“Toen, Colvin. Sign it, man. Sign it!” broke in Swaart Jan eagerly. “We don’t want you to be shot, kerel.”
“Thanks, Oom Jan. I don’t believe you do. But I can subscribe to no such declaration, be the consequences what they may.”
Then Jan Grobbelaar, who was really well disposed towards the prisoner, became voluble. Why would he persist in throwing away his life in that foolish manner? He was one with them now, why not throw in his lot with them openly? It did not matter in the long run. The Republics were bound to win, since God and justice were on their side—and so on, and so on. All in vain.
“It is of no use, Oom Jan. I’m grateful to you all the same. But under no circumstances whatever can I consent to fire on my own countrymen.”
The little man was really distressed, and was pouring forth his volubility once more. But Schoeman interrupted.
“Then you refuse the chance we offer you?”
“On those terms—absolutely.”
“Be it so. Your blood be upon your own head. And now we will leave you with Mynheer, for your hours are but few indeed.”
And the two went out—Swaart Jan shaking his head lugubriously over the astonishing obstinacy of the man he would fain befriend.
Colvin was not one of those who sneer at religion, though his views upon the subject were broad enough to have earned the thorough disapproval of the professors of more dogmatic creeds. As we have already hinted, his motive in sending for the predikant was primarily one of policy, partly in order to gain time, partly to placate those in whose hands he was. Yet now that Mynheer had come he was not sorry, in that he had someone to talk to, and, as we have said, his loneliness had been getting terribly upon his nerves. So he listened while the predikant read some Scripture and said a few prayers, and when the latter asked him if he forgave those at whose door lay his death, he answered that he had no feeling against them; that if they were doing him to death unjustly—well, he supposed he had done things to other people some time or other in his life, which they didn’t like, and this might go as a set-off against such. Adrian De la Rey was the hardest nut to crack, but, on the other hand, he had a grievance which he, Colvin, ought to be the first person to make allowances for. No—he didn’t think he wanted Adrian to come to grief, although he had said so that morning. It didn’t matter to himself anyhow.