As we passed over the edge of the slope in the gathering gloom, Heda cried-- "Look!" and pointed in the direction whence we came.

Far away a sheet of flame shot upwards.
"The house is burning," she exclaimed.
"Yes," I said, "it can be nothing else;" adding to myself, "a good job too, for now there will be no postmortem on old Marnham." Who fired the place I never learnt.

It may have been the Basutos, or Marnham's body-servant, or Footsack, or a spark from the kitchen fire.

At any rate it blazed merrily enough notwithstanding the marble walls, as a wood-lined and thatched building of course would do.

On the whole I suspected the boy, who may very well have feared lest he should be accused of having had a hand in his master's death.