"I will try," she answered. "Do you know, Eustace, there is a something about you that seems to put everything right. I am not in the least frightened now." There was a softness in her tone that bordered upon tenderness--a softness that was dangerous indeed to a man in his frame of mind. "Ah! you find that, do you?" he answered, in a strained, harsh, unnatural voice. Then his utterance seemed choked. Their eyes met in the starlight--met in a long, clinging gaze--then their lips. Yet, she belonged to another man, and--a life stood between these two. Thus to that extent Eustace Milne, the cool-headed, the philosophic, had allowed the impulse of his mad passion to overmaster him. But before he could pour forth the unrestrained torrent of words which should part them there and then forever, or bind them more closely for weal or for woe, Eanswyth suddenly wrenched herself from his close embrace. A clatter of rapidly approaching hoofs was borne upon the night. "It's Tom!" she cried, at the same time fervently blessing the friendly darkness which concealed her burning face. "It must be Tom. What can he have been doing with himself all this time?" "Rather! It's Tom, right enough, or what's left of him!" echoed the loud, well-known voice, as the horseman rode up to the _stoep_ and flung himself from the saddle. "What's left of him," he repeated grimly. "Can't you strike a light, Eanswyth, instead of standing there staring at a man as if he had actually been cut into mince-meat by those infernal brutes, instead of having only had a very narrow escape from that same," he added testily, striding past her to enter the house, which up till now had been left in darkness for prudential reasons, lest by rendering it more conspicuous the sight might tempt their savage neighbours, in their present ugly humour, to some deed of violence and outrage. A lamp was quickly lighted, and then a half-shriek escaped Eanswyth. For her husband presented a ghastly spectacle. He was hatless, and his thick brown beard was matted with blood, which had streamed down the side of his face from a wound in his head. One of his hands, too, was covered with blood, and his clothes were hacked and cut in several places. "For Heaven's sake, Eanswyth, don't stand there screeching like an idiotic schoolgirl, but run and get out some grog, for I want an `eye opener' badly, I can tell you," he burst forth with an angry stamp of the foot. "Then get some water and clean rag, and bandage me up a bit-- for besides the crack on the head you see I've got at least half a dozen assegai stabs distributed about my carcase."