are competent engineers. After The crew rose at him and gave three cheers. Later that afternoon, as the Orinoco pounded along at a strictly processional pace through the ruffling watersthe glass was falling and a breeze getting up-DeputyQuartermaster Lionel Hinchcliffe Welford-Welford Allerton, late scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, sometime Assistant Deck-Hand in the mercantile marine, descried from his post on the bridge a small moving object upon the starboard bow. It was the Orinoco's whaleboat, which was proceeding under two lugsails on a course parallel with the steamer's. Allerton, who, in the excitement of salving the Orinoco, had almost forgotten the existence of the gang of buccaneers who had scuttled her, excitedly rang the telegraph bell and summoned the rest of the ship's company to his side. The emotions, however, aroused in the Orinoco by the sight of the whale-boat were mild in comparison with those excited in the undutiful whaleboat by the spectacle of her resuscitated parent. Mr Angus, on beholding the steamer, kept discreetly silent. He had given himself away by seeing things which were not there once or twice in his life before. But Captain Kingdom turned a delicate apple-green. "Look there!" he gasped, pointing. "Yon bit cloud, ye mean?" said the cautious Angus. 'No, no man, the Orinoco!" cried the frantic skipper. "Oh-the shup! Aye, aye!' replied Mr Angus, pleased than otherwise. "There's a crew on board her," continued Kingdom shakily. "And she's got steam on her, too!" rather men on deck." He raised his binoculars again. "Yes, there they are. Well, whoever they are and whatever the game is, we must get on board again and do the job properly this time. Hallo, one of them "Aye," said Mr Angus. "I doot somebody will have closed yon sea-cock again." "Who can it be?" demanded the captain feverishly. "Surely we left no one on board. I told Dingle to take that fellow Marrable in his boat.” "Perhaps," suggested Mr Angus, "yin of the other boats cam' back." Kingdom pointed impatiently to two small specks upon the horizon. "They're there," he said. Maybe some liner has come across her and left a bit crew on board her," continued the fertile Mr Angus. "If so, we'd have seen the liner," replied Kingdom irritably. He took up his binoculars and began to scrutinise the Orinoco, which had altered her course a few points in their direction. Mr Angus had a fresh inspiration. "Did ye mind tae wauken Walsh?" he whispered. "If not, ye ken he might weel The captain lowered glasses, and nodded. "He might be one," he agreed; "but there are four his .. Here is running below! he is again!. He's carrying something-flags, I reckon. They're going to signal us." He was right. Up to the topmost summit of the Orinoco's grimy foremast travelled a signal—a banner with a strange device indeed, but conveying a perfectly intelligible message for all that. It consisted of the nether or unmentionable portion of a ragged suit of orange and red striped pyjamas. Having reached its destination, it inflated itself in the freshening breeze, and streamed out, defiant and derisive, in the rays of the setting sun; flinging to the fermenting couple in the whale-boat the simple but comprehensive intimation "Sold!" Then, with one single joyous toot from her siren, the Orinoco altered her course a couple of points and wallowed off in a north-easterly direction, leaving the crew of the whaleboat to listen in admiring silence to a sulphurous antistrophe in two dialects proceeding from the stern-sheets. (To be continued.) VOL. CLXXXVI.-NO. MCXXV. F A CORNET joined the Lancers one day. In those times of national emergency young gentlemen who had enjoyed no previous military training obtained commissions and proceeded to the seat of war. They came to their regiments ignorant of the very rudiments of soldiership, and it is no disparagement of the cornet to say that he could not have saluted correctly with his sword had a king's ransom depended upon his emerging from the ordeal unscathed. Whether he was really respectable or not remained to be seen; but that he could not possibly be so respectable as he looked was obvious to his brother officers the moment that he appeared before them. Cast in one of nature's generous moulds, he was just the man to fill a surplice to admiration and to overflowing. He displayed at the outset that diffident and bashful manner which hides so frequently a heart of gold. Circumstances over which he could claim no control represented him as one clean-shaven. His exquisitely modulated voice was of that sympathetic timbre which seldom fails to banish insomnia even from the hardest pew. Therefore he was called the Curate, and outside of his own squadron few in the Column ever heard what was his real name. · Cape Colony, and under conditions calculated to damp any undue exuberance of spirits to which enrolment in a distinguished regiment might otherwise have made him prone. The Squadron-Leader from the outset kept him in a state of vassalage. The complement of officers in the squadron happened to be unusually high, and the junior second lieutenant therefore found himself supernumerary in a sense. Only in a sense be it noted, for he was never supernumerary on any occasion when some particularly unpleasant duty had to be performed,-on the contrary, when a case of this kind presented itself the Curate invariably turned out to be the only officer available to cope with it. He found himself, metaphorically speaking, a hewer of wood and drawer of water, and to be, as it were, without the pale. This lasted for some weeks; but after a time he was enabled to manifest a certain aptitude for replenishing the officers' mess from local sources, and his Commanding Officer, who was ever quick to detect