"Hello," he said, "I'm caught. It's a woman's hand. I wonder how she
knew I was here."

Mentally Stafford shrugged his shoulders as he said to himself: "If
Jasmine wanted to know where he was, she'd find out. I wonder--I
wonder."

He watched Byng, over whose face passed a pleased smile.

"Why," Byng said, almost eagerly, "it's from Miss Grenfel--wants me to
go and tell her about Jameson and the Raid."

He paused for an instant, and his face clouded again. "The first thing
I must do is to send cables to Johannesburg. Perhaps there are some
waiting for me at my rooms. I'll go and see. I don't know why I didn't
get news sooner. I generally get word before the Government. There's
something wrong somewhere. Somebody has had me."

"If I were you I'd go to our friend first. When I'm told to go at
once, I go. She wouldn't like cablegrams and other things coming
between you and her command--even when Dr. Jim's riding out of
Matabeleland on the Rand for to free the slaves."

Stafford's words were playful, but there was, almost unknown to
himself, a strange little note of discontent and irony behind.

Byng laughed. "But I'll be able to tell her more, perhaps, if I go to
my rooms first."