Chapter XVII

The first thing that Andries did when Paul was out of sight was in keeping with all his acts from the first day I had known him. He proved himself an adroit deceiver. Getting up, he walked briskly round the stone, slapping his leg and extending his arms as one who stretches himself after a drowsy sleep, whilst I looked on in amaze. “¥ I thought your hip was broken,” said I, in surprise. “It was while Paul was here; now he’s gone, I find it is only bruised.” “Then you were pretending all the time.” ‘No, Sarel; I was feeding the old man’s vanity. If I had not made him believe he had got home with his first shot he would have peppered us till there would have been no occasion for shamming. Did he get you, Kelly?”

“There’s not much sham about mine,” said Kelly sadly. He pulled up his trouser leg and showed where the bullet had travelled, along the outside of his calf and out at the side of the knee, making a ploughed furrow as if cut with a blunt thick knife.

“We have all been hit low down, Sarel—hit below the belt; but you Afrikanders don’t see any disgrace in it. We call it cowardly, don’t we, Kelly?”

This was the first time I had known Andries dissociate himself from Afrikanders.

“It’s time we made a move,” said he, “for we are more likely to die of hunger than of wounds. Can you ride, Kelly?”

Kelly said he would try. We shouted for the Kafir, who was lying asleep in the long grass, and sent him to fetch water and catch the horses.

“Put down that rifle, Sarel, or you may hurt us,” said Andries.

I handed it to him, remarking that probably he wanted the money-order also.

“No, Sarel, I never take back a free gift. The old man spared our lives, and deserves some reward. I should advise you to get into the bank before closing time,” said Andries in his laughing way, that generally meant there was great meaning behind.

“That is what you must show me to do,” I answered.

“I am going to, Sarel. I have had plenty of time to-day to think out plans. Let’s get Kelly into the saddle and be off.”

With great difficulty we got the lame man on to his horse, collected the rifles and revolvers, and sending the Kafir on in front on foot, we followed at a walking pace.

I tried once or twice to draw from Andries some statement as to his plans, particularly with regard to myself; but he was in no mood for talking, and gave me such short sharp answers that I held my tongue and reined in my curiosity, well knowing that I could not make him speak if he had no mind to. So we rode almost in silence, taking a direction that would bring us, as well as I could reckon, somewhere by Estcourt.

It was just on sundown when we turned up a deep and narrow kloof, riding with difficulty along a Kafir footpath, that I could see was but new and little used. Presently, on a flat part of the side, we came upon two old tents, and, by the portable forge, picks, and shovels and similar things, I knew we had struck the camp of one of those men called prospectors, who search for gold and other minerals, living out in the veld, and generally among mountains such as these, for many months quite alone, or at most having a Kafir to help them.

This camp proved to be that of Mark Capper, a famous Natal prospector, who has found nearly all the places where coal is now dug in Natal, and many other things, some good, but mostly only promising. I had heard a great deal of him and his cleverness, and his hatred of men, when I was living with my cousin in the Newcastle district. He had been a sailor, an officer on a mail-boat, but had come to Natal many years before. He had spent nearly all his time out in the wildest part of the country, sometimes seeing no white man for a year.

He was standing at the door of the least ragged tent as we rode up,—a spare man with sharp features, fair face and blue eyes, and long grey hair that curled under the biggest and broadest smasher hat I had ever seen. His cord trousers were fastened up below the knee with straps, after the fashion of the railway navvies I remember in Cape Colony as a small kerel. They were the first Englishmen I had seen; and until I grew up and went to the Raad I believed that all Englishmen dressed like navvies, with cord trousers strapped up, a strap round their waist, and a grey shirt open at the neck showing a lot of hairy chest. This was what Capper looked like, and the sight of him took me in a flash back to the days of my childhood.

He looked hard at us as we dismounted, and when Andries went up and put out his hand, Capper seemed to remember him suddenly. “Sailor Robinson, by all that’s holy!” said he. ‘Where the devil did you spring from? I thought you were in tronk, or dead long ago.”

Then he looked hard at me.

“What have you got here? a London postman or a Natal police superintendent?”

“Allow me,” said Andries, with mocking politeness: “Commandant Sarel Erasmus, of General Joubert’s Holy Terrors—Captain Kelly, late of the Durban Irregulars.”

“Boers and Britons,—a funny mixture. What has happened? Is peace declared? I saw some khakis the other day; so did my Kafir. He bolted, and they chased him over the Basutoland border. I suppose they want to employ him at ten pounds a-month. I wish you chaps would get this business finished. All the Kafirs in the country seem to be working for the British army at Johannesburg wages, and I can’t get a boy. The one they scared away I only kept because he had escaped from jail somewhere, and was afraid to leave the camp. But come inside and tell a fellow what you graveyard deserters are up to.”

“You may well call us graveyard deserters. We have all been within a foot of it. Kelly here is limping still. Haven’t you got something to rub on a wounded leg?”

While Andries was saying this we followed Capper into the tent, and sat down on the stretcher-bed and a stool or two, while Capper knelt down at a packing-case on end that served as cupboard, and began looking for something.

Next moment Kelly gave a yell, and jumped nimbly from the bed where he had been sitting.

“Snakes! snakes!’ he shouted, and pointed to a big puff-adder curled up on the bed.

Capper looked round in the most unconcerned manner.

