The sun had just gone down when my despatch-rider reached the English camp; and the officer in command was not long in sending him his reply, accompanied by an orderly.
"Are you General De Wet?" the orderly asked me.
"I am," replied I.
"My officer in command," he said in a polite but determined voice, "wishes me to tell you that we are a good hundred men strong, that we are well provided with food and ammunition, and that we hold a strong position in some houses and kraals. Every moment we are expecting ten thousand men from Belmont, and we are waiting here with the sole purpose of conducting them to Lord Roberts."
I allowed him to speak without interrupting him; but when he had finished, I answered him in quite as determined a voice as he had used to me.
"I will give you just enough time to get back and to tell your officer in command that, if he does not surrender at once, I shall shell him and storm his position. He will be allowed exactly ten minutes to make up his mind—then the white flag must appear."
"But where is your gun?" the orderly asked. In reply I pointed to the Maxim-Nordenfeldt, which stood a few hundred paces behind us, surrounded by some burghers.
"Will you give us your word of honour," he asked me when he caught sight of the gun, "not to stir from your position till we have got ten miles away? That is the only condition on which we will abandon our positions."
I again allowed him to finish, although his demand filled me with the utmost astonishment. I asked myself what sort of men this English officer imagined the Boer Generals to be.
"I demand unconditional surrender," I then said. "I give you ten minutes from the moment you dismount on arriving at your camp; when those ten minutes have passed I fire."