“You were meant for a Savonarola or a St. Francis, my bold grenadier,” said Stafford with a friendly nod.

“I was meant for anything that comes my way, and to do everything that was hard enough.”

Stafford waved a hand.  “Isn’t this hard enough—­a handful of guns and fifteen hundred men lost in a day, and nothing done that you can put in an envelope and send ’to the old folks at ‘ome?’”

“Well, that’s all over, Colonel.  Byng has turned the tide by turning the Boer flank.  I’m glad he’s got that much out of his big shindy.  It’ll do him more good than his millions.  He was oozing away like a fat old pine-tree in London town.  He’s got all his balsam in his bones now.  I bet he’ll get more out of this thing than anybody, more that’s worth having.  He doesn’t want honours or promotion; he wants what ’d make his wife sorry to be a widow; and he’s getting it.”

“Let us hope that his wife won’t be put to the test,” responded Stafford evenly.

Barry looked at him a little obliquely.  “She came pretty near it when we took Hetmeyer’s Kopje.”

“Is he all right again?” Stafford asked; then added quickly, “I’ve had so much to do since the Hetmeyer business that I have not seen Byng.”

Barry spoke very carefully and slowly.  “He’s over at Brinkwort’s Farm for a while.  He didn’t want to go to the hospital, and the house at the Farm is good enough for anybody.  Anyhow, you get away from the smell of disinfectants and the business of the hospital.  It’s a snigger little place is Brinkwort’s Farm.  There’s an orchard of peaches and oranges, and there are pomegranate hedges, and plenty of nice flowers in the garden, and a stoep made for candidates for Stellenbosch—­as comfortable as the room of a Rand director.”

“Mrs. Byng is with him?” asked Stafford, his eyes turned towards Brinkwort’s Farm miles away.  He could see the trees, the kameel-thorn, the blue-gums, the orange and peach trees surrounding it, a clump or cloud of green in the veld.

“No, Mrs. Byng’s not with him,” was the reply.

Stafford stirred uneasily, a frown gathered, his eyes took on a look of sombre melancholy.  “Ah,” he said at length, “she has returned to Durban, then?”

“No.  She got a chill the night of the Hetmeyer coup, and she’s in bed at the hospital.”

Stafford controlled himself.  “Is it a bad chill?” he asked heavily.  “Is she dangerously ill?” His voice seemed to thicken.

“She was; but she’s not so bad that a little attention from a friend would make her worse.  She never much liked me; but I went just the same, and took her some veld-roses.”

“You saw her?” Stafford’s voice was very low.

“Yes, for a minute.  She’s as thin as she once wasn’t,” Barry answered, “but twice as beautiful.  Her eyes are as big as stars, and she can smile still, but it’s a new one—­a war-smile, I expect.  Everything gets a turn of its own at the Front.”