The Transvaal, 1880: two sisters on a Boer farm, an English officer both love, and then the war — the siege of Pretoria, a ride through the enemy lines, and a choice made by the sister nobody expected. Haggard was in the Transvaal for the annexation and the war that followed; he wrote this in 1887, and the Boers in it are neither villains nor comedy, which was rare enough in England to be noticed.