“Oh, he’s there, is he? I haven’t seen him all day, and wondered where he had got to. Mind you don’t hurt him.”

“You still keep a menagerie, then?” remarked Andries.

“Yes; only a few. I’ve that gentleman on the bed, an iguana—a beauty five feet long, only he eats my fowls and their eggs, and frightens a little buck that comes and looks me up occasionally. Then I’ve a crow with a broken leg, a tiger-cat—a bit shy, and this fellow here,” he held up a basin containing a large striped mouse. “They are a sight better company than most humans in this country. They’ve got more brains, and don’t use them to do you down.”

“But they are not much good for eating,” remarked Andries. “Why don’t you rear something to kill?”

“Never killed a thing in my life except fish. The river’s full of them, and they’re so tame that it seems cowardly to haul ’em out. It’s too much like humbugging an infant, and I haven’t the heart to do it.”

This talk did not hold out much prospect for food, for which we were all hungry; and I was thankful when, after giving Kelly some Dutch droppels to put on his leg, Capper brought out bread and tinned meat, which, with some cold sweet potatoes, made us a good meal.

“What’s your game now, Andrew?” asked Capper, as we ate. “Thieving as usual, I suppose?”

“No chance, Mark; too much competition.”

“But you generally managed to get a look in with the crowd. You haven’t come to steal my mine, have you? or has the commandant here come to annex it for the Transvaal? “You had better look sharp, because there are plenty of other thieves with their eyes on it.”

“Been done down again, Mark?”

“Yes; do you remember that thing I had in Zululand, the last time I saw you?”

“The gold-mine you were going to make twenty thousand out of as usual? Yes.”

“Well, the syndicate of respectable leading citizens did me down. They liquidated the company, repegged the claims in the name of a relation of the chairman, and forgot to put me in. I went down to Durban to talk to the head conspirator, but when he heard I was in town he bolted. He is a patriot now in one of the volunteer corps, so if you come across him you might send a bullet his way. I suppose you could arrange it for me; or have you better business on?”

Andries laughed. ‘All the professional murderers I know are engaged on one side or the other, and I’ve been doing too well myself to take on fresh business in a retail way.”

“I daresay this would be quite as honest as anything you have on, Andrew.”

“My last game is up, and I am going to start a new one.”

“Why not try something honest?”

“Too late, Mark. Twenty years in South Africa doesn’t give a man a training for a Sunday-school teacher, and I can’t say that your example is very encouraging to a man smitten with honesty. You have been honest enough; but you are still grafting hard, and getting grey at the job, I notice.”

“Quite true, Andrew; but I haven’t to change my name so often that I forget my last. By the way, what is your name this time, Andrew?”

“Andries Brink. You see I always stick to the same initial for my Christian name; and Andries is very near Andrew.”

“What is your particular line of swindling just now?”

“Commission agent in the cattle-dealing business. Back to my first love, you see. I wonder what the fascination is that makes a man cling to the game? I suppose it must be the spirit of my old Border ancestors prompting me. I was riding a stolen horse the first time you met me, twenty years ago, and to-day I’m riding one with another man’s brand on, Funny, Mark, but I always seem to run up against you when I’m laying off a fresh course. I was going up-country to get an honest living the first time we met, and now I’m starting afresh.”

“But not on a straight course, Andrew.”

“No, Mark; not so long as there are fools asking to be robbed, and other fools anxious to help me. That’s one of the disadvantages of having brains, Mark. You are too anxious to bring other men up to your own level. Now this gentleman here in the variegated uniform was a professional suppressor of vice,—a public prosecutor,—but in less than a month I have

x made him one of the best wholesale cattle-dealers in the country. Haven’t I, Sarel?”

The blood rushed to my head, but before I could frame a proper answer, Capper remarked—

I don’t suppose a Boer wanted much teaching in that line, but I never heard of their stealing one another’s cattle. You must have been lifting from natives or Englishmen.”

“The commandant is a British subject, Andrew; aren’t you, Sarel? You see, I have educated him thoroughly and quickly.”

“Been keeping school, eh? I thought you must have been in jail, as I have heard nothing of you for two or three years.”

“Not in jail, Mark, but nearly as bad. I have been imprisoned in towns, trying the virtuous citizen tack. I married a Hollander widow, and took her name. She was educated, and horribly civilised; had a splendid daughter, sharp as a needle. I think I married the mother for the sake of the daughter. I took a horse-breeding farm on shares with a sleeping partner, but he woke up one day and wanted to know too much; so I left him and what was left. Then the wife died, and the war broke out. I got an introduction to Piet Joubert as an oprecht Natal Burgher who could be useful to him in Natal, and I got to windward of the British at the same time. Lord, Mark, what fools there be in high places! I did very well for some months; but, after all, I was knocked clean out by an ignorant old Dopper, who smelt out my game, while the slim Hollanders and British staff-officers and Intelligence Department were eye-dusted. He put a bullet into Kelly, and only missed me by a hair.”

“Kelly? Isn’t that the chap who got caught gunrunning up north, and landed in Pretoria jail?” asked Mark.

“Not Pretoria, Mr Capper—Pietersburg. Always select a country jail if you have to put up at one. You can always leave them when the accommodation doesn’t suit you.”

