"I don't look much like a British officer with a cropped head," Hans said, "and I talk my own language better than I do English by a long way."
"Oh! I knew you could not be the man," the Boer said. "Still, I am glad to see that you are Dutch as well as your master. There might be questions asked, and now I can swear that you are both Africanders. It will satisfy anyone questioning me as to who has been along. I don't see myself what occasion there is for making a fuss about one officer getting away when we shall soon have all their army prisoners. It gives everyone a lot of trouble."
"Will you have a glass of spirits?" Yorke asked.
As it was with the hope of obtaining an invitation that the Boer had come in, he assented willingly, and remained talking until Yorke said it was time for them to be going on. They slept that night at Winkel Drift, on the Rhenoster River, and drove next day to Kroonstad. Here no questions were asked. They put up at an inn, and Yorke mentioned casually that they were intending to stay with a friend for a day of two at Bloemfontein, and then going to the front. They had avoided entering the town until it was dusk; and as many Boers were constantly passing down to join the commandos, no one thought of enquiring minutely into their affairs. Three more days took them to Bloemfontein. There Yorke noticed, as they drove in, that many stores with British names over them were still open, for the wholesale expulsion of English from the Transvaal had not extended to the Orange Free State, where, till the outbreak of the war, a good feeling had existed between the two peoples. At Bloemfontein especially a considerable portion of the trading class had been British, and these, considering that if they left, their stores would probably be looted, thought it better to remain, and, although their position was not a pleasant one, they had received fair treatment at the hands of the Boers.
AN OLD ENEMY
Arriving at Bloemfontein in the evening, they first went to an hotel, and having engaged rooms, and seen their horses put up, Yorke proceeded to the house of the Dutch gentleman to whom the letters Mr. Chambers had given him were addressed. On sending one in he was shown into the sitting-room, where Mr. von Rensburg presently joined him.