The sun dropped, and the shadows of evening darkened his place of confinement, and then with the deepening gloom a feeling of great desolation came over the man, a feeling of forsakenness, and that never again would his ears receive a word of sympathy or friendship, let alone love. He hungered for such then. It was the bitterest moment he had known yet. Seated there on an old wheelbarrow in the close, fusty smelling stable, with the long night before him, he well-nigh regretted that he had been allowed the extension of time. It would all have been over by now. He would have sunk to rest with the evening’s sun. Then upon the black gloom of his mind came the consciousness of approaching voices—then the rattle and rasping of the padlock, and the door was opened. One of the guards entered, ushering in three men. He was bearing, moreover, a lantern and a chair, which having set down, he retired.
By the somewhat dingy light of the lantern Colvin recognised his visitors: Schoeman, Jan Grobbelaar, and the predikant. He greeted the last-named, with whom he was already acquainted. Then a thrill of hope went through his heart. Had they thought better of it and were here to offer him deliverance?
“We have given your case every consideration, nephew,” began the Commandant in his dry, emotionless, wooden tones. “You have professed yourself one of us, and by way of proving yourself to be so have committed the act of a traitor, in that you have set one of our enemies at large.”
“Pardon me, Mynheer Commandant,” interrupted Colvin. “I have done no such thing. I deny it here on the brink of the grave. I will be candid enough to say that I might have done so had it been in my power. But you know perfectly well it was not.”
“You have committed the act of a traitor,” went on Schoeman, ignoring the protest as completely as though the other had not spoken, “and therefore you have been adjudged to meet a traitor’s doom. But our good brother Mynheer Grobbelaar here and others have pleaded for you, and so we have decided to remit that judgment upon you, subject to one condition. You are to have a chance of proving your good faith. You are to undertake to serve in arms with the Republican forces where and whenever required, until it shall please the good God to bring this cruel and unrighteous war to an end and give victory unto those who serve Him. And to this end you will sign this declaration.”
Colvin took the paper, and by the light of the lantern closely scanned it—not without eagerness. It was written in Dutch and contained an oath of submission to the South African Republics and an undertaking to bear arms on their behalf even as Schoeman had set forward.
“And if I sign this your sentence is not to be carried out, Mynheer Commandant?” he said quickly.
“In a word, this is the price of my life?”
“That is so,” said Schoeman.
“Then I refuse the conditions. I will not sign it. I refuse to draw trigger on my own countrymen!”