Brown-faced man. They've had three rifles a man with ammunition since 1896.
I (timidly). Well, then, if the Army Corps had left three months ago, wouldn't the Boers have declared war three months ago too?
All except brown-faced man (loudly). No!
Brown-faced man (quietly). Yes. Gentlemen, bedtime! As Brand used to say, "Al zal rijt komen!"
All (fervently). Al zal rijt komen! Success to the British arms! Good night!
(All go to bed. In the night somebody on the Boer side—or elsewhere—goes out shooting, or looses off his rifle on general grounds; two loyalists and a refugee spring up and grasp their revolvers. In the morning everybody wakes up unsjamboked. The hotel-keeper takes me out to numerous points whence Pieter's farm can be reconnoitred: there is not a single tent to be seen, and no sign of a single Boer.)
It is a shame to smile at them. They are really very, very loyal, and they are excellent fellows and most desirable colonists. Aliwal is a nest of green on the yellow veldt, speckless, well-furnished, with Maréchal Niel roses growing over trellises, and a scheme to dam the Orange river for water-supply, and electric light. They were quite unprotected, and their position was certainly humiliating.