"Mr. Harberton says that he must be off at once, my dear. He wants to get back to the fighting again."
"I am sorry indeed for that. It seems unnatural, after what he has done for us, that we should let him go away so soon. Now, do tell us something about yourself—but first, where have you put those men, John?"
"One is locked up in the cellar, another in the stables, and the third in the wood-house, so that they cannot aid each other to get away."
"At any rate," she went on, "none of us will feel inclined for much sleep to-night; and we want to know all about Mr. Harberton and how his Dutch servant came to be at Pretoria, and all about what he has been doing since he landed, and the truth about the battles that have been fought. But before he begins, will you go into the kitchen, girls, and help Jane get some tea in the dining-room, with whatever there is in the house. It will do us all good, and we won't ask Mr. Harberton to tell his story till we have had what we may call supper."
"While they are away," Mr. Chambers said, "I may as well ask you as to whether you have any plans for getting down to the Modder?"
"No, I have no distinct plans, except that, as you see, I am dressed as a young Boer farmer, and as I talk the language sufficiently to pass muster, I can support the character well enough."
"But how is it that you talk Dutch, or rather I suppose I should say Taal, Mr. Harberton?"
"That I will tell you presently," Yorke laughed, "or I shall have to go over the same thing twice. My man Hans is my regimental servant, and has learnt to speak English very fairly, and of course knows Dutch. My Kaffir speaks Dutch and a little English, and as I speak a little Kaffir we get on very well together. He has just put up my horse in your stable. I had no time to lose when I first came here, and fastened him up behind the house, where he was not likely to be observed if any of those fellows went round there. As for getting to the Modder, it appeared to me that as a Dutch farmer, with one of his farm hands and a Kaffir labourer, I might get through without exciting much suspicion."
"You might, and you might not," Mr. Chambers said. "You see, almost all the able-bodied men are away with the commandos, and you would be likely to be closely questioned as to why you were not in the field. If you were going the other way it would be more easy, for you might then say that you were coming from Cape Colony, as thousands of others have done, to join the Boers. But even in that case it would seem strange that you were going away from the fighting instead of joining a commando at once; but it would be still more strange that you should have come up to Johannesburg. What did you say at the inn? what excuse did you make for enquiring where I lived?"