Chapter IV

My position being made strong by the word going round the laager through Paul that Piet Joubert was my friend, I became more happy; but never did the sound of the Bible words leave my ears. All day they rang plainly, “Come ye out from among them,” and every hour gave me fuller reason for obeying. But I had less travail of soul now that Ben Viljoen was gone away, as were many of my worst secret enemies; and as no one had died in my corps, the Burghers began to have more faith in me, particularly those that loved whisky, among whom, to my great surprise, was old Paul du Plooy, who never let me forget that he had saved my life by making himself a drunkard.

“But,” said he, when I reproached him for dancing to the music of an accordion when very full of whisky, “did not David drink wine and dance before the ark?” and he sat by me and read all the Bible stories he could find about wine; and after reading and expounding them to fit his own case,—which somehow he always contrived they should,—he drank more whisky till he cried, and began to tell me all about his first wife,— as men who have married two or three ever do,—and about his boy who had been taken prisoner by the British, making the story very long, till he fell asleep sobbing; and the young Burghers came and finished what was left of a nearly full bottle, making him believe when he awoke that he had drunk it all alone.

Paul, being old, had got himself made corporal of the laager, which meant that he had not to go out with the commando, but helped me in giving out the rations and took charge of the horse-guard; though at this latter he was little good, for he always took his Bible with him, and read it instead of watching the Kafirs, finding verses to read to the young Burghers, who, he said, were accursed through dwelling in the tents of the unrighteous Rooineks in the days when they were in Government offices at Johannesburg and Pretoria. And Paul used to make prophecies of evil to befall them, which did not come true until young Gert Keet got shot in the mouth by his own mauser going off. Now it happened that young Keet was very profane, knowing all the swearing words and songs of the English. Having his teeth and part of his tongue shot away, Paul pointed to it as a great judgment, and read so many verses to prove it that for some days afterwards we had more prayers and psalms than smoking- concerts, and there was a holiness in the laager like to a great Nachtmaal, for the Burghers always preferred praying to fighting, and Ben Viljoen being away, there was no let or hindrance to godliness.

Just at that time there happened a thing that made me change my mind very much on the wisdom of having too much Bible when out fighting, though I would not have it thought that, like certain godless commandants, I would put obstacles in the way of those who would rather sing psalms than fight.

One day, when Paul was out on horse-guard, one of the Kafirs came to the laager saying Paul wished to see me secretly, and that I was to bring a bottle of whisky. This last pained me much, for after my serious talk Paul had agreed not to take more than two soupies of liquor with him. But I thought it better to take it, as it would show him I had as much faith in him as I wanted him to have in me; besides, I need not leave it with him if I found it dangerous. So with great scheming, for my movements were ever closely watched, I contrived to get away from the laager to the kloof where Paul was supposed to be bossing the Kafir horse-guard. I found him very full of something on his mind.

“Sarel,” said he, “I have done something that would make my name great in Israel were I not a godly and oprecht Burgher. I have to settle in my heart whether I shall obey the Bible or Ben Viljoen, and I think I shall go on the Bible. What say you, neef?”

If it were the Bible against Ben out of war-time, I should go on the Bible,” said I; ‘but in war-time a commandant like Ben Viljoen is greater than the Bible.”

“Suppose, Sarel, you had got a khaki colonel with a lame leg that knows the Bible well, what would you do?”

“What does the Bible say?” I asked to gain time, for I did not want to advise without knowing Paul’s opinion.

“There is nothing about khaki colonels in the Book, but there is about the Gibeonites, and the colonel I have got is one of them,—at least his name is Gibbons, which he tells me is Rooinek for Gibeonite.”

“You talk in clouds, Paul; tell me all about it.”

And in many words he told me how, while sitting reading the Bible, he lifted up his eyes and saw a man in khaki crawling to cover in a donga. Fearing that it might be a trap, he sent a Kafir, who came back saying a lame khaki lay in the donga. Paul took his rifle, and going up carefully, found that the words of the Kafir were true, for there lay a khaki crying out for water.

“Are you alone?” asked Paul in English.

“Quite alone, lost and wounded, and a friend.”

