DULCIE CARLYON.

A new emotion—a hot thirst for blood—was in the heart of Florian now; his whole nature seemed to have undergone a sudden and temporary change; and to those who could have seen him his face would have been found deadly pale, and his dark eyes full of sombre fury.

The longing for retribution and destruction was keen in his mind at that time. Often he reined up the horse he rode to take a steady shot between the animal's quivering ears at one or other of the two desperadoes; but always missed them, and found that time was thus lost and the distance increased.

His present charger was not so steady as the old Cape nag, Tattoo, and Florian's hands, in the intensity of his excitement, trembled too much for his aim to be true; so the fugitives rode on and on, without firing a shot in return, thus showing that their ammunition had been expended, and they had nothing to hope for or trust to but a successful escape.

A cry left Florian's lips as the fugitives disappeared into a donga, and he thought he had lost them; but anon he saw them ascending the opposite slope at a rasping pace.

He could only think of the generous and chivalrous Vivian Hammersley, that good officer and noble Englishman, shot down thus in the pride of his manhood by the felon hand of an assassin, whose bullet was meant for himself—Hammersley, whose form stood with a kind of luminous atmosphere amid the dark surroundings that beset them both since he (Florian) had come as a soldier to Zululand; and then he thought of Dulcie's friend Finella, whom he only knew by name.

Poor girl! the next mail for Britain might bring sorrowful tidings to her, with the very letter his hand had so recently indited, full of hope and expressions of happiness.

Crossing by flying leaps the Umvutshini stream, a tributary of the greater Umvolosi, the pursuers and pursued traversed an undulating tract of country, scaring a great troop of the brindled gnu, which were grazing quietly there; anon a terrified herd of the koodoo—graceful antelopes, with magnificent spiral horns—swept past them, where the karoo shrubs and the silvery hair-grass and wild oats grew; elsewhere their horses' hoofs, as they crushed or bruised the creeping fibrous roots of the Akerrania, shed a fragrance in the air.

The Umvolosi had now to be waded through near a rocky kop which towered on the right hand, and the opposite bank had to be scrambled up at a place where the tree-fern flourished thickly, and drooping date-palms overhung the water.

Next they had to cross a nameless tributary of the Upoko River, and then to skirt the base of the Mabenge Mountains (within two miles of Fort Newdigate), where, in some places, an odour, sickly and awful, loaded the evening air; and by experience they knew it came from the bodies of slain Zulus lying unburied, or covered only by their shields and a few loose stones.

In some places—one particularly—Florian and his companions found their progress almost arrested by spiky plants of giant size—the Doornboom, with its ox-horn-like prickles; for there are thickets of those through which even horses cannot pass—odious and terrible plants which tear the clothes to rags, and pierce the flesh to the bone; but they discovered two breaches through which the fugitives had passed, and, forcing a passage, they rode onward again, and, in the fierce ardour of pursuit, Florian was all unconscious, till afterwards, how he and his horse too were lacerated, scratched, and torn by the sharp spines as he rushed through them at full speed.

One of the fugitives had evidently found a cartridge, in a pocket perhaps, for he fired one shot rearward, in Parthian fashion, but fruitlessly, as it hit no one, and then he rode wildly but steadily on.

Believing that if ever he returned to camp it would only be to find his friend dying or dead, Florian, plunged in grief, maddened by rage and a thirst for dire vengeance, rode furiously yet silently on, closely followed by his four infantry men.

His horse—Hammersley's—was a fine English charger, and soon outstripped those of his comrades, who erelong began to drop rearward one after another, though Tom Tyrrell continued to head the rest; but after a time Florian found himself almost alone; thus it was fortunate for him that those he pursued were without ammunition.

Once or twice he lost sight of them, as dongas or eminences intervened, and then a low cry would escape him; but by the aid of his field-glass he 'spotted' them again, and gored his horse with the spurs anew.

Now broad before them lay the foaming Nondweni River, with the lion-shaped hill of Isandhlwana about seven miles distant, its rocky crest then reddened by the western sun, and Florian knew that now the pursuit had lasted for more than twenty miles from the Euzangonyan Hill.

Here the assassins reined up, and seemed to confer for a moment or two, as if in evident confusion and dismay. To remain was to die, and to attempt to cross the river would end in death by drowning, it was so deep and swift, red and swollen by recent storms of such rain as falls in the tropics only.

Florian dismounted now, dropped a fresh cartridge into the breech-block of the rifle he still carried, and just as he threw the bridle over his arm, Tom Tyrrell came tearing up and also leaped from his saddle, prepared to fire at four hundred yards range.

The two fugitives plunged into the water, where trees, branches, cartloads of enormous leaves and yellow pumpkins were being swept past, and strove to make their horses breast the stream by turning them partly at an angle to the current. More than once the animals snorted with fear, throwing up their heads wildly as their haunches went down under the weight of their riders.

Tyrrell fired and shot one in mid-stream; he threw up his hands in agony or despair, and fell on the mane of his horse, which, with himself, was swept round a rocky angle and disappeared.

The other had gained footing on the opposite bank, but at that moment Florian planted a rifle bullet between his shoulders.

Sharply rang the report of the rifle, and a shriek mingled with the rush of the world of waters as the deserter and assassin fell backward over the crupper of his struggling horse, which gained the land, while his rider sank to rise no more just as the last red rays of the sun died out on the stern hill-tops, and in its rush the river seemed to sweep past with a mightier sound than ever.

Which of the two he had shot in the twilight Florian knew not, nor did he care; suffice it that he and Tom Tyrrell 'had polished them off,' as the latter said, and thereupon proceeded to light his pipe with an air of profound contentment.

Hammersley was avenged, certainly.

Before setting out on his return, Florian paused to draw breath, to wipe the cold perspiration from his forehead, and nerve himself anew for aught that might befall him on his homeward way, for with tropical speed darkness had fallen now, and he was glad when he and Tyrrell overtook the three mounted men, as they had a most lonely district to traverse back to camp, and one in which they were not likely to meet friends; so they now rode somewhat slowly on, breathing and enjoying what some one calls the cool and mysterious wind of night.

Zulus might be about in any number, with rifle, assegai, and knobkerie; but though Florian and his companions rode with arms loaded as a precaution, they scarcely thought of them, and were intent on comparing notes and studying the features of the country as a guide on their lonely way.

At last, with supreme satisfaction, after many detours and mistakes, they saw the red glowworm-like lights of the camp appearing in the streets of tents, and knew thereby that the last bugle had not sounded.

Ere long they heard the challenge of the advanced sentinel of an outlying piquet, and responding thereto, passed within the lines, when Florian went at once to the headquarter tents to report himself to the Adjutant-General, together with the events that had so recently transpired by the Nondweni River.