“You are a pair of beauties. I wonder what my Natal friends would say if they knew I was entertaining you? How is it none of the Transvaal crowd have spotted you?”

I didn’t mix with them, Mark. My educational work with the Burghers was done by correspondence and a private secretary—that girl I told you of. Man, but she was smart,” said Andries.

“How many rascally games have you had a hand in since you came to this country?” asked Capper.

I was reckoning up only to-day, Mark, having a little time for quiet thought. First there was illicit diamond buying at Kimberley,—the short-cut to wealth and respectability or the breakwater; contractor to the troops in three native wars,—profitable, but requiring too much handiness at cooking accounts; slave-dealer, otherwise native labour agent,—profitable, but dirty, and opposed to my early religious education. Then illicit liquor-dealer on the Rand,—most profitable, but dirtiest business of all; and, grandest of all, purveyor of arms to the native races. I was reckoning up to-day, Mark, that more than half the rifles owned by natives in the Transvaal and Natal have been supplied by me at an average of a tenner apiece. That means a lot of trouble coming for the whites presently. I was in hopes that they might use them against the Boers, but I see no prospect of that. You see, Mark, I’m still a Britisher at heart, although I have funny ways of showing it. I’m a good man spoiled by contact with inferiors. I’ve given them my virtues, and taken in exchange their vices——”

“And cattle,” Capper put in.

“Yes: I’m sorry to say that the old Adam has been sorely tried in the presence of good Boer herds; but in the long-run it is as well that I yielded to temptation, for it was part of my system of education. Few Boers ever met me without being the worse for it in property and morals, for I helped to sow the seeds of race hatred that has brought about the war, and will end in the absorption of Boerdom. That is where my patriotic British sentiment is fed up. What I don’t like is the knowledge that I have helped to spoil a promising race. The Boer to-day, Mark, is only what men like me have made him. I am the only Britisher hundreds of Boers had ever seen, and they judged all that came after by me, and put a guard over their horses and women, and sat on the stoep with a rifle till the Rooinek was well off the farm.”

“You have been a scoundrel all through, Andrew. I wonder you call yourself an Englishman,” said Capper.

“I don’t, my boy, except among Englishmen who don’t know me, and Afrikanders who do. Don’t start preaching, Mark. You ought to know by this time that I’m the victim of disposition, climate, and vanity. I can’t bear that any man should go away with the idea that he is smarter than I. A man in a country like this has to begin by impressing people with his smartness, and he keeps it up so long that it becomes second nature. I can no more help doing down a greenhorn, whether he’s a Johnny-come-lately or a Boer from the Woodbush, than you can help picking up a new specimen of rock. And you know, Mark, that in this country a man is esteemed for what they call slimness, but which in the old days at home we should have called damned rascality. Look at the fellows at the top of the tree now.; How many of them would be out of jail if they were at home?”

“Don’t get me on that tack, Andrew,” said Mark. “You know I’m a prospector, and every prospector’s religion is to believe that a financier is a rascal. Let’s talk of something else.”

“Well, Mark, perhaps you’re right. I have no right to throw bricks. God knows, I’ve never missed a chance to do another man down; but I’m like you in one thing—I’ve never killed anything. I’ve never had a revolver out of my reach night or day for twenty years, but I’ve never pulled the trigger. A man who can’t go through this country without shooting is no good here. It’s brains that do the trick, not bullets. I don’t say that the temptation to shoot isn’t often great, but I’ve put my brains against temper, and the lives I’ve saved that way entitle me to the V.C.”

By this time Kelly was falling off to sleep. Capper turned the snake out of the tent, and helped the wounded man to lie comfortably on the bed. I lay down on the ground in my blankets, the spare tent being, as Capper said, too full of insect lodgers for white men’s accommodation; and while Andries and Capper smoked and talked over old times, I passed into sleep.

We had an early breakfast, said good-bye to Capper, —who seemed the strangest, kindest, and most contented Englander I had ever met,—and started off on what proved to be my last ride with the man who, in the short space of a few weeks, had marked my life.

“Now, Sarel,” said he, when, after riding two hours, we came in sight of what turned out to be Estcourt, “I’m going to do you a last good turn. Take my advice. Ride in to the commandant and give yourself up, telling him truthfully who you are, and don’t forget to make yourself out as big as possible. The bigger they believe you, the better they will treat you. After a little delay they will send you to Durban, where you will be put on parole, which means that you will have nothing to do but spend your money and wait till the clouds roll by.”

I did not like this, and said so; but Andries stopped all my objections.

“You cannot go back to your commando,” said he; “and if you are caught without surrendering, it’s jail, and perhaps a bullet. Be a man face the music and go in boldly, telling them you have been a Burgher on compulsion, and are sick of the war.”

“But don’t you come in with me to say a word for me?”

“Well, no, Sarel; I am not popular at Estcourt. The commandant there has been making inquiries about me in a very unfriendly spirit, and I don’t care to meet him. I am going through to Delagoa Bay.”

He stopped suddenly, and, turning in his saddle, looked long and anxiously behind.

“It’s too late, Sarel; I find I must go with you. Now don’t be a fool; do what I’ve told you, and bear me out in anything I may say.”

I looked behind, and saw six or seven khakis riding towards us.

“Come on,” said Andries, leading the way to meet the picket. Kelly and I followed, my heart thumping hard the while.

