Chapter Ten.
The Net draws in.
It was Morkel who brought the news. Their deliberations on Frank’s fate had lasted for some hours, being interspersed with a sort of impromptu prayer-meeting or two—and in the result he had been brought before the Commandant again, and being asked if he had any thing to say in excuse for having repeatedly insulted the President, blasphemed Almighty God, and taken up arms against the Republic, part of whose territory this had now been proclaimed by annexation, replied simply by a savage renewal of all the abuse he had already been foolish enough to heap upon those in whose power he was. So he was condemned to be shot at daybreak on the following morning.
Not all had been in favour of that extreme measure, said Morkel. Swaart Jan Grobbelaar for one, and old Sarel Van der Vyver for another, had spoken on the side of mercy; possibly with an uneasy eye to eventualities. But Commandant Schoeman, who was a Free State Boer, and whose own position as a mere belligerent was secure in any event, had overruled them, and by that time to-morrow poor Frank Wenlock would no longer exist. “What can be done, Morkel?” said Colvin, very much moved. “Do you think they really intend to do it?”
“Dead certain,” was the gloomy reply. “You know the poor devil simply brought it upon himself. You saw how he behaved this morning, Kershaw. Why he was simply committing suicide.”
“Would it be any use if I were to try and talk over Schoeman? Might persuade him to let the chap off with a bit of a fright. I am in with some of the big bugs up at Pretoria, you know.”
“Not an atom of use,” said Morkel decidedly. “You are in fairly bad odour yourself, you see, Kershaw.”
“It’s ghastly. I can’t believe they really intend to shoot the poor chap. But, by-the-by, Morkel, how is it you are up here among them? I thought you were so rigidly—er—Imperialist?”
Morkel looked embarrassed.
“So I am—er—was, I mean,” he answered, speaking low. “But it’s all Jelf’s fault. He took on a fad to collect the state of feeling among the farmers, and was always wanting me to go round and find it out. I went once too often; for when Olivier and Schoeman crossed from the Free State, and the whole of the Wildschutsberg and the Rooi-Ruggensberg rose as one man, why they simply commandeered me.”