'You have done precisely what the General commanding would have ordered you to do,' said the Adjutant-General, 'and I am sure he will thank you for punishing the rascals as they deserved. There are too many of "Cardwell's recruits" afloat in Cape Colony!'

'Is Captain Hammersley still alive?'

'Yes—but little more, I fear.'

He repaired straight to the sufferer's tent, but was not permitted by the hospital orderly, acting under the surgeon's strict orders, to see him—or at least to speak with him.

The ball had broken some of the short ribs on the left side, nearly driving them into the lung; thus he was in a dangerous state. Florian peeped into the bell-tent, and, by a dim lantern hung on the pole thereof, could see Hammersley lying on his camp-bed asleep, apparently, and pale as marble; and he thought it a sorrowful sight to see one whose splendid physique seemed of that kind which no abstract pain or trouble could crush—who could ever bear himself like a man—weak now as a little child—levelled by the bullet of a cowardly assassin.

Florian, though worn, weary, and sorely athirst after the skirmish by the Euzangonyan Hill, the subsequent pursuit, and all connected therewith, before betaking him to his tent, paid his next visit to Tattoo, for, after his friend, he loved his horse.

A little way apart from where the store-waggons were parked and the artillery and other horses knee-haltered, Tattoo was lying on a heap of dry brown mealie-stalks in a pool of his own blood, notwithstanding that, awaiting Florian's return and orders, a kindly trooper of the Mounted Infantry had bound an old scarlet tunic about the poor animal's off thigh, where the bullet, meant for his rider, had made a ghastly score-like wound, in one part penetrating at least seven inches deep; and where Tattoo had remained standing for some time in one spot, the blood had dripped into a great dark crimson pool.

'Can nothing be done to stop it?' asked Florian.

'Nothing, sir,' replied a Farrier-Sergeant of the Royal Artillery.

'But the horse will die if this kind of thing goes on.'

The sergeant shrugged his shoulders, saluted, and turned away, while Florian put an arm round the drooping head of the horse caressingly; and, as if sensible of his sympathy, the animal gazed at him with his large, soft brown eyes, that were streaked with blood-shot veins now.

'His vitals is safe, sir, anyhow,' said Tom Tyrrell.

'I can't leave him thus in the cold—for cold it is here, by Jove, at night; bring a blanket from my tent, Tom, and put it over him.'

After belting the blanket about Tattoo, by the light of a stable-lantern, Florian lingered for a time beside the poor nag, who hung his head with unmistakable symptoms of intense pain, while his drooping eyes grew dull and heavy.

Without undressing, Florian threw himself on his humble camp-bed, which consisted of little else than a blanket and ground sheet, but was unable to sleep more than ten minutes or so at a stretch. The fighting, the hot pursuit by hill and stream and karoo—the excitement of every kind, and the whole work he had been doing—had fevered his brain, and ever and anon he started from his pillow as if a snake had been under it; and so passed the few short hours till drum and bugle announced the reveille, and that the day-work of the camp had begun.

To those who saw him, he looked haggard in the cold, grey, early light, as he quitted his camp-bed, unrested and unrefreshed, though mere repose of the body is supposed to be a relief, and, as it was too early to disturb Hammersley, he went straight to visit Tattoo.

He was standing up now among the mealies of his litter, with his head drooping lower and his bright eyes more dim than ever; but they actually seemed to dilate and brighten at the sound of his master's voice. The latter had brought him the half of his ration-biscuit, soaked in water; and Tattoo looked at it with dumb longing, and turned it over in Florian's palm with his hot, soft, velvet nose; but after trying to champ it once or twice he let it fall to the ground. Tattoo was incapable of swallowing now.

There was little time to do much, as the troops were soon to march; but Tom Tyrrell brought some hot water in a bucket, and sluiced the wound with a sponge, and redressed it with such rough bandages as could be procured, and Florian got from Doctor Gallipot some laudanum to mix with the horse's drink to deaden the acuteness of the pain he suffered; but it was all in vain; Tattoo sank grovelling down upon his fore-knees and rolled heavily over on his side, and, as the wound welled forth again, he turned his head and looked at his master, and if ever eyes expressed a sense of gratitude, those of the old troop-horse did so then.

'We march in a very short time, sir,' said the senior officer commanding the Mounted Infantry, as he reined in his charger for a minute en passant; 'and in the cause of humanity, as your horse cannot recover, it had better be put out of pain.'

'Shot?'

'Yes.'

'Poor Tattoo!'

Florian turned away, sick at heart, as he saw a soldier quietly dropping a cartridge into the breech-block of his rifle in obedience to the stern but necessary order, for if left thus, the horse would be devoured while living by the monstrous Kaffir vultures.

With carefully sighted rifle, and distance as carefully judged, Florian had 'potted' many a Zulu at various hundreds of yards, in common with his comrades; he had shot, as he supposed, Josh Jarrett without an atom of compunction; but now, as he hurried away, he put his fingers in his ears to shut out the report of the rifle that announced the death of Tattoo.

As a souvenir of the latter—for Dulcie, perhaps—he desired Tom Tyrrell to cut off one of the hoofs, and Tom polished the hoof and burnished the iron shoe till the latter shone like silver—the hoof that never again would carry Florian across the wild karoo, or to the front in the face of the enemy.

The Second Division now began its march to encamp on the fatal hill of Isandhlwana—that place of ill omen.

Hammersley was conveyed with other wounded in an ambulance waggon, and it was decided that if he recovered sufficiently he should be sent home on sick leave to Britain. Florian occasionally rode by the side of the waggon, the motion of which was anything but easy or pleasant to those who were in pain.

How pale, he thought, Hammersley looked, with his delicate nostrils, clearly cut mouth, and dark moustache; and his mind went from thence to Finella Melfort, the girl he loved, who was so far away, and whom he might not be spared to see again.

'Write gently about all this affair to Miss Carlyon,' said Hammersley feebly. 'But the infernal telegrams will make poor little Finella an fait of my danger before details can reach her.' Then he muttered to himself, 'How truly it has been said that the indifferent are often tied to each other irrevocably, while those who love truly are parted far as east from west.'

'So you have fully avenged me, I hear?' he said, after a pause, while his features were contracted by pain.

'Of that there is no doubt,' replied Florian.

'For that I thank you, old fellow, though I am low enough—in that state, in fact, in which, we are told, we should forgive our enemies, and pray for those who despitefully use us.'

'These two rascals are past being forgiven now. I dare say long ere this their bodies have been swept into the White Umvoloski,' said Florian, who still felt somewhat savage about the whole episode.

'Well, I am going to the rear at last, but I hope we shall meet again. If not,' he added, with a palpable break in his voice, 'my ring—take and keep it in remembrance of me.' And as he spoke Hammersley drew from his finger a magnificent gipsy ring, in which there was a large and valuable opal, and forced it upon the acceptance of Florian.