When about fifty yards off, the leader of the khakis called Halt! and we stopped while he came on.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Boer commandant come in to surrender, sir,” answered Andries.

The khakis came up closer, looking hard and curiously at us.

“Which of you is the commandant, and what uniform is that?” he asked, evidently much puzzled; for he was a new-comer, and not having yet seen a Boer, was unable to understand us, like most khakis, who expected to find us black, or at least covered all over with hair, as one of the Tommies told us later.

Andries very respectfully explained that I was Commandant Sarel Erasmus, who had grown tired of fighting, being made a Burgher against my will, and that he had persuaded me to surrender.

“And who are you?” asked the captain.

“Inspector of Transports and Guide attached to the Sixth Division. This is my assistant, Mr Kelly.”

Andries said this with wondrous self-possession, and the captain evidently had no doubts as to its truth.

“You must come in to the commandant,” said he; and we rode in to Estcourt, the captain all the time looking at us with surprise and pleasure written largely on his face, for it was, as I afterwards learned, his first day on duty, and to capture a Boer commandant was a great thing.

There were camps of regulars and irregulars all round the town, and, as we passed through, the Tommies and volunteers swarmed out to look at us, my uniform causing great surprise and many strange remarks, that showed me the British soldier knows no uniform but his own; for some said I was German or Russian, and one that I was the Japanese attaché. Nobody took me for a Boer. If any one of us was suspected it was Andries, though he looked more like a prosperous Natal farmer; while Kelly was got up like a young Englander newly come to the country, with white riding-breeches, leggings, and white collar and tie. Altogether, the Tommies were vastly puzzled, and I think disappointed, at which I was secretly joyful.

We were taken to the commandant, who sat at a desk in an office just as if he had been a clerk at Pretoria. He was very polite; but, like everybody else, much concerned and very curious over my uniform, about which he asked many questions, such as, “Was it the mark of a commandant?” “Did my Burghers wear one like it?”

When I told him the truth about it he seemed very much amused. After further talk I was taken away to a guard-tent, leaving Andries and Kelly with the commandant. I had no thought then of saying good-bye, for I did not know that was the last I should see of him, and that he was passing out of my life as unexpectedly as he entered it.

I remained in the guard-tent two hours, the Tommies coming past in twos and threes all the time, and looking in at me curiously, always with some remark about my uniform. The Jew who sold it to me knew something when he remarked that it would puzzle the British, and give me a chance to run away while they were inquiring about it.

At the end of the two hours I was taken to the train by three Tommies with fixed bayonets, and travelled to Maritzburg, where there was another interview with a commandant, more questions about my uniform, and a long wait, which ended in my being told I was on parole until further orders; that I was to call at the office and report myself every morning, and not to go out of the town or change my lodging without giving notice.

As soon as I was free I went off to the Natal Bank and presented my deposit-note.

Then came the crowning and farewell blow given me by that schelm Andries.

The clerk took it, looked it over back and front, and, in a puzzled way, said, “Yes.”

“I want the money,” said I; “I’ll take it in notes.”

The clerk laughed quietly, and went away to the back of the desks. When he returned he asked me to follow him, and took me to a room where the manager sat, who asked me my name and where I got the note, and many other particulars for which I was not quite prepared, though I answered discreetly, telling him that the money represented my share of a partnership with Mr Wilson.

“I’m afraid,” said he, “that you have been made the victim of a joke. Mr Wilson had an account here before the war, but it is now closed; and even if it were not, this paper would be valueless to you.” And he explained what a deposit-slip meant.

I left the bank, dazed and angry with Paul for having spared Andries’ life, and angrier still that he did not insist on taking the real money that he had on him. So confused and upset was I, that I found myself drinking whisky in a canteen, and a number of khakis asking me all about my uniform, before I fully realised what I was doing. I stayed at the bar longer than was wise, and spent more money than I should have, for all I possessed was twelve pounds. How I was to live in a place so expensive as Maritzburg I did not know; and I walked around the place looking for a cheap lodging, filled with bitter thoughts of Andries, and thinking how wise was my late father-in-law in having nothing to do with banks and paper-money.

But my troubles were not to end with the loss of my money. I was sitting on a seat outside the Law Courts, when a young man came up and very politely told me he was a newspaper man, and wished to interview me.

I had suffered so much from newspapers in the Transvaal that I became fearful, and said nay; but the young man talked on so much, and I spoke so little, that I was like one who is photographed without knowing; for next day, when I went to report myself at the commandant’s office, I was sent into the office.

“I see that you are a Natal Burgher,” said he.

He said this so seriously that I felt there must be something more in it than appeared; so I replied very discreetly that I had not said so.

“No, not to me; but you told a newspaper man so,” and he handed me a Maritzburg paper and pointed to an article marked with a blue pencil. It was headed, “The Latest Capture,” and was as follows:—

“The monotony of khaki that pervades the city was agreeably broken yesterday. Parading Church Street, at a deliberate pace that gave full opportunity for inspection and admiration, was a young man arrayed in a uniform whose identification puzzled the authorities on service sartorials. Imagine a blue mess-jacket, intended for a warrior forty five round the chest, enveloping in its flabby folds a thirty four inch measurement, the numerous green braid frogs and facings suggesting the adornment of a lady’s zouave jacket. Sleeves bedizened with the broad gold stripes of a sergeant, cuffs of a mail-boat steward, and green collar and bright gilt buttons the size of half-crowns, trousers a shade of brighter blue than the jacket, very narrow, but broadly striped with green. A small, sharp-featured, close-eyed face with incipient moustache and shaggy black beard, half concealed by a wide-spreading smasher hat. This gaudy and original getup covered the five-foot-six personality of Commandant Sarel Erasmus, late Public Prosecutor of Prinsloosdorp, and, later, Chief of General Joubert’s flying column of Taakhaars and Reimschoons, who were responsible for the sticking up of the convoy at Bokmans Drift.