Paul, still keeping his rifle pointed, went up and talked, when the khaki told him he was a colonel sent by General Buller to ask General Joubert what terms he would give if the English gave up fighting and left the country; but his horse had bolted and thrown him, hurting his leg, and, what was worse, carrying away in the saddle-bags the letter he had brought for the General. “And now,” said Paul, “he is afraid to come into the laager, for he has nothing to prove that his story is true, and he fears to be shot as a spy.”

“Let me see him,” said I, but Paul would not let me go to him till he had read in the nineteenth chapter of Joshua about the Gibeonites who came into the Israelites’ laager and obtained a league by craft.

“That story should make you very careful, Paul, for this may be a crafty Gibeonite,” said I, feeling that out of his own words I had confuted him. But no lawyer was ever more clever at making his bad case seem good than Paul.

“He is no doubt a Gibeonite, for his name says so, and he may be crafty; but does not the Bible story tell how, despite their craft, they became servants to the Israelites?”

I could not answer to this, so we went to the donga, and there found a young khaki with K.R.R. on his shoulders, and speaking like an Irishman in the Boer Irish Brigade.

“Are you a colonel?” I asked, for I had seen one in Maritzburg before the war, and he was old and grey, while this one was quite a boy, as I told him.

“That is true,” said he; “but you would not be surprised if you knew how you Boers have killed off our colonels. The British have no colonels left, and have to make them from privates.”

“Of course he is a colonel,” said Paul; “look at his shoulder—‘K.R.R.’—Colonel Rooinek Rifles. Is not that so?”

“Certainly,” said the khaki, who looked faint, and sat with his back against a boulder. ‘Have you brought the whisky?”

“Can you drink it?” I asked, for he looked so faint and ill that I feared it might hurt him.

The Colonel smiled as he answered, “I’ll try,” and he put the bottle to his mouth and kept it there long. When he had finished, he was much stronger, and talked with a free tongue.

“Why has Buller decided to give up?” I asked.

“Because he has been sent for to go and fight the Chinese and take his army with him. England is in a bad way, what with France and Russia and America all wanting to help you, to say nothing of old Ireland.”

“Has Ireland risen at last?” I asked, for I had heard Pat van der Murphy often say that this war would mean Ireland’s chance.

“Risen is it?’ said the Colonel. “The Irish have captured London, and the Parliament House is full of Irishmen; and the Dubs are going to join the Boers, and the Irish Rifles as well; and as General Roberts is an Irishman, and nearly all the Highland regiments are chock-a-block with Paddies, the best of the British army will be with you, and there will be very few left to fight the Chinese. So they are going to chuck this job and get out of the country. That’s why I’m sent to see General Joubert. But I dare not go without my credentials, for the news is so terrific he wouldn’t perhaps believe me. You seem good kind Boers, so if you will help me to get away, I may find my horse and the letter, or go back to my camp and get a fresh one, and so stop this awful war before you wipe out the British army.”

“But if you are lame, how can you travel?” I asked.

“Oh,” says he, “the whisky is a great healer, and I am nearly well, and if I have some more of it, with some rooti and beef, I shall be all right.”

“Sarel,” said Paul in the Taal, ‘I can see a great plan to make you and me great in the land. We will get this khaki away to fetch the letter, and then you will have a dream that you saw a Gibeonite, and I will interpret it to the commando that Buller is going to send in to make peace, and when this kerel comes back and the commando finds it is all true, you and I will be prophets in the land and wax great.”

If we let you go to-night, when will you come back?” I asked the khaki.

“I shall come back in two days,” said he.

Paul and I talked it over in the Taal. I liked the thing much, for I saw in it a way to get the goodwill of the Burghers and make us both in high esteem, and particularly Paul, who was much given to prophecies that did not come true; but as he had stood my friend I wanted much to help him. So I agreed to what Paul proposed, and having shown the khaki the best way back to his camp, I returned to the laager and sent back the Kafir with more whisky and bread for him, telling the native I would shoot him if he told any one what he had seen.

An hour later Paul came to the laager saying all was well, that the khaki had gone away happy and full of whisky, so that he feared he might not remember the password or the advice Paul had given him about the road.

Paul then told me what I was to dream that night, and how I was to tell it at breakfast in the morning, when the Burghers were listening.

“It is a great plan,” said Paul, “which I learned from Paul Kruger, who is great on dreams, which made him famed in the days when he was not even a field-cornet.”

