“My lads, I am not romancing. I am telling you this in sober earnest. We are a slow and unemotional race, but we are true, and we are dogged, even more so than the Boers, and if real danger confronts the nation, woe to those who have attacked her. We shall want a lot of beating, and we’ve yet to find the ones who can do it.”
Chapter Six.
Face to Face with President Kruger.
More than five minutes of unbroken silence elapsed after Mr Hunter had finished that portion of his narrative which dealt with the troubles of the Uitlanders. He had summed the whole position up, discussed every point, and had finally shown that the dispute between the Transvaal Government and its alien population was approaching vast proportions, which threatened to involve the English Government, who were now supporting the claims of their distant subjects. That a great conspiracy existed he had proved almost beyond a doubt, and now, like the patriotic man he was, he had prophesied how the sons of the great White Queen would meet their troubles, and how on every side and from every colony they would stretch forth their hands and join them in a cordial union, swearing that nothing should part them but death, till the country they loved had regained her paramountry.
Then, with flushed face and quickened breathing he had sprung from his chair, and was now striding up and down the verandah with a stem, determined look upon his face, while his cigar was firmly gripped between his teeth and his hands were thrust deeply into his trouser pockets.
Against the shady wall, lounging full-length in big cane chairs, Jack and Wilfred stared thoughtfully over the verandah rail, and away over the rolling veldt which stretched between Mr Hunter’s house and his neighbour’s. They had both listened without an interruption to the details of the rise and origin of the Boers, and of their subsequent fortunes, and now they sat moodily wondering whether the conspiracy spoken of could really be a fact, or whether, after all, it was not some delusion with which Mr Hunter was frightening himself.
“Don’t imagine I am romancing or inventing a tale with which to alarm you,” repeated Mr Hunter at this moment, with marked emphasis, stopping suddenly in front of the two lads, and fixing them with his eyes as though he had guessed their thoughts and was replying to them. “What I have said is strictly true. A day of trial and tribulation is fast coming for the British Empire, and you will see that her sons will answer the call ‘To arms!’ with the enthusiasm that I have predicted.
“Very soon, I fear, the Transvaal will be an unsafe country for Englishmen, and if we, together with the foreigners of all nationalities who make up the Uitlander population, are compelled to fly over the borders, it will mean ruin for us all. Take my own case, for example. When I had served my time with the British army I determined to settle out here, having heard rumours of the hidden wealth of the country. First I obtained employment at Kimberley. Then, when I had saved a little pile, I came up here and invested the money in an old shanty, built for the most part of biscuit-boxes, with a presentable plank here and there to hold them together. Fortunately I had a friend in Durban, a cousin as a matter of fact, and from him I obtained consignments of useful articles, food and other matters, of which spades and picks of best English manufacture formed a large proportion. There was a growing demand for all sorts of things. Prices ruled high, and in the first year I had more business to transact than I could manage single-handed, and had a large sum in hand after paying off all my accounts at Durban and the cost of transporting the goods. Next year my wife became my partner and helper in more ways than one. We carried on the store between us, and from that date we have prospered beyond our wildest hopes. I have built this house and the large buildings of the store. There are funds of mine invested in the diamond mines at Kimberley, not to mention the gold diggings here, and every year almost I and my partners in the mines industry buy up mining rights in other parts.