“Our representative found the commandant sitting on a bench outside the Courts of Justice, smoking a big cigar and looking preternaturally thoughtful. The gallant commandant recently surrendered at Estcourt, and is now on parole. He was at first a little bit shy, having all that fearsome prejudice against Rooinek journalists that is characteristic of Transvaal officials, but with a little encouragement was persuaded to talk. As becomes the wearer of a uniform that would shame a Portuguese field-marshal, the commandant has been a ferocious warrior; but owing to the fact that he is also a Natal Burgher who was kidnapped over the Border, and made to fight against his conscience and his late neighbours, he considerately tempered his native ferocity with mercy. His fame as a fighter secured him the goodwill of General Joubert, who, despite his reputed slimness, was no match for the ex-public prosecutor, whose long experience of the criminal classes of the Rand enabled him to spot the undesirables who had attached themselves to the Boer forces. The commandant suggested to the General that he should be given a commando with the right to select his men. The General fell into the trap, and Commandant Erasmus enlisted the cream of Transvaal rascaldom, whom he kept out of mischief by taking them on an imaginary looting expedition in the peaceful and deserted regions at the foot of the Drakensberg. When at last they grew fractious, he arranged that they should meet the pick of the British and Colonial scouts, with the result that there is now no commando, The commandant is anxious to obtain some well-paid staff appointment, where his peculiar knowledge of his late countrymen, as he calls them, would be of value to the British; but the authorities do not appear overwhelmingly anxious to avail themselves of his services.”

“Is it true that you were a Natal Burgher?” asked the commandant.

“Yes,” I answered, not certain whether it would be to my advantage or not.

“In that case, Mr Erasmus,” said he, “I fear we must cease to treat you as a prisoner of war on parole, but as a rebel.”

My heart gave a great thump, and did not cease paining me till I found myself, among fifty or sixty other Natal Burghers, in the jail at Maritzburg, awaiting trial as a rebel.

It is strange how it often happens that the thing done for the best proves in the end to be the worst. In saying that I had been a Natal Burgher to the newspaper man, I foolishly thought I should do myself good by showing that I was loyal and friendly to the British. I did not know that the Government had begun to make very careful inquiries about Natalians who were fighting on the Transvaal side, nor did I then understand that it was wrong for a Transvaal Boer who had been living in Natal to go back. In talking the matter over with other rebels in the jail, they pointed out that I was not a Natalian, being only a visitor; and this made me happy until Jack Bosman was caught and brought in. He was a law-agent, and knew a little law.

“How long were you living in Natal?” he asked.

“Just over a year,” said I.

“Are you sure?”

I could not answer, for so many things had occurred since I left the Transvaal that I had forgotten how much time had gone.

“But I hear you applied to be put on the list of voters for the Newcastle district. Is that so?”

I had forgotten that my cousin had persuaded me to do this, so that the Transvaal Government could not get me if they wanted to prosecute me over the money mistake at Prinsloosdorp. I told Bosman this.

“Then you are a finished man,” said he, “for that shows you were a Natal Burgher, having given up the Transvaal.”

This broke my heart, and hope died.

And now began a terrible time of suspense and weary waiting, made worse by the hostility and jealous spitefulness of the other prisoners. The word had gone round that I had surrendered after doing no fighting, and had offered to give the British particulars of other rebels. All sorts of unfriendly and untrue things were said of me, till I soon had scarce any one to speak with save the warders; for when new prisoners came in they were warned by the others to have nothing to say to me, as I was a spy put there to hear and report anything that might be said against the British, and thus make it hard for them at their trials. My money, too, had been reduced to about five pounds; and I could foresee that unless my trial came on soon I should have to eat prison food instead of being able to buy my own, as I did now.

I wrote several letters to the commandant and others who I thought had influence, pointing out the mistake that had been made in treating me as a rebel, setting out my sad story in full, and exposing the perfidy of Andries Brink. But I got only a formal acknowledgment and the suspicion of the other prisoners that I was reporting their sayings, and my lot became even harder.

Then came every day disquieting rumours of what was to be done to us, followed by news that would raise our hopes or throw us again into despair. The other prisoners found pleasure in telling me only bad news, keeping from me anything that was cheerful. They knew well how the war was going on both sides, though how they got their information they would not let me know, so that I could only guess.

Another thing that hurt me much was the feeling that I was quite alone and friendless. There were few of the other prisoners who had not visits from relations or others, who brought them food, money, books, and clothes. But I had no one. When I tried to make a friend of the predikant by telling him I was a God-fearing Burgher who had been a deacon, he seemed to suspect me, asking why I had ceased to be a deacon, in a tone that sounded as if he knew of something to my discredit, for he said one day I was like many people, inasmuch as I only took up with religion when it suited me.