'The opal is said to be a stone of ill-omen,' said Hammersley with a faint smile, 'but it never brought ill-fortune to me.'

Florian knew nothing of that, and, if he had, would probably not have cared about it, though reared in Devonshire, the land of the pixies and underground dwarfs and fairies.

'The only reason for the stone being thought unlucky,' said Hammersley, smiling, 'is that Mark Antony, Nadir Shah, and Potemkin, wearers of great opals, all came to grief.'

'Going home, I hear, Hammersley,' lisped a smart young aide-de-camp, cantering up to the ambulance waggon. 'Egad, I envy you—you'll see something better than Kaffir damsels there!'

Hammersley, in the midst of his acute pain, somewhat resented the other's jollity, and said:

'The poor Kaffir damsels are content with the handiwork of God, and don't paint their faces red and white, as our English women do in the Row and Regent Street, Villiers.'

'You'll soon be home—there is no such thing as distance now,' rejoined the young staff officer.

'Yes, Villiers, I am sorry to leave you all; but I am going back to England—dear old England—the land of fog, as Voltaire says, with its one sauce and its three hundred and sixty-five religions,' he added, with a feeble smile, thinking he was perhaps rather sharp in his tone to Villiers.

'And you have lost your favourite horse, I hear?' said Hammersley to Florian.

'Yes, poor animal.'

'Then take mine. I need not ask you to be kind to him. Who can say but you may lend him to me one day for a run at Melton again? Now, good-bye, old fellow, God bless you!'

They wrung each other's hands and parted, Florian to ride on to the new camp at the Isandhlwana Hill, prior to the march for Ulundi, and Vivian Hammersley to go with the rest of the wounded and sick to the coast for conveyance to Plymouth.

CHAPTER II.
WHICH TREATS OF LOVE-LETTERS.

The middle of July had come, and matters remained almost unchanged in the family circle at Craigengowan. Lady Fettercairn had not yet carried out her threat of getting rid of Dulcie Carlyon, though a vague sense of dislike of the latter was fast growing in her mind.

Hammersley seemed to be effectually removed from Finella's sphere, though by what means Lady Fettercairn knew not; but still Shafto made no progress with the heiress; thus she feared some secret influence was exerted over him by 'this Miss Carlyon,' and would gladly have had old Mrs. Prim back again.

It was July now, we say; and July in London, though Byron says,

'The English winter ending in July,
To recommence in August,'

to the lady's mind was associated only with dinners, concerts, races, balls, the opera, garden parties, and so forth, all of which she was relinquishing for an apparently hopeless purpose, while she knew that all her fashionable friends would be having strange surmises on the cause of this most unusual rustication, and inquiring of each other, 'What are the Fettercairns about?'

Dulcie was painfully sensible that the lady of the house had become cold, stiff, and most exacting in manner to her, even condescending to sneer at times, with a well-bred tone and bearing that some high-born ladies can assume when they wish to sting dependants or equals alike.

Finella's other grandmother, my Lady Drumshoddy, had ceased to be quite so indignant at her repulsion to Shafto, as she had a nephew—son of a sister—coming home on leave from India; and she thought perhaps the heiress might see her way to present herself and her thousands to young Major Ronald Garallan, of the Bengal Lancers, who had the reputation of being a handsome fellow and a regular 'lady-killer.'

Days and days and long weary weeks passed by—weeks of longing—and no word of hope, of love, or apology came to Finella across the seas from distant Africa, evolved as she hoped by the letter of Dulcie to Florian, and her heart grew sick with hope deferred, while more battles and skirmishes were fought, and she knew not that a vessel with the mail containing that missive which Florian posted at the orderly-room tent had been cast away in the Bight of Benin, and that the bags had been saved with extreme difficulty.

She contemplated Vivian Hammersley facing danger in battle and sickness in camp, marching and toiling in trackless regions, with one belief ever in his angry heart that she had been false to him—she who loved him more truly and passionately every day. So time seemed to pass monotonously on, and her unsatisfied longing to be justified grew almost to fever heat; and death might take him away before he knew of her innocence. She tried to be patient, though writhing under the evil eyes of Shafto, the author of all this mischief.

Could it be that Vivian had been driven away from her for ever? Daily she brooded over the unhappy story of her apparent fault and its bitter punishment, and she would seem to murmur in her heart, 'Come back to me, my darling. Oh, how am I to live on thus without you?'

And amid all this no sense of pride or mortification came to support her.

By the two girls the Cape news was, of course, closely and nervously watched. The tidings of Florian's promotion stirred the hearts of both; but to anyone else in Craigengowan it was, of course, a matter of profound indifference, if remarked at all.

A telegram briefly announced, without details, that Captain Hammersley had been wounded after the skirmish at the Euzangonyan Hill, but nothing more, as the papers were filled by the death of the Prince Imperial; so, in the absence of other information, the heart of Finella was wrung to its core.

At last there came a morning when, in the house postal-bag, among others at breakfast, Shafto drew forth a letter for Dulcie.

'A letter for Miss Carlyon from the Cape,' he exclaimed; 'what a lot of post-marks! Have you a friend there?'

'One,' said Dulcie in a low voice; and, with a sigh of joyous expectation, like a throb in her bosom, she thrust it into her bodice for perusal by-and-by, when no curious or scrutinizing eyes were upon her, after she had duly performed the most important duty of the day, washing and combing Snap, the pug; and the action was seen by Shafto, who smiled one of his ugly smiles.

When, after a time, she was at leisure, Finella drew near her, expectant of some message.

'Come with me, quick,' said Dulcie; 'I have a letter for you!'

'For me?'

'Enclosed in Florian's.'

Quick as their little feet could take them, the girls hurried to a secluded part of the shrubberies, where stood a tree known as Queen Mary's Thorn. Often when visiting her nobles, the latter had been requested to plant a tree, as if emblematical of prosperity, or in order that its owners might tend and preserve it in honour of their illustrious guest.

Such a tree had been planted there by Queen Mary in the days of the old and previous family, when on her way north to Aberdeen in the eventful year 1562, when she rode to Inverness on horseback. Her room is still pointed out in the house of Craigengowan, and tradition yet tells in the Howe of the Mearns that, unlike the beer-drinking Elizabeth (who boxed her courtiers' ears, and would have made Mrs. Grundy grow pale when she swore like a trooper), thanks to her exquisite training at the court of Catharine de Medici, her grace and bearing at table were different from those of her rival, who helped herself from a platter without fork or spoon, and tore the flesh from the roast with her teeth, like a Soudanese of the present day.

