To his surprise he found that there was a dim oil-lamp burning at the end, not that he could see it very well, for a wall of small cases was built between him and it. But, by climbing on to this and peeping over, he was able to see that it was a small lantern slung from the roof, and swinging backwards and forwards and from side to side as the van jerked.
But what was, perhaps, more surprising than all, was to find four men seated on as many boxes in the space that was walled off, playing a game of cards. They were typical Boers; that is to say, three of them were big, bearded men dressed in rough suits and felt hats, whilst the fourth was none other than Piet Maartens, more carefully clothed than his companions, and with a clean-shaven and evil-looking face. Close beside each man was a Mauser rifle and a bandolier full of cartridges.
“Whew!” whistled Jack under his breath, climbing stealthily down. “What are those men doing here, and armed too! What does it mean, I wonder?”
For a few moments he sat on the floor puzzling his brains, and then a suspicion that he had accidentally made a discovery dawned upon him.
“They’re up to no good, those fellows,” he said to himself, “and it looks very much as though they were in charge of this van-load of boxes. I wonder what’s inside them! Let me see. They’re labelled ‘Grapes—to be kept cool’, and are addressed to President Kruger himself.”
Having inspected the outside of the cases, Jack’s suspicions led him to test the weight of one of them, for, like every other Uitlander, he had heard that quantities of ammunition and arms were being secretly imported by the Boers.
“Phew!” he muttered, hurriedly putting it back in its place. “Not grapes, but Mauser cartridges, I’ll be bound. It’s twenty times as heavy as a case of grapes would be.”
There was no doubt now that Jack had hit upon something more than curious, and, having discovered a van loaded presumably with grapes but undoubtedly with Mauser cartridges, and in charge of a party of Boers whilst still in an English colony, his curiosity led him to persevere and probe the matter thoroughly.
“I’ll just see what is at this end now,” he thought, “and if I find the same I shall certainly get out of this as soon as possible. Those fellows would have no hesitation in shooting me to ensure my keeping a silent tongue; and Piet Maartens would certainly help them to get rid of me.”
Jack now crept across the narrow space which had been left opposite the doors of the van, and inspected the end nearest the engine. It, too, was apparently full of cases of grapes, but on climbing along on the top—for the boxes were here several tiers in thickness—he came to another large space left in the centre of them, and on lowering himself into it and feeling about with his hands, discovered no fewer than three Maxim guns jammed close together, whilst beneath them, packed loosely in straw, were piles on piles of rifles, undoubtedly of the Mauser pattern, as he could tell to a certainty by the shape of the breech-lock. Here was a position for a young lad to find himself in! By the merest accident he had managed to get into an extremely dangerous situation, and common sense advised him to quit it at once.