“Still, man, still!” growled one of his escort, shaking him violently. Here again was an old acquaintance, in the shape of Hermanus Delport. But the big Dutchman’s face was considerably damaged, one eye being totally closed. Frank had been using his fists to some purpose. Now he let off a volley of perfectly unprintable expletives.
“You’d dare lay a finger on me but for this reim, wouldn’t you?” he yelled. “I’d plug up your other eye for two pins, and every man’s blanked eyes in this camp.” And more to the same effect.
“Still, man, do you hear?” repeated Hermanus, administering another shake. “The Commandant is speaking to you. Do you hear?”
“Is he? Well, then, I don’t care a little damn for Mr bally Commandant or the whole lot of infernal rebels and traitors in that tent. Aha, Swaart Jan! you may well look sick, you old liar; there’s a nice rope waiting for you. Old Sarel, too? What a hanging of rebels and traitors there’ll be by-and-by! And Morkel? Ja, you will dangle, too.” Then becoming alive to the presence of Colvin, he burst into a very roar of derisive hatred. “Good-day, Mister Kershaw—or should I say Commandant Kershaw?—the biggest blanked traitor of the lot. You’ll be blown from a gun, I should think.”
These ravings, uttered half in English, half in Dutch, were not without effect upon most of those within the tent. They had about concluded that the violence and insolence of this prisoner had reached limits.
“Let him taste the sjambok” growled the old burgher who had expressed the opinion antagonistic to British veracity. But Commandant Schoeman gave no sign of perturbation. Save for a stern and ominous look in his cold, snaky eye, he might not have heard.
“Frank—Frank! Do be quiet, man,” said Colvin earnestly. “Don’t make a silly ass of yourself. You are doing yourself no good.”
“Not, eh? I’d do you some good though if I could get at you; I’d give you the jolliest hammering you ever had. Look at Mani Delport’s mug there. That’s nothing to what yours would be, you infernal traitor.”
“It might not be so easy, Frank. But do be reasonable. How can you expect decent treatment if you will persist in behaving like a lunatic?”
“Would you be reasonable if you had seen your home sacked and gutted by a lot of rebels and traitors, and your mother turned out homeless, Mister Dutchman Kruger Kershaw?” snarled Frank. “No fear though. Your place wasn’t interfered with. You’re one of them, you know.”