But, as Lord Fettercairn was greatly bored by tourists and artists coming in quest of this thorn-tree, under which the girls now seated themselves, and he could not make money out of it, at a shilling a head, like his Grace of Athole for a glimpse of the Falls of Bruar, he frequently threatened (as he cared about as much for Queen Mary as he did for the Queen of Sheba) to have it cut down, and would have done so long since, but for the intervention of old Mr. Kippilaw the nationalist.

The delight of Dulcie on unfolding her epistles was only equalled by the delight and gratitude of Finella on receiving hers.

'Oh Dulcie, Dulcie!' ran the letter of Florian (with the whole of which we do not mean to afflict the reader), 'while here—thousands of miles away from you—how often my heart sickens with hungry longing for a sight of your face—for the sound of your voice, the sound I may never hear again; for in war time we know not what an hour may bring forth, or on each day if we shall see to-morrow. But, for all that, don't be alarmed about me. I have not the smallest intention of departing this life prematurely, if I can help it. I'll turn up again, never fear, darling—assegais, rifles, and so forth, nevertheless. The chances of our lives ever coming together again seemed very small when first we parted, yet somehow, dear Dulcie, I am more hopeful now; and something more may turn up when we least expect it; and we never know what a day may bring forth.'

Florian was far, far away from her, yet the sight of his letter, perhaps the first he had ever written to her, gave the lone Dulcie, for a time, a blissful sense of love and protection she had never felt since that fatal morning when she found her father dead 'in harness'—dead at his desk. Oh, that she could but lay her head on Florian's breast!

And as Finella read and re-read Hammersley's letter a bright, sweet, happy smile curved her lips—the lips that he had kissed in that first time of supreme happiness, that now seemed so long, long ago.

'I have been cruel, hard, suspicious,' wrote Hammersley, 'till that fine young fellow, then a sergeant of ours—the sergeant of my squadron—a lad of birth and breeding evidently, showed me the letter of Miss Carlyon—at least that part of it which referred to us, darling. I did not know till then how bitterly I had been deceived, and how we had both been imposed upon. Pardon me for the cruel note I wrote you, and forgive me. But, Finella, as we have often said before, what view will your people take of us—of me? I am not quite a poor man, though very much so when compared with you. Think if monetary matters were reversed, and you accepted a rich man who asked you to wed him, would not people say it was his money you wanted?'

'Fiddlesticks!' whispered Finella parenthetically; 'what matters it what people say, if we love each other? We marry to please ourselves, Vivian, not them!'

'There are some arts that come by intuition to some people,' continued Hammersley, 'and, by Jove! darling, that of soldiering has come to your friend Miss Carlyon's admirer. His career will be a sure one; not that I believe the marshal's baton is often found in the knapsack of Tommy Atkins. He was an enigma to me; his youth and all that belonged thereto seemed dead and buried—his past a secret, which he cared about revealing to none; but such are the influences of camp life and camaraderie that I drew to him, and now I am as familiar with the name of little Dulcie with the golden hair—golden, is it not?—as yourself; so give her a kiss for me. I owe her much—I owe her the happiness of my life in dispelling the dark cloud that rose between us—in taking the load from my heart that made me blind and desperate, so that it is a marvel that I have not been killed long ago.'

As she read on, to Finella it seemed that it was all a dream that there ever had been any bitterness between them at all; that his fierce, short note, pencilled in haste and delivered by the butler, had ever existed, or that he had left her abruptly and hastily, without a word or a glance of tenderness—not even uttering her name, perhaps, the musical name he was wont to linger over so lovingly; that he had ever gone from her in a natural and pardonable tempest of anger and jealousy.

And now how well and fondly she could recall their first introduction in London, though it seemed so long ago, when their eyes first met with a sudden and subtle understanding, 'and their glances seemed to mingle as two gases meet and take fire,' as a writer says quaintly; and though they had spoken but little then, and well-bred commonplaces only, each had felt that there were looks and tones untranslatable, yet full of sweet and hidden meaning to the sensitive.

For a time, as if loth to go back to the work-a-day world, both girls sat under Queen Mary's Thorn, each with letter in hand, lost in a maze of happy dreams. They could see the shrubberies and the woods about the mansion in all the glory of midsummer, the smooth spaces of emerald greensward, the balustraded terrace with its stately flights of steps, and the pool below it, where the white waterlilies and the white swans floated in sunshine; but all was seen dreamily, and to their ears like drowsy music came the hum of the honey-bee and the twittering and voices of the birds, while a beloved name hovered on the soft lips of each, and seemed to be reproduced in the songs of the linnet and thrush.

'You will write to Captain Hammersley, Finella,' said Dulcie, suddenly breaking the silence; 'write to him and supplement all I have written to Florian. You see he is too good, too brave, not to be completely forgiving.'

'He has nothing to forgive,' said Finella, with just a little soupçon of pride.

'Well, of course not; and his heart has come back to you again, if it ever left you, when he knows that you love him only, and loved him always.'

'He sends you a kiss, Dulcie!' said Finella, pressing her lips to the girl's soft cheek.

'Be brave, Vivian,' urged Finella, when she wrote her letter; 'I mean to be so, so far as I am concerned, and do not be discouraged by any opposition on the part of grandmamma. I am rich enough to please myself. Let us have perfect confidence in each other, and we shall realize our dearest hopes, if God spares you to me. Oh, you dear, old, passionate silly!—to run away in a furious pet, as you did from Craigengowan, without seeking a word of explanation. How much all this has cost me, Heaven alone knows; but it is all over now.'

Her long and loving letter was despatched—posted by her own hand.

'But his wound—his wound—when shall I hear more of that?' was her ever-recurring thought.

Now Shafto had seen the Cape letter ere Dulcie had time to conceal it in her bosom, and watching both girls, he had seen them intent on their missives under the shade of Queen Mary's Thorn. So, knowing that Dulcie's letter could only be from Florian, intent on making mischief, he went to Lady Fettercairn, whom he found in her luxurious boudoir, and asked her if she 'approved of her companion corresponding with private soldiers.'

'Certainly not,' replied the dame sharply; 'was her letter this morning from such?'

'I am certain of it.'

'This is excessively bad form!' she exclaimed, reclining in a blue satin easy-chair, with one slim white hand caressing the smooth, round head of her goggle-eyed pug dog. 'Send her here.'

'So you have a military correspondent, Miss Carlyon, I understand?' said she, when the culprit appeared.

'Yes, my Lady Fettercairn,' replied Dulcie, colouring painfully.

'Is he a relation?'

'No; you saw, and—and were struck with his likeness in my locket,' faltered poor Dulcie.

'Well—I do not approve, while under my roof, of your corresponding with private soldiers, or sergeants, and so forth!'

'But my letter is from an officer of the 24th Regiment,' said Dulcie, with a little pardonable pride.

'So much the worse perhaps—an officer?'

