spaces with eyes unused to shorter ranges, snuffed again the air that has no equal under God’s skies, and turning to her companion, said:—“What do you think of it?”

“I am afraid I’m rather singular,” he replied. “Most of us hate the Karroo. I used to, but it grows on one somehow. I suppose it’s the lack of fences and roads 32that’s so fascinating. And when one gets back from the railway——”

32

“You’re quite right,” she said, with an emphatic stamp of her foot. “People come to Matjesfontein—ugh!—with their lungs, and they live opposite the railway station and that new hotel, and they think that’s the Karroo. They say there isn’t anything in it. It’s full of life when you really get into it. You see that? I’m so glad. D’you know, you’re the first English officer I’ve heard who has spoken a good word for my country?”

“I’m glad I pleased you,” said the Captain, looking into Sister Margaret’s black-lashed grey eyes under the heavy brown hair shot with grey where it rolled back from the tanned forehead. This kind of nurse was new in his experience. The average Sister did not lightly stride over rolling stones, and—was it possible that her easy pace uphill was beginning to pump him? As she walked, she hummed joyously to herself, a queer catchy tune of one line several times repeated:—

33It ran off with a little trill that sounded like,

33

“Listen!” she said, suddenly. “What was that?”

“It must be a wagon on the road. I heard the whip, I think.”

“Yes, but you didn’t hear the wheels, did you? It’s a little bird that makes just that noise. ‘Whe-ew’!” she duplicated it perfectly. “We call it”—she gave the Dutch name, which did not, of course, abide with the Captain. “We must have given him a scare! You hear him in the early mornings when you are sleeping in the wagons. It’s just like the noise of a whiplash, isn’t it?”

They entered the Major’s tent a little behind the others, who were discussing the scanty news of the Campaign.

“Oh, no,” said Sister Margaret coolly, bending over the spirit-lamp, “the Transvaalers will stay round Kimberley 

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