The "Colonel" graciously returned thanks. Meanwhile a woman had whispered to Roux: "I hope these are not Ben Viljoen's people making fools of us."
"Nonsense," he answered, "Can't you see that this is a very superior British officer?" Whereat the whole company further expressed their delight at seeing them.
The "Colonel" now spoke: "Mr. Roux, we will take your cattle and sheep with us for safety. Kindly lend us a servant to help drive them along. Will you show us to-morrow where the Boers are?"
Mr. Roux: "Certainly, sir, but you must not take me into dangerous places, please."
The "Colonel": "Very well; I will send the waggons to fetch your women-folk in the morning."
Roux gathered together his cattle and said: "I hope you and I shall have a whiskey together in your camp to-morrow."
The "Colonel" answered: "I shall be pleased to see you," and asked them if they had any money or valuables they wished taken care of. But the Boers, true to the saying, "Touch a Boer's heart rather than his purse," answered in chorus: "Thank you, but we have put all that carefully away where no Boer will find it."
They all bid the "Colonel" good-bye, the "Tommies" exchanging some familiarities with the women till these screamed with laughter, and then the "Colonel" and his commando of two men remounted their big clumsy English horses and rode proudly away. But pride comes before a fall, and they had not proceeded many yards when the "Colonel's" horse, stumbling over a bundle of barbed wire, fell, and threw his rider to the ground. Just as he had nearly exhausted the Dutch vocabulary of imprecations, the Steenkamps, who fortunately had not heard him, came to his assistance and with many expressions of sympathy helped him on his horse, Roux carefully wiping his leggings clean with his handkerchief. After proceeding a little further the "Tommies" asked their "Colonel" what he meant by that acrobatic performance. Whereat the "Colonel" answered: "That was a very fortunate accident; the Steenkamps are now convinced that we are English by the clumsy manner I rode."
The next morning my three adjutants arrived in camp carrying four new Mausers and 100 cartridges each, and driving about 300 sheep and a nice pony. The same morning I sent Field-Cornet Young to arrest the brave quartette of burghers. He found everything packed in readiness to depart to the English camp, and they were anxiously awaiting Colonel Bullock's promised waggons.
It was, of course, a fine "tableau" when the curtain rose on the farce, disclosing in the place of the expected English rescuers a burgher officer with a broad smile on his face. They were, of course, profuse in their apologies and excuses. They declared that they had been surrounded by hundreds of the enemy who had placed their rifles to their breasts, forcing them to surrender. One of them was now in so pitiable a condition of fear that he showed the field-cornet a score of certificates from doctors and quacks of all sorts, declaring him to be suffering from every imaginable disease, and the field-cornet was moved to leave him behind. The other three were placed under arrest, court-martialled and sentenced to three months' hard labour, and to have all their goods confiscated.