the specialist within his flook, thereupon began to employ him largely on confidential commissariat work. Accompanied by two orderlies he was made free to roam at large, so as to gather in luxuries from farms that lay The Curate's career as а subaltern of horse opened in along the road to furnish the table of his brother officers. The Squadron-Leader adopted an attitude towards him in this connection which was evidently modelled on that of the Congo official intrusted with administering the rubber industry. Bread and eggs and vegetables had to be produced -and woe betide the Curate on the day when he came back empty-handed! No questions were asked nor were expostulations listened to, and the efficacy of this method of training the young officer was ere long demonstrated by its results. For by dint of earnest application and continued practice the Curate became a past-master in the art of foraging. He learnt how to appraise by instinct the prospects of a homestead from afar, and his tact in cajoling the suspicious and unfriendly local vrouw became a theme of eulogistic comment in the Column. It is true that in the execution of his office he sometimes came into collision with the Signalling-Officer, who managed the headquarters mess; but it is only fair to that illustrious member of the Column staff to place it on record that, after he had in virtue of his higher rank secured all that he wanted at a farm, he never grudged to his harassed junior anything that might happen to be left. Still the Curate gained in confidence from day to day. He had actually contrived to forestall his rival from the headquarters mess on one or two occasions, and had even been rewarded with some words of grudging commendation from the Squadron-Leader, when he met with a reverse of fortune which shattered his nerve for the time being, and which robbed him of most of the assurance that he was 80 rapidly acquiring. The Intelligence - Merchant had told him of a prosperous landowner who dwelt beyond a neck some distance off, and had further engaged himself not to let the Signalling-Officer know. Flushed with hope, therefore, and attended by his satellites, the Curate rode off towards the mountain gap which led into this promised land. Nor did he see aught to cause him disappointment when he topped the rise and the country beyond unrolled itself before his gaze. For he at once descried a substantial homestead embosomed amidst luxuriant trees, and his trained intelligence assured him that the goal he aimed for promised more than well. While patches of growing corn stamped the lord of the manor as a man of progress, myriads of sheep at large upon the hill-sides afforded evidence that he was furthermore a man of wealth, enclosures stretched away across the flats on one side to serve as domain for solitary ostriches, and around the whole there hung an unmistakable atmosphere of peace and plenty. Therefore in keen anticipation of a productive foray the Curate cantered forward gaily to the outskirts of the cultivated lands; then he drew rein and proceeded onwards at a more deliberate pace. Luscious greenery was soothing to the eye after the everlasting duns and purples of these sun-dried wilds. An avenue led through herbage blotched with brilliant flowers in the direction of the house. A neat plantation afforded welcome shade to the hot and dusty travellers, nor were there wanting in the surroundings of this outpost of civilisation in the rugged hills, indications that suggested the touch of some cultured woman's hand. The farm itself turned out to be one of those one-storeyed, buff-washed structures, furnished with an elevated stoep beneath a beetling brow of thatch, such as are typical of the architecture favoured by the Dutchman in South Africa. Stables and sheds adjoined, and buildings of mud and and corrugated iron lay farther on for the dependants. But it was not details such as these that gripped the attention of the Curate suddenly suddenly and brought him to Я startled halt. For on the stoep, erect and fearless, there stood dainty, fair-haired daughter of the Karoo, of some seventeen summers, and the chivalrous Lancer's pulse beat hard and fast in anticipation of the coming interview. Framed in the rough timberwork which upheld the roof and standing out in bold relief against the sombre shadows thrown within the stoep, she made a very charming picture. The bloom of youth and health was on her cheek. The morning sun was toying with her tawny tresses as they rippled in the gentle breeze. Brocades and cloth of gold do not always become proud dames who grace the courts of kings, as her simple light-grey frock became this winsome girl. Nor did she show signs of any emotion other than a mild curiosity as the martial cavalcade drew nigh to her with its stalwart leader riding, as was right and fitting, a full horse's length in front. The Curate pulled himself together. He was aware that damsels of Dutch extraction from up-country undergo in their teens a finishing process in the select seminaries of the Paarl or Swellendam. His instinct told him that he had before him one of these, and that in the absence of a ceremonious introduction it behoved him to observe all due formalities. He assumed therefore that pose of rigid discomfort which the beau sabreur adopts when the occasion demands of him to try to look his best. He dropped his heels and turned his toes inwards till he felt a twinge of cramp. He endeavoured to draw his stomach and the small of his back in, at one and the same time a feat which no man ever has accomplished yet. With a graceful motion of the hand and head, at once knightly, courteous, and deferential, he applied the proper aids to urge his steed towards the lassie looking down upon him from the stoep. Finally, |