On arriving at King Williamstown, Ronald Mervyn was greatly disappointed to find that the Armstrongs had gone on to Grahamstown. He found a letter awaiting him from Mr. Armstrong, saying that he was very sorry to leave without another opportunity of thanking him for the immense services he had rendered him, "but," he said, "my daughter, now that it is all over, is terribly shaken by all she has gone through, and I think it necessary to get her to a place a little further removed from all this trouble. I shall probably leave for England before long. I hope to see you before we go, but, if not, I will write to you, giving you our address in England, and we shall both be very glad to see you if you return, as I hope you will, and that before long. We shall never forget how much we owe you."
"Perhaps it is better so," Ronald said, as he finished the letter. "It would only have made it harder for me if I had seen her again. For if there is one thing more certain than another, it is that I can never ask any woman to be my wife."
The Cape Town Rifles were before long joined by two troops from Cape Town and Elizabeth Town, and were continually employed in escorting convoys and carrying despatches. A batch of twenty recruits also came up to fill the vacancies that had already been made by the war, and to bring the troops engaged up to their full force. One of the four men who joined Captain Twentyman's troop gave a slight start of surprise as his eyes fell upon Ronald Mervyn. He looked at him several times, and a slight smile stole across his face.
"Who is that corporal?" he asked one of the troopers.
"Corporal Blunt," the man said; "and a fine fellow he is, too. He led a small detachment of our men splendidly in an affair down by the Kabousie River. Why do you ask? Have you ever seen him before?"
"No," the man said, carelessly; "but he reminded me of some one I knew at home."
"He is a first-rate soldier," the man said, "and I expect he will get the first vacancy among the sergeants. We all think he has been an officer, though he never talks about it. He's the best-tempered fellow possible, but you can never get him to talk about the past. However, that makes no difference to us."
"Not a bit," the recruit agreed. "I dare say he isn't the only one with a queer history in the regiment."
"I didn't say he had a queer history," the man replied, angrily. "He is as good a comrade, and as good a fellow as one wants to meet; there's not a man in the troop grudges his being pushed on."
"I meant no offence," the recruit said. "The man he reminded me of had a queer history, and I suppose that is what put it into my head."