Eanswyth would often accompany her lover during his rides about the _veldt_ looking after the stock. She would not go with him, however, when he was on sporting intent, she had tried it once or twice, but the bucks had a horrid knack of screaming in the most heart-rending fashion when sadly wounded and not killed outright, and Eustace's assurance that this was due to the influence of fear and not of pain, entirely failed to reconcile her to it. [A fact. The smaller species of antelope here referred to, however badly wounded, will not utter a sound until seized upon by man or dog, when it screams as described. The same holds good of the English hare.] But when on more peaceful errand bent, she was never so happy as when riding with him among the grand and romantic scenery of their mountain home. She was a first-rate horsewoman and equally at home in the saddle when her steed was picking his way along some dizzy mountain path on the side of a grass slope as steep as the roof of a house with a series of perpendicular _krantzes_ below, or when pursuing some stony and rugged bush track where the springy _spekboem_ boughs threatened to sweep her from her seat every few yards. "We are partners now, you know, dearest," she would say gaily, when he would sometimes urge the fatigue and occasionally even the risk of these long and toilsome rides. "While that law business still hangs fire the partnership can't be dissolved, I suppose. Therefore I claim my right to do my share of the work." It was winter now. The clear mountain air was keen and crisp, and although the nights were bitterly cold, the days were lovely. The sky was a deep, cloudless blue, and the sun poured his rays down into the valleys with a clear, genial warmth which just rendered perceptible the bracing exhilaration of the air. Thanks to the predominating _spekboem_ and other evergreen bushes, the winter dress of Nature suffered but little diminution in verdure; and in grand contrast many a stately summit soared proudly aloft, capped with a white powdering of snow. Those were days of elysium indeed, to those two, as they rode abroad among the fairest scenes of wild Nature; or, returning at eve, threaded the grassy bush-paths, while the crimson winged louris flashed from tree to tree, and the francolins and wild guinea-fowl, startled by the horses' hoofs, would scuttle across the path, echoing their grating note of alarm. And then the sun, sinking behind a lofty ridge, would fling his parting rays upon the smooth burnished faces of the great red cliffs until they glowed like molten fire. Yes, those were indeed days to look back upon. CHAPTER THIRTY NINE. FROM THE DEAD! Eustace and the overseer were sitting on the _stoep_ smoking a final pipe together before going to bed. It was getting on for midnight and, save these two, the household had long since retired.