Next morning, over the coffee, when most of the Burghers were in hearing, I told Paul that I had had a Bible dream, wherein a man wearing a strange dress came to the laager and asked to see Joshua, and I put in many things that Paul had read to me out of the chapter in Joshua. Now, all old Burghers put much weight on dreams, and they all began to listen very closely and to ask me questions, and tried to interpret it in their own foolish ways. But Paul, after they had all tried to find the interpretation, gave his, which was that a messenger would come from the Rooineks offerIng peace, even as the Gibeonites did, and that we Boers should come out as conquerors and make the Uitlanders hewers of wood and drawers of water, as Joshua did the Gibeonites. And Paul read the chapter, at which most of the Burghers were greatly pleased.

Then Paul and I waited patiently for the coming of the messenger from Buller.

As the days passed and he came not, I began to fear what had several times been in my mind—that the khaki was no colonel; for I remembered afterwards that the English do not spell colonel with a “k” as we do, neither do they send messengers to laagers alone. When I told Paul what I thought he was very angry.

“Sarel,” said he, “you have become like to the Englanders and Hollanders for unbelief. Did not the Bible come true in your case? and were not your enemies made to be a reproach while you were exalted?”

And thus would he talk always, till one day a party of Burghers, who had caught a British convoy and some prisoners, brought in newspapers; and in one of them was a story how a private in the King’s Royal Rifles lost his way, and walked on to a Boer picket, whom he befooled into letting him go by a story that he was a messenger from Buller to Joubert come to beg for peace; and the whole story was set out in print, making Paul and me look so foolish that for a time I was very wrathful with the English. But I was glad that the Burghers did not know who the “two simple Boers” referred to were.

But Paul, with his great slimness in turning misses into bull’s-eyes, said, when the story had been read—

“Kerels, has not my interpretation of Sarel’s dream come true? You hear what the paper says, how a messenger was sent. It is no doubt that his heart failed him, and he went back and told this lie to cover his failure.”

And many of the Burghers saw it as Paul wished them to, and his fame as an interpreter of the Bible was increased.

A few days later came another thing that made Paul rejoice, and claim that his prophecy was coming true in so far as I was to be exalted over my enemies.

Piet Joubert wanted to send a message to a commando of Free State Burghers, telling them to come to him over the Berg. Now it happened that all the Natal Burghers, and those who knew the roads and passes, were away fighting, and there was left only me,—for I had lost no chance to make everybody think that I knew Natal as well as I knew my own district of the Transvaal, for I was always hoping that I might some day be chosen to go on some such expedition, which would give me a chance to obey the voice that was ever calling me to come out from among them. So my heart thumped with joy when the General sent for me and told me he had a great thing for me to do.

“You know, Sarel,” said he, ‘you are suspect for running away, and Ben Viljoen and some of the commandants who know you best would have that you do not leave the laager. But you are too clever to keep shut up in a kraal. You say you know this country?”

“Well, General; for when I was away from the Transvaal I was learning it.”

“Let me hope it is truth,” said he, “for I am going to believe you. Take two good Burghers whom you can trust, and find the commando of Heilbron Burghers somewhere between Harrismith and the Berg. Give this letter to the commandant—Birkenfeld is his name, I think—and come in with them. You will be back in a week. Do this well, and you shall be made a corporal; if not, you will have me on the side of Ben Viljoen.”

“General,” said I, “this is what I have been waiting for.” And I went away with a light and cheerful walk.

I was sorely troubled as to whom I should take, for, excepting old Paul, I trusted none, and him I feared because of his Bible-reading and his prophecies; but he settled it as soon as I told him what the General had said.

“I must go with you, Sarel,” said he, “for the prophecies are meant for both of us, and we stand or fall together.”

Paul chose the other Burgher, a young kerel fresh from his father’s farm at Rustenberg. I know Paul chose him because he used to listen to the old man’s Bible-readings without wanting to go away as the other youngsters did; but Paul said he took him because he had no wiliness, and could not be troublesome. I was for taking Van der Murphy, as he had been so kind to me in saving me the pain of tasting whisky; but Paul would have none of him.

“He is not quite a Boer, although he has a Boer wife,” said he; “and if we should meet an Irish regiment he will surely join it, for these Irish would drink with Satan if he came from anywhere in Ireland and carried whisky.”

