For some while after his departure from Lannercost, their recent guest occupied a very large share in the conversation and thoughts of its inmates. He had been so long with them, had become so much one of themselves in their quiet, rather isolated life, and now his absence had left a very real void. He had written to them with fair frequency, telling of up-country doings--of the growing aggressiveness of the Matabele, and of the contemplated expedition, with the object of bringing Lo Bengula to book, then of the actual formation of such expedition, by that time on the eve of a start, and how he and young West had volunteered upon the Salisbury Column, and were to serve in the scouting section. Then correspondence had ceased. The expedition had set out. It was then that Bayfield found himself importuned to increase the circulation of two or three other newspapers, in addition to those regularly sent him, by one subscriber, in order that no chance might be missed of seeing the very latest concerning the Matabele war, and upon such, Lyn and small Fred would fasten every post day. "I say, Lyn!" cried the latter, disinterring his nose from a newly opened sheet, "but won't Mr Blachland make Lo Bengula scoot, when once he gets at him? Man! but I'd like to be there." "But he and the King are great friends, Fred." "Pooh! How can they be friends if they're at war? _Nouw ja_--but he just will scoot old Lo Ben! I'd like to be there." "I hope they'll take all sorts of proper precautions against surprises," said Lyn seriously, for she was just old enough to remember the shudder of gloom which ran through the whole country when the disastrous news of Isandhlwana had come upon it like a storm-burst fourteen years previously. It had struck vividly upon her childish imagination then and she had not forgotten it. "Surprises! I'd like to see them surprise a commando that Mr Blachland's on," returned Fred, magnificent in his whole-souled contempt that any one could even imagine any such possibility. "And these Matabele chaps ain't a patch on the Zulus. I've heard Mr Blachland say so again and again. _Ja_, he's a fine chap! Won't he make old Lo Ben sit up!"