He sat for four or five minutes looking into the fire.
"It is clear," he said at last, "that I cannot sit quiet and let him hunt me down. He would have no difficulty about finding me. He would only have to go up to a staff-officer and say simply that he was an old acquaintance of mine and wished to see me, and he would be told at once that I had left the army and was here with Mr. Chambers; then he would only have to wait to get a shot at me. This time he would choose a hiding-place so close to the road that he could not miss me. We must hunt him down while he is tracking me, and the sooner we set about it the better. We must ride over, Hans, there is only that one train that takes passengers."
"I will start to-night, baas," Peter said. "Only thirty miles. I will sleep till twelve o'clock and shall be there by seven. What time you get there?"
"I shall set out directly after breakfast, say, at nine o'clock, and, riding fast, shall reach Pretoria at twelve. I shall, of course, put up at the hotel in which I stopped when I was with the army."
"I will be there, baas. Perhaps I find him before that. He sure to go to street near generals, that is the place to meet officers."
"Very good, Peter; I think now that we can reckon on catching him before he catches me. He does not know that he is being hunted; we know that he is hunting us. That gives us a tremendous advantage. But we must not be in too great a hurry; he is a deep fellow, and may be here on some other business. If so, he will probably finish that before he returns to Johannesburg. At any rate, we will watch him until we see what his game is. You will have to do this principally, Peter, for, of course, he knows both Hans and myself."
"I will watch him, baas. I will take my old clothes with me to-night, so that I can change them when I like. He might notice me if he saw me often near him in same clothes."
"That is a very good idea, Peter. Now, I don't know that I have any further instructions to give you."
Joining Mr. Chambers, Yorke told him what had happened and what he proposed to do.
"I think your plan a very good one. As you say, I have no doubt his chief aim in coming here is to endeavour to find you out and kill you. If that were his only object, I should say go straight to the head of the police, who is, I suppose, the provost-marshal, and have him arrested at once. But he may also be here to communicate with disaffected inhabitants. The Boers may intend making another attack upon Pretoria, and if they could arrange that at the same time there should be a rising there, and perhaps houses fired in different places so as to distract the attention of the garrison, it would certainly have a greater chance of success. Therefore, by all means carry out your plan. It would be best to say nothing about it to the ladies, it would only alarm them, and they would worry all the time you are away. I will say at breakfast that you are going to ride over to Pretoria on business, and may remain there for some days. I will mention at the same time that I am anxious to know when it is probable that we shall be able to get a few of the miners up from the Cape or Natal, so as to clear up and make preparations for a start. They will then suppose that your visit to Pretoria is in connection with that."