'Lieutenant Florian MacIan.'

'Indeed,' said Lady Fettercairn, languidly fanning herself; 'I remember the name now—he was so called after the girl MacIan,' she added half to herself. 'MacIan! what a name! It is quite a calamity. I do not care to have you corresponding with these people—while here,' she added vaguely.

Dulcie was on the point of reminding her that the unfriended Florian was the cousin-german of Shafto, but disdained to do so when the latter so selfishly forgot that matter herself, and bowing, withdrew in silence—too happy to feel mortified.

When she and Finella went to bed that night, though each knew every word of her letter by heart—they slept with them under their pillows—yea and for many a night—that they might have them at hand to read the first thing in the morning, so simply sentimental had the proud Finella and the fond little Dulcie become!

Dulcie's head was on her pillow, over which her red-golden hair was tossed in glorious confusion; but no eyes saw it, save perhaps those of the man in the moon, the silver light of which shone on the carpeted floor, and then slowly stole upward in a white line upon her white coverleted bed, and ere long its soft and tender radiance fell upon the equally soft and tender face of the young girl, whose heavy dark lashes lay close on her rounded cheeks, and whose rosebud lips were parted and smiling, for she had a happy dream, born of her letter—a dream of Revelstoke and the old days there with Florian, ere grief, sorrow, separation, and the bitter realities of life came upon them.

CHAPTER III.
IN THE HOWE OF THE MEARNS AGAIN.

Dulcie was light of foot, young, bright, and active, yet with all her lightness and activity, times there were now when she failed to fly fast enough for Madame's smelling-bottle, her fan, her Shetland shawl, her footstool, or down-pillow, especially when the latter had her headache, or that migraine which could only be cured in the atmosphere of Belgravia, and made her at times also most irritable with Finella.

Dulcie could play well and sing well too, not being one of those who think that, so long as the music of a song is heard, the words are quite unnecessary; but Lady Fettercairn 'snubbed' her attempts at either, and openly hinted that it was as much out of place for a 'companion,' however highly accomplished or trained, to seat herself at a piano in the drawing-room as to ride about the country lanes with a daughter of the house; but Dulcie, who was neither highly accomplished nor trained, but self-taught merely, so far as her music went, could scarcely believe that Lady Fettercairn meant steadily to mortify and humble her, till one day, when she thought she was alone, and was idling over the keys of the piano, singing softly to herself a verse of a little old song, that was a favourite of Florian's, and seemed applicable to herself:

'I saw her not as others did,
Her spirits free and wild;
I knew her heart was often sad
When carelessly she smiled;

'Although amid a happy throng
Her laugh was often loud;
I knew her heart, her secret soul,
By secret grief was bowed,'—

she stopped suddenly on finding the cold and inquiring blue eyes of Lady Fettercairn focusing her with her eyeglass. Indeed, in a somewhat undignified manner, Madame seemed constantly on the watch for her now, and was always appearing at unexpected times and in unexpected places.

'Please to cease this English ballad, Miss Carlyon; it sounds as if more suited to the atmosphere of the servants' hall than my drawing-room, I think.'

'I thought I was alone,' replied Dulcie, colouring deeply at this sharp and wanton rebuke; and with tremulous hands she softly closed the piano and stole away, with difficulty restraining her tears, and hastened to her first morning work—the washing and combing of Snap, the fat little ill-natured pug, with an apoplectic-like neck, who was furnished with a beautiful collar of silver and blue enamel, and usually took his repose in a mother-of-pearl basket, lined with blue satin, in the boudoir; and Snap had a pedigree longer than that of the Melforts of Fettercairn, and, unlike theirs, was not tarnished by political roguery.

Impulsive Dulcie had, as we have shown, unintentionally wound herself round the heart of the equally impulsive Finella, for she had an honest English truthfulness about her which, united to her naturally happy and loving nature, made her generally irresistible; and now the girls had a powerful secret tie of their own between them, and to Finella Dulcie carried her complaints of her treatment.

'No woman of heart—no lady would be intentionally unkind to you, Dulcie,' urged Finella.

'Not positively so; but she might by a glance or a word remind me of utter dependence for food and clothing in a way that would be felt more keenly than an open insult; and, truth to tell, Lady Fettercairn speaks out plainly now. And then,' added Dulcie with perfect simplicity, 'a governess or companion, if pretty, is so liable to be snubbed.'

But the petty tyranny was continued from time to time.

Dulcie feared the dog Snap, yet, as she had been accustomed to have pets at home in Revelstoke, she succeeded in teaching it a few tricks, and rewarding the educational efforts by biscuits and lumps of sugar. Snap ere long would sit erect on his hind legs with a morsel balanced on the point of his remarkably short black nose; and when she said, 'Ready—present—fire,' and clapped her little hands, he shot it upward and caught it skilfully with a snap in descending.

With girlish glee she was showing this feat to Finella, when Lady Fettercairn appeared and said with a hard, metallic voice:

'Please not to teach my poor dog these vulgar tricks, Miss Carlyon; these words of command—did you learn them from your friend the corporal, or sergeant, or what is he?'

'Grandmamma!' exclaimed Finella, in a voice of astonishment and reproach, while Dulcie's heart swelled and her eyes filled with tears, and as usual she withdrew. 'How can you speak thus to her?' asked Finella.

'I mean what I say,' was the cold response; 'moreover, as you seem in her confidence, perhaps you will be good enough to tell her that if I permit her in the drawing-room, occasionally to make herself useful when a little music or a hand at cards is wanted, she must not wear low bodies or short sleeves on any occasion,' added Lady Fettercairn, who had detected the eyes of more than one male guest wander appreciatively to the beautiful arms of Dulcie, that shone like polished alabaster, especially when contrasted with her black mourning costume.

And when Lady Fettercairn took the trouble to be ill, which was pretty frequently now, as she was worried by being kept away so long from London and London gaieties, for no purpose or end, apparently, so far as Finella and Shafto were concerned, she established a headache as a domestic institution, during the prevalence of which no one was to address her on any subject whatever—more than all, no one was to cross her. But Shafto's extravagance and growing evil habits were becoming a source of perpetual thought to the Craigengowan household now.

If Dulcie had her troubles, so had also Finella, for the family scheme 'anent' Shafto was always cropping up from time to time. Thus, when that young gentleman, who had a very indifferent seat in his saddle, got a terrible 'spill' one day, in leaping a hedge, and was brought home in a very prostrate condition, which his addiction to wine considerably enhanced, the episode gave the cold, selfish, and unpatriotic peer, who had no great love for his newly found heir, some cause for thought and consideration.

Failing heirs male, the Peerage of Fettercairn, being a Scottish one, made before the Union, would go to Finella in the female line (as so many similar peerages do, to the endless confusion of family names and interests), and to the heirs male of her body.

