civility—”

He stared at her with sullen eyes. “Civility be blowed! And don’t you give me any of your cheek, you young snook, else you’ll find yourself in the wrong box. Clear out now, I’ve had enough of you. You’re welcome to the waggon tent as I never use it,—but don’t you come near me again, except by special invitation.”

This was the unpropitious beginning of Miss Carlton’s new adventure. Often during the next two weeks she wondered whether she would not have been wiser to have stayed in the bush. The man Roper, as she discovered his name to be, was an insufferable brute, and she went in mortal terror of his ever finding out that she was a woman. He ill-treated his boys shamefully, thrashing them on the smallest provocation, and never spoke to Vivienne except in a bullying tone. What nationality he was she could not imagine. From his constant use of such colonialisms as Ach! and Hey! he might have been a South African, but his accent was distinctly English, and he scoffed equally at both British and Boer, and seemed to have the good qualities of neither.

The one thing to be earnestly thankful for was that he had such a dislike to her that she was rarely troubled by his society. He invariably took his mid-day meal alone, the greater part of the day being spent in sleep, for like most transport drivers he never slept during the night treks. The hour of danger for Vivienne was at the night outspan, for it was then that Roper usually sent her a gruff message to join him at the meal that was both supper and breakfast in one—afterwards the whole camp would sink into slumber until nearly mid-day, except Vivienne who invariably utilised this time to wash and tidy herself, though she never went far from the waggon, having a horror of once more losing herself.

Since she must see Roper then, evening was much the best time for the ordeal. Flickering firelight and the beams of a waning moon were less inimical than broad daylight to a rôle that became daily more difficult to play. For Vivienne was beginning to outgrow her disguise! True, few people would have recognised in the dirty, if healthy-looking young man in khaki, the erstwhile lovely débutante of a London Season, and more recently lady-correspondent of the Daily Flag. But life in the open with rest and food, were doing their work upon a healthy physique, and her beauty was rapidly returning. The heavy sunburn wearing off showed the skin beneath clear and tinted; her violet eyes had come out of retreat; her lips no longer cracked were a smooth and healthy red. Her hair, for the most part hidden under a primitive hat of plaited grass made for her by one of the umfans (Young native boys) curled and glistened in the sun as though it were alive. It was with increased anxiety that she looked every day into the tin-backed mirror.

During the long afternoon treks, lying in the waggon tent her usual occupation was the study of a letter she had found inside her blouse with no clear idea of how it came there. She wondered if it were possible that during that extraordinary period of mental aberration she had deliberately opened the letter of another person, but she preferred not to believe this.

At any rate, before she had solved the mystery of its origin she knew the thing off by heart, and now for lack of any better thing to do she daily pondered the matter of de Windt’s farm. And one day the thought flashed into her mind. “If I were to get 500 pounds and buy it instead of letting those two rogues at Onder-Koppies have it!” Instantly she dismissed the question with another—“Is this country utterly demoralising me?”—reminding herself sharply of who she was, and the obligations of her birth and honourable training. But later the thought came again, and with it extenuating arguments. After all, would such an act on her part be any more dishonourable than the one she contemplated—marrying some man for his money? The one was no more than a piece of sharp practice, such as business men did every day of their lives. The other—well at any rate it would be a far pleasanter way to fortune than the other!

Cogitating the matter until it made her head ache, she fell asleep at last. It is wonderful how much sleep can be put in on the veld where the air seems charged with mingled ozone and wine!

At outspan time, which seemed to come earlier than usual, she descended to Roper’s call, and slipped unassumingly into her place. Everything seemed much the same, but the moment she glanced at Roper she knew that something untoward had happened. The look she had so long dreaded was in his eye. He knew.

The discovery nearly suffocated her. She felt her face scorch as if by a swift flame, then all the blood drain from it, and tighten like a band round her heart. Opposite her, dark half-closed eyes full of malice and some other hateful quality passed over her in a gloating enveloping stare. If she had suddenly lost her appetite, so, too, it seemed, had he. It was with his eyes he feasted.

Utterly wretched and terrified, hardly knowing what she said, the girl made some attempt at conversation. He laughed strangely, answering her remark with another.

“The mail-coach passed this afternoon, and I had a few minutes’ talk with the driver. He gave me a bit of news.”

“Oh?” she faltered enquiringly, sick with mingled fear and curiosity. Why, oh why, had not she been awake when that coach passed?

“It appears that a young lady was lost off the coach, week before last—much about the same place as you were—you didn’t happen to meet her I suppose?” he leered at Vivienne with indescribable malice. She made no answer,—only with her hand sheltered her pallid face as best she could from the gleam of the fire.

“They were out looking for her some time—nearly a week—have given it up now, though—but all the coach drivers have orders to keep their eyes open. They wanted to know if I had seen anything of her? But of course I said no.”

Brute! was what her sick heart cried, though her lips made no sound. There was a silence. He leaned on his elbows, smiling his slow evil smile at her, and she sat perfectly still looking through her fingers at the fire and the forms of the two umfans beside it, rolled in their blankets and already sleeping. No use calling to them, she knew, and the other boys were away with the oxen. In any case, all were too much under the dominion of Roper to stand by her. She realised that she was in deadly danger—and alone. For the first time in the last two years of proud and bitter defiance, she felt the need of some stronger spirit than her own, and in her extremity her heart turned to God with a silent cry for help.

“I forgot to tell you,” said Roper softly, “that her name was Carlton, too. Isn’t that a funny thing now!”

“I don’t think so,” she found courage to say, though her eyes were the eyes of a hunted thing.

“No? Now I thought it the funniest thing I ever heard,” said he laughing softly, “and ever since, I have been saying to myself, ‘What a pity it wasn’t the young lady I found!’ It would be so pleasant on an evening like this for instance, to have the society of a nice young lady! So very pleasant,” he repeated, and leaned on the table looking into her eyes with some horrible meaning. “Quite alone on the veld, with no one to know or care what we did—no one to—interfere—all alone with love and the daisies.” With a swift movement he caught hold of the girl’s hand which was lying on the table. But the next instant he had loosed it and was on his feet.

“Who the