So we saddled up; and with a Kafir and a pack-horse carrying some extra food and our blankets, we left the laager at sun-up next morning. I was full of joy, for I had obeyed the voice and come out from among them; but I dared not tell Paul that was why I was so happy and sang English chorus songs.

We had no trouble in getting across country to the edge of the Drakensberg, for the British were not in that district; but as we turned southward we ran greater risk, for we had had no news of khaki movements for some time. We came to a deserted farm about sundown, and sent the Kafir on to see if khakis might be there, but he reported all safe. The place had been deserted long, and though we searched well we found nothing, either open or hidden, that we could eat or drink, but we did find something that gave us a great schrick.

Paul was going into the stable thinking to find something, as Boers are fond of using these places to hide things, when he came out with a run, looking very scared. Before he could tell me what was the matter, two big baboons came out and got away. This proved the hand of Providence, for the monkeys were hunting for hens’ eggs, some of which we found, the fowls being too wild for the owner to take away with him.

We found one good bed left, and Paul and I slept in it; but he would not take off his clothes, being an old Burgher, not used to the effeminate ways of the new generation. I wanted him to take off his boots, or at least his spurs; but he would not, but instead preached a long sermon on the foolishness of these new ways of sleeping, telling me that he had not taken off his clothes except to change them for the quarterly Nachtmaal for fifty years, for once he was foolish enough to take them off for sleeping, and caught a cold that made him deaf for years.

When we left in the morning, Paul was for setting fire to the place, for, said he, ‘Did not the children of Israel destroy the dwellings of their enemies with

fire?”

“Yea, Paul,” said I “but the smoke may bring up the khakis.”

This made Paul change his mind, and not a godly desire to do what was right, as was my case. But I was not angry with him, for I knew that he had been led away from righteousness by the predikants, and he was too old to become just and Christian -like like me.

But I did not reckon on the cunning of old Paul and the wickedness of the boy Van Niekerk. Before we had been riding a mile,—

“Look!” said the Kafir.

We looked back, and saw smoke and flames rising from where the farmhouse stood.

“Why did you do that wickedness?” I asked of Paul.

“It was not I, but the boy here,” and he called young Van Niekerk names.

“But you bade me do it,” said the lad, making Paul look very foolish.

I did not say more, lest Van Niekerk should talk about it when we got back, and I did not want to have it said that I had burned English places; so I only said it was a pity, as the place might be useful when we returned, because of the eggs.

For many miles Paul talked of nothing but the doings of the children of Israel, and how they smote their enemies hip and thigh, and destroyed their flocks and herds.

“I feel I have done a great sin, Sarel,” said he, “in not destroying those fowls; but let us hope that the fire will have devoured them.”

And thus this bloodthirsty old man talked and quoted the Bible, always to the end that he might have justification for destroying his enemies.

Towards sundown we came to the edge of a spur of the Drakensberg, and, looking down the steep sides, I saw something that made me feel sick all over. Riding on the level ground right below us were eight khakis, whom we knew not to be Colonial volunteers by the way they rode—with a long stirrup, and straight up in the saddle. They had seen us against the sky-line, and most likely had heard Paul shouting all the vengeful verses of the Psalms, which he did as other men whistle or sing as they ride. Presently they all stopped and got together in a bunch, which was foolishness, seeing that they thereby made a mark that even a Kafir could not miss, for khakis at this time did not understand how wrong it is to keep close together like frightened sheep when fighting Boers.

I was for getting behind the hill again; but great bloodthirstiness had come upon Paul through thinking and talking of the children of Israel, and he was all for shooting, as was also the boy Van Niekerk, who had only just joined the commando and had killed no Rooineks.

Had I been alone with Paul I should have had my way and gone in peace; but I was afraid of what the lad might say about me when we got back to laager, for he was a fierce young kerel, after having listened with both ears to all that Paul had been saying. So we put our horses under cover, well behind the ridge, and planned to play a trick that has always puzzled khakis.

We separated about fifty yards apart and fired after

E each other, running a short distance to fire the next shot, thus covering a long line and making it seem that there were many of us. It is a great and excellent plan when there are only few; and in the Natal papers we often used to read how the British had been attacked by hundreds of Boers when we knew that not more than a dozen had been within twenty miles.

The khakis, still keeping together, kept on their horses, and shot in the direction they supposed us to be. But their bullets fell short, for they cannot judge distance in hilly country; and even if they could, they would not have hit us, for there was nothing of us to be seen except Paul’s hat, which he set on a stone in a place where he was not, after the Boer fashion of making Kafirs fire away their shots for nothing.

