“Well, we are not going to let you do anything of the sort,” answered Aletta decisively. “Are we, Piet? Why don’t you make a prisoner of war of him, then he can’t do as he pleases?”
“‘He is one of us now,’” quoted Colvin, innocently. “I believe those were the words. How can ‘one of us’ be a prisoner of war?”
Piet laughed at this deft turning of the tables.
“Go away and get your traps, man,” he said, “then you’ll be all snug and fixed up here by lunch-time. Here’s the buggy,” as the sound of wheels came through from the front of the house. “I must get back to office. So long?”
Every day some fresh news from the seat of war came flowing in—beginning with the capture of the armoured train at Kraaipan, historical as the first overt act of hostility, the investment of Kimberley and Mafeking, the reverse at Elandslaagte, and the death of the British general, and, later on, the arrival of a good many British prisoners. And over and above authenticated news, of course wild rumour was busy, magnifying this or that skirmish into a Boer victory, diminishing losses, and playing general skittles with most of the facts of the particular event reported, as is invariably the case on either side of the contested field. But what struck Colvin Kershaw after the first week of excitement was the calm, matter-of-fact way in which it was received by the crowd at large. News which would have thrown Cape Town or Durban into a perfect delirium, was treated in Pretoria as so much matter of course, and only to be expected.
Day after day, he would watch the muster of burghers or the entraining of the guns, great and small, of the Staats Artillerie, and here again the sober, almost phlegmatic demeanour of the combatants was remarkable. Rough, weather-beaten, somewhat melancholy-looking men were these mounted burghers—many of them large and powerful of stature. They bestrode wiry, undersized nags—which bore besides their riders the frugal ration of biltong and biscuit, with which the Boer can get along for days. Slung round with well-filled bandolier, rifle on thigh, and mostly wearing weather-worn broad-brimmed hats—though some of the older ones were crowned with the white chimney-pot—they would muster in front of the Dutch Reformed church, and pace forth, singing perhaps a Dutch hymn or a snatch of the “Volkslied”—most of them smoking their pipes, tranquil, phlegmatic, as though they were all going home again. The hooraying and handshaking and handkerchief-waving and flag-wagging which would have accompanied a British combatant force under like circumstances, would be conspicuous by its absence.
While watching such a muster, a man, who was standing among the spectators, turned at her voice and, lifting his hat, shook hands with Aletta. He was a tall gentlemanly-looking man, with a fair beard and moustache worn after the Vandyke cut, and was a Hollander with a Portuguese name. He, too, had been a high Government official.
“I haven’t seen you for a long time, Dr Da Costa,” said Aletta. “I thought you had gone to the front.”
“No. I am going very soon, though.” Then, following the direction of his glance, she introduced him to Colvin.