much handsome as charming, and to women captivating to a dangerous extent. His dress, too--which consisted of riding-breeches, boots and spurs, a white waistcoat and linen coat, with a very broad soft felt hat looped up at one side, so as to throw the face into alternate light and shadow--helped the general effect considerably. Altogether Ernest was a pretty fellow in those days.
Jeremy was lounging on an easy-chair in the verandah, in company with the boy Roger Alston, and intensely interested in watching a furious battle between two lines of ants, black and red, who had their homes somewhere in the stonework. For a long while the issue of the battle remained doubtful, victory inclining, if anything, to the side of the thin red line, when suddenly, from the entrance to the nest of the black ants, there emerged a battalion of giants--great fellows, at least six times the size of the others--who fell upon the red ants and routed them, taking many prisoners. Then followed the most curious spectacle, namely, the deliberate execution of the captive red ants, by having their heads bitten off by the great black soldiers. Jeremy and Roger knew what was coming very well, for these battles were of frequent occurrence, and the casualties among the red ants simply frightful. On this occasion they determined to save the prisoners, which was effected by dipping a match in some of the nicotine at the bottom of a pipe, and placing it in front of the black giants. The ferocious insects would thereupon abandon their captives, and, rushing at the strange intruder, hang on like bulldogs till the poison did its work, and they dropped off senseless, to recover presently and stagger off home, holding their legs to their antenna and exhibiting every other symptom of a frightful headache.
Jeremy was sitting on a chair, oiling the matches, and Roger, kneeling on the pavement, was employed in beguiling the giants into biting them, when suddenly they heard the sound of galloping horses and the rattle of wheels. The lad, lowering his head still more, looked out towards the market-square through a gap between the willow-stems.
"Hurrah, Mr. Jones," he said, "here comes the mail!"
Next minute, amid loud blasts from the bugle, and enveloped in a cloud of dust, the heavy cart, to the sides and seats of which the begrimed and worn-out passengers were clinging like drowning men to straws, came rattling along as fast as the six greys reserved for the last stage could gallop, and vanished towards the post-office.
"There's the mail, Ernest," hallooed Jeremy; "she will bring the English letters."
Ernest nodded, turned a little pale, and nervously knocked out his pipe. No wonder: that mail-cart carried his destiny, and he knew it. Presently he walked across the square to the post-office. The letters were not sorted, and he was the first person there. Very soon one of his Excellency's staff came riding down to get the Government House bag. It was the same gentleman with whom he had sung "Auld lang syne" so enthusiastically on the day of Jeremy's encounter with the giant, and had afterwards been carted home in the wheelbarrow.
"Hullo, Kershaw, here we are, 'primos inter omnes,' 'primos primi primores,' which is it? Come, Kershaw, you are the last from school--which is it? I don't believe you know--ha! ha! ha! What are you doing down here so soon? Does the 'expectant swain await the postmen's knock?' Why, my dear fellow, you look pale; you must be in love or thirsty. So am I--the latter, not the former. Love, I do abjure thee. 'Quis separabit,' who will have a split? I think that the sun can't be far from the line. Shall we, my dear Kershaw, /shall we/ take an observation? Ha! ha! ha!"
"No, thank you, I never drink anything between meals."
"Ah! my boy, a bad habit; give it up before it is too late. Break it off, my dear Kershaw, and always wet your whistle in the strictest moderation, or you will die young. What says the poet?--
"'He who drinks strong beer, and goes to bed mellow,
Lives as he ought to live, lives as he ought to live,
Lives as he ought to live, and dies a jolly good fellow.'
"Byron, I think, is it not? Ha! ha! ha!"
Just then some others came up, and, somewhat to Ernest's relief, his friend turned the light of his kindly countenance to shine elsewhere, and left him to his thoughts.
At last the little shutter of the post-office was thrown up, and Ernest got his own letters, together with those belonging to Mr. Alston and Jeremy. He turned into the shade of a neighbouring verandah, and rapidly sorted the pile. There was no letter in Eva's handwriting. But there was one in that of her sister Florence. Ernest knew the writing well; there was no mistaking its peculiar upright, powerful-looking characters. This he opened hurriedly. Enclosed in the letter was a note, which was in the writing he had expected to see. He rapidly unfolded it, and as he did so, a flash of fear passed through his brain.
"Why did she write in this way?"
The note could not have been a long one, for in another minute it was lying on the ground, and Ernest, pale-faced and with catching breath, was clinging to the verandah-post with both hands to save himself from falling. In a few seconds he recovered, and, picking up the note, walked quickly across the square towards the house. Half-way across he was overtaken by his friend on the Staff cantering gaily along on a particularly wooden-looking pony, from the sides of which his legs projected widely, and waving in one hand the Colonial Office bag addressed to the administrator of the Government.
"Hallo, my abstemious friend!" he hallooed, as he pulled up the wooden pony with a jerk that sent each of its stiff legs sprawling in a different direction. "Was patience rewarded? Is Chloe over the water kind? If not, take my advice, and don't trouble your head about her. /Quant on n'a pas ce qu'on aime/, the wise man /aimes ce qu'il a/. Kershaw, I have conceived a great affection for you, and I will let you into a secret. Come with me this afternoon, and I will introduce you to two charming specimens of indigenous beauty. Like roses they bloom upon the veld, and waste their sweetness on the desert air. 'Mater pulchra, puella pulcherrima,' as Virgil says. I, as befits my years, will attach myself to the mater, for your sweet youth shall be reserved the puella. Ha! ha! ha!" And he brought the despatch-bag down with a sounding whack between the ears of the wooden pony, with the result that he was nearly sent flying into the sluit, being landed by a sudden plunge well on the animal's crupper.
"Woho, Bucephaluas, woho! or your mealies shall be cut off."
Just then he for the first time caught sight of the face of his companion, who was plodding along in silence by his side.
"Hullo! what's up, Kershaw?" he said, in an altered tone; "you don't look well. Nothing wrong, I hope?"
"Nothing, nothing," answered Ernest quietly; "that is, I have got some bad news, that is all. Nothing to speak of, nothing."
"My dear fellow, I am so sorry, and I have been troubling you with my nonsense. Forgive me. There, you wish to be alone. Good-bye."
A few seconds later Mr. Alston and Jeremy, from their point of vantage on the verandah, saw Ernest coming with swift strides up the garden path. His face was drawn with pain, and there was a fleck of blood upon his lip. He passed them without a word, and, entering the house, slammed the door of his own room. Mr. Alston and Jeremy looked at one another.
"What's up?" said the laconic Jeremy.
Mr. Alston thought a while before he answered, as was his fashion.
"Something gone wrong with 'the ideal,' I should say," he said at length; "that is the way of ideals."
"Shall we go and see?" said Jeremy, uneasily.
"No, give him a minute or two to pull himself together. Lots of time for consultation afterwards."
Meanwhile Ernest, having got into