I might have killed every khaki, being a splendid shot, and knowing the range as well as if I had measured it; but though I fired often, I was careful not to take aim, for I was resolved not to have it on my soul that I had killed a Britisher.

After we had fired about twenty shots apiece, the khakis galloped off, leaving a lame horse, which Paul said he had hit, though I believe it was the young kerel who did the work; but Paul was ever vain of his shooting, and would not admit that a boy could do as well as he. So, much against my conscience, I agreed with Paul that he had shot the horse, which I could see made the young kerel very bitter against Paul, at which I was secretly glad.

We waited till the khakis were out of sight behind a ridge, then went on, keeping well on the under-side of the hill. After riding till far into afternoon, a thunderstorm gave signs of coming, so we rode for a kloof that, being full of thick thorn -bush, would give us shelter. When we got into it we found many caves, large and small. We off-saddled the horses, and got into one of the holes just as the rain came down, as it only does in this hilly land in summer.

While we were eating some biscuit and drinking whisky, the Kafir signed to us to listen to something. Above the noise of the rain we heard the clatter of horses that were shod, proving that they had no Boer or Colonial riders, and, looking through the thick bush, we saw the khakis we had shot at, come for shelter like ourselves.

“Let us shoot them, Sarel,” said the bloodthirsty Paul.

“Nay, that would be foolishness, for they are eight and we but three, and no doubt there are a thousand not far off.”

I did not believe what I said, but I was resolved not to shed innocent blood if it was British.

“Let us go deeper into the cave,” said I, and, much against their wills, Paul and the young kerel came in with me. The cave was long and narrow, and so dark that one standing at the entrance could not see into it many feet for the blackness.

“Where is the Kafir?” presently asked Paul, and I saw that he was not with us.

“He will be hiding under a bush,” said I, knowing how these Dutch-bred natives fear the khakis.

It was more than an hour before the rain ceased, and during all that time we had heard the khakis laughing and talking about twenty yards from our cave. I had great work to prevent Paul from talking Scripture, for our being in a cave reminded him of the Bible story of the Adullamites, which he would tell me till I got angry.

“What is the good of telling these stories if they do not show us how to get safely away?” I asked in anger. “What happened to these Adullamites?”

Then Paul reproached me for my ignorance of the Bible, and made a long discourse on the evil that came to young Burghers through living in towns with Rooineks and Hollanders.

“But,” said I at last, wishing to stop his preaching, “you don’t tell me what became of the Adullamites.”

Paul thought hard for a minute. ‘It is too dark to see, or I would read it,” said he.

“Nay, but tell me.”

“But I forget,” answered he. And then it was my turn to reproach him; and I should have preached an even longer sermon on the folly of old men pretending to know what they did not, had not a serious thing come to stop me.

The young kerel, Van Niekerk, had grown tired of hearing so much Bible talk, as youngsters do, and had crept out to see what the khakis were doing, as he had not heard them for some time, and the rain was nearly done.

He came back looking scared.

“Oom,” said he, “the khakis have gone, and I cannot see our horses; but by the spoor I think they have got them.”

We ran out of the cave, having no thought of bullets in the face of this great calamity.

It was true. The khakis had gone, and there in the mud were plainly the tracks of our horses, which we knew through their being unshod, while those of the khakis were, like all Rooinek horses, shod, which was why they could not gallop over rough country after us Boers.

“Paul,” said I, “you don’t know what happened to the Adullamites in the cave, but I do know what has happened to us. We shall have to walk back to the laager, and perhaps die of hunger before we get there.”

And Paul and young Van Niekerk sat down and wept, after the manner of tender-hearted Boers in great trouble.

I would not say a word till they had finished weeping, for it is not good to stay a Boer when his tears and groans are coming fast. When they had both ceased,—

“What shall we do, Paul?” I asked. ‘Let us follow and shoot them,”—for even my righteousness was not strong enough to stand the loss of my horse, which is only nature in an Afrikander.

“Sarel, you now say shoot when it is too late. If we had shot before we should not now be in this trouble,” and the old man assailed me bitterly, so that I went out of the cave to escape his angry words and to get my rifle; but, lo! it was not where I had put it in the mouth of the cave, neither were there any saddles. Then I saw in a moment that that scoundrelly Kafir had taken them away.