It was a kind of consolation, but a sad one. Whom might she marry? 'That fellow Vincent Hammersley perhaps!'

'Finella,' said Lord Fettercairn, in his hard, dry voice, and with the nearest attempt at a caress that ever escaped him, 'if aught was to happen to Shafto—which God forbid!—you will be the heiress to the title and estates.'

'Oh, don't talk thus, grandpapa!' she exclaimed.

'You care for the old name, child!'

'I do indeed, grandpapa.'

'And would make a sacrifice for it, if necessary?'

'Believe me, I would!'

'To please me?'

'Yes.'

'You are a good girl, Finella. I wish then for you, apart from Shafto, who seems going to the dogs,' he muttered bitterly, 'to marry some worthy and suitable man, such as I shall select for you,' he added sententiously, and thinking, but not speaking, of the home-coming Major Ronald Garallan.

'Indeed, grandpapa, I will do no such thing,' said the wilful little beauty, firing up; 'I would rather select a husband for myself.'

'A day will come, girl,' said he, with an air of undisguised annoyance, 'when you will thank your grandmother and me, when thinking of all this matter, so necessary for consideration, when so much wealth and rank are involved. You are a good and a bright little pet, Finella, and I would not urge these matters on your consideration but for your own good.'

Yet Finella only sighed wearily, and thought of getting away from Craigengowan, and viciously twisted up her laced handkerchief with her nervous little hands.

But if Lord Fettercairn was beginning to be hopeless of the affair of Shafto and Finella, it was not so with the Lady of that Ilk; she was still bent upon her matrimonial plans, and as a part thereof she remonstrated in a somewhat unfeeling way with the innocent and unoffending Dulcie, who became desperate in consequence.

Until now, when she became the object of unworthy suspicions, she had been contentedly enjoying the present, made all the more pleasant to her by the friendship of Finella, not troubling herself too much about the future, nor indeed would the question of that, if it meant ways and means, have been very reassuring to her. She could only indulge in the visions of 'love's young dream,' and no more, as yet.

'Your future is a serious consideration,' said Shafto one day, with reference to the subject, as he was airing his figure, with the aid of a stick, on the terrace.

'What does it matter to you—what do you care about it?' asked Dulcie impatiently.

'A man must always feel interested in the future of a girl he loves, or has loved, even though she has deliberately thrown him over, and flouted him, as you have always done me.'

'I never could nor can I care for you, even as a friend; so simply cease this old annoyance, please,' she said angrily.

'Beware, I say again,' said he, with knitted brows.

'Oh, you have been manly enough to threaten me before, but you are not yet the master of Craigengowan, and may never be.'

This had only reference to his rash course of life, and was but one of several random speeches or shots made by Dulcie, which always terrified and maddened Shafto, who suspected that in some mysterious way she knew more than he was aware of. At these times he could have strangled her, and now he grew pale with momentary rage.

'I will no longer submit to your cruelty and cowardice,' said Dulcie, her blue eyes flashing as she felt desperate.

'What will you do—tell Lady Fettercairn?' he sneered.

'No.'

'What then?'

'That is my business,' replied Dulcie, who, truth to say, was beginning to meditate a flight from Craigengowan—whither, she knew not and cared not.

Shafto was again silent and alarmed. With all his brilliant surroundings, he never knew what a day or night might bring forth.

'After long experience of the world,' says Junius, 'I affirm before God that I never knew a rogue who was not unhappy.'

'We always want what we cannot have, I suppose,' said Dulcie, after a pause. 'You are like the fox and the grapes, Mr. Shafto, in more ways than one; only the fox displayed superior sense by retiring when he found the coveted clusters beyond his reach, in persuading himself that they were sour; hence I would advise you to imitate the proceedings of the fox.'

Shafto turned away and withdrew without a word, as he beheld the almost noiseless approach of Lady Fettercairn from a conservatory door, with her cold, steel-blue eyes, more steely than ever, her light-brown hair, and firm aristocratic lips.

Like most fair women, she looked much younger than her years, and, as we have said in an opening chapter her really fine face was without a line, as she had never had a cross or care in the world, save the alleged mésalliance of Lennard with Flora MacIan, and that, in a general way, was all forgotten now.

As she fixed her gaze on Dulcie, the expression of her face was hostile and lowering.

While feeling certain that something unpleasant was impending, Dulcie tried to greet her with a smile, though 'the faculty of looking pleased when one's heart is sick unto death—of fulfilling with equanimity a hundred petty social exactions, which one's wearied soul loathes—is a talent verging on the border-land of genius.'

'Miss Carlyon,' began Lady Fettercairn, most freezingly, 'to my surprise I overheard you giving some advice in a remarkable and apparently very familiar way to my grandson, Mr. Shafto Melfort?'

The remark was a question; but before Dulcie, in her confusion, could form any reply, Lady Fettercairn spoke again.

'I have remarked, and intensely disapprove of these apparently secret meetings, conferences, or confidences, which you will, between persons in the very different relative positions of my grandson, young Mr. Melfort, and yourself, Miss Carlyon. They are, to say the least of them, very unseemly.'

'Lady Fettercairn!——' began Dulcie, almost passionately, and with crimsoned cheeks. But the dame, full of one idea only, moved her head and resumed again, and pretty pointedly too:

'You are no doubt perfectly aware, as you have resided some months among us, that my grandson is destined for his cousin, Miss Melfort; and if her friend—as you say you are—you are somewhat too much in his society.'

'Can I help it?' said Dulcie, in the dependency of her position compelled to temporize. 'I do not thrust mine on him—quite the reverse, Lady Fettercairn.'

'Finella does not seem to affect her cousin, I regret to say.'

'I think so too.'

'Thus, if she has mortified him, his heart may be easily caught on the rebound.'

'By me?' asked Dulcie, in a straight-forward manner.

'Yes,' replied Lady Fettercairn, sharply and icily.

'My position in your house will never permit me to dishonour myself.'

'Hoity-toity—dishonour!'

'A girl who would seek to ensnare a man—as you hint—for wealth or position, certainly does dishonour herself. Death were better than such a life as this!' murmured Dulcie wearily.

'What do you mean by death, Miss Carlyon? I overheard your remark; it is not fashionable or good form to talk of such unpleasant things, so please don't do it in future. Besides, at twenty, no one dies of grief or of mock-sentiment, believe me. A little time will show me whether you are or are not the real friend of Miss Melfort, and whether you have not been, perhaps, too long here.'

'Too long, indeed, for my own peace,' said Dulcie, in a broken voice.

'I am responsible for the consequences, if he chooses to make a fool of himself with you,' said Lady Fettercairn, mistaking the meaning of Dulcie's speech.

