There was nothing for it but compliance. As he re-entered the tent, Colvin realised that he was indeed a prisoner, and guarded by an armed sentry. What did it mean? Why, simply that for any power he might have to help Frank Wenlock that night—by fair means or foul—he might as well have been in Patagonia or Pekin. More, a very uneasy feeling had come over him that he might ere long stand sorely in need of aid himself.
These precautions seemed to point that way too. Here he was as much a prisoner as the man to whom death would come with the morning light. It struck him in a passing way as singular that the men who shared this tent with him were not here to-night, and he was alone. Hour after hour wore on, and still he racked his brains. Once before he had saved Frank Wenlock’s life in the heat and excitement of warfare. He could not save it now. That wily old fox Schoeman had seen to that.
Colvin was very tired. The strain of the previous day had told upon him—the strain of those long night hours too. He could not have told approximately at what hour his eyes had closed, and a whirling round of confused dreams were chasing each other through his slumbering brain. Now he was back again in peace and quietness at Piet Plessis’ with Aletta, radiant and happy. Now he was at Ratels Hoek, but Aletta was not there. A cold blank void seemed to take her place, and then into it floated the form of May Wenlock, her face turned from him in horror and loathing, as though requiring her brother’s blood at his hands. Then he awoke with a cold start, wondering confusedly whether all that had happened the day before were but a dream—awoke to the light of another day, with the beams of a newly risen sun pouring into the tent—awoke to behold three armed burghers standing over him. Even then he noticed that the expression of their faces was grim and ominous, and that they replied to his morning salutation as curtly as possible.
“So! You are awake at last,” said one. “We were about to awaken you. You must come before the Commandant at once.”
“Before the Commandant?” echoed Colvin, still hardly awake. “By the way—the prisoner? What about the prisoner? The Commandant has pardoned him, has he?”
The men exchanged a very strange look with each other at the words.
“It is about the prisoner that the Commandant needs you, Mynheer,” said the spokesman. And Colvin’s heart sank. He was wanted to receive the doomed man’s last wishes, he supposed, being the latter’s fellow-countryman. Poor Frank—poor Frank!
“I am ready,” he said, springing up. “But—tell me. Are they really going to shoot him after all? Surely—surely not!”
The men looked more strangely than ever.
“You ought to know best whether that can now be done or not, Mynheer,” was the enigmatical reply. “Come!”