“Who was that Kafir? Was he not caught with letters from the English?” I asked.

Paul remembered that it was so, and then we knew how we had been betrayed.

It was a sad party that left the kloof and climbed the hill to get back to laager, for a Boer cannot walk like Rooineks, although his feet are larger, but being born to the saddle he must ride.

When we reached the top of the ridge, falling often on the wet and slippery rocks, we saw far away the khakis leading our horses, and leading the pack-horse was our Kafir, carrying a rifle, which no Boer allows a Kafir to do.

“Look at that, Sarel,” said Paul; “they steal our horses, and insult us by arming a Kafir in our sight! And these are the people that you would not have me shoot! It is a righteous judgment on you.”

“And what about you?” I asked in anger.

“And on me for listening to the voice of the tempter.”

It was quite fifty miles back to laager, over mountains and rough country full of rivers we did not know, and could not cross without horses, for this being the rainy season, the rivers were all very full. What was worse, there were no farms where we could get food, the very few there were being deserted. We dared not go into Kafir kraals unarmed, for all Natal Kafirs hate Boers, and would kill us or bring the khakis upon us.

When I thought on this, there came on me the wickedness of Paul in burning the farmhouse; and it became my turn to reproach him and make a Scripture discourse, which was not strong, however, for hunger was making me weak, and the thought that I should be more hungry still made me yet weaker; but I could not help agreeing that all this suffering was a judgment for burning the farm.

How can I fully tell the misery we went through on that awful trek? It rained again that night, and became very cold, and we had no cave to shelter us. The boy crawled into an ant-bear hole, and came near to being drowned by the water that ran in, while Paul got bad rheumatics in the back, so that he could only groan and cry, while his Bible was wetted till some of the leaves fell out, which he took as a very bad sign.

At sun-up we passed on, very stiff and weak, and after an hour or two we saw a Kafir kraal of six huts, with mealie gardens and a few peach-trees. We lay down in the long grass and made a plan, for we were so hungry that fear of the Kafirs was nearly dead; and had we had the strength, we should have gone down and taken food by force, for we had eaten nothing but a biscuit the previous day, being anxious to find a good sleeping-place before we ate, which plan was upset by the appearance of the khakis.

We could see no men about the kraal, only a few women and very young children, for the men were perhaps all away with the British, who were ruining them by great pay, good food, and little work, which the Kafir in his heathenism loves.

We waited and watched, hoping that the rest might make us stronger, and that the women might go out of the kraal to the river for water, or to look after the cattle we could see grazing about a mile off. Then, if they left the kraal, we might go down, for there was certain to be mealies and perhaps milk, for we could see two cows with the cattle. But the women did not leave, so we sat on, very sick, and scorched by the sun. It was the longest day I ever knew, and the suffering was made worse by Paul’s groans, and his reading all the doleful psalms with a jerky voice, stopping at every line to groan, while the boy Van Niekerk cried.

At last the sun went down, and in the fast-growing darkness we crept with pain and fear towards the kraal, hoping at the worst to find some green peaches on the trees, it being yet early summer. And perhaps the Kafirs might be kind, if I told them I was English, I being often mistaken for one; but I feared for Paul, who was the roughest Taakhaar Boer that ever came out of the Waterberg.

We got among the peach-trees, and had begun to eat the hard green fruit, when the dogs scented us, and came barking furiously. Then followed the women and children with knobkerries and axes and sickles, and among them a very old man with an assegai.

Now the Natal Kafir cannot speak Dutch, the Natal people foolishly learning the Kafir language, instead of doing as the Boer does—make the Kafir learn the Taal. Therefore I could not speak to them, but only point to my mouth and say, “Niko mena skoff,’ which is kitchen Kafir for “Give me food,” and with the exception of a few words of abuse, was all of the Zulu language I knew.

At first the women seemed afraid of us, and kept a short distance away, but when the old Kafir came up and talked to them, they came up to us, pushing and pulling us about.