It was very annoying to see Burghers not half as religious as I getting pineapples and peppermints sent them, while I got none,—a thing not wise if intended to prove religion profitable, for it made me more irreligious than the worst; and my indignation grew strong when I saw these same Burghers take out the cards they had hidden beneath their beds, as soon as the predikant had gone, and often using their Bibles to put under their plank-beds to make them higher.

At last, when all my attempts to make friends with the predikant had been repelled by coldness,—he even accusing me of hypocrisy, a thing I have ever been opposed to in others,—my vengeance was gratified.

It happened that the Burgher who used to play the harmonium at the Sunday service hurt his hand and could not perform. I, being the only other Burgher in the prison having musical talent, said nothing about it, and the hymns had to be sung without any accompaniment. The natural consequence was that the singing fell into a long-drawn drone after the style loved by Doppers. Now the same wing of the prison was filled with military prisoners, and it being Sunday, they were all in their cells, with nothing to do. They could hear the singing plainly, and all joined in, keeping on one note all the time, and making such a hideous noise, as of bulls and people in pain, that the governor of the jail had to be sent for to stop it.

We heard that this business grew into a story, told by a prisoner released that week, that the Tommies had disturbed and broken into the chapel service of the Burghers, and there was great indignation, especially in the pro- Boer papers; and the jail governor, and commandant, and predikant had to assure the public through the papers that the thing was greatly exaggerated. But the pro -Boer papers said where there’s smoke there’s fire, and that the hushing-up of the scandal was in keeping with the traditions of British rule in South Africa.

But the sweet part of my revenge came through the foolish words used by the predikant, who wrote to the papers denying that there had been any attack on the chapel. “It seems,’ wrote he, “that the soldiers were only imitating the noises made by the Burghers who could not sing.” This brought trouble for the predikant, who did not again come to the jail, but sent another, who was in many ways his superior, and appreciated me.

Meanwhile I would secretly laugh when I thought how all this trouble had been caused by my refusing to play the harmonium.

It is a terrible thing for an Afrikander to get into prison, seeing that he is less fitted for the life than Englanders and others who live in towns. In the whole of his life, an Afrikander probably never spent two following days between four walls, except when sick. For such a man to have to spend months and even years in a space no bigger than a cattle-kraal is abominable cruelty that should be practised on Kafirs only. Before a month had gone there was not an Afrikander in the jail who did not look five years older; and even I began to show signs of the cruelty of my treatment, for I kept careful note by watching my face in the only looking-glass, which, the other Burghers never using, I had all to myself, they not caring how they looked; and most of them would say they were ill on Saturdays when bathing -time came round.

One day, in the sixth week of my unjust detention, when my last half-sovereign had been spent on food and my name was down on the list of those to receive prison rations, I received a great schrick, only of a joyful kind. The warder called my name, and took me to the little room at the entrance -gates, where prisoners saw their friends.

“Who wants me?” I asked.

He was a surly warder, who never spoke to prisoners except to growl at them for doing something innocent, and he made no answer, except to push me into the room.

Any anger I felt against him was suffocated by what I saw.

Sitting on the only chair was a lady, dressed beautifully all in white and pink, with a big picture-hat and a lovely sunshade all bright red. So tall did she seem in her long frock, that I, who had never seen her but once out of riding or short skirts, did not recognise the girl Charlotte in this beautiful full-grown woman, who stood up as I entered.

I rushed at her and took her hand; but before saying a word to me, she, still holding my hand, turned on the surly warder in the same masterful way that she had turned on the Burghers that day she visited the laager.

“Do you know how long you’ve kept me waiting? Nearly half an hour. I’ll report you to the commandant.”

The warder made no answer.

“I don’t believe you took my message,” she went on.

“But he must have, or I would not have come,’ said I, anxious to appease the rising anger of the warder, who went outside and stood near the door, as if to listen to what we said.

“That brute has been starving you, Sarel. I can see it in your face,” said she.

“It’s not want of food I have been hungry for, but friends,” I answered.

“I only knew a week ago that you were here, and I came up from Durban as soon as my aunt could come with me. But how did they catch you, Sarel? and how long have you got?”

I told her I was not caught, but surrendered; and that my trial was not yet, so that I did not know how long I should get.

“Then I am not too late. How much will it cost to get you out?”

“We are not in the Transvaal, Charlotte, and I don’t know the prices, or even if there are any,” I answered.

“But surely a public prosecutor can get himself off? I didn’t know they could put officials in prison. They never did it in the Transvaal.”

I tried my best to explain how different things were in Natal; but it is ever foolish to explain law to a woman, and Charlotte was like all of them.

“Who will be landdrost? I will go and see him, and tell him that it’s all wrong about you, and that Andries Brink led you astray.”

“There will be no landdrost,” I explained, “but a judge—a Rooinek judge that they are going to import from England—and he would not see you.”

“But I speak English beautifully; and how could he not see me if I went to his house?”

“It would be useless, Charlotte, as I am going to plead guilty.”

“What’s the good of that, you silly? Never say you did a thing. People always say they are not guilty. It’s not lying. I read that in a book only the other day. I’ll bring it to you. It’s a beautiful story about a young man who stole money and went to jail.”

“Charlotte,” said I, “you are a woman, and cannot understand these things.”