'What do you mean, madam?' asked the latter, as a desperate and hunted feeling came over her.

'I am scarcely bound to explain myself, but might act,' replied Lady Fettercairn, astonished and almost discomfited by this audacity on the part of a dependant, 'especially so far as you are concerned. If I mistake not, I employed you, Miss Carlyon, to be my useful companion, and not to act as a monitress to my grandson, and to turn your gifts of beauty or accomplishments to the use you are doing.'

'Oh, this is indeed torture!' exclaimed Dulcie, as hot tears rushed to her eyes; and as she thought of what her real relations were with Shafto, and how she loathed him, she exclaimed with genuine agony, 'how can you—how dare you be so cruel?'

'Miss Carlyon, this tone to me? You forget yourself.'

'No, Lady Fettercairn,' retorted Dulcie, with kindling cheeks and blue eyes sparkling through their tears; 'too well do I know, and have been made to feel, that I am a dependant in Craigengowan; but I brought into it a spirit as honest and independent as if our places had been reversed—I the rich lady and you my poor dependant.'

'If I wrong you I regret it,' said Lady Fettercairn; 'so here, for a time, let this unpleasant matter end.'

And, with a slight bow, she sailed away into the conservatory.

But Dulcie felt that there the matter could not and should not end, and she began to think seriously of flying from Craigengowan.

With a little stifled cry that broke from her quivering lips, Dulcie rushed down the steps of the terrace and fled through the shrubberies like a hunted animal, looking neither to the right nor left, till she reached the sequestered spot where stood Queen Mary's Thorn, and, flinging herself face downwards in the grass, she uttered again and again her father's name, as if she would summon him to her protection and aid, amid a flood of passionate tears—tears from the depths of her despair and intense humiliation.

Unmindful of the flight of time, or whether she was wanted for attendance on Lady Fettercairn or Snap, she lay there a whole hour, while the shadows of tree and shrub were lengthening round her. She thought her heart was breaking, so keen was her sense of the affronts to which she had been subjected; for, with all her sweet humility, Dulcie was not without innate dignity and pride; and in this mournful condition she was found by Finella, who, suspecting from her grandmother's bearing and aspect that something was wrong, had kindly gone in search of her.

She raised her up, caressed and kissed her, and then heard her story with no small indignation, though she knew not what to do in the situation.

'I shall never, never forget you, Finella,' sobbed Dulcie; 'but when I leave this I know not what will become of me.'

'Leave this—why?'

'Would you have me stay after what I have told you, and to be treated as I am by Lady Fettercairn? But now, to me, it seems that the future of my life will be gloomy, indeed, and full of torture and sorrow.'

'Don't talk thus, Dulcie; if ever a girl was made for happiness and to give it to others it is you, my plump little English pet!' said Finella, taking Dulcie's tear-stained face between her pretty hands, and kissing it on both cheeks.

But Dulcie was determined to leave Craigengowan—to go that same night, indeed.

'For where?' asked Finella.

'Anywhere—anywhere!'

'Impossible!'

And Finella, by gentleness and kindness, soothed her over for a time, but a time only, and during that period she was relieved of the obnoxious presence of Shafto.

That personage found Craigengowan, when there were no guests thereat, especially such as he could lure into a game of écarté, or pool and pyramid, 'deuced slow,' so he took his departure for Edinburgh, where, as when in London, he often assumed the uncommon name of 'Smith' when involved, as he not unfrequently was, in rows and scrapes which he wished kept from the knowledge of Lord Fettercairn, and which sometimes led to his figuring before a presiding Bailie through the medium of the night-police.

CHAPTER IV.
EN ROUTE TO ULUNDI.

On the 19th of June the Second Division, the operations of which were now combined with those of Sir Evelyn Wood's Flying Column, resumed its march to the front after the failure of certain nude ambassadors from Cetewayo to arrange with Lord Chelmsford, who, on the 16th—three days before his march began—had received the most mortifying intelligence that he was to be superseded in command of the South African Field Force by 'the coming man,' Lieutenant-General Sir Garnet Wolseley, ere whose arrival took place, he hoped to end the war by one vigorous blow delivered at Ulundi.

The troops were all in the highest spirits—full of fine ardour, and longing to wipe out the stain cast upon them by the miserable fate of the Prince Imperial.

The first movement of the division was the ascent of the great and steep Ibabanango Mountain, and when that was accomplished, Sir Evelyn encamped on the left bank of the River Vemhlatuz, where open country stretched on the left flank towards where Fort Marshall was built, while the division encamped in his rear on ground where dwarf acacias grew, with tangled creepers, wild vines, and cane-like plants.

Service and exposure had now made deep the bronze of Florian's face and hands; but the former had matured its expression, and the fine manliness of it; a careless, not precisely a rackety life—but a camp life, with perils faced in the field—had made his features and bearing less boyish than they were when Dulcie bade him farewell at Revelstoke.

'A generous friendship no cold medium knows,' says Pope; thus, when active operations were resumed, Florian became painfully conscious how much he missed Hammersley at the head of the squadron, a charge that had now devolved upon himself; for Vivian's spirit of camaraderie and bonhomie, his manly, gentlemanly, and soldierly bearing in every way, with the little secret they had to share between them, even as with Dulcie and Finella at Craigengowan, formed an additional link.

When would they meet again? When would they greet each other, if ever, more? And while surmising thus he viewed with genuine regard the valuable ring bestowed on him by Hammersley, and patted with affection the fine charger with which he had also gifted him; but many more in the ranks of the old 24th missed Hammersley as well as Florian.

On the 20th occurred one of those skirmishes with the Zulus which were of daily occurrence.

Villiers, the young aide-de-camp, came with orders for the Irregulars, Buller's Horse, and Florian's little squadron of Mounted Infantry to reconnoitre the ground between two branches of the Umhlatoosi River, and for this purpose they quitted the camp as usual before dawn.

As they rode on in silence Florian's mind—for he was apt to get lost in thought—was dwelling on a legend he had heard, that the Zulu people were the descendants of certain shipwrecked seamen of a fleet which Pharaoh, King of Egypt, had sent to the Southern Sea, and that Zululand, some say Sofala, was the ancient Ophir, where forests of cedar and ebony grew, and gold, diamonds, and all manner of precious stones existed in certain geological strata.

As the Mounted Infantry rode on over ground where troops had never ridden before, herds of spiral-horned koodoos, of eland, of hartebeest and the striped zebra went scampering before them.

'What sport we might have here had we not other work in hand!' exclaimed an officer regretfully.

In two detachments they examined the hills on the flanks of the way which was to be the route of the division. Buller's Horse took those on the right; Florian's Infantry those on the left. The former soon unearthed some Zulus, who fired a ragged volley and then vanished over a steep crest, where it was impossible to pursue them.

