Three Police troopers rode quickly by, heading for the quarters of their commanding officer. They had evidently ridden express direct from the Transkei, and had not spared their horses either, for both the latter and themselves looked jaded and travel-worn, besides being splashed from head to foot with mud. The evening passed pleasantly enough. Eustace declined his friend's invitation to accompany him again into the village to try and learn some more news. After that night Eanswyth and he would be parted--for how long, Heaven only knew. But in that rather crowded circle there was no such thing as even a minute's _tete-a-tete_, and this he well knew. The conversation was all general, still he could delight his eyes with the mere sight of her--could let his ears revel in the music of her voice. Yet was there a something underlying the tone, the glance, of one or both of them, which conveyed a more than ordinary meaning? For, that night, long after the bugle calls from the Police camps and the carolling of jolly souls wending somewhat unsteadily homeward from the convivial bar, had sunk into silence, Mrs Hoste made unto her lord and master a strange remark. "What a pity Eanswyth didn't marry her husband's cousin instead of her husband." "Great Scott! What the very deuce do you mean?" "Well, I mean it is a pity. Look how well they seem to suit each other. Look at them here to-day. Anyone, any stranger coming in hap-hazard, would at once have jumped to the conclusion that they belonged to each other. And it's a pity they don't. Tom Carhayes isn't at all the man for that dear Eanswyth. I should be uncommonly sorry to be his wife myself, I know that much." "I daresay you would. But Providence has been much kinder to you in that line than you deserve. But oh, good Heavens, Ada, do be mighty careful what you say. If you had propounded that idea of yours to anyone else, for instance, there's no knowing what amount of mischief it might open up." "So? All right. There's no fear of my being such a fool. If you've preached enough--have you? Well, go to sleep." CHAPTER FIFTEEN. "BUT I AM THY LOVE." Three days later Carhayes arrived. He was in high spirits. The remainder of his stock was under way, and, in charge of Eustace, was trekking steadily down to his other farm in the Colony, which was sufficiently remote from the seat of hostilities to ensure its safety. He had ridden with them a day and a half to help start the _trek_, and had then returned with all haste to enrol himself in the Kaffrarian Rangers--a mounted corps, raised among the stock-farmers of the district, of whom it consisted almost entirely. "Wish I was you, Tom," Hoste had said ruefully. "Wouldn't I just like to be going bang off to the front to have a slap at old Kreli instead of humbugging around here looking after stock. This _laager_ business is all fustian. I believe the things would be just as safe on the farm."