“Then if I can’t understand, I won’t try to get you out. Didn’t I get Arthur out of Pretoria when they said I couldn’t?”

“Yes; but that was different,—the Government helped you.”

“And why shouldn’t this Government help me? I have seen the commandant. He is even nicer than General Joubert, and I’m sure I can manage him.”

“Charlotte, I tell you things are different,” said I, almost angry that she would not see reason.

“Of course things are different. If they were not, it would be easy to do everything when you had done it once. It seems to me you want to keep in prison.”

“Yes, Charlotte,” said I sadly. “Now that I cannot have you, I don’t see much happiness in being outside these walls.”

Charlotte looked at me with her eyes wide open, in that surprised and silent manner that always made me feel that she was too astonished at my words to answer me.

“You must not talk to me like that. I am engaged to be married,” said she after a long pause, and very coldly.

“Then why do you come and try to get me out of jail if I must not talk to you?” I asked.

“I suppose it’s because I had something to do with getting you here.”

“Did Captain Watson tell you to come?” I next asked, secretly resolving that if she said Yes I would not let her do anything for me.

“No; he is away fighting. But he will know as soon as he gets my letter, and he will help to get you out, for he says you are more fool than knave, and have been the victim of Andries Brink. He knows all the British, and is sure to know the judge who is going to try you.”

“I don’t want him to do anything,” said I.

“Don’t be a fool, Sarel. You are only jealous, but you have no cause to be, for I should not have married you even if I had not met Arthur. You ought to be glad that he is not jealous of you, for he might tell the judge to make it hot for you.”

“Why do you talk so hard and cruelly now that I am in trouble?”

“But I must be truthful, Sarel; that’s in my agreement with Arthur. I have been causing so much trouble and wickedness by lying and deceiving people, that I’m not going to do it any more, even though Arthur may not find it out.”

“But you once said you would marry me.”

“Yes, if I could. Don’t you remember I was very particular about that? But I never could marry you, least of all now that I am going to marry Arthur.”

“Then you deceived me,” said I sternly.

Y “Yes, that’s true; but I was a deceitful girl then. I didn’t know any better, and I didn’t know Arthur objected to lying women. He hadn’t been teaching me to be honest long then, as we didn’t see much of one another. Besides, what about your deceiving Katrina?”

I didn’t know you then, Charlotte, and I didn’t know any better.”

As is ever the case when a woman gets a clever answer, Charlotte got angry.

“If you don’t promise to marry Katrina, I won’t do anything to get you out of jail,” said she spitefully.

“Then if I don’t get out, how can I marry her?”

This would have been a sufficient answer for a man, but not for Charlotte.

“But you won’t be here more than ten years, and you won’t be too old to marry when you come out. You will be only about forty.”

“Charlotte,’ said I, speaking very seriously, “would you like to be compelled to marry me?”

She shook her head.

“Then why do you want to make me suffer by making me marry some one I do not like?”

“But it’s quite different with men,” said she. ‘It’s much worse for a girl to be disappointed than for a man. They can always keep away from home if they don’t like their wives; but a woman can’t.”

There was no answering such foolishness, so, with a sore heart, I changed the subject.

“Charlotte,” said I, ‘this is the only shirt I have. Won’t you buy me some? And I want socks and lots of things.”

“Certainly,” said she, very cheerfully. ‘I was going to tell you how dreadfully shabby you look. What do you want?”

I told her, and she made out a list. By the time it was finished the warder told her she could stay no longer, on which she put out her tongue at him, being very angry with him for keeping her waiting.

When she shook hands I noticed that she kept her head back as if fearful that I should kiss her, and hurried out of the room, saying she would come again soon.

Next day there came for me a nice bundle of clothes and other things for comfort that I needed very much. I became the best-dressed prisoner in the jail, and I noticed that the female friends of the other prisoners would look at me, and sometimes gave me sweets and fruit. This, with my smart appearance, made the others jealous, and I became more unpopular. But somehow, now that I knew Charlotte was thinking about me, this did not trouble me as it used, and I spent much time in planning revenges that, owing to my superior intelligence, were generally successful and undetected.

A few days after, Charlotte again came. When I got to the visiting-room, I found her laughing and talking in a most friendly manner with the surly warder, who was on gate-opening duty. She had brought him a tobacco-pouch with his initials worked on it, making this surly man as pleased as a child. He showed his pleasure by leaving us quite alone, and making the time of our being together much longer than the rules allowed.

Charlotte was very bright and cheerful, the reason being that Captain Watson had sent her an engagement-ring, which she showed me before even asking how I was, or if I liked the clothes she had sent. She made me examine it, making a great fuss lest I should drop and lose it.

“It cost twenty pounds,” said she. ‘That shows how much he must love me.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Oh, I took it to a shop and had it priced.”

This made me lose a lot of my love for her, I forgetting that a girl would wake up a dying man or woman to show her engagement-ring, for in this matter the Afrikander girl is quite as bad as Rooineks. However, she was very kind, and told me all that people in Maritzburg were saying about us rebels, and what ought to be done to us, from shooting to banishing us and taking our farms.

“It is fortunate you did not marry Katrina after all,” said she, “for it would be bad for her to be a widow without a farm, for no one would marry her.”

“You are very anxious about Katrina,” said I. “You never were before.”