Skirmishes of this kind went on almost hourly till the 26th, when Florian became involved in what seemed a fatal catastrophe. It had now become evident to the Zulus that these continued advances of the Second Division menaced the great Royal Kraal of Ulundi. Thus more and more of them were visible daily. Their opposition was growing, and they made resolute attempts to burn up all the tall feathery grass along the route; and being dry as hay, it readily caught fire, to the peril of ammunition in the pouches, boxes in the gun-limbers and store-waggons.

On the 24th Sir Evelyn Wood's column had reached a place called the Jackal Ridge, and encamped on its summit, while the tents of the division were pitched at its base in a district where the valleys were full of beautiful green bushes, where cotton trees and castor-oil plants grew in the wildest luxuriance, and the tall scarlet spikes and spear-like leaves were varied by the green of the spekboom and the melkbosh or spurge plants of various kinds.

From the camp of the Flying Column on the summit of the ridge a great kraal, supposed to be Ulundi, was seen in the distance, the kraal of which traders and native scouts had circulated the most fabulous descriptions.

'Vague stories of the wealth of the king went about,' says Captain Thomasson, adjutant of Buller's Irregular Cavalry. 'Splendid visions of loot in the shape of ivory, ostrich feathers, and diamonds filled the soldiers' eyes. Incredible stories of the amount of treasure taken at Isandhlwana were circulated. It is needless to say these golden visions were broken, not a man of the regulars being a sovereign the better for any loot taken. Some of the irregulars got small sums from deserted kraals. The amount taken altogether was small.... From here a good view of Ulundi can be seen—the sight we have waited six long months for. The delight one felt must have been similar to that which animated the ten thousand at the first sight of the sea. One was almost tempted to shout Ulundi! Ulundi! as they did Thalassa! Thalassa! From the same height we could see the sea in the far distance.'

Prior to attacking some kraals that were in front, on the 25th Sir Evelyn Wood's column pushed forward again, and crossed a stream by laying across it mattings of grass—a process that occupied fully seven hours—after which the Second Division followed.

Early on the morning of the 26th, the day we have referred to, Lord Chelmsford personally paraded a force to attack the enemy.

It consisted of two squadrons of the 17th Lancers, looking gay in their smart blue tunics, faced and broadly lapelled with white, their swallow-tailed banneroles fluttering out upon the wind; Buller's picturesque-looking Irregular Horse, Florian's Mounted Infantry, Major Bengough's wild-looking natives, with rifle, shield, and assegai, and two pieces of cannon.

The kraals to be attacked stood in a spacious valley, five miles distant from the camp, and a stern resistance was expected.

At a canter the horse and artillery took a circuitous route, and gained an eminence overlooking the kraals, which were speedily set on fire by shells, and, being of dry and inflammable material, were at once sheeted with red flame.

In each of these military kraals were two thousand five hundred huts, and the dark smoke from them ascended in separate columns of stupendous height into the clear and ambient African sky, and to avenge their destruction a great column of some thousands of Zulus, like a sombre, moving sea, studded with grey and glittering objects—bull-hide shields and assegai-blades—were seen advancing swiftly along the green and verdant valley.

'This will be no crutch-and-toothpick business!' exclaimed Villiers, the joyous young aide-de-camp, laughingly; 'here they come,' he added, looking through his field-glasses, 'led by a tearing swell, with cranes' pinions on his head, and no end of cows' tails at his waist, and a shield like a door, by Jove!'

The words had scarcely escaped him when his horse was shot under him, and he 'came a cropper,' as he phrased it, in doing so nearly swallowing his cigar.

But the Royal Artillery 9-pounders opened on them, plumping shell after shell into their dense dark masses, so they paused, wavered, faced about, and fled with the wildest precipitation, pursued by the fiery and active Redvers Buller, of the 60th Rifles (who had served in the China campaign of 1860, and with the Red River expedition under Sir Garnet Wolseley), at the head of his Irregular Horse, the Mounted Basutos, and Florian's Mounted Infantry.

On they went, over the maimed and torn, the dead and the dying, naked and bleeding. Many were shot and cut down on every side, and the casualties would have been more terrible but for the awful state of the atmosphere, which was steamy, hot, and laden with the overpowering fragrance of sheets of tropical flowers and plants that clothed the two faces of the valley.

In the hot pursuit, as Florian was taking his horse over a watercourse by a flying leap, there occurred to him one of those mishaps which, from one circumstance or another, few horsemen have not experienced. In mid-leap, the fiery animal was suddenly scared by a huge black aasvogel (a kind of vulture), that flew upward from among the dwarf bushes with a vicious croak, and caused it to swerve under him in the saddle, giving his whole frame a painful wrench that, without a wound or bruise, rendered him for the time incapable of riding a yard further, and with difficulty he dismounted.

What was to be done? Advance with the mounted men under Buller he could not, neither could he return rearward to the camp, now some eight miles distant, alone!

In a solitary hut of the nearest kraal—a hut that had escaped the conflagration of the rest—he was placed till the force could pick him up on its return. There Tom Tyrrell placed a cloak over him, loaded his revolver, and left him to continue the pursuit; while his charger—the gift of Hammersley—was meantime appropriated by Villiers, the staff officer.

Perfect rest made the acute pain he was enduring subside; but he still felt weak and worn, and there he lay alone, amid utter silence now, 'building castles in the air, with conversations in the clouds'—conversations with Dulcie, and castles for her to inhabit.

In the almost darkened hut, dome-shaped, and roofed with thatch and enormous leaves, and into which light came by the narrow wattle-framed door alone, he lay thinking of her, and the unpleasantness of her life at Craigengowan, and marvelled much what manner of place it was; for, till her letter came, he had scarcely heard of it before, he felt assured. He thought, too, of the chances—the problem of their meeting again—and that problem stared him in the face in the light like an unsolved question, or the game that one goes to bed leaving unfinished; but with him and with her it would be the most important move in the game of their young and at present, divided lives—the lives and loves of two who were bound up in each other, all the more that they had no one to care for in this world save each other.

Meanwhile one anxious hour followed another, and there came no sound of troops on the sward—no clatter of accoutrements to announce that the pursuing Horse were returning his way.

DULCIE CARLYON.

CHAPTER I.THE PURSUIT.

CHAPTER II.WHICH TREATS OF LOVE-LETTERS.

CHAPTER III.IN THE HOWE OF THE MEARNS AGAIN.

CHAPTER IV.EN ROUTE TO ULUNDI.

CHAPTER I.
THE PURSUIT.

CHAPTER II.
WHICH TREATS OF LOVE-LETTERS.

CHAPTER III.
IN THE HOWE OF THE MEARNS AGAIN.

CHAPTER IV.
EN ROUTE TO ULUNDI.