I tried a few words in English on the old man, which he seemed to understand, for he answered, “Ikona Inglish; dam Dutch, where is your pass? come to tronk,” and he led the way to the kraal, the women—as is always the case when there is trouble— making the most noise, and treating us most roughly. He led the way to the cattle kraal, and signed to us to lie on our backs, which we quite understood, but refused to do until the women pulled us down. Before I could quite understand what they were going to do, the women had put a big bamboo pole across our necks as we lay on our backs, and tied our wrists and necks to it, so that we could not move without great pain, for the plaited grass-rope and bits of hard leather reim they used hurt us much.

When we were all tied up, the women felt in our pockets and took our knives and other small things. But they did not find the General’s letter, that being between my waistcoat and shirt; neither did they take Paul’s Bible. Then they went away, a young girl throwing mealie cobs at our faces, and putting the dogs to bark at us.

This action of the girl set me thinking sad thoughts of Katrina, as but for her I should not be in this wretchedness; and I renewed my resolve never to go back to her again, though I feared she would not let me leave her, particularly if I became great,— though so far I saw no sign of that greatness that Paul had prophesied for me, and for once I was glad that his prophecy did not seem likely to be true.

My anger against Katrina became very hot, and I think I might have followed the pattern of young Van Niekerk and cried, had not the groaning and lamentations of Paul turned my wrath to him.

“What about your Bible now, Paul? will it show you how to cut grass-rope without a knife?” I asked in my anger.

“The Bible says nothing about white men being tied up by Kafirs,” answered he, always ready to make his case good by Scripture. “The Bible tells us to destroy Kafirs, and if we had obeyed it, we should not now be tied up like oxen in the yoke, for we should have no Kafirs in the land except those that were our bondsmen; and now, instead, we are theirs.”

I answered something very sharp and clever, for which I was afterwards sorry, for even while I spoke a great miracle was happening.

I have said that the dogs stayed behind to annoy us. Among them were two puppies, which had been for long quarrelling which should pull the bit of harness-strap with which my right hand was tied. They pulled and bit at it, as puppies will, until it got loose, and by much painful striving I contrived to get my right wrist free, and very soon both my neck and those of Paul and the boy were out of the yoke; and in half an hour we were more than two miles from the kraal, the dogs, however, following us and barking all the time. The Kafirs did not follow us, being, as we supposed, busy drinking Kafir beer.

We were still very weak, not so much for want of food—for he is no Boer who cannot go sixty hours without biting—-but from the travelling afoot, to which we were not used, and the heart-soreness that comes of shame and anger; and puzzling all the time what story we should tell when we got back to the laager, for we dare not say we had been tied up in a cattle-kraal by Kafir women.

We came to the burned farm before sundown, and went up to it, hoping to find we knew not what; but the fire had done its work well, leaving little but the stones and iron-work. But in the stable, which had not been burned, we found that which again made Paul rejoice, and reproach me for my want of faith in the Bible; for we found why the baboons went there, it being not for hens’ eggs, but to milk a cow, which, with her calf, had been overlooked in the trek, and was in the habit of coming to the stable at night. We got a little milk from her which strengthened us, and made us look more brightly at the future.

“We must take this cow and calf back to the laager,” said Paul. “It will show that we have done something, even if we have lost our horses, and we shall at least have milk to keep us from dying on the journey.”

So after a good night’s rest in the stable, where we found a few mealies and contrived to boil them, we set out for the laager, driving the cow and calf, fearing all the time lest we should fall in with khaki scouts, for the country was more covered by them than I had thought. We travelled ten miles that day,—which was good, considering we had to drive the cow and calf,—slept that night in the grass, and reached the eager safe, but heart and body sore, about noon next

day.

General Joubert had gone to visit the camps around Ladysmith. Ben Viljoen was also away, and, fortunately, many of the Burghers who had been most unfriendly to me. Still there was a sufficient leaven of them remaining to influence the others, and Paul and I came in for much ridicule, which even the cow and calf did not appease, but add to. This treatment decided me to get away again as soon as I could get horses. The Van Niekerk kerel was too sick with fear to come again; but old Paul was quite willing, for, said he, ‘If wonders keep on happening as they have, you will soon begin to believe that I can interpret Scripture properly.”

“Ja, Paul,” I answered; “I do begin to see that you are not as other men; but you must burn no more farmhouses.”

So with good horses, and a Kafir we could trust,— he having been in jail in Natal, and therefore hating the English,—we set out again next morning, my heart feeling light that I had not had to face General Joubert or Ben Viljoen, and deliverance from the bondage of the laager being in sight.