dear! Discussion of the brain it's like. And look at them black-heads too, as naked as my hand, I'll go bail. I hate the nasty dirts! Cæsar may talk of one flesh and brethren and all to that, but for my part I'm not used of black brothers, and as for black angels in heaven, it's ridiculous.” “When you're all done talking I'll finish the letter,” said Jonaique. “They can't help it, Mr. Jelly, the women can't help it,” said Cæsar. “'Respected Sir, I must now close, but we are strapping up the chest of the deceased, just as he left it, and sending it to catch the steamer, the _Johannesburg_, leaving Cape Town Wednesday fortnight----'” “Hm! Johannesburg. I'll meet her at the quay--it's my duty to meet her,” said Cæsar. “And I'll board her in the bay,” shouted Black Tom. “Thomas Quilliam,” said Cæsar, “it's borne in on my spirit that the devil of greed is let loose on you.”