“Ah, Sarel, you do not understand. When a girl is engaged she always feels sorry for girls that are not,” answered she. And then she made me examine the ring again, and said that I should never be able to give Katrina one so good, because Arthur had told her this was the very best he could get.

Each time that she came, which was twice a-week, it was ever the same,—little about me, much about herself and Arthur, till I began to hate him more than ever. But I misjudged her; for though she talked little about my affairs while with me, she was thinking of them while away, as was proved by a lawyer coming and saying he had been retained to defend me, but he was not to say who was paying him. I knew it was Charlotte’s work, and guessed that Captain Watson was finding the money, though when I asked Charlotte she pretended ignorance, hinting that as Andries Brink had safely reached Delagoa Bay, he would not forget what he owed me. But I knew him too well to give him credit for such thoughtfulness.

My having a lawyer pleased Charlotte much more than it did me; for, being one myself, I knew exactly how little they could do, despite their fine and encouraging talk. But Charlotte talked as if I was free already. Even when I told her that the lawyer had advised me to plead guilty, and rely upon the address to the judges and the extenuating circumstances that would be urged on my behalf, I could not convince her. All she would say was that I did not know what would happen, and that if the lawyer had not been a good one, Captain Watson would not have chosen him, thus forgetting herself and letting out her secret, as women always will if you contradict them, and pretend that you do not believe they have any secret. She talked so cheerfully every time she came, that at last I began to feel there might be something in what she said; for although a man pays no attention to a woman’s opinion when it is against his secret wish, when her ideas agree with his he believes in her; and so it was with me and Charlotte. I had a secret feeling that in the end something would happen in my favour, though I could not say what.

And so the time passed slowly. Charlotte came once, and sometimes twice, a-week, always bringing something good to eat or to read or to wear, and telling me all the most cheerful news, and paying for my food that was sent from the hotel.

At the end of nearly six long months, I was taken with the first batch of prisoners to Ladysmith to be tried, my case coming on on the third day. I was not a bit surprised when I looked round the court, to see Charlotte sitting there eating chocolates. She had come up alone, I heard from my lawyer, and had been sitting in court for four days waiting patiently for my case to come on, and sending many notes to the lawyer, reminding him not to forget this or that, which annoyed him very much, as he was busy with other cases.

Mine did not last long. The principal evidence was all admitted by me, and had not to be called. My lawyer made a moderately good speech, in which he laid great stress on the fact that I had been forced to join the enemy, and had come in as soon as I could.

The judge president, however, made much of my being a commandant, he not knowing that a commandant is not master of the Burghers, and cannot do as he likes, as my story plainly shows. He told me I had done a wicked thing in robbing the convoy, saying nothing about the share Andries Brink had in it; and the sentence was one year’s imprisonment, two hundred and fifty pounds fine, or, in default of payment, six months more.

I heard it without showing any fear, or even crying, for it was much less than I had secretly feared.

I heard after I was taken from the court that Charlotte said very rude things to my lawyer, calling him a fool and an idiot because he would not say what she wished him to. It was all spoken in open court, too, and the police were ordered to put her out; so that I did not see her till next day, when she was allowed to say good-bye before I was taken back to Maritzburg.

She was still very angry with the lawyer and the judge, and with everything and everybody connected with the trial, down to the’ policeman who had put her out of court, and even me for pleading guilty.

“Well, Charlotte, it’s all over between us now,” said I, after we had shaken hands.

“It was never anything else, was it?” she replied, wondrously cool.

“But I had thought there might have been something,” I answered sadly.

“That’s where you were foolish.”

“Didn’t you say the captain was away fighting?”

“Yes.”

“Suppose something happened to him, wouldn’t you want to marry again?”

“Certainly not,” she answered firmly. “I should never want to marry anybody else, not if I lived a hundred years.”

“But, Charlotte, how can you say now what you might want to do, say, five years hence? We all change much, you know.”

She thought for a moment, and I felt I had for once said something she could not answer; but she was clever to the last.

“Then if I cannot tell what I shall feel in five years’ time, what about you? How do you know you will want to marry me then?”

“I shall never change, Charlotte,” said I.

“Neither shall I.” She thought a moment, and then gave me her hand. ‘No, Sarel, I have done you quite enough harm in getting you into jail. I’m very sorry I should have been such a deceitful girl, but it’s all over now. I’m not going to deceive anybody again; that’s why I won’t tell you I would marry you. Let us say good-bye,’” and she kissed me quickly on the cheek.

Before I had recovered from my surprise she was at the gateway of the courtyard, through which she passed out of my life for ever.

In a few weeks I shall be again free. The news came as suddenly as most of the great events in my life have. The governor of the jail sent for me, and told me that the two hundred and fifty pounds fine had been paid by friends, and that I would be released at the end of the twelve months.

I had one letter from Charlotte about nine months after my conviction. It was from some place in England, and told me about her marriage to Captain Watson, and was mostly full of a description of what she wore and how she looked, and a few words expressing a hope that I would write some day to tell her I had married Katrina.

I wrote directly, and was able to tell her that Katrina was married to a cousin, making his third wife and the step-mother to sixteen children.

I told her also that old Paul du Plooy had returned to his farm in the Woodbush, where, as soon as I became a free man, I should follow him, to explain in person why I had never paid either to him or to Katrina the proceeds of the deposit note.